Joseph Essay, Research Paper
Background
Joseph had a lot of different cultures in his life. His family structure was partly good and partly bad. His father loved him so much his other
step-mothers brought Jacob bad news about him. His brothers hated him
because he would brag about his dreams. Then Joseph warned the Pharaoh
about the seven years of famine in Egypt. Then while completing his drem
Joseph told him about the seven years of drought. Then became the
Pharaohs right hand man. Then Joseph consulted the pharaoh about the
hardships they are going to have after the drought so that they would save
up all of the food.
According to the Microsoft Encarta is this, the background
information about Genisius which I will be talking about. Genesis tells of
the beginning of the world, from God’s creation of heaven and earth
to the death of Joesph, the 11th son of the Hebrew patriarch. The
book falls into two unequal parts. The first part (chapters 1-11) is
concerned with the primeval history of humankind; it contains stories
about the first man and the first woman, the first murderer, the flood
that God sent to destroy the world’s wickedness, and the
confounding of the speech and scattering abroad of later people. It
also contains the first covenant made by God with humanity through
Noah(9:9-17). The second part (chapters 12-50) is mainly an account
of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
According to the Holy Bible of The New Amerivan Bible the
setting in this story was in three cities. One of the cities was in Cannan
Where the family lives. The second place was a city in Egypt where he was
slaved and where he was the Pharaoh s right hand man. The thrid place
was Goshan where Joseph s family lived. There were different parts of the
stories whicj took plave in different cities.
One of the haracters in this story was Joseph who is the topic of our story.
Bilhah, Zilpah, Leah, and Rachel who were Jacob s wives. Jacon had
twelve sons in his marriges. Leah had six of the children, Bilhah and
Zilpah had for who are slaves, and Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin.
These are people who were all part of the story of Joseph. The time this
took place was five or six B.C.
The begginning of this story was when God said to Jacob to build a
altar and to settle there. Then God said to purify yourselves and put on
fresh cloths. He built a altar in the land called Cannan and named the altar
Bethal. When Jacob and his wife departed Bethal, Rachel was beginning to
into labor and was in great disstress. When she gave birth she called the
baby Ben-oni which Jacob called hin Benjamin. After she gae birth to
Benjamin she died and Jacob buried her on the way to Ephrath. Then
Jacob s father died and his sons Jacob and Esau buried her.
Joseph lived with his family in Cannan. When Joseph was
seventeen years old he attended flocks with his other brothers. Since Jacob
loved him so much, all of the brothers were jealous and hated him. While
in the flocks Joseph told his brothers about the dreams and they thought he
was crazy. So when he went back with his brothers on the field and told
them another dream and then his brothers couldn t stand it anymore.
Since the brothers couldn t take it anymore they plotted to kill him.
When he came to his brothers they stripped his coat and threw him in a
cistern . Then Judah asked why that why should we kill our brother?
There is nothing to be gained. So they sold them to the Ishmaelites for
twenty pieces of silver. Reuben came by to see if Joseph was in the box but
he wasn t because some Midianite traders passed by and saw him and
pulled out of the cistern and took him to Egypt. Then Reuben took his coat
and dipped it in goats blood and sent it to Jacob. The Midiante took him to
Egypt and sold him to the Potipher, the Pharaoh chief steward and courtier.
Then he was put in the Egyptian s master house as the personal
attendant. Since Joseph was good looking and the master s wife wanted
him to lie with her but he wouldn t do it. Joseph wouldn t lie with her so
she screamed, My husband brought in a Hebrew slave to make sport of
us. Then the master threw him in jail where the royal prisoners where
confined. The Lord was with Joseph and he was assigned by the jail chief
that he was to be put charge of the jailers.
While in the jail, the Pharaoh threw his Cupbearer and Baker in jail
because he was disgusted in them. The courtiers both had dreams that
night. The next morning while Joseph was walking around and he saw that
the two men looked disturbed. They said they had dreams but no one can
interpret them for us. Then Joseph said tell them to me. They did and told
them their dreams and told what they meant. Later when the Pharaoh got
them out of jail they told him about Josep
dreams they had.
The Pharaoh got Joseph out of jail and told him to interpret the
dream he had that night. He did and told him that there will be seven years
of famine and seven years of drought. After that, the Pharaoh made him his
right hand man. He was in charge of the food in Egypt.
Then Jacob s son s with the exception of Joseph went to get a
emergency refill of grain. Joseph s brothers knelt before him. He ask them
where they came from and why. They answered him and said the
information and Joseph said that they were spies. Joseph knew who they
were right away but he had to conceal his face and make his voice stern.
Then Joseph put them in jail and said to them bring evidence of why you
aren t spies. You will leave one of your brothers behind. They went to get
Benjamin and convince Jacob to bring him back unharmed. They came
back and Joseph gave them a big meal to eat before there journey home.
While finishing their meal Joseph told the stewards to fill the bags of grain
and put his silver cup in Benjamin bag. After they left, the stewards went
to go get the brothers for stealing his cup. They checked each bag and
found it in Benjamin and brought them back to the city. Joseph caught up
with them and couldn t resist and broke down and showed who he really
was. Then he went to the Pharaoh and asked him if he could send his
family on a piece of land nearby of where Joseph lived. The pharaoh told
Joseph to pick the land and then pharaoh talked to Jacob and asked him
how old he was and he said one hundred ant thirty. Then Joseph moved his
family to the land and stocked them with food for the family.
Joseph s land policy started to change when the food source started
to get low. Since the severe famine was in affect people spent all of their
money buying food from Joseph. When they ran out of food they gave him
livestock. Then after awhile they lost their livestock and was selling their
land. After awhile they lost all of their land and was then reduced to
slavery. Then the priests didn t have to sell their land do to their fixed
allowance.
Before Jacob died he told Joseph that he wanted to be buried with
his other ancestors. He wanted to be buried somewhere out of Egypt. Then
Joseph swore under oath that we would do this for him. Then Jacob said
his testament to his twelve tribes. Jacob died when he was one hundred
and forty seven years old. The Egyptians mourned him for seventy days.
Then Joseph mourned so much after his loss. He went to the Pharaoh and
said to him that I promised my dad that I would bury him out of Egypt with
his other ancestors and he granted it.
When Jacob died the brothers were fearful of him. They thought
that he might have revenge on him. So the brothers wanted to be slaves for
him. So then Joseph said that I am not going to do anything to you and I
will care for your family. They never worried since that time.
Then came the death of Joseph. He said to the brothers that God
will take care of you. Then he said that if God takes care of you bring my
bones up from the burial ground. Joseph died at the age of one hundred and
ten. He was embalmed and laid in a coffin in Egypt.
Then after the story of Joseph came the book of Exodus. It tells the
sons of Israel and the first generation of Jacob. Then a new king came to
Egypt and new nothing about what was going on. Then the king said to the
house wives if they have a boy you kill him if you have a girl you can keep
her. Midwives feared God so he built up families. Then the Pharaoh
demanded the housewives to throw the baby boys to be thrown in the river.
Application
We can learn that we should never do things that god will come back
at us for. We should always go by the commandments and never do break
them. We shall never try to kill or sell our people. We should always do
good instead of bad things. Something will come back and haunt you if you
do something wrong.
The wisdom of this story that we use today would be that things that
you did awhile ago and lie about it will appear later on in your life. You
should always do good things in your life. That we do things that we would
regret later on in our lives. We would do things like kill a person but don t
know that he is still alive and that then something will happen. Then we
always take that our food source is poor and the people back then they sold
land and livestock and even slavery so they could have food.
I learned that I should never, first of all, kill somebody. I should
always take for garnet that I have food on my table. We will always have a
food supply somehow somewhere. I will always make myself do the right
thing in life. I will always forgive somebody because I will think of Joseph
and how he forgave his brothers.