Genesis Chapters 40 - 42: Joseph's Dream Interpretation Gig Pays Off and He Messes with His Brothers

A note:  I am hoping to finish writing Genesis by the end of the month.  I am currently about 25% of the way through reading the Bible (I'm on 2 Samuel).  This just takes longer to write it.  The Bible will be read in a year.  I suspect the blog will take longer.

After Joseph's been in prison for a while, the Pharaoh’s chief cup bearer and chief baker get thrown in jail. They end up in Joseph's section.

While they're there, they have terrible dreams on the same night (I can imagine that I would also have terrible dreams while in prison). Joseph sees them and asks, "Hey, why so glum? Well, other than for being in prison and all, but you look especially glum today."

They tell him that they have both had terrible dreams.

"Oh I love interpreting dreams! Tell me what they were!"

The cup bearer starts, "There was this vine with three branches and all these grapes grew out of them. And I took them and squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup and gave it to Pharaoh." (Horrible nightmare, that one.)

Joseph says, "Oh, ok, the three branches are three days, and in three days the Pharaoh will get you out of here and restore you to your position as cup bearer. Hey, when that happens, tell him that I'm innocent and put in a good word for me so I can get out of here."

The baker, seeing that the cup bearer's dream was positive says, "Mine next! So in my dream I had three baskets on my head, all filled with delicious baked goods. But the birds kept flying over and eating the stuff out of the top basket."

"Oh, that's bad," says Joseph. "The three baskets are three days, but in three days, Pharaoh is going to chop your head off and hang it from a tree and the crows are going to eat you as you rot."

"Shit," says the baker.

And in three days, which happened to be Pharaoh's birthday, the cup bearer was restored to his position at court, but the baker was hanged. Unfortunately, the cup bearer completely forgets to tell Pharaoh about Joseph.

I'm so hungry I could eat a cow.

Two years pass and Pharaoh has a dream that he was standing by the Nile and seven nice fat cows came out of the river and started feeding on the reeds. Then seven ugly skinny cows came out of the river, walked over to the nice cows and ATE them, but after they'd eaten them, the skinny cows were just as skinny as before. He wakes up, says, "Wow, weird dream. I need to lay off the hummus before bed."

He falls back asleep and has another dream. In this dream, seven big, beautiful ears of grain were growing on one stalk. And then seven scrawny thin ears sprouted nearby and gobbled up the seven healthy ears.

He wakes up again and says, "Really weird. Maybe it means something." And in the morning he calls all his magicians and wise men to him, but no one can figure out what it means.

Then the cup bearer suddenly remembers. "Pharaoh, there was a Hebrew guy down in the prison that's really good at this... What was his name...? Jimmy... John... NO! Joseph! Man, I wonder if he's still even down there... I suck at remembering stuff."

Pharaoh summons Joseph out of the prison. They clean him up and send him out and Pharaoh tells him his dreams.

"Oh that's an easy one! See the dreams are the same. The seven nice cows and seven nice ears of grain are both seven years. And the seven skinny cows and skinny ears of grain are seven years of famine. God's telling you that this is going to happen. So you're going to have seven really good years, and then seven years of famine that will consume everything from the good years. You should have someone in charge of preparations and store a fifth of everything now while it's good so that when the famine comes, everyone doesn't die."

Pharaoh says, "Wow, you are good! Ok, you're in charge of all that. Know what? I'm just going to put you in charge of my whole household." And Pharaoh dresses Joseph up and parades him all around Egypt to let everyone know that this guy is his Number One. He gives him a wife and promises to consult him about everything. During the good years, Joseph stores up tons of food, so much that they lose track of the stores. His wife bears two sons.

After seven years, the famine arrives. But Egypt has so much stored that they do alright. Even other countries come to Egypt for food because they've prepared so well.

Jacob (aka Israel, but we're calling him Jacob again now) hears that there's food in Egypt and tells ten of his sons to go down and see if they can get some grain. Benjamin, the youngest, stays behind.

They get to Egypt and bow in front of Joseph. Joseph recognizes them, and remembering his dream about the sheaves of grain bowing before him, says, "You're spies. You just came to see how much the drought has affected us."

"No, we're not spies," they say. "We're twelve brothers coming to buy food. "

"No you're spies. And not even good spies since there's only ten of you."

"Yeah, the youngest is at home and the other one.... died."

"I still say you're spies. I'm holding you here until your youngest brother comes to Egypt. I'll send one of you back home to go get him." And he tosses them all in jail for three days to mull it over.

In three days Joseph comes back and says, "Ok maybe I was a little harsh. I'll just hold one of you. The rest of you go back with grain and supplies, then you send the last brother over here and then I'll believe you."

The brothers talked among themselves and they start feeling a little guilty about selling Joseph to the Egyptians (though they really don't know that this is Joseph standing in front of them). Reuben says, "See I told you guys not to be jerks. Now we're all going to pay for that little stunt."

Joseph keeps Simeon and loads up their donkeys with grain and traveling supplies and sends the rest of the brothers on their way back to Canaan. They pay him for everything, but while no one is looking, Joseph puts each man's money back into the sacks.

On the trip home, one brother opens a sack to feed his donkey and notices the coins are there. "Oh no! Did I forget to pay? This is bad."

They get home and tell Jacob everything that happened. They unpack and realize that ALL their money is in the sacks. Jacob yells at them, "You fools! Joseph is dead, now Simeon probably is or will be, and you want to take Benjamin down there to die too. No way. Not gonna happen. Idiots."

Reuben says, "Listen, if I take Benjamin down and they kill him, you can kill my two sons. That's fair, right?"

"No," Jacob says. "Absolutely not."

Genesis Chapters 23 - 26: Isaac's New Family and Some Bad Decisions Regarding Stew

Abraham grows old and tells his oldest servant to come and put his hand under his thigh and swear that he will go to his homeland and find Isaac a suitable wife. The servant doesn't have a name,but it's mentioned back in Chapter 15 that his name is Eliezer. So we'll call him Eli.

There are several explanations of "putting your hand under my thigh." It's a Patriarchal Oath. However... it may not actually involve the thigh. It seems that a circumcised penis is important enough to swear an oath by.

He tells Eli to go back to Mesopotamia, where Abraham's brother Nahor lives, and find Isaac a wife. The servant worries that he might not be able to convince a woman to follow him all the way back to Caanan and Abraham tells him that if he absolutely can't find a girl to follow him that he can bring Isaac back to her.

That's a lot of camels

Eli takes ten camels and some nice things that girls like as gifts, and he makes the camels lie down by the well. He prays and comes up with a plan. He decides that he will ask the girls who come to the well for a drink. If any of them gives him a drink AND offers his camels a drink, well, that's the girl for Isaac.

A woman named Rebekah comes to the well and the servant thinks she's really pretty, so he asks for a drink. She lets Eli drink and then she gives the camels water. He's flabbergasted and gives her some jewelry and asks who she is and if he could stay the night with her family.

She says that she Nahor's granddaughter. (So I think that makes her a second cousin to Isaac.) And she says of course he and his herd of smelly camels are welcome to spend the night.

Eli is welcomed and his camels cared for. They offer him dinner, but he insists that he tell them why he is there first.

He tells them that he is there at the behest of Abraham, who is now very rich and powerful. He tells how he was sent to find Isaac a wife and how he knew Rebekah was the one because she gave the camels water without him even asking.

Rebekah's brother and father say, "WOW! That's amazing! She's all yours!"

He gives her even more jewelry, and gives her mom some jewelry too, and they eat. After dinner, Eli gets up to go, but Rebekah's brother and mom ask if she can stay a few more days and then go back. Eli says they really ought to be on their way, and amazingly, they decide to ask Rebekah what SHE wants to do. She says that they can leave immediately. They bless her and she packs up her stuff and she and Eli return to Abraham and Isaac. Isaac thinks she's lovely and marries her.

Abraham takes another wife and has a bunch of children with her. He also has some children by some concubines, though he sends those children east. Abraham dies at 175 years old, and Ishmael comes home for the funeral. He and Isaac bury their father with Sarah in the cave that Abraham bought. Ishmael by the way has twelve sons.

Rebekah has no children for a long while, so Isaac prays for some kids. When she is 60, God gives her twins, but tells her that one will be stronger than the other and that the older will serve the younger.

The oldest, Esau, is born first, covered in red hair. Jacob follows him out hanging on to Esau's heel.

Esau becomes a skilled hunter and is their father's favorite. Jacob is a quiet man and is their mother's favorite.

What's this soup worth to you?

One day Jacob was home cooking some lentil stew. Esau comes in from hunting and says, "Ohhhhh red stew! Smells great! I am so hungry I'm about ready to pass out. Let me have some."

Jacob says, "Sure you can have some stew. In exchange for your birthright."

"Seriously? I'm your brother, about to DIE right here in front of you from starvation and you're bribing me with freaking stew?  Eh...whatever.  If I'm about to die, you'll get my birthright anyway won't you?  HA! Ok. It's yours. Give me some."

A drought and famine comes into the land and Isaac travels to Gerar, the land of Abimelach, the king that Abraham had dealt with back in Caanan.

And, surprise, surprise, Isaac tells Rebekah to pretend to be his sister. No one stole Rebekah, but the king looked out a window one day and saw Isaac and Rebekah laughing and from that he knew that they were not brother and sister. (My version says they were laughing. Other versions say "caressing" or "sporting".)

"Isaac," the king asks, "Again with the 'she's my sister' trick? What the heck is wrong with you people? Your father did the same thing. One of us could have slept with your wife and gotten us all in trouble!" And he tells Isaac to go away.

Isaac moves a little way off. There's some more quarreling over wells and Isaac moves farther away until they stop bothering him.

The king comes to visit and to let him know that he doesn't want any trouble since he know Isaac has God on his side.

Meanwhile, Esau marries two Hittite women which ticks Isaac and Rebekah off to no end.

Genesis Chapters 6 - 9: God Starts Over and Noah Gets Trashed

God sees that the people that he made had gotten a bit out of control. They run amok and behave badly. He regrets making them at all and decides that in 120 years, he's just going to wipe it all out.

But he likes Noah. Noah and his family are ok. It's just the rest of humanity that sucks.

God tells Noah to build a boat, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits tall. A cubit is about 18" so this ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall.

Someone in the Netherlands built one. It's even seaworthy.

He tells Noah he's going to wipe out everything on the earth, but he should bring his wife, his sons, and his sons' wives, along with the animals. He's supposed to bring seven pairs of all the clean animals, seven pairs of each kind of bird, and one pair of each unclean animal, plus enough food for everyone.

How'd he fit them all in there? It would be tight. There are a lot of people who think it could work, depending on how you define "kind" of animal. If you bring one "horse-like" animal that could cover all the zebras, horses, ponies, donkeys, etc., that would keep the numbers down. But they'd need to evolve into different species pretty quickly after the flood because fairly soon afterward there is mention of horses and donkeys.  

But they need a full year's worth of food for all of them, too.  A single wild African elephant eats between 220 to 440 pounds of vegetation a day.

Shortly after Noah's 600th birthday, the flood starts. It rains 40 days and 40 nights. It covers the mountain tops by about 22 feet. For this to happen, there would have to be five times the amount of water that's currently on the earth. 

Then God blows a wind and makes the water recede. After 5 months, the ark grounds on the top of a mountain. Three months after that, they could see the tops of the mountain.

The dove gets all the attention...

40 days after that, Noah peeks out and sends a raven, and the raven just flies around. So he sends out a dove but it comes back. He waits a week and tries again and the dove comes back with the leaf of a very fast growing olive tree. A week later he sends the dove again and it never comes back.

A year and 10 days after the rains first started, God gives permission to disembark.

Noah promptly builds an alter and burns one of every clean animal and bird as an offering. God loves the smell of roasting animals so much that he promises to never wipe out all the animals and mankind again.

He blesses Noah and tells him that from now on all the animals are going to be afraid of man, but he can eat them, just so long as he doesn't eat the blood. He tells them to go repopulate the planet, with the warning that if a man kills another man, the killer will die. He promises again not to do the whole angry "wipe everything out with a flood" thing again, and says that a rainbow is a sign of this promise.

Noah plants a vineyard, makes himself some wine and gets so drunk that he passes out naked in his tent. His son Ham walks in and sees dear old dad laying there naked. No one likes walking in on their naked father, so he probably yells in surprise, wishes he could unsee everything, and goes to tell his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Shem and Japh walk into the tent backwards so they don't see their father and toss a blanket on him.

Noah is the Bible's first angry drunk. He wakes up and is completely pissed that Ham had walked in on him while he was passed out drunk and naked. He doesn't curse Ham directly, but curses Ham's son Caanan (who had nothing to do with any of this). He blesses Shem and Japh and makes Caanan their servant.

Can you imagine being Caanan? You're minding your own business, off hunting for some food or tending sheep or whatever, and you come back to camp to find that you're now a servant to your uncles because your dad accidentally walked in on your drunk, naked, passed out grandfather. THANKS!!!

Eventually Noah dies at 950 years old.