The Hebrews in Egypt – Moses Part I

Apparently Hebrews are a lot like rabbits.

After Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat relocated his extended family to Egypt they were super rich and multiplied like crazy. However, as the centuries came and went they lost their ties to the royal family and their protected status. Then they were just numerous, prosperous, and not Egyptian. After the Hebrews started to outnumber the Egyptians, Pharaoh decided he was concerned the Hebrews would side with an invading enemy and things would go poorly for Egypt. To solve this, all the Hebrews were pressed into government service and assigned taskmasters. Now, I’m obviously missing something here because I’m not sure how forced labor was going to keep the Hebrews from fighting against the government. Apparently nobody in Egypt watched the 1960 film Spartacus. If they had, I’m sure they would have realized that maintaining a slave class to perform all the manual labor leads accomplished gladiators named Kirk Douglas to lead slave uprisings.



Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

Pressing the Hebrews into slavery didn’t help Pharaoh feel any better. He noticed that the worse the Hebrews were treated, the more babies they had. I don’t know why he was surprised. If you take all electronic devices and reading material away and force people to stay indoors after dark; suddenly there is nothing to do in the evenings but have sex.

To solve the population growth problem, Pharaoh told all the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys right as they were being born. This was a really, really stupid idea for a couple of reasons. First: in a society that practices polygamy the men aren’t the limiting factor for population growth, the women are. I’m sure there were plenty of Hebrew men who were really excited by the prospect of surplus young women. Second: the Hebrew midwives didn’t want to kill the Hebrew babies. It didn’t take long for Pharaoh to notice the number of baby boys didn’t decrease, so he called in the Hebrew midwives and demanded to know why the babies weren’t being killed. The midwives were clever and came up with a clever lie. They said, “Well, the Hebrew women deliver really fast. By the time someone manages to summon a midwife, the baby has already been born.”

Finally Pharaoh came up with a sound plan to kill the babies. He charged all the citizens of Egypt with the responsibility of throwing baby Hebrew boys into the river. That worked a little better than birth canal abortions and represented significant progress toward achieving Pharaoh’s dream of seeing fewer Hebrew boys.

Moral: Pharaoh didn’t understand how babies are made.

Ref: Exodus 1

Note: wouldn’t it be nifty if there was any physical evidence that Egypt ever had a huge workforce made up of slaves?

Israel Prepares to Invade Palestine – The reason our culture depends on prostitution

Q: Why do so many stories involve hookers? A: In biblical times it was a highly respected profession, like an attorney or a member of congress.

Many Westerners have heard of Palestine and the conflict with Israel. What they may not know is that the modern areas of Israel, Palestine, and the West Bank are all part of the region traditionally known as “Palestine.” Back in the olden days (think bible) this region was known as Canaan.

When Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt Jehovah promised to give them Palestine; never mind that Palestine was already a populated region composed of a whole mess of small kingdoms. Jehovah was going to hand it all over to the Hebrews and there was nothing anybody could do about it. After Moses died Jehovah decided it was finally time for the invasion to begin. He floated down to Earth and told Joshua to prepare for the invasion. Jericho was the closest major population center, so Joshua sent some spies to check it out.

When the spies got to the big city the first thing they did was find a prostitute. This particular prostitute was named Rahab and she was really great. After the spies showed up in Jericho, the King was told that some Israelis were there to case the joint. The king wasn’t comfortable with this so he sent some of his men to Rahab’s place to pick up the spies. Rahab was fond of her latest customers so she lied to the soldiers. She said, “Yeah, there were some guys here earlier but I didn’t know they were from out of town. They took off a while ago. I’m pretty sure I saw them go out the main gate just before sundown. I bet if you start now, you’ll be able to catch them before they get too far.”

Once the soldiers were out of sight Rahab went to have a little chat with her Hebrew clients. She said, “Look, I know who you are and I know Jehovah has given your people all of Palestine. Here’s the thing though; I have parents, brothers, and sisters and because I saved you I ask that you not kill my family.” This seemed reasonable to the spies so they gave Rahab their word and she lowered them out through a window in the city wall.

Moral: whenever you visit a new city, your first order of business should be to hook up with a prostitute. It just may save your life

Ref: Joshua 1 & 2

Joseph is Still a Jerk – Family first

Why start out nice when you can be mean first and nice later?

Because Jehovah only provided a way for the Egyptians to have food during the seven year drought, but still afflicted the surrounding areas with a massive food shortage, a lot of people went hungry. Joseph’s family back in Canaan was among that group. As part of Joseph’s plan to accumulate all the money in the known world he was selling grain to these non-Egyptian type people.

Once Joseph’s father Jacob/Israel heard about the food sale he sent ten of his remaining eleven sons to go buy some. He didn’t send Benjamin because he was afraid something could happen to the sons and he would lose his other boy from his favorite wife, Rachel. When the 10 brothers arrived in Egypt, for some reason they had a personal audience with Joseph to buy grain instead of dealing with in intermediary. I reckon it’s because it makes the story better.

Of course Joseph recognized his brothers, but did not reveal his identity to them. Instead he accused them of being spies and had them thrown into prison. Of course they brothers said they weren’t spies and told Joseph all about their family, their father, all his wives, and their brother Benjamin.

After three days Joseph released nine of them and sold them the grain on the condition that they bring Benjamin back to Egypt with them to prove they were telling the truth. Then he promised to release the still imprisoned brother (Simeon) and sell them more grain. Joseph wasn’t done acting weird yet though. He had one of his slaves hide the money the brothers used to buy the grain in their grain sacks.

Here’s the problem. Jacob/Israel refused to let Benjamin go to Egypt to get Simeon back because he was still all hung up on the whole “son of Rachel” thing. That’s right; Jacob/Israel chose to let Simeon rot in an Egyptian prison.

I’m sure that would have been the end of it, but the grain ran out. Eventually hunger drove Jacob/Israel to agree to let Benjamin go to Egypt. This time Joseph was super nice to them; especially to his little brother Benjamin. Once again Joseph had a slave hide the money in the grain sacks, but this time Joseph also had the slave hide a super fancy silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. After the brothers put a little distance between themselves and the grain dispensary, Joseph sent some of his people to search the sacks, find the cup and arrest Benjamin.

The brothers were afraid to return to their father without Benjamin and went straight back to meet with Joseph. Judah begged Joseph to make him a slave and let Benjamin go because he was afraid his father would die if Benjamin didn’t make it back home. After the brothers described how the situation tore their father apart emotionally and how hard it was on him to only have one of his sons from his favorite wife, Joseph started to cry. He revealed himself to his brothers at last and invited them to all move to Egypt where they, their father, and their mothers would be well taken care of, because Joseph was super rich and would look after them.

Note: I wonder if having Jehovah’s favor makes it so you must dick with your family before hooking them up with food, or if it just makes it OK.

Ref: Genesis 43-45

Joseph Passes Through His Suffering - like a kidney stone

With the power of hindsight, I can see that making the sex with Mrs. Potiphar would have kept Joseph from his eventual fortune

While all the magicians and wise men were working on, and failing to provide, an interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams the chief butler had a severe attack of conscience. Mr. Chief Butler told Pharaoh all about the Hebrew prisoner Joseph who had successfully interpreted his and the chief baker's dreams. As you would expect, Pharaoh sent for Joseph. Joseph was immediately pulled from prison, shaved (to get rid of the fleas and lice), and put in appropriate clothing.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I understand that you can interpret dreams.” Joseph replied, “I cannot, but Jehovah will use me to provide you with the answers you seek.” Pharaoh eagerly recited his freaky dreams to Joseph. Joseph didn’t even have to blink an eye. He immediately said, “You are very fortunate. Jehovah sent you these dreams to tell you must do. The seven healthy cows and seven healthy heads of grain represent seven years of super awesome harvests. The seven anorexic-looking things represent seven years of famine that will follow the seven plentiful years. The great and powerful Pharaoh must appoint a wise and virtuous man to be in charge of Egypt. One fifth of all grain production must be stored for seven years so it can be distributed to the people during the years of famine so everyone doesn’t die.”

Pharaoh liked this explanation and made Joseph his second-in-command, in charge of all Egypt. Then Pharaoh gave Asenath, who was the daughter of one of his priests, to Joseph for a wife and Joseph finally got laid (with Mrs. Potiphar and Mr. Jeremy nowhere in sight). Over the next seven years Joseph oversaw the collection of grain and made two babies with Asenath. Then the famine began.

Joseph was clever so he sold the grain back to the people he took it from, and also sold it to the peoples of the surrounding countries. After Joseph had all the money, he started trading grain for cattle, and once he had all the cattle, he traded grain for land until he had all the land in Egypt. He did all this for Pharaoh of course. Getting rich on the side had nothing to do with it.

Once Joseph owned everything in the country he let the people of Egypt work the land, on the condition that 20% of everything they produced be delivered unto Pharaoh.

Moral: with Jehovah on your side, you can buy a major country.

Ref: Genesis 41:9-57 & Genesis 47:13-26

Please note: Joseph is the first recorded person in his line to marry outside the family. No cousin love for good ol' Joe.

Abraham in Egypt – How to sell your wife and come out ahead

Because you didn’t hear this in Sunday School

Abraham’s birth name was Abram so for this story we’ll call him Abram. It turns out that after God confounds the languages at the Tower of Babel he sits on the sidelines for a few hundred years. Then out of the blue he comes to Abram and tells him it’s time to move. So Abram (who was 75 at the time) takes his wife Sarai, his son-in-law Lot (the guy who later got drunk and made babies with his daughters), and the rest of his household and they walk to Caanan. Caanan is an area that includes the modern nation of Israel, part of Lebanon, part of Jordan, part of Egypt, and Gaza.

God tells Abram he can have Caanan for his posterity. Screw the people who were already living there (modern Palestine anyone?).

Sadly, Caanan was in a bad spot at the time: no rain. To get away from the famine Abram and his posse walk down to Egypt. When they get to the edge of Egypt Abram tell his wife that she’s such a hottie he’s afraid the Egyptians will kill him so they can have her for themselves; so they need to lie and say she’s his sister. Well, Abram was right. The Egyptians did think Mrs. Abram was super hot so they ran and told Pharaoh about this new hottie. Pharaoh liked the new hottie so he paid Abram a ton of animals and servants (slaves) so he could marry her.

Apparently God doesn’t approve of polyandry (someone should have told Joseph Smith) because after Pharaoh marries Abram’s wife bad stuff happens. God starts to kill people in Pharaoh’s household using disease. Pharaoh is a smart guy so ALL BY HIMSELF he figures out that if God is killing his family and servants Abram must have lied, and his new wife MUST also be married to Abram.

Pharaoh takes the new wife back to Abram, lectures him for lying to him, and tells him to take all his crap and get out of town. So Abram takes back his wife and heads out of Egypt a much richer man than when he arrived.

Note: Sarai was in her 60s at the time of this story.

Ref: Genesis 12