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.

Pharaoh Has Some Crazy Dreams – Play that funky music, white boy

Do you think God still uses dreams to tell us the future?

Two full years after the incident with the chief baker and chief butler, Pharaoh had a couple of crazy dreams that really bothered him. In the first dream seven big fat happy cows climbed up out of the river and started to graze in a meadow. Then seven anorexic cows, on the verge of death, climbed up out of the river and ATE the big fat happy cows! Now I reckon this should be the theme of a horror movie. Of course it would be a total rip off of the 1985 Stephen King Book “Thinner” which was made into a movie in 1996.




The skinny cows are starting to eat the fat cows

 Let’s see if we can make it work. Seven obese cows that were not very nice trampled an old gypsy’s daughter to death. Of course the obese cows were taken to court for “trampling” homicide, but they got off without any punishment. Because the legal systems failed the poor gypsies, the old man gypsy decided to get even with the cows using a “thinner” curse. The cows just kept losing weight no matter how much they ate. Finally they went a little crazy and attacked the happy, nice cows ripping out chunks of bloody flesh with their blunt, herbivore teeth until nothing remained.

Gross: no wonder Pharaoh was upset.

The second dream was probably even creepier. Pharaoh dreamed that seven fat, healthy heads of grain grew on a single stalk. Now if that wasn’t weird enough seven more heads of grain grew on the same stalk. Now it had 14 heads of grain. The new heads weren’t attractive though. They were dry, shriveled and diseased looking. Then the seven anorexic heads of grain ATE the healthy heads of grain. I just keep imagining claymation heads of anorexic grain sliding up and down the stalk, splitting open and eating the healthy grain heads with little white clay teeth. Bleeaugh.

As soon as Pharaoh awoke from these harrowing dreams, he immediately sent out summons for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Sadly, none of these were able to interpret his dreams.

Moral: Pharaoh has some crazy dreams

Ref: Genesis 41:1-8

Prison – The realm of the unworthy

Just think, if only Joseph hadn’t turned down the hottest woman he would ever meet in his life . . .

Getting tossed in the slammer didn’t stop Jehovah from giving Joseph the “magic hands” hookup. Just like Potiphar, the keeper of the prison quickly noticed how well everything Joseph did turned out, so he put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners. If you’re waiting for Potiphar to get around to having Joseph executed, you can just forget it. Potiphar was a very busy and important man and rarely had the time to concern himself with domestic affairs. I assume this is part of why Mrs. Potiphar was so eager to jump into bed with Joseph: the whole “desperate housewife” stereotype. If you’ve ever listened to the Green Day song “Longview” hopefully you know what I’m talking about (the line I’m thinking of is about ¾ of the way through the song).

  





While Joseph was doing the prison keeper’s job, a couple of Pharaoh’s servants were incarcerated: the chief butler and the chief baker. After spending about three months in the prison, the servants each had a vivid and disturbing dream the same night. When Joseph checked up on them in the morning he noticed they were visibly upset and asked them what was wrong. They told Joseph about the dreams and explained they couldn’t figure out what the dreams meant.

Joseph saw an opportunity to show how awesome he was and said, “You fools; don’t you know that only the Hebrew God has the power to interpret dreams? If you want to learn the meaning you must tell me the dream.” The chief butler went first. He said, “I dreamed about a vine with three branches. Grapes grew on the branches and I pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup and gave it to Pharaoh.”

Joseph said, “Easy Peasy. In three days you will get your old job back. Now I need something from you. I am a Hebrew. I was stolen from my homeland and I ended up in here through no fault of my own. In fact, I even turned down sex with Mrs. Potiphar.” The chief baker chuckled and said, “Oh don’t worry son. Mrs. Potiphar never wants for lack of sex with young men. That woman is mighty fine, but every time I look at her I can only think how it would be like rubbing junk with dozens of other guys. That can’t be healthy.” Joseph answered, “Right, I’m sure she’s a lovely girl.” Then turning his attention back to the chief butler said, “Please remember me after you are once again a trusted servant of Pharaoh and bring me out from this place.”

The butler gave his word it would be done and the chief baker then related his dream. “I was walking with three baskets stacked on my head. The top basket was full of bakemeats for Pharaoh, but birds came and ate all of them.” Joseph told the meaning of the dream like this: “The three baskets are three days. In three days when the chief butler gets his job back, you will be decapitated and your body will by hung from a tree so the birds can eat it.”

Three days later everything went just like Joseph said. However, the chief butler did not keep his promise after he got his job back. He forgot about Joseph.

Moral: no amount of fortune telling can lead a chief butler to get you out of jail.

Ref: Genesis 39-40

Potiphar’s Wife – The ORIGINAL MILF

Wowzah!

The trick to making money as a slaver is to buy and sell as often as possible. The slavers that bought Joseph from his brothers understood that, so as soon as they got to Egypt they sold him to Potiphar, who was one of Pharaoh’s officers and the captain of the guard. Potiphar immediately put Joseph to work as part of the household staff. Now, Jehovah really liked Joseph, so He made everything Joseph did turn out really well.

Once Potiphar noticed that Joseph had the “magic touch” he made him the overseer of the entire household. This turned out to be a good decision for Potiphar because Jehovah now felt compelled to bless the household in everything. Things were going really well for everyone involved until a porno writer/director got involved in the story. We will call him Mr. Jeremy.

Mr. Jeremy wanted to make a video called “Super Egyptian MILF” so he scripted everything out for what he expected to be a beautiful piece of work. Everything was perfect. Potiphar’s veranda had a beautiful view of the Egyptian landscape and the open nature of a veranda lent that extra bit of excitement that comes with the possibility of being discovered, especially by the husband. The natural lighting was perfect, Potiphar’s wife was dark and smokin’ hot, and Joseph was young, virile, and “well favoured” (Genesis 39:6). Unfortunately Mr. Jeremy didn’t count on just how much trouble Joseph was going to give him.   



Many Islands Low Fares

 Once Joseph was alone with Mrs. Potiphar, and the cameras were rolling, Mrs. Potiphar gently laid her hand on Joseph’s and purred, “Lie with me” (Genesis 39:7). Joseph didn’t know what was going on with the film (Mr. Jeremy really wanted the eagerness of a young virgin man to show through, without the distraction of the lights, camera, and audience). He had never been with a woman before and his whole being suddenly exploded with desire, but he keenly remembered that one time when Reuben got caught having sex with one of their father’s wives and how much trouble it caused.

Joseph didn’t want to show up in the papers as “that one slave” who was executed for having the sex with his owner’s wife. So, instead of performing for Mr. Jeremy he gently removed his hand from Mrs. Potiphar’s and said, “Look, my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God." (Genesis 39:8-9, NLT)

Of course Mrs. Potiphar and Mr. Jeremy weren’t going to just give up. Mrs. Potiphar propositioned the sex every day for weeks; Joseph kept refusing. Finally Mrs. Potiphar tried a more direct route and grabbed Joseph before propositioning. Naturally Joseph freaked out and ran away, leaving Mrs. Potiphar holding his clothes in her hands. Well, Mrs. Potiphar decided she couldn’t take it anymore and that no amount of money from Mr. Jeremy could make her keep trying to bed that insulting jerk Joseph so she called the men of the household to her. She said, “Do you see what happens when Hebrew slaves are allowed to work here? Joseph tried to rape me and when I called out for help, he ran away. Here are his clothes; see?


          

Later, when Mr. Potiphar came home and heard the tale for himself, he immediately had Joseph thrown into prison so he could spend the appropriate amount of time devising a truly heinous way to kill the treacherous slave who’d tried to rape his wife.

Ref: Genesis 39

Note: MILF does not mean Many Islands Low Fares

                                                                                                                                                  
             
 

                                                                                                                                        

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