Exodus: Chapters 9 to 13

When we last left off, the plagues had begun.  Now, it's the rest of the plagues and the Passover, as Moses starts to lead the Israelis out of Africa.

CHAPTER 9

Well, if the pharaoh is still stupid, that means it’s time for another plague.  This one is pestilence upon all cattle.  Neither Aaron nor Moses does anything apparently.  There is just a date given to the pharaoh – it’ll happen tomorrow.  Sure enough, all Egyptian cattle live die and all Israeli cattle survive.

Time out – but the Israeli are the Egyptian slaves.  Why do they own their own cattle?  I can answer this one.  Slavery has variations across world history and different societies at different points in times had different roles for slaves. Heck, the Ottoman Empire had entire armies made up of slaves.  So you can have slaves owning property.  OK, but if things are really this bleak for Egyptians, you’d think they’d try to confiscate their cattle or something.  Eh, no matter.  The pharaoh remains unimpressed.  Why he isn’t, I can’t imagine. Because the plot requires it of him.

On to the sixth plague – boils.  The footnotes indicate it’s likely an inflammation, and it strikes all Egyptians.  There’s a bit of comedy here: “Because of the boils the magicians could not stand in Moses presence, for there were boils on the magicians.”  Heh.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  They’re no longer even trying to keep up with Moses and Aaron.  Instead, they’re just suffering with the rest while God runs laps around Egyptian gods.  Oh, and this time Aaron and Moses both jointly take action to begin the plague.  We’re starting to see formerly timid Moses start to enter into his prime. 

Well, the pharaoh is still a dick – wait, hold on a second.  The Bible flatly says, “The LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  The Bible said something similar just before the plagues – that the LORD would intentionally make the pharaoh’s heart hard, and now he’s doing it.  Now, this isn’t so pleasant.  That is, well, that is a bit more morally murky.  If it’s the pharaoh on his own, then God is punishing him for being mean, but if God is making pharaoh be mean, then what justifies all of this?

Either way – the seventh plague is next: hail.  Sounds like God wants to big time everyone.  He says “But this is why I have let you [Egyptians] survive: to show you my power  and to make my name resound throughout the earth.”  Sounds like Walt White/Heseinberg in Season Five of Breaking Bad – “Say my name.”  Probably not a good thing that God is reminding me of Walt White. 

This hail is going to be a bad one.  All will die that are outside it – man and beast.  The pharaoh’s God fearing servants get their cattle under shelter, and the others don’t. We know how this plays out.  Problem: what about the average Egyptian who couldn’t get his cattle under shelter for logistical reasons or because he didn’t hear about this in time.  The Bible makes it an easy morality play – some ignored God – but it had to be more complex than that.

Well, now Moses is doing the plagues on his own.  No more Aaron – Moses makes the hail come, and it does the damage.  Naturally, the Israeli land is spared.  Much of the crops are destroyed, but apparently wheat is still an option for the Egyptians. 

Pharaoh gives the most self-serving backtrack in history.  He says the Lord is right and “I and my people are the ones at fault.”  You and your people?  You and your people?  Your people?  What the hell have they done, pal?  It’s your decisions, dummy.  (Actually, if this “Lord hardened pharaoh’s heart thing” is anything other than a rhetorical devise, wouldn’t that mean the Lord is partially to blame?)  Moses ends the hail with a neat trick – raises his hands to the LORD and everything stopped.  Neat party trick.  He’s really feeling this whole Lord’s prophet thing now. 

But, of course, pharaoh reneges.

CHAPTER 10

This chapter begins with some of the most morally questionable moments in the Bible.  The Lord flatly says he’s engineering this.  That “Lord hardens the pharaohs heart” theme isn’t just a rhetorical motif.  The LORD says to Moses: “Go to Pharaoh for I have made him and his servants obstinate in order that I may perform these signs of mine among them and that you may recount to your son and grandson how I made a fool of the Egyptians and what signs I did among them, so that you may know that I am the LORD.” 

Damn.  He’s doing it, and doing it intentionally, so people can tell stories about him.  He’s doing it so we’ll be in awe of him.  In “The Good Book,” David Plotz notes this is ghastly given the cost – but dammit, we’re still telling these stories, so mission accomplished. 

But let’s flashback to Genesis for a second.  In Chapter 18, Abraham, in one of my favorite Bible moments, respectfully grilled God about Sodom and Gomorrah.  If 50 good people are there, will you spare them? Or 40? Or 20?  Or 10?  Abraham was making his case – you might be the Lord, but it’s wrong for you to kill innocents just because you have almighty power.

Well, now people are dying.  The Nile – the water supply for Egypt – turned to blood.  They lost all their cattle.  They lost most of their crops.  In a little bit, they’ll lose the rest of their crops.  And we all know what the 10^th plague is.  By the logic of Abraham’s debate with God, this is horribly, horribly wrong.  And he’s doing it just so we can tell stories?  That’s ghastly.  Where’s Moses in this anyway?  Abraham haggled with God, but you don’t see Moses or Aaron doing that here? Maybe Moses is still too timid to take on God. Abraham knew God for years before he debated Sodom and Gomorrah.  Or maybe Moses is getting a little too used to his position.  I don’t know, but the implications of how Chapter 10 starts are very troubling.

Plague #8: Locusts.  The pharaoh considers offering concessions but won’t because he fears if he lets the Israelis go, they won’t come back.  He gets off a fine sarcastic “The LORD help you” to Moses.  So on come the locusts.  Again, it’s Moses doing it.  No need for Aaron.  They eat all the crops left over from the hail – so no matter what, the people of Egypt are pretty much boned.  Widespread starvation is now a given, and likely with a higher death total than Sodom and Gomorrah ever had.  But hey – we got stories!

Pharaoh apologizes and Moses has the locusts go to the Red Sea.  NOTE: the footnotes say the ancient Hebrew really says “sea of reeds.”  Remember that one for future Red Sea references.  Naturally, though, the Pharaoh’s change of heart doesn’t take.  Specifically: 10:20: “Yet the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  Oh, not enough good stories.  Maybe if he’d made us with four fingers per hand it would be enough, but we still got two more to go.

Ninth plague: darkness.  A commenter on yesterday’s entry made a nice point.  A lot of these plagues take direct aim at traditional Egyptian gods – the Nile, frogs – and now the sun.  Moses hasn’t just routed the magicians, but God is smacked specific Egyptian gods around here.  Darkness falls – on the Egyptians, but not on the Israelis.  Weird.  Pharaoh is starting to cave, but doesn’t want the Israelis to take the animals (at this point, the Egyptians need them to avoid mass starvation) but of course Moses insists on taking them.  10:27 “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  Yes, again.  The pharaoh tells Moses to go away and don’t come back – if he does pharaoh will kill him. 

Moses replies, “You are right! I will never see your face again.”  DUN-DUN-DUUUUUNNNN!!  (Well now, that little exchange didn’t go the way pharaoh hoped).

CHAPTER 11

This is a short one, but it sets up the big one, the tenth plague.  It’s like a dramatic pause just before the big climax of the movie. 

God tells Moses the plan – every firstborn son among the Egyptians will die.  There were be a wailing unlike any ever known before, but the Israelites will be fine.  And again, “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart” to makes sure this will happen.  It’s explicitly being done so that people may know God’s wonders.

Again, let’s compare this to Genesis 18:22-32.  That’s the debate between Abraham and God on Sodom and Gomorrah.  There, Abraham got God to say the places won’t be destroyed if there are 10 worthy people.  Here? Nothing like that at all.  I guess you could argue that all the Egyptians are cruel, but we’ve seen no sign of that.  The pharaoh sucks – but even there, the only reason he hasn’t let people go is become the Lord keeps hardening his heart.  Also, the hail plague noted that some Egyptians took their cattle out, because they feared the Lord.  Heck, this chapter notes “The LORD indeed made the Egyptians well-disposed toward the people and Moses himself was very highly regarded by Pharaoh’s servants.”  Yet the LORD states every firstborn in the land will die, from pharaoh down to slave girl. 

The good news is that there is no historical evidence outside of the Bible for this ever happening, and if some of these things happened – and especially if all 10 happened in such rapid sequence – you’d think there would be some record of it in Egypt.  Some parts of the stories are easier to take if you don’t think of them as being literally true. 

CHAPTER 12

This is a longer chapter, but it’s mostly God explaining the Passover ritual to Moses.  It’s intended for the Israelites to celebrate it as written from this day forward, so there’s attention to detail paid.  Based on that, I’m taking a non-wild guess and saying this comes from the P source, the Priestly source, which normally handles this sort of stuff.  The P source is also the latest written of the three main pre-Deuteronomy sources that make up the Torah.  So you had the tradition and the rituals, and then P wrote it down and put it in God’s mouth before Passover even happened.  What was likely an event, which led to an annual ritual with the Israelis sanctifying God has the process flipped, as it begins with God saying what the ritual will be before the event happens.

At any rate, get a lamb and kill it and eat it – and put some blood by the doorstop so you’ll be passed over.  There’s a big ritual slaughtering of lambs that will go on for as long as there’s a temple in Jerusalem.  I believe the New Testament has Christ’s death around the time of the annual slaughtering of the lamb.  (Get it?  Christ dies as the lambs are slaughtered – paralleling!) Also, you’re to eat unleavened bread.  I don’t know how much ritual lamb slaughtering still goes on (not just eating lamb, but the slaughtering just before as proscribed in Exodus), but I know the unleavened bread still goes on.

Then God comes and kills all the firstborn people and animals that live in houses with the lamb’s blood outside.  Yeah, this should be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.  True, those are entire towns while this is “only” firstborns, but Egypt is bigger than two towns. 

Somewhere around here I think we switch narrators.  The pharaoh tells the Israelis to leave – they don’t even have to ask.  He wants them gone, pronto.  But it comes so suddenly that the people “took their dough before it was leavened, in their kneading bowls unwrapped in their cloaks on their shoulders.”  So earlier the unleavened bread came from God’s pre-10^th plague decree.  Now we see the unleavened bread begin because people were in such a rush to leave.  This sounds like a more accurate depiction of how the Passover ritual began.  They rushed out with unleavened bread, it became part of the ceremony, and the P source reversed engineered things by having the Lord talk about it in advance. 

Also, we finally get a way to try to date all of this.  Verse 40 says that the Israelites have been in Egypt for 430 years.  Let’s see, by my unofficial math, Jacob (Israel himself) showed up there in 2238 (years after The Creation).  So now should be 2668.  I guess that means that Moses was born in 2588, since he was 80 when the bush burnt.  600,000 are leaving, not including children.  That’s a big gathering. 

Oh, and apparently the end of the chapter is the first time the word “Torah” shows up in the ancient Hebrew version of this.  That means law – and verse 49 says “There will be one law for the native and for the alien residing among you.”

CHAPTER 13

This stars off with a bunch of reinforcement of what God said earlier.  No leavened bread.  Enjoy the land of milk and honey.  Celebrate Passover. Oh, and consecrate every firstborn male.  That’s to commemorate the 10^th plague and the Passover. 

And they head out toward the Red Sea – which earlier the footnotes said is really “Sea of Reeds” in ancient Hebrew.  It doesn’t make the same footnote here, but will again in Chapter 15.

Moses brings Joseph’s bones with him, which is nice.  The Lord stays in front of the Hebrew, guiding them as a column of clouds by day and as a pillar of fire at night.  So there’s where that imagery first appears.

Click here for the climax to the fight versus the pharaoh.

Exodus: Chapters 6-8

Back to Exodus.  Last time, we just met the main characters and the situation. Now we get to the plagues - halfway through, to be exact. 

CHAPTER 6

This is a bit of a detour.  We ended Chapter 5 seemingly on the verge of the plagues.  Moses had asked once for the pharaoh to let his people go, and instead the Israelis just got more abuse.  God had said he’d rescue them and here  … we get some of what we’ve already heard and some bookkeeping. 

God renews his promise to save them. He’s renewing the covenant with the patriarchs of Genesis.  One wrinkle that strikes me as new – God tells Moses to let the Israelites leave his land.  Wasn’t it just a three-day thing he asked for last time?  It’s mostly repeating stuff, though.  Well, that’s what happens when you take 3-4 different sources together to make the Torah.

But then we get the genealogy of Moses and Aaron, and whadaya know – turns out we get names for Moses’ mom and dad.  His mom, the women who left him in the basket, is named Jochebed.  Papa Moses was Amram.  Oh, and Mother Moses was an aunt to Papa Moses.  Yeah, but at this point in the Bible we’re used to that stuff.  (Still, if the Hebrew were as numerous as claimed, why are they still marrying inside the family.  Ah, never mind). 

Moses and Aaron have good genes.  Their dad will die at age 137.  His dad died at 133.  And his dad – Levi, son of Jacob – also died at age 137.  That’s steady.  Aaron has a grandson named Phinehas, who the footnotes tell me will be a priest later on. 

Not much to this chapter, though.

CHAPTER 7

OK, here’s where things get fun.  Now that bookkeeping is done, we get back to the action.  First its time for dueling staffs. 

Before the pharaoh, Aaron throws down the staff and it turns into a snake.  Interesting – it’s Aaron doing it, even though the Lord gave it to Moses at the burning bush.  Then the Egyptian magicians thrown down their staffs and they also turn into snakes. 

Pause: OK, how is that explained?  Well, there’s a simple explanation in Christian theology – the devil is turning the Egyptian staffs into serpents.  OK, but this story was over 1,000 years old before Christ came around, and in Jewish theology the devil isn’t much of a thing.  It looks like one of those messy loose ends of the Bible; and frankly it’s one of those messy loose ends that makes the book so interesting and compelling.

Are we seeing an old tradition of polytheism at work here?  That’ll keep on cropping up at times.  In it, God is the most powerful God and God of the Hebrew, but being the God of the Hebrew doesn’t make you the only God.  Heck, to some extend singling him out as God of the Hebrew implies there are other Gods.  After all, if he’s God of all, why is he  focusing so much on that sharpster Jacob?  From what I know, Biblical scholarship things God began as just the God of the Hebrew but developed into God overall. 

Anyhow, Aaron’s serpent/staff wins, eating the others.  Damn, that’s one hungry staff!

But the pharaoh ain’t impressed?  Your God can turn a staff into a snake, well so can my magicians.  Get lost, Aaron – and that Moses with you.

So it’s time for plagues.  The first one is maybe the most ghoulish one of all: they turn the Nile to blood.  Yuck.  Again, by the way, it’s Aaron doing it.  (Step aside Charlton Heston, Jim Belushi will take it from here!)  That is surprising, but from what I know from reading Richard Elliot Friedman, the two main sources for this part of the Torah are J and E, which likely came from the priesthoods of the divided kingdom era, and the priests of one nation (either Judea or Israel) traced themselves back to Aaron, and the other Moses. 

Anyhow, all the fish die – I wonder if PETA sent a letter of protest to the Lord? – and the river stinks so badly that no one wants to drink from it.  (Yeah, ya think?)  Question: how long would this last?  A few days and it wouldn’t be too bad, but the Nile is the drinking water for everyone.  Also, wouldn’t this affect the Israelis as much as the Egyptians?

What comes next is really strange: 7:22: “But the Egyptian magicians did the same by their magic arts.”  Wait – the Egyptian magicians can turn the Nile into blood, too?  So … did it turn back to water quickly?  Is this like turning the Chicago River green on St. Patrick’s Day or something?  And how can the magicians do likewise?  Either the devil of polytheism, I guess.

The real question: WHY would the magicians do this?  Oh yeah, Aaron?  Your God is so tough he can ruin our water supply? Oh yeah, well – so can our God?  Uh… shouldn’t you be using your magic to, oh I dunno – fix the damn Nile?  This is really stupid of them.  The Bible mentions that Egyptians have to dig for drinking water. Problem: Egypt doesn’t have enough water without the Nile!  That’s why it’s called the gift of the Nile!  And again, this really should hurt everyone, Egyptian and Hebrew.

But you know who isn’t hurt?  The pharaoh.  The Bible notes he just goes back to his house and ignores it. Man, what a jerk.  Forget how horrible he is to his Hebrew slaves, he’s supposed to be head of Egypt and the Nile is blood and there isn’t enough water from wells – but you damn well know the pharaoh will get some well water, so who cares?  Jerk.

So that leads to the second plague: frogs.  This seems like such a minor thing after the first plague, but there is a method here.  The damn frogs hop everywhere – including into the pharaoh’s home.  He can’t blow off the issue this time.  Pharaoh is stuck in bed with Michigan J.Frog.  Heh.  The jerk got jerked around.  Oh, and once again it’s Aaron summoning the plagues.  We should just let Charlton Heston go out for donuts or something – Jim Belushi has it covered. 

CHAPTER 8

Wait – OK, Chapter ended with the Lord telling Jim Belushi and Charlton Heston to that frogs come next.  They start hopping around here in Chapter 8. 

And again, for reasons that defy logic, the magicians try to show up God but … doing the exact same thing.  This is like FEMA deciding to clean up Hurricane Katrina by blowing the rest of the levees.  Guys, guys – it’s nice that you have some sort of powers, but would work much better would be if you used your powers to help your boss out, not redo the same troubles in the first place. 

So the pharaoh asks Moses and Aaron to pray to the Lord to remove the frogs.  (Heh – shouldn’t your dummy magicians be doing that?) and Moses agrees.  (Wait, why is Moses doing the talking?  Moses is talking to the pharaoh while Aaron is taking the actions.  Seems backwards.  Oh well – Heston has a much better voice than Lesser Belushi anyway).  Moses does and the frogs all die.  Time for another protest letter from PETA.  The land stinks with dead frogs (beware disease!), but once the frogs are gone, the pharaoh is back on jerk mode, and reneges on his promise to Moses.

Time for the third plague: gnats.  Again, Jim Belushi handles the action sequence, striking the earth to rise up gnats.  Again, the world’s dumbest bunch of magicians decides to make the problem worse rather than solve it – they summon more gnats.  Oh goodie.  I’m sure Joba Chamberlain will be thrilled.

But – for once – the magicians can’t reduplicate it.  Actually, this is the first bit of good news to come to the pharaoh.  Only half the gnat problem he’d otherwise have.  But as dumb as the magicians are, the pharaoh is matching them.  He doubles down on this heart hardening and won’t do anything.

Time for the fourth plague – flies.  That’s not too different from the last one, but OK.  Flies are bigger.  I don’t think it says if Charlton Heston or Jim Belushi brings on the flies.  But there is a key new bit of info – we’re told the flies are only swarming where Egyptians live, not where the Hebrew live.  The LORD wants the pharaoh to know “I will make a distinction between my people and your people.”  OK, among other things that’s a tacit admission that the Egyptians have their own god.  Second, that means that the first three plagues should’ve affected everyone.  Ouch.  So the Israelis were enslaved, beaten, had their drinking water turned to blood (twice! – once by their guy, once by the buffoons), had frogs (twice!), and gnatted up by good. 

Pharaoh makes a concession – I’ll let you sacrifice to your God, Moses, but do it in my land.  Moses says no, because “If we sacrifice what is abhorrent to the Egyptians before their very eyes, will they not stone us?” Actually, under the circumstances, I’ll bet they’ll settle.  If it’ll get rid of the flies, I bet they’ll take that deal.  The pharaoh caves, the flies leave and the Pharaoh does what he always does – hardens his heart.  Dummy.

Click here for the next chunk of Exodus.

Psalms 13-14

Continuing to work my way through psalms, a little bit at a time....

PSALM 13

This is just a plea for help – it’s even called “Prayer for Help.”  Oh, so I guess I’m right.  It’s short, but has a real air of desolation.  Not only are there problems in the world and with the psalmist’s life, but it begins by wondering why the Lord has completely forgotten.  Yeah, that’s an extra level of despair.

But he keeps the faith despite it all, trusting in God’s mercy and joyous in his salvation.  It doesn’t sound like he has anywhere else to turn, frankly.

In a nice change of pace, there is no violent imagery here.  The closest it gets is the psalmist asking for help “Lest my enemy say `I have prevailed.’”  That’s not at all violent, but one thing I find striking is how the psalms keep personalizing their problems.  There is always an enemy (or enemies); always some people who are to blame.  It’s never forces or a situation, it’s always an individual.  Maybe that’s why these psalms often leave me flat; I tend to not personalize things.

This is a good psalm, though.

PSALM 14

This one begins off as follows: “The fool says in his heart, / `There is no God’ / There deeds are loathsome and corrupt.”

Hey!  No look here, Bible, I may be a fool but that doesn’t make me loathsome and corrupt.  But is this psalm really targeting non-believers or just wrongdoers?  Because most of this psalm is about how people do wrong (actually, do evil), act horribly and the like.  Well, it looks like there isn’t much difference here between someone who doesn’t believe in God and someone who is an evildoer.  Evildoers are non-believers and non-believers are evildoers.  There’s no recognition that believers do wrong.  No, I’m not the target audience for this psalm.

That said, there is another element at play here: class.  “[Evildoers] would crush the hopes of the poor, / But the poor have the LORD as a refuge.”  I have a much easier time getting behind class antagonism.  Anyhow, this is one of reasons I have trouble believing that all the psalms attributed to David (including this one) really is from him.  This doesn’t read like the poem of a king.  

EDITED to add: click here for the next batch of psalms.

Exodus: Chapters 1 to 5

Meet Moses.  This was what I read the day I began this blog (along with Psalms 11-12)

CHAPTER 1

Well, Joseph and them all died, but their descendents sure were fruitful and multiplied.  So much so that the Egyptians got sick of them.  The new pharaoh didn’t give a rip about Joseph (the Bible says “knew nothing of Joseph” but the footnotes says he might’ve known, but just didn’t care) and wants their numbers reduced.  So the Israelis are enslaved. 

But they keep having babies.  No matter – pharaoh has a new plan.  He tells the midwives to see to it that all newborn males are killed.  Holy smokes! That’s more than a bit extreme.  It’s also hard for me to believe.  The “let’s kill all the newborn males” thing seems more like literary affect than anything else. 

Really, the historical veracity of this whole section is kind of ……well, at the very least things are being overblown.  Did some Hebrew live in Egypt and escape?  OK, I can see that.  Something must’ve happened to serve as the basis of a folk tradition that became an oral tradition that became written down in the Bible.  But here, the Hebrew are so numerous as to be an internal threat to the Egyptians and apparently have been there several centuries.  Y’know, there is not a single record of anything even remotely like that in any Egyptian sources.  I don’t just mean there’s no record of the 10 plagues, but there is no record of Hebrew.  Sure, records are fragmentary, but they’ve apparently been there for centuries and are so numerous that the pharaoh wants to engage in widespread infanticide.  Yeah, I know there’s tons here that, well, let’s just say it takes a leap of faith to believe much of it, and this is certainly is one of those points.

At any rate, all this is here for is to set up the big birth of Moses.  Oh, and the midwives try to get around the planned infanticide.  They say Hebrew women are so robust that they give birth before the midwives arrive.  (Then how can the midwives keep their jobs?) Anyhow, the pharaoh doesn’t see through this transparent lie, but the pharaoh sets a new rule – all newborn males are to be thrown into the Nile.  Jeepers!  The Bible doesn’t say this applies only to the Hebrew, but it must.  Still, the whole kill-all-sons is too damn melodramatic for me to take seriously. 

CHAPTER 2

OK, now that the preliminaries are out of the way, now time for the main man of the Torah: Moses.  Interestingly, his parents aren’t named at all: “Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman.”  The father is never mentioned again.  (Especially odd, just last chapter made sure to name the Hebrew midwives – Shiphrah and Puah – but Papa Moses?  Nope).  Clearly, they didn’t know the dad’s name and Moses’ childhood isn’t the point.

This whole story is just something mythic, though.  There are plenty of stories of Important People who begin with them being abandoned – Romulus and Remulus, Cyrus the Great, Sargon of Akkid, Oedipus, etc.  Some scholars have said it’s to give the Important Person the right parents.

Getting back to Moses, his mother puts the baby in the basket in the Nile and sets him down, where he soon comes to the daughter of the pharaoh.  The pharaoh’s daughter sees the baby and wants to help, then sees a Hebrew woman nearby – Moses’ actual mom – and hires her to nurse the baby.  Does the pharaoh’s daughter realize it’s the birth mother?  Regardless, the birth mother nurses Moses until that’s not needed anymore, when she gives Moses to pharaoh’s daughter to become her son.  That’s sad.  The birth mother got to spend a few years with Moses anyway, but he’ll not remember her at all. 

So does this mean that Moses is actually an Egyptian and the story of his birth just concocted?   Eh, I just have a lot of trouble taking these opening stories too seriously.  What’s interesting is why the stories were created.  I flatly don’t believe there was any genocidal order against newborn Hebrew males.  But the Bible indicates that Moses had a place in a high-ranking Egyptian family but threw his lot in with the Hebrew.  Why would the Bible put him with the pharaoh’s daughter if he didn’t come from high ranking Egyptian circles?  Alternately, why would Moses identify with the Hebrew if he were a high-ranking Egyptian?  I’m probably badly overthinking this.  The real answer is probably pretty simple.  The Bible wanted to give Moses a high and mighty upbringing to befit the Important Person he became, while still having the Hebrew as a badly oppressed enslaved race.

At any rate, he grows up and the first action that he takes on his own is to kill someone.  (Good thing it’s still pre-10 Commandments!)  Oh, he kills a bad person – a bad person oppressing a Hebrew.  Moses sees an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, and strikes him back, killing him.  A little later on, Moses sees two Hebrew fighting and tells them to stop.   One gets surly – “Who has appointed you ruler and judge over us?” (Nice foreshadowing, Bible!) and then throws the murder in Moses face – “Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?”  Moses freaks that people know about this and flees. 

He goes to the Midian, and apparently they are descendents of Abraham, from the wife he took after Sarah died.  As is often the case in the Bible, Moses meets women at the well and ends up married to the daughter of the priest of Midian.  His wife is named Zipporah and they have a son, Gershom. 

The last bit of the chapter might belong in the next one.  The pharaoh dies and God hears the children of Israel moaning.  He’s about to do something about it.

CHAPTER 3

Here it is – here’s where the ball really gets rolling in Exodus.  Have bush, will burn.  Moses is tending the flock of father-in-law Jethro (previously called Reuel – go figure), when he sees a bush burning but not being consumed by a fire.  It’s an angel of the Lord come to summon Moses.  (By the way, nice parallel with Genesis, where Jacob spent years tending his father-in-law’s flocks).

I immediately like Moses here.  As soon as God calls out to him, Moses has a great reaction.  He hides his face and was afraid to look at God.  The comes off like a typical, modest person, someone used to tending flocks and sure as hell not ready for the massive, world-shaking responsibility pushed upon him.  He spends two chapters trying to talk God out of making him the man of the moment.  And speaking of God, I really like this line to Moses at the outset: “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”  Holy crap that’s awesome!  I gotta start using that. And it’s God saying that about meeting God!  I love that.  It’s up there with “I am the one who knocks!”  in great lines.  It’s God saying, dude – I spoke to you, so be blown away!  ‘cuz he’s so incredibly God like that.

This is also a great moment of Biblical studies, too.  As noted, the Torah is made up of four main writers: referred to as D (who handles Deuteronomy and nothing but), P, J, and E.  Well, to date, neither E nor P have said God’s name.  According to their narratives, this is the first time anyone’s ever heard God’s name.  In J, he’s been using it all along – since at least the time of Seth.  So the amalgamation of E, P, and J we’ve been using waters down the moment, but that’s why it’s played up so big when we get here. 

For Moses asks, if you want me to tell the Israelites that I’m your prophet, who shall I say sent me?  I AM WHO I AM.  Apparently, there is some wordplay in ancient Hebrew between Yahweh (God’s name) and “I am.”  His name is something like “I am” or “I creates” or something. Which if you think about it, is a sensible name for God.  So Moses should tell the Israelites I AM has sent me to you. 

Then God tells him that God has sent me to you to deliver you away from the afflictions of Egypt and into the land of milk and honey at Canaan.  God tells Moses to task the pharaoh for three days travel into the wilderness to sacrifice to God.  And then something interesting happens.  God says, I know the pharaoh will deny this, so I “will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wondrous deeds I will do in it midst.”  God has a plan here.  More on that as we go along.

CHAPTER 4

But Moses wants more than just a name to drop.  He tells God, what if they don’t believe me?  How will I prove it?  -- By the way, Moses is the first person to negotiate with God since Abraham.  Neat. I knew there was a reason why I liked Moses.  Anyhow, God gives him a sign.  Through down a staff, and it’ll become a snake.  Now grab it by its tail, and it’s a staff again.  That’s a neat party trick – provided you can grab the tail.  Second, put your hand in the fold of your garment and pull it out – and your hand will be covered in scales.  Now do it again and I’ll change back to flesh.  Yuck.  I wouldn’t like that proof at all if I was Moses.  I’d be worried about the damn signal system breaking midway through.  Third, pour out some Nile River water on dry land, and it’ll turn into blood.  Man, God has some creepy signs of proof.  Remember the good old days when he would invent rainbows and stuff? 

But Moses is still uncertain.  He’s gotta be the most tentative prophet in the Bible.  Part of his charm, actually.  Moses points out he’s a lousy speaker – slow of speech.  God is apparently getting a little annoyed here I guess because he points out that the ability to speak comes from God so don’t worry, “Now go, I will assist you.”  Get on with it!  But Moses gets another concession from God – Moses’ brother Aaron will help and serve as his spokesperson.

Wait – let’s pause here for a logistical question.  Moses has a brother?  How did this happen?  Moses was sent adrift down a river and raised by the pharaoh’s daughter?  Is Aaron a brother by blood, and if so how would Moses know him?  Was Aaron also raised by the pharaoh’s daughter, and if so, would that make him Egyptian?  Eh, I always thought that whole opening story about Moses’ birth and the attempted mass intifanticide was some post-facto bogus mythic junk, and this makes me feel that doubly so.

Getting back to the narrative, Moses now agrees to accept the burden placed upon him.  He’s done a nice job working a deal for himself.  He’s got God’s name, three proves to take back, and a spokesperson to work with him.  He’d have none of that if he accepted God’s initial offer.  (Note: as is often the case, I got this point from Plotz in his book).

So Moses has to set out, but first he’s got to tell father-in-law Jethro.  So he lies.  Huh.  Moses tells him he just wants to meet with kindred in Egypt and see if they’re still living.  I wonder why he lies.  My hunch – Jethro is still head of the household Moses lives in, so he needs his permission to leave.  And if Moses says the real reason, Jethro might think it’s too much or think Moses is crazy and refuse permission.  Moses probably feels justified in asking what he’s asking for because, y’know, Lord and all said so.

God talks to Moses again and the story gets a bit uglier.  God lets on a bit more of his plan, and this isn’t so pleasant.  Earlier the Lord just said the Pharaoh would refuse, and God would do wondrous and amazing things to make him.  Now God says, “I will harden [the pharaoh’s] heart and he will not let the people go.  So you will say to Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my firstborn.  I said to you: Let my son go, that he may serve me.  Since you refused to let him go, I will kill your son, the firstborn.”  Whoah, whoah, whoah – “I will harden his heart”? I will harden his heart?  If this whole thing is predicated on God hardening the pharaoh’s heart, then here’s a thought – don’t harden his heart!  All the pain inflicted on Egypt – including, as just explicitly stated, the killing of first born sons – is not simply a punishment by God on Egypt, but God’s design all along!  Holy cow, that is ugly!  That is nasty.  See, it’s stuff like this that gives cause to the old Mark Twain joke: “The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament after he gets religion.” 

Oh, and that’s followed by the single strangest moment in the entire narrative, maybe the most inexplicable moment in the entire Bible.  4:24: “On the journey, at a place where they spend the night, the LORD came upon Moses and sought to put him to death.”  WHA?????  He just, he did, he – WHAT?? Among other issues, he’s God – if he wants to put Moses to death, shouldn’t he be dead?  Well, Moses is apparently saved by his wife, who does a circumcision of their son. (The footnotes say it’s the only circumcision by a female in the Bible).  This is a deeply rattling and disturbing moment, in which neither Moses nor God looks good – especially not God.  Doesn’t he do any research on his would-be prophets?

One theory.  I don’t know which Biblical source created this story, but I have my notions.  Let’s see the J and E were the priests of the divided kingdom days, one set from Judea, the other Israel.  (I forget which was J and which E, but I think E was Israel).  Both sets of priests traced their lineage to Moses and Aaron – I forget which was which.  Well, after Israel ceased to exist, many flooded south to Judea, where both sides came in contact with the other’s holy writings.  And the Aaron priests were stuck with a bunch of nasty things about Aaron.  (I think Judea was the Moses place and the Israel priests were supposedly descended from Aaron, but I could be wrong).  So some stories were written about Moses to take him down a peg at least. I think these came out in the P source, which was written later. Something like that – I’m a bit hazy on the particulars.  I do know that this is how modern Biblical scholarship explains things like how Moses becomes disfigured at Sinai and why he can’t enter the promised land.  I guess this is another part of that.  If that’s not what’s going on, then I really can’t explain it.

Anyhow, Moses and Aaron meet up and convince the Israelites that they are who they say they are, thanks to the signs God gave Moses.

CHAPTER 5

Moses meets pharaoh and requests “Let my people go” on behalf of the Lord.  Nah, says the pharaoh.  He calls them lazy and instead requests that they no longer be given straw for brick making. They still have to make as many bricks though, but now they got to scrounge up resources as well.  They can’t and get beaten by the pharaoh’s men as a result. 

The Israeli foremen complain to Moses.  The hell man, we’re getting beaten up around here!  What is God going to do about it?  Moses turns to the Lord – “Why did you send me?” and asks the Lord for help.

Not too much to this chapter, but man, shit is about to get real.  

Click here for the next part of Exodus.

Genesis: Chapter 47 to 50

Finishing up the fantastic opening reel of the Old Testament

CHAPTER 47

Remember that weird note that ends the previous chapter – where Joseph says doesn’t tell the Egyptians who are shepherds, because Egyptians really don’t like that?  Well they see the Pharaoh and tell him they are shepherds.  No problem, apparently.  Looks like we have dueling traditions smushed right together and not making much sense.  Seems like a strange detail to disagree on, though.

At any rate, the rest of Genesis is basically the ebb tide.  We’ve gone through the purely mythic history, gone over the patriarchs, put everyone in Egypt and had the reunions.  The last few chapters is basically tying up loose ends and doing some housekeeping.

We learn that Jacob is 130 years old when he comes to Egypt.  Fun fact: based on what the Bible has informed us earlier, Jacob was when Isaac, that Zeppo of the patriarchs, died.  So though Isaac’s death was reported long ago in the Bible, he was alive when Joseph was sold into slavery.  He died around the time Joseph interpreted the pharaoh’s dream.  Maybe a year before, but that would be about it.

Jacob lives in Egypt for 17 years and dies at age 147. 

Before Jacob dies, we get some questionable statesmanship for Joseph, as he enslaves the Egyptians.  Really.  The famine keeps going on and people can’t buy grain anymore.  OK, give the Pharaoh your cattle.  So they do.  And the famine goes on and they have no money or livestock to buy grain with.  OK – give the Pharaoh your land.  So they do.  The Bible flatly states “Thus the land passed over to Pharaoh and the people were reduced to slavery, from one end of Egypt’s territory to the other.”  And the Pharaoh will make the people give him one-fifth of their crops from here on out.  They are actually happy, “You have saved our lives!” they exclaim, but this is ugly.  What – you couldn’t give any poor relief away, Joseph?  None at all? 

CHAPTER 48

Jacob died at the very end of Chapter 47, and it looks like a questionable chapter break, because Chapter 48 is all about his impending death.  

This is a short chapter where Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons.  There’s a nice circular sense to Jacob.  He began taking a blessing meant for the oldest from a dad going blind.  Now he’s the blinding old man giving blessings to the two sons of his next-to-youngest son.  Going by the footnotes and what Jacob says, these two kids, Ephraim and Manasseh, take the place of the kids that Rachel could’ve born him had she not died.  They are given full share of inheritance, equal to Jacob’s own sons. 

Jacob has 12 sons and there will be 12 tribes of Israel, but they won’t quite be the same.  Levi will be a priestly group, not actually a tribe.  Instead, Ephraim and Manasseh will become tribes of Israel instead of Joseph himself.

So what’s going on with that?  Based on what I know/have read, one theory is that the Hebrew began as two groups – a main one that traced their lineage back to some herdsmen patriarchs, and another smaller group that left Egypt.  They needed a conduit to connect the two groups, and Joseph became that story that explains how the Hebrew both have Canaan as their promised land and went to Egypt (later to escape from there). If so, they might’ve come up with the story of Joseph only after the tribes had formed, so there wouldn’t be a tribe of Joseph.  He’d be a narrative fiction invented.

If so – wow, that’s a really nice job inventing a story everyone!  Seriously, the story of Joseph is one of the highlights of Genesis and the entire Bible.  Maybe I’m wrong about how come there is no tribe of Joseph, but it works for me.

CHAPTER 49

More concluding remarks.  This time Jacob says his final words to his sons.  This clearly and can only come from the Kingdom of Judea, as the three sons older than Judah all gets smack down, and there is a long, sustained part of the blessing that just sings the praises of Judah to the heavens.

Reuben?  “Turbulent as water, you shall no longer excel, for you climbed into your father’s bed and defiled my couch to my sorrow.”  Guess he shouldn’t have slept with Jacob’s concubine after al.

Levi and Simeon get smacked down, apparently for their massacre back in Chapter 34.  The oddity is hat they here Levi is a warrior, when his nominal descendents will become the priestly class.  Jacob tells these two “I will scatter them in Jacob, and disperse them throughout Israel.”  Ouch.

Now the Judah love, most notably: “The sons of your father shall bow down to you.”  Really – even Joseph?  “The scepter shall never depart from Judah, or the mace from between his feet, until tribute comes to him and he receives the people’s obedience.”  Yeah, this must come from the Judah-dominated Kingdom of Judea.  Nothing else makes sense.

The next several go quick.  Apparently Zebuluan’s kids live by the seashore.  Issachar is “a rawboned donkey” who “saw how good a settled life was and how pleasant the land” so he became “a toiling serf.”  Yeah, that’s the good life! 

Dan shall achieve justice – apparently a play on words because the ancient Hebrew word for justice is similar to Dan.  “Let Dan be a serpent by the roadside, a horned viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heel so that the rider tumbles backwards.”  Huh? I guess he’s some kind of protector.  Or horse hater.

Gad shall be raided by raiders.  Bummer for him.  Asher will have rich farm land.  Naphtali will have lovely fawns.

Joseph is next and he gets a nice sustained bit, as long as that for Judah.  Short version: Jacob really likes Joseph.  Lastly is Benjamin, who is a ravenous wolf who devours the prey and distributes the spoils. 

Only the three eldest get smackdowns, because those are the only three the Kingdom of Judea needed to smackdown to justify their prominence.

Then Jacob dies, but first asking to be buried in the same spot as Abraham and Isaac.  By my reckoning, it’s now been 232 years since Abram got the call. 

CHAPTER 50

OK, last one.  Here’s the funeral and the boys go bury Jacob.  Once that’s done, they fret that Joseph will now have his revenge.  Maybe he was just biding his time until now, because he didn’t want to punish them while their dad lived.  So they make up a story about Jacob wanting Joseph to forgive his brothers.  Boy, those acorns didn’t fall from the old tree – of course they’ll con their brother to save their necks! 

Joseph believes them.  Maybe he wants to believe them.  We’ve already seen him absolve them and repeatedly break down in tears over emotion.  Now he breaks down a final time.  That’s six, if I’m counting right. 

Joseph dies at age 110.  Before going, he tells his brothers that he wants to be buried in the cave with the patriarchs.  OK – but Joseph is the 11^th oldest out of 12.  The others are really older than 110 years old?  Dang.

Concluding Reactions

With the death of Joseph, Genesis comes to and end.  It’s an amazing chapter, with plenty of memorable myths, powerful stories, and memorable characters.  My favorites were probably Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.  Abraham for his willingness to haggle with God.  He isn’t just going to passively accept God’s will but turns the covenant into a two-way street – Abraham must be moral and uphold his end, but God must be moral, too.

Jacob – why, he’s the magnificent bastard.  He’s a tricky, cunning, conning son of a gun.  But he’s damn good at it.  And he’s got to pay his dues as well, with his extended duel with veteran con man Laban.

Joseph starts off a spoiled brat, but learns and ends up damn competent.  Torn between his desire for revenge and forgiveness, he opts to show mercy on his brothers and give everyone a happy ending.  All those times of him crying show a soul rather tender hearted. 

Genesis is great.  The rest of the Bible will try to measure up, but rarely be this memorable.

Click here to start Exodus.

Genesis: Chapters 42 to 46

Joseph reunites with the family.  Awesome moments ensue. 

CHAPTER 42

Canaan is also feeling the famine – but Jacob has heard of Egypt.  He tells his sons “Why do you keep looking at one another?” and tell them to buy some grain in Egypt.  I just get a kick out of that line – why do you keep looking at one another?  Heh.  Careful guys, if you start running out of food, you’ll end up selling your birthright to your own father for some stew!

Jacob has the 10 eldest boys go out.  Benjamin stays behind because that’s the only surviving son of his favorite wife, and the full brother of the lamented Joseph.  They go and Joseph immediately recognizes them, because he’s the most competent man in Genesis.

They bow before him – just like in his dream.  He accuses them of being spies and they deny it, because they’re not.  But he insists and asks about their family. They confirm they have a brother who “is no more” and a youngest at home with their aged father.  Joseph insists they are spies and cuts a deal – leave one of you behind and come back with your youngest brother.  Then I’ll assume your family story is really true.  So they leave Simeon behind.  Not sure why Simeon – did he draw the short straw or something? – but he’s left behind and Joseph has him bound.

But before they leave Simeon behind, the brothers tell each other that they’re being punished for what they did to Joseph 20 years ago.  They don’t know that Joseph can understand every word.  Joseph has spoken to them only through an interpreter.  Smart lad, that Joseph.  This gets to him.  When he hears them talk like this, he turns away from them and weeps.  This won’t be the last time he’s overcome with emotions.

I wonder what Joseph’s initial plan was.  Did he just want to see his brother?  Did he want vengeance and punishment?  It’s unclear, but with this first crying, it’s clear that he isn’t looking just for punishment.  Maybe he himself doesn’t know what he wants.  But there will be a common emotional ground found, with mutual reconciliation.  Their guilt and Joseph’s emotions set the stage for it.

At any rate, they go home, and discover to their horror that their money has been put back in their sacks.  That wasn’t supposed to be the case and they’re afraid that the governor (Joseph) will punish them if he finds out. 

They go back home and break the bad news to Jacob, who is enraged.  He’s lost Joseph, and he won’t lose Benjamin.  He cannot let his surviving favorite risk being lost to him.  “Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin away!”  So he’s assuming/deciding that Simeon is a lost cause?  That hardly seems fair.

Well, Reuben makes a counteroffer.  If we don’t bring Benjamin back, you may kill my two sons.  Wow!  A couple impressive things here.  First, Jacob is giving up Simeon just due to the possibility of losing Benjamin while Reuben is putting his children’s life on the line to help get Simeon out of Egypt.  And how is this a good deal for Jacob either way?  If he loses his favorite remaining son he ….gets to kill two grandsons?  Well, it does show how serious Reuben is, which is the point.  Also, Reuben is the leader here.  Back in Eygpt when the brothers spoke, Reuben has an I-told-you-so moment.  This story comes from the same author that made Reuben the good guy then; the author from the divided kingdom of Israel.

CHAPTER 43

Well, Jacob doesn’t want to send his kids down to Egypt, but the damn famine is entering its second year. Either go down there or everyone dies at home.  So he allows Benjamin to go, but boy is he not happy.  “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man that you had another brother?” They have a nice response – how could we foresee all of this happening? 

Now Judah steps to the forefront.  So this must come from the author from the divided kingdom of Judea.  He says let Benjamin go with us and I will serve as his guardian and I’ll hold all the blame.  No offer to kill his children, though.  But Judah is again the leader.  Jacob, with some lingering savvy to him still, tells them to bring some of the best bling they have as gifts. 

They go down and are invited to eat in Joseph’s house.  They’re scared – does he know we brought the money back last time?  Man God – he’s going to have us all killed.  No, a servant tells them to all calm down.  The God of your father must’ve put the money there, so don’t worry about it. Simeon is released from being bound.  (He’s a pretty passive background character in all this, despite being the one brother who really has to suffer the most). 

Joseph talks with them and learns that Jacob lives still.  He also sees Benjamin for the first time in over 20 years – most of his life.  Benjamin, easily the youngest of the sons, must’ve been just a boy when the teenaged Joseph was sold into slavery.  No wonder Joseph has to hurry out and break down sobbing.  That’s the second time he’s done that.  A lot of this story’s power comes from how human and raw some of the emotions are.

But Joseph is still playing his game.  He still hasn’t told anyone who he is.  His motivations are still a bit murky.  He clearly is happy to see them, but they’re still the ones who sold him into slavery.  He’s punishing them, but at the same time punishing himself to suppress all his emotions from within.

Side note – we’re told it’s abhorrent for Egyptians to eat with Hebrew.  OK then.

CHAPTER 44

No, Joseph isn’t done with …whatever it is he’s doing. Time for all 11 to leave.  Joseph still hasn’t told them who he is.  He has a silver goblet put in Benjamin’s bags, then accuses them of stealing it.  They offer to all be his slaves if anyone took it – and the person who took it should be killed.  No, Joseph says.  I’ll just make a slave of the one who took it. The rest can go.

Well, you can imagine their horror when the telltale goblet ends up in Benjamin’s bag.  Maybe this was Joseph’s plan all along.  Have his only full brother stay with him in Egypt.  However much he notes that the others feel bad for what they did to him, that doesn’t change what they did to him.

Now Judah steps up with the single longest speech in Genesis.  Much of it is recap.  There’s always some element of repeating and recapping in stories from oral traditions, and these early stories are oral tradition written down centuries after the fact. 

But after recapping, Judah gets to the real heart of the matter.  If we return home without Benjamin, our father will be inconsolable.  It will be enough to literally kill him.  I have guaranteed Benjamin’s safety. “How could I go back to my father if the boy were not with me?  I could not bear to see the anguish that would overcome my father?”  This part of the story must come from the Kingdom of Judea, after all, they're making their ancestor the big spokesperson. 

CHAPTER 45

And Joseph finally breaks.  He tells all his servants to leave so it’s just he and his brothers, and he reveals who they are.  “But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him”  Yeah, that’s a well-earned cry.  The brothers are too dumbfounded to respond.

He forgives them entirely, saying it was all the Lord’s plan.  It was He, not they, that sent him to Egypt.  It was His plan, in order that Joseph could figure out how to solve the famine in advance.  Everyone just played their role in this cosmic plan.  I wonder when Joseph came to this notion.  Probably not until just now, or else why make them go through this last bit of pain over the silver goblet?  He absolves them.

Then he tells them to hurry back home and get Jacob.  He wants to see his dad.  Yeah, that makes sense.  (I wonder if that was ever in his plan.  I’m sure it was in his hopes, but I wonder if it was in his plan.  Maybe that’s why he was going to take Benjamin. Huh.  That might make sense, actually). 

Benjamin weeps on Joseph’s shoulder and Joseph weeps again – that makes four times and counting.  Joseph invites them to stay with him in Egypt.  Then the Pharaoh invites them to do the same.  Little repeat there – one of the signs that the Torah is a combination of multiple sources added together. 

They go home and break the news: Joseph lives!  Jacob flatly doesn’t believe him, but they convince him.  “Enough” said Israel. “My son Joseph is alive!  I must go and see him before I die!”  That’s a nice little “HELL YEA!!” moment to end the chapter on.

CHAPTER 46

This is mostly a bookkeeping chapter where Jacob and family go to Egypt, so time for a catalog of peoples.  It’s pretty much entirely a catalogue of sons of Jacob’s sons.  Supposedly, there are 70, but it doesn’t quite add up.  The footnotes say the number 70 comes up a few times later, so it might be a symbolic number.  Or you could just note missing daughters.

Fewest sons: Dan, who has just one.  Most: Benjamin, with nine.  That’s interesting for several reasons.  First, he’s the youngest, and in the reunion stories was portrayed as barely more than a boy.  But he’s got nine kids.  Second, the tribe of Benjamin ends up as easily the smallest tribe in all Israel.  But he gets off to the best start.  My hunch on what’s going on?  In the divided kingdom days, Judah, which made up half of all Israelis (even though it was just one tribe) formed a southern kingdom w/ dinky old Benjamin while the other 10 tribes formed a separate kingdom.  My guess is that this is something put in during the divided kingdom days – throw a bone to Benjamin. 

None of the names of the grandsons have really caught on.  Among the more interesting ones: Zohar, Tola, Jahleel, Sered, Bela, Becher, and Guni. 

Jacob comes down and Joseph sees him, and boy is it emotional.  Joseph “threw his arms around [Jacob] and wept a long time on his should.  And Israel said to Joseph, `At last I can die, now that I have seen for myself that you are alive.’”  Yeah, that’s a nice scene there.

It ends with a weird note about Joseph telling his brothers – don’t tell the Egyptians who are shepherds, for shepherds are abhorrent to them.  Say you own livestock.

Click here for the end of Genesis.