Coat of many colors
coat, cape, wrap, or tunic of Joseph, which his brothers drenched in blood and showed to heir father Jacob, to hide that they had sold Joseph into slavery
In the Hebrew Bible, the coat of many colors or ketonet passim (Biblical Hebrew: כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים, romanized: kəṯoneṯ passim) is the name for the garment that the Biblical Joseph owned; it was given to him by his father Jacob in Vayeshev (Genesis 37).
Biblical narrative
Joseph's father, Jacob (also called Israel), favored him and gave Joseph the coat as a gift; as a result, he was envied by his brothers, who saw the special coat as an indication that Joseph would assume family leadership. His brothers' suspicion grew when Joseph told them of his two dreams (Genesis 37:11) in which all the brothers bowed down to him. The narrative tells that his brothers plotted against him when he was 17, and would have killed him had not the eldest brother Reuben interposed. He persuaded them instead to throw Joseph into a pit and secretly planned to rescue him later. However, while Reuben was absent, the others planned to sell him to a company of Ishmaelite merchants. When the passing Midianites arrived, the brothers dragged Joseph up and sold him to the merchants for 20 pieces of silver. The brothers then dipped Joseph's coat in goat blood and showed it to their father, saying that Joseph had been torn apart by a lion.
Translation
According to the King James Version, Genesis 37:3 reads, "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours."
The Septuagint translation of the passage uses the word ποικίλος (poikilos), which indicates "many coloured"; the Jewish Publication Society of America Version also employs the phrase "coat of many colours". On the other hand, the Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible translate kətonet passim as "a long robe with sleeves" while the New International Version notes the translation difficulties in a footnote, and translates it as "a richly ornamented robe".
“Coat of many colors” enters the record as coat, cape, wrap, or tunic of Joseph, which his brothers drenched in blood and showed to heir father Jacob, to hide that they had sold Joseph into slavery. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coat, many and colors can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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