Notes 69: The children of Israel in Egypt (47:1-12)

SYNOPSIS: A delegation of the family goes to speak to Pharaoh and the interview is held. It goes well and they are granted the right to take up residence in Goshen. Jacob also has an audience with Pharaoh. Joseph looks after everyone and they weather the period of famine.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

The passage consists of five short parts: (1) Joseph goes to have a word with Pharaoh about his father and brothers (vv. 1-2); (2) Pharaoh speaks with a delegation from Joseph's brothers (vv. 3-4); (3) Pharaoh tells Joseph to settle his relatives in Goshen (vv. 5-6); (4) Pharaoh meets Jacob (vv. 7-10); (5) Joseph settles his family in the Rameses region (thought to be synonymous with Goshen) and looks after them (vv. 11-12).

There is no obvious reason why all these things could not have occurred in the sequence given, but source critics think the text is composite. Speiser's suggestion is that vv. 7-12 originate from a different source than vv. 1-6. The first six verses are, they think, the continuation of the end of the preceding passage, where it will be recalled that Joseph instructed his brothers about what to say when they went to see Pharaoh, from which the scenes described here follow very naturally and "end" with Pharaoh giving Joseph the go-ahead to settle his family in Goshen. What verses 7-12 describe is an audience between Jacob and Pharaoh in which little of substance is said (Jacob blesses Pharaoh, Pharaoh asks Jacob how old he is, Jacob answers, then blesses Pharaoh again... the usual sort of stuff you expect in an audience between a patriarch and a pharaoh) and a report that Joseph set his father and brothers up with some land and made sure they were doing alright. However many sources this originated from, to the audience it is all much the same story.

47:2 umiqtze exaw laqax
Lit. 'he took from the extreme of his brothers,' which is understood to have meant 'he selected the best of...'

47:6 anshe xayil
'Capable' or 'qualified men.'

sare miqne asher ‛al asher li
(JPS) 'put them in charge of my livestock', but see EH's note: "The literal meaning of the phrase sarei mikneh is 'officers of cattle," referring to superintendents of the royal cattle, an office mentioned frquently in Egyptian inscriptions. This appointment makes some of Joseph's brothers officers of the crown and grants them legal protection not usually accorded aliens."

47:7 wayvárekh ya‛aqov et par‛o
Most commentators agree that b-r-k in this context has the secondary sense of 'greet' rather than 'bless.' Naturally the ceremonious greeting in such a circumstance could well have included some such expression as "long may Pharaoh life", if we want to think of that as a "blessing" of sorts. Speiser translates as 'paid respects', which is equally appropriate.

47:9 y'me sh'ne m'guray, bime m'gurehem
Twice Jacob in his reply to Pharaoh uses the root g-w-r 'reside' apparently as a synonym of x-y-h 'live', although he also uses the latter root twice, and even duplicates the exact same phrase with both in y'me sh'ne m'guray 'the days of the years of my residence' and y'me sh'ne xayyay 'the days of the years of my life', which suggests that they are perhaps just synonyms in this context. We can hardly consider the choice of g-w-r to be euphemistic when he says the same thing with x-y-h in the same breath! But there is an overall tone of self-deprecation in the whole answer, and perhaps g-w-r for 'live' was part of that: rather than admit he had lived a long time (which apparently was deemed a virtue), he says, in effect, nu, my father and grandfather (avotay) lived longer. It reminds one of: "It's a nice place you have here." - "We like it." Anything that smacked of self-aggrandizement when speaking to a pharaoh would doubtless have come across as rude. The expression y'me sh'ne 'the days of the years of [my life, etc.]' also occurs in 25:7, which says w'élle y'me sh'ne xayye avraham.

47:11 ra‛m'ses
Rameses was a later name for the region hitherto in the text referred to as Goshen. Acc. to Speiser, the new name came into use later than the period of the patriarchs, and so is strictly an anachronism, but such a substitution in the text is a very natural thing.

Notes 68: Arrival (46:28-34)

SYNOPSIS: Jacob sends a messenger ahead to tell Joseph that he is coming to Goshen, and Joseph meets him there. They hug, weep, and Jacob says: "Now I can die because I have seen you and I know you are alive." Joseph explains to his family that he is going to arrange for them to meet Pharaoh, and when he asks them about their occupation they are to tell him that they are animal herders. That way they can stay in Goshen, because Egyptians don't like to mix with animal herders.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

The narrative of Jacob's journey to and arrival in Egypt is resumed here, after the passenger list (vv. 8-27) which we have just finished reading. No doubt the story would have run more smoothly without that interruption. What is more, the genealogical information it contains is merely a summary of names that can be gleaned from other places either in Genesis or in other parts of the Torah (Numbers ch. 26).

Why is the story interrupted in this way? Speiser's suggestion is (EAS, p. 346): "A record of Jacob's family was deemed necessary on the eve of the sojourn in Egypt, and this seemed to be the best place to give it." And another rationale in terms of narrative technique comes to mind: this may be a very old example of the device still practised in Hollywood today of using a temporary insertion of argumentally "extraneous" material to suggest the passage of time to the audience.

That should mean that if we wish to skip the boring bit (vv. 8-27) we could read as far as v. 7 (...hevi itto mitxráy'ma '[all these] he brought with him to Egypt') and then pick up again at v. 28 (w'et y'huda shalax l'fanaw el yosef... 'He sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph...') and just keep going. The emotional meeting between Joseph and Jacob takes place. Jacob utters his memorable line (v. 30): amúta happá‛am axare r'oti et panékha ki ‛odkha xay. This much has taken all of three verses to narrate.

Then (v. 31) Joseph says to the arrivees something that may have been meant to sound like "just go through customs", but comes out as perhaps not quite so routine a procedure: "I'll go and let Pharaoh know," he says - okay... - "and tell him that my family from Canaan have come to join me." And he goes on to give them a useful tip: "When Pharaoh calls you in for an interview and asks you about your occupation, tell him you are sheep herders and that's what you've always done in your family." Why? "That way," Joseph explains to them (and us), "you'll be able to stay in the Goshen region, because Egyptians don't like mixing with shepherds."

The interview goes fine and Pharaoh will be happy enough to let them stay in Goshen. But as a reader, was there just a weird moment there or wasn't there? Had not Pharaoh himself sent carts (or wagons?) to help Jacob and his people bring all their things to Egypt to settle? Yet at the beginning of the next passage (47:1), wayyavo yosef wayyagged l'far‛o wayyómer avi w'axay... bá'u me'éretz k'ná‛an w'hinnam b'éretz góshen 'Joseph came and reported to Pharaoh saying: "My father and my brothers.. have come from the land of Canaan and are now in the region of Goshen"' as if that was all news to Pharaoh.

The source critics offer a solution: different sources. Not only did the genealogical section originate from a different place than the narrative sections, they suggest, but the narrative sections themselves are no doubt composite in origin, merging two similar but not identical accounts of Jacob's migration.

Speiser proposes that all of vv. 2-27 of this chapter represent insertions from not one but two sources into a narrative from a third source (J, the "Primitive Document"), which would thus have been interrupted after v. 1 and resumed now at v. 28. The insert that starts at v. 2 tells of God's appearance to Jacob at Beersheba. This is followed by the family embarking on their onward journey to Egypt (with Pharaoh's carts or wagons), and then the listing of the sons and grandsons of Jacob. If we skip over all of that then what we are left with is Jacob, at the end of ch. 45, deciding that they will go to Egypt so that he can see Joseph before he dies (45:28), going to Beersheba to offer sacrifices (46:1) and sending Judah ahead to Joseph (46:28, omitting all the other stuff just mentioned), whereupon Joseph comes out to meet them at Goshen, and then arranges for them to be interviewed by Pharaoh. Judah is thus the messenger who mediates with Joseph to arrange for a smooth arrival and reception in Egypt - and Joseph now starts negotiating with Pharaoh and instructing the brothers on what to say.

The way the source critics fit this all together is by assuming that the preceding passage in which, before going back to Canaan, the brothers are told to bring Jacob to Egypt is also a composite section where two accounts of this episode have been combined: in one, Pharaoh invites the brothers to bring Jacob and settle in Egypt (and even sends them wagons!), while in the other, Joseph does so. Therefore there is now, in the present passage, a version where Joseph awaits their arrival but the matter will still need to be broached with Pharaoh, since in this parallel universe he doesn't know yet.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that perhaps Pharaoh had already invited them to Egypt but it was Joseph's idea that they should stay in Goshen specifically, and so he coaches his brothers to give the right answers in the upcoming interview which, according to his caluclations, will prompt Pharaoh to decide to settle them in Goshen.

46:28 l'horot l'fanaw gósh'na
This text is obscure and presumed to be corrupt.   

Notes 67: Jacob and his sons set out for Egypt (46:1-27)

SYNOPSIS: Jacob/Israel stops along the way to make sacrifices to the God of his father at Beersheba. God, appearing to Jacob in a vision, tells him not to worry, because God will accompany him to Egypt and make his descendants a great people. "I will be there with you, I will bring you home when you die, and Joseph's hand will close your eyes." And so they all came to Egypt: seventy people in all (they are listed), with all their livestock and belongings.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

This passage actually has two parts. The first tells of the journey of Jacob and his sons from their home in Canaan to Egypt. The second part lists all the people (or at least the menfolk) who made the move, and who, together with Joseph and his sons, constitute Jacob's family: altogether, seventy souls. This part of the passage reads like a brief genealogy, without listing wives and daughters, and without any mention of anyone's age so that, unlike the standard tol'dot passages, no conclusions can be drawn about absolute chronology. An exception concerning the mention of wives is that Jacob's progeny is organised into four sections according to whether their mother was Leah, Zilpah, Rachel or Bilhah.

The first part of the passage, which tells how Jacob undertakes the journey to Egypt, is a last look back in the direction of the patriarchal era which is now effectively coming to a close. The business of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan is now done. Abraham and Isaac are in their graves at Machpelah, where Jacob too will be brought back and buried one day, but for now he must bid farewell to them and to his home (presumably around Hebron). One last stop in Canaan is made at the southern sanctuary of Beersheba, once frequented by his father Isaac. There, God appears to Jacob in a night vision one more time and speaks to him, as in days gone by, repeating familiar words of reassurance: I am the God of your father; don't be afraid; I will make a great nation out of you. And God adds two new promises: I will accompany you to Egypt, and when your time comes to die I will make sure your body is returned to Canaan and your son Joseph is there to put you to rest.

46:1 wayyissa‛ yisra'el
We can't know for certain where Jacob set out from, but we may like to think that he had been living at Hebron, which is where the family had mostly resided since Abraham established his home in Mamre. This is also the last place where it is mentioned that he was dwelling (37:14): wayyómer lo lekh na r'e et sh'lom axékha w'et sh'lom hattzon wahashivéni davar wayyishlaxéhu me‛émeq xevron wayyavo sh'khéma.

wayyavo b'éra sháva‛ wayyizbax z'vaxim
Beersheba was a fitting place for Jacob's last farewell in life to the land of his birth. Located on the southbound road from Canaan in the direction of Egypt, some 25 miles south of Hebron, it had figured prominently in the comings and goings of all three patriarchs.

46:3 anokhi ha'el elohe avíkha
This must be read as an apposition: ha'el, elohe avíkha '(the) El, your father's God' or rather 'your father's God, El.' Treating el and elohim as if it were the same word creates an unnecessary conundrum for translators here; clearly they are not! This is not the only place where El takes the definite article: see 31:13 anokhi ha'el bet el and my note on it.

al tira
'Do not be afraid.' We often find these words spoken by God when he appears to the story's characters. God often makes such appearances in times of distress, in which case al tira can be construed to mean "don't worry, it's going to be alright", but the same words also occur when there is not such a context, so we should consider the idea that perhaps they refer to the commotion caused to characters by the simple fact of having God appear to them. In 15:1 he told Abram: al tira avram anokhi magen lakh etc. and in 26:24 he told Isaac: al tira ki itt'kha anokhi uverakhtíkha etc. But in the present instance God specifies what it is that Jacob should not be afraid of: al tira mer'da mitzráyma 'Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.' The refrain "I am God, don't be afraid" seems to have been so firmly established that it shows up perhaps in the Christian gospels of Luke (ch. 1), where God's angel announces himself to Zacharias with the words μη φοβου, and later in the chapter says the same thing to Mary.

46:8 w'élle sh'mot b'ne yisra'el
'Israel's (i.e. Jacob's) sons/children' or 'the children of Israel, the Israelites'? The collocation b'ne yisra'el has already occurred prior to this in the latter sense in 32:33 (‛al ken lo yokh'lu v'ne yisra'el et gid hannashe), and in the former in 42:5 (wayyavo'u b'ne yisra'el lishbor b'tokh habba'im) and most recently in 45:21 (wayya‛asu khen b'ne yisra'el wayyitten lahem yosef ‛agalot). Except for Dinah and Serah (v. 17), only males are listed.

46:12 wayyámot ‛er w'onan b'éretz k'ná‛an
'Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan' in accordance with the story of Tamar (ch. 38).

46:23 uv'ne dan xushim
'Dan's sons were: Hushim.' Sic! 

Notes 66: Pharaoh invites Jacob and his sons to Egypt (45:16-28)

SYNOPSIS: When Pharaoh hears that Joseph's brothers have come, he instructs Joseph to tell his brothers to load up with food and return to Canaan, and bring the whole family over and he will give them the best Egypt has to offer. He will even send carts over with them to help carry all their belongings over. And so they did. Arriving home, the sons give Jacob the news that Joseph is alive and all his fortunes. Once he was convinced it was the truth, Jacob says with joy: "My son is alive, and I will lay eyes on him again before I die."

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

 45:19 w'atta tzuwwéta zot ‛asu
(KJV) 'Now thou art commanded, this do ye.' There is something awkward about the syntax here which makes it uncertain how exactly it is to be read. The pual tzuwwéta 'you are commanded' isn't impossible (it's the passive corresponding to the active tziwwitíkha 'I have commanded you'; perhaps the use of the passive is comparable to the royal we of other monarchical cultures). But the verse division, which throws it together with the following words (beginning zot ‛asu), makes for a strange sequence, for it seems to suggest (and this is reflected in translations generally) that what follows tzuwwéta forms part of what Joseph is being commanded by Pharaoh. But Pharaoh began his commands to Joseph in v. 17 (wayyómer par‛o el yosef emor el axékha zot ‛asu...), and notice that he already said zot ‛asu once there! So one "take" on this is that Pharaoh "starts again" in the present verse, adding further instructions. Now in v. 17 Pharaoh's command consists of instruction to Joseph about what to say to his brothers and this is explicit: emor el axékha... The second time, if that is what is intended, the emor clause has been omitted. Alternatively, in v. 19 the zot ‛asu clause includes Joseph and so this is not what Joseph has to say to his brothers, but what he and his brothers are to do. Except that Joseph doesn't go with his brothers, so that seems unlikely. Yet if Joseph begins speaking in v. 19 after tzuwwéta, we would expect not only a different kind of verse grouping (or cantillation) but also a wayyómer yosep el axékha or something to that effect, which is missing. Since anyone who doesn't understand H or isn't looking at the passage is probably lost by now, let me try to clarify what we have here:
v. 17
wayyómer par‛o el yosef 'Pharaoh said to Joseph'
emor el axékha 'Tell (singular) your (singular) brothers (plural)' [i.e. Jo. should tell his brothers]
zot ‛asu 'Do (plural) this' [Ph. tells Jo. to tell his brothers that they should do this]
A list of commands follows, all in the plural; these are things Ph. wants Jo. to tell the bros to do.
v. 18
The list of commands continues.
v. 19
w'atta tzuwwéta 'You (singular) are commanded.' [This isn't part of the previous list of commands because it is in the singular; the person who is commanded is Joseph and it is Pharaoh who says to him 'you are commanded']
zot ‛asu 'Do (plural) this' [???? Who? And who is saying this, Ph. or Jo.?]
q'xu lakhem me'éretz mitzráyim ‛agalot l'Tapp'khem ulinshekhem un'satem et avikhem uvatem 'Take (plural) from Egypt carts for your (plural) children and your (plural) wives and pick up (plural) your (plural) father and come (plural).' [From the sense, the subject seems to be the eleven brothers, not including Jo. Therefore they are problably the "who" of the preceding zot ‛asu too.]
v. 20
More stuff addressing a plural 'you', which we must assume is the same addressee as in v. 19 and therefore does not include Joseph, so that the most likely speaker here is Joseph, though it could perhaps be Pharaoh.
v. 21
wayya‛asu khen b'ne yisra'el wayyitten lahem yosef ‛agalot ‛al pi far‛o wayyitten lahem tzeda laddérekh 'The children of Israel did so and Joseph gave them carts on Pharaoh's orders and gave them food supplies for the journey.' [Clearly, Joseph wasn't going with them. Clearly, then, the subject of zot ‛asu in v. 19 is the eleven.
This brings us back to the awkward transition in v. 19: w'atta tzuwwéta 'you (singular) are commanded' zot ‛asu 'do (plural) this': it is Pharaoh who said w'atta tzuwwéta (to Joseph), but who says zot ‛asu to the eleven brothers? It seems easier to assume that Joseph does. That means that Pharaoh's last words on the matter are w'atta tzuwwéta 'you have been commanded'. This is followed, then, immediately, by Joseph's first words to his brothers: zot ‛asu 'Do this', which parrots the first words that Pharaoh told Joseph he was to tell his brothers in v. 17. In that case, the only "odd" things to explain are that the verse has been made to start before 'you have been commanded' rather than after it, and that there a wayyómer yosep is missing. If on the other hand we take the position that the verse division is "correct" and Pharaoh hasn't finished giving his commands but just decided to throw in a w'atta tzuwwéta in the middle of it all for good measure, the questions to be answered are: why does he start his commands again (repeating zot ‛asu), and why in that case does the text fail to include, the second time, emor el axékha 'tell your brothers'?
All this explication might seem a little unnecessary and overlaboured, but it is needed if we want to make sense of the various attempts of other translations to hammer some sense into this, often using a rather heavy hammer, it seems to me, and interpolating various bits that are not to be found in the Hebrew (which I will underline):
KJV: (17) And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; (18) And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. (19) Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. [Makes it sound like Pharaoh is speaking all the time and including Joseph in the orders in v. 19. The 'now' is to smooth over the odd interpolation of 'thou art commanded.']
ESV: (17) And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Say to your brothers, 'Do this: load your beasts...' etc. etc. (19) And you, Joseph, are commanded to say, 'Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come.' [Takes the hinted reading of KJV and forces it on the reader by injecting some new elements to make that reading explicit (thereby excluding the ambiguities of the original). 'Joseph' is added to specify that Pharaoh is addressing him (which he had to be), and 'to say' is gratuitously added to improve the sense while also excluding any possibility that Joseph might be speaking here.]
JPS: (17) And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Say to your brothers, 'Do as follows: load up your beasts...' (19) And you are bidden [to add], 'Do as follows: take...'" [The interpolation 'to add' (the brackets are in the original translation) forces the interpretation that these are still Pharaoh's instructions, not Joseph's words.]
Now let us look at the annotations of our commentators. Century Bible's note is short and sweet: "The change [near the beginning of v. 19] from 'thou' to 'ye' is awkward. Probably 'now thou art commanded' concludes Pharaoh's instructions to Joseph; while 'This do ye' etc. is Joseph's charge to his brethren. Speiser's approach is different: he suggests that the text may be wrong and that it didn't originally say tzuwwéta 'you have been commanded' but rather something like tzaw otam 'command them', in support of which he cites the LXX and the Vulg. But the LXX and the Vulg. do more than change that, they reformulate the whole passage, especially the Vulg. Despite this, Speiser's translation proposal is: 'You are further requested to say: Do the following.'

‛agalot
The term occurs four times in this part of the story and nowhere else in Genesis. The gloss for ‛agala in CHALOT is: 'wagon, cart (not chariot).' The word for chariot, which we have already seen in 41:43 and which will reappear in ch. 46, is merkava.

Notes 65: Joseph reveals his identity (45:1-15)

SYNOPSIS: As the story reaches its climax, Joseph dramatically sends all his staff out of the room to give them privacy, then reveals his identity, weeping so loudly that it can be heard "in all of Egypt and even in the Pharaoh's house". He sobs: "I am Joseph!! Does my father still live?" The brothers are stunned, and he tells them to come closer to him, then makes his speech. "I am the brother whom you sold to Egypt. Don't feel bad! It wasn't you, it was God who sent me here so that I could save the country from famine. It was all meant to be! And thanks to God's designs, I can also save all of you from hunger. Hurry home and tell my father: Joseph is alive. Bring him here, I will give you all land to settle in the region of Goshen where there is room for your flocks and your cattle. I will look after you here and get you through the five years of famine still to come."

• Text of the passage

The author chooses this point of maximum tension to come to the dramatic climax, which takes the form of a speech by Joseph in which, after getting privacy by sending all his attendants out of the room, he gives his brothers the game-changing news that he is their lost brother, the one who they assume "is no more": ani yosef ha‛od avi xay 'I am Joseph, is my father still alive?' It is a moment of high and mixed emotions for all present. Joseph himself is overcome and can no longer hide his feelings, but has the presence of mind to remain concerned about their possible reaction to the shocker. He anticipates their misgiving by assuring them that it was God's plan for them to sell him into Egypt so that he could make arrangements to "keep them alive" before the great famine hit. He repeats that it wasn't their but God's doing and that thanks to this he is more powerful than anyone except Pharaoh himself, as they can see. He wants them to tell Jacob everything they have seen and bring him to Egypt, where he and his family can reside in the land of Goshen. They then hugged and kissed and wept, and when they were done with that they all talked.

45:3 ha‛od avi xay
'Is my father still alive?' Is this a real question (i.e. a request for information) or a rhetorical exclamation? If the former, it seems to be redundant as they have already talked about this - unless, of course, the mixing of sources is to blame. But whatever the historical origin of the presence of the question at this point in the text, synchronically (i.e. simply as a literary composition) I think the question "works" as a powerful stroke of the author's brush, conveying many things, love, anguish and longing among them. Of all the things he might have said after ani yosef, surely this is the most poignant choice, so let's not analyse it to death! Regarding the word form avi 'my father', we can if we like read something into Joseph's choice rather than avínu 'our father', but for all we know it may just have been idiomatic to say avi here as the least marked option. Modern Hebrew speakers would probably choose to say abba here, but in BH, where that was not used, avi was perhaps the closest pragmatic equivalent - which raises the question of how to translate it. While omitting 'my' has a certain rationale, it also deprives the translation of the connotations intrinsic to the possessive form!

45:8 waysiméni l'av l'far‛o
'He [i.e. God] has made me a father to Pharaoh.' Is this to be read as a figure of speech or was this the designation of an Egyptian title? Commentators disagree: acc. to CB it might be either one, we don't know; but Speiser assures us that "this phrase is applied to Viziers as far back as the third millennium", yet the Etz Hayim notes: "No such title is known from ancient Egypt"!

umoshel b'khol éretz mitzráyim
'...and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.' The verb root m-sh-l 'to rule, govern', of which moshel is the participle, last occurred at the beginning of the Joseph story as part of a rhetorical question (37:8): wayyom'ru lo exaw hamalokh timlokh ‛alenu im mashol timshol banu 'His brothers said to him: Are you to reign over us? Are you to rule us?' If this is not just a coincidence, the text is saying here that in fact Joseph's destiny was not merely to rule his brothers, but a whole country!

45:9-11
As Speiser points out, this is in epistolary style, as if Joseph were dictating a letter and employing the routine formulae for the purpose at the time when this was written. These would include the introductory instructions to the messengers (maharu w'‛alu el avi w'amartem elaw ko amar binkha yosef), a "status update", that is, a brief initial statement in suitably devout terms of his present situation (samáni elohim l'adon l'khol mitzráyim) and then the substance of the message, framed as an invitation but worded as an imperative: 'Come to me without delay and stay etc. etc.' Notice that these verses address a singular addressee (r'da, al ta‛amod, w'yashavta, w'hayita, atta uvanékha uv'ne vanékha etc.).

45:10 w'yashavta v'éretz góshen
'and dwell [rather than "you will dwell"] in the region of Goshen.' This is the first occurrence of  the name Goshen, an oft-repeated name in the final chapters which is thought to have referred to a region of Egypt to the east of the Nile delta.

45:12 w'hinne ‛enekhem ro'ot w'‛ene axi vinyamin ki...
Here he is no longer dictating, but addressing the brothers (in the plural).

45:14 wayyippol ‛al tzawre vinyamin axiw wayyevk etc.
Standard idiomatic expression referring to friendly hugging in BH, cf. also 33:4 and 46:29.

Notes 64: Judah pleads with Joseph (44:18-34)

SYNOPSIS: Judah speaks for the brothers and makes a moving speech and a plea to Joseph, still unaware that he is their lost brother. He respectfully reminds Joseph that it was his idea that they should bring their youngest brother with them, against their will because he is their father's youngest child who is especially dear to him and it will break his heart if anything happens to the youngster or they return home without him. Judah finishes by begging Joseph to let him remain as his servant in lieu of Benjamin, because, he says, "How can I present myself to my father and tell him that the boy is no longer with them? It will send him to the grave!"

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

The speech by Judah addressing Joseph, with which the penultimate parasha of Genesis opens, is one of the longest monologues in the whole book (except for Joseph's own response which follows!), and is of interest for various reasons in its literary context. Within the flow of the Joseph narrative, at the beginning of "Act III", what Judah says provides the audience with a useful recap of the situation up to now and sums up in a nutsell the brothers' dilemma at this point. No matter whether or not we need to be reminded of these facts, it is a fine specimen of Hebrew oral prose and persuasive oratory, well constructed and polished. It resonates powerfully on an emotional level and we cannot help but commiserate with Judah as he pleads to Joseph, appealing to his reason and compassion, not asking him to let them all go free, but rather to accept Judah's own life to dispose of as he sees fit, but to release his youngest brother for the sake of their beloved father without realising that he is also Joseph's father! (The irony alarm is triggered yet again; when Joseph hears this he could hardly have avoided thinking: Too bad you weren't so considerate of my father when you returned home without me!)

There is a risk that our over-familiarity with the scene may make it hard for us to appreciate its full dramatic impact. The passage should be read with pondering and pathos. The humble and selfless last-ditch plea by the effective leader of Joseph's brothers at this point is doubly moving, in that it serves to bring both the audience and the protagonist to tears. In effect, Judah's plea precipitates events. it is more than Joseph can take. Overwhelmed, he puts an end to the farse. He responds to Judah by dropping his disguise, facing his eleven brothers in tears and crying out: ani yosef.

Notes 63: Another test (43:30 - 44:17)

SYNOPSIS: Joseph hurries away to his own room to weep privately, then washes his face and re-enters the room, and they eat. He has generous portions served, but gives special preference to Benjamin. He gives his steward instructions to fill their bags with grain and to put their money back again, and to place his silver cup in Benjamin's sack. They set off on their donkeys, and soon after they have left the city he has his servant run after them to search them for the cup, which is found among Benjamin's things. They are all brought back to town, and Joseph proposes to keep Benjamin there and send the rest of them home.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

The narrator is onto a good thing, and knows it: we are hooked by the drama, so why not crank it up another notch?

43:30 ki nikhm'ru raxamaw el axiw
Niphal k-m-r 'be agitated'; raxamim 'compassion.' The singular of this noun, ráxam or réxem, means 'womb.' LXX συνεστρέφετο γὰρ τὰ ἔντερα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ, Vulg. quia commota fuerant viscera eius, KJC (sic) 'for his bowels did yearn upon his brother' (which perhaps just demonstrates that literalness can be taken too far, way too far), JPS 'for he was overcome with feeling towards his brother.'

wayvaqqesh livqot
EAS 'he wanted to cry', JPS 'he was on the verge of tears', cf. respectively LXX ἐζήτει κλαῦσαι and Vulg. erumpebant lacrimae. The H is an odd expression, perhaps an idiom, literally 'he sought to weep' (as the Greek).

wayyit'appaq
'Collected himself.'

43:33 wayyitm'hu ha'anashim ish el re‛éhu
'The men looked at one another in astonishment.' The at one another part is correct but it corresponds to ish el re‛éhu; note that wayyitm'hu is not a hitpael, it is a qal verb (root t-m-h, with a real h) meaning 'be stunned, be transfixed, be astounded, look in astonishment, be surprised, be shocked' (CHALOT): cf. LXX ἐξίσταντο δὲ οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἕκαστος πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ. This raises a question: what were they shocked, astonished etc. about? The brothers sat down in order of age: was this by their own decision, following Joseph's instructions, or did they just sit down at random and then discover that they had accidentally arranged themselves in this seating pattern? If the first, what was there to be astonished about, unless they were astonished by something else, perhaps the fact that Joseph was really inviting them to lunch and this had not been a ruse to get them into his house and then imprison or enslave them? If the last, it was a miracle from God, and they might well be in awe, but what did that have to do with the story? Now we don't really know for sure whether or not Joseph had decided on the seating arrangement, though at a banquet such as this one that seems a distinct possibility considering social custom. The word l'fanaw earlier in the verse is taken by some as a clue, since one of its meanings is precisely 'following his orders' (or as in the JPS translation above, 'by his direction'); but another of its meanings is the basic, literal one of 'in front of him' which also fits just fine in the context. But suppose that, as Speiser and EH would have it, the sense is 'on his command' and he told them to sit in that order: would that be the reason for their astonishment? Puzzled, just possibly; astonished or shocked, I hardly think so! We must still be missing something, and I have a feeling we may never know for certain what. But I have a personal (ungrounded, I suppose) hunch that maybe what is meant is that Joseph told each of the brothers, one by one, where to sit, and since he recognised and knew them he craftily placed each brother in his place so that they would end up in chronological order, as a tease we might say, for we learn from the story that follows that he is not ready to reveal his identity to them yet but he can have a little fun, can't he? Then he waits for the brothers to realise what has happened, and yes they would look at each other with astonishment. This is surely a notion that would have delighted listening audiences, and there is nothing in the text to say that this isn't what was meant...

43:34 xamesh yadot
(JPS) '...but Benjamin's portion was several times that of anyone else.' How to translate this phrase (lit. 'five hands') depends on how we understand xamesh and how we understand yadot. Now, yad 'hand' has to be one of the most polysemic words in BH, so it is fair to ask what it means in this instance. CHALOT says it can mean 'part', with the sub-specification 'multiplicative', and the example it cites is this verse; from that it is not clear to me whether such a meaning is independently corroborated or just an ad hoc conjecture intended to account for the case in hand. Couldn't yad here also just mean a rough measure ('a palm') and xamesh yadot be intended as an approximate and somewhat hyperbolic statement that Ben's portion was a good deal bigger? The tradition of translating xamesh yadot as 'fivefold' goes back apparently to the LXX which has here pentaplasiôs. Other commentators note that the numeral xamesh might serve to convey the notion of 'loads' without specifying how much; this accounts for the translation 'several times.' I think that we might be able to treat xamesh yadot as just meaning 'a more than generous portion' and leave it at that without compromising in any way the literary meaning of the expression!

44:1 et asher ‛al beto
See 43:16.

44:2 w'et g'vi‛i g'vía‛ hakkésef
I suspect that the repetition of the noun here is not for emphasis but rather a grammatical expediency since a noun may only stand in one genitive relation at a time: 'my cup, the cup of silver' is thus nothing but 'my silver cup' formulated as an obligatory apposition, as in JPS 'my silver goblet.' The LXX got it right (τὸ κόνδυ μου τὸ ἀργυροῦν) as did the Vulg. (scyphum autem meum argenteum); the KJV got it wrong ('my cup, the silver cup').

44:3 habbóqer or
'At the light of day.' This or is the perfect of the qal verb '-w-r 'become day, become bright' (CHALOT) which by the looks of it must by a hollow stative verb approximately comparable to bosh (?).

44:4  w'hissagtam
'And overtake them.' The hiphil verb n-s-g means 'overtake, catch up with.' It was seen in 31:25, wayyásseg lavan et ya‛aqov.

lámma shillamtem ra‛a táxat tova
'Why did you repay good with evil?' But of course the brothers have not in this instance done any such thing; the cup has been planted on Benjamin, and Joseph knows it well. Apparently his object is to have a pretext for retaining Benjamin. But might not he also have chosen to operate in this way, and accuse them of this very thing, precisely because that is what they had done years earlier in the case of his abduction? In that case, the words are true after all, and perhaps Joseph counted on the brothers knowing it, deep down, so that his present accusation, while "unfair", is nonetheless true. On the other hand, from the perspective of the brothers who did not actually steal Joseph's cup, this is unjust and they  are now in the position of being punished without having "done anything"; thus they are getting a taste of what that feels like! Was that perhaps also part of Joseph's plan? The narrator may have calculated that these are all things that might have passed through the minds of audiences listening to this narrative, and possibly all these ideas are thus in a sense enclosed in the words lámma shillamtem ra‛a táxat tova. On one reading, that phrase could be considered to sum up the moral of the Joseph story: "Why pay good with evil?" Ironically, the story also drives its point home by showing how God can turn the tables on those guilty of this by completely reversing it, for His response is to repay evil with good (cf. Joseph's moving speech in the next chapter)!

44:6 waydabber alehem et hadd'varim ha'élle
'He spoke these words to them.' Surprising that the narrator didn't draw out the suspense by giving the actual dialogue (again). Perhaps it was thought that there was already enough and didn't need hamming up.

44:8 késef o zahav
One can almost imagine a latter-day brother of Joseph responding: késef shmésef! This impression of colloquial rhetoric is reinforced by the continuation in v. 9.

44:9
Hyperbole abounds, for it is a common strategy for increasing the vehemence of one's assertion, particularly where the context is indignation. It is also a sign that the speakers believe they are in the right. English-speaking Christian children are not unfamiliar with this kind of talk: Cross my heart and hope to die! As a dramatic device, however, this has another dimension: the audience, who knows more than the speaker, will hear these exclamations with increasing alarm.

44:10
The narrator deftly twists the knife by having Joseph's emissary agree with the proposal, although in a more moderate form: the culprit will be his slave, and the rest may go free. But the attentive audience will realise that that is not much better, given their knowledge that the "culprit" is none other than Benjamin, the son whom the other brothers have sworn to their father to keep safe at all costs!

44:11-12
So now we have the second tension-filled search scene in Genesis (remember Laban's gods, ch. 31). Some narrative devices are shared by both scenes, which clearly were of a type that audiences must have relished: the searchers start with the oldest, coming last to the person known by the audience to be the one who will be found "guilty", while most of the group being searched (in this case, including the false culprit) are convinced that they are all innocent and willingly cooperate in the search. But the outcomes of the two searches are different; in Laban's case, Rachel really was the thief but escaped detection, whereas now the cup is found in Benjamin's possession (even though he didn't really take it). 


44:13 wayyiqr'‛u simlotam
The brothers perform the gesture which in their culture signified grieving and bereavement: they rent their clothes.

wayya‛amos
This verb (‛-m-s) means 'to load (an animal)' or 'lift, carry (a load)' (CHALOT). So now that Benjamin has been arrested, they abort their journey, and having loaded their donkeys (not, literally, reloaded as we find in some of the translations, apparently following Vulg. oneratisque rursum asinis) they returned to the city.

44:14 wayyavo y'huda w'exaw béta yosef
Here the elevation of Judah to primacy among the brothers is fully manifest and complete: if Reuben were still considered the leader of the clan, as his condition of firstborn warrants in principle, one would certainly have said r'uven w'exaw. It is a minor detail in the thread of the story, for which it is hardly significant at all, but on the contrary it is of mammoth importance for The Story, i.e. the larger issue of the history of the emergence of Israel as a nation of which this whole cycle of stories is merely an allegory. Historically in the big picture, and currently for the Judaeans who became the Jews, the "first house" of Israel (as in children of) was Judah (I'm referring to Judah the Kingdom); there was no Kingdom of Reuben. Up until this point in the saga, there have been "literary" hints of a gradual displacement, from Reuben to Judah, of the protagonism we would usually associate with primogeniture, but the shift was still not categorical: sometimes Judah appeared to be the spokesman, sometimes Reuben resurfaced. The switch was not explicit; perhaps Judah just had a lot to say for himself... I have not followed other commentators in noting every instance of this, as the meaning of such things on their own is conjectural and the story can be left to speak for itself. Now, however, there can be no doubt, for you simply do not speak of the group as a whole as "Judah and his brothers" if Judah wasn't in the previous sentence and Reuben is still the chief! However, this tells us nothing of chronology; we cannot tell from this replacement whether, as some have it, the story we are reading symbolizes a complete allegory of prehistoric tribal relations and this stands for the fall of the Reuben tribe and the rise of the Judah tribe, or whether, on the contrary, the casting of Judah in the role of top brother is a backwards projection by the Judaean narrator (in which case perhaps Reuben had the role in the original version, and the changes in casting are a vestige of a merging of versions).

44:16 wayyómer y'huda ma nomar ladoni etc.
'Judah replied: What can we say to my lord?' Judah as definitive spokesman; see note on v. 14.

14:17 xalíla
'God forbid' as in 18:25 and v. 7 in the present passage.




END OF SECTION 10

The break is well-placed. The section we are reading ends with a new twist which changes the situation and the outlook for Jacob's family once again and leaves us hanging on a new precipice.

The one thing that wasn't supposed to happen has happened: Benjamin is in trouble, and the rest are obliged to return home without him. Ironic, isn't it, considering that the whole thing started with the same group of ten returning home to Jacob without Benjamin's older brother Joseph, only that time it was their own doing and they thought they were being clever; now they must give their father the news that Benjamin is also lost, and perhaps send him to Sheol grieving for both of Rachel's children. There is so much poetic justice in this story that it is hard to keep track of it!

The character of Joseph is interesting. In effect he has attained a position of abolute power, both as a virtual head of state and as a man now in a position to decide the destiny of his erstwhile family, having risen from one extreme of life's vicissitudes to the opposite pole in the best fairy-tale fashion by means of an odd sort of chess game in which he is at the same time the ingenuous beneficiary of good luck and the unassailable master strategist. Yet that is probably a circumstance that is more or less true of many who reach the top against the odds. What commands our interest in Joseph qua literary figure is not his power, it is the question: How is he going to use it? It is now absolutely clear that he has the upper hand: what action will he take? We can well imagine how a ruthless tyrant intoxicated with his personal power might act; that is hardly a secret. What we really want and hope is for Joseph to show us the other option, the enlightened way. That is the true challenge which the character Joseph is now up against. He has won worldly power; will his moral prowess be able to dazzle as well?

Notes 62: Joseph meets Benjamin (43:16-29)

SYNOPSIS: Upon their arrival back in Egypt with Benjamin, Joseph has the brothers brought into his residence. They are apprehensive and talk to Joseph's steward, offering to return money they had found in their sacks. He tells them not to worry about it. Simon is produced, and upon Joseph's arrival at the house, they lay out the gifts they have brought for him. He asks them how their father is, and speaks kindly to Benjamin.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

43:16 la'asher ‛al beto 
Lit. 'he who [was] over his house', and so translated in the LXX (kai eipen tôi epi tês oikias autou). Most others translations, including the Vulg. (praecepit dispensatori domus suae), make the meaning explicit by adding a noun such as 'ruler' (KJV), 'steward' (EAS, JPS, ESV...). So also in 44:1.

Notes 61: Back to Egypt (43:1-15)

SYNOPSIS: They use up the provisions they had bought and the famine continues. They will need to go back to Egypt to buy more food, but they have been warned that they must bring Benjamin. Jacob resists letting him go but finally gives in as their situation is getting desperate; Judah promises to bring him back safely.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

The narrator of this story has already taken us on one round trip with Joseph's brothers from Canaan to Egypt, where they have unknowingly met Joseph, and back to Canaan. That return journey has given rise to several dramatically interesting scenes, and yet where the story's main tensions are concerned nothing has yet been resolved; in a sense everyone is back to square one. The brothers and their father are none the wiser for their adventure: they still believe or assume that Joseph met a bad end of one kind or another, and although they have obtained life-saving victuals, they will not last forever and the famine continues. And there are new problems: their brother Simeon is being held captive in Egypt, and they have been instructed to take young Benjamin with them the next time they turn up, but that is against Jacob's wishes. 

Meanwhile, from the audience's point of view it is clear that this is certainly not the end of the story. The dramatic situation surrounding Joseph and his brothers requires a resolution: we all know that the story cannot just end here! With great skill, the author is steadily drawing us in deeper, leaving us more intrigued: how will it all be resolved? However, what makes the writing more novelistic than any vulgar adventure story is the fact that its interest goes well beyond the discovery of answers about the plot such as "what will happen next?" or "who was it?" or "now what are they going to do?", into the realm of three-dimensional characterization and profound interactions between personalities and situations that are the hallmark of real literature. So the most fascinating questions in the reader's mind are not these, but others such as "how will this scene play out?" and "I wonder how these people feel." But we're not there yet; so let's turn down the lights and continue with the story. The family are at home; the stock of food is running low again; the famine is severe in Canaan...

43:3 ha‛ed he‛id banu ha'ish
(JPS) 'The man warned us.' The hiphil verb ‛-w-d used here means 'repeat, warn, admonish, assure.' Not to be confused with a homonymous denominal verb from ‛ed 'witness' meaning 'call to witness' (see CHALOT sub עוד). The root's primary meaning is believed to be the notion of repetition, and this is assumed to be the base from which was derived the common adverb ‛od. Accordingly, the verbs 'warn' and 'protest' of the traditional translations are adequate, but not so the LLX's diamarturetai nor the Vulg.'s denuntiavit sub testificatione iurandi! As for the H infinitive construction ha‛ed he‛id, this is no more than a normal conversational expression of predicate focus, cf. mot tamut etc., which it is usually best not to try to translate at all: 'you will die,' not 'you will certainly die'; so likewise in the present case not (KJV) 'the man did solemnly protest' or (ESV) 'the man solemnly warned us' but just 'the man warned us.'