Chapter 37
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Jacob settled in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan.
2These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, seventeen years old, was tending the flock with his brothers. He was a helper with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.
3Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a ketonet passim.
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
Ketonet is a tunic. Passim is not explained in this codex. Later English has guessed many colors, long sleeves, or an ankle-length cut. None of those glosses is in the Hebrew, so none is printed. The phrase is kept.
4His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
5Joseph dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers, and they hated him still more.
6He said to them, “Please listen to this dream that I dreamed.
7There we were, binding sheaves in the field, and my sheaf rose and stood upright, and your sheaves gathered around and bowed to my sheaf.”
8His brothers said to him, “Will you really reign over us? Will you really rule us?” And they hated him still more, because of his dreams and because of his words.
9Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers. He said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing to me.”
10He told it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him. He said to him, “What is this dream you have dreamed? Shall I, and your mother, and your brothers really come and bow to the ground before you?”
11His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
12His brothers went to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem.
13Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He said, “Here I am.”
14He said to him, “Go, please, and see whether it is well with your brothers and well with the flock, and bring me word.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
15A man found him wandering in the fields, and the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16He said, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are pasturing.”
17The man said, “They have moved on from here. I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
18They saw him from a distance, and before he came near them they plotted against him, to kill him.
19They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer.
20Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, and we will say a wild animal ate him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams.”
21Reuben heard them and rescued him from their hands. He said, “Let us not take his life.”
22Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him,” so that he might rescue him from their hands and restore him to his father.
23When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ketonet passim that was on him,
24and they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.
25They sat down to eat a meal, and they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels carrying gum, balm, and ladanum, on their way to take them down to Egypt.
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- Translation
The resins are nekoth, tseri, and lot. Gum, balm, and ladanum are the usual identifications. The codex does not name the plants, so the species are uncertain.
26Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover his blood?
27Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let our hand not be on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers listened.
28Midianite traders passed by, and they pulled Joseph up out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt.
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- Text
Verse 25 and this verse say Ishmaelites. This verse also says Midianite men pulled him out and sold him. Verse 36 says the Medanites sold him. Chapter 39 says Potiphar bought him from the Ishmaelites. Each name is printed where it stands. They are not collapsed into one.
29Reuben returned to the pit, and Joseph was not in the pit, and he tore his clothes.
30He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone. And I, where can I go?”
31They took Joseph’s tunic, slaughtered a male goat, and dipped the tunic in the blood.
32They sent the ketonet passim and brought it to their father and said, “We found this. Recognize, please, whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”
33He recognized it and said, “My son’s tunic. A wild animal has eaten him. Joseph is torn, torn to pieces.”
34Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.
35All his sons and all his daughters rose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” And his father wept for him.
36The Medanites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.