Notes 52: Jacob is told Joseph is dead (37:29-36)

SYNOPSIS: With Joseph out of the way, the brothers stain his striped shirt, which they have previously removed, in the blood of a goat and take it back to Jacob, who identifies it and infers that Joseph has been killed by a wild animal.

• Text of the passage in Nawat

This is high drama, well developed as narration before the time of the Greek tragedies and comedies! 

Joseph's brothers needed to make their father believe Joseph had been killed in order to divert suspicion from themselves over the fact that he would not be returning home; it's a necessary link in the story. But the teller of the story could just have told the audience that the brothers did that and the father believed Joseph was dead. But here was a scene with dramatic potential in which different tensions are present and can be played to advantage. The brothers know Joseph isn't dead, and so does the audience; only Jacob thinks his favourite son has died. Thus when we read about his reactions upon (apparently) finding out the terrible news, we can both suffer with Jacob for his loss and, at the same time, look on as the whole drama unfolds, knowing more than the protagonist.

And prior to that scene there is another, where Reuben returns to the pit expecting to find and perhaps to rescue Joseph from there, only to discover an empty pit and no sign of his brother. We also witness his shock and horror, both on account of Joseph and for his own sake, for he is now going to have to account to his father for Joseph's disappearance (he seemingly doesn't know the plan yet). Once again, the audience knows what's going on; the central character of the scene does not, however, and so we have another melodramatic scene to enjoy. Soap opera script writers take note!

But unlike them, the author of Genesis is not interested in dragging out a scene for no good reason, and all this commotion is fit into seven verses, the last of which serves to remind the audience not to get too carried away sharing Jacob's grief, because Joseph isn't really dead after all: he is a steward in a good Egyptian family, his master a member of Pharaoh's own staff whose name is Potiphar.

37:29 wayyiqra‛ et b'gadaw
'He rent his clothes.' This is the first of three occurrences of this idiom in Genesis, two in the present passage (it will be Jacob's turn in v. 34), and once again in ch. 44 when Joseph's guards discover their master's goblet in Benjamin's sack and he is arrested for theft; on that occasion it will be the brothers' turn to rend their garments. In the second and third of these occurrences, the noun used is simlotaw (simlotam) rather than b'dagadaw, but the same idea is conveyed. Tearing one's clothes was a sign of deep grief. The verb q-r-‛ (ending in ayin) 'to tear' should not be confused with q-r-' (ending in alef) 'to call, read.'

37:30 wa'ani ána ani va
Generally translated as 'Where shall I go?', 'Where can I turn?' or 'What am I to do?' The verb (ba) has two basic meanings, 'to enter' and 'to come', and I'm not sure which is to be understood here. EH comments: "An agonized cry. Literally, 'as for me, where can I go?' - to escape my father's grief." Only actually, literally it doesn't say go! It occurs to me that if that is the intended sense - to escape my father's grief - then perhaps the question is really 'Where am I going to hide?' (based on the meaning 'enter', cf. Spanish ¿Adónde me meto?).

37:31 et hakkuttónet
The absolute state kuttónet is used here since it is not followed by passim; when it is, it appears in the construct state, which is k'tónet.

37:32 wayshall'xu et k'tónet happassim etc.
'They sent the ornamental tunic.' Rather than taking the tattered, bloodied garment to Jacob themselves, they dispatched it to him via messengers. The messengers are the implied subject of wayyaví'u 'they brought [it]' and wayyom'ru 'they said'. 

zot matzánu hakker na hakk'tónet binkha hi im lo
'We have found this; please see whether or not it is your son's tunic.' What the messengers said was naturally the message the brothers had sent it with, so the we is the brothers.

37:33 wayyakkírah wayyómer k'tónet b'ni xayya ra‛a akhalát'hu Tarof Toraf yosef
(JPS): 'He recognized it, and said, "My son's tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!"' I will quote the EH comment on this verse while myself inserting the Hebrew words and phrases to which it refers:

Jacob becomes aware of the full horror of the situation only in stages. First he recognises the tunic [wayyakkírah wayyómer k'tónet b'ni]. Then its bloody and tattered condition leads him to infer that a wild beast has devoured his son [xayya ra‛a akhalát'hu]. Then he has a vivid mental image of his beloved Joseph actually being torn to pieces [Tarof Toraf yosef].

The verb in the last clause is T-r-p 'to tear in pieces (of wild animals)' (CHALOT). The first form, Tarof, is the infinitive (cf. mot tamut etc.). The second, Toraf, is the past tense of the passive of the piel or intensive, meaning 'was torn to pieces.' Incidentally, T'refa, a noun derived from this root, has found its way into Yiddish (as treyfe) with the evolved meaning 'meat not suitable for human consumption' whence 'non-kosher food' generally.

37:33 wayyiqra‛ simlotaw
See my note on v. 29.

saq
'Sackcloth.' "The wearing of sackcloth, a coarse material probably made of goat hair of camelhair, s another symbol of grief" (EH).

37:35 wayyaqúmu khol banaw w'khol b'notaw l'naxamo wayma'en l'hitnaxem
'All his sons and daughters sought [literally 'rose'] to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted.' The mention of b'notaw 'his daughters' in the plural is interesting; did he have other daughters besides Dinah? Well, since reports of the births of girls in Genesis are few and far between, amongst so many male babies, I don't think it would be surprising if there were; the female part of the population must have come from somewhere! Generally, daughters are only mentioned when they have a specific role to play in the story (witness Dinah); so maybe that doesn't mean after all that Jacob had no other female offspring. The escape route offered in EH seems unnecessary to my mind: it glosses 'daughters' as "both his daughter Dinah and his daughters-in-law."

ki ered el b'ni avel sh'óla
'I will go down mourning to my son in Sheol', i.e.'I will still be mourning for him until the day I die.' On sh'ol I quote EH again:

This is the most frequently used term in biblical Hebrew for the abode of the spirits of the dead. The region was imagined as situated deep beneath the earth, enclosed with gates. It was a place of unrelieved gloom and silence; it received everyone, good and bad, great and small. All were equal there, and none who entered it could leave. There is no concept of "heaven" and "hell" in the Hebrew Bible.

Interestingly, this notion of Sheol seems quite reminiscent of the picture painted of the abode of the dead in the indigenous oral literature in the Nawat language.