Cloaked in Grace: Joseph's Many Coats
Have you ever had a nightmare where you suddenly realized you were naked? Or been told that picturing the audience in their underwear will help you feel less nervous? Nakedness and shame have been associated for a long time… But did you know that the Bible inversely associates clothing with honor?
In my personal Bible reading, I’ve been studying the story of Joseph. Of course, you’ve probably heard of his famous technicolor dream coat… But did you know that clothes play an important role throughout his story?
There’s an interesting *thread* to follow:
Joseph is given a cloak of honor.
His brothers strip it off and cover it with blood.
Potiphar’s wife rips off his cloak when she deceitfully accuses him of attacking her.
When Joseph is taken from jail to meet the King, he is clothed again.
When he is made second-in-command to Pharaoh, he is clothed in royal robes.
Joseph ultimately gives his brothers new clothes.
This is a much more artistic Bible story than we might realize; the writer wanted us to follow the fashion. And when we do, the gospel comes through clearly.
The story begins with the outfit everyone knows–in Genesis 37:3: Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic coat with long sleeves.
The word for varicolored tunic is a kutonet passim. This same word is later used for priest’s clothes in Exodus, and princess robes in 2 Samuel 13…which means we can assume this coat of many colors indicated status. It has some association with spiritual authority and with the authority to rule. The different colored fibers would have been hard to come by, perhaps coming from many different nations and being woven together. At the very least, it likely indicated that Joseph was his favored heir, despite his younger age.
Such a statement filled his brothers with resentment, until they finally stripped the cloak away. They left him naked and ashamed in a pit, and they put blood on the coat and return it, ruined, to their father, saying Joseph was killed. They don’t just take the coat from their brother; they stain it forever, covering its beauty.
Genesis 37:31: “Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.”
The image of a coat dipped in blood is one that comes up repeatedly throughout the Bible. Priests’ robes were sprinkled with blood to anoint them, in the Old Testament, and in Revelation, a rider on a white horse appears in a robe that’s been dipped in blood. Our culture doesn’t think about blood, its associations with life, death, and spirituality, but to early readers or people passing this story orally, such associations would have been obvious. There is mystery in these actions; is the blood a symbol of shame? Or of sacrifice and anointing? As is typical in artistic writing, and in the Bible in particular, we’re meant to ask questions more than know the answer.
Despite this stripping away of his honor, Joseph flourishes in his foreign land… until his clothes are stripped away from him a second time, this time by the Potiphar’s wife.
She tries to force him into bed several times. She eventually grabs him by his slave clothes, his beged (which shares the same root word as “rebel” or betrayal), but he leaves behind his beged, so that she shows his beged as a symbol of betrayal. In fact, the word is repeated six times in six verses, in Genesis 39:12-18.
He is naked, without beged, and dishonored again. Then, he is thrown into a different pit–a dungeon.
But he still seems to carry some of the spiritual authority his initial coat might have indicated, and in the prison, he shows this by correctly interpreting dreams. So:
Genesis 41: Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh.
Joseph is given a simla. The first time the simla is mentioned is in Genesis 9:23, when Noah is drunk. Two of his sons walk backwards and lay a simla over him, to cover his nakedness and save him from shame.
Joseph’s simla signals a narrative turning point–from humiliation to covering.
But the fashion reveals that God has a bigger plan than simply removing shame; Joseph is actively clothed with even greater authority and power.
“Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck.” Genesis 41:42
These “garments” were like royal robes, and the accessories demonstrated his new status and authority over the land of Egypt. It’s a striking journey, from the future-oriented coat of many colors, to being stripped naked and shamed repeatedly, to now being given a real and present power. But the story doesn’t stop there.
Not only does Joseph have new clothes for himself, but he offers the same simla covering to his brothers.
To each of them he gave changes of garments, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of garments. Genesis 45:22
They don’t even recognize their brother, arrayed in power and honor, but he offers them stunning forgiveness and covers up the shame of what they have done to him.
These costume changes of humiliation and honor don’t just mark Joseph’s narrative–it marks ours. The first time clothing appears in the Bible, it is also used to cover up shame:
Genesis 3:21: And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
Joseph’s story deliberately calls us back to our human beginning. We discovered our nakedness, vulnerability, and need for protection. And God lovingly covered up our shame.
Often, when we say we’re arts ministers, people respond as if the arts are non-essential. In fact, sometimes I’ll ask people to raise their hand if they think art affects their life, and only one or two will raise their hands. They’re imagining, perhaps, glamorous oil paintings and beret-ful salons, or the rare live theater experience they have every few years. But when I start to point out the art in their daily lives that they’ve overlooked–Netflix, architecture, and especially clothes–suddenly it becomes clear that the arts are not some lofty, impractical ideals. They are literally all around us. Like, wrapped around our very skin.
God cares so much about the arts that He uses repeated symbols as signposts in His stories. And He cares so much about fashion that He centers it from the first book of the Bible to the last.
What does your clothing reflect about you? The colors you wear, the shape of your clothes, the culture they fit into… What authority does your clothing reflect?
How can you practically clothe another person in honor? Think of the tattered clothes of the homeless or others who have need… How might you see them differently if they were dressed differently? How might they see themselves?
Next time you get dressed, ask God what he wants to show you in your wardrobe. You might be surprised by some insight! I know I was.
