Joseph: A Sacred Narrative Drawn From the Book of Genesis (Part 3)

Joseph meanwhile gave secret orders to his servants (Gen. 44): “Fill the sacks of these men with grain, give them as much as they can carry. Put each man’s money back in his sack on top of the grain. In the sack of the youngest, put my silver cup along with his money”. All was done according to Joseph’s orders. Morning came: Jacob’s sons set out on their journey with donkeys laden with bread. When they had gone out of the city and were not yet far away, Joseph said to his steward: “Go quickly after these men, catch up with them and say: Why have you repaid good with evil? Why have you stolen my silver cup? Is it not the cup from which my master drinks? And does he not use it for divination?” The steward, catching up with them, repeated word for word what Joseph had commanded. They answered: “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! If we found our money in our sacks when we returned from the land of Canaan, why would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? Whichever one of your servants is found to have the cup shall be put to death, and the rest of us will become slaves to my lord”. The steward answered: “Very well then, let it be as you say: the one with whom it is found shall be my slave, and the rest of you will be free”. They quickly took down their sacks from the donkeys, and each one opened his sack. The steward began to search, starting with the oldest and going down to the youngest; the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. In despair they tore their clothes, loaded their sacks back on the donkeys, and returned to the city. Joseph was in his house: they came to him and fell to the ground before him. “What have you done?”—he said to them—“Do you not know that a man like me can practice divination?” Judah answered: “What can we say to you, my lord? What can we speak? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered the guilt of your servants. We are now your slaves—we and the one who was found with the cup”. “It is not so”—said Joseph—“Only the one who was found with the cup shall be my slave; the rest of you go back in peace to your father”. Then Judah approached him and said: “Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word in your hearing, and do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, Have you a father or a brother? And we said to my lord, We have an aged father and a young brother, born to him in his old age. His full brother is dead; he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, so that I can see him. We said to my lord, The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die. But you said to your servants, Unless your youngest brother comes with you, you shall not see my face again. When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of my lord. And when our father said, Go again, buy us a little grain, we said, We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother goes with us, we will go; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us. Your servant, my father, said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces; and I have not seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol. So now, if I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us, since his life is bound up in the boy’s life, when he sees that the boy is not with me, he will die; and your servants will have brought down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol. I, your servant, took responsibility for the boy to my father. I said, If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life. Now please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father”. Joseph could no longer contain himself and conceal his identity (Gen. 45). He commanded all those who stood by him to leave; even from his attendants and household no one remained when he revealed himself to his brothers. All had withdrawn; then with weeping and cries Joseph exclaimed to his brothers: “I am Joseph!… Does my father still live?” His brothers were completely bewildered and could answer him nothing. Joseph said to them: “Come closer to me”. They came closer. “I am Joseph”—he repeated to them—“your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here… so that it should not trouble you, should not torment you! God, providing for your salvation, sent me here. For two years now the famine has been on the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me here ahead of you to preserve life for you, to ensure the survival of your whole household. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; He has made me like a father to Pharaoh, and master of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, Thus says your son Joseph: God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, with your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are still five years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to destitution. And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here”. He fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Then he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Word reached Pharaoh’s house of the arrival of Joseph’s brothers; Pharaoh and his court were delighted. Pharaoh said to Joseph: “Say to your brothers: Do this—load your animals and go to the land of Canaan, and get your father and your households, and come to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the richest food of the land”. Joseph gave to each of his brothers sets of garments, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five sets of garments. To his father he sent many gifts on ten donkeys, and ten female donkeys laden with grain and bread and provision for his father on the journey. Having so gifted his brothers, he sent them away; as he sent them, he said: “Do not quarrel on the way”. These instructions were indeed needed by the free-spirited children of the desert: certainly now they gave them their due weight, remembered and kept them.

Jacob’s sons returned to the land of Canaan, to their father, and said to him: “Your son Joseph is alive: he is ruler of all the land of Egypt”. Jacob was stunned and could not believe them. They assured him and told him all the words of Joseph in detail. When the old man saw the rich gifts and the wagons that Joseph had sent for him, his spirit revived, and Jacob said: “Enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I must go and see him before I die”.

The patriarch set out with all his household and possessions; arriving at what is called the Well of the Oath, he offered sacrifice to God there (Gen. 46). In a night vision God said to the old man: “Jacob! Jacob! I am the God of your fathers. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes”.

Jacob’s household, in their migration to the territory of Egypt, consisted, including Joseph and his sons, of seventy-five male souls. Having reached the land of Goshen, he sent Judah ahead to inform Joseph of his arrival. Joseph had his chariot prepared and went out to meet his aged father in the region of Goshen; seeing him, he fell on his neck with weeping and sobs. Jacob said to Joseph: “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive!” When the whole household had arrived in Egypt, Joseph said to his brothers: “I will go up and tell Pharaoh about you and say: My brothers and my father’s household, who were living in the land of Canaan, have come to me. The men are shepherds, for they have always raised livestock; and they have brought their flocks and herds, and all their possessions. When Pharaoh calls you and asks, What is your occupation? You shall answer: Your servants have been herders since our youth, we and our ancestors also. Then he will allow you to settle in the land of Goshen”. This considerable and most fertile portion of land, very suitable for shepherding, had never been settled. The reason for settling the patriarch’s household in a separate and uninhabited country, Scripture tells us, was a certain belief of the Egyptians, who considered those who engaged in shepherding to be unclean. Joseph informed Pharaoh that his father and brothers with their flocks had come from the land of Canaan and had settled in the land of Goshen (Gen. 47). From among his brothers, he selected five men and presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked Joseph’s brothers: “What is your occupation?” They answered: “Your servants are shepherds, as our ancestors were. We have come to settle in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks in the land of Canaan, for the famine has been severe there. Allow your servants to settle in the land of Goshen”. Pharaoh answered, turning to Joseph: “Your father and your brothers have come to you. The whole land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen. If you know of capable men among them, put them in charge of my livestock”. Joseph brought his father Jacob before Pharaoh: the old man blessed the Egyptian king. Pharaoh asked Jacob about the number of his years. “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty”—answered the old man. “Few and hard have been the years of my life, and they do not compare to the years of the life of my ancestors”. And, blessing the king once more, the old man departed from him. Joseph fulfilled all Pharaoh’s orders regarding the settlement of his father in the land of Goshen. There the beloved son often visited his aged father and provided him with all that was necessary for his support.

The various details about the civil organization of Egypt in Joseph’s time, preserved for us in the book of Genesis, are very interesting. In these details one can see an example of how states first arose, how men passed from a state of wild freedom into a state of subjection; how this subjection was at first incomplete and more akin to patriarchal obedience; how it later became absolute subjection; and finally, here one can see that the founder of absolute or monarchical rule in Egypt was the wise, holy Joseph. The court of Pharaoh at that time, although it already displayed some majesty and splendor, had not yet departed from patriarchal simplicity: his highest official personally engaged in the sale of grain; another official carried baskets of grain on his own head; a third with his own hands pressed the juice from grapes into a cup and served this cup to the king not only at festive banquets but, it appears, daily. The population of Egypt was still very insignificant, which is why the whole fertile region of Goshen remained uninhabited, while city dwellers had the opportunity to engage in farming and shepherding. The book of Genesis breathes with the youth of the political world. The narrative of the divinely-inspired author of this book, Moses, by its naturalness transports the attentive reader into the distant, sacred antiquity, to these people living in wonderful simplicity, to this newly begun life, free from all refinements. This life and this simplicity are full of power! Whoever often immerses himself in contemplation of biblical narratives will surely feel in his soul a special, strange impression. This impression consists in perceiving a certain freshness, youth, as if from the breath of the air on a beautiful summer morning. The soul grows young from gazing intently on the youth of the world, from conversation with the young world; its powers are invigorated and strengthened, as the spirit of an old man comes alive in the company of children. It is pleasant to enjoy the freshness of the young world, to rest in it from the impressions of the contemporary, decrepit, crumbling world.

The severe famine continued; Egypt and Palestine especially suffered from it: in these lands no one had grain except what Joseph had stored. No gold or silver remained in either land: all the money passed into Joseph’s hands, which he deposited in Pharaoh’s treasury—note that this was in the very house of the Egyptian king. The Egyptians, lacking money, needed grain: they sold to Pharaoh first their livestock, then their lands, and finally themselves. This was the beginning of absolute subjection in Egypt. Only the priests’ lands remained their own: they received grain from Pharaoh as a gift, as an allowance. When the years of famine ended and the Egyptians had surrendered both their lands and themselves to Pharaoh, Joseph gave them seed for sowing on the condition that they would annually give one-fifth of their harvest as tribute to the treasury. This newly established measure regarding taxation, and the very transformation regarding power, were received with pleasure and gratitude by the people of the newly born absolute state. “You have saved our lives”—the Egyptians said to Joseph—“you are our benefactor; we will be slaves to Pharaoh”. The author of the book of Genesis notes that this tribute remained unchanged even in his time—that is, after the passage of nearly four centuries. From the writings of much later authors, Herodotus and Diodorus, we can see that the same method of collecting taxes continued until their time, and that the land in Egypt was the property of the Egyptian kings. The revenues of the Egyptian kings from the land, says Diodorus, were so satisfactory that they made any other tribute from the people unnecessary.[1] In this arrangement one can see Joseph’s deep, brilliant mind, his extraordinary ability to govern—an ability which manifested itself in him from his very youth and which the chief of the bodyguard and the prison warden so quickly and justly recognized. He establishes a strong tax, but extraordinarily convenient for payment according to the nature of the country. What tribute is more suited to fertile Egypt than tribute in grain? It was easy to pay it there, where the ordinary harvest yielded a hundred-fold; it was easy to deliver it from fields lying on a navigable river, as all Egyptian fields lying on the banks of the Nile are, to cities with grain storehouses standing on the same river; it was easy to make up for shortfalls that might occur in lean years by payment in years of excessive harvest. If any harvests can be called excessive, that name belongs above all the harvests of the world to the harvests of the fields of Egypt. The sale of grain internally was perfectly convenient for Pharaoh from the harbors lying on this same navigable river. Later, when harbors were established on the Mediterranean Sea, on whose shores dwelt all the learned and trading world of that time, Egypt became the granary of that world and remained its granary as long as the Mediterranean remained its center; and it was the center of the learned, active world almost until modern times, almost throughout the life of the world. Joseph’s institution had extraordinary soundness with all its simplicity: and therefore it was long-lived. Time itself reveres a wise state ordinance and through many centuries preserves it in an unchanged state, so beneficial to states. Through this evident state benefaction, Joseph strengthened and shaped the power of the Pharaohs, secured the new state with capital and constant, abundant revenues.

Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt and, reaching the age of one hundred and forty-seven, felt the approach of death. A few days before his death, he called his beloved son Joseph to him and said: “Do me a kindness and a service: do not bury me in Egypt. Let me lie with my fathers! Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place”. Moved by faith—not by some petty, earthly wish—the divinely-inspired old man bequeaths that his body be carried to Palestine and buried in the cave in the region of Hebron. Thus the blessed Apostle Paul explains his testament, mentioning the words of this testament as divinely inspired and containing deep mystery. The holy son promises to fulfill faithfully the will of the holy father (Heb. 11:21). Jacob required that the promise be sealed with an oath, and Joseph gave his oath: then Jacob, sitting on his bed, bowed upon the top of Joseph’s staff. The staff was in the hand of the great official—either according to the custom of that time, or as a sign of high rank.

A few days later, word was brought to Joseph that his father had become very weak (Gen. 48). Joseph took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and went to his dying father. The aged old man lay on his deathbed in weakness. He was told: “Your son Joseph is coming to you”. The old man gathered his strength and sat up on the bed. Was it love for his son that strengthened him? Or did the anointing of grace descend upon him at that moment? The dying man came alive with the life of divine inspiration. Often in God’s chosen ones, to the natural action of man is suddenly added the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit. This powerful action brings man out of his ordinary state and makes him an instrument of God. Such were Jacob’s last moments. When Joseph entered to him, he said to his son: “God appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, I will make you fruitful and numerous and will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you for a perpetual holding. Therefore your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you here, shall be mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are. As for the offspring born to you after them, they shall be yours. They shall be recorded under the names of their brothers with regard to their inheritance. When I came from Paddan, Rachel, alas, died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath”, which is Bethlehem. When he saw Joseph’s sons, he said, “Who are these?” Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here”. And he said, “Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them”. Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, and he could not see well. So Joseph brought them near him; and he kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, “I did not expect to see your face; and lo, God has let me see your children also”. Then Joseph removed them from his father’s knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near to him. And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands—for Manasseh was the firstborn. He blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all harm, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude on the earth”. When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took his father’s hand, to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father! Since the firstborn, put your right hand on his head”. But his father refused, and said, “I know, my son, I know; Manasseh also shall become a people, and he shall be great. Nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations”. So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will invoke blessings, saying, May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh”. Thus he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your ancestors. I now give to you one portion more than to your brothers, the portion that I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow”. A great teacher of the ascetics notes that the word of Spirit-bearing men, like the word of the aged Jacob, conveys to listeners the spiritual power living in them, acquired through their struggle against sin and victories over the invisible Amorites—sinful thoughts and feelings.[2]

The hour of the holy patriarch’s death was approaching. In this pre-death hour, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon him abundantly and as if wholly possessed him. In those last minutes of earthly life, when the soul was ready to depart from the worn-out body, God’s Spirit descended, arrested the separation, poured into the departing soul, into the remaining body, the life of grace. The dying man came alive with the life of the age to come. The old man hastily called to him all his sons; hastily they gathered around him and surrounded him. He still sat on his bed. When they had assembled, Jacob pronounced to them an inspired, prophetic testament. This testament breathes with youthful strength and poetry, the eternal youth of the heavenly dwellers and their holy poetry. Here is no man! Here the human tongue was merely an instrument. Thus God speaks. Thus God is heard, proclaiming His will, with authority disposing of the future fates of men and their distant descendants! The patriarch’s testament is a heavenly song, sung by the Spirit for all the world to hear. This song announces to the world the Redeemer, and to the peoples sunk in idolatry, illumination by the light of Christianity. “Gather around me”—said the dying old man to his sons, speaking as if already from the realm of that age—“gather around, surround me; I will tell you what will happen to you in days to come. Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob; listen to Israel your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my vigor, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it. Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. May I never come into their council; may I not be joined to their company—for in their anger they killed men, and on a whim they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.” The inspired patriarch pronounced the blessing on each of his sons separately, enumerating the sons by seniority. Coming to the name of Joseph, he again called down upon him and his descendants the blessing of heaven and earth. Truly and powerfully was this blessing expressed in the subsequent prosperity that Joseph’s numerous descendants enjoyed.

With the end of the prophetic testament, Jacob’s speech changed: no longer does rapture, solemnity, and heavenly majesty animate it. It is like a body abandoned by the soul. God, who had spoken through the lips of the old man, ceased His mysterious utterances: the inspired prophet fell silent: the dying old man begins to speak in weakness: “I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers—in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre, in the land of Canaan, the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah—the field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.” Having said this, Jacob drew up his feet onto the bed and expired, being gathered to his people. “He was gathered to his people”—says Scripture—to those holy righteous ones whom the earth produced and nurtured for heaven, whom it had already delivered into the realm of eternity.

When Joseph saw that his father was dead, he fell upon his face and wept over him and kissed him. He instructed the physicians in his service to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel; they spent forty days in doing this, for that is the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days. When the time of mourning for him was past, Joseph addressed the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your sight, please speak to Pharaoh on my behalf. Tell him that my father made me swear an oath; he said, I am about to die. In the tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me. Now therefore let me go up, so that I may bury my father; then I will return”. Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear to do”. So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. Both chariots and charioteers went up with him. It was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and sorrowful lamentation; and he observed a time of mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning on the part of the Egyptians”. Therefore the place was named Abel-mizraim, which means “the Mourning of Egypt”. Seeing that Jacob had died, Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over it, and kissed it, kissing the face and lips sealed by death, watering that face with abundant tears (Gen. 50).