Joseph - episode 1

In this post we start to tell the story of Israel’s sons, focusing particularly on one of them, Joseph. For that story I take most of the cues from Giuseppe o l’invenzione della fratellanza, André Wénin, EDB. We are in Genesis’ chapter 35 and onward: «Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah (Rachel’s handmaid): Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah (Leah’s handmaid): Gad and Asher». Jacob has some preferences: as we could see from his past story Rachel and her two sons are the most loved; Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, for she had a hard labor.

«Jacob lived in the land of his father’s travels, in the land of Canaan. This is the history of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought an evil report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him. Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words. He dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, “Behold, I have dreamed yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” He told it to his father and to his brothers. His father rebuked him, and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?” His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind». The situation is quite tense: Joseph is aware of the preference that Jacob gives him, speaks evil of the brothers and has domination fantasies about them, expressed in his dreams; his brothers, in return, hate him cordially, so that they could not even speak peaceably to him.

 

 

There comes a day when events precipitate: «His brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” He said to him, “Here I am.” He said to him, “Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again.”». As soon as the brothers see him coming from afar they conspire to kill him; only the intervention of the firstborn, Reuben, is able to curb their murderous rage. After they have stripped Joseph of his beautiful coat, Reuben proposes to throw him in an empty pit (he wants to save him from the other brothers and deliver him back to his father). Judah advances another idea: «What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh». Some Midianites merchants, however, precede them and take Joseph without their notice: «Reuben returned to the pit; and saw that Joseph wasn’t in the pit; and he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, “The child is no more; and I, where will I go?” They took Joseph’s coat, and killed a male goat, and dipped the coat in the blood. They took the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, “We have found this. Examine it, now, whether it is your son’s coat or not.” He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s coat. An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.”». The poor Jacob revives, roles reversed, the deception he made to his father Isaac many years before: now his sons make fall him into distress, presenting their brother’s coat, after killing a goat, with a terrible lie. «Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning.” His father wept for him. The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard». Jacob is so tormented that he desires to be dead with his son; for Joseph instead will start a story of conversion and forgiveness, guided by God’s Providence, and involving his whole family. We will see it in the next posts.