Thread by @JoelBaden

#Genesis 50

The end of the Joseph story

Three chunks of text here (one of which is embedded in another, but is easily identified). The chapter is mostly about the death of Jacob - Joseph’s death only comes at the very end (and only in one story).

The biggest part of the chapter is the fulfillment of Jacob’s request to Joseph at the end of Gen 47, that he be brought back to Canaan to be buried. Sure enough, as soon as Jacob dies, Joseph makes plans to carry out his father’s wishes.

Everything about how this is described conforms to the J story we’ve seen. Joseph having power in Egypt, but still having to ask Pharaoh for things carefully (as with the Goshen request), and Pharaoh being generous in response.

This is a story about Joseph burying his father, with his brothers accompanying him. And the burial happens at a place called Goren Ha’atad, which is...I don’t know where, exactly, but presumably somewhere near the border of Canaan and Egypt.

All of which makes the interlude of 50:12-13 stand out. Here it’s Jacob’s sons who are the protagonists, and they are burying him in the cave of Machpelah, in Mamre (Hebron). Even just reading this chapter these verses are a problem. But we know they’re good P.

These verses are, of course, the fulfillment of Jacob’s instructions to all his sons, simultaneously, in 49:29-32, just as J is the fulfillment of Jacob’s instructions to Joseph alone back in Gen 47. Both are totally consistent in content and in characters.

The return to Egypt in 50:14 is again J, as the description of the characters suggests: Joseph and everyone who went to Egypt with him, which is just how J described it above.

The brothers worry about Joseph and how he’ll treat them is also J, as the dynamic between Joseph and his brothers has been central to J throughout. We also have a restatement of Joseph’s attribution of the brothers’ actions to God’s behind the scenes work.

We also have Joseph crying, as he does in J, the brothers offering themselves as slaves, as in J, and the promise from Joseph to sustain the brothers, using the same rare Hebrew word, as earlier in J. It’s J, okay?

And, finally, 50:22 is the end of J here: everyone remains in Egypt, Joseph and his brothers whom he will care for. (The phrase “his father’s household” is a giveaway, as it picks up on the same phrase in 46:31, 47:12, and 50:8, all J.)

The end of the chapter, 50:22-26, is from E. It picks up on the interest in Ephraim and Manasseh from Gen 48, and it refers to the return to Canaan that was already foreseen back in Gen 15 (but is nowhere alluded to in J or P).

Of course, all of these “endings” are no such thing: each of these stories will continue on directly into the next chapter, which just happens to be the next book canonically. This book division is an illusion - there’s no difference between Genesis and Exodus.

In fact, there’s really no such thing as Genesis and Exodus. They aren’t separate books; they’re just separate volumes of a single book. It’s a material division, not a literary one: this is where scroll one ends and scroll two begins. Please flip tape over.

But that’s a separate conversation, maybe better for when we get into Exodus. I suspect I’ll take a little break for a bit, just so I don’t burn out on the tweets. Thanks for coming along this far; I’ll do a summary tweet and compilation thread tomorrow.