The Genesis of Justice 10. Joseph [Yosef] Is Framed - and Then Frames His Brothers Schocken Bible Translation Contemporary English Version   Genesis 39: 7 Now after these events it was that his lord’s wife fixed her eyes upon Yosef and said: Lie with me! 8 But he refused, he said to his lord’s wife: Look, my lord need not concern himself with anything in the house, with me here, and everything that belongs to him, he has placed in my hands. sinning: Or “at fault.” against God: From this point on, it is clear that Yosef is no longer the spoiled brat of Chap. 37. At key points in his life he consistently makes mention of God as the source of his success and good fortune (40:8; 41:16; 45:5, 7, 9). 9 He is no greater in this house than I and has withheld nothing from me except for yourself, since you are his wife. So how could I do this great ill? I would be sinning against God! to lie beside her, to be with her: A curious expression. Why does not the text say, as in v.7, “to lie with her”? There is an additional irony: “to be with” usually refers to God (see v.2, for example). 10 Now it was, as she would speak to Yosef day after day, that he would not hearken to her, to lie beside her, to be with her— 11 so it was, on such a day, when he came into the house to do his work, and none of the house-people was there in the house— 12 that she grabbed him by his garment, saying: Lie with me! But he left his garment in her hand and fled, escaping outside. 13 Now it was, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, play around: A sexual reference; or it might mean “laugh at.” (Translated laughing-and-loving in 26:8.) 14 that she called in her house-people and said to them, saying: See! He has brought to us a Hebrew man to play around with us! He came to me, to lie with me, but I called out with a loud voice, beside: Three times here, the word perhaps suggests to the audience that Yosef’s garment is all that she will ever get “to lie beside her.” 15 and it was, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and called out that he left his garment beside me and fled, escaping outside! 16 Now she kept his garment beside her, until his lord came back to the house. 17 Then she spoke to him according to these words, saying: There came to me the Hebrew servant whom you brought to us, to play around with me; 18 but it was, when I lifted up my voice and called out, that he left his garment beside me and fled outside. 19 Now it was, when his lord heard his wife’s words which she spoke to him, saying: According to these words, your servant did to me!— that his anger flared up; dungeon: Hebrew obscure. 20 Yosef’s lord took him and put him in the dungeon house, in the place where the king’s prisoners are imprisoned.   Genesis 44: 1 Now he commanded the steward of his house, saying: Fill the men’s packs with food, as much as they are able to carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his pack. my goblet: The ensuing scene is somewhat parallel to Rahel’s theft of the terafim (compare v.9 with 31:32). 2 And my goblet, the silver goblet, put in the mouth of the youngest’s pack, along with the silver for his rations. He did according to Yosef’s word which he had spoken. 3 At the light of daybreak, the men were sent off, they and their donkeys; 4 they were just outside the city—they had not yet gone far—when Yosef said to the steward of his house: Up, pursue the men, and when you have caught up with them, say to them: Why have you paid back ill for good? divines: Cups were used in predicting the future in the ancient Near East; see note to 40:11. The diviner would examine the shapes made by insoluble liquids, such as oil in water. You have wrought ill: Resembling Laban’s accusation against Yaakov, “You have done foolishly” (31:28). 5 Is not this (goblet) the one that my lord drinks with? And he also divines, yes, divines with it! You have wrought ill in what you have done! 6 When he caught up with them, he spoke those words to them. 7 They said to him: Why does my lord speak such words as these? Heaven forbid for your servants to do such a thing! 8 Here, the silver that we found in the mouth of our packs, we returned to you from the land of Canaan; so how could we steal silver or gold from the house of your lord? 9 He with whom it is found among your servants, he shall die, and we also will become my lord’s servants! clear: Of punishment. 10 He said: Now as well, according to your words, so be it: he with whom it is found shall become my servant, but you shall be clear. 11 With haste each-man let down his pack to the ground, each-man opened his pack. 12 and then he searched: with the eldest he started and with the youngest he finished— and the goblet was found in Binyamin’s pack! 13 They rent their clothes, each-man loaded up his donkey, and they returned to the city. 14 Yehuda and his brothers came into Yosef’s house —he was still there— and flung themselves down before him to the ground. 15 Yosef said to them: What kind of deed is this that you have done! Do you not know that a man like me can divine, yes, divine? your servants’ crime: Of selling Yosef? 16 Yehuda said: What can we say to my lord? What can we speak, by what can we show ourselves innocent? God has found out your servants’ crime! Here we are, servants to my lord, so we, so the one in whose hand the goblet was found. But he said: “He” is Yosef. this: Enslaving all of the brothers. 17 But he said: Heaven forbid that I should do this! The man in whose hand the goblet was found—he shall become my servant, but you—go up in peace to your father! Now Yehuda…said…: Yehuda’s great speech, masterful in its rhetoric, is chiefly aimed at stirring up sympathy for the father; it contains the word “father” fourteen times. Binyamin, whose appearance actually causes Yosef great anguish, is hardly treated as a personality at all. you are like Pharaoh: Lit. “like you is like Pharaoh.” 18 Now Yehuda came closer to him and said: Please, my lord, pray let your servant speak a word in the ears of my lord, and do not let your anger flare up against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh! 19 My lord asked his servants, saying: Do you have a father or (another) brother? 20 And we said to my lord: We have an old father and a young child of his old age, whose brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him. 21 And you said to your servants: Bring him down to me, I wish to set my eyes upon him. he would die: “He” refers to Yaakov, although the Hebrew is somewhat ambiguous. 22 But we said to my lord: The lad cannot leave his father, were he to leave his father, he would die. 23 But you said to your servants: If your youngest brother does not come down with you, you shall not see my face again. 24 Now it was, when we went up to your servant, my father, we told him my lord’s words, 25 and our father said: Return, buy us some food-rations. 26 But we said: We cannot go down; if our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down, for we cannot see the man’s face if our youngest brother is not with us. 27 Now your servant, my father, said to us: You yourselves know that my wife bore two to me. thus far: A hint that Yosef is still alive, or perhaps a tiny expression of hope. 28 One went away from me, I said: For sure he is torn, torn-to-pieces! And I have not seen him again thus far. 29 Now should you take away this one as well from before my face, should harm befall him, you will bring down my gray hair in ill-fortune to Sheol! life: Heb. nefesh, also “emotions” or “feelings.” 30 So now, when I come back to your servant, my father, and the lad is not with us, —with whose life his own life is bound up!— our father: Is Yehuda unknowingly including Yosef? 31 it will be, that when he sees that the lad is no more, he will die, and your servant will have brought down the gray hair of your servant, our father, in grief to Sheol! 32 For your servant pledged himself for the lad to my father, saying: If I do not bring him back to you, I will be culpable-for-sin against my father all the days (to come). 33 So now, pray let your servant stay instead of the lad, as servant to my lord, but let the lad go up with his brothers! 34 For how can I go up to my father, when the lad is not with me? Then would I see the ill-fortune that would come upon my father!   Genesis 45: Reconciliation (45): In revealing his true identity at last, Yosef makes two points: first, that it was all part of God’s plan; and second, that the family must immediately prepare for migration to Egypt. Thus the personal story is intertwined with the national one, and the text therefore gives limited time and space to psychological details. The motif of God’s plan is stressed by the repetition of “God sent me” (vv.5, 7, 8), while the anticipated bounties of settling in Egypt are brought out by the threefold “good-things of Egypt” (vv.18, 20, 23) and by the repeated exhortation to “come” (vv.18, 19). 1 Yosef could no longer restrain himself in the presence of all who were stationed around him, he called out: Have everyone leave me! So no one stood (in attendance upon) him when Yosef made himself known to his brothers. 2 He put forth his voice in weeping: the Egyptians heard, Pharaoh’s household heard. 3 Then Yosef said to his brothers: I am Yosef. Is my father still alive? But his brothers were not able to answer him, for they were confounded in his presence. 4 Yosef said to his brothers: Pray come close to me! They came close. He said: I am Yosef your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. (upset): At each other, or referring to each individual’s feelings of guilt. 5 But now, do not be pained, and do not let upset be in your eyes that you sold me here! For it was to save life that God sent me on before you. Fox, Everett, The Five Books of Moses, (New York: Schocken Books Inc.) © 1995. The Schochen Bible The Genesis of Justice