Slavery? Really? /// Question About the Bible

Sometimes, when you're reading the Bible, you might come across something that's confusing, or you can't figure out why God would let something like that happen. That's what happened with Joseph in Genesis 37. He went through some pretty terrible things: His brothers sold him into slavery, he went to prison in Egypt, and then he helped the king of Egypt and went back to jail again. Overall, a pretty rough start to his life. 

But Joseph kept obeying God all his life, and eventually he was let go out of prison, and the king made him a very powerful person in the government of Egypt. And when a huge and terrible famine came, Joseph was able to help his family (including the brothers that sold him into slavery in the first place). 

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Why would his brothers do that? They're his family, aren't they supposed to love him? Well, yeah, but they were really jealous of Joseph. See, Joseph was their father's favorite son, and he got a special gift from his dad, a coat of many colors, and it was beautiful. Plus, Joseph had some dreams that seemed to say that his brothers would have to bow down to Joseph and let him rule over them. (That really did happen, but they didn't like to hear that at the time.)

Their jealousy of Joseph eventually made them want to kill him, and they would have too, except one of the brothers, Reuben, convinced them to just throw him down an empty well instead (he was going come back and save Joseph later). Later, some traders heading to Egypt came by, and they sold him to the traders, and that's how Joseph got to Egypt in the first place.

Got questions?

If you've read something like this in the Bible, and you want some help figuring it out, you can ask one of your parents or your pastor to help you, and you can always ask me for help too! I'll do my best to help you. You can talk to me at 800-819-5437, and if I don't pick up, go ahead and leave me a message, I'll call you back.

/// Dylan