Hebrew Myths (39 page)

(
b
) When sent out under the charge of Leah’s sons, Joseph once more returned home after a few weeks. There he complained of their consorting with Canaanite girls, and treating their half-brothers like slaves. A dream that he told further increased their hatred of him. He said: ‘We were binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly mine stood upright, while yours formed a ring around it, and bowed obsequiously.’

They shouted: ‘So you are to rule us—is that the meaning of your dream?’

Unmoved by their anger, Joseph told them another: ‘Last night I saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars do homage to me.’ And when Jacob heard of it, he too exclaimed: ‘What dream is this? Must I, and your step-mother, and your brothers, all serve you?’
³⁸⁶

(
c
) Joseph thereafter remained at Hebron until, one day, his brothers drove the flocks to Mount Ephraim, and stayed so long
that Jacob sent him in search of them. At Shechem, Joseph learned of their new camp near Dothan, a day’s march away, and pressed on. When they saw him in the distance, Simeon, Dan and Gad cried angrily: ‘Here comes that boastful dreamer! Let us murder him and hide the body in one of yonder pits. That will put an end to his dreaming.’ Reuben objected: ‘Why bring a curse upon ourselves by spilling innocent blood? Why not leave him in the pit to starve?’ This seemed good advice; so they stripped Joseph of his long-sleeved tunic, and threw him naked into the pit. It had been a well dug in a vain search of water, and was now the home of snakes and scorpions.
³⁸⁷

(
d
) The brothers sat down to eat, several bowshots away, and presently saw an Ishmaelite caravan approaching from Gilead, with spices, balm and gum-mastic for sale in Egypt. Judah asked: ‘Why let our brother die of starvation, when we can sell him to those Ishmaelites?’ They answered: ‘Not now! Because of his slanderous tongue, he must spend three days among snakes and scorpions.’

Meanwhile, a Midianite caravan came up behind them. Drawn to the pit by Joseph’s shouts of terror, they hauled him out and afterwards sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. That night, Reuben repented of his cruelty. Unaware that the Midianites had forestalled him, he took a rope and went to rescue Joseph from the pit; there he called his name, but got no answer. He ran back in grief, shouting: ‘Joseph is already dead and, as our father’s first-born, I shall be called to account!’ Issachar then proposed that they should slaughter a he-goat, dip Joseph’s tunic in its blood, and pretend that a wild beast had killed him.
³⁸⁸

(
e
) Naphtali, their chosen messenger, brought Jacob the blood-stained tunic on the tenth day of Tishri, saying: ‘We found this at Dothan. Is it perhaps Joseph’s?’ Jacob cried: ‘Alas, a wild beast has devoured my son!’ He tore his garments, wore sackcloth, poured dust upon his head, and mourned miserably. When the household tried to comfort him, he drove them off, shouting: ‘Find me Joseph’s body without delay! Also catch the first wild beast you meet, and bring it here alive for my vengeance! God will doubtless deliver the murderer into your hands.’

They fetched him a wolf, but reported that Joseph’s body was nowhere to be seen. Jacob railed at the wolf: ‘Murderous wretch, do you respect neither God nor me?’ God then granted the wolf human speech. It said: ‘By the life of our Creator, and by your life, my lord: I am innocent! Twelve days ago my own cub left me and,
not knowing whether he were dead or alive, I hurried to Dothan in search of him. Now I am falsely accused of murder. Take what vengeance you please! But I swear by the Living God that I have never set eyes on your son, nor has man’s flesh ever passed my lips!’

Jacob freed the wolf in amazement, and continued his mourning for Joseph.
³⁸⁹

***

1
. This is evidently a folk tale, like those of the Arabian Nights cycle, or the Milesian cycle borrowed by Apuleius for his
Golden Ass
, or those collected by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm—all of which combine popular entertainment with worldly wisdom, but have no historical basis. Nevertheless, it has been converted into myth by attaching it to particular localities—Hebron, Dothan, Gilead—and by making tribal ancestors the main characters. It serves as introduction to a longer myth which purports to explain the presence of Hebrews in Egypt during the Hyksos period, the rise of a powerful viceroy from among them, and their eventual return to Canaan, where they assumed the leadership of a tribal confederacy.

Joseph is said to have borne so close a resemblance to his father, and to have been so beloved by him, because the original ‘Israel’ consisted only of the two Joseph tribes and their Benjamite allies (see 47. 5. 7. 8). Political manoeuvres, while these Egyptianized Hebrews were invading Canaan under Joshua’s leadership, are suggested by Joseph’s tale-bearing about the Bilhah and Zilpah tribes; by the peculiar animosity to him of Simeon, Gad and Dan; and by the reluctance of Reuben and Judah to shed his blood.

2
. Dothan, which occurs in the sixteenth-century
B.C.
list of Canaanite cities subject to Pharaoh Thotmes III, and in 2 Kings VI. 13–14 as a walled city, was built on a mound (now Tell Duthan) thirteen miles north of Shechem, overlooking the Damascus-Gilead-Egypt caravan route. Since Dothan commanded the main northern pass to the hill country of Ephraim, a fateful conference of the Hebrew tribes that already occupied a large part of Canaan—the question being whether to join forces with their Israelite cousins or appeal for armed Egyptian help against them—may well have taken place there. The chronicler does not disguise hostility to Joseph as an intruder and mischief-maker. That the Midianites sold Joseph to the
Ishmaelites is an ingenious gloss on a confused passage in
Genesis
, where the priestly editor has been clumsy in his interweaving of two discordant literary sources: one an Ephraimite document, composed before the destruction of the Northern Kingdom (721
B.C.
); the other Judaean, composed later. According to the Ephraimite account, Joseph’s brothers sold him to Midianite merchants; according to the Judaean, they sold him to Ishmaelites. Similarly, in the Ephraimite version Joseph’s protector is Reuben; in the Judaean, Judah. But by the time that the
Genesis
text was established, Jerusalem had become the new centre of Israel, and Reuben had merged with Judah; so both brothers appear in a good light. Elsewhere, the more murderous parts are allotted to the landless tribes of Simeon, Gad and Dan.

3
. Joseph’s youthful beauty, his attempted murder, his resurrection from the pit after three days, and his eventual provision of bread to a starving world link him with the Tammuz myth; a meaning heightened by the he-goat sacrificed on the Day of Atonement, which the midrash explains as a penitential reminder of the he-goat killed by the brothers for blood to stain Joseph’s tunic.

4
. The tale has been given ingenious ethical glosses by midrashic commentators. Though the brothers seemed to be wreaking vengeance on Joseph they were, it is said, God’s chosen instruments for securing his power in Egypt. God also stocked the pit with snakes and scorpions to make him scream in terror and attract the Midianites’ notice. His servitude was divinely ordained, so that he should later save Israel from famine; but since the brothers sinned, their descendants were likewise fated to become slaves in Egypt. ‘By your lives,’ God told them, ‘you sold Joseph into slavery, and therefore you will recite the tale of your own Egyptian bondage until the end of time’ (
Midrash Tehillim
93). God even arranged that the Ishmaelites should carry perfumed spices instead of their usual malodorous loads of skins, thus making Joseph’s journey pleasant. One midrash adds that God miraculously provided a garment, so as to spare him the disgrace of standing naked in the presence of strangers; another makes God bless Reuben’s attempted liberation of Joseph, by sending the prophet Hosea, a Reubenite, to preach repentance throughout Israel. Joseph’s sins of vanity, tale-bearing and disrespect, are punished with nakedness, suffering and servitude.

5
. Jacob’s resolve to punish the wild beast which had devoured Joseph must be understood as piety, not hysteria. Moses ordered the death of any animal that killed a man. A similar English law of Anglo-Saxon origin, known as
Deodand
and not repealed until 1846, made any beast or object that had caused a man’s death—ox, cart, fallen beam, or whatever else it might be—Crown property. Its value was distributed in the form of alms to the poor, or donations to the Church.

6
. ‘Pieces of silver’ were nowhere coined before the seventh century
B.C
.

(
a
) Joseph was taken down to Egypt by the Midianites, and sold to Potiphar the eunuch, Pharaoh’s chief victualler who, recognizing Joseph’s talents, soon appointed him household steward, and never regretted the choice.

Potiphar had married, but his wife Zuleika did not consider herself bound by any marital ties: a woman naturally expects children. She tried to seduce Joseph; but he, although by no means insensible of Zuleika’s outstanding beauty, rebuffed her advances, saying: ‘My master, your husband, has set me over his household, denying me nothing except what you ask. It would be robbery, as well as a sin against God, if I succumbed.’

She asked: ‘Since I cannot enjoy my husband’s embraces, nor he mine, how would this be robbery?’ Joseph saw that she had blinded the idol on the wall above her with a sheet. He said: ‘That is well done; but no one blinds the eyes of God, who sees all!’
³⁹⁰

(
b
) Zuleika’s unsatisfied craving preyed on her health. Visiting court-ladies soon inquired: ‘What ails you? Your health is usually so robust.’

‘I will show you the cause,’ Zuleika replied.

She ordered a banquet and called Joseph in to supervise the arrangements. The ladies could not take their eyes off him and, while peeling fruit set before them, all cut themselves.

When Joseph left the hall, Zuleika said: ‘There is blood on the fruit! If you cut your fingers after so short a torment, what do I not suffer day after day?’
³⁹¹

(
c
) Zuleika wooed Joseph with words and gifts, constantly dressed in new garments, and took every opportunity to allow him brief glimpses of her naked breasts and thighs. She also used love philtres; but God always warned Joseph which cup or dish to avoid. At last she resorted to threats.

‘You shall be cruelly oppressed!’

‘God helps the oppressed,’ Joseph answered.

‘I shall starve you!’

‘God feeds the hungry.’

‘I shall cast you into prison.’

‘God releases the captive.’

‘I shall force you into the dust!’

‘God raises those who are bowed down.’

‘I shall put out your eyes!’

‘God gives sight to the blind.’
³⁹²

(
d
) The court-ladies told her: ‘You must break his resistance, one day, when you two are alone. He is a man like any other, and cannot long withstand your charms. Doubtless he already reciprocates your passion.’

Zuleika took their advice. Early next morning, she stole into Joseph’s bedroom and fell upon him suddenly. He awoke, broke loose, and left her lying there. She cried in despair: ‘Has so beautiful a woman ever revealed her consuming love for you? Why so churlish? Why this fear of your master? As Pharaoh lives, no harm will come to you! Only be generous, and cure me of my wretchedness! Must I die, because of your foolish scruples?’
³⁹³

(
e
) The annual rise of the Nile was greeted with harps, drums, and dancing; and all Potiphar’s household attended the festivities, except Zuleika who pleaded ill health; Joseph, who busied himself at his accounts; and some porters. When everything was quiet, Zuleika crept into Joseph’s study, caught hold of his garment and ripped it off him, crying: ‘Sweetheart, at last we are alone! Enjoy me without fear!’ Joseph fled, naked. Humiliated beyond endurance, Zuleika screamed for the porters, who came running with weapons in their hands. ‘Your master has appointed this vile Hebrew slave to insult us!’ she panted. ‘He tried to ravish me, but when I cried out, he fled, leaving this garment behind.’

She told Potiphar the same thing on his return, and he angrily confined Joseph in the Royal Prison—God’s punishment on him for not yet having learned to shun the sins of luxurious living and self-adornment, which had again brought trouble with them.

Some say that Potiphar himself doted on Joseph, and felt jealous of Zuleika.
³⁹⁴

(
f
) When the case was tried in a priestly court, the Chief Judge, having listened to both parties, called for Joseph’s garment, which they duly produced. Holding it up, he said: ‘If, as the Lady Zuleika claims, this slave forced himself upon her, but fled when she cried out; and if she then tore off his garment to keep as evidence against him, the rent will be found behind. If, on the contrary, she tore it
off him, as he claims, the better to excite his lust, the rent will be found in front.’

All the judges solemnly agreed that the rent was certainly in front; yet, to avoid casting a slur on Zuleika’s name, they returned Joseph to prison for ten more years, while recommending the prison-governor to treat him less severely than his cell-mates.
³⁹⁵

***

1
. The same story appears in the Greek myths of Biadice and Phrixus, Anteia and Bellerophon, and Phaedra and Hippolytus. In each case, however, the man’s reason for repelling the woman’s advances is a horror of incest. The Biadice and Phrixus story comes from Boeotian Cadmeia where it introduces an imported Canaanite myth (see 34.
5
); the other two come from the Gulf of Corinth, where Western Semitic influence was strong (see 39.
1
). Further versions are found in Thessaly, and on Tenedos, where the Phoenician god Melkarth was worshipped; but its earliest written record appears in the Egyptian
Tale of the Two Brothers
, from which have been borrowed the myths of Abraham, Sarah and Pharaoh (see 26), Abraham, Sarah and Abimelech (see 30), and Isaac, Rebekah and Abimelech (see 37).