The Gospel of Many Colours

The Coat of Many Colours (Jacob and Joseph's Coat), was painted in 1866 by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93) though it was first drawn in 1863 for an illustrated Bible. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob that he had been killed by a wild animal, exhibiting to him his multi-coloured coat with blood stains as proof.

The artist cleverly depicts the different facial expressions. The older brothers’ deception and cunning is alloyed with fear and regret; old Jacob glares at the coat; his sorrow is tinged with disbelief, even anger at being deceived- but how does he prove it?

The young man’s face to Jacob’s side is surely Benjamin; he too gazes intently, pondering how this apparent tragedy fits with Joseph’s earlier dreams of greatness.

The life of Joseph foreshadowed the life of Jesus. He too was betrayed by His brethren, sold into a kind of slavery, and though written off as dead, returned to life. He too rescues Hebrew and gentile alike from sin’s famine. Those of His contemporaries who loved Him and followed Him must have been mightily perplexed that first Good Friday. How could He who raised other to life succumb so easily to death Himself? How could He claim to save the world by dying on a cross?

And all his (Israel's) sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him Genesis 37:35

Yet later:

And Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive.” Genesis 46:30