Bible Studies

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JOSEPH AND HIS COAT…POEM

James P. Gram

Jacob and his many sons
In Canaan lived their lives;
Reuben, Joseph and ten more
For Jacob had two wives

Joseph was the youngest boy
His father loved him best;
The last born of his ancient age
Favored o’er the rest

Jacob gave the boy a coat
Of multi colored hue;
And Joseph told his father all
He saw his brothers do

This did not endear his brothers to
The tattle-taling lad;
For they were rough and hid a lot
From their God-fearing dad

Joseph had a splendid gift
Of foresight so it seems;
For he would faithfully report
What he had seen in dreams

In one he told of binding wheat
In bundles in the field
His stood erect, but all around
The others bowed and kneeled

His brothers promised Joseph that
They’d not bow down before
This dreamer of a brother so
They hated him the more

But Joseph made it even worse
“I had this dream, you see,
Sun and moon, eleven stars
All bowed down to me”

And even Jacob got upset
This cannot be, I feel
Never in this God’s green earth
Will we before you kneel

The brothers went to graze the flocks
In the Sheshem dell;
So Jacob sent young Joseph out
To see if all was well

He did not find them there at all
But there he met a man
Who said his brothers moved the flocks
To grazing near Dothan

His brothers saw that colored coat
From far along the road;
“Let’s kill the dreamer, do him in
He’ll reap what he has sowed”

But Reuben showed some common sense
He would not hear of it;
“Let’s take his coat and throw him in
That deep and stony pit”

That’s what they did, sat down to lunch
Then saw a caravan
Bound for far off Egypt land;
“Let’s sell him if we can”

They told the traders, “Here we’ve got
A slave we can deliver;
Let’s make a deal, he’ll only cost
You twenty bits of silver”

But now the brothers had to find
Some kind of alibi
That Jacob would accept as truth
Although it was a lie

“With goat’s blood let us soak his coat
And tear it up a lot
We’ll say some beast has eaten him
And this is all we’ve got”

When Jacob saw that colored coat
His grief was not contained
He rent his clothes; for many days
In mourning he remained

In Egypt Joseph, helped by God,
Became a man of power;
All except the Pharaoh king
Before this man did cower

In Jacob’s land a famine came
Because the crops did fail
In Egypt then the brothers met
But that’s another tale

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