Joseph's Tale

Joseph’s Tale

An Essay by Izzy Sommers,
Welland, Canada, November, 2005

I have a copy of the REVISED STANDARD VERSION of THE BIBLE, containing the Old and New Testaments translated from the Original Languages, being the version set forth A. D. 1611, Revised A. D. 1881-5 and A. D. 1901, Compared with the Most Ancient Authorities and Revised A. D. 1952, second edition of the New Testament, A. D. 1971. It is published by the CANADIAN BIBLE SOCIETY, 10 Carnforth Road, Toronto, Ontario, M4A 2S4, ISBN-0-88834-605-0, CBS-1987-5M.

This morning, Saturday, November 26, 2005, I happened to open the Bible at Genesis, chapter 39. I found that it had 23 verses, altogether. Joseph, having been abandoned and left for dead by his Hebrew brothers, had been enslaved by the Ishmaelites who sold him to the Egyptians, specifically Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh. Ironically, Joseph’s grandfather was Isaac, Abraham’s official son, born of Sarah Leah, Abraham’s official wife, when she was about a hundred years old. Ishmael, the grand originator of the Ishmaelites, was also Abraham’s son, though unofficially, born of the nubile Hagar, Abraham’s unofficial mistress, originally Abraham’s and Sarah’s housekeeper. Joseph did well and was made the trusted overseer of Potiphar’s house.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at history and God’s Ways, the young Hebrew, Joseph, was both good-looking and handsome. Potiphar’s wife repeatedly asked Joseph to lie with her and he repeatedly refused on righteous grounds. Left alone, finally, she grabbed his garment away from him, demanding, “Lie with me!” He fled, leaving her holding his garment. She screamed that Joseph the Hebrew had insulted her and her husband and her household by wanting to lie with her. She lamented to all her household, including her husband, showing them Joseph’s garment. Potiphar had no choice but to have Joseph imprisoned.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Joseph’s reputation preceded him and his behaviour, and talents, impressed the prison keeper, who committed to Joseph’s care all the other prisoners. He was known to be the supervising prisoner who was the successful doer who engendered prosperity.

These are the mostly plagiarized, Ten Morals of Izzy Sommers:

* Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.
* Cream always rises to the top.
* God works in mysterious ways.
* Things haven’t changed in 2,500 years.
* A lamenting woman is a dangerous one.
* A righteous man can get into trouble.
* God helps those that help themselves.
* It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
* A word is worth a thousand pictures.
* History is written by the victors.

In Chapter 40 of Genesis, which also has 23 verses, Joseph comes to be the overseer of two of the Pharaoh’s servants, the butler and the baker. They have been imprisoned because they angered the King of Egypt for unspecified reasons. Both the chief butler and the chief baker have dreams, the predictions of which are interpreted accurately by Joseph. The chief butler is released from prison, and is rehired by the King, as predicted by Joseph. But, the butler doesn’t remember Joseph to the Pharaoh, as Joseph had requested. The chief baker is released from prison, and is hanged by the King, as predicted by Joseph.

In Chapter 41 of Genesis, which has 57 verses, Joseph is 2 years older and is finally remembered to the King by the chief butler when the Pharaoh has an odd dream involving fat and skinny cows. Joseph is released from the prison by the King to interpret his dream. Joseph is confident and says that his God has revealed the future to the Pharaoh. Accurately, he predicts there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. The King of Egypt makes Joseph his right-hand man, the overseer of the Land of Egypt, a kind of Prime Minister or President, answering only to the King. He dresses him in fine clothes, gives him the signet ring of authority, gives him a gold necklace and tells him to ride in the second chariot, the first presumably being for the King, himself. The King made everyone bow to Joseph. He dubbed him Zaphenathpaneah. He gave him Asenath in marriage, the daughter of Potiphera, the Priest of On, ironically closely related to Joseph’s original Egyptian master, Potipher, who had imprisoned him unjustifiably when his wife lied to him.

By this time, Joseph was over 30. He oversaw the growing and storage of grain in every Egyptian city, in huge, inestimable quantities. He and Asenath had 2 sons, Menassah and Ephraim. Though there was famine everywhere else, there was none in Egypt because of Joseph. Not only did he have bread for every Egyptian, he had grain to sell to foreigners.

Chapter 42 of Genesis has 38 verses. It starts the story of the interplay of Joseph with his estranged father and brothers who come to Egypt to buy grain. Chapter 43 has 34 verses and Chapter 44 has 33 verses. Chapter 45 has 28 and 46, 34; 47 has 31 and 48, 22.

Chapter 50 of Genesis has 26 verses. He and his father’s house, the House of Jacob, were re-united in Egypt and were doing well. Joseph lived 110 years and had seen Ephraim’s children in the third generation and Manasseh’s in the second generation. On his death bed, he predicted to his brothers that God will visit them and bring them out of Egypt to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, his father, grandfather and great grandfather. He requested that his bones be taken with them to the Promised Land. He died and was embalmed and was put in a coffin in Egypt. It doesn’t say, but he was not necessarily buried. He could have been honoured by being put in a pyramid or other mausoleum, in a sarcophagus, perhaps, which would have allowed his bones to be transported, later, as he had requested.

This is the end of the first Book of the Old Testament, Genesis. On the next page there is the story of Moses and the Exodus, starting with the lineage and the changing of the favouring of Joseph’s family to the persecution of the Jews. None of the Egyptian records even mentions the Jews. It is conceivable that Joseph was, in fact, a kind of Prime Minister or President, or something like the Minister of Agriculture. Looking ahead, it is conceivable that the Jews were the slaves and workers, or even important engineers, who designed or built the pyramids. Inasmuch as the actual Pentateuch was presumably written by Aaron and Moses at the direction of God, or by God himself, one can only guess at the actual jobs and positions the Jews pursued, other than Moses, himself, who for a while was a prince in the Pharaoh’s castle. In the sense of the beseeching lament, “Let My People Go!” the Jews were presumably slaves of the Egyptians. Again, presumably, like slaves elsewhere, there were opportunities for gaining freedom to some degree. Thus, I believe, that some Jews had more freedom than others. Some, like Joseph and Moses, might have achieved high status. Reading and calculating, music and writing, Jewish traditions which are highly valued, might have proven very useful to the Egyptians, as they have to other peoples, over the centuries.

The Morals:

People sin. They kill and steal, covet and cheat. They worship false idols and use profanity. They don’t honour their neighbours, or their parents. People are often angry and lustful, prideful and lazy, gluttonous, jealous and greedy.

Joseph... wait! The Ten Commandments are coming. “Love your God with all your heart,” is coming. “Love they neighbour as thyself,” is coming. The 613 Rules and Regulations of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are coming. The money lenders are going to be thrown out of the Synagogues. The 93 Protestations of Martin Luther in Wittenberg, Germany, and the King James’ Bible in London, England, Jesus and Mohammed, Buddha and Gandhi, Gibron and Esther, Daniel and Billy Graham, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Marcello Maestroianni and Sophia Loren, Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Peter and Paul and Peter, Paul and Mary, and many others are coming. Floods, fire, earthquakes, meteorites, atomic bombs, wars, bloodshed, years of plenty, years of famine, Google and Windows, income and property taxes, sales and inheritance taxes, pestilence, and winds are on their way.

Izzy’s Ten Morals will still apply. Thank you for listening.

THE END