Last week's parashah (Vayishlach) recounted how Jacob had wrestled with the Malakh Adonai (the Angel of YHVH) before returning to the Promised Land to be reconciled with his estranged twin brother Esau. No longer called Ya'akov ("heel holder" [of Esau]), but Yisrael ("contender with God"), Jacob finally returned (after 34 years) to his hometown of Hebron (Chevron) to be reunited with his father Isaac. However, on the way Rachel died while giving birth to his twelfth son Benjamin.
This week’s parashah begins with Jacob settled in the land promised to Abraham and Isaac with his 12 sons, but quickly turns to the story of Jacob’s favorite son Joseph, who was 17 years old at the time. The parashah begins:
And Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. (Gen. 37:1)
The next pasuk (verse) reads: “And these were the generations of Jacob: Joseph being 17 years old...” But why does the toldot (genealogy) begin with Joseph rather than Reuben (the firstborn son of Leah) here? Because Jacob and Joseph shared a lot in common: both had infertile mothers who had difficulty in childbirth; both mothers bore two sons; and both were hated by their brothers. In addition, the Torah states that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, since he was the son of his old age, and was the firstborn son (bechor) of his beloved wife Rachel. Indeed, Jacob made him an ornamented tunic (ketonet passim) to indicate his special status in the family.
As the favored son, Joseph’s job was to oversee the activities of Jacob’s concubines sons (Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher) and to bring “reports” about their activities back to Jacob. However, this role as the overseer and preferred son was too much for the other brothers, and they soon became jealous of him and hated him. To make matters worse, Joseph related two dreams to his brothers that foretold that he was destined to rule over them, increasing their envy and hatred of him (the implication of the dreams was that all of Jacob’s family would become subservient to him). Jacob rebuked Joseph for arousing his brothers' hatred, but he inwardly took note and waited for the fulfillment of the dreams.
One day, the brothers took the herds over near Shechem, the place where Simon and Levi, the two hotheaded sons of Leah, had earlier killed all the town’s inhabitants on account of the rape of their sister Dinah. Jacob was apparently still concerned about the reputation he had in the area and sent Joseph to check up on their welfare. Joseph, however, learned that his brothers had left for Dothan, and followed them there.
Upon arriving in Dothan, the brothers “saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him.” However, Rueben (the disgraced firstborn son) tried to circumvent their plan by suggesting that they merely throw him into a pit to shake him up a bit (secretly planning to come back later to rescue him). When Joseph finally arrived, they stripped him of his ornamented tunic and (as Reuben suggested) threw him into a nearby pit. Then they sat down to eat.
Soon the brothers noticed some of their distant cousins (Midianites, descended from Ishmael) driving a caravan bearing spices to Egypt, and Judah suggested it would be better to sell Joseph as a slave to them. The brothers agreed this new plan, sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver, and watched as Joseph was bound and taken away to Egypt.
Reuben, away while this happened, returned to find that Joseph was gone and tore his clothes in horror and dismay. The brothers then decided to fake Joseph’s death by dipping his special tunic into goat’s blood and bringing it to their father, who (mistakenly) inferred that his son had been killed by a wild animal (nb. Jacob deceived his father with goatskins (cf. Genesis 27:16), and his sons deceived him with the blood of a goat). Jacob then mourned Joseph for many days. But meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph to an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh named Potiphar, the captain of the guard.
The story of Joseph is then interrupted to relate an incident in the life of Judah, who separated from his brothers, married a Canaanite woman named Shua, and had three children: Er, Onan and Shelah. When his eldest son Er came of age, Judah married him to a Canaanite woman named Tamar. However, Er was wicked in the eyes of the LORD and died childless. Judah then promised her his second son Onan (according to the custom of levirate marriage, that is, the brother of a man who dies childless is obligated to give a child to his brother's widow, to be raised in his brother's name with his brother's inheritance of land). Onan sinned by “spilling his seed” in order to avoid the obligation, and the LORD slew him for this. At this point, Judah was reluctant to give his third son marry Tamar, but (misleadingly) told her he would do so as soon as Shelah came of age.
After realizing that Judah was not going to fulfill his promise to give his son Shelah in marriage to her, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced Judah himself. Judah heard that his daughter-in-law had become pregnant and ordered her burned alive for harlotry (z’nut), but when Tamar produced his pledge of payment to her for her “services,” he publicly confessed that he was the father. Tamar then gave birth to twin sons, Zerah and Perez, who was an ancestor of King David (and through him, the Mashiach Yeshua):
Fascinatingly, the lineage of the Mashiach Yeshua therefore includes:
The line of Lot with his daughter, which led to the birth of Moab (Vayera), the ancestor of Ruth, and great grandmother of King David
The union of Judah and Tamar which led to the birth of Perez, from whom King David came
The union of David with Bathsheba
After this account of Judah and Tamar, the Torah portion resumes the saga of Joseph, who was sold to Potiphar (possibly a chief butcher of the Pharaoh). Despite the injustice and treachery of his brothers, the LORD was “with Joseph” and blessed everything he did. In fact, soon he was promoted to be the head of Potiphar’s entire household affairs.
The Torah describes Joseph as a handsome “in form and appearance,” and soon Potiphar's wife began soliciting him to have an affair with her. Joseph steadfastly refused her repeated advances, but one day she threw herself upon him when no one was in the house. When Joseph tried to flee from her grasp, she caught him by the garment and pulled it off of him before he ran from the house. Humiliated and defeated, she then decided to slander Joseph and falsely accused him of attempted rape to her husband.
Potiphar was outraged and threw young Joseph into the royal dungeon, but again God showed him favor there and he immediately gained the trust and admiration of his jailers, who appointed him to a position of authority in the prison administration. “And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed.”
The parashah ends with events in Joseph’s life that eventually would bring him to the attention of Pharaoh himself. While in prison, Joseph met Pharaoh's wine steward and chief baker, both incarcerated for offending their master (according to Rashi, a fly was found in the goblet prepared by the butler, and a pebble in the baker's confection). Both men had disturbing dreams which Joseph correctly interpreted; in three days, he told them, the wine steward would be released but the baker would be hanged. Joseph then asked the wine steward to advocate for his release with Pharaoh. Joseph's predictions were fulfilled, but the wine steward forgot all about Joseph and did nothing for him.
Haftarah Reading Snapshot:
Amos was a shepherd who tended sycamore trees when he was called by God to be a prophet sometime during the reign of Jereboam II (786-746 BCE). The Northern Kingdom of Israel was very prosperous at the time, and the wealthy lived in palaces and behaved like non-Israelites, while the poor were exploited and sold into slavery if they could not pay their debts. The leadership of the people was entirely corrupt and Amos was called upon to express God's anger at the Israelites, who were no longer living by the mitzvot (commandments) given in the Torah.
In this Haftarah portion, Amos’ prophecy against Israel is the climax of seven preceding reproofs directed against the various surrounding nations. His prophecy opens with the formula: “Thus said the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Israel, Even for four I will not revoke it…’” (Amos 2:6a).
Amos railed at the Judges of Israel for their willingness to take bribes of silver, thereby repeating the crime of the brothers of Joseph, "selling the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes" (Amos 2:6b). The connection to the parashah is given by the Jewish sages by means of midrash. After throwing Joseph into the pit, his brothers decided to sell him for 20 pieces of silver - two pieces per brother (Reuben was not there), enough to buy a pair of shoes for each of them. The “righteous one” suffered grave injustice - all for a pair of shoes! For this and similar disregard of justice and mercy, the LORD was sure to bring about judgment upon Israel.
Brit Chadashah Snapshot:
The reading from the book of Matthew concerns the Promised Seed of Abraham, the beloved Mashiach Yeshua, whose genealogy is given through the lineage of Jesus’ legal father (Joseph) beginning with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then through Judah (and his son Perez) to Jesse, the father of King David, and finally from David to Solomon. Matthew does this in order to demonstrate that Jesus is indeed a descendant of King David and therefore eligible to be the Mashiach of Israel (see the genealogical table above).
