YOUNG YOSEF Gen 37

CONTEXT: The signal item in the episode is an ornamented tunic, k’tonet passim, a garment mentioned only here and as princess wear in 2Sam 13:18. The familiar coat of “many colors” (v.3) renders the Greek poikilos, “variegated, spotted, embroidered.” This is a guess. Etymology offers no clue. The early and medieval rabbinic commentators offer a variety of creative interpretations (http://www.sefaria.org/sheets/6188). I follow Speiser’s cuneiform parallel of a ceremonial robe with appliquéd ornaments. (Anchor Genesis, p.290)

            The camel caravan ,v.25, is probably anachronistic; camels were common desert transportation when the story was written in the 10^th century or later. In the early 2^nd millennium BCE horses or donkeys were the beasts of burden for travel and trade. The merchandise cannot be confidently identified but appears to be three types of resin or balsam, used in embalming by the Mitsrim (Egyptians). Tsri, צְרִי, the middle product, is familiar from “Is there no balm in Gil’ad?” (Jer 8:22)

            From Hevron to Sh’chem is 60 or 70 hilly miles. Dotan is 30, or so, further.

            In vs. 21-30 inconsistencies in the narrative appear. Which of the elder brothers tried to help Yosef? If both R’uven and Y’hudah, did one know about the others efforts? Who sold Yosef to whom? Did Midyanim or Yishm’elim bring Yosef down to Mitsrayim? We can find an integrated and dramatic account with these questions unanswered. Alternatively, we can distinguish two separate narratives that a writer has incorporated into one. I offer the latter in a box: one, featuring R’uven, the E source, the other featuring Y’hudah, from J. Nothing helps with the apparent reference to Rachel, vs.9f, other than to suppose it comes from a different version of the story in which she did not die in childbirth (35:18).

¹Ya’akov settled in the land of his fathers’ sojourning, in the land of K’na’an. ²These are the generations of Ya’akov. Yosef, at age seventeen, was, along with his brothers, a shepherd of the flock. He was a lad with the sons of his father’s women Bilhah (Dan, Naftali) and Zilpah (Gad, Asher), and he brought their father evil rumor about them.

³Yisrael loved Yosef of all his sons, for he was his son of old age, and he made for him an ornamented tunic. ⁴His brothers saw that their father loved him of all the rest. They hated him and could not abide his speaking shalom.

⁵ Yosef dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers(–they hated him the more). ⁶He said to them, “Listen to this dream I dreamt: ⁷See, we are binding sheaves in the middle of the field. And see, my sheaf rose and even stood upright. And see, your sheaves surround my sheaf and bow.”

⁸“Are you going to be king and reign over us?” said his brothers to him. “Are you going to become ruler and rule us?” They hated him yet more for his dreams and his words.

⁹He dreamt another, different, dream and told it to his brothers. “So, I dreamt another dream: there, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowing to me.” ¹⁰He told his father as well as his brothers. His father rebuked him: “What is this dream you have dreamt?  Shall your mother and I and your brothers all come to bow to the ground to you?” ¹¹His brothers were jealous of him and his father kept the matter.

¹²His brothers went to pasture their father’s flock at Sh’chem. ¹³Yisrael said to Yosef, “Aren’t your brothers pasturing at Sh’chem? Go. I’ll send you to them?”

“Here I am,” Yosef said to him.

¹⁴“Go, please. Check on the shalom of your brothers and shalom of the flock. Bring word back to me.” He sent him off from the Hevron Valley and he arrived at Sh’chem.

¹⁵A man found him–there he was, wandering in the field–and asked him, “What do you seek?”

¹⁶“I seek my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are pasturing.”

¹⁷“They have traveled on from here,” said the man. “I heard them saying, ‘Let’s go to Dotan.’”

So Yosef went after his brothers and found them at Dotan.

¹⁸They saw him from a distance and before he came near them they conspired against him, to kill him. ¹⁹One brother said to another, “Here comes this owner of dreams. ²⁰Let’s go now and kill him and throw the body in one of the pits and say a bad animal ate him. We’ll see what it will be with his dreams.”

²¹R’uven heard and saved him from their hands, “Let’s not strike him dead. ²²Don’t spill blood. Throw him into this pit which is in the wilderness but don’t send a hand against him.” This was to save him from their hand and return him to his father.

²³It happened. When Yosef arrived at his brothers they stripped him of his tunic, the ornamented tunic he was wearing. ²⁴They took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. No water in it.

²⁵They sat down to eat bread. They lifted their eyes and saw: there, a caravan of Yishm’elim coming from Gil’ad. Their camels bearing resin, balm, and ladanum, they were headed down to Mitsrayim. ²⁶Y’hudah said to his brothers, “What profit that we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷Let’s go sell him to the Yishm’elim! Our hand shouldn’t be against him, for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened.

²⁸Midyan merchant men passed by and pulled and raised Yosef from the pit. They sold Yosef for 20 pieces of silver to the Yishm’elim, and they brought him to Mitsrayim.

²⁹R’uven returned to the pit: there was no Yosef in the pit! He ripped his clothes. ³⁰He retuned to his brothers, “The boy is not there. And I, where shall I arrive?”

Alternative

E 21R’uven heard and saved him from their hands, “Let’s not strike him dead. 22Don’t spill blood. Throw him in this pit in the wilderness but don’t lift a hand against him.” This was to save him from their hand and return him to his father. 23It happened.  When Yosef arrived at his brothers they stripped him of his tunic, the ornamented tunic he was wearing. 24They took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. No water in it. 28Midyan merchant men passed by and pulled and raised Yosef from the pit. 29R’uven returned to the pit: there was no Yosef in the pit! He ripped his clothes. 30He retuned to his brothers, “The boy is not there. And I, where shall I arrive?” 36The Midyanim sold him to the Mitsrayim, to Potifar, eunuch of Pharoh, chief slaughterer.

J 25They sat down to eat bread. They lifted their eyes and saw: there, a caravan of Yishm’elim coming from Gil’ad. Their camels bearing resin, balm, and ladanum, they were headed down to Mitsrayim. 26Y’hudah said to his brothers, “What profit that we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27Let’s go sell him to the Yishm’elim! Our hand shouldn’t be against him, for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened. 28bThey sold Yosef for 20 pieces of silver to the Yishm’elim, and they brought him to Mitsrayim.

³¹They took Yosef’s tunic, slaughtered a goat ram, and dipped the tunic in the blood. ³²They sent the ornamented tunic and brought it to their father. “We found this,” they said. “Do you recognize it as your son’s tunic? Perhaps not?” ³³He recognized it, “My son’s tunic! A bad animal has eaten him. Yosef is torn to bits.” ³⁴Ya’akov ripped his robe and put sackcloth on his loins. He mourned many days for his son. ³⁵All of his sons and daughters rose to comfort him but he refused to be comforted. He said, “I shall go mourning down to my son in Sh’ol.” He wept for him.

³⁶The Midyanim sold him to the Mitsrayim, to Potifar, eunuch of Pharoh, chief slaughterer.

© Rabbi David L. Kline            http://good-to-be-a-jew.blogspot.com/