by a grievous trial. As he drew near to Ephrath, the Canaanitish name of Bethlehem, Rachel his favourite wife died in giving birth to a son, whom she called Ben-oni, _the son of sorrow_, but whom his father named BENJAMIN, _the son of my right hand_. Over her grave the sorrowing husband erected a pillar, and moving southward pitched his tent beside Edar, or _the watch-tower of the flocks_, and subsequently beneath the oak of Mamre before Hebron, where Isaac died, in the 180th year of his age, and was committed to the tomb by Jacob and Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 27–29). CHAPTER V. _HISTORY OF JOSEPH._ GEN. XXXVII.–XLII. B.C. 1727–1707. IT was while he was sojourning in the neighbourhood of Hebron, where, like his father, he united agricultural with pastoral occupations (Gen. xxxvii. 7) that the saddest trial of his life befell Jacob. Of all his sons none was dearer to him than Joseph, the child of his beloved Rachel. In token of his affection he bestowed upon him _a coat of many colours_, probably a tunic furnished with sleeves and reaching down to the ankles, worn by youths of the richer class[39]. By some this is supposed to indicate his intention of transferring to him, as being the _eldest son of the favourite Rachel_, the right of primogeniture. Whether this was so or not, it roused much jealousy and ill-feeling amongst Joseph’s brothers, already incensed by the circumstance of his bearing to his father, when seventeen years of age, an evil report of the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah, with whom he kept the flocks. Another incident fanned the flame of ill-feeling. Joseph unwittingly told his brethren of two dreams he had dreamt, in one of which he had seemed to see them binding sheaves in the field, and lo! his sheaf rose and stood upright, while their sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to his sheaf; in the other he beheld the sun, moon, and the eleven stars making obeisance to him. Even Jacob rebuked his favourite son for his seeming self-exaltation, _though he observed the saying_ (Gen. xxxvii. 11).