Double Trouble (Genesis 43)

As it turns out, Jacob sometimes called Israel didn’t let Reuben go back to Egypt with Benjamin just then.  He waited until they were all out of grain again before thinking about sending back his sons. The brothers insist that Benjamin has to go because Joseph-incognito won’t sell them any more grain unless Benjamin is proven to exist. They go back and forth about Benjamin going or not going, and eventually Judah convinces Israel to let them all go back. Israel insists that they bring a gift, the original returned money as well as new money for payment, and lets them leave with Benjamin.

When the caravan of brothers gets to Egypt, Joseph sees Benjamin from afar. He has his steward begin preparations for a feast and bring the travel weary men to his house to get cleaned up. When the brothers see the steward, they freak out. Obviously they’re all going back to jail, right? Well, that’s what they thought. They confess about the returned money, that they brought it back, and have gads more for grain. The steward calms them down, gets them inside, and brings out Simeon. You remember him. The long incarcerated brother that’s very clearly less important than Benjamin.

Joseph-incognito eventually makes his appearance, and the brothers bow before him. He asks about his dad, and discovering that Jacob/Israel is alive and kickin’, takes a closer look at his brothers. Seeing Benjamin there, Joseph just about loses it. He manages to keep his mask on until he has a private moment to cry, wash his face, and order dinner served.  Joseph’s brothers eat separately from the Egyptians, as was the custom, and Joseph eats separately from everyone. One kind of weird thing happened: Benjamin’s portion was five times what everyone else’s was. Either way, it was apparently a pretty great party.

This chapter was really the first one to really smack me over the head with literary tricks. Just about everything, including the language used, came in twos, or was doubled, or represented a pairing. Almost everything the brothers said, they said it twice, whether within the same conversation or repeated at someone else. Jacob’s second name, Israel, was used instead. Judah, a second brother, is the one that convinced Israel to let them bring Benjamin back, and even says to Israel that if they’d been allowed to go already, they’d have already returned twice. The gift that he compiled was a set of four item/monetary pairings. The brothers brought back double the money to compensate what was returned to them. This was the brothers second trip to Egypt for a second load of grain. It called back Joseph and Pharaoh’s two dreams each. This trip represented the second time Joseph’s brothers bowed down to him, fulfilling his second dream. And the brother’s return trip to Egypt because they ran out of grain a second time? Well, that brings to mind Pharaoh’s two dreams of plenteousness becoming famine. Oh, and one more thing. Joseph’s double life and his secret identity of, well, himself.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Don't Get Mad. Get Even (Genesis 42)

The whole world is in massive famine, except for Egypt. Jacob (Joseph’s dad. Remember him?) yells at all of his remaining sons  for not already having gone to Egypt to buy grain to feed their family.  So the brothers all head out to buy grain except for Benjamin, the now youngest son. It would seem that Jacob doesn’t trust the herd to not pick off the youngest and leave it behind. Once they’re in Egypt, Joseph’s brothers came and bowed before Joseph, the governor of all Egypt. He recognized them in a heartbeat, but his brothers were totally clueless. Joseph did what all scorned, left for dead, now raised to power little brothers would do: he messed with them. He insists that they are spies from the land of Canaan, and aren’t just there to buy food. They insist that their intentions are honorable, and as a display of their honor start babbling about their family. Joseph makes a show of not believing them until he sees the youngest brother with his own eyes. He says he’ll let one brother go to fetch the last one, but first he puts them all in jail for three days.

After the three days, Joseph goes to collect the one brother that will get sent home with enough grain for everyone and then return with Benjamin. Oh yeah, if he doesn’t return with Benjamin, everybody dies. Now, Joseph has been using an interpreter this whole time to disguise himself even further, so when his brothers launch into a “foreign” language discussion, he can still understand them. Presumably, they’d be talking about which brother to send. They were, however, having a karmic conversation about how they’re being treated like this now because of what they did to Joseph. It takes famine, prison, and death threats to make them feel remorse… but they got there eventually. Reuben (who tried saving Joseph way back when) gets his “I told you so” moment in there too.  Having heard and understood all of this, Joseph has a good cry when they can’t see him, and goes back saying he’s changed his mind about sending only one brother. Now, he sends all but one (Simeon), and when he gives them the grain, he hides the money they paid him for it in their grain too.

So the brothers all get home, one of them having discovered his money on the way. They tell Jacob what went down in the land of Egypt, and Jacob has a fit. I don’t think Jacob will ever trust his sons to do anything without losing one from the pack each time from now on. Heck, the only reason he eventually let Reuben go back with Benjamin and “rescue” Simeon is because Reuben told Jacob to slaughter his two eldest sons if he comes back without Benjamin. Jacob lets him go… but tells Reuben that he’s the cause of Jacob’s gray hair. I had no idea that saying had been around for that long.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad (Genesis 41)

Two whole years later, Pharaoh has some nightmares. In the first one, seven healthy, delicious looking cows come out of the Nile and graze. They’re shortly followed by seven mangy, ugly, cannibal cows that sneak up on and devour the first seven cows. After waking up in a cold sweat from that one, and hoping to fall back into a peaceful sleep, Pharaoh’s second nightmare starts. In this one, grain is the focus. Seven wonderful, plump ears of grain end up falling victim to seven thin, blighted ears. Now since these dreams concerned all of the most central icons of Egyptian life and economy, the Pharaoh was rightly freaked out. He desperately tried to find someone to interpret these dreams, but no one could.

At this point, the chief cupbearer chimes in, remembering Joseph who is still locked away in prison. He informs Pharaoh of Joseph’s accurate dream interpretations. Pharaoh sends for Joseph and asks him to interpret. Joseph agrees, but points out again that it’s God who does the interpreting and that Joseph is merely the vessel for it. Either way, it comes down to seven good fruitful years of abundance followed by seven years of the worst famine the world has ever seen. Joseph recommends stockpiling food during the seven years of plenty because God has forewarned them all that the famine is coming and fast. Now, normally with all the God talk that Joseph has been doing, Pharaoh would be disinclined to listen as everybody knows that Pharaohs are gods themselves. This one, however, did listen. He even put Joseph in charge of collecting and storing all the food. He goes so far as to make Joseph his right hand man saying, “only with regard to the throne will I be greater than you” (41:40). As part of Joseph’s new station he gets fancy new duds and a signet ring. Man, Joseph gets a costume change every time his luck changes. It’s almost like it’s a literary device of some sort. Anyways, the seven food-filled years happen as predicted, stockpiling and all, and when the seven years of famine start, Pharaoh sends everyone in the country to Joseph for their rations.

Now, with his new station, Joseph gets a wife, and eventually they have two sons that he names according to his life experiences. The firstborn is named Manasseh, which means “making to forget” because Joseph says God helped him forget his crappy childhood. You remember, the one where his brothers were going to kill him but sold him into slavery instead. The second son is named Ephraim, meaning “to be fruitful.” I think this one is fairly obvious from this chapter and all of the rising to power. I was going to skip talking about this part all together because I didn’t think it seemed terribly important, but then it kind of hit me. Joseph isn’t a character that lets us know what’s going on in his head like some others we have and will meet. He’s all about hard work and interpreting dreams to the point where you can actually forget the terrible things he’s had to endure in his life. He just keeps on keeping on. Working hard, loving his God, and being a generally well-adjusted person. It’s one of those moments reminding us that everyone has a story to tell, and their own set of baggage to go with it, whether they tote it openly or not. Be kind to people. You never know when someone was thrown into a pit by their own family and turned into a piece of property.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Joseph Makes Prison Buddies (Genesis 40)

One day, Pharaoh became displeased with his chief cupbearer and chief baker and throws them in prison. It’s a good thing for them that he didn’t have a rancor in a pit somewhere.  As luck would have it, the two men end up in Joseph’s prison, and the captain of the guard tells Joseph to keep his eye on the new guys.  After a little while, the chief cupbearer and chief baker each dream a dream that uneases each of them, and they don’t have a chief dream interpreter in prison this month. Joseph has had some experience with dreams, however, and says to them, “Do not all interpretations belong to God?” (40:8)

We start with the cupbearer. In his dream, there were three branches on a grape vine that bloomed and ripened into grapes which the cupbearer squeezed into Pharaoh’s cup and served him. Joseph interprets this dream to mean that in three days, Pharaoh will come to his senses and restore the chief cupbearer to his original position. Oh, and because I, Joseph, just interpreted your dream so incredibly favorably, do tell the Pharaoh about me since I was ripped from my homeland and am actually completely innocent. Seeing that the cupbearer’s dream interpretation was so wonderful, the chief baker offers up his dream too. In his dream, he had three cake baskets on his head, but birds were eating the food in the top one that was meant for Pharaoh.  Joseph, unfortunately, does not have good news about this one.  He tells the baker that his dream foreshadows his execution and public display of his remains in three days. Sucks for you, guy. So three days later, it’s Pharaoh’s birthday. What an amazing coincidence! Joseph was dead on, too. The chief cupbearer gets restored to his position, and the chief baker…well, Pharaoh had found a new chief baker. And does the chief cupbearer remember to tell Pharaoh about Joseph like he promised? Of course not!

So far, the bible is full of word play, puns, and little jokes for the reader that range from insightful to delightful. Some of it I’ve shared with you. Some of it I’ve left out. Really it depends on my mood and how tickled I was by it.  Joseph gets a pretty good one in here saying that Pharaoh would “lift up your head” to each of the men, and adds, “—from you!” to the baker. Oh snap.  I do want to point out something in the same vein that I don’t think I have yet: the sacredness of the name of God. Footnotes have helped me out with this yet again, especially because I’m reading this in English and not Hebrew. When the Israelites talk amongst themselves about God, they tend to use “YHWH”, the name of God that gets translated into “the Lord”. When they talk to anyone else, they use only ever use “God”. I know there are a lot of people out there who would be outraged by the exclusionism of this. In fact, a lot of them like to live on commenting sections on news articles or YouTube videos. I like it, though. I think rituals and keeping things sacred is important, no matter what it is you keep sacred.  Sacredness, specialness, setting things apart. Whether you go to church every week, walk daily, or watch A Muppet Family Christmas every December, or keep the name of God sacred. It puts you in a different mindset. You pay special attention to it. It can cause you to re-evaluate. It can cause you to remember. It can cause you to grow. Truly experience it every time, and live in that experience.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Meanwhile in Egypt… (Genesis 39)

We pick back up with Joseph after he’s been bought in Egypt by Potiphar, the officer of Egypt’s then Pharaoh. Because God loves Joseph so much, and is with him all the time, Joseph prospers. Everything he touches turns to organizational fortune and glory. Joseph was so good at everything, he wasn’t just any slave left to tend the fields or build pyramids. No sir. Joseph was a well-kept house slave. Not only that, but he was made overseer of the whole household. But wait there’s more! He’s handsome and good-looking too. What happens when a man has that much goin’ for him? Women want to be with him. Women like, say, Potiphar’s wife. She was so keen on Joseph she couldn’t keep it in her pants. She propositioned him time after time, and because Joseph was respectable and pious to boot, he kept turning her down.  One day, she was so insistent that she grabbed his garment while trying to get into his almighty pants. The only way Joseph could get out of the situation was to wriggle his way out of his clothes while she was holding them and bolt. Now that just won’t do for Potiphar’s wife… So she went around telling everyone that Joseph tried to get in her pants, and was in such a hurry to get away that he left his clothes behind.  When she gets around to telling her dear husband, Potiphar is visibly angered and throws Joseph into jail… where he promptly makes good friends with the chief jailer and becomes a model prisoner with God’s help.

So I’ve got to say, I know Joseph got the short end of the stick by being sold into slavery by his brothers, but that guy has a metric ton going for him. He’s the guy everyone wants to be or be with. He’s beyond reproach. That’s why I’m pretty sure that Potiphar didn’t believe his wife.  Really, if Joseph were going to be punished appropriately for his supposed crime, he probably would’ve been castrated, or put to death…or castrated to death… Instead, he gets a lenient jail time sentence.

I also want to touch on the first woman to cry rape.  Before I even get into this one, I need to start by saying that a rape victim is never at fault in any way, shape, or form. Having said that, there are times that a person, usually a woman, falsely accuses another person of rape because the accuser knows people’s reaction to rape is guilty until proven innocent, even though we all know it’s supposed to be the other way around. I have no way to describe how angry that situation makes me. Many expletives, multiples of me, fires of thousands of suns… not even close.  But man, props to Joseph to keeping his head held high and going about his business as usual. Well, as usual as he could while imprisoned.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews