Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob and the firstborn of his beloved Rachel, is the subject of the long closing movement of Genesis (chapters 37-50), a sustained and artful narrative that reads almost as a self-contained novella, quite different in texture from the episodic patriarchal stories before it.
Favoured by his father with a special garment, the coat of many colours, or perhaps a long ornamented robe, and given to dreams of his own future greatness, Joseph earns his brothers' hatred. They seize him, throw him into a pit, and sell him into slavery in Egypt. There his fortunes turn repeatedly: he rises in the house of Potiphar, is falsely accused by Potiphar's wife when he refuses her and cast into prison, and there interprets the dreams of fellow prisoners. Summoned at last to read Pharaoh's dreams of the coming years of plenty and famine, he interprets them, is raised to be the ruler of Egypt under Pharaoh, and administers the grain that saves the land.
When famine drives his brothers to Egypt to buy food, Joseph, unrecognized, tests them before revealing himself in one of scripture's great scenes of reconciliation, forgiving them with the words that what they meant for evil, God meant for good, and bringing the whole family down into Egypt.