Notes 76: Joseph's death (50:22-26)

SYNOPSIS: Joseph lived with his family and lived to see his sons' grandchildren. On his deathbed, he told his relatives: "After I die God will look after you, and he will take you back from Egypt to the land that God promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." He asked for his bones to be taken back to the land of Canaan.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

One more postscript remains: What happened to Joseph? One thing that this final paragraph seems to me to demonstrate beyond a doubt is that, whatever the process whereby the text of Genesis was brought into being, the final product is a work of art, chiselled out not only with an eye for detail, for that is also a feature of fine craftsmanship, but another eye on the aesthetics of the whole, the centrality of the message, the power of the image and the symbol, elegance, symmetry and (another feature of the best art) an outward-looking perspective: and what next? No wonder the ancients believed there was magic in every word, even every letter. That is rather too primitive a way of looking at it for my taste, but it is one way of saying that the author knew what he was doing. The last five lines of the book of Genesis could have been any old five lines, but they are not; there is nothing "any old" about them! And this is, in itself and on the level of literary analysis, a final message to the reader or listener, a warning even: Have you been paying attention to what I've been saying?

The last word of Genesis is b'mitzráyim 'in Egypt': a happy coincidence, or a one-word summary of where the story leaves us and the opening premise of Exodus, the book that follows?

Joseph, who has just reminded everyone that he is no god (v. 19), has a human lifespan of 110 years, an age which no person even today can complain about but which brings us within the realm of the possible and the normal; with him, we enter history. He lived to be a great-grandfather. Then he died.

Joseph is the last person we see and the last character who speaks, and so we may say that he speaks to us, the book's audience, as well as to the members of his family; we are all, you might say, gathered around him as he utters his last words, and they echo in everyone's ears. And the author of Genesis knew that. So what words does he place on the departing Joseph's lips? anokhi met welohim paqod yifqod etkhem w'he‛ela etkhem min ha'áretz hazzot el ha'áretz asher nishba‛ l'avraham l'yitzxaq ul'ya‛aqov 'I am dying, but God will look after you and will make sure you go from this land to the land he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.'

The utterance ends on the names of the patriarchs' whose lives have been the main focus of the book that concludes here; the three Hebrew words sum up the family whose story constitutes the book's substance. The word sequence "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" has subsequently become so familiar to audiences who know the rest of the story that it may easily slip past us that this is actually the first time the three patriarchs have ever been referred to this way.

These words also remind us of the main theme surrounding this family: the idea that God promised to them a land (that's the good news!); that promised land, however, is not the one in which they are now living (that's the not-so-good news!). That is a bittersweet part of this parting message. In other words, you have a destiny but you are not there yet. One day you are going to get where you're going, but not yet, so keep working at it.

But there is consolation: God will keep an eye on you, and he will get you there (eventually): w'he‛ela etkhem min ha'áretz hazzot 'he will lead you up from this land.' The road to Canaan is always "up" in Hebrew, hence w'he‛ela, but that doesn't stop us from reading another sense into the verb on a spiritual level: God will show you the way upwards, towards something better. Meanwhile, you are not alone: paqod yifqod etkhem 'he will watch over you.'

The point, my point at any rate, is that these are the words and the thoughts the author of Genesis leaves the audience with, and it is a fairly complete message to have encapsuated in a single sentence in a way which fits very smoothly into the narrative fabric so that it doesn't sound in the least bit like a lecture or a sermon. It is more like a parting melody, echoing in a simple phrase the entire symphony that has just been performed. And in retrospect, what a performance it has been! Bravo!!