Thread by @JoelBaden

#Genesis 42

Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt

All J, every last word. Herewith a selection of distinctively J features, with commentary on a few ostensibly sticky points.

The famine is in Canaan, not just Egypt. This picks up and reinforces the second of the two threads from the end of the previous chapter, in which the whole world is coming to Egypt for food. The word for rations here is שבר, which, as noun and verb, is only in the J story here.

Jacob’s holding back of Benjamin is naturally tied to the previous loss of Benjamin’s brother, Joseph; the story of Jacob mourning the loss of Joseph is, of course, from J in Gen 37.

In 42:6 we get what looks like the introduction of Joseph’s role in Egypt. In E, we’ve known this for a while, ever since Pharaoh appointed Joseph to oversee this very famine. Not so in J, in which at most Joseph has been elevated to a high status, but given no specific role.

Joseph recognizing his brothers, indeed the entire theme of disguise and recognition, continues to play with the J theme begun back in Gen 27 with Jacob’s tricking of Isaac.

(Side note: we have in 42:7 my favorite Hebrew thing, the use of the hitpael, in this case התנכר, to mean “pretend to be”: Joseph pretended to be a stranger. The best example of this is when Amnon התחלה, pretends to be sick, to get Tamar to care for him.)

In 42:9 we have explicit mention of Joseph’s dreams from J in Gen 37. Again, in J Joseph isn’t a dream interpreter as in E: he’s the dreamer, and chance conspires to bring about the fulfillment of his dreams.

It passes quickly, but in 42:19 there’s a reference to the households, plural, of the brothers. Not just for Jacob’s house, but for their own, each of them. A reminder here that enough time has passed for them all to have houses and families of their own - like Judah in Gen 38.

Here comes the tricky part: in 42:21 the brothers realize that they are being punished for their treatment of Joseph. That could be either J or E (though as there have been clear J references to this point, that’s certainly the default option.)

But they also make reference to not listening while Joseph pleaded with them. That didn’t happen in J. Luckily, however, it didn’t happen in E either. This is just new information about the events of Gen 37, told her retrospectively. (Biblical authors could write, you know.)

Harder still is 42:22, when Reuben speaks up. Wasn’t it Reuben who tried to save Jacob from his brothers in E in Gen 37? That seems like a serious problem. Except we can’t stop just at the name Reuben. Because what he says here doesn’t actually match what happened in E.

Reuben here tries to claim that he told his brothers not to harm Joseph. But in E he did no such thing. He told them to kill him a different way, and kept his plan to save Joseph to himself. That is: this didn’t happen in either J or E in Gen 37 either. It’s also new information.

So you’re telling me Reuben is prominent in both stories? Darn right I am. Because we know that the dueling attempts of Reuben and Judah to take the initiative will constitute a significant plot point in the story to come, and those can’t really be separated.

Judah outdoes and overcomes Reuben (the kind of thing that scholars sometimes suggest is meant to represent or portray the eclipse of the tribe of Reuben by that of Judah historically...and maybe so). This is a J plot element, unrelated to Reuben in Gen 37.

Then we have the thing with the money in the sacks, and the rest of the story continues pretty repetitively, Gen 24 style. Again we have Jacob recalling his grief from the loss of Joseph as described by J in Gen 37.

And again, with Reuben’s mention of his two sons, we have a reminder of how much time has passed since Joseph was sold into Egypt.

The chapter hangs together perfectly well internally, and every reference is to J - or at least there aren’t any references to anything other than J in here. This story will continue uninterrupted through the end of Gen 45, all J, all continuous and consistent.