When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often  tended his father’s, (Jacob), flocks with his half brothers.  Joseph was second to the youngest of 12 brothers.  Joseph, being the favorite son, often reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.  (Sounds familiar even to this day).   His brothers hated  him because of their father’s partiality. 

One night, Joseph had a dream and promptly  reported the details to his brothers causing them to hate him even more.  “Listen to this dream,” he announced.  “We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain.  My bundle stood up, and then your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before it!”

“So you are going to be our king, are you?” his brothers taunted.  And they hated him all the more for his dream and what he had said. 

Then Joseph had another dream and told his brothers about it.  “Listen  to this dream,”  he said.  “The sun, moon and eleven stars bowed low before me!” 

This time Joseph told his father as well as his brothers, and his father rebuked him. “What do you mean?”  his father asked.  “will your mother, your brothers, and I actually come and bow before you?”  But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father gave it some thought and wondered what it all meant.

Soon  after these two episodes, Joseph’s brothers went to pasture their father’s flocks at Sechem.  When they had been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph,  “Your brothers are over at Sechem with the flocks.  “Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are getting along,  “ Jacob said.  “then come back and bring me word.”

Joseph finally found where his brothers were and when they saw him still at a distance,  made plans to kill him.  They took Joseph’s multi-colored coat  and threw him  into a pit and planned to leave him there to die, but as providence would have it,  a caravan of  Ishmaelite  traders  was passing  by en route to Egypt taking their spices, balm, and myrrh.

The brothers agreed to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite traders instead of killing him and having his death in their conscience.  What they did was to kill a goat and smeared his coat with the goat’s  blood and planned to show  to their father the coat of Joseph with his supposed blood on it.

When their father found out what happened to Joseph he mourned deeply for his son for many days.  “I will die in mourning for my son,” he would say and then begin to weep. 

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the traders sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  Potphar was captain of the palace guard. 

The Lord was with Joseph and blessed him greatly as he served in the home of his Egyptian  master.  Potiphar  noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph  and Joseph gave Potiphar  success in everything he did.  Potiphar soon  put Joseph in charge of his entire household and entrusted him with all his business dealings.  With Joseph in charge, Potiphar did not have a worry in the word. 

NOTE:  (If we were  betrayed and “sold” down the drain by someone how would we react?  Are we going to be angry at God?  Or ask Him to protect and guide us no matter what.  Let’s think about that.)