Study Desk

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they began to hate him and reached the point where they couldn't even talk with him in a civil manner.

Yosef had a dream which he told his brothers, and that made them hate him all the more.

His brothers retorted, "Yes, you will certainly be our king. You'll do a great job of bossing us around!" And they hated him still more for his dreams and for what he said.

He had another dream which he told his brothers: "Here, I had another dream, and there were the sun, the moon and eleven stars prostrating themselves before me."

He told his father too, as well as his brothers, but his father rebuked him: "What is this dream you have had? Do you really expect me, your mother and your brothers to come and prostrate ourselves before you on the ground?"

His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

(ii) After this, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father's sheep in Sh'khem,

The man said, "They've left here; because I heard them say, ‘Let's go to Dotan.'" Yosef went after his brothers and found them in Dotan.

So come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these water cisterns here. Then we'll say some wild animal devoured him. We'll see then what becomes of his dreams!"

But when Re'uven heard this, he saved him from being destroyed by them. He said, "We shouldn't take his life.

Don't shed blood," Re'uven added. "Throw him into this cistern here in the wilds, but don't lay hands on him yourselves." He intended to rescue him from them later and restore him to his father.

(iii) So it was that when Yosef arrived to be with his brothers, they stripped off his robe, the long-sleeved robe he was wearing,

Y'hudah said to his brothers, "What advantage is it to us if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let's sell him to the Yishma‘elim, instead of putting him to death with our own hands. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers paid attention to him.

Re'uven returned to the cistern, and, upon seeing that Yosef wasn't in it, tore his clothes in mourning.

He returned to his brothers and said, "The boy isn't there! Where can I go now?"

Ya‘akov tore his clothes and, putting sackcloth around his waist, mourned his son for many days.

Though all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, he refused all consolation, saying, "No, I will go down to the grave, to my son, mourning." And his father wept for him.

(iv) It was at this time that Y'hudah went off from his brothers and settled near a man named Hirah who was an ‘Adulami.

Y'hudah took a wife for ‘Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.