Episode 292: Pete Enns - Pete Ruins Genesis (Part 5)
In this episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete concludes a lengthy expedition through the book of Genesis with the story of Joseph—emphasizing its role as a bridge between the patriarchal narratives and Israel’s national history, and breaking down how Joseph’s story reflects themes of sibling rivalry, deception, and redemption while also foreshadowing Israel’s future struggles and triumphs. Join him as he explores the following questions:
What is the significance of Joseph’s story in the book of Genesis?
How does Genesis serve as a commentary on the time it was written?
What are the different sources (P, E, J, D) that contribute to the Joseph narrative?
How does Joseph’s story connect to the broader theme of sibling rivalry in Genesis?
What role does dream interpretation play in Joseph’s rise to power?
How does Joseph’s enslavement and rise in Egypt foreshadow Israel’s national history?
Why is there confusion in the text regarding who sold Joseph—Midianites or Ishmaelites?
What is the purpose of the Judah and Tamar story, and why is it placed in the middle of the Joseph narrative?
How does the story of Judah and Tamar connect to the later story of King David?
What theological themes emerge from Joseph’s statement that God orchestrated his journey to Egypt?
How does the famine that brings Joseph’s brothers to Egypt echo earlier biblical stories?
Why doesn’t Joseph immediately reveal his identity to his brothers when they come to Egypt?
How does Joseph’s story reflect recurring themes of deception found throughout Genesis?
In what ways does the final blessing of Jacob foreshadow the future divisions and power dynamics within Israel?
How does the conclusion of Genesis set the stage for the events of the book of Exodus?
Quotables
Pithy, shareable, sometimes-less-than-280-character statements from the episode you can share.
“Although Jacob is the one [it] is named after, this section of Genesis is best known as the tragedy and triumph of his 11th born son, Joseph. ” — Pete Enns
“One note I’ve been strumming through this series is how Genesis, though posed as a story of the deep past, is at least as much a commentary on the period when these stories were written or compiled, namely during the period of Israel’s divided monarchy.” — Pete Enns
“Genesis looks back over the centuries to talk about the days of old. Getting on board with this idea is central to reading Genesis through ancient eyes—through the eyes of those who wrote the story as we have it today.” — Pete Enns
“This story is really about much more than Joseph. It is the bridge that takes us from the descendants of Abraham—a family—to Israel as a nation.” — Pete Enns
“By saying things like ‘Genesis is the story of the birth of a nation,’ I am not claiming that Genesis is history in any sense that we understand the word in modern parlance. To say as much is not to diminish Genesis, but to try to understand it as an ancient book written by ancient people asking questions of meaning for themselves.” — Pete Enns
“My aim here is to accept the narrative as it has been written in an attempt to understand the theology of the writer, but also to dig down a little bit and to bring into the conversation insights of modern biblical scholarship.” — Pete Enns
“When you sew together a coat made from patches of material, you can see the seams where they were sewn together. We see those seams in Genesis, which strongly suggests a sewer—an editor, a compiler—artfully bringing these patches together to make a coat.” — Pete Enns
“We’ve seen this sort of thing already: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and now Joseph and his brothers. What gives? Well, remember from past episodes, Israel’s national history (the monarchy) will be one big sibling rivalry event. As the story goes, the twelve brothers will in time become the twelve tribes of Israel, and these sibling-tribes will—wait for it—not get along too well. Just like the brothers haven’t been getting along since the beginning of Genesis.” — Pete Enns
“The stories of sibling rivalry between the brothers is really the story of the civil war of the nation in miniature. Sort of like a preview of what’s going to happen. Like so much of what we’ve seen in this series, Genesis really does serve as a preview of coming attractions.” — Pete Enns
“The book ends with the death of Jacob and then Joseph, and with this, Israel’s infancy comes to an end. And a difficult period of growth is about to begin. The transition from a family, a people, a tribe, to a nation is not one that will come easily—it begins with enslavement in Egypt and will end with a divided kingdom and two exiles, of the north and of the south. And as we have seen, that larger story is already in view throughout Genesis.” — Pete Enns
“Israel’s ancient story is one of struggle, with God and with others. It is also a story of Israel’s faith in God, that God will come through for them no matter what. That is the story of Israel as a nation, and it is the story foreshadowed in Genesis. Despite appearances, Israel could count on God in its national struggles just as Israel’s ancient ancestors could.” — Pete Enns
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: March Class “Digging Up Dirt on Joshua” with Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Books: God’s Stories as told by God’s Children by The Bible for Normal People
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Pete: You’re listening to The Bible For Normal People, the only God ordained podcast on the internet. I’m Pete Enns.
Jared: And I’m Jared Byas.
[Intro music begins]
Pete: We’ve been working on our Children’s Bible for over a year and it’s a project we are extremely proud of. And guess what? The official release date for God’s Stories As Told By God’s Children is March 25th, so mark your calendars.
Jared: Informed by biblical scholarship, inclusive, and deeply respectful of children’s imagination and intelligence, God’s Stories As Told By God’s Children is the storybook bible you’ll wish you had when you were a kid.
Pete: It contains stories from over 50 contributors and these biblical scholars, theologians, and practitioners represent diverse religious traditions, locations, and lived experiences mirroring the many voices we find in the bible.
You’ll find stories from the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and the New Testament including age appropriate information about the history and context, as well as conversation starters for each story.
Jared: With no underlying theological or denominational agenda, God’s Stories As Told By God’s Children allows parents to introduce children to their own beliefs and traditions in conversation with the stories found inside.
It goes on sale March 25th, 2025, but in the meantime you can get a free story download today at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/godsstories.
Pete: Well, we’ve come a long way in Genesis, haven’t we, folks? Yes indeed, we have. We’ve gone from the creation of the heavens and the earth all the way to the story of Jacob, which was our previous episode. You might also remember that the editor of Genesis divides the book of Genesis into 10 sections, each marked by the phrase “these are the descendants of.” The last of these sections is found where we begin today, which is the lineage of Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, who has also been renamed Israel. And this last section begins in 37:1 and it continues to the end of Genesis, so it’s a long one.
Furthermore, not to confuse things but, although Jacob is the one this section of Genesis is named after, and he factors into the action, of course, but this section of Genesis is best known as the tragedy and triumph of his 11th born son, Joseph.
One note I’ve been strumming through this series is how Genesis, though posed as a story of the deep past, is at least as much a commentary on the period when these stories were written or compiled, namely during the period of Israel’s divided monarchy (which began around 922 BCE) and continued to the exilic period (which covers 586-539 BCE), and then the period after that, of course, known as the postexilic period. One example of this that we peeked at in the previous episode concerns the line of Jacob’s elder brother Esau, who would be the eponymous ancestor of the Edomites, Israel’s neighbor to the south. And Esau’s lineage is given in chapter 36.
You may remember that Gen 36:31 introduced us to “the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.” This statement makes no sense unless the writer lived in a time when Israel’s kings were currently ruling or had ruled at some point in the past. This would have been absolutely no earlier than about 1000 BCE, and likely much later, perhaps even in the exilic and postexilic times.
So Genesis looks back over the centuries to talk about the days of old. And I know I might be beating a dead horse here, but getting on board with this idea is central to reading Genesis through ancient eyes, that is, through the eyes of those who wrote the story as we have it today.
So with that being said, let’s move on to the story of Joseph, which begins in Gen 37.
[Teaser music plays]
Pete: “Israel’s national history will be one big sibling rivalry event. Stories of sibling rivalry between the brothers is really the story of the civil war of the nation in miniature. Like so much of what we’ve seen in this series, Genesis really does serve as a preview of coming attractions.”
[Teaser music stops]
[04:43 - Ad break]
Pete: Here we see the tenth and final “these are the descendants of” section, this one dedicated to the line of Jacob through his favorite son, Joseph, firstborn of his favorite wife, Rachel. Joseph will, of course, play a vital role in the survival of his extended family, that’s what this whole section is about. And we may know it as one of the better-known stories of the Bible, inspirer of children’s coloring books and Broadway musicals alike. Donnie Osmond and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat should ring a bell. But this story is really about much more than Joseph. It is the bridge that takes us from the descendants of Abraham—a family—to Israel as a nation. It is about the line of Jacob now named Israel. We are nearing here the story of the birth of a nation, where all this stuff in Genesis is aiming towards.
Now, if I may, I want to make clear once again that by saying things like “Genesis is the story of the birth of a nation,” I am not claiming that Genesis is history in any sense that we understand the word in modern parlance. To say as much is not to diminish Genesis, but to try to understand it as an ancient book written by ancient people asking questions of meaning for themselves. So my aim here, as it has been throughout this series, is to accept the narrative as it has been written in an attempt to understand the theology of the writer, but also to dig down a little bit and to bring into the conversation insights of modern biblical scholarship.
One of those issues, an ever-present one, concerns the authorship and editing of Genesis. And we’ve covered this ground before—if this is too redundant, I apologize, but let me recap quickly, especially for those who many be jumping into this series at this late point. Genesis is composed of different traditions, and this has typically been listed as 4 traditions. And these traditions emerged in different times and places and were then collected and edited together at a later stage. This is, once again, the academic issue of source criticism, which is alive and well throughout Genesis, including the Joseph story.
Although some hearty debate exists among Hebrew Bible scholars, of those 4 traditions, 3 can be seen in the Joseph story: P, E, and J. The other one is D and that’s not found here. J stands for Yahwist because this author’s preference is to call God by God’s name Yahweh. Which, again not to make things more confusing, but Yahweh is spelled with a J in German which is where this theory really took root—and hence it’s called the J source, not the Y source. P stands for the Priestly source, because of this author’s attention to priestly types of things, whether temples or sacrifices or things like that. E, the third source that concerns us in this Joseph story, stands for Elohist because of that author’s penchant for using the generic divine name Elohim when referring to Israel’s God, at least that is the case in Genesis, that changes in the book of Exodus, which, you know, we’re not going to talk about here.
So this theory of sources has really helped explain why the story looks so uneven and inconsistent and actually contradictory at times. Now, if you’ll allow the metaphor, when you sew together a coat made from patches of material, you can see the seams where they were sewn together. We see those seams in Genesis, which strongly suggests a sewer—an editor, a compiler, artfully bringing these patches together to make a coat. Okay, maybe I just over did the metaphor, but we’ll see a couple of examples of this in the Joseph story and I hope it’ll be pretty clear.
First, a quick overview to remind us all of what is happening in the story. After annoying his elder brothers, young Joseph finds himself sold to traders and winds up in Egypt. He seems to have made quite an impression, because he becomes a slave to Potiphar. He is the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. But one day, Potiphar’s wife tries to get him to sleep with her, and when he refuses, she claims that he tried to take advantage of her, because no one else is in the palace. So this lands Joseph in prison, where he is eventually released because of his reputation for interpreting dreams, and Pharaoh has had quite a doozy of a dream. Joseph delivers the bad news that his dream is not good—a famine is coming—but Joseph also comes up with an idea to avert disaster. So when the famine comes, Egypt is sitting pretty but no one else is, including Joseph’s father Jacob and his brothers and their families all the way back in Canaan. So the brothers make the trek to Egypt to get grain and to meet Joseph, though they don't recognize him, and so Joseph makes them squirm for a time until he reveals his true identity. Thus Jacob and his descendants come to live in Egypt, where things are apparently cozy for a few hundred years until the growing population of Israelites are enslaved—which is the beginning of the Exodus story.
OK, now, let’s go a little deeper into some of the highlights of this story.
Joseph, like most every other character we’ve encountered so far, has some pretty serious flaws but still turns out to be a key figure in God’s plan. At the outset, Joseph is a spoiled daddy’s boy, seeing as he is the eldest of the two sons of his favorite wife, Rachel. Now, you may remember too, Jacob had children by another wife, Leah, and their two slaves, Bilhah and Zilpah, but only two by Rachel. So anyway, Jacob even gave Joseph this beautiful robe, which he wore around his brothers, flaunting his favored-son status. To make things worse, this seventeen-year-old even tattles for some reason on his elder brothers. The tension is building.
You know, I hope that the theme of sibling rivalry is ringing loud and true in your ears at this point. We’ve seen this sort of thing already haven’t we—Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and now Joseph and his brothers. You know, what gives? Well, remember from past episodes, Israel’s national history (the monarchy) will be one big sibling rivalry event. As the story goes, the twelve brothers will in time become the twelve tribes of Israel, and these sibling-tribes will—wait for it—not get along too well. Just like the brothers haven’t been getting along since the beginning of Genesis. So as the biblical story goes, the kingdom of Israel, which was unified under David and Solomon, quickly split into two kingdoms, most of the tribes making up the far larger northern kingdom, and one tribe making up the south, Judah.
Now, side note: the Hebrew Bible is a little confusing here and it’s hard to know what to do with this, but, sometimes only Judah is mentioned as the south, but other times Simeon is included, and Benjamin sort of fits into that a little bit as well. Simeon is easily forgotten because its borders seem to be swallowed up entirely by Judah’s—it exists entirely within Judah’s borders, so who cares about them. And Benjamin has sort of an odd relationship with the tribes, sometimes seeming to be northern and other times southern. So functionally only one tribe that makes up the southern nation, and that’s Judah. So anyway, the stories of sibling rivalry between the brothers is really the story of the civil war of the nation in miniature. Sort of like a preview of what’s going to happen. Like so much of what we’ve seen in this series, Genesis really does serve as a preview of coming attractions.
[Midroll music plays]
Pete: So, Joseph’s brothers hate him—not just because of the snappy clothes, but because Joseph is a bit of a spoiled jerk. He’s had two dreams with the same message: he will one day rule over his brothers. Having dreams is one thing, but Joseph seems intent on letting his brothers know about it, so he heads out intentionally to where his brothers are working to break the news to them. How does he think this is going to go? Does he think they are going to welcome this news with open arms? What was he thinking? WAS he thinking? But now it’s ten angry, hard-working brothers against one cocky, spoiled seventeen-year-old.
So one day, the brothers see him coming, yet again, from a distance and they say, you know they’re getting tired of this stuff, “Here comes that dreamer . . . let’s kill him.” But, after some debate, cooler heads prevail (namely, eldest brother Reuben). And he declares, “Let’s not take his life . . . Don't spill blood. Throw him in this pit . . . don’t lay a hand on him” (vv. 21-22). So instead of killing him they strip him of his robe that he is so proud of and throw him into a dry well, where he would surely die a slow death of starvation.
There are three points to ponder here in this scene. First, it’s hard to read this without thinking of the story of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar. Remember, he and his mother, that’s Hagar and Ishmael, were driven off into the wilderness with meager provisions to meet certain death. And Joseph, is Abraham’s great-grandson and he finds himself in a similar situation when he is sold into the hands of some Ishmaelites—descendants of Ishmael. So, there’s a bit of this story that sounds like payback to the line of Abraham, through Jacob, that an Ishmaelite is going to come out on top–not be the victim.
Second, we have a rather glaring source-critical issue here going on. Reuban, as we just saw, saved Joseph from death (“Let’s not take his life . . . Don't spill blood. Throw him in the pit . . . don’t lay a hand on him” vv. 21-22). But just a few verses later, (vv. 26-27), Judah also saves Joseph from death in words similar to Reuban’s: “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover his blood? . . . . Let our hand not be on him” (vv. 26-27). These two rescues of Joseph from death seem to be a blending together of two traditions, namely the E tradition (that’s the one that stars Reuban) and the J tradition (and that’s the one that stars Judah).
Now, if that doesn't convince you, that’s fine, but the third issue might, and it concerns how Joseph got down to Egypt. The issue is whether Joseph was handed over to passing Ishmaelites—or Midianites. Those aren’t the same kinds of people and the text says both. We read in 37:25 and 28 that Joseph was sold to an Ishmaelite caravan. But in verse 28 we also read that it is Midianite traders who were passing by. In fact, verse 28 is rather confusing. Here’s what it says, “When Midianite people, merchants, passed by, they [presumably the brothers] drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit [the well], and sold him to the . . . [Midianites? No, to the. . . ] Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.” So, again, which is it? Who took him down to Egypt? The Midianites or the Ishmaelites? You have to admit, this isn't the clearest bit of writing and most biblical scholars explain this as more evidence of different traditions that later editors brought together, even if awkwardly (those “seams” are pretty glaring.)
But regardless of how Joseph got down to Egypt, the brothers get some quick cash and get rid of their little problem. It’s a win-win for them. To cover up their crime, they dip the coveted robe in goat’s blood and then tell their father that his favorite son has been ripped apart by wild animals. Here we go again folks—yet another brotherly incident that involves blood (think Cain killing Abel) and deception (think Jacob decieving Esau). And again, father Jacob, the great deceiver himself, gets another dose of his own medicine: like his father Isaac believed his lie, Jacob falls for the ruse of his sons—and he is devastated. His favorite son from his favorite wife is dead. Little does he know that Joseph is making his way down to Egypt to be sold as a slave to Potiphar.
So that’s how the story begins. But before continuing this story, the editors of Genesis carve out some space for telling a seemingly random and totally unrelated incident involving one of Joseph’s elder brothers: this is the story of Judah and Tamar in ch. 38.
It feels like we are moving off topic from the story of Joseph to some random event concerning Judah that happened around the same time (as verse 1 puts it). And in a sense, this story definitely interrupts the flow of Joseph’s arrival in Egypt. But might the editor of Genesis have a reason for telling this story at this point? And I do think there is something interesting going on here. We just have to pay extra attention.
In this story we find Judah, the fourth of Jacob’s sons, the ancestor of the tribe of Judah. He leaves his brothers—sort of like Joseph did, by the way, not by force, but he sort of leaves the presence of his brothers—and he happened upon a certain Hirah the Adullamite—both those names will be important in a minute. He also happened upon an unnamed Canaanite woman known only by the phrase daughter of Shua (Shua’s the name of the father). So Judah, of course, marries her and has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er, the eldest, and he grew up and married a woman named Tamar. (By the way, I need to interrupt this just quickly here, because think about this story from a logical/historical point of view. Judah leaves his brothers and was gone long enough from his brothers to have had three children of marrying age. This doesn’t add up. At least it doesn't really fit with what comes before and the action that comes after. But I think the editor knew that. I think the editor is goading us into paying attention to what’s going on here. I think he is daring us to find some meaning in this story for why he placed it here. It’s so abrupt and so jarring.
Anyway, Er who married Tamar is killed by Yahweh because of his wickedness, whatever that might have been. The surviving elder brother, Onan, refuses to do his legal brotherly duty to impregnate Tamar so that his deceased brother’s line can continue through her. He refuses to do that, so he too is killed by Yahweh. (Side note: Onan thwarted the plan by “spilling his semen on the ground.” So no, this is not a biblical prooftext against masturbation, but a story of Onan refusing to continue his brother’s line by means of coitus interuptus. That is the “sin.” That masturbation was once referred to as Onanism just simply speaks to a misunderstanding of what’s going on here in this story.)
Anyway with two dead sons, Judah is very reluctant to have his youngest son, Shelah, meet the same fate, so he delays their marriage until Shelah is a bit older. Now apparently, Judah was too slow in keeping his promise to let Shelah marry Tamar. And as time goes by, during which Judah’s wife, again referred to as “the daughter of Shua” (I keep coming back to that folks. It’s a very important phrase), but she dies, so Judah’s now a widower. And Judah goes off to the town of Timnah. Tamar, his daughter-in-law, hears of this and in order to get what she should have—Shelah as her husband—she devises a plan. She gets dressed up and heads to Timnah and positions herself on the road near Timnah so Judah can see her when he enters the town. And he did, though he mistook her for a prostitute. Her face was veiled after all—and by the way I hear loud echoes here of Isaac not recognizing his own son, Jacob, because he had this flimsy disguise to sort of make himself smell like his brother Esau. Again, a lot of deception going on in these stories.
Now as part of the negotiation, she asks Judah for his seal (his signet ring), also his cord, and his staff as a pledge to guarantee that he will pay her the agreed upon fee for sex, which was a goat kid. Okay. Judah accepted the terms and Tamar wound up getting pregnant—finally, right, some justice is done to Tamar. She’s at least pregnant. And later, when she is clearly showing, Judah, this is back home, he’s shocked—shocked I tells ya—and was ready to have her executed for having done such a horrible, vile thing. This is when she produces the seal, cord, and staff, proving Judah is the child’s father. And Judah admits his mishandling of the whole affair—how noble of him, right, now that he is caught red-handed, he admits it. Anyway, Tamar later gives birth to twins, Perez and Zerah, the former, Perez, being the ancestor of none other than David.
Mmhmm. David. The plot thickens. David is the clue as to the purpose of this story here in Genesis—and there are a couple of moving parts here, so bear with me. We have here a deeper connection to David in this story than merely the birth of David’s ancestor. Rather, this story of Judah and Tamar echoes two stories in David’s life, both in 2 Samuel, that involve injustice and sex. And this is David’s rape of Bathsheba and his son Amnon’s rape of his half-sister, Tamar.
Careful readers have long noticed the similarities between Judah in Genesis 38 and David, a descendent of Judah. I see at least 4.
Most obviously, both Judah and David are involved in a troubling or unjust sexual encounter involving a daughter/daughter-in-law named Tamar.
Both Judah and David are shepherds who go to Adullam and encounter characters with tantalizingly similar names: Judah encounters, as we saw, Hirah in Genesis 38:1 and David encounters Hiram in 2 Samuel 5:11. Very similar names: one ends with an H and the other ends with an M. It’s like someone writing a fictional story of government corruption that involves spying, with a hotel named the Waterway, and a president named Richard L. Dixon. “Wait a minute. This is about the Watergate break-in! Duh.” See that’s why Judah encountering Hirah of Adullam is pretty close to David, a descendent of Judah, encountering Hiram in Adullam. The intention there is to draw subtle connections between this story in Genesis 38 and things in the life of David.
Both David and Judah are involved in a sexual sin followed by a forced admission of guilt. Right, in Genesis 38, it’s Tamar who sort of tricks him into admitting his sin. And with David, in 2 Samuel 12, it is Nathan’s prophecy. He tells a story whereby David winds up actually condemning himself.
And most telling, and most intriguing, is the identification of Judah’s wife, referred to simply as, as I’ve said, “the daughter of Shua.” Shua’s her father. In Hebrew, daughter is Bat/Bath, so we have here the “Bath” of Shua, which in Hebrew is simply, Bathshua. Oh my, do you hear it folks? “Bathshua” is so very close to Bathsheba. Just like Hirah and Hiram, only one letter separates them. And in fact, when I first saw this, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. You know those boring genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1-9 that no one in their right mind reads, well 1 Chronicles 2:3 and 3:5, they identify the woman in the David story not as Bathsheba, but as Bathshua! I just find that intriguing.
So let’s tie this together a bit. The story of Judah and Tamar, in Genesis 38, is intended, I believe, to evoke images of David and of the later monarchy—we have here another preview of coming attractions, as we’ve been seeing all along in Genesis. The abrupt insertion of the story of Judah and Tamar specifically here near the beginning of the Joseph story is harder to explain logically, but, on the other hand . . . why not? Why not stick it right towards the beginning? It is its very intrusive nature here that might be simply an intentional attempt to draw attention to it and its connection to David. You’ve got to stop and think about what is this doing here. And readers have had to stop and figure out what’s going on ever since they started reading this story.
Also, in Genesis, Judah’s star is on the rise (more on that in a moment). But he is a character that grows in prominence in Genesis. Inserting a David-ish story about the up-and-coming Judah makes sense given as how David will come from Judah’s line. Again, do you see how mixed up the monarchy is with the book of Genesis? And another side note here, another possible reason for the placement of this story at this point is to contrast Judah’s questionable behavior in a sexual episode, thereby also questioning David’s behavior because they’re parallel characters, and contrasting that to Joseph in the next chapter when he refuses the advances of Potiphar’s wife.
So after the story of Judah, you know, we go back to the action. We have sort of a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” moment, and we return to the story of Joseph—we’re now in chapter 39. He quickly becomes a trusted man to Potiphar, this commander of Pharaoh’s army and he’s put in charge of Potiphar’s house. And here we see an echo of something way back in Genesis 12, and echo of God’s promise to Abraham that, “I will bless those who bless you.” In 39:5 we read, “The LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house (Potiphar’s) for Joseph’s sake.”
Too bad Joseph is a total stud and Potiphar’s wife has a thing for him. One day, while they are alone in the house, she tries to seduce him, but Joseph refuses. Unfortunately, she has a good hold of his tunic, and so when Joseph tries to get out of there, he leaves without his clothes. This is the second time he has lost his clothing. Right folks, remember the Technicolor dreamcoat, yeah, and with tragic results. The scorned and guilty woman lies to the household servants and to Potiphar, telling them that it was Joseph who tried to seduce her (another deception).
Anyway, it’s worth pointing out that this scene here of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife is similar to that of an Egyptian text called, “The Story of Two Brothers,” where the wife of an older man tries to seduce a younger man and then accuses him of rape. Now, the degree of connection between these two stories is certainly debatable, but it still leads us to question, at least it raises the question, whether this element of the story of Joseph is historical. Did it really happen or is this more of a stock motif one uses in stories like this? And my inclination, in all honesty, is toward the latter, but I also feel pretty strongly that deciding that issue isn’t the most important thing for understanding the story itself and what the writer is trying to do. Though, you know, this “Story of Two Brothers” business is similar to another kind of thing that happens in the book of Exodus. And not to go too far afield here, but, remember as an infant, Moses is placed in a basket and found by royalty along the banks. And scholars have argued for a really long time that this incident is similar to an incident in the so-called “Legend of Sargon.” Sargon was an Akkadian king who lived around 2300 BCE and there is a similar rags-to-riches, leave the child in the place of threat, he gets rescued and becomes a king. That’s sort of the story of Moses, and so you have, in that story at least, an analog. You have an ancient analog outside of the bible that looks a lot like the biblical story and that makes people wonder, “goodness gracious, is the Moses story in his infancy, is that modeled after the Legend of Sargon
Anyway, back to the story. Who is Potiphar going to believe? His wife or Joseph? Well we know the answer to that. He throws Joseph in jail, just like his brothers threw him in the pit. And let me just tease out a little bit more all this going down business. Joseph has downward journeys. He goes down to the pit, then he goes down to Egypt, and now he goes down to jail. That word does is used in Hebrew. But each time he goes down, he’s also brought back up again—he’s raised up, so to speak, from the pit, then by defying the odds and becoming Potiphar’s right-hand man, and then after prison, he is restored to high command. And (hang with me here, folks) pit is a metaphor, a common metaphor in the Hebrew Bible, for the grave. And so one can certainly understand early Christian interpreters of the Bible seeing in Joseph a foreshadowing of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Now, that’s not what the story means originally, of course, but that thematic connection is something that early Christians looked for with a lot of energy. To see, are there any elements in the Hebrew Bible that can, no predict Jesus, but just sort of foreshadow things that Jesus winds up doing himself and they found one here.
Anyway, at least, for now, it looks like, poor Joseph, he can’t catch a break. Or can he? We have already learned that Joseph has coded dreams. And in those days, the ability to interpret dreams was a valuable art. And it just so happens that while Joseph is in prison, Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker, who are already incarcerated, each have a dream that they simply can’t make heads or tails of. Joseph interprets the cupbearer’s dream: he will be released from prison and restored to Pharaoh’s good graces. And then Joseph then interprets the baker’s dream, and he’s really eager to have his dream interpreted too, but his is less promising: he will have his head chopped off and stuck on a pole for bird food.
Both dreams come true and Joseph asks the cupbearer to put in a good word for him with Pharaoh. And in line with Joseph’s bad luck, well the cupbearer just forgets. That is, until Pharaoh starts having some dreams of his own that need interpreting. And this is the beginning of Joseph’s rise to power—his final resurrection, as it were.
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Pete: Now we live in a world of, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Walking Dead, and no fewer than seven Saw movies. We might not be creeped out by dreams of skinny cows eating fat cows, or—if you can picture it—skinny stalks of wheat eating fat stalks of wheat. But to Pharaoh, these dreams are considered omens and deeply disturbing. I mean, this can’t be good, right? So his own magicians cannot tell him what the dreams mean, and that is their job. So the cupbearer says, “Uh you know, funny thing. . . I remember. . . I was in prison with this Hebrew guy who is quite good at interpreting dreams.” So Pharaoh summons Joseph. “Hey, I hear you can interpret dreams.”. “Well actually,” Joseph replies, “God interprets dreams. I am just the messenger.” And this is a wonderful moment because Joseph is in the process of learning some humility about his dreams while staring at his prison walls. He is gaining wisdom and maturity through necessary suffering. He is learning to be a true leader.
Sor Pharaoh relays his dreams (nightmares, really) to Joseph about scrawny cows/scrawny wheat stalks eating fat cows/fat wheat stalks, and Joseph immediately knows what they mean: Egypt will have seven years of abundance (fat cows/fat wheat stalks) followed by seven years of famine (scrawny cows/scrawny wheat stalks), and the famine will be much worse than the abundant years, which is the whole business of the skinny ones eating the fat ones. So Pharaoh takes a chance and asks the prisoner Joseph what he thinks they should do about it. Joseph says—save up for a rainy day—to store up food during the seven years of abundance so they will have enough to ration out during the years of famine. Good call, Joseph. Very wise. Very kingly, ruler-y kind of thing to say. You’re coming along nicely, Joseph. You’re really sort of growing up here.
So Joseph, you know, the Hebrew prisoner, he saves Egypt from destruction. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Several generations later, however, these same Egyptians would turn on the Hebrews and enslave them. Not a very nice thing to do for a group of people that bailed you out all those years ago. But that’s a story for another book of the Bible (namely, Exodus).
So anyway, while Joseph is promoted from slave to Pharaoh’s right-hand man in charge of preparing for the famine, Jacob and his growing family are still back in the land of Canaan. The famine hits and Jacob starts to feel the pinch. He sends his remaining sons–except for Benjamin, that’s his youngest, his darling baby boy, and the only other son of his favorite wife, Rachel. He stays at home–but he sends his remaining sons to Egypt to see if they can buy some grain from Pharaoh. And we are now in chapter 42.
And, oh my dear people, please tell me you remember this “go to Egypt because of a famine” idea. This episode of a famine, which sets up the end of Genesis that leads to Israel’s enslavement in Egypt, well this episode mirrors Abraham and Sarah’s trek to Egypt way back in Genesis 12 because of a famine. These two stories like frame this action in the book of Genesis. And just like in that earlier story where Sarah is a “guest” in Pharaoh’s house, Joseph’s brothers will soon find themselves in their own awkward situation of being under Pharaoh’s hospitality. That same scene in Gen 12 comes up again big-time in the book of Exodus—where this whole story is headed—when the Israelites are first guests and then enslaved to Pharaoh. You can check out, if you want, how Genesis 12 foreshadows the Joseph story, which is covered in the second Genesis episode of this series.
So Joseph’s brothers, they come to Egypt, and wouldn’t you know it, they must meet with Joseph, who is now the one in charge of rationing the food. He recognizes them immediately, but they don’t recognize him—again another moment in Genesis of a surprising lack of recognition. Really, they just have no idea? Oh well. So instead, they bow down to him, because he’s a big deal Egyptian, and that fulfills the dream he had as a boy. The story could have come to a quick end here—and everyone lived happily ever after—but the writer has much more to say in this story.
The brothers–now, appreciate this–are completely vulnerable, but instead of revealing who he is, Joseph plays a little trick on them. He accuses them of spying—it seems he has a score to settle. He strikes a deal: “Show me you are honest men by bringing back this youngest brother of yours you say you have.” I think he just wants to hang out with his little brother here, but anyway… the brothers though, they’re not really excited about this deal, since they know, they know Jacob will not want to take the risk. He’s a little gun-shy about losing his favorite remaining child, Benjamin, after having lost the other son of his beloved Rachel, Joseph. But, having no real choice, I mean they gotta eat, the brothers leave Simeon behind as collateral. And he is bound in chains and the remaining brothers make their way back to Canaan with a heavy message to deliver to their father.
The brothers, you know, they do deserve every bit of this. They have to deliver another piece of bad news to their father about another one of Rachel’s sons. Only this time, it’s not a lie. As they delivered the first son to death, they realize they might be delivering this other son of Rachel’s to death as well. And I think they must have been pondering this bit of poetic justice on that long journey home.
Jacob, predictably, refuses to hand Benjamin over. Can’t blame him. Joseph is lost and Simeon is as good as lost and he will not lose another son, least of all, Benjamin. The thing is, though, the famine doesn’t care about any of that. The famine doesn’t subside and they soon run out of grain that they bought on the first trip. So Jacob’s hand is forced and rather than lose all of his family to the famine, he relents out of desperation and sends the sons back with a lot of gifts in the hopes of making sure he gets his Benjamin back. They stay for a while in Egypt and are treated very well. And Benjamin, far from being in harm’s way, is given five times as much to eat and drink as anyone else—sort of replaying his elder brother’s spoiled-son status.
But it’s all a set-up. Joseph isn’t going to let them off that easily. The brothers leave, greatly relieved, with all the grain they can carry. What they don’t know is that trickster Joseph had planted his silver cup in Benjamin’s bag and is about to accuse them of stealing it. Again, I keep saying this, but it’s true. So much recurring deception in this family. So Joseph’s men ride after them, catch up with them, and promptly arrest them for stealing the cup—a scene that clearly echoes Jacob and Rachel’s flight from Laban, which we looked at back in episode 4—this a slightly revised version of that stolen-idol incident in the Laban story. So the brothers plead innocence, but it is announced that the one who has the cup will be returned to Egypt as a slave. Joseph is reenacting his own story with the other favorite son, Benjamin, while his brothers helplessly watch. This is so vindictive, if you ask me. But after the cup is found, they all return to Joseph to beg for his mercy. To return without Benjamin might literally kill their aging father.
Fortunately for his brothers, Joseph feels he has punished them enough. So his heart is breaking and he reveals his identity to them, who, they simply can’t believe what they are seeing. And in a statement of not only forgiveness but spiritual maturity, he tells his brothers that all this that happened was God’s plan all along, and here’s the famous verse:
God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So, it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and a lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt (45:7–8).
Change a few words in that little speech and the Israelites could be saying the same thing after the Exodus and especially after the return from Babylonian exile—“God has preserved us, a remnant, and delivered us from harm.” And if you do a word search for “remnant” in the books of Ezra, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, you can see how closely that idea is tied to Israel’s return from exile. I do think that the story of Joseph can be credibly read as a preview of that later episode. And with great joy, Joseph sends his brothers back and Pharaoh himself invites Joseph’s entire family to join him in Egypt. He even gives them the land of Goshen to settle in, the best of the land, which is on the outskirts of Egypt.
So the brothers arrive back in Canaan and give Jacob the news. He is stunned and overjoyed. All of the people of Israel migrate to Egypt, and this is where they remain as we end the story of Genesis. And they do quite well for themselves. They prosper, and more importantly, they “[are] fruitful and [increase] greatly in number” (Genesis 47:27). After all we have seen of these Israelites—one misstep after another—God is still with them, albeit behind the scenes, blessing them and increasing their number, in keeping with the ancient blessing of creation to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28).
As Genesis comes to a close, we see Jacob growing very old and near death. And in his last act as patriarch, he blesses each of his sons and grandsons, beginning with Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48). He insists, though, on blessing Ephraim the younger over Manasseh the elder. Folks, here we go again: the inexplicable preference of the younger brother to be favored over the elder, which we’ve seen throughout Genesis and first in the story of Cain and Abel, the first brothers of the bible. This scene is a glimpse of Israel’s future: Ephraim will be one of the names of the powerful northern kingdom of Israel (after the monarchy divides into north and south following the death of Solomon), that northern kingdom which is sometimes called Israel, sometimes called the House of Jacob, House of Joseph, it’s other name is Ephraim. The story is I guess an explanation for why that tribe in the north, Ephraim, was so prominent and why it was so apparently blessed. In other words, it appears to be an etiology: a story told to explain why things are the way they are.
In Genesis 49:8–12, we see another example of the prominence of Judah in Genesis. There, Jacob says to Judah, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons (his brothers) 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.”
These exalting words of Judah’s eventual blessing clearly echo the beginning of the story of Joseph. Just as Joseph rose to power amid opposition and struggle, Judah will be prominent over his brothers. Judah will be the name of the southern kingdom. Judah receives an especially exalted place in Jacob’s blessing, for all Israel’s hopes will be pinned on a king from Judah. This king’s name will be, don’t say Jesus, David. It will be David and his line. That’s where all of this is looking forward to. The blessings given to Ephraim and Judah in Genesis signal the political prominence of these tribes in Israel’s future (which is the writer’s present).
So the book ends with the death of Jacob and then Joseph and with this, Israel’s infancy comes to an end. The first book of the bible. And a difficult period of growth is about to begin. The transition from a family, a people, a tribe, to a nation is not one that will come easily—it begins with enslavement in Egypt and will end with a divided kingdom and two exiles–of the north and of the south. And as we have seen, that larger story is already in view throughout Genesis. Israel’s ancient story is one of struggle, with God and with others. It is also a story of Israel’s faith in God, that God will come through for them no matter what. That is the story of Israel as a nation, and it is the story foreshadowed in Genesis. Despite appearances, Israel could count on God in its national struggles just as Israel’s ancient ancestors could.
Okay, my friends, thank you for listening and for hanging with me here in this five part series in Genesis. And in the next episode, we’ll start something else. We’re going to talk about another book of the bible. How does that sound?
Alright, see you later, folks.
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Outro: You’ve just made it through another episode of The Bible for Normal People. Don’t forget you can catch our other show, Faith for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Joel Limbauan, Savannah Locke, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O’Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
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