Joseph the Favorite – Watch out for mob justice

I’m pretty sure the coat wasn’t really the reason

If you remember, Jacob/Israel’s favorite wife was Rachel. We don’t have the ages of the Egyptian slaves Jacob made babies with, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Rachel was the youngest and prettiest. After all, she was Jacob’s hottest cousin and was the one he wanted to marry when he was a bachelor. All the other wives kept making babies while Rachel remained barren for years. Of course I maintain that Rachel was simply too young to reproduce. In any case, after years of non-reproductive sex, Rachel finally had a son and named him Joseph.

Jacob had already several sons by that time, but Joseph was immediately his favorite. When Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin it really cemented Jacob’s preference for Joseph and, to a lesser extent, Benjamin. Jacob even made Joseph a special coat using several different types of dye, which was really expensive. This would have been fine except Joseph knew he was the favorite and was a total smart ass, rubbing it in his brothers’ faces all the time.

One day when they all get together to hang out, Joseph told them some crazy stories about “dreams” he had. The first story was that when Joseph and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field and all of a sudden Joseph’s sheaf stood up and all his brother’s sheaves started to worship it. Then Joseph told a second story that the sun (his father), moon (his mother), and eleven stars (his brothers) all bowed down and worshiped him.

These stories didn’t just break the camel’s back; they squished the poor animal flat. It shouldn’t surprise you that later, when Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers who were out working (Joseph never worked), the brothers decided to kill him. They were going to go through with it too, until Reuben (the oldest) said that it would be bad karma to kill him themselves and instead they should just leave him in a pit to die. So, Joseph went into a pit and the brothers took his coat, ripped it up and smeared blood on it so they could tell their father that Joseph was killed by a wild animal.

This probably would have been the end of it, but when some slave traders passed by Judah saw a way to make a quick buck. Instead of leaving Joseph to die, his brothers sold him to the slavers for 20 pieces of silver. If you think “20 pieces of silver” shows up a lot in the bible, you’re right.

Moral: if you are an ass all the time, not even being daddy’s favorite will save you from some good ‘ol fashion frontier justice.

Ref: Genesis 37

Reuben and Bilhah – A full-sized scandal

I really can’t say that I blame them

Jacob was one of the most significant characters in the Old Testament. He was the grandson of Abraham and the Father of that one guy Joseph, who had the coat of many colors. From Jacob’s 12 sons came the 12 tribes of Israel. Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob. Two or three years after Reuben was born, Jacob’s second wife Rachel gave her personal slave to Jacob for sex/reproduction because Rachel wasn’t getting pregnant. This slave was named Bilhah. Jacob had two sons with Bilhah, Dan and Naphtali.

After Rachel started having children (which I argue was because she finally hit puberty) Jacob didn’t have a need for Bilhah anymore. You see, Jacob had enough wives that he didn’t need Bilhah for sex and he was only screwing her to help out his favorite wife, Rachel who took Bilhah’s children for herself. Besides, Bilhah wasn’t a close relative of Jacob’s by blood, so he just wasn’t that into her.

Disclaimer: The bible is really short on detail regarding Reuben and Bilhah’s relationship so I’ve had to assume a lot of stuff to be able to tell this story.

Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel was a total bitch. She was selfish and mean. For example: when Reuben went out into the field to collect mandrakes, Rachel noticed and demanded that Reuben’s mom, Leah, give her those mandrakes. So we know that Rachel was mean to Reuben. We also know that Bilhah didn’t ever choose to have sex with Jacob. Rachel forced her into the arrangement so she could take the resulting babies for herself. That seems pretty crappy. Therefore, Reuben and Bilhah had this common dislike for Rachel that served as the basis for their early relationship.

Because Bilhah was a slave, Jacob’s other wives felt they were much too high-class to be friends with her. Bilhah was only good for emptying chamber pots, serving as a surrogate, and breast feeding. Bilhah ended up spending most of her free time with the children and because Reuben was the oldest they developed a close relationship. Initially their friendship was based on a mutual dislike for Rachel, but eventually they were able to find common interests in raising sheep and making cheese.

When Reuben was going through puberty he had a lot of questions. Because his father was so busy and he didn’t have any other adolescents around, Reuben ended up talking about gender differences and his physical changes with Bilhah. Now, Bilhah remembered that sex was pretty nice from her earlier encounters with Jacob and Reuben was turning out to be pretty attractive, so Bilhah started helping Reuben with educational demonstrations in the privacy of one of the tents. Eventually this evolved into a full-blown sexual relationship and was actually really fulfilling for both of them. It was literally the realization of every adolescent boy’s fantasies.

Eventually someone noticed this was going on and told Jacob. And here the Bible really lets me down. It says absolutely nothing about what happened to poor Bilhah. We know that basically nothing happens to Reuben. His dad told him that he wasn’t the official “firstborn” anymore and he was as “unstable as water.” Because it’s the bible though, I’m pretty sure they did something horrific to Bilhah like cut off her breasts or impale her on a sharp stick. Either way, it really sucks. I guess the only hope for Bilhah to have survived getting caught fooling around with her husband’s son was for her to be considered property to the point that her actions didn’t really matter that much as long as she could keep those damn chamber pots empty.

Ref: Genesis 30 & Genesis 35:12