Parashat Vayeshev

Joseph, Favored Son

37 Now Jacob dwelled in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. ² These are the genealogies of Jacob.

When Joseph was 17 years old (he was a youth), he was shepherding the flocks with his brothers—with the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his other sons because he was the son of his old age. So he had made him a long-sleeved tunic. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak to him in shalom.

⁵ Then Joseph dreamed a dream and told his brothers—and they hated him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Please listen to this dream I dreamed. ⁷ There we were binding sheaves in the middle of the field. All of a sudden, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”

⁸ “Will you truly be a king over us?” his brothers said to him. “Will you really rule over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and because of his words.

⁹ But then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “I have just dreamed another dream. Suddenly, there was the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowing down to me!” ¹⁰ He told it to his father as well as his brothers.

Then his father rebuked him and said to him, “What’s this dream you dreamed? Will we really come—your mother and I with your brothers—to bow down to the ground to you?” ¹¹ So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the speech in mind.

Joseph Betrayed

¹² Then his brothers went to graze their father’s flocks at Shechem. ¹³ Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers grazing the flocks in Shechem? Come, let me send you to them.”

“Here I am,” he said to him.

¹⁴ Then he said to him, “Go now, and check on the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flocks and bring word back to me.”

So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he went to Shechem. ¹⁵ A man found him there, wandering in the field, and the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶ “I’m looking for my brothers,” he said. “Please tell me where they’re grazing.”

¹⁷ The man said, “They moved on from here. For I heard them saying, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

¹⁸ Now they saw him from a distance. Before he was close to them they plotted together against him in order to kill him. ¹⁹ They said to one another, “Here comes the master of dreams! ²⁰ Come on now! Let’s kill him and throw him into one of those pits, so we can say that an evil animal devoured him. Then let’s see what becomes of his dreams.”

²¹ But Reuben heard and rescued him out of their hands, saying, “We must not beat him to death.” ²² In order to rescue him from their hand and to return him to his father, Reuben said to them, “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him!”

²³ So as soon as Joseph came up to his brothers they stripped Joseph of his tunic (the long sleeved tunic that he had on). ²⁴ Then they took him and threw him into the pit. (Now the pit was empty, with no water in it.)

²⁵ Then they sat down to eat bread. When they looked up, behold, there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balsam, and myrrh—going to bring them down to Egypt.

²⁶ Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come on! ²⁷ Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let’s not lay our hand on him—since he’s our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers listened to him. ²⁸ When some men, Midianite merchants, passed by, they dragged Joseph up and out of the pit and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt. ²⁹ When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! And I—where should I go?”

³¹ So they took Joseph’s tunic, slaughtered a billy goat, and they dipped the tunic into the blood. ³² Then they sent the long-sleeved tunic, and it was brought to their father, and they said, “We found this. Do you recognize whether or not it is your son’s tunic?”

³³ He did recognize it and said, “My son’s tunic! An evil animal has devoured him! Joseph must be torn to pieces!” ³⁴ Jacob tore his clothing and put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons got up along with all his daughters to console him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “For I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” So his father kept weeping for him.

³⁶ Meanwhile the Midianites sold him into Egypt, to Potiphar an official of Pharaoh, the commander of the bodyguards.

Judah and Tamar

38 About that time Judah went down from his brothers and he camped near an Adullamite man, whose name was Hirah. ² There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man whose name was Shua, and he took her as wife and slept with her. ³ Then she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er. ⁴ She became pregnant again and gave birth to a son, and she named him Onan. ⁵ She gave birth to yet another son and she called him Shelah. He was in Chezib when she gave birth to him.

⁶ Then Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in Adonai’s eyes, so Adonai put him to death. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, go to your brother’s wife to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up a seed for your brother. ⁹ But Onan knew that the seed would not be his. So every time he went to his brother’s wife he would destroy it on the ground so as not to provide a seed for his brother. ¹⁰ What he did was evil in Adonai’s eyes, so He put him to death also.

¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Stay as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up,” because he thought, “Otherwise he too might die, like his brothers.” So Tamar went and stayed in her father’s house.

¹² Now the days became many, and Shua’s daughter, Judah’s wife, died. After Judah consoled himself, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. ¹³ Then Tamar was told, “Look! Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his flocks.” ¹⁴ And she removed her widow’s clothes from herself, covered herself with a veil, wrapped herself, and sat by the entrance to the springs on the way to Timnah (for she saw that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him as a wife).

¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute because she had covered her face. ¹⁶ So he turned aside to her along the way and said, “Please let me sleep with you” (for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law).

“What,” she asked, “will you give me to sleep with me?”

¹⁷ “I will send you a young goat from the flock,” he said,

“Provided you give a pledge until you send it,” she said.

¹⁸ “What kind of pledge shall I give you?” he asked.

“Your seal, and your cord, and your staff in your hand,” she said. So he gave them to her and he slept with her, and she got pregnant by him. ¹⁹ After she got up and left, she removed her veil from herself and put on her widow’s clothes.

²⁰ When Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge from the woman’s hand, he could not find her. ²¹ He asked the men of her area saying, “Where is the cult prostitute? She was at the springs along the way.”

But they said, “There hasn’t been a cult prostitute here.”

²² So he returned to Judah and said, “I couldn’t find her, and the people of that place also said, ‘There hasn’t been a cult prostitute here.’”

²³ Then Judah said, “Let her take them for herself, or we’ll be held in contempt. Behold, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

²⁴ About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been a prostitute—look, she’s even pregnant by prostitution.”

“Bring her out!” Judah said, “and let her be burned.”

²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law saying, “I’m pregnant by the man to whom these things belong.” Then she said, “Do you recognize whose these are—the seal, the cords and the staff?”

²⁶ Then Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I didn’t give her to my son Shelah.” He was not intimate with her again.

²⁷ Now when it was time for her to give birth, behold there were twins in her womb. ²⁸ While she was giving birth, one stuck out his hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it to his hand saying, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ But as he was pulling his hand back in, behold, his brother came out. So she said, “How you have broken through! The breach is because of you.” And he named him Perez. ³⁰ Afterward his brother, on whose hand was the scarlet thread, came out. And he named him Zerah.

Whose Power Will Rule?

²² Then a demon-plagued man, who was blind and mute, was brought to Yeshua; and He healed him, so that he spoke and saw. ²³ All the crowds were astounded and saying, “This can’t be Ben-David, can it?”

²⁴ But hearing this, the Pharisees said, “This fellow drives out demons only by beelzebul, the ruler of demons.”

²⁵ Knowing their thoughts, Yeshua said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. ²⁶ If satan drives out satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? ²⁷ And if I drive out demons by beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. ²⁸ But if I drive out demons by the Ruach Elohim, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. ²⁹ Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he will thoroughly plunder his house. ³⁰ He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.

³¹ “For this reason I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Ruach will not be forgiven. ³² Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Ruach ha-Kodesh will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the one to come.”

³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit. ³⁴ You brood of vipers! How can you who are evil say anything good? For from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. ³⁵ The good man from his good treasury brings forth good, and the evil man from his evil treasury brings forth evil. ³⁶ But I tell you that on the Day of Judgment, men will give account for every careless word they speak. ³⁷ For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

A Sign Greater than Jonah

³⁸ Then some of the Torah scholars and Pharisees answered Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

³⁹ But Yeshua replied to them, “An evil and adulterous generation clamors for a sign, yet no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. ⁴⁰ For just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights,^[a] so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. ⁴² The Queen of the South^[b] will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

⁴³ “Now when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places looking for rest and doesn’t find it. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I’ll go back home where I came from.’ And when it comes, it finds the house vacant, swept clean, and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there. And that man’s last condition becomes worse than the first. So also will it be for this evil generation.”

The Path of Eternal Life

Psalm 16