Gen. 41-42 - "Has it been two years already?"

The readings - Day 14 - Genesis 41-42.

A note about timing, since it's easy to forget how these things actually go, according to the text. It's a relatively recent phenomenon that people are interested in the mundane, day-to-day aspects of historical figures, and most ancient histories skip vast swaths of time, often without much notice at all, in order to get to the good stuff. Seems the Bible is no exception.


When we last left Joseph in chapter 40, he was languishing in prison, having been forgotten about by the Pharaoh's cupbearer, whose reinstatement he predicted in his interpretation of the cupbearer's dream. The very next chapter starts with a somewhat rare time check. "It happened at the end of two full years," it begins, which is easy enough to skip over, but when you really think about it, is fairly amazing. There are plenty of stories where the hardships of the characters are the focal points, and much time and attention is given them, but the story of Joseph is clearly not about how much he suffered.

Chief among prisoners or no, it's hard to imagine an ancient (or modern, for that matter) Egyptian prison as a place where it would be anything other than horrendous to spend two full years, even if you weren't utterly blameless. If you were innocent, however, and it was a member of the ruling class that had unjustly framed you and thrown you in the dank, there would be little wonder if you came out distinctly... displeased... with just about everybody.

No wonder they shaved and clothed him before bringing him to Pharaoh...

Well, say you, it's hardly a case of The Count of Monte Cristo, is it? That guy definitely earned his ridiculous vengeful streak, seeing as how he spent a whole 14 years behind bars as an innocent man...

Huh, says I.

As I just noticed, according to Genesis 37, Joseph was 17 years old when he A) had that fairly snotty dream about being the subject of his family's worship and B) was sold into slavery in a still-somewhat-overkill act of come-uppance by his ten older brothers.

By the time he is appointed second-in-command in the whole of Egypt, he's 30 (41:46). That makes his entire ordeal, from being plotted against and sold into slavery to being finally released from prison and given a fresh set of duds a whopping 13 years. Not a bad time to gather a whole lot of bitter, I'd say.

Granted, 30 years of age is hardly a long time to wait before, essentially, being put in command of one of the largest and most powerful empires in the history of the world, so that's something, but it's still coming at the tail end of a lot of suck, and it'd take just about an appointment of that magnitude to make most of us even think about forgetting how our own family (literally) sold us out.

I think I knew that this bitterness wasn't entirely absent in Joseph following his redemption from the dungeons, but it's definitely not something that gets a ton of play in the course of a normal telling of the story.

He does jerk his brothers around a bit when they finally do come grovelling and bowing (pretty much exactly as it was in his dream), though, doesn't he? I kind of like that he does, too, because otherwise he's just a damn-near superhuman character. Once again, though, the sheer humanity of Biblical heroes comes through. He gets to lock all of his brothers (except Benjamin) up for three days, and keeps Simeon (who, as we've see, is nothing to mess with) in the slammer for however long it'll take the other nine to go all the way home and bring Benjamin back with them. That must have felt at least a little good, don't you think?

The other place where this timeline thing becomes important is in verse 23. It's just a little throwaway thing, but it's something I've never noticed before, and is one of those things that when you notice it and think about it makes perfect sense, but I just would never have actually thought to put two and two together.

Joseph was sold from Canaan (although his family wasn't from there in the born-and-raised-for-generations sense of the word, I think it's pretty fair to say that he would have been fairly acclimatized to the local culture) to Egypt when he was 17, he was raised the rest of the way as a household servant in Potiphar's house, and given all kinds of responsibilities, etc. Then he was (after his stint in the big house) put in charge of the whole country.

Of course he'd have to learn the language.


This = not something that's occurred to me before reading this this time.

Then we get to the little aside about his brothers yammering on to themselves about how bad they'd been, Reuben gets in a few hearty "told-you-so"s and they bicker and argue away as they gradually accept their fate, while Joseph sits there soaking it all in, understanding every word, but this remaining unknown to his brothers because he had been using an interpreter to translate the whole time.

Makes the whole "his brothers have no idea who's standing in front of them" thing seem at least slightly more plausible, considering the last time they saw him he was considerably less clothed, probably a bit beaten up, a whole ton more peasant-ish, and speaking/understanding the same language as them...

Still better than this guy's "disguise" - hair parted on the wrong side and some hipster glasses...

--

The cupbearer is probably an alright guy, too, as it turns out, if a bit forgetful. It did take him two years to actually remember the astounding thing that some random Hebrew kid did for him when they were locked up together, but when he did remember, he definitely made sure to tell the Pharaoh.

This must have taken guts, since the whole story intrinsically involves reminding the Pharaoh that two years before he'd dome something that his boss considered so odious as to deserve several days in the hole. Either the thing really was bad, and it's always a bad idea to remind people of those things, or the Pharaoh is just hyper judgmental and dungeon-happy, and it's always a bad idea to remind those people about anything.

Nevertheless, he pipes up with his two cents and recommends the jailhouse proto-Jew to come and do what none of the Pharaoh's best and brightest could: tell him why seven little, shriveled things keep eating seven fat and sassy things in his dreams.