Joseph in the Pit
Now Joseph was a shepherd's helper to his brothers; he was still a boy among the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph was a little tattletale, straight to their father. For Israel loved him above all his children: the child of his old age.
A many-colored coat was made for Joseph. His brothers grasped that it was him their father loved most; they hated him, could not speak warmly to him.
Joseph dreamed and told this dream to his brothers, so that their anger toward him only grew. He had begged them to listen. "So it was," he had begun, "we were binding bundles in the field when, to my surprise, my bundle lifted itself up, was standing upright. And then it happened your bundles got up, encircled mine, and fell prostrate before it."
Yet another dream followed which Joseph could not contain. "So it was," he concluded, "that the sun, the moon, eleven stars--all were prostrate before me."
"What kind of dream is that?" his father teased him, when Joseph told him as well. "Are we going to crawl before you, fall prostrate at your feet--myself, your mother, all your brothers'" On account of his telling of dreams, his brothers hated him more.
Now his brothers were pasturing their father's hock near Shechem when Israel said to Joseph: "I'm worried about your brothers when they pasture near Shechem. If you're prepared, I'll send you to them."
"I'm ready," he replied.
"Then go, and please inform me about your brothers: are they safe, are the hocks secure' Bring me your news." He sent him from near Hebron.
`When he came near Shechem, a man found him wandering in the fields. "Whom are you looking for?" asked the man.
"I’m searching for my brothers," he said. "Could you tell me where they're pasturing'"
"Not here. 'Dothan,' I heard them say."
As Joseph approached Dothan: "Look, here comes our master of dreams," the brothers said among themselves. "Now is a time to kill him, then throw him down an abandoned well. 'A mad animal has eaten him,' we will say. We will see what becomes of his dreams."
Now look: as Joseph greets his brothers they grasp his coat from off his back--the many-colored coat he is wearing. They seize him and put him down the well. It is an abandoned well, with no water in it.
The Book of J (Rosenberg and Bloom, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990) p. 118,119
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