SOURCE: “Joseph, Judah, and Jacob,” in Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, Vol. II, edited by Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis with James S. Ackerman, pp. 85-113. Abington, 1982.

[In the following essay, Ackerman explores the use of doubling in the Joseph narrative, noting that the author employs an “unusual” amount of doubling of speech and actions. Ackerman argues that this doubling is intentional and used for emphasis.]

Scholars have long noted the unusual amount of doubling in the Joseph story: three sets of dreams occur in pairs—by Joseph, by his fellow prisoners, and by Pharaoh.¹ Joseph is twice confined—in the pit and in prison. The brothers make two trips to Egypt for grain, have two audiences with Joseph on each occasion, twice find money in their grain bags, make two attempts to gain Jacob's permission to send Benjamin to Egypt, and finally receive two invitations to settle in Egypt. Both Potiphar and the prison keeper leave everything in Joseph's hands. Potiphar's wife makes two attempts to seduce Joseph and then accuses him twice. Joseph serves two prominent prisoners (and two years elapse between their dreams and those of Pharaoh). Joseph twice accuses his brothers of spying, devises two plans to force the brothers to bring Benjamin to Egypt, and on two occasions places money in their sacks. Finally, the same goods (gum, balm, and myrrh) are twice brought from Canaan to Egypt—first with Joseph and later with Benjamin.²

Doubling appears in speeches as well as actions. In some instances characters repeat a phrase in one episode (eg., 41:25/28; 42:15/16; 43:3/5). Elsewhere, speeches recapitulate and supplement events reported earlier in the story (e.g., 40:15; 42:21-22; 42:31-34; 43:7; 43:20-23; 44:3-7; 44:18-34; 50:17).

The common assumption has been that much of the doubling is a result of the conflation of sources—an assumption I shall not question here. My concern is to point out the effect that doubling has as a literary device in the story. D. B. Redford, for example, has noted that doubling can often be used for emphasis: “The certainty of the dreams' fulfillment is thus stressed, as well as the stubbornness of Jacob, Joseph's determination to treat his brothers as spies, Egyptian initiative in making possible Israel's settlement in Egypt, and so on.”³ A second effect of doubling, Redford believes, is plot retardation in some crucial instances. For example, while the doublets are emphasizing Jacob's stubbornness and Joseph's determination, they are also delaying the recognition scene in which the brothers will discover the identity of the Egyptian lord.⁴

Acknowledging the many instances of these kinds of doubling, I would argue that there is a deeper, structural doubling in the Joseph story—occasioned by the unexpected turn of events in chapter 42 when the brothers first come to Egypt to bring grain. “And Joseph's brothers came, and they did obeisance to him—nostrils to the ground. …”^* (All asterisked biblical quotations have been made directly from the Hebrew text.) This is the outcome envisioned in Joseph's first dream of ascendancy over the rest of his family (37:5-7). We hadn’t known what to make of those dreams: had special favor been thrust on the youth, or did he grasp after it by tattling on his brothers? Did the dreams indicate divine choice, or were they the ambitious imaginings of a lad who would play the role of deity? Like Day Star, who had tried to replace the deity, Joseph is cast into the pit (Isa. 14:12ff); and then he is taken down into Egypt. But a recurring motif is God's presence with Joseph in Egypt, whether he is in Potiphar's house or in Pharaoh's prison. The reader notes with satisfaction that Joseph's rise to power in Egypt results from a combination of pious behavior, divine help, and his wise advice at court.

When the brothers come to Egypt for grain, the reader is prepared for the denouement. When they do obeisance before Joseph, we remember the dreams before he does. We assume that the story will soon end, showing how human beings cannot thwart the divine purpose. We have been prepared for this conclusion by chapter 41: after hearing and interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, Joseph tells him that the matter is fixed by God when a second dream repeats the first (41:32). Then, as Joseph predicted, the seven-year cycles of plenty and drought take place. Thus as the brothers fulfill Joseph's dreams by bowing down before him, the lesson of God's control of history is played out again, and the reader may consider the main story at an end.

The denouement does not fulfill our expectations, however, as Joseph turns with apparent vengeance on his brothers. Scholars who question Joseph's morality or who see him reverting to his earlier adolescent behavior are overlooking a literary device used by the storyteller: “And Joseph recognized his brothers; but as for them, they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about them. And he said to them, ‘Spies you are—to see the nakedness of the land’”^* (42:8-9a).

At this crucial moment of confrontation, the prostrated brothers bring to his mind an image from the past. Like the reader, Joseph remembers not the betrayal or suffering wrought by his brothers, but his dreams.⁵ We have been seduced by the baker-butler and the Pharaoh dream sequences into assuming that dreams indicate that what has been fixed by God will inevitably come to pass. Here is the climactic instance: Joseph's brothers are bowing down before him. We are not prepared for further plot complications.

In the unusual description of Joseph's thoughts in 42:9, the syntax connects his remembering the dreams with his accusing his brothers, launching a new series of events. That syntactical connection suggests that everything that follows is related to his dreams. We have just been told how Joseph, in naming his Egyptian-born sons, had put the past behind him: “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house (and) made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (41:51, 52). Now events remind him of his dreams. And somehow, from Joseph's point of view, the dreams have not yet been completely fulfilled.

As we read further it quickly becomes clear that Joseph's immediate purpose is to have the brothers bring Benjamin to Egypt. Then we recall: all the brothers' sheaves had bowed to Joseph's sheaf, and Benjamin is still in Canaan. The lad must join the brothers in Joseph's presence. And Joseph must continue to dissemble, since the first dream depicts his being treated as lord rather than brother.

We might wonder why Joseph focuses on bringing only Benjamin to Egypt. He does ask after Jacob's welfare, but makes no effort to include the patriarch in his machinations with his brothers. When we look more closely at Joseph's dreams, however, we see that they were not so closely doubled as were Pharaoh's. The motif of obeisance appears in both dreams; but the first points only to the brothers, while the second includes the whole family. Thus Joseph's dream sequence establishes the pattern for his course of action after his brothers come to Egypt: obeisance of all the brothers is of first importance.

Joseph may not yet be conscious of the full meaning of his dreams. With the dreams of the butler-baker and Pharaoh, the pattern had been dream-interpretation-fulfillment. In Joseph's own case, however, the interpretation will not be clear to him until after the dreams have been fulfilled—possibly because he himself must play a role in bringing the dreams to fulfillment.

Both the recognition of the brothers and the recollection of the dreams are one-sided. As a plot device, they force the reader to see what follows in the light of what has preceded. But what of the actors in this drama? Will Joseph come to understand the connection between his dreams and the new sequence of events? Will the brothers come to the same understanding? Will they not have to relive Joseph's suffering so they can fully realize what they did to him?

The brothers soon recall their past crime and interpret their present misfortunes as a long-delayed retribution, but there is room for further growth. Joseph recalls his dreams, but is not yet able to interpret their meaning. Thus after the climactic meeting the story is so arranged that Joseph, in acting out his dreams, will embark on a twice-told tale through which he will both fulfill and learn the divine purpose for his life.

One result of this plot device is a series of dramatic ironies, some apparent to Joseph, some appreciated only by the reader:

(a) “We are all sons of one man,” say the brothers in 42:11, not realizing that their statement includes the strange lord standing before them.

(b) “You will be tested … Send one of you and let him bring your brother … so that your words may be tested, whether ’emet [a word that means both truth and faithfulness] is with you,”^* says Joseph in 42:15-16. The brothers pass half of the test in chapter 43. There was ’emet/truth with them: they have proved they were the family unit they had claimed to be, rather than a group of spies, by producing the youngest son. But they will soon discover that the test has not ended. It is yet to be determined whether or not ’emet/faithfulness was with them.

(c) When Jacob finally relents and agrees to send Benjamin, he prays in 43:14 that God will prosper the journey “so that he will send to you your brother, another, and Benjamin.”^* The father may be referring to Simeon, the brother kept hostage in Egypt. But Jacob did not say “your other brother.” The syntax leaves the meaning just ambiguous enough for the reader to know that it can also refer to Joseph.⁶

(d) In 42:21 we are told that Joseph had earlier pleaded for “favor” (hnn) for himself, but his brothers would not listen. When Joseph first meets Benjamin, he gives the pious, traditional greeting “May God grant you faovr [hnn], my son”^* (43:29). Those words will have a deeper significance as the plot develops. Will the other son of Rachel find “favor” from the brothers when they are asked to leave him enslaved in Egypt and return to their father?

(e) When the brothers return to the Egyptian lord after the divining cup has been discovered in Benjamin's sack, Judah's defense should be nolo contendere: they cannot defend themselves against the charge, even though they consider themselves not guilty. Instead, however, Judah exclaims, “God has found out the guilt of your servants” (44:16). Does he mean that the Egyptian should accept the statement as an admission of guilt regarding a deliberate theft, or something else? The guilt that Judah acknowledges God has “found out”—we and his brothers know—is for an incident that took place long ago.

A second result of the narrative device of delayed fulfillment is the doubled plot. Readers can see the brothers suffering, in part at least, measure for measure for what they did in the past:

(a) In Genesis 37, as Joseph approached his brothers in Dothan, “they saw him … and they conspired [vayyitnakk^elû] against him.” Finally they returned with the bloody garment to their father, saying “This we have found; recognize now—cloak of your son—is it or not?”^*7 Twenty years later, when the brothers first appear before Joseph, “he saw his brothers, and he recognized them; but he acted unrecognizably [vayyitnakkēr] unto them”^*—the significant pun, in a technique characteristic of the whole story, reinforcing the moral pattern of measure for measure. Joseph's dissembling echoes the brothers' conspiring. In 37:4 “they were not able to speak peaceably to him.”^* Now Joseph “speaks harshly to them”^* (42:7). Those who had duped their father into “recognition” are now recognized. The deceivers are deceived. The ones who had seen Joseph and conspired against him are now on the receiving end, and the key to the deception is Joseph “acting unrecognizably.”

(b) Joseph then falsely accuses the brothers of coming “to see the nakedness of the land”^* (42:9). In the biblical tradition “nakedness” consistently occurs in texts referring to sexual misconduct.⁸ Are we not being asked to recall Joseph's plight in Genesis 39, when Potiphar's wife falsely accused him of sexual misconduct, causing his angry master to throw him in prison? Now Joseph falsely accuses his brothers and has them bound over into prison for a period of three days.

(c) In 40:15 Joseph, interpreting the butler's dream, uses language that equates his Egyptian imprisonment with an earlier event in his life: “For I was indeed stolen from the land of the Hebrews, and also here I have not done anything that they should place me in the pit.”^* Joseph is linking his brothers' betrayal with his imprisonment, so that the memory of his suffering is doubly tied to the pit. Thus when he imprisons his brothers, he is forcing them to relive two separate experiences from the past: his imprisonment by Potiphar, and his being cast into the pit by his brothers.

(d) While in prison, the brothers must decide which one will return to tell Jacob that nine more of his sons have been taken and that Benjamin must also come down to Egypt; they realize that Jacob will hold back. Desolately, the brothers in the prison/pit contemplate the prospect of death or slavery—just as Joseph had earlier sat in their pit awaiting death. He is meting out, measure for measure, what he had suffered in the past.

The outburst of “measure for measure” activity soon ends. After three days Joseph changes his mind and allows the brothers to return to Canaan, keeping only Simeon as a hostage. Why do we find the seemingly unnecessary change of plan after this short interval? Joseph's first response to his brothers had been punitive. He had wanted his brothers to relive in part the hardships that he had experienced. But his major purpose is to bring his dreams to fulfillment, and this necessitates a change in strategy. He also must realize that sending only one brother back home would be a certain overkill that would cause Jacob to dig in his heels, frustrating his intention. Thus he carefully modifies his course of action.

This change initiates a chain of events that will be part of a third plot doubling. The result of Joseph's changed course of action is to bring the brothers' long-repressed guilt to the surface. Only now will there be discussion and recriminations among them concerning what had happened twenty years before. Why does this happen? It is unclear whether Joseph intends it or not, but the changed course of action—ostensibly aimed at fulfilling the dreams—is subtly forcing the brothers to relive their earlier crime.⁹ Thus with 42:18ff we move from a “measure for measure” punitive reaction to a more subtle “play within a play” in which, like Hamlet's uncle, the brothers will be forced to relive the past and face its horror.

The first expression of guilt comes as soon as they learn that they must return to their father to fetch Benjamin (42:21-22). Why is this? Surely part of the reason is a growing sense of déjà vu among the brothers. They must return to their father with the dreadful news of a second lost brother—this time, Simeon; and at the same time they must demand that Jacob surrender the other son of Rachel. Their imprisonment had forced them to relive Joseph's pit/imprisonment experiences. Now they must reenact their earlier crime.

On the homeward journey one of the brothers discovers silver in his sack. “What is this that God had done to us?” they exclaim. They are horrified by the discovery of what, in other circumstances, could have been construed as an act of kindness. Surely, their reaction is to some extent caused by fear that the money is part of a setup: it will be used as an occasion for a second false accusation that will result in imprisonment, slavery, or death when they return to Egypt. But the silver gained in the context of losing another brother also echoes their grim plan to sell Joseph into slavery for silver. That time, the Midianites had foiled their plan and received the silver instead. Now as the brothers return to their father minus another brother and with silver in their sacks, we (and possibly also the brothers) may well feel that the payoff for their earlier crime was twenty years delayed in coming.

The brothers have changed. As the story repeats itself, we must notice the great difference between their attitude toward Jacob's suffering over the report of Joseph's loss with the bloody garment and their description of why Simeon was taken and what they must do with Benjamin. They are now sincere, compassionate for their mourning father, desperate to set things straight. Reuben offers the lives of his two sons if Benjamin does not return. But Jacob pitifully turns them away. If Benjamin is lost, “you would bring my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.”^* This echoes Jacob's response to the loss of Joseph: “I will go down to my son mourning—to Sheol”^* (37:35).

The parallels continue, as the reader picks up an irony that must elude the brothers. Jacob, after a long struggle, has finally been convinced that the family will not survive if Benjamin is not sent to Egypt. The wily father hopes for the best and does what he can by sending gifts to the Egyptian lord (43:11). Thus Benjamin departs for Egypt; and with him go balm, honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds—the very goods that accompanied Joseph twenty years before (37:25). The brothers had been indirectly responsible for Joseph's earlier descent into Egypt. This time they must take Benjamin in their own caravan. The allusion to the items of transport suggests that this time the brothers are reenacting the role of the Ishmaelite traders, bringing the other son of Rachel to an uncertain fate.¹⁰

When the brothers arrived in Egypt with Benjamin, “they did obeisance before him to the ground”^* (43:26). With this statement, the narrator stresses that the first dream has been completely fulfilled. We can assume the same of the divine purpose contained in the dream. As for Joseph's own reported purpose, the brothers have demonstrated that ’emet is with them by producing Benjamin; they have told the truth. Joseph generously provides a banquet for his brothers; and they all feast, drink, even become drunk together. As chapter 43 draws to a close, the writer would have a perfect opportunity to describe Joseph's revelation of his true identity; but Joseph bypasses it.

Why not tell all right now? Joseph proceeds on a course of action that is puzzling (why pick on Benjamin, the one innocent brother?) and that goes beyond the dreams. We should remember, however, that Pharaoh's dreams told only what was fixed by God: seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. They did not hint at the appropriate mode of human response to the fixed divine action, so that the human community would gain the maximum benefit. The appropriate response required a discreet and wise person in whom was the spirit of God. Similarly, Joseph's dreams had disclosed only the course of events that God would ultimately bring about within the family of Jacob: the young Joseph would rise to ascendancy over his brothers and parents. His dreams did not disclose the appropriate response to what they foretold. May we not assume that, as Joseph's response to Pharaoh's dreams had benefited all of Egypt in chapter 41, his mysterious course of action with the divining cup in chapter 44 will somehow benefit the family of Israel?

The first allusion to Joseph's dreams in 42:8-9 begins a plot doubling in which the brothers go through two distinct stages:

A. Measure for measure. First they suffer fit retribution for their crime against Joseph and for his tribulations in the land of Egypt—false accusation and imprisonment, with the fear of death or slavery.

B. Reenactment of the crime. As they return to their father minus a brother and with silver in their sack, hear their father's renewed anguish, and bring the second son of Rachel into Egypt, they are forced to relive painful scenes from the past that bring their guilt to the surface.

Both stages take place as part of Joseph's need to bring his dream to fulfillment. Note also that the brothers' experience is the chronological reverse of the earlier plot: first they suffer what had happened to Joseph during and after the crime; then they relive the crime. Chapter 43, verse 26 describes the literal fulfilling of Joseph's dream and initiates the final doubling that must precede the great climax and denouement of the story. In Aristotle's terms, we have had the major reversal and a one-sided recognition scene. Yet to come are the full recognition scene (“I am Joseph”) and the final working out of the plot.

The third stage of the doubling is carefully planned to push events back to the point before the crime took place. When the brothers return to the Egyptian lord after the divining cup has been discovered in Benjamin's sack, the chronology has suddenly shifted. They are no longer acting out an earlier crime. Instead, they are given a chance to commit a new one. The plot doubling has structured events so that history can repeat itself and they can again be rid of the favored son.¹¹ This time, however, they will be guiltless. All they have to do is go home and tell their father exactly what happened. Despite Judah's offer that all the brothers remain enslaved, Joseph tells them to return to their father “in peace.” They surely recall Jacob's reaction to the loss of Joseph and their fruitless efforts to console him; the loss of the only other son of Rachel would destroy their father. Realization of this leads to Judah's moving speech in which he offers himself as a slave in Benjamin's stead so that the younger brother can return to his father.

When Joseph saw his eleven brothers bowed before him in 43:26, he knew that the divine plan foreshadowed in his first dream had been fulfilled. As a youth he could not have known why his ascendancy to power would be an important part of the divine plan to keep alive the family of Israel. As Joseph proceeds with the divining cup ruse, the narrative gives no indication that he has plumbed the relationship between his past suffering and his present power. Joseph's ploy with the divining cup is in no way related to the explanation he finally expresses to his brothers in 45:5-7. In chapter 44 Joseph's motivation is to test his brothers. They have proved their ’emet/truthfulness by producing Benjamin. Now he wants to learn whether they have grown and changed—whether there is the possibility of reestablishing brotherhood with them. (Paradoxically, as the brothers pass the test, Joseph will learn more than he had expected. Judah's speech will give him the key for interpreting the mystery of his own life. We will return to this later.)

The first dream has been fulfilled in 43:26, but the blessing of reconciliation among the brothers has not been realized. In this story a wise, human response is required to complement and complete the divine activity. Thus, structurally, the divining cup incident is to the fulfillment of Joseph's first dream what the construction of store-cities was to Pharaoh's dreams. The store-cities will contain the blessing of the harvest; the divining cup is the final test of ’emet/faithfulness that, if passed, may bring the blessing of reconciliation among brothers.

Although the dominant theme of this story may be the providential care of the family of Israel through Joseph's career, reconciliation among brothers is a strong and closely related sub-theme: family survival involves both escape from famine and reconciliation among brothers. In chapter 37 the brothers were angry at Joseph when he tattled and jealous when he received the special garment—“they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (37:4). These feelings were intensified by Joseph's dreams (37:5, 8, 11). The narrator reports no word spoken to Joseph as they cast him into the pit. In fact, when the brothers recall that incident in 42:21-22, they describe it as not listening to his entreaties.

The alienation theme is continued on Joseph's part as he “speaks harshly”^* to his brothers when they first come down to Egypt (42:7); and in their first four encounters they are separated by an interpreter. The descriptions of Joseph's weeping indicate a gradual change in his attitude toward his brothers as he perceives that they have changed. But even in the banquet scene, which might have made a fitting climax, the narrator stresses the physical separation of Joseph from his brothers (43:32). They sat “before him.” The language suggests a royal court in which the brothers are placed in subservient positions to the ruler. Even the phrase “They drank and became drunken with him [‘immô]”^* suggests the same court background.¹² The brothers are together, but they are not a family. Only after they have passed the test in chapter 44 does reconciliation begin: “And he kissed all his brothers, and he wept upon them. And after that his brothers spoke with him” (45:15).¹³

It had been Joseph's reports of his dreams that exacerbated the brothers' ill will toward the youth. They had interpreted the dreams as both a claim to divine favor and a sign of an overweening pride that was nurtured by Jacob's special love for Joseph. They naturally refused to see anything providential in a plan that would cast them down before any brother. There was a strong antimonarchical strand in early Israelite history, shaped by centuries of oppression at the hands of rulers who claimed to be benevolent shepherds of their people.¹⁴ The last thing that Joseph can do, if he wants to reestablish his place as brother in the family, is to overwhelm his brothers with his power. Conversely, the brothers must pass the divining-cup test so that Joseph can again become a brother and part of the family.

The theme of favoritism producing conflict runs throughout the book of Genesis. At the human level it begins in the rivalry between Sarah and Hagar, forcing Abraham to favor Isaac and drive out Ishmael. It continues in the rivalry between Isaac's sons, Jacob and Esau—each favored by one parent. The struggle between brothers continues in the next generation, caused in large part by Jacob's special love for Rachel and her offspring over Leah and hers. In all these stories the younger son wins out over the older, and geographical separation helps resolve the conflict. Ishmael becomes a wilderness dweller as he and Hagar disappear from the story. Jacob flees to Haran, at Rebekah's behest, so that Esau will have time to forget what was done to him. When the brothers again meet twenty years later, Esau has indeed forgotten. He falls upon Jacob's neck and kisses him. Then each brother departs to his own special country.

The Joseph story continues these themes and brings them to a new resolution. Favoritism and deception play crucial roles in chapter 37. Like Sarah and Isaac, Rachel and her sons are the husband/father's favorites. As with the three earlier sets of brothers, parental favoritism sets up serious sibling rivalries. As with favoritism, so with deception. Just as Isaac had been unable to recognize (nkr) the disguised son he was blessing, Jacob, who had deceived his father and won that blessing, was himself deceived by his sons when he recognized (nkr) Joseph's bloodied garment and drew the wrong conclusions. Joseph also lived separated from his brothers for twenty years and finally had forgotten all his hardship and all his father's house (41:51). But at the crucial time of confrontation Joseph remembers his dreams and undertakes a series of actions that eventually results in reconciliation among the brothers. This reconciliation, however, will not be an uneasy peace best preserved by geographical separation. It is a reconciliation that results in the geographical reunification of the family of Israel.

It is a commonplace that Genesis 1-11 provides the prologue to inintroducedthe story of Israel by depicting the ever-increasing alienation within the human community. Humankind had been created to live in Eden, in close proximity to God. Genesis 11 ends with a fragmented humanity—scattered and no longer able to understand one another's tongue.

One might assume that when Abraham is introduced, the story will describe how God begins to overcome the alienation among humans through the covenant community of Israel. But strangely the rivalry and hatred among brothers that had begun with Cain and Abel are continued within the family of Abraham. In fact, these themes that were present but muted in the generation of Isaac and Ishmael become increasingly intensified, culminating when the sons of Jacob behold the approaching “master dreamer” and determine that he shall die.

Paradoxically, divine favor has played a crucial role from the beginning in catalyzing the conflict among the brothers. We first note its appearance as God prefers Abel's sacrifice to Cain's. In the story of Israel divine favor is carried out through a parent. Abraham is driven to heed Sarah's words and turn against Ishmael when he learns that Isaac will be the child of promise. Rebekah's special love for Jacob may be traced directly to God's decree, given to her alone, that the second-born will ultimately prevail over the first-born. Divinely inspired dreams, given to a younger son who wears a special garment, continue and intensify the theme of divine and parental favoritism that produces conflict.

In Genesis 45 the conflict of brothers begins to be resolved. The brothers, through Judah's bold action in Genesis 44, have passed the crucial test. When they discover Joseph's true identity, he is no longer a vengeful sovereign for them but a brother; more important, he is not a vengeful brother but a forgiving brother. They have earned forgiveness for their crime against their brother.

Full reconciliation, however, cannot take place until they can resolve the issue that had partially instigated that crime: divine favoritism. Only when Joseph explains that the dreams indicated a specially ordained family role rather than a personally privileged divine love are the brothers able to approach him. Only when they perceive that Joseph's suffering and survival had played a key role in continued life for the family of Jacob-Israel are they able to “speak with him.” The survival of the family had been the key issue in Judah's entreaty to Jacob to send Benjamin with them to Egypt. And the survival of Jacob-Israel had been the key theme in Judah's desperate plea before the Egyptian lord. The brothers have come in the course of the story to choose unity over separation, even if it means a shared slavery that could easily be avoided. They have also changed from a hatred that wills death for a favored one to an urgent concern for the life of the entire family. In fact, it is Judah's stress on the survival of “the little ones”—the next generation—that finally moves Jacob to risk the death of his last beloved son, Benjamin.

I have tried to show how the divining-cup incident in Genesis 44 is the culmination of the plot-doubling device begun in chapter 42. It places the brothers in a position of having to choose whether or not to repeat their crime of Genesis 37. Will yet another favored brother be sacrificed, escalating the danger to the life of Jacob-Israel—both as father and as symbol of family cohesion? Their action indicates that they now prefer the life and survival of all over the death/cutting off of any. The long history of the sibling rivalry motif that began with Cain and Abel was introduced into the Joseph story by 37:4 (“but when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him …”). It now moves toward resolution as they fall on one anothers' necks and kiss one another. The Babel motif of alienation resulting in a breakdown of communication, also introduced into the Joseph story in 37:4 (“and [they] could not speak peaceably to him”^*) and intensified by the role of the court interpreter, moves toward resolution as “after this his brothers spoke with him”^* (45:15).

The remainder of this paper will discuss another key doubling in the Joseph story: Reuben/Judah. Many scholars see both playing the “good brother” role in Genesis 37. In the original version there was one good brother, they claim, and the present confusion in the text results from a conflation of sources.¹⁵ Redford goes on to say, in fact, that Judah's role is not only a secondary intrusion into the narrative, but it also represents a diminution of the story's overall literary artistry.¹⁶ There may indeed be a conflation of sources, but I will argue that the redactor displays great artistry. In the final redaction Reuben and Judah play contrasting roles. Whereas Reuben will gradually weaken and disappear as the story unfolds, Judah will undergo the most important change of any of the characters so that he will play the key role in catalyzing the reconciliation. To what extent has the narrative prepared us for Judah's dramatic rise in Genesis 43-44?

Reuben, the firstborn, is described as the good son in chapter 37. When the brothers see Joseph coming in the distance and plan to kill him, it is Reuben who seeks to foil the plan. Whereas the brothers plot a violent death for Joseph, Reuben sets limits: “let us not smite a life.”^* Acceding to part of the brothers' plan, he suggests that Joseph be thrown into a nearby pit alive rather than dead. The basis for his request is the prohibition against shedding blood. But the text makes clear that Reuben's interest is to rescue Joseph and restore him to his father. When the unexpected intervention of Midianites foils Reuben's plan, he bursts out in lamentation for himself: “and I, where shall I go?” (37:30). This may mean merely, “How can I face my father?” But might he see himself as banned fugitive, unable to return to his father because he has not lived up to the responsibility of firstborn in protecting his brother?

Judah, the fourth-born of Leah, plays a role that sets him in contrast with Reuben. The text makes no mention that Judah's interest is to rescue Joseph. Instead Judah piously speaks of not laying a hand on a brother; but the effect of his suggestion is not so different from murder: Joseph will be removed from their midst and reduced to slavery. In many ways biblical law equates selling a person into slavery with murder.¹⁷ Judah wants the same results as his other brothers, but he seeks profit from the deed (37:26-27).

Both plans—Reuben's to save and Judah's to profit—are foiled. Out of nowhere come the Midianites, and in a half verse they carry out the action contemplated by the brothers. Like the nameless stranger who met Joseph at Shechem and told him his brothers had moved on to Dothan, the Midianites are mere agents of the plot. They appear suddenly in the story to foil the opposing machinations of Reuben and Judah and disappear after they have served their function.

N. Leibowitz, backed by midrashic interpretation, sees Joseph's nameless stranger as a divine emissary.¹⁸ Given the normal economy in biblical narrative style, there seems to be no need to tell us that Joseph was sent first to Shechem but then redirected to Dothan. Like the Midianites, the stranger appears from nowhere. He engages Joseph in a conversation that could easily have been omitted, and then he disappears from the story. Leibowitz infers that the narrator is going out of his way to emphasize the divine intent behind Joseph's fateful encounter with his brothers. I would argue the same thing for the role of the Midianites. They frustrate the plans of Reuben and Judah, but their sudden intervention into and disappearance from the story may cause us to anticipate that a larger plan, not yet revealed to characters or reader, is being carried out.

One must examine the larger context of the Joseph story to determine why Reuben and Judah play these opposing roles. Deriving his line of argument from midrashic interpretation, J. Goldin points us in a fruitful direction by referring to Genesis 34-35.¹⁹ In 35:22 we learn that Reuben had sexual relations with his father's concubine, Bilhah. He may have been attempting to assert the rights of primogeniture and assume the role of the father,²⁰ but we learn from Genesis 49:3-4 that in fact his premature action had caused him to lose this status in his father's eyes. Goldin suggests that, besides fulfilling his special responsibility as firstborn, Reuben may have been desperately attempting to regain his lost/threatened status by saving Joseph's life.²¹ When Reuben finds the pit empty, his response, as translated by Goldin, is “what now is left me” (37:30b).²² This alternate translation, like the conventional translation used above, leaves Reuben bemoaning his own fate as a response to Joseph's tragedy.

What about Judah, the fourth-born? His star may be on the rise. Levi and Simeon, the second- and third-born sons, had fallen from favor through their deceitful destruction of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). Jacob rebukes them for their recklessness (34:30) and refers to it again in Genesis 49:5-7 in declaring their reduced status. Judah is next in line. If he stays out of trouble, and if Reuben does not regain favor, the special status of family leadership may fall to him. The only remaining rival is Joseph, the son favored by his father. Thus not only does the larger context of Genesis 37 show us how important it is for Reuben to save Joseph and return him to his father; it also reveals how much Judah stands to gain by being rid of the only other rival for special status among his brothers.²³

When the harsh-speaking Egyptian lord begins to test the brothers in chapter 42, Reuben still appears to be the “good brother.” But there are now further ambiguities: his goodness has even more self-centeredness than before. The brothers speak with one accord in remembering and repenting their guilt; they admit that they did not heed Joseph's appeals for mercy. Only Reuben breaks the brothers' eloquent solidarity. Shrilly he turns on them with an “I told you so,” refusing to accept the guilt while recognizing that he must share the judgment. The brothers remember not heeding Joseph. Reuben attempts to identify himself with the innocent, wronged younger brother—reminding them that they also did not heed him earlier. But they had indeed followed his lead in chapter 37. It was Reuben's advice to throw Joseph into the pit, as part of his plan to save the lad and return him to his father. Reuben's goodness was ineffective. His plan did not work, and we learn later that if it had worked, Jacob's family would not have survived the famine. As chapter 37 concluded, we found Reuben proclaiming his tragic isolation. The brothers did not heed his words, probably because of their irrelevance to the problem of explaining Joseph's disappearance to their father.

Reuben's goodness is similarly ineffective in chapter 42. The threatening situation before the Egyptian lord did not require a querulous expression of innocence that resulted in division and recrimination. The true firstborn should provide leadership that assumed at least a shared responsibility for the situation. He should be the spokesman, coming up with an imaginative response to the Egyptian lord's accusation that would enhance the unity of the family and deliver the brothers from their peril. His lack of leadership here is a foil for the later doubling situation. Chapter 44 will portray another brother taking action before the Egyptian lord in even more threatening circumstances with vastly different results; and the reader is forced to compare the two spokesmen in these analogous situations.

When the brothers return to Jacob and describe their Egyptian adventures, they try to soften the severity of their position. Simeon is not a hostage bound over into prison, but simply a brother left to stay with the Egyptian. There was no threat of death to Simeon for failure to bring Benjamin to Egypt—only the promise to hand over Simeon and to allow the brothers to purchase grain in Egypt. The aged Jacob's response to this news is full of self-pitying, ineffective recrimination. After twenty years he still grieves for Joseph. Because he fears for Benjamin's life, he is incapable of an imaginative response. Here Reuben steps forward, making a statement more reckless than Jephthah's, offering the life of two sons as pledge for Benjamin's.

Reuben's language reminds readers of his earlier intent “to bring him [Joseph] unto his father”^* (37:22). In chapter 42 the same words are used to express Reuben's promise regarding Benjamin: “two of my sons you may kill if I do not bring him unto you”^* (42:37). We know that Reuben tried and failed before. If Reuben fails again, his suggested resolution will wreak further death in Jacob's family. Many years ago Jacob had jumped to secure the birthright of Esau—the foolish, impulsive firstborn. Now as a father he must be haunted to see Esau's traits reappear in his firstborn, Reuben—so desperate to win favor that he will risk cutting off his own descendants. Jacob's impulse is to refuse, to cut his losses and take no further risk of lives in the family. Simeon's fate remains in abeyance until the grain sacks are emptied as the famine continues.

When the famine had first hit, Jacob had been quick to seize the initiative in preserving life among the family (42:1-2). The key words here are “so that we might live and not die.”^* The brothers, on the other hand, are depicted as “staring at each other,” helpless and paralyzed, incapable of taking productive measures. Now in chapter 43 we see a feeble, pitiful old man, unwilling to risk Benjamin's life, begging his sons to “return, bring for us a little food.”^* With the wisdom of the senile, he does not mention Benjamin, hoping that his sons have forgotten the awful terms. Perhaps they can secure a few scraps without risking Benjamin's life. At this point Judah intervenes to make things clear to his father. Joseph had told the brothers that if they did not bring Benjamin with them they would die (42:20). He knew that the famine would continue and that the brothers would be forced to return to Egypt to survive. Judah had understood Joseph's meaning precisely, and he twice repeats that if they do not bring Benjamin they will not have access to the Egyptian who is the sole dispenser of the grain.

Judah has become the spokesman and leader. The main turning point is reached, however, when Judah offers to assume personal responsibility for Benjamin's life in verses 8-10. Just as chapter 37 forced us to contrast the two brothers' attempts to deliver Joseph from death, the analogy between the offers of Reuben and Judah to be responsible for Benjamin forces us to contrast their words in order to see why Reuben's offer hardened Jacob's resolve not to send Benjamin, whereas Judah's words won him over. Unlike Reuben, Judah is successful because he sets Jacob's decision in a larger context. He sees clearly that the continuation of the whole family is at stake, and he is able to get this insight through to his father by picking up and building on the same phrase Jacob had used in 42:2 to respond to the famine: “so that we might live and not die—also we, also you, also our offspring.”^* Whereas Reuben offered to destroy part of the next generation if he could not return Benjamin to his father, Judah emphasizes the necessity that the next generation must continue. He shows Jacob that Jacob's efforts to save the life of the younger, favored son are threatening the continuation of the entire line. How was Judah led to that conclusion?

Although the midrashic tradition was aware of many of the parallels between Genesis 37 and 38, Robert Alter has demonstrated how these parallels create a new literary unity, integrating the themes of the Judah-Tamar story into the Joseph narrative.²⁴ Alter concentrates primarily on the integration between chapter 38 and chapters 37-39 of Leitwörter, images, and themes: Judah goes down from his brothers and Joseph is brought down to Egypt; Jacob mourns for “dead” Joseph, and Judah mourns for his dead sons; the brothers send the bloodied garment—“Please recognize …”^*—to unmask deception; a garment is dipped in kid's blood, and a pledge is taken by Tamar for a kid; Tamar's successful seduction is deemed righteous, but Potiphar's wife's attempted seduction is a sin against God.

Earlier I tried to show how many of these themes, especially deception and recognition, go back to Jacob's early struggle with Esau for the blessing and at the same time look forward to Joseph's recognizing his brothers while they were unable to recognize him. Just as Jacob had put kidskins on his arms and neck to deceive Isaac and as Tamar had changed her garb from widow to harlot to deceive Judah, so Joseph's royal garb, given much attention in the narrative, effectively prevents the brothers from recognizing him.

Another key thematic relationship between Genesis 38 and the Joseph narrative has not been pointed out by other scholars. It is introduced in Judah's interior speech in 38:11. After losing Er and Onan, Judah sends Tamar back to her father's house until his younger son shall grow up. Readers learn instantly what only gradually becomes apparent to Tamar: Judah's action is a ruse to protect the life of his youngest son, “for he thought ‘lest he die also like his brothers.’”^* Marriage to Tamar seemed to invite death. Chapter 38 proceeds to describe the desperate risk that Tamar takes so that she may bear a child—and the family of Judah will continue. She deceives the deceiver. Tamar becomes pregnant by Judah; and when the patriarch recognizes the pledge tokens and realizes the meaning of her action, he says, “She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah, my son.”^* Thus we see Judah's growth in Genesis 38 as he moves from an understandable desire to protect his youngest son, given in interior speech, to a public proclamation of his wrong. The episode ends with a description of Judah's line continuing—not through Shelah, who remains outside this story—but through the twin offspring of Tamar.

As Seybold has pointed out, Onan's selfish refusal to continue the family of his dead brother through Tamar establishes a thematic parallel with the action of the brothers in Genesis 37, who become callous wasters of life through their hatred of Joseph.²⁵ The real point of Genesis 38, however, is that Judah is at first also a waster. Ironically he becomes a waster by trying to safeguard the life of Shelah, his youngest son.

By now it should be clear why it is Judah who can step forward to convince Jacob to send Benjamin. We have noted that Jacob has changed from the bold initiator of chapter 42 who saves his family from famine to the pathetic pleader in chapter 43, shriveled into paralysis because he has put Benjamin's safety above all other considerations. In chapter 38 Judah learned the crucial importance of the continuation of the family. He is able to bring Jacob back to his senses by demonstrating that his protective favoritism for Benjamin will destroy the future generation of the family of Israel. Judah demonstates to Jacob that Israel must live into the future. Whereas he left personal items in pledge (‘rbn) to Tamar until the kid be brought, he now pledges himself (’‘rbn) to Jacob until Benjamin be returned home safely. If not, says Judah, he (not his sons, the next generation) will bear the guilt all his days. That is, Judah is now willing to risk giving up the firstborn/favored status he’s schemed to win in chapter 37.

After the divining-cup incident Judah again emerges as the brothers' spokesman before the Egyptian lord. Whereas Reuben turned against his brothers and proclaimed his innocence in a similar setting (42:22), Judah admits to Joseph that God has “found out the guilt of your servants” just as surely as the cup had been “found” in Benjamin's sack.

Judah's speech before the Egyptian lord also takes a different direction from his speech to Jacob. Whereas he stressed the preservation and continuation of the family in confronting his father, Judah now focuses on the preservation of the father in addressing the Egyptian lord. As he summarizes the past (once more tying past crime to present predicament), Judah highlights the old man's fragility, his total attachment to the one remaining son of Rachel, and the threat that if harm befall Benjamin the brothers will “bring down … my father, mourning, to Sheol.”^* Whereas he had told Jacob that not risking the life of the son will be the death of Israel as a continuing family, Judah now tells the supposed Egyptian that the life of the father is bound to the life of the youngest son, and that the loss of Benjamin will be the death of Israel, the family's progenitor. True, Judah is himself the pledge for Benjamin's safety, but his speech shows that his father's life is more important to him. Thus he offers to remain in Egypt as slave so that Benjamin may go up with his brothers and so that Israel may live.

Joseph's dreams were partially interpreted by his brothers and father in chapter 37, but not until Judah's speech are we (and Joseph) given sufficient narrative perspective to reach a more complete interpretation. Judah's speech shows what the brothers have learned—that the loss of a brother would be the death of Jacob-Israel. Perhaps Joseph did not realize what additional grief to his father his test of the brothers would cause. Paradoxically, there is something more important that Joseph must learn from Judah: the risking / offering up / suffering / descent of a brother can mean life for the family of Israel.

Judah twice alludes to the Sheol descent motif in his speech before Joseph. As Seybold and others have pointed out, the pattern of the opening chapters of the Joseph story is a threefold descent: into the pit, into Egypt, and into prison.²⁶ Both in the narrative structure and in the mind of Joseph, the hero who had dreamed of dominion was descending. The brothers see Joseph coming and ambiguously refer to him as “ba’al of the dreams.” This means something like “hot shot dreamer”; but the allusion to Baal—the Canaanite vegetation god who annually descends into the pit and then arises—underscores the mythic descent pattern of the hero. This pattern is further underlined by Jacob's outburst upon learning of Joseph's death: “I will go down [yrd] unto my son, mourning, to Sheol”^* (37:35). Meanwhile, we learn, Joseph was “brought down” (yrd) to Egypt (39:1). In 40:15 Joseph comments to the butler and banker on his innocent suffering, designating the prison in which he remains as “the pit”—a term synonymous with Sheol in biblical tradition and used only one other time in the Hebrew Bible for a prison.²⁷

When Judah offers to remain enslaved in Egypt so that Israel will not enter Sheol and “the lad might go up with his brothers,” Joseph is finally able to perceive the full meaning of his life. In chapter 45 he correlates his dreams of ascendancy with his past suffering: “You sold me here [descent] … but God … has made me a father to Pharaoh [ascendancy]” (45:5, 8). And the purpose of it all, Joseph now sees, is “God sent me before you to preserve life … to keep alive for you numerous survivors”^* (45:5, 7).

Judah did not realize that, in offering to remain enslaved so that Benjamin could return, he was helping this strange Egyptian understand the meaning of his own life. In fact, however, Joseph was learning the same lesson that Judah had taught Jacob. The narrator underscores this by developing the symmetry between what Joseph claims that God has done with him and what Judah had earlier insisted that Jacob must do with Benjamin: “Send the lad with me … that we may live and not die … also our offspring.”^* That is, the favored one must descend/be offered up/be risked so that “Israel” (referring both to the father and to the clan) might not perish.

Joseph's speech before his brothers in chapter 45 suggests analogies with Abraham, Judah, Jacob, and God in the Genesis story: what Abraham had done willingly with Isaac, what Judah could not do with Shelah, and what Jacob had done grudgingly with Benjamin, God did with Joseph. As the brothers learn that the divine favoritism they had once hated involved the risking/descent of the chosen one so that Israel might live, they can now perceive Joseph's dreams of ascendancy in a new light. But reconciliation among the brothers—a major theme in the Genesis tradition—can begin only as the brothers realize that they have passed the test. They have affirmed their solidarity with Benjamin by returning with him to Joseph's city. And one of their number has gone even further, offering up not his son but himself so that Israel would not enter Sheol and “the lad might go up with his brothers.”

Joseph's self-revelation to his brothers in chapter 45 prepares for the larger family reunion involving Jacob that will fulfill Joseph's second dream. The Joseph story has reached its climax and is winding down, but we should remember that it is an episode within the larger story of Jacob. As the second dream unfolds toward its unusual fulfillment, the ancient patriarch again assumes center stage, and the brothers move off to the wings. In the preceding chapters Jacob the heel-grabber had become Jacob the son-grabber—unwilling to risk Benjamin's descent so that the family might live on. When he hears that Joseph is alive, Jacob impulsively determines to go down to see him before dying. The father who once moaned that he would go down, mourning, to Sheol to seek out his dead son Joseph now prepares to go down to Egypt to meet a living ruler. But as he reaches the border, he hesitates, offering “sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac” (46:1). Sheol and Egypt have become analogous in the story. Jacob is about to leave the land of promise, about to enter Egypt. Jacob and the reader must recall earlier episodes involving the ancestors and Egypt in the context of famine: Sarai and Abram go down in 12:10-20 with ambiguous results: was it an act of foolishness or faith? More recently, Isaac was commanded by God not to go down to Egypt when famine again struck the land (26:2ff). Small wonder that Jacob holds back. Is he risking the promise through this descent into Egypt? Will “the God of his father Isaac” sanction this going down?

The descent-ascent motif continues as God addresses Jacob in a night vision. Here the patriarch must appreciate the lesson his sons have learned—he should not fear descent, for “I will go down with you” (46:4). As God's presence prospered Joseph in Potiphar's household and in prison (39:3-5, 21-23), so God's presence will prosper Jacob in his descent, making Israel a thriving nation down in Egypt. “And I will also bring you up again.” As God caused Joseph's ascendancy in Egypt, delivering the family and land from famine, so Jacob will be brought up again to Canaan—his body returned amidst the pomp and circumstance of an Egyptian ceremony.

Any reader should now know that the experience of father and son will continue in the descendants: Israel will “go down” as she enters bondage in Egypt. But she also will prosper in her bondage (Exod. 1:5), and finally God will say to Moses: “I have come down to deliver [Israel] … and to bring them up … [to] a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8). The belly of Sheol is transformed into a nurturing womb. Although evil was feared or intended at every stage, God has intended it for good (cf. 50:20).

The second dream is nearing fulfillment. In 46:29, as father and lost son finally meet, the text says “and he [Joseph] appeared unto him (Jacob)”^*—using a Hebrew word that consistently describes a theophany in the Bible. The narrator metaphorically suggests Joseph's royal splendor, but the reader is also asked to remember the cosmic dreams of the sun, moon, and stars. After Joseph has settled the family in Goshen, Jacob prepares for death. His primary concern is that he be buried in Canaan. When Joseph vows that he will carry out the proper burial, Jacob “bowed down [vayyištahû] on the head of the bed”^* (47:31). The dream has been fulfilled in its own way, with the object of the verb left ambiguously unstated. When Joseph agrees to be the agent through whom the divine promises made to Jacob in 46:4 are to be carried out, the patriarch “bows down”—in gratitude to the son, but, more important, acknowledging and accepting the mysterious arrangements of providence.

In the following episode, with Jacob hovering near death, Joseph brings his Egyptian-born sons for a blessing and possibly for adoption. Surprisingly, Jacob states that Ephraim and Manasseh are “as Reuben and Simeon.” That is, Joseph's offspring are to assume the role of firstborn in Israel. Paternal choice and special roles continue. The narrator stresses Jacob-Israel's dim vision “so that he could not see” (48:10). But, says the patriarch, “God has caused me to see your seed”^* (48:11). Jacob-Israel will see not as man sees, but as God causes to see.

Jacob continues the motif of divine favoritism—of Ephraim, the younger, over Manasseh. Joseph protests, but Jacob answers “I know, my son, I know” (48:19). We remember the blind Isaac, who gave the blessing to the right son, though unwittingly. Unlike his father, Jacob sees truly. God has shown him through his experience that although brothers may be reconciled, divine favoritism remains. The offspring of Joseph will play out that drama in Israel's future. Through his ordeal with Joseph and Benjamin, and through his final vision of the deity upon leaving Canaan, Jacob has acquired a new perspective. He is now content to accept a mysterious providence that has brought and will continue to bring blessing and tempered reconciliation out of favoritism and conflict. Jacob sees—that his god has firm and knowable purposes that are nevertheless brought to fruition in paradoxical and surprising ways.

Scholars have generally regarded Genesis 49, in which Jacob gives final blessings to his sons, as an example of early Israelite poetry that reflects the political prominence of the tribes of Joseph and Judah in the early monarchical period. Others see the blessing of Judah as eschatological-messianic, pointing to a distant age beyond the time of the writer. It has rarely been noted how well the song dovetails into the larger story of Jacob, with Leitwörter and motifs that link the song to earlier episodes in his life. Now at the point of death, Jacob assumes an almost omniscient point of view, as he sees the future emerging from the past. At no point is the playful wonder of his retrospective vision into the future more evident than here: “it started out or looked like X, but lo, it became Y” is a recurring motif. Reuben—the first of Jacob's procreative strength—is no longer first because he “went up” to his father's bed in a premature attempt to assume the rights of primogeniture and the role of the father (cf. 35:22). Simeon and Levi are strong in anger, with implements of violence (their “cutters/cutting” perhaps punning on the cutting of covenant by cutting of foreskins in 34:13-31) that resulted in the slaying of Shechem and Hamor (the man and the ox of 49:6?) with the “edge of the sword.” Like the people of Babel who were scattered (pûs) for building a city, Simeon and Levi will be scattered (pûs) for conquering Shechem.

We have seen that Judah is a main character in the Joseph story, and that he and Joseph are the two people whose development is most clearly documented. Judah played a leading role in selling his brother into bondage; yet he becomes the key to a positive resolution of the plot. He convinces Jacob to send Benjamin to Egypt and then helps Joseph understand the meaning of his dreams when he describes Jacob's distress and offers to remain in Egypt in Benjamin's stead. I have tried to argue that the incident that changed Judah's perspective was his encounter with Tamar in chapter 38. Is it possible that, in his last words on Judah, Jacob is playfully pondering a son's foibles that led to blessing?²⁸

Many of Jacob's final blessings in chapter 49 contain words that play on the names of the sons. In the case of his fourth-born, “Judah” (y^ehûdâ) is closely followed by “praise you” (yôdûkā) and “your hand” (yād^ekā). The end result, for Judah, will be domination over his enemies, with his brothers bowing down before him—precisely the role he may have been aiming at by getting rid of Joseph.

“From the prey [teref], my son, you have gone up.” Are we being invited to compare and contrast Reuben's “going up” to his father's couch with Judah's “going up” from “the prey”? In 37:33 Jacob had exclaimed, upon seeing Joseph's bloody garment: [tārōf tōraf yôsēf (“Joseph has surely become a prey”^*). Jacob had assumed it was a wild beast that had killed his son, and in Genesis 49 he refers to Judah as a lion's whelp that had gone up from the prey. Is the father identifying the guilty son? A further ambiguity appears when Jacob says, “From the prey, my son, you have gone up.” Is he referring to Joseph or to Judah when he says “my son”?

Jacob shifts from the image of the brothers bowing before Judah to Judah as a bowing/couching, stretched-out lion. The first term can have a sexual connotation,²⁹ especially when reinforced in the first half of verse 10 by the reference to the ruler's staff “between his feet” (a sexual euphemism). In this sexual context when Jacob speaks of the “staff not departing from Judah,” we are reminded of Judah's sexual encounter with Tamar in which he left his staff with the woman in pledge of payment.³⁰

Judah had met Tamar on the road to Timnah, which is located in the valley of Sorek (“vineyard”). This may be the reason that the poet shifts to vineyard imagery (gefen / śōrēkâ). Judah had tarried, binding his ass to the vine (49:11). The two words for “ass” (‘ir / ’^atōn) may recall the names of Judah's oldest sons ‘er and ’ônān.³¹ Vines will break; they are not strong enough to hold a tethered ass. The actions and fate of Judah, Er, and Onan threatened the life of the family vine. Whereas Judah earlier participated in the deception of his father by dipping Joseph's cloak in kid's blood, he must now wash his own garments in the blood of the grape flowing from the broken stock, as he experiences the death of Er and Onan.³²

While smiling grimly over his son's shady past, perhaps seeing analogies to his own youthful days. Jacob ponders its relationship to Judah's blessed future. The son who had schemed mightily to assume the role of the firstborn and had then been willing to give it all up in Egypt will indeed have his brothers bow down before him in days to come. The son who had let his staff depart from him—given to Tamar because he had been unwilling to send Sheleh to her—will indeed not lose his staff/scepter of rule again “until Shiloh [Shelah?] comes.”^*33 Judah's folly had resulted in the near breaking of the family vine, as Joseph was sold into Egypt, as Er and Onan both perished. Tamar turned the tables, however; and the end result of the rule of Judah's line will be a paradisiacal abundance with grapes and milk in such great supply that clothes can be washed, wine can be drunk, and asses can be tethered without concern for the waste of broken vines.

In most cultures of the ancient Near East, cosmic unity and stability could not be assumed. The world order reflected an ongoing conflict between deities whose power and mood were in constant flux. There was an ever-present threat that the precarious order of creation could slip back into the chaos whence it had come. The primary goal of each culture's myth and ritual was to reestablish and preserve the cosmic order. In later times the pre-Socratics, while scorning mythology, would attempt to reach the same goal through philosophical constructs. Although Israel had her origins among the peoples of the ancient Near East, she reached a different world view at a relatively early stage of her history. The deity who spoke to Moses and the patriarchs could not be fully fathomed, but a unified, stable order underlying the cosmos could be assumed. Israel's covenant ritual affirmed and celebrated the new order that had been manifested in her early history.

Writing of the “revolution of consciousness” sparked by monotheism, R. Alter describes the effect that the Israelite world view had on biblical narrative.³⁴ He aptly suggests “prose fiction” as the most appropriate category for understanding biblical narrative, calling it a “mode of knowledge” and “form of play” that gives the writer freedom to explore, shape, and order the close-up nuances and panoramic vistas of human experience.³⁵ A unified cosmos is presupposed, liberating the writer to focus on the foibles and often mundane quality of human activity. The narrator assumes an omniscient voice, but the reader receives only fleeting glimpses of perfect knowledge.³⁶

In concurring with Alter, I am not denying the presence of tribal etiologies, Egyptian background, or conflated sources in the Joseph story. I am maintaining, however, that all these elements have been subsumed in a powerful work of imagination that depicts human beings deciding and acting, both foolishly and wisely, in a world where mortals shape their destiny within a divine plan. The story's conclusion was not predetermined. Dreams may envision what is divinely determined, but they do not delineate the appropriate human response. Joseph could have rejected his brothers when he first saw them in Egypt; Jacob could have refused to send Benjamin; Judah could have allowed Benjamin to remain enslaved in Egypt. The characters brought the story to its fitting conclusion. But the narrator makes it clear that the characters were able to learn and grow only because they were placed in a cosmos that, given proper cooperation from its supporting cast, brings life out of death and transforms evil into good.

Notes

1. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and express my gratitude to Robert Alter, Thayer Warshaw, and George Savran for their many helpful suggestions.

2. For a convenient listing and brief discussion of the doubled elements, see H. Donner, Die literarische Gestalt der alttestamentlichen Josephsgeschichte (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1976), pp. 36-43.

3. D. B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50), vol. 20 of Supplements to Vetus Testamentum (Leiden: E. J. Brill), p. 75.

4. Ibid., pp. 75-76.

5. N. Leibowitz, Studies in the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization Department for Torah Education and Culture, 1972), pp. 458-59.

6. Leibowitz, pp. 480-81. Both the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch read “your one [hā ’ehad] brother” rather than “your brother-another [’ahēr].” While it must be admitted that the Hebrew syntactical construction is unusual, the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch renderings seem to be emendations based on Gen. 42:19. The two contexts require different meanings.

7. It is interesting to note that Deut. 21:15-17, in discussing the duty of a man having two wives toward the firstborn when he is the son of the hated wife, states that he must “recognize” him as the firstborn. Are the brothers ironically alluding to this legal custom in asking Jacob to “recognize” the garment of his favored son?

8. E.g., Gen. 9:22-23; Exod. 20:26; Lev. 18:6-18; 20:11-21.

9. See Leibowitz, pp. 464-67.

10. L. Ruppert, Die Josephserzählung der Genesis (Munich: Kösel, 1965), p. 102.

11. G. von Rad, Genesis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966), p. 388.

12. Exod. 8:8, 26; 9:33; 10:6, 18; 11:8; I Sam. 20:5; cf. 9:19.

13. See F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), p. 87: “’ēt expresses closer association than ‘im”—comparing I Sam. 14:17—Saul's “Who has gone from those about us [mē ‘immānû]”—with Gen. 44:28—Jacob's “and the one has gone from with me [mē ’ittî].

14. Cf. Exod. 2:14; Judg. 9:7-15; I Sam. 8, etc.

15. H. Gunkel, Genesis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1917), p. 401; G. Von Rad, Genesis, pp. 348-49; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), pp. 293-94; B. Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading (Doubleday, 1977), pp. 386-87.

16. Redford, pp. 132-35.

17. Cf. Exod. 21:16; Deut. 24:7. M. Greenberg, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in J. Goldin, ed., The Jewish Expression (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 24-29, demonstrates that biblical law, in distinction from Babylonian or Hittite, prescribes the death penalty for murder and prohibits the death penalty for theft. Since kidnapping involved selling a person into slavery, Israelite law treated it as a form of murder.

18. Leibowitz, pp. 396-97.

19. “The Youngest Son or Where Does Genesis 38 Belong?” Journal of Biblical Literature 96 (1977): 27-44.

20. Cf. II Sam. 3:7-11; 16:20-23; I Kings 2:22.

21. “The Youngest Son,” pp. 38-40.

22. Ibid., p. 40.

23. Ibid., esp. pp. 38-42.

24. “A Literary Approach to the Bible,” Commentary 60 (1975): 70-77.

25. “Paradox and Symmetry in the Joseph Narrative,” in Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, ed. K. R. R. Gros Louis, with J. S. Ackerman and T. S. Warshaw (Nashville: Abingdon, 1974), pp. 67-69.

26. Ibid., 62-64.

27. Jer. 37:16.

28. My interpretation of Gen. 49:8-12 is following the general lines of E. M. Good, “The ‘Blessing’ on Judah, Gen. 49:8-12,” Journal of Biblical Literature 82 (1963): 427-32, although I do not agree with Good's conclusion that the poem in its present setting is a polemic against Judah. Cf. also C. Carmichael, “Some Sayings in Gen. 49,” Journal of Biblical Literature 88 (1969): 435-44.

29. Job 31:10; perhaps Judg. 5:27 is playing on this connotation in describing Sisera's encounter with Jael.

30. The Hebrew term for “staff” in Gen. 49:10 is not the same as in Gen. 38:18, 25; but both terms occur in poetic parallelism in Isa. 14:5 and Ezek. 19:11, 14.

31. Carmichael, “Some Sayings in Gen. 49,” 441-42.

32. Ibid.

33. The Hebrew text (‘ad kî yābō’ šîlô) is very problematic.

34. “Joseph and His Brothers,” Commentary 65 (1980): 59-69.

35. Ibid., esp. pp. 59-61, 69.

36. Ibid., p. 60.