Vayeshev: The Amazing Multi-Named Joseph
By Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein
Jacob’s penultimate son was born to him by his beloved wife Rachel after many years of her going childless. The Bible relates that upon his birth, Rachel exclaimed, “Hashem has gathered up (asaf) my embarrassment,” further noting that she called him Yosef, with the wishful prayer that “Hashem shall add [yosef] for me another son” (Gen. 30:23–24). But Yosef was not his only name. In one place in the Bible, Joseph is actually referred to as Yehosef (Ps. 81:6), with an additional hey between the first two letters of Yosef. Moreover, the Bible itself reports that when Joseph took a leadership role in the Egyptian government, people called him Avreich (Gen. 41:43) and the Pharaoh called him Tzafnat Paneach (Gen. 41:45). In this essay, we discuss Joseph’s various names, exploring the etymology of each appellation and showing how each name focuses on a specific aspect of the amazing tzaddik.
The name Yosef appears more than 200 times throughout the Bible in reference to Joseph and/or his descendants. Jacob’s son Joseph was not the only person named Yosef in the Bible. Three more people bore that name: Yosef, whose son Yigal was the spy from the tribe of Issachar (Num. 13:7); Yosef from the family of Assaf, who was one of the singers in the time of King David (I Chron. 25:9); and Yosef who is listed among the returnees from the Babylonian Exile in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 10:42, Neh. 12:14).
As you may have realized, the name Yosef is derived from the verb yosef (“he shall add”), just like his mother Rachel explained. The early Hebrew lexicographers like Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach, and Radak trace this word to the triliteral root yod-samech-peh (“add/extra”). However, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (1740–1814) understands that the letter yod is not integral to the root, and he sees the core root as the biliteral samech-peh(“end”). Other words derived from this root include sof (“end,” “conclusion”), sayif (“sword,” the implement that brings about the end of a person’s life), safah (“lip,” “edge,” “riverbank”), saf (“threshold,” the edge of a certain domain), and asifah (“gathering,” which alters the boundaries/ends of a set). In something similar to his explanation of this last word, Rabbi Pappenheim writes that hosafah/tosefet (“adding”) entails redefining the limits within a certain boundary and extending the “end” to reach somewhere that it had not yet stretched.
The Talmud (Sotah 10b, 36b) teaches that because Joseph sanctified the name of Hashem in private by justly refusing to sin with Potiphar’s wife, Joseph merited that an extra letter of Hashem’s name (hey) be added to his own name, thus turning Yosef into Yehosef. Nonetheless, this name was not added to Joseph’s name immediately; rather, when the arch-angel Gabriel sought to teach Joseph all seventy languages, he added the heyto Yosef to become Yehosef.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740–1810) infers from a piyyut recited at Shacharit on the first day of Rosh Hashanah (Even Choger) that Joseph was already named Yehosef while he was still in his mother’s womb, long before he was in Egypt. The Berditchever reconciles these traditions by explaining that a fetus inside its mother’s womb is said to study the entire Torah by way of an angel (see Niddah 30b), so Joseph already studied all seventy languages via his angelic in-utero tutor (because all seventy languages are subsumed within the wisdom of the Torah); as a result, the name Yehosef already applied to him from then. However, once Joseph was born, he forgot everything he learned in his pre-natal studies. Because of this, Gabriel had to later re-teach Joseph those languages and bring him back to a state of Yehosef, as opposed to Yosef.
According to Maimonides (Laws of Klei HaMikdash 9:9), Joseph was listed among the other tribes on the Shoham Stones (affixed to the Kohen Gadol’s shoulders) under the name Yehosef, even though on the Choshenbreastplate, his name was spelled Yosef (see Minchat Chinuch, Mitzvah #99). n
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Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is an author and freelance researcher based in Beitar Illit. He studied in Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles, the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Beth Medrash Govoha of America in Lakewood, and received semichah from leading rabbis. He also holds an MA in Jewish Education from Middlesex University/London School of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Klein authored two popular books that were published by Mosaica Press, as well as countless scholarly articles published in various venues. His articles on Hebrew synonyms are commissioned by Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem and have appeared on their website since 2016.
