(1:3) Part One: Ancient Voices

And selecting a few of his brothers, Joseph presented them to pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his brothers,

"What is your occupation?"

They answered pharaoh,

"We your servants are shepherds, as were also our fathers. We have come to sojourn in this land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, the famine being so severe in the land of Canaan. Pray, then, let your servants stay in the region of Goshen."

Genesis 47: 2-5

The origins of Abraham and Jacob.

For the ancestors of Joseph, keeping herds of sheep and goats was their primary basis of survival. Their wealth was measured in the number of livestock. What is more, their freedom of movement and the separate identity from the sedentary people they dwelt amongst would give them a lifestyle that we would call “nomadic” today. This mobility has remained at the core of most attempts to prove a second millennium B.C.E. setting for the characters portrayed in the Genesis stories.

Mari was an ancient Semitic city in Syria. It flourished as a trade centre and hegemonic state between 2900 and 1759 BCE. As a purposely built city, the existence of Mari was related to its position in the middle of the Euphrates trade routes; this position made it an intermediary between Sumer in the south and the Levant in the west.

The archives from Ebla and Mari have provided some interesting similarities between the palace centred administration of the Levantine city states and that of the Hyksos 15th Dynasty governing Lower Egypt. Both the city states and the Hyksos kings empowered “king’s sons” as overseers of sealed things to undertake the duties previously assigned to that of the vizier and his office. But the Mari archives also give other insights as to the origins of the Biblical patriarchs.

One of the difficulties in establishing the origins of the patriarchs has been the assumption that respective city state governments of this period were at odds with foreign nomads. This could be viewed as being of similar character to the “Range wars” between the agrarian and free grazing communities of the American West, prior to the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Even the Bible suggests that the Egyptians found it abhorrent to dine with the Hebrews. But this whole notion was challenged when the letters of king Zimri-Lim (c.1775-1761 B.C.E.) were discovered at modern day Tell Hariri (Mari). [13]

The letters indicate that Zimri-Lim maintained both his identity as a Mari state king and mobile pastoralist leader, setting up two separate systems of government; one for the settled populous and the second for the tribal alliances of the Binu Sim’al and Benu Yamina tribespeople. The tribespeople of the Binu Sim’al (Sons of the left hand) and Benu Yamina (Sons of the right hand) formed a complementary pair of tribal coalitions who symbolised their larger identity in terms of left and right hand divisions. One gains a sense of this division from the discord between the herders of Abram’s livestock and Lot’s counterparts in Genesis. [14]

Then Abram said to Lot, 'Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.'

Genesis 13: 8-9

Both Abram and Lot are of the same “family”, their common ancestor being the patriarch Terah. But with the growth of both these tribes, pressures over grazing rights ensued.

The establishment of the division of land between Abram and Lot takes place near Bethel in the central hills of Palestine. It is also here that the definition of the promised land as “all that Abram can see to the north, south, east and west,” was centred. Lot, of course, takes the prime land of the Jordan River basin, while Abram gains the central hills of Canaan. The locality for the division of the tribes is centred at Bethel, where Abram had previously built an altar (Gen: 12:8). [15] It is this location that acts as the boundary marker; one taking the left side, the other the right. In a similar way, the Mari centred allocation of grazing land assigned the Binu Sim’al to the upper Ḫabur River basin, while the Benu Yamina were assigned the region of Yamḫad, Qatna and Amurru. [16]

In rabbinical literature, the rabbis interpret the name Benjamin as "son of the south," since he was the only son born to Jacob in Palestine, the others having been born in Mesopotamia. Whereas the Genesis account recounts the death of Rachel whilst giving him birth. She named him "Ben- oni" (son of my sorrow); but Jacob, to avert the evil omen, called him "Ben Yamin," (son of the right hand) that is, of good luck. [17] [18]

Here we gain the idea that the origin to one of Israel’s twelve tribes may be linked to the pastoralists centred in the Ḫabur River basin from the early 2nd millennium B.C.E. Bin-yamin (Benjamin) offers one of the most obvious links as the name matches both the form and meaning of the Binu Yamina/Binu Sim’al alliance referred to in the Mari letters.

Further remarks within the Mari text suggest that the city of Harran was a sacred centre for the Binu Yamina coalition of tribes. One letter records an oath of alliance sworn in the temple to the moon god by all the Yaminite rulers and the kings of Zalmaqum. Both Ur and Harran had a long-standing connection with the worship of the moon god and both are referenced as points of departure for Abram and Lot. Harran became the home to their kin and was also Jacob’s destination when he flees to his mother’s family. The Genesis account may therefore provide another historical link to the Benu Yamina alliance through the placing of Abraham and Jacob’s family. [19]

Joseph’s fifth change of clothes.

During the seven years of plenty, the land produced in abundance. And he gathered all the grain of the seven years that the land of Egypt was enjoying and stored the grain in the cities. So Joseph collected produce in very large quantity, like the sands of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.

Genesis 41: 47-50.

Rabbinic tradition states that Joseph’s fifth change of clothes, the gaining of pharaoh’s signet ring from the kings own hand, his seal of office, brings about a series of mixed blessings:

Firstly; the acquisition of land by changing the system of land-tenure in Egypt. The famine being severe, the people first used up all their exchangeable goods in the purchase of corn, then they sold their cattle, and finally they gave up their land. Thus all the cultivated land in Egypt became the property of either the crown or the temple. The people farmed it for the king, giving him one-fifth of the produce. In effect, Joseph grabbed all the land for pharaoh and has a parallel theme to that of Jacob (grabby) taking his father-in- laws flock in Genesis 31. It wasn't that Jacob had taken anything belonging to Laban. Rather, it was that his wealth was increasing in proportion to Laban’s wealth. The problem wasn’t that Jacob stole; it was that Laban’s sons were filled with envy.

And so secondly, we have the conflict between the Egyptians and the Hebrews which resulted in the Israel’s subsequent departure. Again, rabbinic tradition states that the pharaoh “who did not know Joseph” was the same pharaoh that Joseph served during the years of feast and famine. After the famine had passed, pharaoh’s advisors became jealous of Joseph and turned the king against him. So starts the next chapter, the story of the Exodus.