September 22

Bahá’u’lláh, in one of His Tablets, describes Himself as the “Divine Joseph” Who has been “bartered away” by the heedless “for the most paltry of prices”. The Báb, in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, identifies Bahá’u’lláh as the “true Joseph” and forecasts the ordeals that He would endure at the hands of His treacherous brother. Likewise, Shoghi Effendi draws a parallel between the intense jealousy which the preeminence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had aroused in His half-brother, Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, and the deadly envy “which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the hearts of his brothers”. (From the “Notes” section of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice)