Saving Joseph

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

Saving Joseph's life was an important step for one of the 12 brothers of Jacob.  Joseph was Jacob's favorite son, and he had disappeared. 

Reuben was the first son of Leah with Jacob, the son of Isaac. Reuben and his five brothers (Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun) made up half of the original tribes of Israel. As a boy, Reuben resents that his mother is overpowered by his aunt Rachel. He is the one who brings the mandrakes, plant used to make a woman more fertile, which Leah uses to negotiate with Rachel. Reuben loses the birthright when he lies with Bilah, the concubine of his father, Rachel’s maid. He does it out of pure carnal desire, without much involvement with it. At the end of Jacob’s life, he describes the son as his strength, the principle of his vigor, the most excellent in highness and the most excellent in power and impetuous as water, but when he slept with his concubine he became defiled and lost his rights.  After Rachel's early death at only 36 years old in childbirth,  Jacob established his primary residence in the tent of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant.  Reuben considered this an affront to his mother, Leah, his 1st wife, who had the title of 1st wife.  So Reuben moved Jacob's bed to Leah's tent. That's all that had happened. 

It turned out to be Reuben that saved Joseph, 1st born son of Jacob saving his baby brother, the 11th. In picture above, Joseph is in the many colored striped robe sitting next to Abraham.  Reuben could be the red-headed bearded son sitting on the ground, or the dark-haired and bearded son behind him. Joseph was the 11th son born to Jacob.  His mother, Rachel was afraid she'd neve get pregnant again.  

Joseph turned out to be a most important historical figure.  He is compared to Jesus by many Christians. He's used as a psychological example of what not to do to children-favor them in front of siblings, and politically, he may have been part of the Hyksos of Egypt, being 2nd to the pharaoh.  Not only that, but opera has created Joseph and his coat of many colors/ Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?=ZCbt5RsQAPU  

Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, because he had been born to him when he was old. He made a long robe with full sleeves for him. But Joseph said to [his brothers], “Don't be afraid; I can't put myself in the place of God. However, they felt jealousy, and lots of it.  Jacob had even made Joseph this special robe of many colors and the others had none like it.  Joseph was born with an old father, imagine how Benjamin felt, born many years after Joseph!  It was too much for Rachel, as she died giving him birth.  Who took care of Benjamin?  Most likely it was Bilhah, Rachel's handmaiden. She would have raised Benjamin, and then Dan and Naphtali, her own boys.  

The father, Jacob,  was the twin brother of Esau, both sons of Isaac and Rebekah.  He had tricked his twin out of his birthright for being 1st born son for a mess of pottage, an early form of stew.  His mother helped him receive the most important item from his father,  the BLESSING.  That made Esau so angry that Jacob left home for fear of his life.  Esau hadn't shown his mother or his brother that he had what it took to be a leader.  He didn't even follow his parents' rules very well and was always away from the compound, hunting and hunting alone.  Jacob hated to see him being given the tribe's leadership role.  They may have been twins, but they were so very different.  There was jealousy going on between the twins for sure.                         

When Jacob arrived at Haran, he married his uncle Laban's two daughters, Leah, the oldest, and then Rachel, the one he had fallen in love with who was the youngest of Laban's 2 daughters.  

Later, by them and their two handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah,, he had 12 sons and a daughter, Dinah.  At one point he struggled with a heavenly emissary and overcame him, earning the new name of ISRAEL.  It's possible that the emissary he overcame was Esau's guardian angel, report a few references.  Jacob's name has been discovered in Akkadian and Egyptian sources.    

Below, Jews come from Judah and a few of Levi and some of Simeon and Benjamin who were all living with the tribe of Judah by 721 BCE.      DNA shows many of today  to be of J1 (Y haplogroup-Cohens.  Levites were known to be living with all 12 tribes as the received no lands from Moses's allotment plan, meant to live among the tribes and be the teachers of the religion. (2nd most common DNA was E; as in E-L117).                

Jacob's first son was  Reuben by Leah,  who opposed his 11 brothers' plot against Joseph.  Reuben also later volunteered as surety for Joseph's young brother, Benjamin.  Joseph and Benjamin were the sons of Rachel, who died in childbirth with Benjamin.  

                      Sons of Jacob

Reuben was in trouble with his father, Jacob, though.  Reuben had been having sexual relations with Jacob's concubine, Bilhah and so for punishment, transferred Reuben's 1st son rights and privileges to Jacob's 11th son, Joseph, who was Rachel's 1st-born son. When Rachel gave birth and said, "G-d had taken away my disgrace," so she called his name Joseph, saying, May Hashem add on for me another son."  Having sons gave a woman status.  Even though Jacob had fallen for her deeply, she felt she had no status until Joseph was born, and special he would turn out to be.  Reuben did marry. According to the Book of Jasher, Chapter 45, Reuben's wife was Eliuram the daughter of Ewi the Canaanite (of Timnah).Timna is the name of a Wadi north of Elath and one of Solomon's copper mines.    My encyclopedia refers to the Book of Jashar, an ancient work mentioned in Josh. 10-13, II Sam. 1:18, and I Kings 8:53 (Septuagint version-Greek translation of Bible).  The collection was made at the time of Solomon, lost in ancient times.  A medieval compilation of biblical legends based on Midrashim to the Tanakh was probably composed in 11th century Spain.  

mnah).

Joseph was the most ambitious of all of his brothers, and they realized this and was jealous of him and his good looks.  They sold him to traveling Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt.  His fate was that he was then sold as a slave and bought by Potiphar, chief of Pharaoh's household, but was imprisoned on a false accusation brought to court by Potiphar's wife!  That's because he wouldn't dally with her.   "Potiphar's wife tried unsuccessfully to seduce him and after false accusations were levelled at Joseph he was imprisoned."                                   

Joseph had a gift in interpreting people's dream (a bit of a psychologist in him) He had gained a reputation in Egypt  for being able to interpret dreams which reached the king who released him from prison and was so impressed that Joseph was appointed VICEROY OF EGYPT- a step just under the king, like a vice king. 

                     Joseph, 2nd only to the Pharaoh of Egypt

Later on, Jacob and his brothers were brought to him in Egypt  and he received grazing land in Goshen, which was the beginning  of the Israelite settlement in Egypt.  Jacob died at age 110, and his body was later brought by the Israelites to Eretz Yisrael for re-burial.  This history of Joseph has been dated during the Hyksos domination of Egypt of (18th to 16th centuries BCE), inferring that Joseph's story was part of the Hyksos' history.  

    The same pyramid art I have found to represent the Hebrews or the Hyksos, entrance into Egypt.  

The Hyksos -meaning (RULERS OF THE FOREIGN LANDS) were a Semitic people who overran Egypt after the destruction of their Middle Kingdom.  Hyksos remains have interestingly also been discovered in Israel.  They had ruled Egypt (1720-1580 BCE).  This is when the Hebrews had entered Egypt and were favorably treated.  When the Hyksos were expelled, this started the period of the Israelite slavery;  in total a period of 400 years of entering and leaving.  

Jacob's children with Leah were  (1) Reuben  (2) Simeon, (3) Levi, (4) Judah, (5) Issachar, (6) Zebulun,  and a daughter, Dinah by Leah.  Joseph was born to Rachel, his beautiful love and so became Jacob's favorite right away.                                             

       Zilpah-Leah's handmaid, gave Jacob sons (7) Gad  and (8) Asher. (When Leah saw that she had stopped giving birth, she took Zilpah, her maidservant, and gave her to Jacob as a wife.  Zilpah bore Jacob a son, and Leah declared, "Good luck has come!  So she called his name, Gad).  It's Leah who earns the status of having another son, not Zilpah.  

[ When the Israelites took possession of the Land of Canaan, Asher's fertile territory extended from Western Galilee to the South of Carmel].                                     

                                      Zilpah

Early rabbinical commentary, Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer and other Rabbinic sources (Midrash Rabbah, and elsewhere) state that Bilhah and Zilpah were also Laban's daughters, through his concubines, which would make them half-sisters to Rachel and Leah.  Besides that, Apocryphal testament said that Bilhah and 

Zilpahs father was Rotheus, a slave redeemed by Lathan and he was married to Euna, 

mother of the two women. 

  Bilhah, handmaid of Rachel, had given Bilhad to Jacob when she herself had thought that she was barren, and Bilhad had (5) Dan  was given land South of Jaffa, forced into hills by Amorites with only some remaining on coast.  They migrated north, taking Phoenician land around Laish.  Part of Dan was site of a Temple;   (6) Naphtali and he was given land in the northern part of Canaan including the East coast of the Sea of Galilee and the mountains of Galilee. (Even a DNA test would be rather confusing since Reuben dallied with Bilhah and his sons, Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron and Carmi could be close matches to his own half brothers-Dan and Naphtali. being the father could have been Reuben or rightfully Jacob, Reuben's own father).  Here, the mother's DNA would show the differences-one being Leah and the other-Bilhah.

Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel are termed the “Matriarchs.” In contrast to these women, Bilhah,  Zilpah, Tamar, and Aseneth/Asenath are the “Secondary Matriarchs.” They are “foreign wives.” Bilhah and Zilpah are Arameans and the mothers of the eponymous (of a person) giving their name to something."the eponymous hero of the novel" ancestors of the tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.  Arameans were also Semitic tribes who entered the land at the same time as Abraham did and roamed between the Persian Gulf and the Amanus Mountains.  Aram and Israel had a common ancestry.  Israelite patriarchs were of Aramaic origin, had marriages with  tribes with Aram. 

                Haran is at the very top-above Paddan-Aram

Then Bilhah and Zilpah were native girls nearby the tents of Jacob, and Jacob died in Egypt at age 147, but he had married Leah and Rachel in Haran which was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia and center of a moon cult.  Terah, father of Abraham, could have come from Haran.  The name, Haran is also the name of Abraham's brother who was the father of Lot, Abraham's nephew.  Haran lived and died at Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham and Terah had left for Canaan.

                                                       

Two Y haplogroups, E1b1b and J (male lines), that are carried by both ancient and modern Egyptians. The subclade E-M78 of E1b1b is suggested to have originated in Northeast Africa in the area of Egypt and Libya, and is more predominant in Egypt. 

The ancient Egyptian individuals in their own dataset possessed highly similar mtDNA haplogroup profiles (the women's lines of DNA), and cluster together, supporting genetic continuity across the 1,300-year transect. Modern Egyptians shared this mtDNA haplogroup profile, but also carried 8% more African component. 

Later on during the Exodus when they were in the wilderness, the heads of the tribe of (1)Reuben;  Dathan, Abiram, and On, unsuccessfully claimed the right to serve as priests (Cohenim-descendants of Aaron-brother of Moses).  It was Dathan and Abiram who together with 250 princes of the congregation, joined Korah of the tribe of Levi,  in his rebellion.  They attacked Moses for assuming the leadership which they claimed for themselves, and attaacked Aaron, too,  evidently as the descendants of Jacob's eldest son.  Dathan and Abiram perished with the other rebels, being swallowed up by the earth in an earthquake. (Num 16).

When the Israelites settled in Canaan, the tribe of Reuben requested and received territory in MOAB (Transjordania) which was fertile land but it presented political problems.  They eventually lost it all to the Moabites themselves or the Ammonites.  So the original natives of Jordan were a mixture of Moabites, Ammoites and Israelites. Then prince Abdullah was granted the land and he brought in his Arabian followers from Arabia.   

Reuben was one of the  10 tribes exiled to Assyria by Tiglath-Pileser in 721 BCE, one of the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.  It had been the land of Moab.   This was said to happen possibly because of its isolated situation, Reuben played little part in the history of the Israelite tribes after the settlement in Canaan.  Reuben is on the other side of the Dead Sea from Judah in dark red.  He had saved Joseph's life as his brothers were ready to kill him, and he thought of selling him, instead to save him.  

Update: 10/11/22 In the novels The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Rachel and Leah by Orson Scott Card, Bilhah and Zilpah are half-sisters of Leah and Rachel by different mothers, following the Talmudic tradition.

• In Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction novel The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic society depicted cites the relationship between Bilhah, Rachel and Jacob as the basis for role of handmaids as surrogates to high-ranking men and their infertile wives.

Resource:

Tanakh, Stone Edition, (Genesis 30:9)

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://recordtvnetwork.r7.com/en/blog/personagens/reuben-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_history_of_Egypt#:~:text=The%20ancient%20Egyptian%20individuals%20in,carried%208%25%20more%20African%20component.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilhah#:~:text=However%2C%20Reuben%2C%20Leah's%20eldest%2C,and%20removed%20or%20overturned%20Bilhah's.