The Birthrights was Joseph’s
I Chronicles 5:2 For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and from him came the chief ruler, but the birthright was Joseph’s
When the Biblical patriarch Jacob had settled in the land of Canaan, the story continues with Joseph, seventeen years old at the time, helping out his brothers in herding the flocks. These were his half brothers, the sons of his father’s other wives Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah.
And acting like a spoiled brat, Joseph often brought his father bad reports on his brothers. But Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the child of his old age.
And he showed him favouritism by making him an elaborately embroidered coat. When his brothers realized that their father favoured him more in everything, they grew to hate Joseph—they wouldn’t even speak to him.
But Joseph had a dream, and he added more hatred to his brothers when he told them: “Listen to this dream I had. We were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. All of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine.”
His brothers replied, “So! You’re going to rule us? You’re going to boss us around?” And they hated him more than ever because of the aloof manner he conducted himself.
Then Joseph had another dream. “I dreamed another dream,” he said to his brothers:, “even the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me!”
“What’s with all this dreaming?” his father reprimanded him when he told him. “ Am I, your mother and your brothers all supposed to bow down to you?”
Now his brothers were really jealous; but his father brooded over the whole business.
His brothers had gone off to Shechem where they were pasturing their father’s flocks but they haven’t return for awhile. And Jacob said to Joseph, “Your brothers are with flocks in Shechem. Come, I want to send you to them.”
“I’m ready,”Joseph replied.
“Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing and bring me back a report,” Jacob continued.
So Joseph took off, tracked his brothers down, and finally found them in Dothan.
When his brothers spotted Joseph in the distance, they speedily cooked up a plot to kill the spoiled brat.
“Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns,” the brothers said to themselves. “We can say that a vicious animal ate him up.”
“We’re not going to kill him. No murder,” Reuben disagreed, trying to save Joseph, planning to get him out later and take him back to his father. “Go ahead and throw him in this cistern out here in the wild, but don’t hurt him.”
When Joseph reached his brothers, they ripped off the fancy coat he was wearing, grabbed him, and threw him into a cistern. Fortunately, the cistern was dry; there wasn’t any water in it.
When they sat down for supper at evening, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites on their way from Gilead, their camels loaded with spices, ointments, and perfumes to sell in Egypt.
Judah saw an opportunity, “Brothers, what are we going to get out of killing our brother and concealing the evidence? Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let’s not kill him—he is, after all, our brother, our own flesh and blood.”
His brothers agreed. So by that time the Midianite traders were passing by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph with them down to Egypt.
When Reuben came back and went to the cistern, he saw that Joseph wasn’t there! He ripped his clothes in despair. He then to confront his brothers. “The boy’s gone! What am I going to do!”
They took Joseph’s coat, butchered a goat, and dipped the coat in blood.
Later, they took the fancy coat back to their father and said, “We found this. Look it over—do you think this is your son’s coat?”
Jacob recognized it at once. “My son’s coat—a wild animal has eaten him. Joseph torn limb from limb!”
Jacob tore his clothes in grief, dressed in rough burlap, and mourned his son a long, long time. His sons and daughters tried to comfort him but he refused their comfort. “I’ll go to the grave mourning my son.”
Oh, how his father wept for Joseph.
But why? Why was Joseph the favoured son?
It was that the Sovereign had in mind that the Birthright should be given to Joseph, and then finally to his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
But who are Ephraim and Manasseh?
More on (1) Ephraim / The United States; (2) The Birthrights was Joseph’s
(3) Ephraim and Manasseh (4) Who is Ephraim, a Chronic Liar? (5) The Ox without the Unicorn
Japheth
The Mystery of Esau and Ephraim 