Chapters 41-44 continue the story of Joseph. It
is interesting to me that we do not have any comment from C. S. Lewis about
this story in the Bible. It seems to me that this piece of Scripture would have
interested Lewis as an ancient example of a classic short story.
For those who are looking to get some point out
of every Bible reading, or some spiritual lesson, this story, or at least these
chapters of the story, may prove disappointing. I imagine the first hearers of
this story enjoyed it for the story itself. Only later do we get the moral of the story. Perhaps, since the first readers were
simply enjoying the story itself, the moral at the end came as more of an
“aha”.
One curious cultural point stood out to me as I
was reading these chapters. That is that when Joseph was first brought to
Pharaoh, he first had to shave. I wondered why this would have been important in
that culture. According to what I was able to find on the Internet, there was a
period in Egyptian history when shaving all the hair on a man’s body became
important to them as a sign of distinguishing themselves from the animals and
being more civilized. You can read more about that here: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/06/07/shaving-rituals/ By contrast, shaving was more restricted within ancient Judaism. You can
read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaving_in_Judaism Perhaps the first Hebrew audience for this story would have understood
this cultural difference and thus it would have been immediately evident to
them why Joseph’s brothers did not recognize him when they went down to Egypt.
God does not appear to be as prominent a
character in this part of Genesis as in other parts. However, God does get a
few mentions:
- Pharaoh says about Joseph: “Can we find anyone else like this—one in whom is the spirit of God?”
- When Joseph’s brothers find their money in their sacks they say to one another, “What is this that God has done to us?”
- Jacob seems to have the most mature God-focus out of all the characters in the story. When he sends Benjamin to Egypt with his brothers he says, “May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, so that he may send back your other brother and Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”
- Joseph mentions God a couple of times. He says to his brothers, “Rest assured, do not be afraid; your God and the God of your father must have put treasure in your sacks for you.” And he says to Benjamin, “God be gracious to you, my son!”
Other than these places, God does not get much
“air time” in these four chapters. However, as we shall see later, the
understanding of the editor(s) of Genesis is that God has been at work all
along, behind the scenes.
A final point of curiosity to me in these
chapters is this: why does Joseph do this? Why does he put his brothers through
such torture by not revealing his identity? If he wanted to take revenge, why
not simply kill the brothers who were responsible for selling him into slavery?
He certainly, from a human perspective, could have gotten away with such an
action. Pharaoh certainly would not have punished him for killing such
unimportant foreigners, especially foreigners who could be considered spies.
However, Joseph does not do this? What is his motivation? Is Joseph's toying with his brothers merely a
literary device used to make a good story? I do not know. Joseph's revenge, if that is what it is, seems strange to me. What do you think?
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