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Genesis 40
Joseph takes advantage of the baker and the butler to get back in the good graces with Pharaoh.
What does he do with this new found position of power? Get revenge on the brothers that sold him up the river.
No question tonight. It's been a long week.
Chapters 40 and 41, regarding Joseph's penchant for dream-interpretation, are apparently E texts. (Notice the lack of "LORD"s. E consistently avoids the term YHWH until the holy name is revealed to Moses at the burning bush.)
ReplyDeleteA lot of the E texts seem to be about dreams.
Notice Joseph's brothers "bow down" to him, just as he dreamt they would in ch. 37.
Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, represent two Israelite tribes. (Much of Judges takes place in the 'hillcountry of Ephraim'.)
Manasseh's son Machir is mentioned as a tribe of Israel in Judges 5.
@esdras
ReplyDelete"Notice Joseph's brothers "bow down" to him, just as he dreamt they would in ch. 37."
I noticed that too. Seems to be a lot of emphasis on dreams in this story. It makes me wonder if the notion of dreams being perceived by the people of the day as a connection to the spiritual and hence to their god. I did a quick search for 'dreams in ancient cultures' and this seemed to be a prevalent idea at the time. Good dreams were from god, bad dreams were sent by demons. The Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, etc all attributed dreams and their interpretation to the divine. It seems it was a very common cultural idea.
Another attempt to explain the (seemingly) unexplainable? To make sense of their world and their experiences in it?
@ Bruce
ReplyDelete'Joseph takes advantage of the baker and the butler to get back in the good graces with Pharaoh.' How did he take advantage? Didn't he just try to look for a way to get out of prison?
'What does he do with this new found position of power? Get revenge on the brothers that sold him up the river.' What kind of revenge is it to give them the food they need and put their money back into their sacks? We will see that there is no revenge when we get to the end of Joseph's story.
Joseph marrying the daughter of an Egyptian priest parallels Moses marrying the daughter of a Mideanite priest. Perhaps this is to blend Yahweh-worship with other religious traditions of the region so it will seem less foreign and threatening.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, remember how we didn't hear anything more about Dinah after her rape by Shechem? In the midrash (a collection of Jewish bible study and interpretation that speculatively fills in a lot of the gaps), Joseph's wife Asenath is not an Egyptian but rather the daughter of Dinah. This is the opposite of blending with other peoples/traditions.
Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream reminds me of a scene from Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge," in which the protagonist, a grain merchant, goes to a psychic of sorts who predicts that bad weather will prevent a strong harvest. He buys up and stockpiles tons of grain. The psychic was way off and the protagonist goes bankrupt. Lucky for Joseph, mythology is nothing like literary realism.
ReplyDeleteSo glad I didn't interpret the pharaoh's dream. I would have suggested keeping skinny cows away from his fat ones.
ReplyDeleteSo far, most of the dreams have been a venue for God to directly talk to someone. Jacob had different types, inspiration how to cheat his FIL and a more abstract one with the ladder. Even the ladder dream is fairly to interpret.
Joseph's early dreams also were abstract, but fairly easy to understand. Wonders what that teenager thought we was doing telling his dad and bros about them.
But in Egypt, dream abstraction goes right up to 11. Some numbers mean days, some mean years. And Joseph interpreted them better and more specifically than any modern day psychic.
@Dave
ReplyDeleteDreams are not just something of ancient days. (Acts 2:14-21; Joel 2:28-32). Christians are expecting to see them again in the last days as well.
@Euslyss & @Bruce
Euslyss you are correct "Didn't he just try to look for a way to get out of prison?" He was.
Bruce I don't even think Pharaoh knew who Joseph was. Potiphar (39:1) was the one that put Joseph in the prison (39:20) Yet to Joseph it must have looked like it did him no good to talk to the butler for it was 2 full years before the butler remembered Joseph (41:1).
About revenge i think there is something to remember here. Joseph was around 17 (37:2) when his brothers sold him. He was 30 (41:46) when he stood before Pharaoh. So in 20 some years (13 + 7 good years) i think he would think, have my brothers changed? (42:21-24) Gives evidence to Joseph that they regret what they did to him. We will hear more about this later.
@David
"Another attempt to explain the (seemingly) unexplainable? To make sense of their world and their experiences in it?"
No it was not the unexplainable, some kings knew they could get an accurate interpretation, however King Nebuchadnezzar must have gotten to many rotten ones. For in Daniel 2:5-13 the king requests that they tell him the dream first, then the interpretation. Specific dreams still happen to people today.
As someone with a career in musical theater, it's sadly impossible for me to read this without picturing Pharaoh as an Elvis impersonator...
ReplyDelete