INTRODUCTION:
Joseph was the oldest child of Rachel, the only wife Jacob loved, after many years of infertility. From his very birth Joseph is set apart from his ten older half-brothers. It is likely that his mother lavished love and indulgences on him. Several years later Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, but she died in childbirth. In her death Jacob substitutes Joseph as an object of his special affection. ‘Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age’ (37:3). It is likely that Jacob when seeing Benjamin (his youngest child) always remembered that his birth resulted in Rachel’s death.
Joseph being the son of the loved and now dead wife was set apart from his brothers. Jacob’s partiality toward Joseph brought rift and discord into the family. Joseph was sold by his brothers and ended up in Egypt where after various adventures he interpreted dreams for the Pharaoh, predicting food surplus and then famine. As a result he was appointed Viceroy.
JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS IN EGYPT
Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy food, the narrator notes that Jacob kept back ‘Joseph’s brother Benjamin’ (42:4). He will not risk Rachel’s only remaining child. As the ten brothers go down into Egypt do they remember how they had sold Joseph into slavery there? Do they speak of it? In Egypt, they are brought into the presence of the Viceroy. Did Joseph the leader of Egypt commonly interview all foreign purchasers of grain, or did he expect his brothers might come and order the border guards to watch out for them? (1) He recognizes them, but they do not know him. Now his brothers bow to him as the young Joseph had once dreamt but in an ironic twist they do not know whom they are really bowing to. But ‘Joseph remembered the dreams’ (42:9).
The Viceroy questions them harshly, and through their answers learns things he had not actually asked: that their father is still alive, and that his youngest brother has been left at home with the father. Joseph has them detained on charges of espionage. From the conversation among the brothers (that they did not know he could understand Hebrew) he learns two more things: that they attribute their misfortune to their hard-hearted treatment of Joseph, and that Reuben had tried to save him (42:22).
The Viceroy detains Simeon as hostage but sends the others home with a supply of grain. (Was Simeon the leader of the brothers after Rueben, the oldest had left?) He also tells them that there will be no more grain for them unless they prove they are not spies by bringing their youngest brother to Egypt. The brothers may well have wondered how the presence of Benjamin could prove their innocence to the charge of spying. Perhaps Joseph believes that the fulfillment of his dream is not complete until all eleven brothers bow to him. He has the silver they had paid for the grain returned to them, hidden in their sacks.
They tell their tale of woe to Jacob, but he rejects the idea of sending Benjamin to Egypt. He calls Benjamin ‘the only one left’ (42:38) -- his surrogate for Joseph and replacement for Rachel. He avers that if Benjamin should not return from Egypt, he himself would 'go down into Sheol [the place of the dead]' (Gen. 42:38), the same thing he said when his sons led to believe that Joseph was dead (Gen. 37:35). Reuben makes the bizarre suggestion that his own two sons would be hostages, whom Jacob might kill if Benjamin did not return to him (42:37). Does this suggest that Reuben felt guilty about allowing Joseph to be lost? Reuben was not present when Joseph was sold -- and furthermore he had intended to rescue Joseph from the pit and take him home to Jacob. He even tried to persuade the other brothers from the start to "do no harm to the boy". So he is not guilty, unless perhaps he felt that he should have taken stronger action at the beginning.
When the food brought from Egypt is used up, Jacob orders his sons to go back for more. Judah reminds him that they cannot do this without taking Benjamin with them, and offers to stand surety for the youngest brother (43:9). Judah has by this time lost two sons of his own and has perhaps a greater understanding of paternal grief. This time, Jacob agrees: 'Take your brother, and go back to the man' (43:13). Why did he reject Reuben's surety and accept Judah's? Reuben had offered death, the lives of his own two sons. Judah stressed life: 'Send the boy with me, and let us be off and go, if we are to survive and not die, we, you and our dependents' (43:8) The Patriarch recognizes the validity of this argument; that the family choose life.
The brothers arrive in Egypt and tell Joseph's steward that by some error their money was returned the last time they came. The stewards tell the brothers that the returned money was not Joseph's. `Your God and the God of your father’ returned it to you (Gen. 43:23). That is clearly not true, Joseph told the steward to relate that to his brothers. Does Joseph tell his servants to use the name God? He could have told the steward to say he did not know anything about the money and it was not Joseph’s. The steward takes them to Joseph’s home not his official palace as before. The brothers meet Joseph again and they still do not recognize him. The Viceroy asks pleasantly is your father well and alive? I see your brother Benjamin is with you and he blesses him (Gen. 43:27-29).
The Viceroy of Egypt after not seeing them for many months or years - they are presumably one of thousands of groups seeking food - remembers their father and recognizes the missing brother whom the brothers assume, he has never met. Joseph then rushed out to a private room to cry. Does Judah note the emotional impact on asking about their father and his seeing Benjamin.
Joseph then invites his brothers to dine with him. To their amazement they are then seated for dinner in the exact order of their birth. How does the Viceroy know their birth order? Benjamin is fed with five times the amounts of his brothers; he is treated as the guest of honor. Just as he Joseph was treated with favoritism by being given the special coat, so he favors Benjamin by feeding him in a special way. Then they are given Simeon and told they may leave.
The eleven brothers, with fresh provisions, are sent off home. But again Joseph had their money secretly placed in their sacks, and has his own silver goblet placed in Benjamin’s sack. He sends his steward to overtake them and, to accuse them of stealing the goblet, which they find in Benjamin's sack. The steward gives then Joseph’s cynical message, he will enslave the thief, Benjamin for stealing. The rest may go home in 'peace' (Gen. 44:17). How could they go home in peace without Benjamin? They refuse to leave Benjamin and return to the Viceroy.
When they are brought to the Viceroy, the role Judah role as leader is foreshadowed: 'Judah and his brothers arrived at Joseph's house' (44:14). Judah stands at the head of the brothers. The speech he addresses to the Viceroy is one of the most passionate and emotional in the Bible. By this time Judah realized that the Viceroy is his half-brother Joseph.
Judah cannot tell Joseph the unvarnished truth; that he knows that the Viceroy has lied and arranged this conspiracy. Judah decides to tell his father's truth. Directly prior to his speech Judah reviews in his own mind the strange events that have occurred to him and his brothers. First they are arbitrarily accused of being spies, of uncovering the nakedness of the land (42:9,12). Then Joseph says I will keep all of you until your youngest brother is brought to me. What does this have to do with their being accused of being spies? He then turns aside and wept and then said he would keep Simeon and await their return with Benjamin. What is the relationship between Benjamin and the accusation that they are spies? If they are thought to be spies why are they all but one released? Why does the Egyptian servant say the money is not Joseph’s and then state `I fear God’ (42:18) and then refer to `your God and the God of your father’ (43:23). The Viceroy of Egypt has them taken to his house and after not seeing them for many months remembers their father and recognizes the missing brother. Joseph then rushed out to a private room to cry. Judah, no doubt noted the emotional impact on asking about their father and his seeing full brother Benjamin. Joseph then invites his brothers to dine with him. He seats them in the exact order of their birth. How does Joseph know their birth order? Benjamin is favored over his brothers. Judah perhaps understands as noted by Sternberg, that Joseph was testing whether the brothers had ‘come to terms with the father’s preference . . . rubbing it in through the contrast with the order of natural seniority in which he has taken care to seat them’. (2)
Then they leave and are intercepted with the money and Joseph's cup in their Benjamin's possession. Judah knew that Benjamin could not have been guilty and thus Joseph set up the whole conflict. If Judah suspected that Benjamin had stolen the cup, he would simply have said that he, Judah, stole it and put in Benjamin's baggage. Then Benjamin would have been freed and Judah would have become a slave (as Joseph became), but he would have accomplished what he promised his father. Judah knew it was Joseph he was addressing, and this tactic would therefore fail.
JUDAH’S SPEECH
Thus instead of addressing the issue of Benjamin, the alleged thief, he emphasized in his speech, his father’s love for Joseph above all his children and Joseph's mother Rachel as his only wife. Would Joseph take revenge against his brothers or feel compassion for their father? Instead of talking about the theft of the cup, Judah counters him with the agony of his father. He mentioned his father fourteen times in his extraordinary speech. That is the basis of Judah's speech. When Judah says (in the prologue to his speech) 'God himself, has uncovered your servant’s guilt' (Gen. 44:16), Judah is not responding to the cup he knows was never stolen, but apologizing to his brother Joseph for their selling him. Judah by telling Joseph God knows our guilt (Gen. 44:16), is also telling him he, Joseph and God know that Benjamin is not guilty.
In Judah's speech he reiterates the previous events of Joseph’s interrogation of the family (Gen. 44:19-24). Without explicitly asking Judah is questioning - ‘why this interrogation'? He understood that something was amiss. He, Judah, sarcastically says to Joseph that Benjamin’s brother is dead (44:20). He had previously said his brother was missing (42:1). He then says to Joseph my father said `one of them left [Joseph], I supposed that he must have been torn to pieces' (Gen. 44:28).
Judah's long tale of his father ignited compassion in Joseph. Judah tells of the pain Jacob suffered in the 'death' of Joseph. He would surely die if Benjamin is not returned to him. Judah accepts the responsibility for his brother Benjamin, as he told his father he would do. By stating that He is willing to become a slave to Joseph as he and his brothers had enslaved Joseph, he is repenting for what they did to Joseph. Joseph then sends the Egyptians away and breaks down and tells his brothers that ‘I am Joseph your brother, is my father still alive’ (45:3)? He, of course then speaks their Hebraic language. He knows his father is alive, but Joseph’s immediate response is the emotional ‘is my father still alive’ is all that Judah had hoped.
The speech shatters Joseph’s mask. His concealing of his emotions had fails. ‘His loud weeping was heard by the Egyptians and even in the house of Pharaoh’ (45:2). Judah understood that Joseph had fractured the family peace by demanding Benjamin's presence as the brothers had by selling him into Egypt. Judah redeemed the entire family and restored Joseph to it.
Joseph tells his brothers that God ordained their selling him so as to save their lives. Why then, did Joseph deceive his brothers by hiding his silver cup in Benjamin's sack? Why did he not tell them when they first brought Benjamin or even in the first meeting who he was? He has, in effect, tormented his brothers. And more importantly and with no justification he tormented his father. His father, an old man, might have died during the interim (perhaps two years) of the two visits. The brothers had told Joseph that bringing Benjamin to Egypt would endanger Jacob’s life. “And harm shall come to him, and you shall bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to sheol’ (44:29). Despite this clear warning, Joseph disregarding their statement, and insisted that they bring Benjamin. (44:22-23). He must have known ‘what his request will mean to his father; it will be a crushing blow, and yet he did it coolly with no apparent remorse’ (3) He clearly played with his father’s death. (4) When Joseph finally disclosed his identity and asks ‘is my father still alive?’ they, in fact cannot properly respond. They have left many weeks ago. The pain of Benjamin’s being gone may have killed him. Joseph’s response comes immediately after Judah talks of their father’s potential death. Did Joseph believe that demanding Benjamin would require his father to come down to Egypt and since he did not perhaps Jacob had died? (5) Can the brother’s silence after Joseph’s identifying himself be their recognition of what the favorite son may have done to their father (45:3)? (6)
Joseph’s dreams of grandeur turn out to be true. But did Joseph need to tell his brothers of the dreams? Could he not have waiting for God to implement them? Do the brothers actions - selling him - if in fact God’s will justify his actions in taking vengeance on his brothers? If this was divinely inspired why did Joseph have the need for vengeance? And if his taking vengeance is only ‘normal’ why torment his father? Is this the only way his mission of saving the world could be implemented? Could he not have told his father and brothers as soon as he became Viceroy about the years of plenty and the years of famine?
When Joseph hears Judah saying in the name of his father ‘And the one went out from me, and I said, surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since’. (44:28) He may not have realized that his father never told his sons that he send Joseph out and had felt guilt since them. And that the sons never told their father what had happened. And when Jacob said ‘I saw him not since’ not that he died - did Jacob ever expect to see Joseph again? Did Joseph ever expect to see his father again? All this is new information for Joseph to absorb. That Joseph was surprised we can take from his first response to his brothers. ‘Is my father still alive’? (45:3) Judah has told him their father is still alive but mentioning his father’s name confirms Judah’s speech that Jacob is the key to this whole drama. Given the early death of his mother Joseph’s central identity is tied up with his father whose favorite he was. And his father’s life is tied up with him. Judah has told Joseph about their father’s life. ‘His life is tied into his life’ (44:30). The omission of proper names in this phrase suggests that their lives are inextricably tied together. Given that Benjamin is a surrogate for Joseph the relationship between Benjamin, Joseph and Jacob are inextricably bound. Joseph also learnt from this speech that Judah (if not the other brothers as well) had reconciled themselves to Jacob’s favoritism. Jacob’s life, despite being an old man, is worth more to Judah than his own. He has truly transformed himself from the man willing to sell his brother to being his father’s servant. Will Joseph be reconciled to his father and his brothers?
CONCLUSION
As much as Joseph’s brothers had their difficulty with him he felt rightfully outraged by their actions toward him, (7) and consequently he never told his father that he was alive and where he was. Joseph could even have believed that his father was part of a conspiracy to eliminate him. Why did Jacob send Joseph alone to his brothers in Shechem? Perhaps not until Judah's speech does he realize his father's anguish at his apparent death (Gen. 44:27-29), and thus his father's innocence in the conspiracy.
Joseph’s behavior – his torturous trial of his brothers and his father - may be understandable but it is difficult to justify. He is boastful and insulting to his brothers and his father. After a separation of twenty two years he torments his brothers by accusing them of being spies. We know and he knows that his brothers regret what they did (42:20). He left them leave after imprisoning Simeon, but more importantly does not tell them or his father he, Joseph is still alive. After he has revealed himself he says ‘Return quickly to your father and tell him, your son Joseph’ (45:9) is alive. Since he first met them two years have passed and his father could have died of old age if not of hunger, never knowing that Joseph was alive. How could he do that to his father? How could he torment his only full brother Benjamin by bringing him to Egypt and then stating he will be enslaved? Why does he not demand Jacob come with Benjamin? He talks of God, but in fact God never spoke to him. He does all for his own reasons. He is still the spoiled child he was twenty years earlier. He made himself the dictator of Egypt, his brothers and his father. Compare that to Esau’s filial behavior towards his father Isaac and his forgiveness of his brother Jacob. (8)
The brothers report that Jacob instructed them to tell Joseph to forgive them (50:15-17), and then they offer to be his slaves (50:18), precisely what he had dreamed. We do not know if Jacob told his children to approach the Viceroy, but it is clear that they feared him. Why did not Jacob tell Joseph himself? Did he too fear Joseph? Joseph once again talks about God, specifically stated ‘Am I in place of God?’ (50:19) the very same words Jacob used in responding to Rachel’s pleading for a child (30:2); a child she finally bore, Joseph. This seemed like the last opportunity for a real reconciliation; by reminding his brothers of God Joseph – once again – refused his brothers ambiguous plea for a reconciliation. The conspiracy of silence will continue.
Ancient and Midrashic texts attempt to explain Joseph’s actions to his brothers and his father. The Biblical text tells us that Joseph ‘was pretty person and pretty to look at’ (39:6). The exact words in Hebrew are only used one other time in the Bible regarding his mother Rachel. A Midrash says of Joseph that after he was promoted by Potiphar he said ‘Now I have to admit I’m doing fine’. (9) It continues that Joseph ‘became pretty [not was pretty] . . . was like a man sitting in the market place daubing his eyes and smoothing back his hair . . . and saying ‘I am quite the man’. The Testament of Joseph states ‘and He [God] gave me also beauty as a flower, beyond the beautiful ones of Israel’. (10) One Targum’s translation of Jacob’s deathbed blessing of Joseph (49:22), is ‘And when [the Egyptian sages] praised you [Joseph], the daughters of the rulers [of Egypt] would walk along the walls and cast down in front of you bracelets and golden ornaments so that you might look at them’. (11) All these ancient texts suggest that Joseph was quite aware of his beauty and in some that he enhanced his looks. That is precisely the ancient meaning of narcissism. (12)
(1) As suggested by Thomas Mann in ‘Joseph and his Brothers’ (London, Penguin Books, 1978).
(2) Sternberg, Meir, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1985) pg. 161.
(3) Herbert, Joseph and the Surprising Choice of God, quoted in Fung, Y.W., Victim and Victimizer, JSOT, Sheffield, 2000, pg. 176.
(4) Turner, L.A., Announcement of Plot in Genesis, (JSOT, 96, Sheffield, 1990) pg. 162.
(5) Turner, pg. 162.
(6) O’Brien, The Contribution of Judah’s Speech to the Characterization of Joseph, CBQ, Vol. 59, #3, July 1997, pg. 445.
(7) Joseph names his first child Manasseh means 'to forget my hardship and my parental home' (41:51).
(8) Rabbi Simon bar Gamaliel said no one ever honored his father as did Esau, (Midrash Rabbah, Deuteronomy, Translated by J. Abramowitz, (Soncino, London, 1961) I-15, pg. 16-18.) That is why Esau is given priority when Jacob and he bury Isaac (25:9).
(9) Midrash Genesis Rabba 87:4.
(10) Testament of Joseph (18:4), quoted in Kugel, Tradition, pg. 69. In Islamic tradition Joseph and Ms. Potiphar named Zulaykha, is a perennial love story. During marriage ceremonies the story of love and beauty represented by Joseph and Zulayka is seen as divinely inspired. Even today Joseph is a great prophetic hero in Muslim topology.
(11) Targum Jonathan, quoted in Kugel, pg. 281.
(12) The Greek god-like narcissus looked at himself in the mirror of a river and fell in self-absorbed love with his own beauty.