Parshat Vayeshev4 min read

Joseph Went Down to Egypt so Six Hundred Thousand Could Come Up

Joseph's descent from Canaan into Egypt was the first step of a multiplication the rabbis tracked from seventy souls to a nation counted at the sea.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. One Man, One Road, One Coat
  2. The Number That Waited in Egypt
  3. The Coat and the Sea
  4. Counting Toward a Promise

One Man, One Road, One Coat

Joseph was seventeen years old when his brothers stripped the coat from his back and dropped him into a pit. He was the favorite son of an old man who had made the mistake of advertising the preference in cloth. His brothers had watched the coat for too long and let what they saw harden into something they acted on when the opportunity came in the Dothan fields, far from their father's tent.

The coat was striped, or long-sleeved, or many-colored: the Hebrew word has been debated across the centuries. What is agreed is that it was particular and conspicuous, the kind of garment a person wears when someone else has decided to mark them out. When the coat disappeared, seventy people began moving toward a fate that would not become fully visible for four hundred years.

The Number That Waited in Egypt

Genesis counts the family that came down to Egypt under Jacob's authority: sixty-six people, or seventy with Jacob and Joseph and his two sons already in Egypt. The tradition standardized around seventy. Midrash Tehillim reads Psalm 45's promise that sons will stand in the place of fathers as a prophecy directed at that number. Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Yosei traces the line from the seventy who entered Egypt to the six hundred thousand men of military age who left at the Exodus, and from that number to the future promise of even greater children.

The multiplication is not accidental in rabbinic understanding. Egypt was the furnace where the nation was formed. The pressure that produced Israel as a people required a closed space, a hostile government, forced labor, and enough time for seventy people to become a mass too large to ignore. Joseph's descent into Egypt was not only his personal misfortune. It was the mechanism.

The Coat and the Sea

The aggadic tradition makes a formal connection between the coat and the miracle at the sea. The color and the pattern of Joseph's garment reappear in the imagery of the splitting waters. The rabbis of the Mekhilta tracked this as a record of correspondence: what was done to Joseph in Canaan echoed across centuries until the sea opened and the people who descended from his father's household walked through on dry ground. The coat that was torn off began a chain of events that ended in the sea tearing open.

Joseph himself understood something of this. Genesis 50:25 records that before he died he made Israel swear to carry his bones out of Egypt when the time came. He did not ask this because he was uncertain about the promise. He asked it because he knew the promise would be kept and he wanted his bones present at the fulfillment of what his descent had set in motion.

Counting Toward a Promise

The Mekhilta tractate Bachodesh preserves the tradition associated with Rabbi Eliezer: that Israel was counted ten times across the long span of its history, from the entry into Egypt to the age yet to come. The counts are not bureaucratic exercises. Each one marks a moment when the nation was assessed, organized, and prepared for what came next. The six hundred thousand at the Exodus are the central count, the one against which all others are measured.

Psalm 45 says that sons will stand in the place of fathers, and the rabbis heard in that verse the full scope of the Josephite promise: children arising from the nation Joseph's descent made possible, taking the place of the fathers who were counted at the sea, in the camp, in the wilderness, and in the end in the land.

JosephExodusSix Hundred ThousandIsraelProphecy
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From the tradition

Sources

5 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Midrash Tehillim 45:7Midrash Tehillim

The verse Now, The first reading, that might seem straightforward. But as with so much in Jewish tradition, there's a deeper layer waiting to be uncovered.

Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Yosei, offers a pretty remarkable interpretation. He suggests that in the future, every single person from Israel will have children like those of Egypt. Like, how?

He connects it back to the Exodus, the foundational story of our people. "Your children shall be under your fathers," he says, referring to the sheer number of Israelites who left Egypt. And just how many were our ancestors back then? A staggering six hundred thousand! Six hundred thousand! for a second.

Rabbi Elazar is suggesting that, in the future, the Jewish people will experience a similar kind of… well, boom. A population explosion, almost mirroring the incredible growth the Israelites experienced in Egypt.

Now, Rabbi Abbahu, another sage, anticipates our skepticism. Are we really supposed to believe that each person will have that many children? It sounds a little far-fetched, doesn't it? So Rabbi Abbahu tells a story. It’s not quite on the level of the population of those who left Egypt, but it illustrates the point.

He tells of a hen that laid two eggs one day and then another egg the next. It might not sound like much, but it’s more than normal. The point? Don't be surprised by what seems impossible. Miracles happen. The natural order can be, well, unordered.

Then, Rabbi Abbahu brings in a verse from the prophet Isaiah: "For as the days of a tree shall be the days of My people" (Isaiah 65:22). Trees, especially ancient ones, can live for centuries, growing and flourishing. This verse suggests that the Jewish people, like a long-lived tree, will endure and prosper, experiencing days as numerous and fruitful as the rings of a tree.

So what does all this mean for us today? Perhaps it’s a message of hope. A reminder that even in the face of challenges, the Jewish people are resilient, capable of growth and renewal. Maybe it’s not about the literal number of children, but about the continuation of our traditions, our values, and our story through future generations.

It's a powerful image, isn't it? The idea of a future where the Jewish people flourish, echoing the miraculous growth of our ancestors in Egypt. It’s a future worth striving for, a future where we continue to pass down the wisdom and traditions that have sustained us for millennia.

Full source
Mekhilta Tractate Bachodesh 2:14Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

This midrash of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael belongs to the section on the giving of the Torah, where the L-rd promises Israel that they shall be to Him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yossi Haglili, reads that promise as a guarantee carried down the generations, that every Jew will have descendants worthy to stand beside those who left Egypt. He derives this from the verse, "In place of your fathers will be your sons" (Psalms 45:17), which assures continuity from one faithful generation to the next.

The teaching then refines the promise through a series of objections and corrections drawn from the same psalm. If the verse said only "sons," one might imagine even the sick and the lowly. Therefore it adds, "you will make them princes in all the land" (Psalms 45:17), raising them in standing. If "princes," one might picture mere merchants who buy and sell. Therefore the larger context speaks of a kingdom, lifting them to royal rank.

Yet if the promise stops at kingship, one might suppose the king reverts to being a man of war and conquest. Therefore Scripture chooses the word priests, those who are free and at rest from battle, as the midrash notes by reading the term to mean idlers from war. The proof text is, "And the sons of David were priests" (II Samuel 8:18), where royal sons bear a priestly dignity that sets them apart from the soldier's lot. So the descendants of Israel are promised a station that is at once princely, royal, and serenely priestly.

Full source
Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shemot 2:3Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shemot

Another interpretation: David said (Psalms 147:3): "He heals the broken-hearted." These are the tribes, whose heart was broken, saying that perhaps Joseph would kill them. (Psalms 147:4, same place:) "He counts the number of the stars." These are the tribes. Just as these stars go forth only by names, as it is said (same place): "He calls them all by names", and likewise upon their entering they enter by a count, as it is said: "He counts the number of the stars", so too the tribes: when they entered Egypt it is written (Deuteronomy 10:22): "With seventy souls your ancestors went down to Egypt," and when they went out, "about six hundred thousand on foot" (Exodus 12:37). And the tribes, because they had not gone down to Egypt, their names were specified; and once they entered, their names were specified, as it is said: "And these are the names of the children of Israel."

Full source
Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Tisa 8:3Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Tisa

One on their descent into Egypt. Concerning Egypt it is written, with seventy souls (did your ancestors go down to Egypt) (Deuteronomy 10:22).

And one on their going up, as it is said, And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, (about six hundred thousand) (Exodus 12:37).

And one in the portion of Ki Tisa.

And two in the book of Vaydabber (Numbers): one with the standards, and one in the division of the land.

And two in the days of Saul, as it is said, And he mustered them in Telaim (1 Samuel 15:4); And he mustered them in Bezek (1 Samuel 11:8).

And one in the days of David, as it is said, And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people (2 Samuel 24:9).

And one on their going up from the exile, as it is said, The whole congregation together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty (Ezra 2:64).

And one in the age to come, (as it is said,) The flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them (Jeremiah 33:13).

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 141:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

"Come and see the works of God" (Psalms 66:5), and it is written after it, "He turned the sea into dry land" (Psalms 66:6). Why "and they hated him" (Genesis 37:4)? Because he split the sea before them in stripes upon stripes (passim passim).

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