Joseph

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

The older of Jacob's two sons by Rachel. Having been long barren, she said at his birth "God hath taken away (asaph ) my reproach"; "the Lord (I regard this son as the earnest that He) will add (yaacaph ) to me another son," a hope fulfilled afterward in Benjamin's birth. Seventeen years old when sold into Egypt (Jacob being 108, and Isaac living 12 years afterward), 30 when made governor (Genesis 30:23-24; Genesis 37:2; Genesis 41:46), Genesis 41:39 before Jacob came into Egypt; so born 1906 B.C. He is called" son of Jacob's old age," as the comfort of his father's declining years, when his elder brothers by misconduct grieved their father, and Benjamin as yet was too young to minister to him. While Jacob was with the aged Isaac at Hebron his sons were tending flocks. Joseph reported their evil doings to Jacob, early manifesting moral courage and right principle under temptation (Exodus 23:2). Jacob marked his love to Joseph by giving him a "coat of many colors" (ketonet pacim ), the distinctive mark of kings' daughters who were virgins (2 Samuel 13:18), strictly a long "tunic reaching to the extremities" or ankles.

These robes generally had a stripe round the skirts and sleeves. On the tomb of Chnumhotep at Benihassan, under the 12th dynasty, the Semitic visitors are represented in colored robes, of pieces sewn together. Jacob probably designed hereby to give Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel who, but for Laban's trick, was his rightful first wife as she was his dearest,the primogeniture forfeited by Reuben (1 Chronicles 5:1; Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:4). The Arab chief to this day wears an aba or garment of different colored stripes as emblem of office. The more his father loved the more his brethren hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him (Ecclesiastes 4:4; compare the Antitype John 1:11; John 5:17-20; John 7:5; John 15:23-25). The preeminence given him by his earthly was confirmed by his heavenly Father in two successive dreams.

In his simplicity, possibly with some degree of elation, but certainly with the divine approval (for the revelation was given to be made known, Matthew 10:27), he told the dreams to his brethren, which only aggravated their hatred: the first, their sheaves bowing to his sheaf (pointing to his coming office of lord of the Egyptian granaries); the second, the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowing to him (these heavenly bodies symbolizing authorities subject to his chief rule; compare the coming eclipse of the natural luminaries and earthly potentates before the Antitype, Matthew 24:29-30; Revelation 6:12). In the Antitype the Old Testament prophecies answer to Joseph's dreams; the Jewish rulers rejected Him, though knowing, yet practically knowing not, the prophecies concerning Him (Acts 13:27). Leah or else Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, answers to the "moon," "thy mother," as Jacob to the "sun," and the 11 stars to the 11 brothers (Genesis 37:6-10).

He told his second dream to his father as well as to his brethren, because it affected not merely them but Jacob and his mother also. His father at first was displeased with what seemed at variance with a son's submission to his parent. But, like Mary in the case of the Antitype, he "observed the saying" (Luke 2:19; Luke 2:51). Unbelief, along with a secret misgiving that it might prove true after all, and bitter envy, wrought upon the brothers. So upon their father sending Joseph from the vale of Hebron in the S. to Shechem in the N. to inquire after their welfare and the flocks, when they saw him afar off at Dothan, they conspired to slay him, saying "we shall see what will become of his dreams." So as to the Antitype, Matthew 21:38; Matthew 27:1. Stephen and the apostles evidently contemplated Joseph as type of Jesus (Acts 7:9-14; Acts 3:13-18). Jacob's special love shadows God's love to His Only Begotten (Matthew 3:17).

Joseph's readiness at his father's calls answers to the good Shepherd, the Son of God's volunteering to come securing our eternal welfare at the cost of His life (Psalms 40:6-7; John 10:11). Providence turned aside their first plan. Reuben persuades them to avoid the guilt of blood by casting him into a dry pit or cistern, intending to return and deliver him. In his absence (the narrative with the artlessness of truth never explains why Reuben was absent at the crisis; a forger would have carefully made all plain) they strip off his coat of many colors (type of the human body with its manifold perfections which the Father "prepared" the Son, and which His unnatural brethren stripped Him of: Hebrews 10:5; Philippians 2:6-8); and while he was in the pit "eat bread" (Proverbs 30:20; compare John 18:28; Zechariah 9:11). Ishmaelite or Midianite merchants from Gilead, with spicery, balm, and myrrh (gum ladanum), for Egypt, the land of embalming the dead (Genesis 50:2-3), passed by; and Judah, type of Judas, proposes the new plan of selling their brother for 20 pieces of silver (Leviticus 27:5) to the strangers (compare Matthew 20:19; Luke 18:32; Luke 20:20, the Jews delivering Jesus to the Gentile Romans).

Thus, they thought they had foiled forever the prediction of his elevation, but this was the very means of realizing it, by God's overruling and matchless counsels. Compare the Antitype (Acts 4:25-28; Isaiah 28:29; Proverbs 19:21). Joseph's anguish of soul is noticed incidentally in the brothers' self reproach (Genesis 42:21). Affection for his father is a trait characterizing him throughout, even as the father loved him, so that at his supposed loss through a wild beast (his sons having sent him Joseph's tunic dipped in blood) Jacob refused to be comforted. Severance from his father was the bitterest ingredient in his cup of slavery. So the Antitype, Matthew 27:46. His chief inquiries long afterward were about his father (Genesis 43:7; Genesis 45:13; Genesis 45:28; Genesis 41:51), and the remembrance of "his father" was with him the strongest plea after Jacob's death, that the brothers thought they could urge for their being forgiven (Genesis 50:16-17).

Reuben with characteristic instability forbore to tell his father the truth, while he had not consented to their deed. Jacob's cry, "I will go down into sheol unto my son," implies his belief in a future state, for he thought his son devoured by wild beasts, therefore not in the "grave." The Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar ("one devoted to the royal house"; phar ), an eunuch, i.e. court attendant, of Pharaoh, chief of the executioners (Hebrew, or "commander of the body guard"), the superintendence of executions belonging to the chiefs of the military caste. Potiphar controlled the king's prison (Genesis 39:20), which was in "the house of the captain of the guard" (Potiphar's successor according to some, but Potiphar, where also Joseph was prisoner (Genesis 40:3). (See POTIPHAR.) Joseph at first "prospered" as Potiphar's steward ("Jehovah making all that he did to prosper in his hand"), supervising his gardens, lands, fisheries, and cattle. Farming in Egypt was carried on with the utmost system, as the Egyptian monuments attest; the stewards registering all the operations, to check the notorious dishonesty of the workmen.

Joseph's knowledge of flocks qualified him in some degree for the post, and his integrity made him trustworthy in it, so that his master felt he could safely entrust to his charge his household and all that he had, and "the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake" (as in Jacob's case, Genesis 30:27); Psalms 1:3. But now his virtue encountered a severer test than that of his brothers' bad example; Potiphar's wife, with the lustfulness of Egyptian women, conceived a passion for his beauty and tempted him. Seemingly, his safety was in compliance, his danger if he should provoke her by non-compliance. Had he given way to animal appetite he would have yielded; but his master's absolute confidence in him, which gave him the opportunity with probable impunity ("my master wotteth not what is with me in the house"), was just the reason he gives for not abusing that confidence. Above all, regard for God restrained him instinctively: "how CAN (not merely shall) I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"

So Matthew 7:18; 1 John 3:9, "cannot." Willful sin is impossible so long as one is under the principle of grace. On "against God," the feature of sin which constitutes its chief heinousness, see Psalms 51:4; 2 Samuel 12:13. When she importuned him day by day, he avoided being with her; they who would escape sin should flee temptation and occasions of sin. When she caught his garment he fled, leaving it in her hand. Then she accused him of the very sin to which she tried in vain to tempt him. An Egyptian story, in the papyrus d'Orbiney in the British Museum, The Two Brothers, in later times, seems founded on that of Joseph, the elder brother's wife tempting the younger with almost the same words as Potiphar's wife used to Joseph. The story of Saneha in one of the oldest papyri records his elevation to high rank under a Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty, and his developing the resources of Egypt just as Joseph did. Potiphar's not putting Joseph to death implies that he did not feel sure of his wife's story, and half suspected Joseph might be innocent.

It cannot have been he but another who entrusted the prisoners to Joseph; for if Potiphar believed him innocent, as the committing of prisoners to him would imply, he would not have left him in prison. His doing so was providentially ordered for Joseph's elevation. Joseph's lettering, "the iron entering into his soul," is alluded to in Psalms 105:17-18. The keeper of the prison, however, discovered his trustworthiness, and committed to him all the prisoners, "the Lord giving him favor in the keeper's sight" (Proverbs 16:7). After a time the chief of Pharaoh's cupbearers (Hebrew), and the chief of his bakers or confectioners, were cast into prison by the king; the captain of the guard committed them as men of rank to Joseph's custody. His interpretation of their dreams, the vine with three branches and the pressing the grape juice into Pharaoh's cup, and the three baskets of white bread (the Egyptians being noted for their fancy bread and pastry) out the uppermost of which the birds ate, came to pass; Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer, and decapitated the chief baker.

The mention of wine is confirmed by the monuments, which make it the beverage of the rich, beer that of the poor, and represent the process of fermenting wines in early times. The chief cupbearer forgot his promise and his benefactor Joseph (Amos 6:6); compare the Antitype, Psalms 31:12, He "remembered" the companion of His suffering (Luke 23:42). After two years Pharaoh's two dreams of the seven fat and seven lean kine out of the river (Nile, yeowr Hebrew, aa Αur Egyptian, "great river": also Hapi, i.e. Apis, the sacred name; appropriately "kine" come out of "the river," fertilizing the land by its overflow in the absence of rain, for grain and pasture of cattle, Apis the god being represented as a bull, and Athor, Isis, or mother earth, as a cow), feeding in a meadow (the sedge or rank grass by the river's edge, achuw ), and the seven rank ears of grain on one stalk, such as still is grown in Egypt, devoured by the seven thin ears which were blasted by the S.E. wind, called Joseph to the chief cupbearer's remembrance.

Having in vain consulted his magicians or "sacred scribes" (chartumim , "bearers of spells"; the "sorcerers" do not occur until Exodus 7:11), Pharaoh through Joseph learned the interpretation, that seven years of famine (doubtless owing to failure of the Nile's overflow) should succeed to and consume all the stores remaining from the seven plenteous years. (See DIVINATION.) Like Daniel in the great heathen worldking's court at the close of Israel's history, so Joseph at its beginning, in like circumstances and with like abstinence from fleshly indulgences, interprets the Gentile monarch's dreams; marking, the immeasurable superiority of the kingdom of God, even at its lowest point, to the world kingdoms. It is an undesigned mark of genuineness that Joseph is represented as "shaving" before entering Pharaoh's presence, for the Hebrew wore a beard, but the Egyptians cut it and the hair close, and represent on the monuments the idea of slovenliness or low birth by giving a beard to a man.

Joseph recommended the king to appoint a chief officer and subordinates to take up by taxation a fifth of the produce in the plenteous years against the famine years. The king raised Joseph as one" in whom the Spirit of God was," to be grand vizier over his house and his people, reserving the throne alone for himself. He put his signet ring (the names of the Pharaohs were always written in an elongated, signet like, ring) on Joseph's hand in token of delegated sovereignty, a gold chain about his neck, and arrayed him in the fine linen peculiar to the Egyptian priests; and made him ride in his second chariot, while the attendants cried "Abrech," ("Rejoice thou") (Egyptian), calling upon him to rejoice with all the people at his exaltation (Canon Cook, Speaker's Commentary) Pharaoh named Joseph "Zaphnath Paaneah." the food of life or of the living. Compare the Antitype (John 6:35) occupying the mediatorial throne with the Father's delegated tower, giving the bread of life first to His own brethren the Jews. then to the world.

Then Joseph, who shrank from adulterous lusts, in righteous retribution received pure wedded joys in union with Asenath ("devoted to Neith and Isis") daughter of Potipherah ("devoted to Ra, the sun god") priest of ON , Heliopolis or Bethshemesh (the city of the sun god), the religious capital. Pharaoh doubtless ordered the marriage, to link his prime minister with the noblest in the land. Pharaoh himself was invested with the highest sacerdotal dignity, and could remove all disqualifications, so as to enable Joseph to be allied to the proud and exclusive priest caste. The Egyptian religion, though blended with superstitions, retained then much of the primitive revelation, the unity, eternity, and self existence of the unseen God. The sun was made His visible symbol, the earliest idolatry (Job 31:26, Sabeanism). Joseph probably drew Asenath to his own purer faith. Joseph certainly professed openly his religion without molestation (Genesis 42:18), and Pharaoh recognizes the God of Joseph and His Spirit as the true God (Genesis 41:32-38-39).

Like the Antitype (Luke 3:23), Joseph was 30 in entering on his public ministry, so that he was 13 years in Egypt, in Potiphar's house and in prison, before his elevation. With characteristic energy as a steward he made an immediate tour throughout Egypt, and laid up grain in immense quantities, all registered accurately by scribes when the granaries were being filled (as Egyptian monuments represent). God gave him two children, to whom he gave Hebrew names, showing he remembered as ever the God of his fathers: Manasseh, "forgetting," "for God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house" (i.e. not literally forgetting his relatives, for "his father" was uppermost in his affections; but has swallowed past sorrow in present joy; compare Psalms 90:15; Isaiah 65:16-17; Isaiah 61:7; Isaiah 62:4; Revelation 7:14-17; spiritually, Psalms 45:10); and Ephraim, "doubly fruitful," Joseph again attributing all to God, "God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" (compare Genesis 49:22; John 15:2 ff). (See EGYPT, on Joseph.)

Apophis the last of the shepherd kings was supposed to be the Pharaoh over Joseph. But Apophis was not master of all Egypt, as Joseph's Pharaoh was. "Shepherds were an abomination" in Joseph's time, which could not have been the case under a shepherd king. Osirtasin I, the second king of the 12th dynasty, was perhaps Joseph's Pharaoh. This dynasty was especially connected with On. There still stand Osirtasin's name and title on the famous obelisk, the oldest and finest in Egypt. Chnumhotep, Osirtasin's relative and favorite, is described upon the tombs of Benihassan as possessing the qualities so esteemed in Joseph "When years of famine occurred he plowed all the lands producing abundant food." The tenure under the crown, subject to a rent of a fifth of the increase, could only emanate from a native Pharaoh. Had it been a shepherd king's work, it would have been set aside on the return of the native dynasties. Amenemha III, sixth of the 12th dynasty, established a complete system of dikes, locks, and reservoirs, to regulate the Nile's overflow.

He fitted the lake Moeris for receiving the overflow; near it was Pianeh, "the house of life," answering to Zaphnath Paaueah, "the food of life." If he be Joseph's Pharaoh Joseph was just the minister to carry out his grand measures. In the seven famine years the Egyptians as well as the people of adjoining lands, W. Africa, Ethiopia, Arabia, Syria, which shared in the drought (for the tropical rains on the Abyssinian mountains, on which the Nile's rise depends, have the same origin as the Palestine rains), and which partially depended on Egypt the granary of many countries (Acts 27:6; Acts 27:38), came to buy grain. Pharaoh's one reply to all was: "go to Joseph, what he saith to you, do" (compare the Antitype: John 6:45 ff; John 2:5). His brethren too came and bowed before him, unconsciously fulfilling the dream which they had so striven to frustrate (Acts 4:27-28; Proverbs 19:21; Proverbs 21:30). His speech and manners were Egyptian, so that they knew him not though he knew them.

So the Antitype's brethren shall at last, like all others, bow before Him who is supereminently exalted just because He humbled Himself (Philippians 2:6-11; Psalms 22:22; Psalms 22:26-29). He knows His people before they know Him (John 15:16; John 10:14; Galatians 4:9). Joseph spoke roughly to his brethren, at once to avoid recognition and to bring them to repentance: "ye are spies, to see the nakedness (the assailable, because defenseless, points) of the land ye are come." Egypt was exposed to incursions of Canaanite Hittites and Arabs, and the invasion of the shepherds or Hyksos was already impending. (See EGYPT.) Joseph bartered grain successively for the Egyptian money (the money was in the form of rings not coined but weighed), cattle and land, of which he retained only a fifth of the produce for Pharaoh and took nothing from the priests. Diodorus adds the warriors as possessing land, but this was the king's special favor to them and apparently after Joseph.

Not Joseph but Pharaoh it was who made the exception in behalf of the idolatrous priests, giving them grain without requiring their land (Genesis 47:22). Herodotus mentions the allotment of the soil by the crown among the people. The monuments record several famines and precautions taken against it. Joseph's statesmanship appears in the policy adopted. The Egyptians became the king's servants, and their property his, by their own voluntary act. His generous principle of dealing with them then, asking only a fifth after establishing the right to all, won their universal approval of an evenly distributed instead of an unequal taxation. A fifth was probably the sole tax on them. Joseph's policy was to centralize power in the monarch's hands, a well ordered monarchy being the best in the existing state of Egypt to guard against the recurrence of famines by stores laid by systematically, and by irrigation in the absence of the Nile's overthrow, and by such like governmental works, instead of leaving all to the unthrifty and unenterprising cultivators.

The removal to cities (Genesis 47:19-26) facilitated his providing the people with food. The Egyptians did not regard one fifth as an exorbitant rent, but acknowledged "thou hast saved our lives" (compare the Antitype, Acts 5:31). Joseph's brethren in replying as to their father and family kept up the old lie, "one is not." Joseph required that one of them should fetch the youngest who was they said with his father, and kept them three days in ward, then let them take back grain for their households, but bound Simeon before their eyes as a hostage for their bringing Benjamin and so proving their truthfulness. As they had separated him from his father so he separated one from them, possibly the ringleader in their cruelty to Joseph (compare Genesis 34; Genesis 49:5-7.) As they had seen his anguish of soul so now their souls were in terrified anguish, with the stings of conscience added (Genesis 42:21-22): retribution in kind (Numbers 32:23 ff; Matthew 7:2).

Joseph heard their self reproaching, remorseful cry, "we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw ... and we would not hear" (Proverbs 21:13). Joseph, though cherishing no revenge nay feeding his enemy when hungry (Romans 12:20), saw that temporary affliction was needed to bring them to penitence (Hosea 5:15; Job 36:8-9). He filled their sacks (Hebrew, "vessels") and restored their money (Luke 6:34-35). divine guidance led Joseph to require Benjamin, the surest way of bringing Jacob and the whole family into their Egyptian house of bondage and training. His real kindness to them here shows that the severity was used in the interests of justice and their ultimate good by humiliation, while he retained all a brother's tenderness. The discovery of their money alarmed both the brothers and Jacob; "all these things are against me," but see Romans 8:31. Reuben offered to let his two sons be slain if he did not bring Benjamin back.

At last, when want of grain forced him, Jacob gave a reluctant consent on Judah's undertaking to be surety for Benjamin. So with double money and a present of balm (balsam gum), honey (else grape juice boiled down to syrup, dibs ), spices (storax ), myrrh (ladanum ), and nuts (pistachio nuts), they brought Benjamin. Tremblingly they told the steward as to their money, for they feared on being brought into the house they should be imprisoned there. The steward reassured them and brought forth Benjamin. Again they fulfilled the dream, bowing before Joseph twice to the earth. His tender affection all but burst out at the sight of Benjamin, but as before by turning from them and weeping (Genesis 42:24), so now by entering into a chamber and weeping there, he maintained composure (compare the Antitype's yearning love for His brethren after the flesh: Jeremiah 31:20; Isaiah 63:15). At dinner the Egyptians, dreading pollution from those who killed cows, which were sacred in Egypt, sat apart from the Hebrew, and Joseph sat alone according to his high rank.

Each was served separately; all were ranged according to age, but the youngest had five messes for their one sent from before Joseph. The monuments accord with this representation. They drank freely ("were merry".) On the morrow, by putting his silver cup (bowl from which wine was poured into smaller cups) in Benjamin's sack, and sending his steward after them upon their leaving the city where Joseph lived, he elicited Judah's generous offer to be bondsman and so not bring his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, bound up as Jacob's life was with Benjamin's. (See DIVINATION.) Divining cups were used by gazing into the water as a mirror. The Nile was "the cup of Egypt," the sacred cup symbolized it. Joseph to keep up his disguise spoke as an Egyptian. He was not faultless; here he exceeded legitimate bounds of disguise, and implied his use of divination, which his former disclaiming of all knowledge otherwise than by God's revelation proves he did not practice (Genesis 41:16). Joseph could refrain no longer.

The thought of his father's loving anxiety moved him to make himself known to them. He wept aloud while "they were troubled at his presence"; it was as if the ghost of one whom they had murdered stood before them. They shrank from him, but he said "come near to me" (compare Matthew 14:26; the Antitype and His future comforting of Zion, Isaiah 40:2; Isaiah 61:2-3). Joseph soothes their remorse, "be not angry with yourselves, for God did send me before you to preserve life." So Acts 3:12-18; Acts 4:27-28. He gave them the kiss of reconciliation and wept over them. Above all he tells them: "haste ye ... to my father and say, God hath made me lord of all Egypt, come down and thou shalt dwell in Goshen near me." (See GOSHEN.) Pharaoh and his court were pleased at the arrival of his brethren, and rendered him all help in removing his father and the whole household. His knowledge of his brethren suggested his charge, "see that ye fall not out by the way," one laying the blame of their unnatural conduct on the other.

His filial reverence and love appear in his meeting his father in his own state chariot and escorting him to Goshen, Judah having preceded Jacob to announce to Joseph his approach. Goshen was assigned as a separate settlement to the Hebrew as shepherds, to avoid offense to the Egyptians, who being themselves tillers of the ground looked down on their nomadic neighbours. Already the latter had made inroads on lower Egypt, and after Joseph's time established the dynasty of shepherd kings or Hyksos (Genesis 46:28-34). Jacob gave Joseph "one portion above his brethren, taken from the Amorites with sword and bow," therefore not Shechem (portion) which he bought (see 1 Chronicles 5:1-2). Joseph, though the birthright was transferred to him from Reuben by Jacob, was not entered into the family registers as firstborn, because Judah prevailed above the rest and king David was chosen front his tribe.

Still Jacob the progenitor marked Joseph as firstborn by assigning to his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh two tribal domains according to the law of the firstborn (Deuteronomy 21:15-17); his dying blessing on Joseph beautifully expresses Joseph's "fruitfulness amidst affliction," as his "arms were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." Jacob's blessing on Joseph once "separate from his brethren" exceeded that of Abraham on Isaac, and of Isaac on Jacob, and lasts as long as "the everlasting hills." The mention of Joseph's "servants the physicians" (Genesis 50:2) accords with the Egyptian usage of great men having many physicians attached to each household, one for each kind of sickness and to embalm the dead. After embalming and burying his father he was accosted by his brethren, who judged him by their own ungenerous and deceitful characters; he reassured them by renouncing vengeance as God's prerogative not his (Romans 12:19), and by speaking kindly.

Joseph lived to 110 years, of which 93 were spent in Egypt; seeing Ephraim's and Manasseh's grandchildren, and showing his faith to the end by still clinging amidst all his grandeur in Egypt to God's promise of his seed's settlement in Canaan and therefore commanding Israel on oath to carry his remains there (Hebrews 11:22). His body was embalmed, and in due time carried by Israel to Shechem his burying place (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32; Acts 7:16). Ephraim and Manasseh followed the idolatries out of which their mother had come rather than the pure faith of Joseph. He is one of the most faultless human heroes of Scripture. Decision in good, yet versatility in adapting itself to all circumstances, strong sense of duty, strict justice combined with generosity, self-control in adversity and prosperity alike, strength of character with sensitive tenderness and delicacy, modesty and magnanimity, strong filial love, above all abiding faith in God, appear throughout his remarkable history. As a statesman he got men unconditionally into his power that he might benefit them, and displayed extraordinary administrative ability.

2. Numbers 13:7.

3. Ezra 10:42.

4. Nehemiah 12:14.

5. Luke 3:30.

6. Joseph or Josek (Luke 3:26).

7. Another (Luke 3:24).

8. Son of Heli, husband of the Virgin Mary, daughter and heiress of his uncle Jacob. The frequent recurrence of the name in Luke's genealogy and its absence from Matthew's confirm the view that Luke's gives Joseph's line of parentage down from Nathan, David's son, but Matthew's the line of succession to the throne. (See GENEALOGY.) "A just" and yet (Matthew 1:19) merciful and tenderly considerate man. Recognized by his contemporaries as of David's lineage (Luke 2:4; Matthew 1:20; John 1:45). Joseph as well as Mary lived at Nazareth before their actual marriage; probably their common grandfather Matthat had settled there (Luke 1:26-27). His faith appears in his immediate obedience to the divine vision in a dream, no longer fearing to take to him Mary his wife (Matthew 1:24-25). Soon afterward Augustus' decree for the taxation obliged both to go to Bethlehem where Jesus was born (Luke 2). There the shepherds "found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger."

After the wise men's departure another dream from the Lord caused him to flee from Herod's murderous agents by night with mother and Child to Egypt, where he remained until the angel of the Lord in another dream intimated Herod's death, He arose and returned; but fearing Archelaus who reigned in Judaea, and warned of God in a fourth dream (the divine mode of revelation in the early stage of the kingdom of God, less perfect than those vouchsafed in the advance, stages), Joseph turned aside to his old home Nazareth. Joseph is mentioned as with Mary in presenting the Babe in the temple and as "marvelling at those things spoken of" Jesus by Simeon, and as "blessed" by him. Lastly, when Jesus was taken at 12 years of age to the temple and tarried behind, Joseph and His mother knew not of it; and Mary on finding Him said, "Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing."

He replied, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" Henceforward there is no more mention of the earthly father, and the heavenly and true Father is all in all. He was a "carpenter," and doubtless instructed the holy Jesus in this work (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3). Mary and Jesus' brethren are occasionally mentioned during His ministry, but Joseph never; evidently he had died previously, which Jesus' committal of the Virgin mother to John (John 19:27) confirms. Tradition has supplied by fiction what the Gospels under the Spirit's guidance do not contain.

9. Of Aramahea. (See ARIMATHEA.) "An honourable counselor," i.e. member of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43). Joseph "waited for the kingdom of God" (Luke 2:25; Luke 2:38; Luke 23:51), i.e. for Messiah and His kingdom, in accordance with prophecy. "A good man and a just." He had not consented to the Sanhedrin's counsel and deed in crucifying Jesus. Timidity was his failing. Mark was conscious of it; John (John 19:38) expressly records it, "a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews." Hence Mark records it as the more remarkable that "Joseph went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body" just at a time when the boldest disciples might and did shrink from such a perilous venture. Feeble faith when real sometimes rises with the occasion, to face the most formidable dangers. The undesigned coincidence of Mark and John confirms their genuineness. The mighty signs both Joseph and Nicodemus witnessed at Jesus' crucifixion, and His own divine bearing throughout, changed cowards into brave disciples.

God had foretold ages ago (Isaiah 53:9), "they (His enemies) appointed (designed) His grave with the wicked (by crucifying Him between two thieves), but He was with a rich man at His death," i.e. when He was dead. Up to the end this prophecy seemed most unlikely to be fulfilled; but when God's time had come, at the exact crisis came forward two men, the last one would expect, both rich and members of the hostile body of rulers. The same event which crushed the hopes and raised the fears of the avowed disciples inspired Joseph with a boldness which he never felt before. All four evangelists record his deed. He had the privilege of taking down from the cross the sacred body, wrapping in fine linen which he had bought, and adding spices with Nicodemus' help, and consigning to his own newly hewn rock tomb wherein no corpse had ever lain, and in his own garden near Calvary, and then rolling the stone to the door of the sepulchre. Tradition represents Joseph as sent to Great Britain by the apostle Philip (A.D. 63), and as having settled with a band of disciples at Glastonbury, Somersetshire.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

JOSEPH (in OT and Apocr. [Note: Apocrypha, Apocryphal.] ). 1. The patriarch. See next article. 2. A man of Issachar ( Numbers 13:7 ). 3. A son of Asaph ( 1 Chronicles 25:2; 1 Chronicles 25:9 ). 4. One of the sons of Bani who had married a foreign wife ( Ezra 10:42 ); called in 1Es 9:34 Josephus. 5. A priest ( Nehemiah 12:14 ). 6. An ancestor of Judith ( Jdt 8:1 ). 7. An officer of Judas Maccabæus ( 1Ma 5:18; 1Ma 5:56; 1Ma 5:60 ). 8. In 2Ma 8:22 , and probably also 10:19, Joseph is read by mistake for John , one of the brothers of Judas Maccabæus.

JOSEPH. Jacob’s eleventh son, the elder of the two sons of Rachel; born in Haran. The name is probably contracted from Jehoseph ( Psalms 81:5 ), ‘May God add’ (cf. Genesis 30:23 f., where etymologies from two sources are given). Joseph is the principal hero of the later chapters of Genesis, which are composed mainly of extracts from three documents. J [Note: Jahwist.] and E [Note: Elohist.] supply the bulk of the narrative, and as a rule are cited alternately, the compiler often modifying a quotation from one document with notes derived from the other. From P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] some six or seven short excerpts are made, the longest being Genesis 46:6-27 , where the object and the parenthetic quality are evident. For the details of analysis, see Driver LOT [Note: OT Introd. to the Literature of the Old Testament.] 6 , 17 ff. The occasional differences of tradition are an evidence of original independence, and their imperfect harmonization in the joint narrative is favourable to its substantial historicity.

At present the date of Joseph can be only provisionally fixed, as the account of his life neither mentions the name of the ruling Pharaoh nor refers to distinctive Egyptian manners or customs in such a way as to yield a clue to the exact period. The Pharaoh of the oppression is now generally taken to be Rameses ii. of the 19th dynasty ( c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 1275 1208); and if this be correct, the addition of the years of residence in Egypt ( Exodus 12:41 ) would bring Joseph’s term of office into the reign of the later Hyksos kings ( c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 2098 1587; for dates and particulars, see Petrie, History of Egypt ).

With the return of Jacob to Hebron (Genesis 35:27 ) he ceases to be the central figure of the story, and Joseph takes his place. Of his life to the age of 17 ( Genesis 37:2 ) nothing is told, except that he was his father’s favourite, and rather too free in carrying complaints of his brothers and telling them of his boyish dreams. Sent to Shechem, he found that his brothers had taken their flocks northwards fifteen miles, to the richer pasturage of Dothan. As soon as he came within sight, their resentment perceived its opportunity, and they arranged to get rid of him and his dreams; but the two traditions are not completely harmonized. J [Note: Jahwist.] represents Judah as inducing his brothers to sell Joseph to a company of Ishmaelites; but E [Note: Elohist.] makes Reuben a mediator, whose plans were frustrated by a band of Midianites, who had in the interval kidnapped Joseph and stolen him away ( Genesis 40:15 ). The phraseology is against the identification of the two companies; and the divergent traditions point to a natural absence of real agreement among the brothers, with a frustration of their purposes by means of which they were ignorant. What became of Joseph they did not really know; and to protect themselves they manufactured the evidence of the blood-stained coat.

In Egypt, Joseph was bought by Potiphar, a court official, whose title makes him chief of the royal butchers and hence of the body-guard; and the alertness and trustworthiness of the slave led quickly to his appointment as major domo (Egyp. mer-per ), a functionary often mentioned on the monuments (Erman, Life in Anc. Egypt , 187 f.). Everything prospered under Joseph’s management; but his comeliness and courtesy attracted the notice of his master’s wife, whose advances, being repelled, were transformed into a resentment that knew no scruples. By means of an entirely false charge she secured the removal of Joseph to the State prison, which was under the control of Potiphar ( Genesis 40:3 ), and where again he was soon raised to the position of overseer or under-keeper. Under his charge were placed in due course the chief of the Pharaoh’s butlers and the chief of his bakers, who had for some unstated reason incurred the royal displeasure. Both were perplexed with dreams, which Joseph interpreted to them correctly. Two years later the Pharaoh himself had his duplicated dream of the fat and lean kine and of the full and thin ears; and as much significance was attached in Egypt to dreams, the king was distressed by his inability to find an interpreter, and ‘his spirit was troubled.’ Thereupon the chief butler recalled Joseph’s skill and his own indebtedness to him, and mentioned him to the Pharaoh, who sent for him, and was so impressed by his sagacity and foresight that exaltation to the rank of keeper of the royal seal followed, with a degree of authority that was second only to that of the throne. The Egyptian name of Zaphenath-paneah (of which the meaning is perhaps ‘The God spake and he came into life,’ suggesting that the bearer of the name owed his promotion to the Divine use of him as revealer of the Divine will) was conferred upon him, and he married Asenath , daughter of one of the most important dignitaries in the realm, the priest of the great national temple of the sun at On or Heliopolis, seven miles north-east of the modern Cairo.

So far as Egypt was concerned, Joseph’s policy was to store the surplus corn of the years of plenty in granaries, and afterwards so to dispose of it as to change the system of land-tenure. Famines in that country are due generally to failure or deficiency in the annual inundation of the Nile, and several of long endurance have been recorded. Brugsch ( Hist . 2 i. 304) reports an inscription, coinciding in age approximately with that of Joseph, and referring to a famine lasting ‘many years,’ during which a distribution of corn was made. This has been doubtfully identified with Joseph’s famine. Other inscriptions of the kind occur, and are sufficient to authenticate the fact of prolonged famines, though not to yield further particulars of the one with which Joseph had to deal. His method was to sell corn first for money (rings of gold, whose weight was certified by special officials), and when all this was exhausted ( Genesis 47:15 ), corn was given in exchange for cattle of every kind, and finally for the land. The morality of appropriating the surplus produce and then compelling the people to buy it back, must not be judged by modern standards of justice, but is defensible, if at all, only in an economic condition where the central government was responsible for the control of a system of irrigation upon which the fertility of the soil and the produce of its cultivation directly depended, and where the private benefit of the individual had to be ignored in view of a peril threatening the community. Instead of regarding the arrangement as a precedent to be followed in different states of civilization, ground has been found in it for charging Joseph with turning the needs of the people into an occasion for oppressing them; and certainly the effect upon the character and subsequent condition of the people was not favourable. The system of tenure in existence before, by which large landed estates were held by private proprietors, was changed into one by which all the land became the property of the crown, the actual cultivators paying a rental of one-fifth of the produce ( Genesis 47:24 ). That some such change took place is clear from the monuments (cf. Erman, Life in Anc. Egypt , 102), though they have not yielded the name of the author or the exact date of the change. An exception was made in favour of the priests ( Genesis 47:22 ), who were supported by a fixed income in kind from the Pharaoh, and therefore had no need to part with their land. In later times (cf. Diodorus Siculus, i. 73 f.) the land was owned by the kings, the priests, and the members of a military caste; and it is not likely that the system introduced by Joseph lasted long after his death. The need of rewarding the services of successful generals or partisans would be a strong temptation to the expropriation of some of the royal lands.

The peculiarity of the famine was that it extended over the neighbouring countries (Genesis 41:56 f.); and that is the fact of significance in regard to the history of Israel, with which the narrative in consequence resumes contact. The severity of the famine in Canaan led Jacob to send all his sons except Benjamin ( Genesis 42:4 ) to buy corn in Egypt. On their arrival they secured an interview with Joseph, and prostrated themselves before him ( Genesis 37:7 , Genesis 42:6 ); but in the grown man, with his shaven face [on the monuments only foreigners and natives of inferior rank are represented as wearing beards] and Egyptian dress, they entirely failed to recognize their brother. The rough accusation that they were spies in search of undefended ways by which the country might be invaded from the east, on which side lines of posts and garrisons were maintained under two at least of the dynasties, aroused their fears, and an attempt was made to allay Joseph’s suspicions by detailed information. Joseph catches at the opportunity of discovering the truth concerning Benjamin, and, after further confirming in several ways the apprehensions of his brothers, retains one as a hostage in ward and sends the others home. On their return ( Genesis 42:35 E [Note: Elohist.] ), or at the first lodging-place ( Genesis 42:27 J [Note: Jahwist.] ) on the way, the discovery of their money in their sacks increased their anxiety, and for a time their father positively refused to consent to further dealings with Egypt. At length his resolution broks down under the pressure of the famine ( Genesis 43:11 ff.). In Egypt the sons were received courteously, and invited to a feast in Joseph’s house, where they were seated according to their age ( Genesis 43:33 ), and Benjamin was singled out for the honour of a special ‘mess’ (cf. 2 Samuel 11:8 ) as a mark of distinction. They set out homewards in high spirits, unaware that Joseph had directed that each man’s money should be placed in his sack, and his own divining-cup of silver ( Genesis 44:5; the method of divination was hydromancy an article was thrown into a vessel of water, and the movements of the water were thought to reveal the unknown) in that of Benjamin. Overtaken at almost their first halting-place, they were charged with theft, and returned in a body to Joseph’s house. His reproaches elicited a frank and pathetic speech from Judah, after which Joseph could no longer maintain his incognito . He allayed the fears of his conscience-stricken brothers by the assurance that they had been the agents of Providence ‘to preserve life’ ( Genesis 45:5; cf. Psalms 105:17 ff.); and in the name of the Pharaoh he invited them with their father to settle in Egypt, with the promise of support during the five years of famine that remained.

Goshen, a pastoral district in the Delta about forty miles north-east of Cairo, was selected for the new home of Jacob. The district was long afterwards known as ‘the land of Rameses’ (Genesis 47:11 ) from the care spent upon it by the second king of that name, who often resided there, and founded several cities in the neighbourhood. In Egypt swine-herds and cow-herds were ‘an abomination’ to the people ( Genesis 46:34; cf. Hdt. ii. 47, and Erman, op. cit. 439f.), but there is no independent evidence that shepherds were, and the contempt must be regarded as confined to those whose duties brought them into close contact with cattle, for the rearing of cattle received much attention, the superintendent of the royal herds being frequently mentioned in the inscriptions. Joseph’s household and brothers flourished during the seventeen years ( Genesis 47:27 f.) Jacob lived in Egypt. Before his death he blessed Joseph’s two sons, giving preference to the younger in view of the greatness of the tribe to be derived from him, and leaving to Joseph himself one portion above his brethren, viz. Shechem ( Genesis 48:22 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ). After mourning for the royal period of seventy days ( Genesis 50:3; cf. Diod. Sic. i. 72), Joseph buried his father with great pomp in the cave of Machpelah, and cheered his brothers by a renewed promise to nourish and help them. He is said to have survived to the age of 110 ( Genesis 50:22 ), and to have left injunctions that his body should be conveyed to Canaan when Israel was restored. The body was carefully embalmed ( Genesis 50:26 ), and enclosed in a mummy-case or sarcophagus. In due course it was taken charge of by Moses ( Exodus 13:19 ), and eventually buried at Shechem ( Joshua 24:32 ).

Of the general historicity of the story of Joseph there need be no doubt. Allowance may be made for the play of imagination in the long period that elapsed before the traditions were reduced to writing in their present form, and for the tendency to project the characteristics of a tribe backwards upon some legendary hero. But the incidents are too natural and too closely related to be entirely a product of fiction; and the Egyptian colouring, which is common to both of the principal documents, is fatal to any theory that resolves the account into a mere elaboration in a distant land of racial pride. Joseph’s own character, as depicted, shows no traces of constructive art, but is consistent and singularly attractive. Dutifulness ( 1Ma 2:53 ) is perhaps its keynote, manifested alike in the resistance of temptation, in uncomplaining patience in misfortune, and in the modesty with which he bore his elevation to rank and power. Instead of using opportunities for the indulgence of resentment, he recognizes the action of Providence, and nourishes the brothers ( Sir 49:15 ) who had lost all brotherly affection for him. On the other hand, there are blemishes which should be neither exaggerated nor overlooked. In his youth there was a degree of vanity that made him rather unpleasant company. That his father was left so long in ignorance of his safety in Egypt may have been unavoidable, but leaves a suspicion of inconsiderateness. When invested with authority he treated the people in a way that would now be pronounced tyrannical and unjust, enriching and strengthening the throne at the expense of their woe; though, judged by the standards of his own day, the charge may not equally lie. On the whole, a very high place must be given him among the early founders of his race. In strength of right purpose he was second to none, whilst in the graces of reverence and kindness, of insight and assurance, he became the type of a faith that is at once personal and national (Hebrews 11:22 ), and allows neither misery nor a career of triumph to eclipse the sense of Divine destiny.

R. W. Moss.

JOSEPH (in NT). 1. 2. Two ancestors of our Lord, Luke 3:24; Luke 3:30 .

3. The husband of Mary and ‘father’ of Jesus. Every Jew kept a record of his lineage, and was very proud if he could claim royal or priestly descent; and Joseph could boast himself ‘a son of David’ ( Matthew 1:20 ). His family belonged to Bethlehem, David’s city, but he had migrated to Nazareth ( Luke 2:4 ), where he followed the trade of carpenter ( Matthew 13:55 ). He was betrothed to Mary, a maiden of Nazareth, being probably much her senior, though the tradition of the apocryphal History of Joseph that he was in his ninety-third year and she in her fifteenth is a mere fable. The tradition that he was a widower and had children by his former wife probably arose in the interest of the dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity. The Evangelists tell us little about him, but what they do tell redounds to his credit. (1) He was a pious Israelite, faithful in his observance of the Jewish ordinances ( Luke 2:21-24 ) and feasts ( Luke 2:41-42 ). (2) He was a kindly man. When he discovered the condition of his betrothed, he drew the natural inference and decided to disown her, but he would do it as quietly as possible, and, so far as he might, spare her disgrace. And, when he was apprised of the truth, he was very kind to Mary. On being summoned to Bethlehem by the requirements of the census, he would not leave her at home to suffer the slanders of misjudging neighbours, but took her with him and treated her very gently in her time of need ( Luke 2:1-7 ). (3) He exhibited this disposition also in his nurture of the Child so wondrously entrusted to his care, taking Him to his heart and well deserving to be called His ‘father’ ( Luke 2:33; Luke 2:41; Luke 2:48 , Matthew 13:55 , John 1:45; John 6:42 ). Joseph never appears in the Gospel story after the visit to Jerusalem when Jesus had attained the age of twelve years and become ‘a son of the Law’ ( Luke 2:41-51 ); and since Mary always appears alone in the narratives of the public ministry, it is a reasonable inference that he had died during the interval. Tradition says that he died at the age of one hundred and eleven years, when Jesus was eighteen.

4. One of the Lord’s brethren, Matthew 13:55 , where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] reads Joses , the Greek form of the name. Cf. Mark 6:3 .

5. Joseph of Arimathæa. A wealthy and devout Israelite and a member of the Sanhedrim. He was a disciple of Jesus, but, dreading the hostility of his colleagues, he kept his faith secret. He took no part in the condemnation of Jesus, but neither did he protest against it; and the likelihood is that he prudently absented himself from the meeting. When all was over, he realized how cowardly a part he had played, and, stricken with shame and remorse, plucked up courage and ‘went in unto Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus’ ( Mark 15:43 ). It was common for friends of the crucified to purchase their bodies, which would else have been cast out as refuse, a prey to carrion birds and beasts, and give them decent burial; and Joseph would offer Pilate his price; in any case he obtained the body ( Mark 15:45 ). Joseph had a garden close to Calvary, where he had hewn a sepulchre in the rock for his own last resting-place; and there, aided by Nicodemus, he laid the body swathed in clean linen ( Matthew 27:57-61 = Mark 15:42-47 = Luke 23:50-56 = John 19:38-42 ).

6. Joseph Barsabbas , the disciple who was nominated against Matthias as successor to Judas in the Apostolate. He was surnamed, like James the Lord’s brother, Justus ( Acts 1:23 ). Tradition says that he was one of the Seventy ( Luke 10:1 ). 7. See Barnabas.

David Smith.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

son of Jacob and Rachel, and brother to Benjamin, Genesis 30:22; Genesis 30:24 . The history of Joseph is so fully and consecutively given by Moses, that it is not necessary to abridge so familiar an account. In place of this, the following beautiful argument by Mr. Blunt for the veracity of the account drawn from the identity of Joseph's character, will be read with pleasure:—I have already found an argument for the veracity of Moses in the identity of Jacob's character, I now find another in the identity of that of Joseph. There is one quality, as it has been often observed, though with a different view from mine, which runs like a thread through his whole history, his affection for his father. Israel loved him, we read, more than all his children; he was the child of his age; his mother died while he was yet young, and a double care of him consequently devolved upon his surviving parent. He made him a coat of many colours; he kept him at home when his other sons were sent to feed the flocks. When the bloody garment was brought in, Jacob in his affection for him,—that same affection which, on a subsequent occasion, when it was told him that after all Joseph was alive, made him as slow to believe the good tidings as he was now quick to apprehend the sad; in this his affection for him, I say, Jacob at once concluded the worst, and "he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days, and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning."

Now, what were the feelings in Joseph which responded to these? When the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt, and Joseph knew them, though they knew not him; for they, it may be remarked, were of an age not to be greatly changed by the lapse of years, and were still sustaining the character in which Joseph had always seen them; while he himself had meanwhile grown out of the stripling into the man, and from a shepherd boy was become the ruler of a kingdom; when his brethren thus came before him, his question was, "Is your father yet alive?" Genesis 43:7 .

They went down a second time, and again the question was, "Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?" More he could not venture to ask, while he was yet in his disguise. By a stratagem he now detains Benjamin, leaving the others, if they would, to go their way. But Judah came near unto him, and entreated him for his brother, telling him how that he had been surety to his father to bring him back; how that his father was an old man, and that this was the child of his old age, and that he loved him; how it would come to pass that if he should not see the lad with him he would die, and his gray hairs be brought with sorrow to the grave; for "how shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me, lest, peradventure, I see the evil that shall come on my father?" Here, without knowing it, he had struck the string that was the tenderest of all. Joseph's firmness forsook him at this repeated mention of his father, and in terms so touching: he could not refrain himself any longer; and, causing every man to go out, he made himself known to his brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm which came on him, (for he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard,) still his first words uttered from the fulness of his heart were, "Doth my father yet live?" He now bids them hasten and bring the old man down, bearing to him tokens of his love and tidings of his glory. He goes to meet him; he presents himself unto him, and falls on his neck, and weeps on his neck a good while; he provides for him and his household out of the fat of the land; he sets him before Pharaoh. By and by he hears that he is sick, and hastens to visit him; he receives his blessing; watches his death bed; embalms his body; mourns for him threescore and ten days; and then carries him, as he had desired, into Canaan to bury him, taking with him, as an escort to do him honour, "all the elders of Israel, and all the servants of Pharaoh, and all his house, and the house of his brethren, chariots, and horsemen, a very great company." How natural was it now for his brethren to think that the tie by which alone they could imagine Joseph to be held to them was dissolved, that any respect he might have felt or feigned for them must have been buried in the cave of Machpelah, and that he would now requite to them the evil they had done! "And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil." And then they add of themselves, as if well aware of the surest road to their brother's heart, "Forgive, we pray thee, the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father." In every thing the father's name is still put foremost: it is his memory which they count upon as their shield and buckler.

It is not the singular beauty of these scenes, or the moral lesson they teach, excellent as it is, with which I am now concerned, but simply the perfect artless consistency which prevails through them all. It is not the constancy with which the son's strong affection for his father had lived through an interval of twenty years' absence, and, what is more, through the temptation of sudden promotion to the highest estate;—it is not the noble- minded frankness with which he still acknowledges his kindred, and makes a way for them, "shepherds" as they were, to the throne of Pharaoh himself;—it is not the simplicity and singleness of heart which allow him to give all the first-born of Egypt, men over whom he bore absolute rule, an opportunity of observing his own comparatively humble origin, by leading them in attendance upon his father's corpse to the valleys of Canaan and the modest cradle of his race;—it is not, in a word, the grace, but the identity of Joseph's character, the light in which it is exhibited by himself, and the light in which it is regarded by his brethren, to which I now point as stamping it with marks of reality not to be gainsayed.

Some writers have considered Joseph as a type of Christ; and it requires not much ingenuity to find out some resemblances, as his being hated by his brethren, sold for money, plunged into deep affliction, and then raised to power and honour, &c; but as we have no intimation in any part of Scripture that Joseph was constituted a figure of our Lord, and that this was one design of recording his history at length, all such applications want authority, and cannot safely be indulged. The account seems rather to have been left for its moral uses, and that it should afford, by its inimitable simplicity and truth to nature, a point of irresistible internal evidence of the truth of the Mosaic narrative.

2. JOSEPH, the husband of Mary, and reputed father of Jesus, was the son of Jacob, and grandson of Matthan, Matthew 1:15-16 . The place of his stated residence was Nazareth, particularly after the time of his marriage. We learn from the evangelists that he followed the occupation of a carpenter, Matthew 13:55; and that he was a just man, or one of those pious Israelites who looked for the coming of the Messiah, Matthew 1:19 . It is probable that Joseph died before Christ entered upon his public ministry; for upon any other supposition we are at a loss to account for the reason why Mary, the mother of Jesus, is frequently mentioned in the evangelic narrative, while no allusion is made to Joseph; and, above all, why the dying Saviour should recommend his mother to the care of the beloved disciple John, if her husband had been then living, John 19:25-27 .

3. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA, a Jewish senator, and a believer in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, John 19:38 . St. Luke calls him a counsellor, and also informs us that he was a good and just man, who did not give his consent to the crucifixion of Christ, Luke 23:50-51 . And though he was unable to restrain the sanhedrim from their wicked purposes, he went to Pilate by night, and solicited from him the body of Jesus. Having caused it to be taken down from the cross, he wrapped it in linen, and laid it in his own sepulchre, which, being a rich man, he appears to have recently purchased, and then closed the entrance with a stone cut purposely to fit it, Matthew 27:57-60; John 19:38-42 .

Holman Bible Dictionary

1. Joseph in the Old Testament primarily refers to the patriarch, one of the sons of Israel. Joseph was the eleventh of twelve sons, the first by Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel. His name, “may he [the Lord] add,” was a part of Rachel's prayer at his birth (Genesis 30:24 ).

As the child of Jacob's old age and Rachel's son, Joseph became the favorite and was given the famous “coat of many colors” (Genesis 37:3; “long robe with sleeves,” NRSV, NEB; “richly ornamented robe” NIV) by his father. This and dreams which showed his rule over his family inspired the envy of his brothers, who sold Joseph to a caravan of Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:1 ).

Joseph was taken to Egypt where he became a trusted slave in the house of Potiphar, an official of the pharaoh. On false accusations of Potiphar's wife, Joseph was thrown in the royal prison, where he interpreted the dreams of two officials who had offended the pharaoh (Genesis 39-40 ). Eventually Joseph was brought to interpret some worrisome dreams for the pharaoh. Joseph predicted seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine and recommended a program of preparation by storing grain. Pharaoh responded by making Joseph his second in command (Genesis 41:39-45 ).

With the famine, persons from other countries came to Egypt to buy food, including Joseph's brothers. They did not recognize him, but Joseph saw the fulfillment of his earlier dreams in which his brothers bowed down to him. After testing their character in various ways, Joseph revealed himself to them on their second visit (Genesis 42-45 ). Under Joseph's patronage, Jacob moved into Egypt (Genesis 46:1-47:12 ). Joseph died in Egypt but was embalmed and later buried in Shechem (Genesis 50:26; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32 ).

That the influential Joseph (Genesis 47:13-26 ) is not known from Egyptian records would be expected if he served under a Hyksos pharaoh, as seems likely. See Exodus 1:8 , NRSV) did not “know” of him in a political or historical sense.

While in Egypt, Joseph became the father of two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 41:50-52 ), who were counted as sons of Jacob (Genesis 48:5-6 ) and whose tribes dominated the northern nation of Israel. The name Joseph is used later in the Old Testament as a reference to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Numbers 1:32; Numbers 36:1 ,Numbers 36:1,36:5; 1 Kings 11:28 ) or as a designation for the whole Northern Kingdom (Psalm 78:67; Ezekiel 37:16 ,Ezekiel 37:16,37:19; Amos 5:6 ,Amos 5:6,5:15; Amos 6:6; Obadiah 1:18; Zechariah 10:6 ).

Four other men named Joseph are mentioned in the Old Testament: 2. the spy of the tribe of Issachar (Numbers 13:7 ); 3 . a Levite of the sons of Asaph (1 Chronicles 25:2 ); 4 . a contemporary of Ezra with a foreign wife (Ezra 10:42 ); and Ezra 10:5 . a priest in the days of high priest Joiakim (Nehemiah 12:14 ).

New Testament 6. Several Josephs are mentioned in the New Testament, the most important being the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus. He was a descendant of David, a carpenter by trade (Matthew 13:55 ), and regarded as the legal or foster father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16 ,Matthew 1:16,1:20; Luke 2:4; Luke 3:23; Luke 4:22; John 1:45; John 6:42 ). Upon learning of Mary's pregnancy, Joseph, being a righteous man, sought to put her away without public disgrace. His response to God's assurances in a dream further demonstrated his piety and character (Matthew 1:18-25 ). Joseph took Mary to his ancestral home, Bethlehem, was with her at Jesus' birth, and shared in the naming, circumcision, and dedication of the child (Luke 2:8-33 ). Directed through dreams, Joseph took his family to Egypt until it was safe to return to Nazareth (Matthew 2:13-23 ). As dedicated father, he was anxious with Mary at the disappearance of Jesus (Luke 2:41-48 ). Joseph does not appear later in the Gospels, and it is likely that he died prior to Jesus' public ministry.

7. Also important in the New Testament is Joseph of Arimathea, a rich member of the Sanhedrin and a righteous man who sought the kingdom of God (Matthew 27:57; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50 ). After the crucifixion, Joseph, a secret disciple of Jesus, requested the body from Pilate and laid it in his own unused tomb (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:43-46; Luke 23:50-53; John 19:38-42 ). Arimathea is probably the same as Ramathaim-zophim (1 Samuel 1:1 ) northwest of Jerusalem.

Two Josephs are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:24 ,Luke 3:24,3:30 ). Another was a brother of Jesus, apparently named after His father (Matthew 13:55; KJV “Joses” as in Mark 6:3 ). It likely but uncertain that the brother of James (Matthew 27:56; Joses in Mark 15:40 ,Mark 15:40,15:47 ) is a different person. Joseph was also another name of both Barsabbas (Acts 1:23 ) and Barnabas (Acts 4:36 ).

Daniel C. Browning Jr.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Jo'seph. (increase).

1. The elder of the two sons of Jacob, by Rachel. He was born in Padan-aram (Mesopotamia), probably about B.C. 1746. He is first mentioned when a youth, seventeen years old. Joseph brought the evil report of his brethren to his father, and they hated him because his father loved him more than he did them, and had shown his preference by making a dress which appears to have been a long tunic with sleeves, worn by youths and maidens of the richer class. Genesis 37:2.

He dreamed a dream foreshadowing his future power, which increased the hatred of his brethren. Genesis 37:5-7. He was sent by his father to visit his brothers, who were tending flocks in the fields of Dothan. They resolved to kill him, but he was saved by Reuben, who persuaded the brothers to cast Joseph into a dry pit, to the intent that he might restore him to Jacob. The appearance of the Ishmaelites suggested his sale for "twenty pieces (shekels) of silver." Genesis 37:28. Sold into Egypt to Potiphar, Joseph prospered and was soon set over Potiphar's house, and "all he had he gave into his hand;" but incurring the anger of Potiphar's wife, Genesis 39:7-13, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison, where he remained at least two years, interpreting during this time the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker.

Finally Pharaoh himself dreamed two prophetic dreams. Joseph, being sent for, interpreted them in the name of God, foretelling the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine. Pharaoh, at once, appointed Joseph, not merely governor of Egypt, but second only to the sovereign, and also gave him to wife Asenath, daughter of Potipherah priest of On (Hieropolis), and gave him a name or title, Zaphnath-paaneah. (preserver of life). Joseph's first act was to go throughout all the land of Egypt.

During the seven plenteous years, there was a very abundant produce, and he gathered the fifth part and laid it up. When the seven good years had passed, the famine began. Genesis 41:54-57. See Famine. After the famine had lasted for a time, apparently two years, Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they brought, and brought it into Pharaoh's house, Genesis 47:13-14, and when the money was exhausted, all the cattle, and finally all the land, except that of the priests, and apparently, as a consequence, the Egyptians themselves. He demanded, however, only a fifth part of the produce as Pharaoh's right.

Now Jacob, who had suffered also from the effects of the famine, sent Joseph's brother to Egypt for corn. The whole story of Joseph's treatment of his brethren is so graphically told in Genesis, Genesis 42-45, and is so familiar, that it is unnecessary here to repeat it. On the death of Jacob in Egypt, Joseph carried him to Canaan, and laid him in the cave of Machpelah, the burying-place of his fathers.

Joseph lived "a hundred and ten years," having been more than ninety in Egypt. Dying, he took an oath of his brethren that they should carry up his bones to the land of promise: thus showing in his latest action, the faith, Hebrews 11:22, which had guided his whole life. Like his father, he was embalmed, "and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." Genesis 50:26. His trust, Moses kept, and laid the bones of Joseph in his inheritance in Shechem, in the territory of Ephraim, his offspring. His tomb is, according to tradition, about a stone's throw from Jacob's well.

2. Father of Igal, who represented the tribe of Issachar among the spies. Numbers 13:7.

3. A lay Israelite who had married a foreign wife. Ezra 10:42. (B.C. 459).

4. A representative of the priestly family of Shebaniah. Nehemiah 12:14. (B.C. after 536).

5. One of the ancestors of Christ, son of Jonan. Luke 3:30.

6. Another ancestor of Christ, son of Judah. Luke 3:26. (B.C. between 536-410).

7. Another ancestor of Christ, son of Mattathias. Luke 3:24. (B.C. after 400).

8. Son of Heli, and reputed father of Jesus Christ. All that is told us of Joseph in the New Testament may be summed up in a few words. He was a just man, and of the house and lineage of David. He lived at Nazareth in Galilee. He espoused Mary, the daughter and heir of his uncle Jacob, and before he took her home as his wife, received the angelic communication recorded in Matthew 1:20.

When Jesus was twelve years old, Joseph and Mary took him with them to keep the Passover at Jerusalem, and when they returned to Nazareth, he continued to act as a father to the child Jesus, and was reputed to be so indeed. But here, our knowledge of Joseph ends. That he died before our Lord's crucifixion is indeed tolerably certain, by what is related, John 19:27, and perhaps ,Mark 6:3, may imply that he was then dead. But where, when or how he died we know not.

9. Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich and pious Israelite, probably a member of the Great Council or Sanhedrin. He is further characterized as "a good man and a just." Luke 23:50. We are expressly told that he did not "consent to the counsel and deed" of his colleagues in conspiring to bring about the death of Jesus; but he seems to have lacked the courage to protest against their judgment.

On the very evening of the crucifixion, when the triumph of the chief priests and rulers seemed complete, Joseph "went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus." Pilate consented. Joseph and Nicodemus then, having enfolded the sacred body in the linen shroud which Joseph had bought, consigned it to a tomb hewn in a rock, in a garden belonging to Joseph, and close to the place of crucifixion. There is a tradition that he was one of the seventy disciples.

10. Joseph, called Barsabas, and surnamed Justus; one of the two person chosen by the assembled church, Acts 1:23, as worthy to fill the place in the apostolic company from which Judas had fallen.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

The well known son of Jacob, whose history we have in Genesis from the thirtieth chapter to the end of the book. This made, in the margin of the Bible, is Adding—from Jasaph, to increase. It were needless to enter particulars of Joseph's history, when the Bible hath given it so beautifully. But perhaps it may not be an unacceptable service to observe on the history of this patriarch, what a remarkable character he is, and in what numberless instances he appears as a type of Christ: taken altogether, perhaps the greatest in the whole Scriptures. I shall particularize in a few leading features.

As Joseph was the beloved son of Jacob, and distinguished by his father with special tokens, of his affection, and which excited the envy of his brethren; so Christ, the beloved and only begotten son of God, by means of that distinguishing token of JEHOVAH, in setting him up, the Head of his body the church, and giving him a kingdom, in his glorious character of Mediator, called forth, as is most generally believed, that war we read of in heaven in the original rebellion of angels. (See Revelation 12:1-17) The coat of many colours Joseph wore might not unaptly be said to represent the several offices of the Lord Jesus when on earth—his prophetical, priestly, and kingly character. The dreams of Joseph, implying his superiority over his brethren and his father's house, interpreted with an eye to Christ, are very striking circumstances of the preeminency of his character. Of him, indeed, might the prophecy of Jacob respecting Judah be fully applied: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies, and thy father's children shall bow down be fore thee." (Genesis 49:8) The mission of Joseph to his brethren, by the father, to see if they were well, and how they fared, (Genesis 37:14) is a striking representation of the mission of God's dear Son to this our world. He came indeed, not only to seek, but to save that which was lost; but like another Joseph, the treatment he received corresponded in all points, only in an infinitely higher degree of baseness and cruelty. They sold Joseph for a slave, for twenty pieces of silver, and he was carried down into Egypt, and from the pit and the prison he arose, by divine favour, to be Governor over the whole land. But our Joseph was not only sold for thirty pieces of silver, but at length crucified and slain, and from the grave which he made with the wicked and with the rich in his death, by his resurrection and ascension, at the right hand of power, he is become the universal and eternal Governor both of heaven and earth.

The temptations of Joseph, by the wife of Potiphar, bear no very distant resemblance to the temptations of the Lord Jesus by Satan. The trial to the one, was the lusts of the flesh; the trial to the other, was the pride of life. But the grace imparted to Joseph, to repel the temptation, and the punishment he suffered by a false imputation, very beautifully set forth the innocency of Christ triumphing over the Devil's temptation in the wilderness, and the imputation of our sin to Jesus, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, though himself without sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. In the exaltation of Joseph at the right hand of Pharaoh, and all the famished country coming to him for bread, we behold a lovely type, indeed, of our Almighty Joseph exalted at the right hand of God, and dispensing blessings of grace and mercy in the living bread, which is himself, to a famished world. And as then the Zapnathpaaneah of Egypt revealed secrets, and the cry was, Go unto Joseph, what he saith unto you do: so now, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, we do, indeed, behold our Wonderful Counsellor, who hath made known to us his and his Father's will, and the one desire of every soul is, to go unto Jesus, whatsoever he saith unto us is blessed, and our duty to obey.

In the going down of Israel into Egypt with all his house, constrained by famine to seek bread-what a striking portrait is here also drawn of the true Israel of God, constrained by the famine of soul to seek to Jesus for supply. And though like the brethren of Joseph, little do we at first know, that the Lord of the country is our brother, though in the first awakenings of spiritual want the Governor may seem with us, as Joseph did to them, to speak roughly; yet when the whole comes to be opened tour view, and Jesus is indeed discovered to be Lord of all the land, how, like Joseph's brethren, are we immediately made glad, and eat and drink at his table with him, forgetting all past sorrow in present joy, and partaking of that "bread of life, of which whosoever eateth shall live forever!" Such, among many other striking particularities, are the incidents in the history of the patriarch Joseph, which are highly typical of Christ.

Under the article of Joseph we must not forget to observe, that there are several more of the name mentioned in Scripture, and of some importance:

·Joseph the husband of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 1:15; Mat 1:18.

·Joseph, or Joses, son of Mary and Cleophas, supposed to be one of those who did not at first believe on Christ, but was afterwards converted, John 7:5.

·Joseph, called Barsabas, a candidate for the apostleship with Matthias. See Acts 1:23.

·Joseph of Arimathea, John 19:38.

·Joseph, husband to Salome.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Eleventh son of Jacob and first of Rachel. The interesting history of Joseph is too well known to need being given in its detail, but attention should be given to the many respects in which Joseph was a striking type of the Lord Jesus. He was the beloved one of his father: this with the intimations given to him of his future position, destined for him by God in the midst of his family, stirred up the envy of his brethren and resulted in his being sold to the Gentiles: as the Lord was hated by His brethren the Jews, and sold by one of them. Joseph was accounted as dead. He was brought very low, being cast into prison, under a false accusation against him because he would not sin: his feet were 'made fast in the stocks,' and the iron entered his soul: in all these circumstances he was foreshadowing the Lord in His humiliation.

On the elevation of Joseph to power he was unknown to his brethren, as the Lord in exaltation is now to His brethren after the flesh. During thistime he had a Gentile wife and children and became 'fruitful': so while the Lord is rejected by the Jews, God is gathering from the nations a people for His name. Joseph ruled over the Gentiles, as the Lord will do. Then all Joseph's brethren bowed down to him, as eventually all the twelve tribes will bow down to the Lord. This is followed by all the descendants of Jacob being placed in a fruitful part of the country, as the nation will be gathered to the pleasant land in the millennium.

The beautiful and touching way in which Joseph dealt with his brethren, will be repeated in a magnified way by the Lord's tender and loving dealing with the remnant of Judah when they come to speak to Him about the wounds in His hands, and to mourn over the way He was treated by them. They will then see that, notwithstanding their hatred, He laid the foundation in His death for their future blessing.

When Jacob prophetically blessed His sons, Joseph had a prominent place. Genesis 49:22-26 . He was to be very fruitful, with branches running over the wall: so the blessing of Israel through Christ extends to the Gentiles. He was sorely grieved, hated, and shot at, as was the Lord; but his bow abode in strength, and from him was the shepherd, the stone of Israel (two titles of the Lord). Then the blessings of heaven and of the deep, of the breasts and of the womb, are multiplied on the head and on the crown of Joseph, as the one separated from his brethren: all foreshadowing, though to be far exceeded by, the many crowns and the glory in heaven and on earth of the true Nazarite, now sanctified in heavenly glory, the Lord Jesus. For the blessing by Moses cf. Deuteronomy 33:13-17 . Joseph, when about to die, had faith that God would surely deliver Israel from Egypt and gave directions concerning his bones. Genesis 37 — Genesis 50; Exodus 13:19 . For the Egyptian king under whom it is supposed that Joseph lived, see EGYPT.

2. Father of Igal, of Issachar. Numbers 13:7 .

3. Son of Asaph: appointed to the service of song. 1 Chronicles 25:2,9 .

4. One who had married a strange wife. Ezra 10:42 .

5. Priest 'of Shebaniah' who returned from exile. Nehemiah 12:14 .

6. Husband of Mary the mother of Jesus. He was 'a just man,' and was obedient to the instructions he received from God as to his wife, and in protecting the infant Jesus. He was of the house and lineage of David, his genealogy being given in Matthew 1 and perhaps in Luke 3 . The visit to Jerusalem, when the Lord was twelve years old, is the last incident recorded of him. He is once called 'the carpenter,' Matthew 13:55 , as is the Lord also in Mark 6:3 . It was a custom for all Jews to learn a trade. Matthew 1:16-25; Matthew 2:13,19; Luke 1:27; Luke 2:4-43; Luke 3:23; Luke 4:22; John 1:45; John 6:42 .

7. Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, and a rich man. He was a secret disciple of Jesus, and had not consented to the action of the Sanhedrim in condemning the Lord. He boldly asked for the body of Jesus, and interred it in his own new tomb, thus fulfilling Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57,59; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50; John 19:38 .

8-10. Son of Mattathias; son of Juda; and son of Jonan — three in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:24,26,30 .

11. Disciple, also called BARSABAS, surnamed JUSTUS, who, with Matthias, was selected as fit to take the place of Judas, but the lot fell on Matthias. Acts 1:23 .

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

(Ἰωσήφ)

1. The elder of Jacob’s two sons by Rachel, the eleventh Patriarch, the ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. In St. Stephen’s address before the Sanhedrin reference is made to Joseph’s being sold by his brothers, God’s presence with him in Egypt, his promotion to be governor of the land, his manifestation of himself to his brethren, his invitation to his father and all his kindred to migrate to Egypt (Acts 7:9-14), and finally, at a much later date, the rise of a Pharaoh who ‘knew not Joseph’ (7:18).

The question of the historicity of the narrative in Genesis was never raised by the Apostolic Church, nor by the modern Church till the dawn of the age of criticism. The critical verdict is that the story is based upon facts which have been idealized in the spirit of the earlier Hebrew prophets. That the tradition of a Hebrew minister in Egypt, who saved the country in time of famine, ‘should be true in essentials is by no means improbable’ (J. Skinner, Genesis [ International Critical Commentary , 1910] 441). Driver thinks it credible that an actual person, named Joseph, ‘underwent substantially the experiences recounted of him in Gn.’ ( Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ii. 771b). See H. Gunkel, Genesis , 1910, p. 356f.

In Hebrews 11:21 allusion is made to the blessing received by Joseph’s two sons from his dying father. In Hebrews 11:22 Joseph is placed on the roll of the ‘elders’-saints of the OT-who by their words and deeds gave evidence of their faith. The particular facts selected as proving his grasp of things unseen-which is the essence of faith (Hebrews 11:1)-are his death-bed prediction of the exodus of the children of Israel and his commandment regarding the disposal of his bones (Genesis 50:24-25; cf. Joshua 24:32). Though he was an Egyptian governor, speaking the Egyptian language, and married to an Egyptian wife, he was at heart an unchanged Hebrew, and his dying eyes beheld the land from which he had been exiled as a boy, the homeland of every true Israelite.

2. Joseph Barsabbas , surnamed Justus , was one of those who accompanied Jesus during His whole public ministry and witnessed His Resurrection. He was therefore nominated, along with Matthias, for the office made vacant by the treachery and death of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:21-23). After prayer ‘the lot fell upon Matthias’ (Acts 1:26). It is admitted even by radical critics that Jesus deliberately chose twelve disciples (corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel), and it was natural that these should seek to keep their sacred number unimpaired. The name ‘Barsabbas’ (or ‘Barsabas,’ C, Vulgate, Syrr.) has been variously explained as ‘child of the Sabbath,’ ‘son of Sheba,’ ‘warrior,’ or ‘old man’s son.’ The Roman surname Justus was adopted in accordance with a Jewish custom which prevailed at the time-cf. ‘John whose surname was Marcus’ (Acts 12:12; Acts 12:25), and ‘Saul, who is also Paulus’ (Acts 13:9). It is a natural conjecture-no more-that this Joseph was the brother of Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15:22). Eusebius ( HE [Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).]i. 12) regards him as one of ‘the Seventy’ (Luke 10:1), and records (iii. 39) that a ‘wonderful event happened respecting Justus, surnamed Barsabbas, who, though he drank a deadly poison, experienced nothing injurious (μηδὲν ἀηδές), by the grace of God.’

3. Joseph , surnamed Barnabas (Acts 4:36). See Barnabas.

James Strahan.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Joseph (jô'zef), increase, 1. The elder of Jacob's two sons by Rachel, Genesis 37:3, and beloved by his father. The gift of the new robe, or coat of many colors, was perhaps intended to give him the rights of primogeniture, as the son of his first wife, in place of Reuben who had forfeited them. Genesis 35:22; 1 Chronicles 5:1. He was born in Mesopotamia. Genesis 30:22-24. By a wonderful providence of God he was raised from a prison to be the chief ruler of Egypt under Pharaoh. "The story of his father's fondness, of his protest against sin among his brothers, of their jealous hostility and his prophetic dreams, of his sale by his brethren to Midianites and by them to Potiphar in Egypt, of the divine favor on his pure and prudent life, his imprisonment for three to twelve years for virtue's sake, his wonderful exaltation to power and his wise use of it for the good of the nation, of his tender and reverent care of his father, his magnanimity to his brethren, and his faith in the future of God's chosen people, is one of the most pleasing and instructive in the Bible, and is related in language inimitably natural, simple, and touching. It is too beautiful for abridgment, and too familiar to need full rehearsal."—Hand. The history of Joseph is strikingly confirmed by the Egyptian monuments. Joseph married the princess Asenath, daughter of Potipherah, priest of On; and his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, Genesis 41:50, whom Jacob adopted. Genesis 48:5, became the heads of two of the twelve tribes of Israel. 2. The son of Heli and reputed father of Jesus Christ. He was a just man, and of the house and lineage of David. He lived at Nazareth in Galilee. He espoused Mary, the daughter and heir of his uncle Jacob, and before he took her home his wife received the angelic communication recorded in Matthew 1:20. When Jesus was twelve years old, Joseph took his mother and Jesus to keep the passover at Jerusalem, and when they returned to Nazareth he continued to act as a father to the child Jesus, and was reputed to be so indeed. But here our knowledge of Joseph ends. That he died before our Lord's crucifixion is indeed tolerably certain, by what is related, John 19:27; and, perhaps, Mark 6:3, may imply that he was then dead. But where, when, or how he died, we know not. 3. Joseph of Arimathæa, a rich and pious Israelite, probably a member of the Great Council or Sanhedrin. He is further characterized as "a good man and a just." Luke 23:50. We are told that he did not "consent to the counsel and deed" of his colleagues in the death of Jesus. On the evening of the crucifixion Joseph "went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus." Pilate consented. Joseph and Nicodemus then, having enfolded the sacred body in the linen shroud which Joseph had bought, placed it in a tomb hewn in a rock, in a garden belonging to Joseph, and close to the place of crucifixion. There is a tradition that he was one of the seventy disciples. 4. Joseph, called Barsabas, and surnamed Justus: one of the two persons chosen by the assembled church, Acts 1:23, as worthy to fill the place in the apostolic company from which Judas had fallen.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

1. The son of Jacob and his beloved Rachel, born in Mesopotamia, Genesis 30:22-24 , B. C. 1747. He is memorable for the wonderful providence of God, which raised him from a prison to be the grandvizier of Egypt, and made him the honored means of saving countless human lives. His history is one of the most pleasing and instructive in the Bible; and is related in language inimitably natural, simple, and touching. It is too beautiful for abridgment, and too familiar to need rehearsal. It throws much light on the superintending providence of God, as embracing all things, great and small in the perpetual unfolding of his universal plan. No narrative in the Bible more strikingly illustrates the protective and elevating power of the fear of God, and its especial value for the young. To behold this lovely image of filial piety and unwavering faith, of self-control in youth and patience in adversity, of discretion and fidelity in all stations of life, serenely walking with God through all, and at death intrusting soul and body alike into his hands, Hebrews 11:22; may well lead the young reader to cry, Oh that the God of Joseph were my God, Genesis 37:1-36 39:1-50:26 . Joseph died, aged on hundred and ten, B. C. 1637; and when the Israelites, a century and a half later, went up from Egypt, they took his bones, and at length buried them in Shechem, Exodus 13:19 Joshua 24:32 . A Mohammedan wely or tomb covers the spot regarded generally, and it may be correctly, as the place of his burial. It is a low stone enclosure, and stands in quiet seclusion among high trees, at the western entrance of the valley of Shechem, at the right of the traveller's path and nearer mount Ebal than mount Gerizim.

2. The husband of Mary, Christ's mother. His genealogy is traced in Matthew 1:1-15 , to David, Judah, and Abraham. See Mark 6:3 . He was a pious and honorable man, as appears from his whole course towards Mary and her son. They both attended the Passover at Jerusalem when Christ was twelve years of age, Luke 2:41-51; and as no more is said of him in the sacred narrative, and Christ committed Mary to the care of one of his disciples, he is generally supposed to have died before Christ began his public ministry. He seems to have been well known among the Jews, Mark 6:3 John 6:42 .

3. A native of Arimathea, but at the time of Christ's crucifixion a resident at Jerusalem. He was doubtless a believer in the Messiah, and "waited for the kingdom of God." He was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and opposed in vain their action in condemning the Savior, Luke 23:51 . When all was over, he "went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." It was now night and the Jewish Sabbath was at hand. He therefore, with the aid of Nicodemus, wrapped the body in spices, for the time, and laid it in his own tomb, Mark 15:43-46 John 19:38-42 .

4. A disciple of Christ, also named Justus, and Barsabas. See Barsabas .

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

Genesis 37:9-10 (c) This character is a type of the Lord JESUS in many respects. Forty-two different aspects of CHRIST may be seen in his life. In this Scripture, Joseph is a type of CHRIST in that he is honored by his father and mother. They and all of his brothers must bow down in obeisance to him, as every knee shall bow to CHRIST.

Genesis 43:3 (c) Here Joseph is a true type of GOD, the Judge, and Benjamin is a type of the Lord JESUS. It is almost a repetition of that beautiful truth in John 14:6. No man can see the Father's face unless he comes with the Lord JESUS, the elder brother.

Genesis 49:22 (c) This is a type of the fruitful Christian who, though persecuted and hindered by others, nevertheless continues to bear fruit in the regions round about as well as in the home parish. Israel was to be a blessing to Gentiles.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Surnamed Barsabas (Acts 1:23 ); also called Justus. He was one of those who "companied with the apostles all the time that the Lord Jesus went out and in among them" (Acts 1:21 ), and was one of the candidates for the place of Judas.

Copyright StatementThese dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain.

Bibliography InformationEaston, Matthew George. Entry for 'Joseph'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/j/joseph.html. 1897.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) An outer garment worn in the 18th century; esp., a woman's riding habit, buttoned down the front.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Joseph, 1

Jo´seph (God-increased), son of Jacob and Rachel, born under peculiar circumstances, as may be seen in; on which account, and because he was the son of his old age , he was beloved by his father more than were the rest of his children, though Benjamin, as being also a son of Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel, was in a peculiar manner dear to the patriarch. The partiality evinced towards Joseph by his father excited jealousy on the part of his brethren, the rather that they were born of different mothers . Joseph had reached his seventeenth year, when some conduct on the part of his brothers seems to have been such as in the opinion of Joseph to require the special attention of Jacob, to whom, accordingly, he communicated the facts. This greatly increased their dislike to him, and they henceforth 'hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him' . Their aversion, however, was carried to the highest pitch when Joseph acquainted them with two dreams, which appeared to indicate that Joseph would acquire preeminence in the family, if not sovereignty; and while even his father rebuked him, his brothers were filled with envy. Jacob, however, was not aware of the depth of their ill will; so that, on one occasion, having a desire to hear intelligence of his sons, who were pasturing their flocks at a distance, he did not hesitate to make Joseph his messenger for that purpose. His appearing in view of his brothers was the signal for their malice to gain head. They began to devise means for his immediate destruction, which they would unhesitatingly have effected, but for his half-brother, Reuben, who, as the eldest son, might well be the party to interfere on behalf of Joseph. A compromise was entered into, in virtue of which the youth was stripped of the distinguishing vestments which he owed to his father's affection, and cast into a pit. Having performed this evil deed, and while they were taking refreshment, the brothers beheld a caravan of Arabian merchants, who were bearing the spices and aromatic gums of India down to the well-known and much-frequented mart, Egypt. On the proposal of Judah they resolved that, instead of allowing Joseph to perish, they should sell him to the merchants. This was accordingly done. Joseph was sold for a slave, to be conveyed by his masters into Egypt. While on his way thither, Reuben returned to the pit, intending to rescue his brother, and convey him safely back to their father. Joseph was gone. On which Reuben went to the wicked young men, who, not content with selling a brother into slavery, determined to punish their father for his partiality towards the unoffending sufferer. With this view they dipped Joseph's party-colored garment in the blood of a kid and sent it to Jacob, in order to make him believe that his favorite child had been torn to pieces by some wild beast. The trick succeeded, and Jacob was grieved beyond measure.

Meanwhile the merchants sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the royal guard, who was a native of the country. In Potiphar's house Joseph enjoyed the highest confidence and the largest prosperity. A higher power watched over him; and whatever he undertook succeeded, till at length his master gave everything into his hands. But a second time he innocently brought on himself the vengeance of the ill-disposed. Charged by his master's wife with the very crime to which he had in vain been tempted, he was at once cast by his master into the state prison.

The narrative, which is obviously constructed in order to show the workings of divine Providence, states, however, that Joseph was not left without special aid, in consequence of which he gained favor with the keeper of the prison to such an extent that everything was put under his direction. Two of the regal officers, 'the chief of the butlers' and 'the chief of the bakers,' having offended their royal master, were consigned to the same prison with Joseph. While there, each one had a dream, which Joseph interpreted correctly. The butler, whose fate was auspicious, promised the young Hebrew to employ his influence to procure his deliverance; but when again in the enjoyment of his 'butlership,' he 'forgat' Joseph (Genesis 40). Pharaoh himself, however, had two dreams, which found in Joseph a successful expounder; for the butler then remembered the skill of his prison-companion, and advised his royal master to put it to the test in his own case. Pharaoh's dream, as interpreted by Joseph, foreboded the approach of a seven years' famine; to abate the evils of which Joseph recommended that some 'discreet and wise' man should be chosen and set in full power over the land of Egypt. The monarch was alarmed, and called a council of his advisers. The wisdom of Joseph was recognized as of divine origin and supereminent value; and the king and his ministers (whence it appears that the Egyptian monarchy—at Memphis—was not despotic, but constitutional) resolved that Joseph should be made (to borrow a term from Rome) Dictator in the approaching time of need. The highest honors were conferred upon him. He was made ruler over all the land of Egypt, and the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, given him to wife.

Seven years of abundance afforded Joseph opportunity to carry into effect such plans as secured an ample provision against the seven years of need. The famine came, but it found a prepared people. The visitation did not depend on any mere local causes, for 'the famine was over all the face of the earth;' 'and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn' . Among these customers appeared ten brethren, sons of the Hebrew Jacob. They had of necessity to appear before Joseph, whose license for the purchase of corn was indispensable. Joseph had probably expected to see them, and he seems to have formed a deliberate plan of action. His conduct has brought on him the always ready charges of those who would rather impeach than study the Bible, and even friends of that sacred book have hardly in this case done Joseph full justice. Joseph's main object appears to have been to make his brothers feel and recognize their guilt in their conduct towards him. For this purpose suffering, then as well as now, was indispensable. Accordingly Joseph feigned not to know his brothers, charged them with being spies, threatened them with imprisonment, and allowed them to return home to fetch their younger brother, as a proof of their veracity, only on condition that one of them should remain behind in chains, with a prospect of death before him should not their words be verified. Then it was, and not before, that 'they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul and would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us' . On which, after weeping bitterly, he by common agreement bound his brother Simeon, and left him in custody. At length Jacob consented to Benjamin's going in company with his brothers, and provided with a present consisting of balm, honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds, and with double money in their hands (double, in order that they might repay the sum which Joseph had caused to be put into each man's sack at their departure, if, as Jacob supposed, 'it was an oversight'), they went again down to Egypt and stood before Joseph and there, too, stood Benjamin, Joseph's beloved brother. The required pledge of truthfulness was given. If it is asked why such a pledge was demanded, since the giving of it caused pain to Jacob, the answer may be thus: Joseph knew not how to demean himself towards his family until he ascertained its actual condition. That knowledge he could hardly be certain he had gained from the mere words of men who had spared his life only to sell him into slavery. How had these wicked men behaved towards his venerable father? His beloved brother Benjamin, was he safe? or had he suffered from their jealousy and malice the worse fate with which he himself had been threatened? Nothing but the sight of Benjamin could answer these questions, and resolve these doubts.

Benjamin had come, and immediately a natural change took place in Joseph's conduct: the brother began to claim his rights in Joseph's bosom. Jacob was safe, and Benjamin was safe. Joseph's heart melted at the sight of Benjamin: 'And he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay and make ready, for these men shall dine with me at noon' . But guilt is always the ready parent of fear. Accordingly the brothers expected nothing but being reduced to slavery. When taken to their own brother's house, they imagined they were being entrapped. A colloquy ensued between them and Joseph's steward, whence it appeared that the money put into their sacks, to which they now attributed their peril, was in truth a present from Joseph, designed, after his own brotherly manner, to aid his family in their actual necessities. Noon came, and with it Joseph, whose first question regarded home: 'He asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? is he yet alive? And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, Is this your younger brother? And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son!' 'And Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother, and he sought where to weep, and he entered into his chamber and wept there.' Does this look like harshness?

The connection brings into view an Egyptian custom, which is of more than ordinary importance, in consequence of its being adopted in the Jewish polity: 'And they set on (food) for him by himself (Joseph), and for them by themselves (the brethren), and for the Egyptians which did eat with them, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination with the Egyptians' . This passage is also interesting, as proving that Joseph had not, in his princely grandeur, become ashamed of his origin, nor consented to receive adoption into a strange nation: he was still a Hebrew, waiting, like Moses after him, for the proper season to use his power for the good of his own people.

Joseph, apparently with a view to ascertain how far his brethren were faithful to their father, hit upon a plan which would in its issue serve to show whether they would make any, and what, sacrifice, in order to fulfill their solemn promise of restoring Benjamin in safety to Jacob. Accordingly he ordered not only that every man's money (as before) should be put in his sack's mouth, but also that his 'silver cup in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he divineth,' should be put in the sack's mouth of the youngest. The brethren departed, but were soon overtaken by Joseph's steward, who charged them with having surreptitiously carried off this costly and highly-valued vessel. They on their part vehemently repelled the accusation, adding, 'with whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord's bondmen.' A search was made, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Accordingly they returned to the city. And now came the hour of trial: Would they purchase their own liberation by surrendering Benjamin? After a most touching interview, in which they proved themselves worthy and faithful, Joseph declared himself unable any longer to withstand the appeal of natural affection. On this occasion Judah, who was the spokesman, showed the deepest regard to his aged father's feelings, and entreated for the liberation of Benjamin even at the price of his own liberty. In the whole of literature we know of nothing more simple, natural, true, and impressive.

Most natural and impressive is the scene also which ensues, in which Joseph, after informing his brethren who he was, and inquiring, first of all, 'Is my father alive?' expresses feelings free from the slightest taint of revenge, and even shows how, under Divine Providence, the conduct of his brothers had issued in good—'God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.' Five years had yet to ensue in which 'there would be neither earing nor harvest,' and therefore the brethren were directed to return home and bring Jacob down to Egypt with all speed. 'And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them; and after that his brethren talked with him' .

The news of these striking events was carried to Pharaoh, who being pleased at Joseph's conduct, gave directions that Jacob and his family should come forthwith into Egypt. The brethren departed, being well provided for—'And to his father Joseph sent ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way.'

The intelligence which they bore to their father was of such a nature that 'Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not.' When, however, he had recovered from the thus naturally told effects of his surprise, the venerable patriarch said, 'Enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die' .

Accordingly Jacob and his family, to the number of threescore and ten souls, went down to Egypt, and by the express efforts of Joseph, were allowed to settle in the district of Goshen, where Joseph met his father: 'And he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.' There Joseph 'nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families' .

Meanwhile the predicted famine was pauperizing Egypt. The inhabitants found their money exhausted, and their cattle and substance all gone, being parted with in order to purchase food from the public granaries, until at length they had nothing to give in return for sustenance but themselves. 'Buy us'—they then imploringly said to Joseph—'and our land for bread, and we and our land will be slaves unto Pharaoh.' 'And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, so the land became Pharaoh's.' The people too, 'Joseph removed to cities from one end of the borders of the land to the other end.' Religion, however, was too strong to submit to these political and social changes, and so the priests still retained their land, being supplied with provisions out of the common store gratuitously. The land, which was previously the people's own, was now leased to them on a tenancy, at the rent of one-fifth of the produce: the land of the priests being exempted.

Joseph had now to pass through the mournful scenes which attend on the death and burial of a father. Having had Jacob embalmed, and seen the rites of mourning fully observed, the faithful and affectionate son proceeded into the land of Canaan, in order, agreeably to a promise which the patriarch had exacted, to lay the old man's bones with those of his fathers, in 'the field of Ephron the Hittite.' Having performed with long and bitter mourning Jacob's funeral rites, Joseph returned into Egypt. The last recorded act of his life forms a most becoming close. After the death of their father, his brethren, unable, like all guilty people, to forget their criminality, and characteristically finding it difficult to think that Joseph had really forgiven them, grew afraid, now they were in his power, that he would take an opportunity of inflicting some punishment on them. They accordingly go into his presence, and, in imploring terms and an abject manner, entreat his forgiveness. 'Fear not'—this is his noble reply—'I will nourish you and your little ones.'

Joseph lived an hundred and ten years, kind and gentle in his affections to the last; for we are told, 'The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees' . And so having obtained a promise from his brethren, that when the time came, as he assured them it would come, that God should visit them, and 'bring them unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,' they would carry up his bones out of Egypt, Joseph at length 'died and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin' . This promise was religiously fulfilled. His descendants, after carrying the corpse about with them in their wanderings, at length put it in its final resting-place in Shechem, in a parcel of ground that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, which became the inheritance of the children of Joseph .

By his Egyptian wife, Asenath, daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim ( sq.), whom Jacob adopted , and who accordingly took their place among the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Joseph, 2

Joseph, 'the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ' . By Matthew He is said to have been the son of Jacob, whose lineage is traced by the same writer through David up to Abraham. Luke represents Him as being the son of Heli, and traces His origin up to Adam. How these accounts are to be reconciled, is shown under Genealogy.

The statements of Holy Writ in regard to Joseph are few and simple. According to a custom among the Jews, traces of which are still found, Joseph had pledged his faith to Mary; but before the marriage was consummated she proved to be with child. Grieved at this, Joseph was disposed to break off the connection; but, not wishing to make a public example of one whom he loved, he contemplated a private disruption of their bond. From this step, however, he is deterred by a heavenly messenger, who assures him that Mary has conceived under a divine influence. 'And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins' ( sq.; ). To this account various objections have been taken; but most of them are drawn from the ground of a narrow, shortsighted and half-informed rationalism, which judges everything by its own small standard, and either denies miracles altogether, or admits only such miracles as find favor in its sight.

Joseph was by trade a carpenter, in which business he probably educated Jesus . The word rendered 'carpenter' is of a general character, and may be fitly rendered by the English word 'artificer' or 'artisan.' Schleusner asserts that the universal testimony of the ancient church represents our Lord as being a carpenter's son. Hilarius, on Matthew, asserts, in terms which cannot be mistaken, that Jesus was a smith. Of the same opinion was the venerable Bede; while others have held that our Lord was a mason, and Cardinal Cajetan, that he was a goldsmith. The last notion probably had its origin in those false associations of more modern times which disparage hand-labor. Among the ancient Jews all handicrafts were held in so much honor, that they were learned and pursued by the first men of the nation.

Christian tradition makes Joseph an old man when first espoused to Mary, being no less than eighty years of age, and father of four sons and two daughters. The painters of Christian antiquity conspire with the writers in representing Joseph as an old man at the period of the birth of our Lord—an evidence which is not to be lightly rejected, though the precise age mentioned may be but an approximation to fact.

It is not easy to determine when Joseph died, but it has been alleged, with great probability, that he must have been dead before the crucifixion of Jesus. There being no notice of Joseph in the public life of Christ, nor any reference to him in the discourses and history, while 'Mary' and 'His brethren' not infrequently appear, these circumstances afford evidence not only of Joseph's death, but of the inferior part which as legal father only of our Lord, Joseph might have been expected to sustain. So far as our scanty materials enable us to form an opinion, Joseph appears to have been a good, kind, simple-minded man, who, while he afforded aid in protecting and sustaining the family, would leave Mary unrestrained to use all the impressive and formative influence of her gentle, affectionate, pious, and thoughtful soul.

Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia

1. Jacob s Age at His Birth'. Joseph was thirty years old when he Stood before Pharaoh (Genesis 41:46 ). The seven plenteous years and two years of the famine had passed when Jacob went into Egypt (30+7+2=39) (Genesis 41:46,53,54; Genesis 45:4-6; Genesis 47:1-9 ). Jacob was one hundred thirty years old when he entered Egypt (Genesis 47:1-9 ). Jacob was, therefore, (130 - 39 = 91) ninety-one years old at the birth of Joseph.
2. Early Life . Joseph was the son of Rachel, born to Jacob in his Old age (Genesis 30:1-24 ), and was therefore the favorite (Genesis 37:3; Joseph had two remarkable dreams, resulting in the estrangement of his Brothers and the suspicion of his father (Genesis 37:5-11 ). His brothers sold him into slavery, and deceived their father by dipping the coat of Many colors into the blood of a goat, assuring him that they had found It (Genesis 37:15-35 ).
3. Lessons from Jacob s Mourning'. Jacob mourned for Joseph, Believing that he was dead (Genesis 37:31-35 ). We may learn from this,
   1. to be careful about acting on the testimony of prejudiced witnesses,
   2. and that a lie conscientiously believed and acted upon will produce substantially the same effects as the truth.
4. Early Life in Egypt . Joseph was sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. (Genesis 39:1; Acts 7:9 ). On a false charge he was thrown into prison. In prison he enjoyed the confidence of the keeper, and Interpreted the dreams of the butler and baker (Genesis 39:21-23; Genesis 40:1-23 ).
5. Pharaoh s Dreams'. The king had two dreams:
   1. He stood by the river and saw seven well-favored and fat-fleshed Kine come up out of the river and feed in a meadow, and seven Other kine that were ill-favored and lean-fleshed followed and Devoured them.
   2. He beheld seven ears of corn upon one stalk, rank and good, and They were followed by seven thin and blasted ears by which They were devoured (Genesis 41:1-7 ).
6. Joseph s Interpretation'. The wise men failed to give the king's Mind any relief, and Pharaoh, on the suggestion of the chief butler, Called for Joseph, who declared that the dreams were one, and predicted That there would immediately follow seven years of plenty, succeeded by Seven years of famine (Genesis 41:8-32 ).
7. His Elevation . Pharaoh immediately clothed Joseph in royal Vestures, made him ride in the second chariot, and required the people To prostrate themselves before him (Genesis 41:33-45 ).
8. His Marriage . Pharaoh gave him the name Zaphnathpaaneah (Preserver of the age, or revealer of secrets), and also gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, to wife. By this Union were two sons (Genesis 41:44-52 ).
9. Preparation for the Famine . Joseph immediately began to make Preparations for the famine. He gathered corn "as the sands of the Sea" and stored it in the cities (Genesis 41:47-52 ).
10. Famine in Egypt . The famine began as Joseph had predicted and Covered the entire land of Egypt (Genesis 41:53-57 ).
11. Famine in Canaan . The famine extended to Canaan (Genesis 42:1,2 Acts 42:1,7:11 ). Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy corn. Joseph recognized them, but they did not know him. He supplied their wants, and they Returned to their home (Genesis 42:3-38 ). On their return to Egypt, Joseph made himself known to them and sent for his father to come to Egypt (Genesis 43:1-34; Genesis 44:1-34; Genesis 45:1-24; Acts 7:12,14 ). Jacob received the news of Joseph's glory with incredulity (Genesis 45:25-28 ).
12. Lessons from Joseph s Brothers'. We may learn from this,
    1. to investigate thoroughly before coming to a conclusion,
    2. and that after a man is once settled in error, it takes a tremendous influence to deliver him from it.
13. Jacob s Descent into Egypt'. Jacob at once departed for Egypt Accompanied by his entire family; they also took their possessions (Genesis 46:1-26 ).
14. Harmony of Genesis 46:26; Deuteronomy 10:22; Acts 7:14 . The first passage counts the direct descendants (sixty-six) of Jacob who went with him Into Egypt (Genesis 46:26 ). The second counts the sixty-six, Jacob, Joseph, and his two sons (Deuteronomy 10:22 ). The third counts the seventy, and five of Joseph's "kindred" whose names are not given.
15. Jacob s Introduction to Pharaoh'. Joseph introduced his father To Pharaoh, who received him with respect. Jacob in return blessed Pharaoh twice, and departed from his presence (Genesis 47:7-10 ).
16. Settled in Goshen . Jacob and his family were given permission To dwell in Goshen where they enjoyed peace, plenty, and general Prosperity (Genesis 47:1-27 ).
17. Date .
    1. It was twenty-five years from the death of Terah to the birth of Isaac (Genesis 11:32; Genesis 12:1-5; Genesis 21:5; Acts 7:1-4 ).
    2. It was sixty years from the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jacob (Genesis 25:26 ).
    3. It was one hundred thirty years from the birth of Jacob to his introduction to Pharaoh. (25 + 60 + 130 = 215) (Genesis 47:7-10 ).

    The settling of the Hebrews in Egypt was therefore two hundred fifteen years after the death of Terah or Abram's entrance into Canaan.

18. Last Days of Jacob . The closing of Jacob's life was distinguished by

    (A) obtaining a promise from Joseph to bury him with his Fathers (Genesis 47:26-31 ); (b) reminding Joseph of the promises of God (Genesis 48:1-4 ); (c) adopting Joseph's two sons (Genesis 48:5,6 ); (d) placing Ephraim before Manasseh (Genesis 48:8-20 ); (e) predicting the restoration of his family to Canaan (Genesis 48:21 ); (f) giving Joseph an extra portion of his estate (Genesis 48:21,22 ); (g) prophesying of the coming Shiloh (Genesis 48:8-12; Hebrews 7:14; Revelation 5:1-5 ); (h) blessing all his sons (Genesis 49:1-28 ).

19. Death and Burial of Jacob . Jacob died in Egypt, was embalmed by Joseph's orders, carried to Canaan, and buried with great honors and great lamentation (Genesis 50:1-13; Acts 7:15,16 ).
20. Last Days of Joseph . Joseph's last days were distinguished by
    1. forgiving his brothers;
    2. enjoying the pleasures of family relation;
    3. predicting the restoration of his brethren to the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
    4. and taking a pledge of his brethren to carry his bones with them on their departure (Genesis 50:15-26 ).

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The name of four persons in Scripture. 1,

he son of Jacob and Rachel, and the story of whose life is given in Genesis 2 ,

arpenter, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the reputed father of Jesus. 3,

member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, who begged the body of Jesus to bury it in his own tomb. 4,

urnamed

ne of the disciples of Jesus, and deemed worthy to be nominated to fill the place vacated by Judas.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Bibliography InformationMcClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Joseph'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/j/joseph.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.