The Joseph story, running from Genesis 37 to Genesis 45, constitutes an organically continuous narrative, the longest in the book. It is entitled Toledot Yaakov, the generations of Jacob (37:2), for it is the story of what brought the House of Jacob to Egypt, the land where they became a people, and the exodus from which was their most crucial historical experience.
In my view the story begins with the description of the family situation in Jacob’s house prior to Joseph’s sale into captivity and extends to the report of Jacob’s decision to join Joseph in Egypt. The story is set off from the rest of Genesis by its unusual length and complexity. With the exception of chapter 38, hardly a detail can be omitted without affecting the body of the narrative. (Chapter 38, about Judah and Tamar, is a separate story inserted in the middle of the Joseph story; space does not permit me to enter into the question of the significance of this episode to the Joseph story.) Another unusual feature of the story is the conspicuous absence in it of the supernatural. We read of no theophanies, miracles, prophecies, or direct divine intervention. Rather, the emphasis is upon natural human feelings and motivations. So much attention is paid to the psychological aspects of the action that the treatment has justly been called novelistic. The realism is furthered by the considerable background detail, which, incidentally, recent Egyptological research confirms as strikingly accurate.
The organic unity and secular quality of the narrative are notably absent on either side of the boundaries we have delineated. The story is immediately preceded by genealogical catalogues, (35:23-36:40), and two theophanies, (35:1 and 35:9-13). It is immediately followed by a theophany, (46:2-4), and later, several prophecies. Furthermore, the rest of Genesis is composed of a series of loosely connected passages, each important in itself, but not affecting one another in any organic way. These include a catalogue of the descendants of Jacob, two interviews with Pharaoh, several sections of blessings, and an account of the origin of the Egyptian system of land tenure.
The artistic unity of the story is furthered by the appearance at its beginning and end of the motif of “sending,” a motif which prevades the inner fabric of the story as well. The action of the story begins with Jacob’s sending Joseph to Shechem (37:13-14). The verb shaloach is used, and emphasized by repetition. This sets the plot in motion, for as the reader knows, though Jacob does not, the father is sending the son into Egyptian captivity. With this begins the descent of the House of Israel into Egypt. The second major step in the descent occurs through a “sending” symmetrical with the first, this time Jacob’s sending the brothers to Egypt and, unwittingly, also to Joseph (42:1-4, note the verb shalach in v. 4). Finally the descent is completed by a third “sending,” this time Joseph’s sending for his father to join him in Egypt (45:24 and 27).
All three of these “sendings” are marked by the same tragic irony. In each case, the sending is done for Jacob’s relief, and in each case it ultimately results in pain. In the first instance, Jacob sends Joseph to “see the well-being of the brothers and the well-being of the flock, and bring back word.” (37:14). Instead, word is brought back of the loss of Joseph. In the second instance, Jacob sends the brothers to Egypt “that they may live and not die” (42:2). Eventually, this results in the loss of Benjamin as well for Jacob. In the final instance, Joseph sends the brothers for Jacob. The result of this sending is to be viewed on two levels. Joseph sends for his father in order that he might not perish, and indeed this brings about the restoration to Jacob of his two beloved sons. With this final step, however, the descent into Egypt, Israel’s house of bondage, is completed.
A second set of “sendings” associated with the first affects not the objective history of the House of Jacob but the subjective emotions of the man himself. Each of these involves the sending of a token. The first is the ornamented tunic dipped in blood (37:32), token of the loss to Joseph. The second is Benjamin, a token of the brother’s truthfulness (42:15-16). (Note the verb meshaleach in 43:4, 43:5, and 43:8.) The third is the royal chariots sent by Joseph to bring Jacob to Egypt. These are recognized by Jacob as tokens of Joseph’s royal status. The first two sendings cause immediate grief to Jacob, representing as they do separation from his two sons. The third causes immediate relief from that anguish (45:27, “and their father Jacob revived”). Thus, in their subjective effects the second set of sendings parallels the objective effects of the first set.
There is a subtle group of symbols contained in the second set of sendings which deserve individual scrutiny. The first token is the ornamented tunic which Jacob has given to Joseph and then received in return dipped in blood. Precisely what kind of garment the ketonet pasim (“ornamented tunic”) was, is not known. However, its significance to Biblical man becomes perfectly clear, I believe, from the reference to such a garment in II Samuel 13:18, “with such robes were the virgin daughters of the King apparelled.” It is a mark of royal investiture, revealing Jacob’s designation of Joseph as ultimate ruler of the family. It is no wonder, then, that this extreme expression of Jacob’s preference for Joseph should arouse such resentment on the part of the brothers. The tunic was, furthermore, we learn from II Samuel, an effeminate garment. Joseph, it should be remembered, was loved by Jacob because he reminded him of his favorite wife Rachel, the love of his youth (cf. 44:27). Joseph’s appearance is indeed described in the same words as was his mother’s (39:6; cf. 19:17). The Rabbis, too, picture him as something of a “pretty boy,” making up his eyes and fixing his hair. (See Rashi on 37:2, s.v. vehu naar, and 41:45 end). Finally, whatever the ornamented tunic is, it is not a workingman’s garment. Indeed when all the sons are away shepherding, Joseph, though already seventeen, remains at home.
We can now better appreciate the reaction of the brothers at Joseph’s appearance in Dotan wearing none other than the ornamented tunic. The royal connotations of the garment immediately bring up memories of his pretentious dreams (37:19-20) and they are set to kill him. The effeminate youngster faces the ten rough, passionate outdoorsmen, two of whom could and did destroy the city of Shechem. The revenge of the brothers on Joseph is the massing of brute physical power against no effective resistance. It is the brutal expression of primitive emotions. The brothers’ resentment of their father’s favoritism then takes the form of their sending the very garment he used to show his favoritism as a token of Joseph’s death.
In sharp contrast to the brothers’ act of vengeance toward Joseph is Joseph’s revenge upon his brothers. Joseph’s revenge is not physical but psychological. He is now in a position, secured not by physical prowess but by social convention, to put his brothers on a rack infinitely more torturous than that on which they had put him. He forces them to take Benjamin away from their father. This is pure revenge, taken by a completely and voluntarily estranged Joseph (42:7). He conceals his true motive under the demand that Benjamin be brought as a token of the brothers’ truthfulness. Although twenty years in coming - Joseph was seventeen when sold to Egypt (37:2), thirty when brought to Pharaoh’s court (41:46), thirty-seven in the first year of the famine - the act of vengeance hits its mark. The brothers immediately see it as retribution for their sin, although they are unaware of the identity of the agent of this retribution. Thus revenge is taken a second time through a token, Benjamin.
In sharp contrast to the brothers’ act of vengeance toward Joseph is Joseph’s revenge upon his brothers. Joseph’s revenge is not physical but psychological. He is now in a position, secured not by physical prowess but by social convention, to put his brothers on a rack infinitely more torturous than that on which they had put him. He forces them to take Benjamin away from their father. This is pure revenge, taken by a completely and voluntarily estranged Joseph (42:7). He conceals his true motive under the demand that Benjamin be brought as a token of the brothers’ truthfulness. Although twenty years in coming - Joseph was seventeen when sold to Egypt (37:2), thirty when brought to Pharaoh’s court (41:46), thirty-seven in the first year of the famine - the act of vengeance hits its mark. The brothers immediately see it as retribution for their sin, although they are unaware of the identity of the agent of this retribution. Thus revenge is taken a second time through a token, Benjamin.
The image of the ornamented tunic leads also in another direction. In an important passage, 37:21 through 34, the tunic is mentioned five times in three verses. Dipped in blood, the tunic is brought to Jacob. He recognizes the garment with three jagged phrases: “My son’s tunic! A wild beast devoured him. Joseph was torn by a beast.” He rends his own garment and settles into endless mourning. At the sight of the royal tunic, Jacob tears his own clothing. The bloodstained tunic signifies an end to Jacob’s hopes of royalty for his son and his rent garment bespeaks his inconsolable loss. These images are repeated in the conclusion of the story (45:13-18). There, however, they signify the restoration of the beloved son and the fulfillment of the earlier premonitions of his grandeur. Joseph, in a sense, replaces his father’s torn garments by sending him suits of clothing, (45:23 “kezot”i.e., the same as in the preceding verse. So also RaSHBaM and RaDaK). Jacob still does not believe that Joseph is not dead until he sees the royal chariots (45:27; cf. 45:21) the visible proof of Joseph’s investure. Only then does he pronounce Joseph alive, again in three jagged phrases (45:28): “Enough! My son Joseph is still alive! I must go see him before I die!”
The descent of the House of Israel into Egypt is now complete. Three times people have been sent to Egypt effecting, successively, the descent of Joseph, his brothers, and, finally, Jacob. In connection with each of these sendings there is a token, the first two bringing Jacob immediate anguish, the last, relief.
The significance of the “sending” motif does not derive solely from its repetition at crucial points in the story. It is underlined by Joseph himself at the climax of the story, in the speech in which he reveals himself to his brothers in his true identity. Three times in succession (45ff.) he assures the brothers that it was God, not they, who sent him to Egypt. “.. . it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.. . God has sent me ahead of you to insure your survival . . . So, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”
This point requires some explanation. The essence of sending lies in one person’s affecting another, though the former be remote and unseen. Sending is then symbolic of the world in which we live, a world consisting of long chains of causes and effects, whose connecting links are shrouded in mystery. The key to the understanding of events lies in the discernment of the true causes of the things, in the proper identification of the sender. Joseph presents to us here the truly Biblical view of history - in all man’s actions, God’s plan unfolds. “Not you sent me here, but God.”
Rabbi Ranon Katzoff, a former Yavneh vice-president, is an assistant professor in City College’s Classics department.
YAVNEH STUDIES IN PARASHAT HASHAVUA, edited by Joel B. Wolowelsky, was a 1969-72 project of YAVNEH: THE RELIGIOUS JEWISH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION. The bios here are as they were at the time of the original publication. For a history of YAVNEH, see Benny Kraut, The Greening of American Orthodox Judaism: Yavneh in the 1960s (Cincinnti: Hebrew Union College Press, 2011).