Joseph and his brothers, p.164
Joseph and His Brothers, page 164
The impulses and psychological traits of a people are often displayed in stronger and more exemplary fashion in immigrant sons from foreign lands than in the native population. Over the twenty years Joseph had spent adopting the ways of the land to which he had been carried off and set apart, the typically characteristic Egyptian idea of carefully protecting oneself and warding off evil had entered his flesh and bone, but in such a way that even as he acted upon
it, it was never without his being aware of it and maintaining some distance from this determinative idea; and in the end, even while personally guided by that idea, he could still smile at its general popularity and adjust his actions accordingly—a combination of authenticity and humor that has more charm than any authenticity without distance and a smile.
It was the time for harvesting the seed he had sown in managing plenty by taxing it—that is, the time for distribution and dealings in grain so grand and profitable they were unlike any a son of Re had known since the time of the god himself. For as it is written in the book and celebrated in song: "There was famine in all lands, but in the land of Egypt there was bread." Needless to say, this does not mean that there was not scarcity in the land of Egypt as well; and it is easy for anyone with even the vaguest awareness of economic laws to imagine the price of grain when the need is so great. He may blanch at the thought, but should also remember that this scarcity was being managed just as the plenty before it had been, and managed by the same cordial and subtle man. For the scarcity lay in his hands and he could do with it whatever he pleased: he loyally made the best of it for Pharaoh, and at the same time for all those who were least able to cope with it, the commonfolk. For them he turned it into a scarcity free of charge.
He did it with a system that combined exploitation of the economic situation with benevolence, official usury with a fiscal solicitude unlike any people had ever known, so that everyone, even those hard hit by exploitation, saw something heroic and divine in his mixing of severity and cordiality—for the divine behaves and expresses itself in just this ambiguous fashion, so that one never knows whether to call it cruel or kind.
One cannot be too extravagant in imagining the situation. The dream of the seven scorched ears of grain provided such a perfect metaphor for the state of agriculture that it was no longer a metaphor, but withered reality. The dreamt ears of grain had been scorched by the east wind, that is by the khamsin, a searing southeaster—and it now blew almost uninterruptedly through summer and the season of harvest, called Shemu, from February till June, often as an oven-hot gale, filling the air with fine dust that covered plants with its ash, so that whatever might have grown with the meager assistance of the undernourished Provider was now charred
by the breath of the desert. Seven ears of grain? Yes, one might well put it that way—there were no more than that. In other words, there were no ears of grain and no harvest. But there was something else, in uncounted—no, actually in very carefully counted and recorded—quantities: that was the grain itself, of every sort, for both seed and bread; and it was found in royal warehouses and pits, in every city and its environs, upriver and down, throughout the land of Egypt and only in Egypt; for no precautions had been taken elsewhere, no ark built in anticipation of the Flood. Yes, in all the land of Egypt, and only here, there was bread—in the hands of the state, in the hands of Joseph, the Overseer of All That Heaven Gives; and now he himself was like heaven in its giving, and like the Nile that nourishes and provides. He opened his supply depots—not flinging their doors wide, but acting prudently and closing the doors again from time to time—opened them and gave bread and seed to all who needed it, and they all did: both Egyptians and foreigners who journeyed here to fetch grain from Pharaoh's land, which now more aptly than ever was called a granary, the granary of the world. He gave—which is to say, he sold to those who could pay, at prices not they but he set, commensurate with the unprecedented economic situation, so that Pharaoh made gold and silver. But at the same time he could give in a different way, to the lean-ribbed commonfolk—he ordered grain distributed to them, even if only at the level of that basic necessity for which they cried, gave to peasants and to those who lived in the open-ditch lanes of cities, gave bread and seed, that they might live and not die.
That was divine, and it was a praiseworthy model of what is human as well. There had always been good civil servants, who with justifiable emotion had had the walls of their graves inscribed to tell how they had provided for the king's subjects in times of famine, given to widows, and shown favor to neither high nor low, and afterward, when the Nile had grown great again, "did not take the peasant's arrears," meaning they had not insisted on back taxes or payment in advance. Joseph's managerial methods reminded people of these inscriptions. But since the days of Seth no civil servant had proved so proficient, had dealt on so grand a scale, had been vested with such plenary powers and exercised them so divinely. His commerce in grain, staffed by ten thousand scribes and assistant scribes.
extended over all of Upper and Lower Egypt, but every thread led to Menfe, to the palatial office of the Spender of Shade and Unique Friend, and there was no final decision about a sale, a loan, or a gift that he did not leave open for himself to make. The rich came before him, those with great estates, and they cried to him for seed grain— which he sold to them for their silver and gold, but never without conditions, stipulating that they bring their irrigation systems up-to-date and refusing to allow them to continue to bungle along in feudal backwardness—and in this he demonstrated his loyalty to the highest, to Pharaoh, into whose treasury flowed the silver and gold of the rich. And there likewise came before him the cries of the poor for bread, to whom he ordered it distributed from the storehouses for nothing, absolutely gratis, so that they might eat and not starve—and in this he demonstrated his sympathy, that fundamental trait of his character, the nature of which we previously described in excellent detail and so need not return to it here. That it also had something to do with wit—to that we could briefly return nonetheless. And there truly was something witty about his system of exploitation and solicitude, so that during this period, despite a heavy burden of work, he was always in good spirits, and when at home with Asenath, his wife, the daughter of the sun, he would repeatedly remark: "Maiden, I enjoy life."
He also sold to foreigners at inflated prices, as we know, and read reports of grain sold to "the nobles of the wretched land of Retenu." For many of Canaan's city kings, including those of Megiddo and Sharuhen, had sent to him for grain, and the ambassador of Askuluna came and cried to him for his city and received a delivery, though it did not come cheap. But even here, too, the rigor of profit was balanced by cordiality, and he allowed starving sand rabbits, shepherd tribes from Syria and the Lebanon—those "barbarians who do not know how to live," as the scribes put it—to enter with their herds through Egypt's closely guarded portals and, if they promised not to stray beyond the region assigned them, to make a life for themselves east of the river, in the direction of stony Arabia, in the well-watered pastures of Zoan along the Tanitic arm of the Nile.
And so he read frontier reports of this sort: "We have let the Bedouins from Edom pass through the fortress of Mcrncptah and on
to the lakes of Merneptah, that they might provide for themselves and their cattle on the great pasture of Pharaoh, the Beautiful Sun of the Nations."
He would read them carefully. He read all frontier reports very carefully, and they had to be absolutely accurate, just as he had ordered. He had meticulously tightened regulations and by his decree an account had to be kept at all barriers in the east of every person allowed to enter wealthy Egypt, which had now become so much wealthier still, of everyone who came from those wretched lands to fetch grain from Pharaoh's granary; and all frontier officers of the caliber of lieutenant Hor-waz at the fortress of Zel, the scribe of the great gate who had once allowed Joseph himself into the land in the company of the Ishmaelites, had been ordered to exercise great care in keeping their records and to list all immigrants not only by homeland, profession, and name, but also by the names of their father and father's father, and punctually to send these lists each day, by express, to Menfe, to the great office of the Spender of Shade.
There another clean copy was made on deluxe papyrus, in red and black ink, and this was then presented to the Provider. And though he had more than enough to keep him busy, he read all these reports daily, from beginning to end, and with the same care with which they had been prepared.
''They Are Coming
I''
It was in the second year of lean cows, on a day in the middle of Epiphi, the month of May by our reckoning, and a dreadfully hot day it was—for though it is, of course, hot in the land of Egypt during summer's third of the year, it was hotter than usual. The sun fell like fire from heaven, we would have measured at least forty degrees in the shade; the dusty wind was blowing, aggravating inflamed eyes with desert sand whipped up from Menfe's streets. There were too many flies and the people were as listless as they. The rich would have given lots of gold for a half hour of a northwest breeze and even have been willing to let the poor have some share in its enjoyment.
Returning home at noon from his palatial office, Joseph, however, the king's Supreme Mouth, appeared—despite a sweat-dampened, sandy face—very animated, his limbs very nimble, if
such words are applicable to his seated state. It was not long before his sedan chair, followed by the vehicles of a few great men of his ministry who were to dine with him that noon, turned off from the splendid boulevard and, as was the Vice-God's habit, which even today he did not set aside, bore him through several open-ditch lanes filled with lean-ribbed commonfolk, where he was greeted with hearty and enthusiastic famiHarity. "Djepnuteefonekh!" people cried, and blew kisses to him. "Hapi! Hapi! Provider, may your destiny last ten thousand years!" And those who would merely be wrapped in a mat before being carried out into the desert wished him: "Four excellent jars for your entrails and a coffin of alabaster for your mummy!" This was their way of expressing sympathy, in response to his.
Now he was carried through the painted portal of the villa Pharaoh had given him and into its front garden, where—along with the colorful papyrus columns of the house's projecting terrace— olive, pepper, and fig trees, shading cypresses and palm fronds were reflected in the rectangle of a low-walled lotus pond. The driveway, a wide sandy path, led around it, and since Joseph's bearers had now come to a halt, his runners offered their knees and necks for him first to place his foot upon before it touched the ground. On the terrace, or better, at the head of the open stairway leading up one side of it, Mai-Sakhme, his steward, stood waiting with perfect calm, together with two greyhounds named Hepi and Hezes from the land of Punt, terribly elegant dogs adorned with golden collars and trembling with nervousness. Pharaoh's friend bounded up the wide stairs in greater haste than usual—in a haste actually inappropriate for a great man of Egypt to display in front of others. He did not look around to those in his retinue.
"Mai," he said hurriedly in a choked voice as he patted the heads of the dogs, who had placed their paws on his chest to greet him, "I must speak to you alone at once, come along with me to my chambers and let these people wait, there is no rush with the meal, though as for me I won't be able to eat. There are far more urgent matters, concerning the scroll here in my hand, or rather, the scroll concerns more urgent matters—I shall explain what I'm talking about if you will come along with me at once to my chambers, where wc can be alone ..."
"Just keep calm," Mai-Sakhme replied. "What is wrong, Adon?
You're trembling, aren't you? And as for not being able to eat—I didn't hear that. Not from you, who give food to eat to so many. Do you not want to be cleansed of sweat with running water? One should not let sweat grow old in one's pores and body cavities. It is a caustic and irritant, especially when mixed with gritty dust."
"That later, too, Mai. Washing and eating are not urgent, comparatively speaking, for you need to know what I know, what I have learned from this scroll, which was brought to my office just before I left, and that in fact it has come to pass, or rather that they have come, which is one and the same thing—it has come, that is, they have come, and now the question is what should be done and how we are to set about it, and what shall I do, for I am so terribly excited."
"And why is that, Adon? Just keep calm. If you say of something that 'it has come,' then you were prepared for it, and whatever one is prepared for cannot come as a shock. If you would be so kind as to tell me who and what has come, I shall prove to you that there is no reason to be shocked, but that only absolute calm is in order."
They exchanged these words while moving with rapid strides— that the composed man tried to slow down—across the peristyle, which opened onto the fountain court. But Joseph and Mai-Sakhme, accompanied by Hepi and Hezes, stepped into a room off to the right, with a malachite lintel above the door, a brightly painted ceiling, and two cheerful friezes, one high, one low, along its walls. The room served as Joseph's library and divided the house's great reception hall from his bedchamber and was furnished with Egypt's finest grace and elegance: an encrusted couch, covered with hides and cushions; charming chests, set on legs and decorated with inlay work, carvings, and inscriptions, in which scrolls were kept; lion-pawed chairs with cane seats and backs of pressed, gilt leather; tables for flowers and stands with faience vases and iridescent glass vessels. Bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, Joseph gave his steward's arm a squeeze. His eyes were moist.
"Mai," he cried with suppressed jubilation—or something like jubilation, an anxious but merry glee—in his voice, "they are coming, they are here, they are in the land, they have passed the fortress of Zel—I knew it, I've been waiting for it, and yet I still cannot believe it, my heart is pounding in my throat, and in my excitement I don't know where I stand upon the earth ..."
"Kindly do not dance about with a man of composure like myself, Adon, but instead explain things more clearly, if you would, please. Who has come?"
"My brothers, Mai, my brothers!" Joseph cried, and bounced some more.
"Your brothers? Those rapacious men who ripped your garment to pieces and threw you into the pit and sold you into the world?" asked the warden, to whom his master had long ago confided all this.
"But yes! Yes! The men I have to thank for all my happiness and glory here below!"
"Well, Adon, I'd say that is turning matters rather vigorously in their favor."
"God has turned them, my good steward. God has shaped them to the good and to everyone's favor, and one must look to the result at which He was aiming. Before the result has made itself known, there is only the deed, and it may appear evil. But once it is known, then the deed must be judged by its consequences."
"But that still remains an open question, my gracious lord. Imhotep the Wise might perhaps have been of a different opinion. And they also represented the blood of an animal as your own to your father."
"Yes, that was horrible. He is certain to have fallen back in a faint. But it surely had to be, my friend, there was no other way, because it couldn't have gone on like that back then. There was my father, whose heart is great and tender—and then me, what a jackanapes I was! An unspeakable jackanapes, full of culpable trust and blind expectation. It's a scandal how some people mature so late. Assuming that I'm mature now. Perhaps maturity takes an entire lifetime."
"It could be, Adon, that you still have a great deal of the boy in you. And are you certain that these are indeed your brothers?"
"Certain? There cannot be the shadow of a doubt. Was it for nothing that I gave such strict orders in regard to lists and reports? It was not for nothing, and as for Manasseh, as for the name we gave our eldest son, that was, you must know, simply a matter of form— I most definitely have not forgotten my father's house, ah, not in the least. I have thought of it every day and every hour of all those countless years since I promised Benjamin, my little brother, there in the maze of the mutilated god, that I would send for them all to fol-
low once I was raised up and given power over the keys. . . . Certain that it is they? Here, it's right here, it came by express messenger and so precedes them by a day or even two. The sons of Jacob, the son of Yitzchak, from the grove of Mamre, which is near Hebron: Ruben, Shimeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, NaphtaH . . . for the purpose of purchasing grain. And you can speak of doubt? It is they, ten in all. They have come with other new arrivals, in a caravan of buyers. The scribes had no idea what they were recording. And they themselves, they have no notion, haven't the slightest idea of who it is they shall be led before, and who keeps the market as the king's Supreme Mouth in this land. If you only knew what I am feeling, Mai. But I don't even know it myself, everything within me is tohu and hohu, if you know what that means. And yet I have known it and expected it and have waited for it for all these years. I knew it even as I was standing before Pharaoh and prophesying for him, for I was prophesying for myself what God was aiming at and how He is guiding this story. And what a story we are in, Mai! It is one of the best. And now it all depends on us, it is incumbent on us to shape it well and fine, to make of it something truly delightful and place all our wits at God's disposal. How do we begin to do justice to such a story? That is what I find so exciting. . . . Do you think they will recognize me?"
"How should I know, Adon? But no, I don't think so. You have matured considerably since they mutilated you. And above all, the fact that they suspect nothing will blind their eyes, so that the idea will never occur to them and they will not believe their eyes. To recognize and to know that you recognize—there's quite a distance between the two."
