Genesis 50

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 74

   רֹפְאִים is the participle of רָפָא "heal," the healers, physicians (2 Chr 16:12; Jer 8:22). חָנַט "embalm" is used only of Jacob and Joseph (vv. 2–3, 26); elsewhere it is the ripening of figs (Song 2:13). Egyptian embalming took forty days of drying with natron and a full period of seventy days to burial (Herodotus 2.86; Diodorus 1.91), the two numbers of v. 3. Israel is the only patriarch embalmed, and the only one to be carried home from Egypt.

2. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the Egyptians" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 134, 135

   מִצְרַיִם here takes a plural verb, the land standing for its people (41:55–56; 45:2). The source tags the word H4713 "Egyptian"; the tag is kept and "Egypt" printed, as at 41:55–56 and 45:2 (134l, 135o). The mourning of seventy days is two days short of the seventy-two that Diodorus (1.72) reports for a king.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   Joseph speaks to the house of Pharaoh rather than to Pharaoh, in the courtier's form of request ("if, please, I have found favor in your eyes," 47:29; 33:10). The text does not say why. Rashi suggests that a mourner did not go before the king; Genesis Rabbah 100:4 that Joseph was unshaven in mourning. The request repeats Jacob's oath (47:29–31) in Jacob's words.

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 25

   כָּרִיתִי is "I delved," the verb of digging a pit or grave (26:25; Exod 21:33; Ps 7:16). There is a homograph כָּרָה "buy, trade" (Deut 2:6; Hos 3:2; Job 6:27), and Targum Onkelos ("which I prepared") and Rashi (after Genesis Rabbah 100:5) give both: Jacob bought his share of the cave from Esau. The account of 23:3–20 is a purchase by Abraham, and Jacob's own words at 47:30 and 49:29–32 do not mention digging. The verb's home gloss is printed, and the purchase stays in this note.

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 37

   "Chariotry" (רֶכֶב) and "horsemen" (פָּרָשִׁים) are the pair that will pursue Israel to the sea (Exod 14:9, 17–18, 23, 26; 15:19). Here they escort Israel's body out of Egypt to the land, in honour. The camp (מַחֲנֶה) "very heavy" is the weight (כָּבֵד) of the procession, and v. 10 makes the lamentation heavy too.

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the threshingfloor of Atad" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 18, 2

   אָטָד has the article, so it is a noun, not a name: "the boxthorn," the thorny shrub of Jotham's fable (Judg 9:14–15) and of Ps 58:10. The KJV and RSV print it as a place name, "Atad." A threshing floor was an open, level place where a large company could gather (2 Sam 6:6; 24:16–25). Rashi, after b. Sotah 13a, has the kings of Canaan and Ishmael hang their crowns on Jacob's coffin like a hedge of thorns around a threshing floor. "Beyond the Jordan" (בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן) is usually east of the river (Deut 1:1), so the route went round by the east, as the later Israelites did. The Hebrew does not say from which side the writer speaks.

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 133

   The mourning is described three times with three words: סָפַד "lament" and its noun מִסְפֵּד "lamentation" for the loud wailing, and אֵבֶל "mourning" (133a) for the rite of seven days. Seven days are the mourning of Sir 22:12 and 1 Sam 31:13, and of the Jewish shiva. Joseph is the subject of "he made," by the singular verb.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18, 110, 133

   The Canaanites say אֵבֶל כָּבֵד "a heavy mourning," and the place is called אָבֵל מִצְרַיִם. אָבֵל means "meadow, watercourse" in place names (Abel-meholah, Judg 7:22; Abel-beth-maacah, 2 Sam 20:14), and the narrator hears אֵבֶל "mourning" in it: "Mourning of Egypt." English cannot keep both, so the pun is here (17). The name is printed whole, "Abel-mizraim," as one compound, and so does not take Abel's name (הֶבֶל, 4:2); ruling 110 applies to the form "Abel" if the meadow word stands alone (2 Sam 20:18).

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 2

   נָשָׂא keeps its home gloss "lift," which holds carrying (the row); "carry" is סָבַל's (49:15). The burial follows Jacob's charge of 49:29–32 word for word, so v. 12 can say "as he had commanded them." Acts 7:16 gives Shechem as the burial place of "our fathers," combining this cave with Jacob's purchase at Shechem (33:19) and Joseph's burial there (Josh 24:32).

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Joseph will peradventure hate us" (KJV) / "It may be that Joseph will hate us" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 57, 20

    לוּ is the particle of a wish, "if only" (17:18; 23:13; 30:34), and of a condition contrary to fact (Judg 13:23; Deut 32:29). Here it introduces what the brothers fear, a supposition. "If only Joseph were hostile to us" would print the reverse of the sense, so ruling 57 yields the home gloss and the supposition is printed: "Suppose." The row lists 50:15 with the wishes; the split by construction is ruled (136). הָשֵׁב יָשִׁיב is the infinitive absolute with the hiphil of שׁוּב "return" (128b), kept doubled as "returning, returns" (126g, 133e).

11. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "which we did unto him" (KJV) / "which we did to him" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    גָּמַל is "wean" in its row (21:8), whose standing note leaves "deal out, repay" as a split by construction to be declared when reached (50:15, 17; 1 Sam 24:18; Ps 13:6; 103:10). With a deed as its object it is to deal out, to do to someone in full, good or bad: "you have dealt out good to me, and I have dealt out bad to you" (1 Sam 24:18). The packet shows no earlier printing of this construction (unknown). "Dealt out" is printed in vv. 15 and 17, and the split is ruled (136).

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    וַיְצַוּוּ אֶל־יוֹסֵף "and they commanded to Joseph": they sent a charge by others, since the next verse is their message. The KJV supplies "sent a messenger." No such command of Jacob is recorded. b. Yevamot 65b draws from this verse that one may alter the truth for the sake of peace; Rashi says the brothers changed the words "for the sake of peace, for Jacob had not commanded thus, since Joseph was not suspected in his eyes."

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 132, 134

    אָנָּא "Ah" is a particle of urgent entreaty (Exod 32:31; Ps 116:4; 118:25). "Lift… the revolt" is to forgive it, the sense of נָשָׂא with guilt (4:13; Exod 34:7). The brothers name their wrong with the two words of the core table, פֶּשַׁע "revolt" and חַטָּאת "sin," and call themselves "the servants of the Elohim of your father." Bare אֱלֹהִים in vv. 17 and 19 has no agreeing verb; it is capitalised because Joseph uses Elohim with a singular verb in the same scene (v. 20), as at 33:10 and 41:38 (132b, 134i). עֶבֶד is "servant" in a title of divine service (34).

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Behold, we be thy servants" (KJV) / "Behold, we are your servants" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 37, 88, 34

    הִנֶּנּוּ is the particle הִנֵּה "look" with the suffix "us," the plural of הִנֵּנִי "Here I am" (22:1; 46:2). It is printed "Here we are," as the singular is printed "Here I am," a declared construction (124i) apart from the home gloss "look." The brothers offer themselves לַעֲבָדִים "for slaves," as they did at 44:9, 16, 33; the עֶבֶד split gives "slave" for persons offered to be owned (34), against "servants" of Elohim in v. 17. The prostration fulfils Joseph's dreams once more (37:7–10).

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 8, 2, 132

    "Am I in the place of Elohim?" are Jacob's words to Rachel at 30:2. There they refused a power Jacob did not have (to give children); here they refuse a judgment Joseph will not take. תַּחַת is "in place of" by construction (4:25; 22:13). The question is printed as a question; כִּי "for" before it gives the ground of "do not fear."

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 6, 37

    The verse sets one verb twice against itself: "you reckoned bad… Elohim reckoned it for good." חָשַׁב is the verb of planning and accounting (15:6; 31:15), and the feminine suffix of חֲשָׁבָהּ "reckoned it" points to the bad, רָעָה: Elohim took the brothers' bad and reckoned it as good. "To keep alive" is the hiphil of חָיָה, the word of 45:5–7, "for keeping alive (מִחְיָה) Elohim sent me before you… to keep you alive for a great escape." The verse is the narrator's last theological word in Genesis, and Rom 8:28 is often read with it.

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 39

    "Spoke on their heart" (דִּבֶּר עַל־לֵב) is the idiom of reassurance and courtship: Shechem to Dinah (34:3), the Levite to his concubine (Judg 19:3), Boaz to Ruth (Ruth 2:13), Adonai to Israel (Hos 2:16; Isa 40:2, "speak on the heart of Jerusalem"). The idiom of the body is kept (guide §4.12). "Provide for" is כּוּל, as Joseph promised at 45:11 and did at 47:12.

18. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "children of the third generation" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    שִׁלֵּשִׁים "thirds" is a plural noun of the root of שָׁלוֹשׁ "three": the third generation from the father, here Ephraim's great-grandsons, counting Joseph as the first. The word returns in the Decalogue, "attending to the iniquity of fathers on sons, on thirds and on fourths" (Exod 20:5; 34:7; Num 14:18). The KJV and RSV add "generation." "Born on the knees of Joseph" is the gesture of adoption (30:3; 48:12): Joseph takes Machir's sons as his own, and Machir later stands for a clan of Manasseh (Num 26:29; Judg 5:14).

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 123, 126, 133

    פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד is the infinitive absolute with the qal of פָּקַד "attend to" (123b), kept doubled as in "dying, he shall be made to die" (126g, 133e). The words are repeated in v. 25 and become the watchword of the Exodus: Adonai says to Moses "attending, I have attended to you" (Exod 3:16), the elders believe "that Adonai had attended to the sons of Israel" (Exod 4:31), and Moses takes Joseph's bones, quoting this verse (Exod 13:19). Heb 11:22 counts the charge about his bones as Joseph's faith. "He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" is the first time the three are named together in an oath formula (Exod 32:13; Deut 1:8).

20. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a coffin" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 3

    אָרוֹן is a chest or box: the collection chest of the temple (2 Kgs 12:10–11) and the ark of the covenant (Exod 25:10–22; Num 10:33). Here it is Joseph's coffin, the only use of the word for a burial chest. One English word is printed for every use, so that Genesis ends with Joseph's bones in a chest in Egypt and Exodus raises another chest in the wilderness. The rabbis heard it so: b. Sotah 13a and the Mekhilta (Beshallach, petichta) tell that Israel carried two chests through the wilderness, Joseph's and the ark of the Presence, and said "this one kept what is written in that one." "Box" is תֵּבָה's (6:14; Exod 2:3). וַיִּישֶׂם is an active form with no expressed subject, "and one put [him]"; English says "he was put," as the KJV and RSV do. The book ends with Joseph's death in Egypt and the promise of the land (v. 24). The WPRB has "coffin."