He has humbled her (had sexual relations with her) and cannot sell her to another man, he must allow her to go out for nothing (she came in with no dowry). Is Polygamy Really Biblical? 36). According to the biblical account, Joseph was the son of Jacob by Rachel, the patriarch's favorite wife (Gen. 30:23, 24), who, on the occasion of Joseph's birth, said, "The Lord shall add [Heb. Charles L. Zimmerman holds the B. How many children did Jacob have? [42] Joseph is said to have been extremely handsome, which attracted his Egyptian master's wife to attempt to seduce him. And after Joseph perished, the sons of Jacob took unto themselves wives. Through his father, he also has six half-brothers: Dan and Naphtali (whose . Judah is the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob and his first wife, Leah: his full brothers are Reuben, Simeon and Levi (all older), and Issachar and Zebulun (younger), and he has one full sister, Dinah. 25 Rachel's servant Bilhah's sons were Dan and Naphtali. Similar theories are propounded to explain confusion in the narrative's parallel accounts of his slavery and imprisonment, as well as his and reunion(s) with his brothers, with Benjamin present in one, and absent in another. As the king's appointed viceroy, Joseph built himself a magnificent palace, placing in it a great number of slaves. www.simplybible.com Copyright Ron Graham 2001 2018, "the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh", "By faith Joseph, when he was dying, said confidently that the children of Israel would leave Egypt. Glad to hear from you Brian, I have received many heartbreaking messages from women whose husbands seem to think they can force them into this lifestyle when they havent even bothered to look at whether or not the reasons that existed then still exist now, which of course they do not. She was no longer the mother of all of Jacobs children Rachel had a child now and she was the one who was truly regarded, by Jacob, as his wife. Abraham then died at 175 years of age (25 . According to the Documentary Hypothesis Joseph's toy is a combination of two or more versions which were later combined into the current narrative. Their relationship is first mentioned in Genesis 41:45. . ACTS 7:13-15 13 And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to the Pharaoh. A fourth group in verse 36 is named in Hebrew as mdanm that is properly identified as Medanites. It is later mentioned in Genesis 41:50 that before the years of famine, Joseph had two sons with Asenath. (Genesis 45:128), Thus, Jacob (also known as Israel) and his entire house of seventy[22] gathered up with all their livestock and began their journey to Egypt. When they met, they embraced each other and wept together for quite a while. How many wives did Joseph son of Jacob have? Response: We read in Genesis 41:45 that Pharaoh gave Joseph Osnat daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife. 11Then a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, causing great affliction. [a] When Joseph was seventeen years old, he shared with his brothers two dreams he had had: in the first dream, Joseph and his brothers gathered bundles of grain, of which those his brothers gathered, bowed to his own. Tyler Dawn How Many Wives did Jacob Have? ), and as recently as the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah about 1200 B.C.E. Elkannah had two women but again, one of them was barren so I suspect that Peninah was a concubine. Both were met by angels at various times (Gen. R. 84:6; Num. 26 Leah's servant Zilpah's sons were Gad and Asher. He even instructed them to take his bones with them. Your email address will not be published. Habakkuk 3:7, in a paralellism (a literary device where something is said twice, slightly differently, in such a way as to equate two concepts), says this of Cushan. She then had three more sons: Simeon, Levi and Judah. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob (From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel), Even by the God of your father who shall help thee; and by the Almighty who shall bless thee With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lieth under, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb. "Pharaoh called Joseph by the name Tzafnat-Pa'neach and gave him as his wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-Fera priest of On. 34), and a whole chapter Yusuf (sura xii.) Ultimately, Joseph was sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard (Genesis 37:36, Genesis 39:1). He admonished and forgave them, he sent also his garment which healed the patriarch's eyes as soon as it was cast unto his face. Since Joseph and Benjamin were born from Rachel, this test was necessary to reveal if they would betray Benjamin as they did with Joseph when he was seventeen. which references passages that point to Jacob having "daughters" (plural, more than one) such as Genesis 37:34-35. However Jacob gave the greater blessing to the younger Ephraim, Moses, before he died, gave a similar blessing to the house of Joseph, which he called, Jospeh had great faith in God. Stories about Jacob in the Bible begin at Genesis 25:19. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. Her father contracted with her husbands father that she would be a wife in that house, that she would provide heirs to the house who would have rights to his share of the inheritance. Esau took a third wife to please his father Isaac (Genesis 28:6-9). She also bore Benjamin and was a faithful wife to Jacob. In fact, this is all we learn about her: Genesis 41:45: "Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-Paneah and gave . When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel commanded him to do. (obviously would not happen to a wife). I am a fifty-something-year-old Bible teacher, wife of twenty-eight years to Mark, and mom of adult twin sons. The eleventh son of Jacob and elder of the two sons Rachel (Genesis 30:23, 24). The baker's dream was about three baskets full of bread for the Pharaoh, and birds were eating the bread out of those baskets. The family prostrated before him hence the fulfilment of his dream aforetime.[52]. Joseph prospered in Potiphar's household and was eventually made head of the servants. of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife, Jacob, before he died, gave his blessing to Josephs two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. He was Jacob's eleventh son and Rachel's first. How many wives did Joseph have in the Bible? It simply was a rarity. [6], The Bible offers two explanations of the name Ysf: first it is compared to the Hebrew root (-s-p), meaning "to gather, remove, take away":[7] "And she conceived, and bore a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach" (Genesis 30:23);[8] Ysf is then identified with the similar root (y-s-p), meaning "to add":[9] "And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son." When Jacob calls his wives to him in Gen thirty-one only Leah and Rachel are named. [5], In rabbinic tradition, he is considered the ancestor of a second Messiah called "Mashiach ben Yosef", who will wage war against the forces of evil alongside Mashiach ben David and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel. Even John Calvin, sometimes hailed as the father of modern grammatico-historical exegesis,[39] writes "in the person of Joseph, a lively image of Christ is presented. In his father's house, Joseph is the favored son: "Israel (another name for Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his sons since he was a child of his old age" (Genesis 37:3). Joseph saw and inquired of Benjamin, and was overcome by emotion but did not show it. After this, his brothers plotted against him and would have killed him had not his brother Reuben intervened. The brothers then dipped Joseph's coat in goat's blood and, returning home, showed it to their father, who concluded that Joseph had been torn apart by a wild beast. Because the Pharaoh had such a high regard for Joseph, practically making him his equal,[23] it had been an honor to meet his father. Who was the angel of Scripture doesn't tell us much about Asenath, the wife of Joseph, the son of Jacob. The historicity of Joseph's story is debated, with dates ranging from an early estimate beginning around 2000 B.C.E. Isaac, the son of Abraham , was married to Rebecca for many years before being blessed with children. yosef] to me another son." The cup-bearer took those grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand. 1. It was because of his virtue that the children of Israel passed over the Red Sea and the Jordan dry-shod (Gen. R. 84). One of the hardest things there is, is to contemplate the possibility that our point of view has been utterly contaminated after all, they never taught ancient Near Eastern context in any of the churches I attended. He is presently pastor of the Evangelical Church of Archbold, Ohio. As Joseph had foreseen, seven years of plenty came, during which he stored up a great abundance of grain in granaries built for the purpose. The children of Israel remembered their oath, and when they left Egypt during the Exodus, Moses took Joseph's bones with him. 21-22; comp. What happens when a man is required to take his dead brothers wife, if he is already married Deut 25:5? The musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is about Joseph's story. Genesis 41:45 says that after Joseph interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh 45 Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-paaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On. Leah. Jacob lives in Egypt for seventeen years after his arrival (Genesis 47:28). Muhammad is believed to have once said, "One half of all the beauty God apportioned for mankind went to Joseph and his mother; the other one half went to the rest of mankind. To Joseph he declared: Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall. When the Pharaoh's advisers failed to interpret these dreams, the cup-bearer remembered Joseph. Families desperately needed heirs, and the dyadic social identity of a woman depended on her being not only a wife, but also a mother it simply didnt matter if your husband loved you best, if you had no children Rachel knew that (so did Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah and Elizabeth). (7-14) Genesis 29:17. Some declare that during the 22 years he was away from home he drank no wine (Shab. The genealogy of Jesus in the New Testament traces Jesus' ancestry lineally, from Abraham to David, and then from David to Jesus. Because she was now barren (for whatever reason), she was in the legal position to give her own maidservant to Jacob as another woman, concubine. The scene is a fitting resolution to Jacob's own drama, in which his father, Isaac, had been old and blind when Jacob himself deceived deceived him in order to obtain his blessing, meant for Esau. [44] In the Quran the brothers ask Jacob ("Yaqub") to let Joseph go with them. Abraham had one wife, and then only took a concubine when she was still barren at 80; he took a second wife only after the death of his first. When the brothers claimed to the father that a wolf had eaten Joseph, he observed patience. JOSEPH. [47] But in Islam they returned leaving behind Benjamin because the mizzen bowl of the king was found in his bag.