Eleventh and favorite son of the patriarch Jacob, firstborn of Rachel; father of the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim (called House of Joseph), which (especially the latter) constituted a powerful element in the nation before the monarchy and at the beginning of the northern Kingdom of Israel.
The Book of Genesis (chs. 37 and 39–50) tells how Jacob favored Joseph, as a result of which his jealous brothers sold him to Ishmaelite merchants traveling to Egypt, where he was bought as a slave by Potiphar, chief of Pharaoh's household, but imprisoned on a false accusation by Potiphar's wife. His reputation as interpreter of dreams eventually reached the king, who released him from prison and later appointed him as viceroy. When famine struck Canaan, Joseph's father and brothers settled in Egypt and received grazing land in Goshen (today west of the Suez Canal), beginning the Israelite settlement in Egypt.
Joseph died at the age of 110. His body was carried by the Israelites through their wanderings in the wilderness, next to the ark of the Covenant, for burial in a plot of land bought by Jacob at Shechem (Nablus).
Dubbed "Joseph the Tzaddik (Righteous)," principally because he resisted attempts by Potiphar's wife to seduce him, he was regarded as the archetypal tzaddik, the likes of whom sustain the world. "The righteous uphold the world" (Prov. 10:25) is interpreted as a reference to him. The final redemption vision includes a Messiah son of Joseph, who will precede, and be killed before the coming of "Messiah son of David" (TB. Suk. 52b).
