Vayeshev

[32] Judah took her for a harlot, offered her a young goat for her services, and gave her his signet and staff as a pledge for payment, and they cohabited and she conceived.

[55] And Joseph asked the butler to remember him and mention him to Pharaoh, so that he might be brought out of the prison, for he had been stolen away from his land and had done nothing to warrant his imprisonment.

[57] Joseph interpreted that within three days Pharaoh would lift up the baker's head and hang him on a tree, and the birds would eat his flesh.

The parashah is discussed in these rabbinic sources from the era of the Mishnah and the Talmud:[64] Johanan bar Nappaha taught that wherever Scripture uses the term "And he abode" (וַיֵּשֶׁב‎, vayeshev), as it does in Genesis 37:1, it presages trouble.

Rabbi Meir taught that Joseph told Jacob that his sons were suspected of eating the limb of a living animal.

Jacob's sending Joseph to his brothers thus set in motion the descent of the Children of Israel to Egypt in fulfillment of God's words to Abraham.

Thus Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba taught that if one begins a precept and does not complete it, the result will be that he will bury his wife and children.

God answered that it included (in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17), “You shall not steal.” The children of Ishmael replied that they were unable to abandon their fathers' custom, as Joseph said in Genesis 40:15 (referring to the Ishmaelites' transaction reported in Genesis 37:28), “For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews.” From there, God sent messengers to all the nations of the world asking them whether they would accept the Torah, and they asked what was written in it.

Know now whether it is your son's coat or not,'" Johanan bar Nappaha taught that God ordained that since Judah said this to his father, he too would hear (from Tamar in Genesis 38:25) the challenge: Know now, whose are these?

[89] The Mishnah taught that notwithstanding its mature content, in the synagogue, Jews read and translated Tamar's story in Genesis 38.

[92] Rabbi Samuel bar Naḥmani taught that Judah buried his wife and two sons (as reported in Genesis 38:7, 10, and 12) because he did not complete the act of saving Joseph.

[93] Rav Naḥman bar Isaac read the report of Genesis 38:10 that God "slew him also" to indicate that Onan, also, died the same death for performing the same transgression as his brother Er.

Rabbi Eleazar explained that the verb thus implies that after Tamar's proofs—Judah's signet, cord, and staff—were found, Samael (the angel of evil) removed them and the archangel Gabriel restored them.

"[97] Reading the word "please" (נָא‎, na) in Genesis 38:25, the Gemara taught that Tamar was saying to Judah, "I beg of you, discern the face of your Creator and do not hide your eyes from me.

And so the Midrash taught it shall be in the world to come (the Messianic era), for as Ezekiel 37:25 foretells, "And David My servant shall be their prince forever.

Rabbi Johanan interpreted the words, "And it came to pass about this time, that he went into the house to do his work," in Genesis 39:11 to teach that both Joseph and Potiphar's wife had the intention to act immorally.

The Gemara taught that just at the moment reported in Genesis 39:12 when "she caught him by his garment, saying: ‘Lie with me,' Jacob's image came and appeared to Joseph through the window.

Rabbi Judah (or some say Jose) son of Rabbi Haninah deduced from the words "And let them [the descendants of Joseph] multiply like fishes [ve-yidgu] in the midst of the earth" in Genesis 48:16 that just as fish (dagim) in the sea are covered by water and thus the evil eye has no power over them, so the evil eye has no power over the descendants of Joseph.

The Gemara then provided an alternative explanation: Exodus 6:25 could mean that Phinehas descended from Joseph, who conquered (pitpeit) his passions (resisting Potiphar's wife, as reported in Genesis 39).

The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael taught that God shares the affliction of not only the community, but also of the individual, as Psalm 91:15 says, "He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble."

"[109] A Midrash cited the words of Genesis 39:21, “And gave His grace in the sight of the keeper,” as an application to Joseph of the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:25, “The Lord .

And Rabbi Jeremiah read the words of Genesis 40:10, "and as it was budding, its blossoms shot forth," to foretell the time that Exodus 1:7 reports when the Jewish people would be fruitful and multiply.

[69] The parashah is discussed in these medieval Jewish sources:[115] Reading the words of Genesis 39:2, "And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian," the Zohar taught that wherever the righteous walk, God protects them and never abandons them.

The Zohar told that Joseph was thrown into the dungeon, in the words of Psalm 105:18, "His feet they hurt with fetters, his person was laid in iron."

[118] Ephraim Speiser argued that in spite of its surface unity, the Joseph story, on closer scrutiny, yields two parallel strands similar in general outline, yet markedly different in detail.

When the brothers were on their way home from their first mission to Egypt with grain, they opened their bags at a night stop and were shocked to find the payment for their purchases.

[120] Kselman reported that more recent scholarship finds in the Joseph story a background in the Solomonic era, as Solomon’s marriage to a daughter of the pharaoh (reported in 1 Kings 9:16 and 11:1) indicated an era of amicable political and commercial relations between Egypt and Israel that would explain the positive attitude of the Joseph narrative to Egypt.

[123] Donald Redford and other scholars following him suspected that behind the Joseph story stood an altogether invented Egyptian or Canaanite tale that was popular on its own before an editor changed the main characters to Jacob and his sons.

[125] Gerhard von Rad argued that the Joseph narrative is closely related to earlier Egyptian wisdom literature.

[126] The wisdom ideology maintained that a Divine plan underlay all of reality, so that everything unfolds in accordance with a preestablished pattern—precisely what Joseph says to his brothers in Genesis 44:5 and 50:20.