Yosef and His Brothers

(2) This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

(4) את דבתם רעה THEIR EVIL REPORT — Whatever he saw wrong in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he reported to his father: that they used to eat flesh cut off from a living animal, that they treated the sons of the handmaids with contempt, calling them slaves, and that they were suspected of living in an immoral manner. With three such similar matters he was therefore punished. In consequence of his having stated that they used to eat flesh cut off from a living animal Scripture states, (Genesis 37:31) “And they slew a he-goat" after they had sold him and they did not eat its flesh whilst the animal was still living. And because of the slander which he related about them that they called their brothers slaves — (Psalms 105:17) “Joseph was sold for a slave.” And because he charged them with immorality (Genesis 39:7) “his master’s wife cast her eyes upon him etc.” (Genesis Rabbah 84:7). (5) דבתם THEIR REPORT — The word דבה always means in old French parleriz; English, gossip: whatever he could speak bad about them he told to his father.

(4) ויבא יוסף את דבתם רעה, he told his father that his brothers, because of unintentional errors, i.e. lack of professional competence, caused him financial losses in his flocks, seeing that at the time they were preoccupied primarily with increasing their material wealth.

(3) Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons—he was his “child of old age”and he had made him an ornamented tunic. (Or “a coat of many colors”). (4) And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him.

(1) בן זקנים THE SON OF HIS OLD AGE — because he was a wise son to him” — all that he had learnt from Shem and Eber he taught him (Genesis Rabbah 84:8). Another explanation of בן זקנים— his facial features were similar to his (Jacob’s) (Genesis Rabbah 84:8).

(1) BECAUSE HE WAS THE SON OF HIS OLD AGE. This is to be taken literally since Joseph was born to Jacob when the latter was ninety-one years old.

(1) וישראל אהב את יוסף, Israel loved Joseph, etc. The Torah reported this here in order to provide the rationale for the brothers' hatred of their younger, i.e. their "little" brother Joseph. The reason the verse begins with the conjunctive letter ו in front of ישראל is to inform us that if the tale-bearing would have been the only problem, the brothers could have coped with that; they would have argued with Joseph and convinced him that his suspicions were unfounded. It was the additional element of their father displaying distinct favoritism which poisoned the atmosphere between Joseph and his brothers. Not only did Jacob love Joseph better than all his other sons combined, but he even made a public display of this. Once this hatred of Joseph had become a factor in their mutual relations nothing could correct the situation. There was no longer any point in the brothers speaking peacefully, i.e. trying to make peace with the tale-bearer, seeing he was so clearly their father's favorite.

(1) ויגד לאחיו, this too was an ill advised move. Had he been more mature he would have kept the contents of such a dream to himself. (1) שמעו נא החלום הזה, not only did he tell them his dream, as something by the way, but he invited them to listen to him tell it by saying שמעו נא “please pay attention!” This could not fail to intensify the hostility of his brothers, as we see immediately by their reaction: “do you plan to rule over us?!”

(1) ויחלום יוסף חלום. Joseph had a dream. Why did Joseph add to his brothers' hatred of him by telling them of his grandiose dreams? Furthermore, knowing as he did that the brothers hated him fiercely, why did he accept his father's mission (verse 14) and venture "into the lion's den?" Perhaps Joseph went to tell his brothers that they were wrong in saying his dreams came from his ambitions, but that for some reason G'd planned to elevate him to a high position and that Jacob's agreeing to send him on this mission was a sign that all of this had been approved by G'd. He may have hoped to lessen their hatred of him by accepting the misssion.

(19) They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer!

(1) והבור רק אין בו מים AND THE PIT WAS EMPTY, THERE WAS NO WATER IN IT — Since it states, “the pit was empty”, do I not know that “there was no water in it”? What then is the force of “there was no water in it”? Water, indeed it did not contain, but there were serpents and scorpions in it (Shabbat 22a).