Mishpatim, Ki Tavo, & Joshua: Writing and Reading

After Moses tells the Israelites God’s “Ten Commandments”, he goes back up Mount Sinai and listens to God proclaiming 48 or more additional rules (depending on how you count them)—four in last week’s Torah portion, Yitro, and at least 44 in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). The lengthy list includes religious observances, civil and criminal laws, and ethical guidelines.

Then Moses came and he reported to the people all the words of God and all the laws. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said: “The things that God has spoken, we will do!” (Exodus 24:3)

Apparently Moses has a phenomenal memory. And the Israelites are eager to obey all the orders he has passed on orally. But how will they remember these rules?

Moses speaks, writes, then reads

Then Moses wrote down all the words of God. And he got up early in the morning and he built an altar beneath the mountain, and twelve standing stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exodus 24:4)

The Covenant Confirmed, by John Steeple Davis, 1844-1917

What are “all the words of God” that Moses writes down at that point? The Torah does not say. I think the most reasonable inference is that Moses writes down the Ten Commandments and the 48 or so rules God has just given him. But according to Rashi,1 Moses wrote down the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus up to, but not including, the account of the revelation at Mount Sinai. Apparently he brought some parchment and ink with him from Egypt.

Then he took the seifer of the covenant and he read it out loud in the ears of the people. And they said: “Everything that God has spoken we will do and we will listen!” (Exodus 24:7)

seifer (סֵפֶר) = book (in scroll form), scroll, written document.

This time the Israelites respond with even more fervor, promising not only to obey God’s rules, but to listen to them, pay attention to them. Moses prepares a burnt offering on the altar, and splashes some of the blood on the people to seal their covenant with God.

After this, Moses follows another instruction from God, taking Aaron, two of Aaron’s sons, and seventy elders halfway up Mount Sinai. They get far enough to see God’s feet on a sapphire brickwork. (See my post Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something.)

Then Y-H-V-H said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you the stone tablets and the torah and the commandment that I have inscribed to instruct them.” (Exodus 24:12)

torah (תּוֹרָה) = teaching, instruction; law as a whole. (The word torah later came to mean the first five books of the bible.)

Moses and Joshua Climb Mt. Sinai, by James Tissot

Even God wants to create a written record for future reference.

And Moses took Joshua, his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God. And to the elders he said: “Wait for us here until we return to you …” (Exodus 24:13)

Moses takes Joshua with him. But the Torah reports only Moses entering the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai and staying inside it for forty days and forty nights.2 There God gives him lengthy instructions for building a sanctuary and ordaining priests. When Moses finally hikes back down with the two stone tablets, in the portion Ki Tisa, Joshua pops into the picture again.

And the tablets were God’s doing, and the writing was written by God, engraved on the tablets. Then Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, and he said to Moses: “A sound of war in the camp!” (Exodus 32:16-17) The Torah never says what Joshua was doing during those forty days, or exactly where he was on the mountain. God’s instructions in the cloud are addressed exclusively to Moses.

Joshua copies, then reads

Joshua remains Moses’ attendant until the end of the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses lays hands on him to make him the new leader of the Israelites, the one who will take them across the Jordan River into Canaan. Then God tells Moses:

“Here, the time draws near for [your] death. Call Joshua, and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, and I will give him orders.” (Deuteronomy 31:14)

There God speaks at length to Moses about the future of the Israelites, and teaches him a poem. Then God speaks to Joshua the first time:

And [God] commanded Joshua son of Nun, and said: “Be strong and resolute, because you yourself will bring the Israelites to the land that I promised to them, and I will be with you.” (Deuteronomy 31:23)

After Joshua hears this brief encouragement, Moses has more writing to do.

And Moses finished writing the words of this torah in the seifer until it was complete. (Deuteronomy 31: 24)

In the book of Joshua, God repeatedly gives Joshua instructions for the next step on his conquest of Canaan. But God does not tell him any new rules. Joshua faithfully carries out all the instructions he has received from both God and Moses.

Altar on Mt. Eyval, photo by Raymond Hawkins

When he reaches the two hills in front of Shekhem in Canaan, Eyval and Gerizim, he follows a set of orders Moses gave in the Torah portion Ki Tavo: writing on standing stones, then making offerings on an altar, then assembling the tribes on the two hills to say “Amen” after each curse or blessing the Levites call out.3 Moses started with the order to write on stones:

“Once you cross the Jordan to the land that Y-H-V-H, your God, is giving you, then you must erect large stones for yourselves and coat them with limewash. And you must write on the stones all the words of this torah …. You must erect these stones that I am commanding you about today on Mount Eyval …” (Deuteronomy 27:2-4)

All the words of which torah? The implication is that the Israelites should write down rules that Moses has passed down from God in the book of Deuteronomy—either all of them, or a subset. One logical selection would be the twelve curses that Moses then says the Levites should proclaim.

These curses are actually rules.  Each one begins “Cursed be anyone who—” and then states a deed that God forbids, such as making idols or accepting bribes. Eleven of the curses repeat rules that Moses has previously delivered. The twelfth is:

Cursed be one who does not uphold the words of this torah, to do them. And all the people shall say: Amen. (Deuteronomy 27:26)

Is “this torah” the instruction of the twelve curses, or what is written on the twelve stones?

When Joshua leads the Israelites to Mount Eyval, the priests are carrying the ark, which now contains the whole seifer Moses wrote. At first it sounds as if Joshua has the whole scroll copied onto the stones.

And [Joshua] wrote there, on the stones, a copy of the torah of Moses, that [Moses] had written in front of the Israelites. (Joshua 8:32)

But after Joshua conducts the ritual of curses and blessings, he reads out loud from Moses’ scroll.

And after that, he read aloud all the words of the torah, the blessing and the curse, out of all the writing in the seifer of the torah. There was not a word out of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read opposite the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and the little ones and the foreigners who went among them. (Joshua 8:34-35)

These two verses are difficult to interpret. At first it sounds as if Joshua is reading out the torah or teaching about the blessing and curse ritual they have just performed. But then it sounds as if Joshua reads the entire “seifer of the torah”, the record that Moses wrote at the foot of Mount Sinai in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, and subsequent additions. That scroll might take all day to read out loud.

The tradition of public readings of scrolls continued. In 2 Kings 22:8, the priests find a “seifer of the torah” when they are repairing the temple in Jerusalem. King Josiah summons all the people of Judah to listen to him read it out loud. Then he swears that his people will observe all of the commandments and laws in it. They do not respond with “Everything that God has spoken we will do and we will listen!” the way the people did at Mount Sinai. Nor do they say “Amen” then way the people did at Mount Eyval. Their response is positive, but muted:

And all the people stood up for the covenant. (2 Kings 23:3)

For more than two thousand years, Jews have been reading out loud from a seifer torah hand-lettered on a parchment scroll. Everyone who comes to services watches the scroll being unrolled, and hears someone chant all or part of that week’s portion in Hebrew. In the course of a year, the seifer torah is chanted from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy.4 And those who do not know Hebrew can follow along by reading a translation.

For Moses and Joshua, the advantage of a written record is that it can be read out loud later. The assumption is that people will learn God’s rules better if they hear them—repeatedly.

I know that today some people absorb information better by listening, while others absorb it better by reading it. I hope someday to accompany my blog posts with podcasts in which I read my own writing aloud. But I am no Moses, so this project will have to wait until I finish rewriting my book on ethics in Genesis.

There are other texts that everyone should be familiar with. For example, the United States still uses an amended version of its original constitution. Many Americans refer to the authority of the constitution without knowing what it actually says. It is easy to find a written copy of this document, but I believe it should be taught in schools again, article by article, amendment by amendment, along with some of the various interpretations. And maybe we should even read it out loud in public once a year, just so everyone will know the source text that inflames such passions today.

  1. 11th-century rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the most quoted classic Jewish commentator.
  2. Exodus 24:15-18.
  3. See my blog post Ki Tavo: Making It Clear.
  4. But some Jewish communities follow a tradition of reading a third of each Torah portion each week, so the five-books of the Torah are completed over the course of three years.

Yitro & Bereishit: Don’t Even Touch It

Finally, after walking through the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula for two and a half months, the Israelites and their fellow-travelers arrive at Mount Sinai, where Moses first encountered God.1

They camp at the foot of the mountain, and Moses climbs up and down four times in this week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23). On each trip, he gets instructions from God at the top, and reports them to the people below.

Mount Sinai, by Elijah Walton, 19th century

The second time Moses climbs up, God tells him:

“Here I am, coming to you in a thick canopy of cloud, so that the people will hear my words along with you, and also [so that] they will trust you forever!” (Exodus/Shemot 19:9)

No one will be able to see God, but all the people will hear God’s words—an extraordinary phenomena.

And God said to Moses: “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. And they must wash their clothes. And they must be ready for the third day, because on the third day, God will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of the people. And you must set boundaries for the people all around [the mountain], saying: Guard yourselves against going up on the mountain, or negoa its outskirts.  Anyone hanogeia the mountain must definitely die.” (Exodus19:10-12)

negoa(נְגוֹעַ) = touching. (A form of the verb naga, נָגַע = touched, reached.)

hanogeia ( הַנֺּגֵעַ) = who is touching. (Another form of naga.)

One might think that if God touched the top of Mount Sinai, any human who touched the bottom of it would automatically die, as if the whole mountain were electrified. But then God clarifies that anyone (except Moses) who dares to touch the mountain while God’s presence rests on it must be executed. And the people must perform the execution without touching the offender.

“A hand lo tiga him! Because he must definitely be stoned or shot; if a beast or if a man, he must not live. When [there is] a protracted sound of a ran’s horn, they may go up on the mountain.”  (Exodus19:13)

lo tiga (לֺא תִגַּע) = it may not touch. (Another form of naga.)

All the people have to be clean and consecrated before they can safely hear God’s voice coming from the cloud that lands on Mount Sinai. But even in this condition, they cannot see God. And touching the mountain while God is on top is taboo. Like some other taboos in the bible, this one is communicable by touch.2

Don’t go up Mount Sinai, God commands. Don’t even touch it! Don’t even touch someone who touches it!

Touching the Tree of Knowledge

The order not to touch the mountain reminds me of the conversation between the snake and Eve in the garden of Eden. Both God in Exodus, and Eve in Genesis, say that death is the penalty for touching something holy.

The snake speaks first in the first Torah portion of Genesis, Bereishit (Genesis 1:1-6:8).

He said to the woman: “Did God really say you should not eat from any tree of the garden?” And the woman said to the snake: “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden. But as for fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said: ‘You must not eat from it, and lo tigeu, lest you die.’” (Genesis/Bereishit 3:1-3)

lo tigeu (לֺא תִגְּעוּ) = you must not touch it. (Another form of naga.)

Eve, by Lucan Cranach the Elder, 1528

In Genesis, God orders the primordial human not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the garden.3 But God says nothing about touching or not touching the tree. Although God delivered the original order to the one primordial human being, before it was divided into male and female, there is no reason why the female human would not remember it. Maybe she simply added “and you must not touch it” on the spur of the moment.

Why? The classic commentary suggested that she was “making a fence around the Torah”: protecting herself from accidentally violating God’s actual prohibition by avoiding doing something that could lead to the violation.4 (One of the more famous examples of a fence around the Torah is the rule in many orthodox Jewish communities that bans turning on a stove or an electric light on Shabbat. If you feel free to make heat and light, you might forget the biblical prohibition against lighting a fire on Shabbat.5)

At first glance, a rule to avoid touching the Tree of Knowledge seems like a reasonable fence. If Eve does not get close enough to that tree to touch it, she will not be able to eat its fruit. Yet after further conversation with the snake, she transgresses both her own fence and God’s order.

Bereishit Rabbah, a fifth-century collection of commentary, adds some action and dialogue to the biblical story: “Rabbi Chiyya taught: That means that you must not make the fence more than the principal thing … When the serpent saw her exaggerating in this manner, he grabbed her and pushed her against the tree. ‘So, have you died?’ he asked her. ‘Just as you were not stricken when you touched it, so will you not die when you eat from it.’”6 According to Bereishit Rabbah, if the fence seems too important (in this case because Eve claims touching the tree carries a death penalty), then once you break the fence, it feels insignificant to break the original command as well.

Touching Mount Sinai

In Exodus, on the other hand, God tells Moses that the people may not climb Mount Sinai on the day that God will descend, and God also says the people may not touch the mountain until the signal of the sound of a ram’s horn. Both prohibitions, against climbing and against touching, come from God. God makes the fence.

What is the reason for it? 16th-century rabbi Ovadiah Sforno wrote that some people might have been so eager to catch a glimpse of God, they would trample the boundary markers and run up the mountain. The death penalty was a deterrent.

19th-century rabbi Samson R. Hirsch wrote that one reason for the two prohibitions was to make the people realize they were nowhere near Moses’ spiritual level. This seems plausible to me, since God tells Moses that after the people hear God speak from the cloud on the mountaintop, they will trust Moses forever (Exodus 19:9, above). Recognizing Moses’ high spiritual level—or closeness to God—would help to foster this trust.

Another reason, Hirsch wrote, was: “The distinction between the people about to receive the Torah, and the Source from which they are to receive it, is underscored also in terms of physical separation.”7

The realm of ordinary people at the foot of the mountain is mundane. The realm of Mount Sinai is the realm of God and God’s teachings.8 Only God’s prophet, Moses, goes back and forth between the two realms.9

There is also a practical reason for prohibiting both climbing and touching Mount Sinai on the day of revelation: the mountain becomes a dangerous place.

And it was the third day, in the morning, and there was thunder and impressive lightning on the mountain, and a very loud sound of a ram’s horn … And Mount Sinai was all in smoke from the presence of God that came down on it in fire, and its smoke rose like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shuddered violently. (Exodus 19:16-18)

Vesuvius in Eruption, by J.M.W. Turner, 1817-1820, detail

Thus the prohibition against getting close enough to touch the bottom of Mt. Sinai is a reasonable fence around the prohibition against climbing the mountain—which, in turn, is a fence around the prohibition against attempting to look and see God.

Nobody breaks the fence. Moses leads the people to the foot of the mountain, but they cannot bear to get any closer. They are already seeing too much, experiencing synesthesia.

Then all the people were seeing the thunderclaps and the flames and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance. And they said to Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen. But may God not speak to us, or else we will die!”  (Exodus 20:15-16).

The people back  away from the supernatural volcano. No fences, with or without death sentences, are needed to keep them at a distance.

I have heard people say they wish they could experience a miracle like seeing God’s voice at Mount Sinai.  Personally, I think a miracle like that would terrify me as much as it terrified the Israelites and their fellow-travelers.  I am grateful that, by the grace of God, my own numinous experiences have been only gentle intimations.

Sometimes there is no question that we will follow a rule, because we want to follow it with all our heard and soul.  But sometimes we recognize that a rule is a good idea, yet we have no emotional investment in it. That is when we need a fence around the rule to keep us on track.

  1. At the burning bush in Exodus 3:1-4:17. The “mountain of God” is called Mount Choreiv in some passages and Mount Sinai in others, since the book of Exodus was redacted from more than one original source.
  2. For example, when someone who have been in contact with a corpse is ritually purified by being sprinkled with water containing the ashes of a pure red heifer, the person who does the sprinkling has to wash his clothes and wait until nightfall to return to a state of ritual purity. While the sprinkler waits, “Anything that he touches is impure, and the person who touches him will be impure until nightfall.” (Leviticus 19:19:22)
  3. Genesis 2:17.
  4. The phrase “Make a fence around the Torah” originated in Pirkei Avot 1:1, a compendium of rabbinic advice composed around 200 C.E.
  5. Exodus 35:3.
  6. Bereishit Rabbah 19:3, translated by www.sefaria.org.
  7. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemos, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, copyright 2005, p. 322.
  8. Torah (תּוֹרָה) = instruction, teachings; divine law; the first five books of the bible; all instructions in the Hebrew Bible.
  9. In Exodus 19:24, God tells Moses to go down and bring his brother Aaron up to the top of Mount Sinai, but this request is not followed up in the text; the Ten Commandments are delivered instead. On another day, Aaron climbs partway up Mount Sinai, along with two of his sons and 70 elders (Exodus 24:9-14), but only Moses and his attendant Joshua complete the trip to the top.

Bo & Beshalach: Winds

A plague of locusts descended on Egypt in last week’s Torah portion, Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16). A swarm of Egyptian charioteers pursues the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16). Both the locusts and the charioteers are frightening in their numbers and  destructiveness—and the God character controls both hordes with winds, to spectacular effect.

Locust winds

The eighth of the ten plagues the God character creates in Egypt is a plague of locusts that eat all the vegetation remaining after the previous plagues.

And Moses held out his staff over the land of Egypt, and God guided a ruach kadim through the land all that day and all the night. And in the morning the ruach hakadim carried in the locust swarms. And the locusts went up over the whole land of Egypt and settled down very heavily throughout the territory of Egypt. There were no locust swarms just like it before, and there will be none after. (Exodus 10:13-14)

ruach (רוּחַ) = wind; spirit, disposition, mood.

ruach kadim (רוּחַ קָדִים), ruach hakadim (רוּחַ הַקָּדִים) = wind from the east; dry east wind.

Actual desert locusts in northern Africa and southwestern Asia (Schistocera gregaria) breed in areas where there has been sufficient rainfall (to moisten the ground for egg-laying) and vegetation (for the larvae to eat). The breeding grounds in the early spring, when the locust plague in Exodus occurs (see map above) are different from the breeding grounds in summer. Adult locusts congregate into swarms when there is enough vegetation. They can fly short distances, but for long distances they take advantage of winds, catching a ride only on warm, relatively humid winds. Locust swarms from winter and spring breeding grounds around the Red Sea would need to catch a warm wind from the south to southeast to reach Egypt to the north.1

So why does the Torah say the wind that carries the locusts into Egypt is a ruach kadim, a dry east wind? One theory is that the Israelite wrote down this story was thinking in terms of winds in Canaan or Judah. When a wind brings disaster there, it is a dry wind from the eastern desert.

The God character ends the plague of locusts by changing the direction of the wind.

And God turned around a very strong ruach yam, and it lifted the locusts and blew them toward the Yam Suf. Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt. (Exodus 10:19)

yam (יָם) = sea, Mediterranean Sea; west.

ruach yam (רוּחַ יָם) = wind from the sea; wind from the west.

suf (סוּף) = reed, reeds, water plants.

Yam Suf (יָם סוּף) = Sea of Reeds; Red Sea.

If the God character reverses the wind from the southeast, it becomes a wind from the northwest. A strong wind coming down from the Mediterranean northwest of Egypt would indeed blow locust swarms in Egypt back toward the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds.

The important point in the book of Exodus is that God controls the locust plague, bringing the devouring swarms into Egypt with one wind, and removing them with another.

The Hebrew Bible also uses the word for wind, ruach, to refer to someone’s mental spirit, ranging from calm wisdom  to insane jealousy or rage. And in the land of Canaan, dry desert winds were dangerous because they stripped crops, dried up ponds, and made people sick. Moist winds from the Mediterranean left dew in the morning that helped keep plants alive during the summer.

So a ruach kadim could be someone’s bad attitude or a dangerous mood—which plagues any people nearby like a swarm of locusts. A ruach yam could represent someone’s pleasant and kindly spirit, which gives others comfort and relief.

Chariot winds

Pharaoh lets the Israelites leave Egypt after God’s final plague, the death of the firstborn.2 On the second day of their exodus from Egypt, just when they thought they were free, the God character makes Pharaoh change his mind. God tells Moses:

“I will strengthen Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them. Then I will be honored by Pharaoh and by all his forces, and the Egyptians will know that I am God.” (Exodus 14:5)

The God character in this part of Exodus cannot resist staging one more dramatic miracle to drive the point home that the God of Israel is more powerful than any other.3

And the Egyptians chased after them and caught up with them [when they were] encamped on the yam, all of Pharaoh’s chariot horses and riders and his army … (Exodus 14:9)

The Israelites panic when they see charioteers approaching, but God halts the action for the night.  The supernatural pillar of cloud and fire that has led the Israelites to the shore of the Sea of Reeds circles around their camp and stands between them and the Egyptians, so they cannot get any closer.4

Then Moses held out his hand over the yam, and God made the yam go with a strong  ruach kadim all night, and [God] made the yam dry up, and the waters split. Then the Israelites came through the middle of the yam on dry ground … (Exodus 14:21-22)

When a strong east wind blows into Egypt or Israel, the air is so dry that ponds can evaporate and shallow lakes can shrink in an afternoon. Blowing sand increases the effect. Was the biblical Yam Suf shallow enough so a strong east wind could expose part of its bed–enough for people and livestock to walk across on the mud?

Yes, if two or more of the lakes between the Sinai peninsula and Egypt proper were connected during Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty, as some scholars claim. No, if it was the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, as other scholars believe.

If Yam Suf refers to the Red Sea, the water would be too deep for an east wind to dry out a path across it. But the narrative gives two different accounts of the depth of the yam before God parted it. First it describes an east wind drying up the sea. Then the narrator says:

Then the Israelites came through the middle of the yam on dry ground, and the waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left. (Exodus 14:22)

Many of us picture walls of water rising almost vertically from the dry sea bed, as in this illustration:

The Waters Are Divided, by James J.J. Tissot, 1896-1902

An east wind drying up part of a shallow lake does not make walls of water. But after the Egyptian army has drowned, the Israelites on the other side rejoice by singing an ancient song or poem. (We know Exodus 15:1-18 dates to a much earlier time than the narrative because the Hebrew is older.) In this poem, the wind comes not from the east, but from God’s nose. And instead of exposed mud at the bottom of a shallow sea, the deep waters congeal or freeze solid.

And by a ruach from your nostrils the waters piled up;

            The watercourses stood up like a dam.

            The deeps congealed in the heart of the yam. (Exodus 15:8)

Nevertheless, whoever wrote the narrative that precedes this poem knew about harsh, dry east winds, and therefore could easily imagine walking across dry ground in the middle of a sea.

If the “Sea of Reeds” is a shallow salt lake, the miracle would lie in the inability of the Egyptians to follow the Israelites an hour or two later.

This week’s Torah portion says that the Egyptian charioteers followed the Israelites as far as the middle of the sea—on dry ground that was probably still muddy—and then were drowned by the sudden return of the water.

Then God made the wheels of their chariots fall off, and they moved laboriously. And the Egyptians said: “Let me flee from before Israel, because God is fighting for them against Egypt!” Then God said to Moses: “Hold out your hand over the yam, and the waters will come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and over their riders!” And Moses held out his hand over the yam, and the yam came back to its normal position. And the Egyptians were fleeing from meeting it, but God shook the Egyptians off (their chariots) in the middle of the yam. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the riders and all Pharaoh’s soldiers coming in after them into the yam; not one of them remained. (Exodus 14:25-28)

The Egyptians Are Destroyed, by James J.J. Tissot, 1896-1902

The narrative does not say how God made the waters return to their normal level so quickly. But the poem that follows it says:

You blew with your ruach; the yam covered them;

            They sank like lead in the majestic waters. (Exodus 15:10)

The ancient poem tells us the wind from God’s nostrils opens a path through the sea and closes it again. The later narrative says God summons an east wind to expose the sea bed, and then makes the waters return through some unknown means.

Either way, the Yam Suf opens or closes according to God’s whim. And the word ruach can mean mood or spirit as well as wind. In the Torah portion Beshalach, the God character rescues the Israelites and drowns the Egyptians in a spirit of pride and determination to demonstrate superior power.

In the story of the plague of locusts, the God character dooms all the innocent people who stay in Egypt to a year of famine. In the story of crossing the Sea of Reeds, God dooms the army unit that pursues the Israelites to instant death.

But the God character’s objectives are achieved. The Israelites are free to march on to Canaan, and both the Egyptians and the Israelites know God is supreme.

And Israel saw the great power that God used against Egypt, and the people feared God and had faith in God and in [God’s] servant Moses. (Exodus 14:31)

Imagine you were an anthropological god and you wanted to rescue a downtrodden ethnic group from one country, motivate it to travel to another country, and make it the ruling class there. Could you formulate a proposal that killed fewer innocent people than the divine plan in Exodus?

  1. World Meteorological Organization, “Weather and Desert Locusts”, https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=3213#:~:text. In the book of Exodus, the last four plagues take place in the early spring.
  2. Exodus 12:29-32.
  3. See my post: Va-eira: Pride and Ethics.
  4. See my post: Beshalach: Pillar of Cloud and Fire.

Bo: Eyes and Swarms

Ten “plagues”, or devastating miracles, destroy the land of Egypt bit by bit in the book of Exodus, until the pharaoh finally acknowledges the God character’s superior power and gives the Israelites unconditional permission to leave. Last week’s Torah portion, Va-eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35), ends with the seventh plague: hail. (See my post: Va-eira: Hail That Failed.)

Desert locust: Schistocera gregaria

The eighth plague, locusts,1 opens this week’s Torah portion, Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16). First Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh:

“Thus says Y-H-V-H, the god of the Hebrews: How long do you refuse to humble yourself before me? Release my people so they will serve me! Because if you refuse to release my people, here I am, bringing arbeh in your territory tomorrow!” (Exodus/Shemot 10:3-4)

arbeh (אַרְבֶּה) = locust swarm(s); the desert locust Schistocera gregaria.

Then they deliver a practical threat and two frightening images. The practical threat is that the plague of locusts will devour every green thing in Egypt left after the hail, leaving the human population without food.2

Before and after the practical threat, Moses and Aaron transmit God’s frightening images.

Eyes, up and down

The first image conjures blindness, like the plague of darkness that will follow the locust plague.

“And it [the locust  swarm] will conceal the ayin of the land, and nobody will be able to see the land …” (Exodus 10:5)

ayin (עַיִן) = eye; view; spring or fountain.

After Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites leave, the locust plague does exactly that.

And it concealed the ayin of the whole land, and it darkened the land and ate up all the green plants of the land and all the produce of the trees that the hail had left. Then nothing remained, nothing green remained on the trees or in the plants of the field, in the whole land of Egypt. (Exodus 10:15)

What does the word ayin mean in this story? The Hebrew Bible frequently uses ayin (most often in its duplex form, eynayim, עֵינַיִם = pair of eyes) to mean “view” or “sight”. Therefore many classic commentators assumed the Torah meant that the view of the land was blocked by the hordes of locusts. After all, the first reference to “the ayin of the land” is immediately followed by “nobody will be able to see the land”. If the locust swarms blanket every surface when they land, it would be as impossible to see through them as it is to see through the total darkness the Egyptians experience in the ninth plague.

On the other hand, the phrase “the ayin of the land” occurs only three times in the Hebrew Bible: twice in this week’s Torah portion (see above), and once in Numbers 22:5 (see below). According to contemporary commentator Gary Rendsburg, the rarity of this phrase means it is probably an adaptation of a common Egyptian phrase, “the eye of Ra”, which referred to either the sun (since Ra was the sun god) or the land of Egypt (which belonged to Ra). He wrote that Onkelos, who translated the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic in the second century C.E., inserted the word for “sun” in both phrases: “… ‘the eye of the sun of the land’ in 10:5 and … ‘the eye of the sun of the whole land’ in 10:15.”  Rendsburg suggested that Israelite readers would understand that the plague of locusts caused “the worst possible chain of events for the Egyptian nation, the disappearance of their omnipresent sun-god Ra”.3

Then what about the phrase “it darkened the land” in the second reference to “the ayin of the land”? When a locust swarm is in the air, it would not only block anyone underneath it from seeing the sun above, but also cast a broad shadow. According to Chizkuni,4 the shade cast by the swarm darkens the earth below.

Locust swarm, photo by James Wainscoat

However, the context of the only other biblical appearance of the phrase “the ayin of the land” refers to a swarm or horde on the ground. In the book of Numbers/Bemidbar. Balak, the king of Moab, is alarmed because Moses has led a horde of Israelites north from Egypt, and they are encamped on the border of his country. This king says to his advisors:

“Now the throng will lick bare everything around us like an ox licks bare the grass of the field!” (Numbers 22:4)

This is the behavior of locusts on the ground eating up the vegetation, not of locusts on the wing blocking the sun. King Balak then sends a message to the prophet-sorcerer Bilam, saying:

“Here are people [who] left Egypt, and hey! They conceal the ayin of the land, and they are living next to me! So now please come and put a curse on this people, because they are too strong for me …” (Numbers 22:5-6)

In other words, Balak sees the Israelites covering the ground like a giant swarm of locusts; and like locusts they are powerful because of sheer numbers.

Swarms: inside and out

Plague of Locusts, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

After the practical warning that the coming locust swarms will consume Egypt’s entire food supply, Moses and Aaron transmit a second frightening image to Pharaoh—one that conjures an gruesomely intimate invasion.

“And they will fill your houses, and the houses of all your courtiers, and the houses of all Egyptians …” (Exodus 10:6) 

It is not the first such invasion in the contest between the God character and Pharaoh. Before the second plague, frogs, God orders Moses to tell Pharaoh:

“And the Nile will swarm with frogs, and they will go up and come into your palace and your bedroom and climb into your bed, and go up into your courtiers’ houses and your people’s, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls.” (Exodus 7:28)

The fourth plague is arov, עָרֹב = swarms of insects (traditional translation), mixed vermin (translation based on the fact that the root ערב means “mixture”). Again God says:

“… and the arov will fill the houses of the Egyptians, and even the ground they stand on.” (Exodus 8:17)

Swarms of unpleasant animals are bad enough outside. Being unable to escape them even inside your own personal space is a horrifying invasion.

The plague of locusts both signals the coming plague of darkness, and echoes the earlier plagues of frogs and swarms of vermin. It also completes the destruction of Egypt, by eliminating the last sources of food. After Moses and Aaron warn Pharaoh about the locust plague,

Pharaoh’s courtiers said to him: “How long will this one be a snare for us? Release the men so they will serve Y-H-V-H, their god! Don’t you know yet that Egypt is lost?” (Exodus 10:7)

Locusts feeding, photo by Compton Tucker, NASA

Pharaoh is so invested in his power struggle with God and Moses that he is past the point of caring whether his country is lost. But his courtiers have a different motivation. The first seven plagues have already ensured the economic downfall of Egypt; the loss of more crops will only mean that landowners lose more wealth as they feed their people during the coming famine. They have nothing to prove about who has more power. Some of Pharaoh’s courtiers have already acknowledged God’s power by bringing in their field slaves and livestock before the seventh plague, hail.5

So why do Pharaoh’s courtiers beg him to let the Israelites go? Probably because they cannot bear the thought of one more plague, especially a plague that will blot out their sight of the sun and the ground, and will once again invade even their bedrooms.

Over the past twenty years I have had problems I could deal with, and two persistent troubles that drove me crazy because I felt constantly under attack from well-meaning people who could not understand me and would not leave me alone. I was plagued by their incessant arguments and their refusals to accommodate me. These plagues darkened my life so I despaired of seeing sunlight. They invaded my home because I had to keep returning their phone calls. All I wanted was to be free of them.

I cut myself loose from one plague by resigning from my position. At the time, it seemed as hard for me to give up on that part of my life as it was for Pharaoh to give up and let the Israelites go. I waited out the other plague until my unwitting tormenter died. In that case, I was more like Pharaoh’s courtiers, whose power was limited.

Now that I am free, I hope that if I see another plague coming, I will be able to cut my losses right away. But I also pray that I will have empathy for others who suffer from unrelenting troubles. It is painfully hard to make a major change to improve your life, especially when you can see no illumination, and you have no safe place of refuge.

  1. When a wind brings multiple swarms of desert locusts into the same large region, it is still called a “plague” of locusts. (World Meteorological Organization, “Weather and Desert Locusts”, https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=3213#:~:text)
  2. Exodus 10:5.
  3. Gary Rendsburg, “YHWH’s War Against the Egyptian Sun-God Ra”, https://www.thetorah.com/article/yhwhs-war-against-the-egyptian-sun-god-ra.
  4. Chizkuni is a compilation of Torah commentary and insights written by 13th-century Rabbi Hezekiah ben Manoah.
  5. Exodus 9:13-26. See my post: Va-eira: Hail That Failed.

Va-eira: Hail That Failed

Is it ethical to harm or even kill innocent people? The liberal answer is no. Someone with more traditional morality might answer: no … unless you need to do it for the sake of your own people, whose welfare comes first.

In terms of either answer, the God of Israel and the pharaoh of Egypt are unethical in this week’s Torah portion, Va-eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35).

The God character wants the Israelites to walk out of Egypt and serve God as the new rulers of the land of Canaan. The pharaoh character wants the Israelites to stay in Egypt as forced labor making bricks and building cities for him. The God character also wants to be acknowledged as the most powerful force in the world, while the pharaoh wants to keep every iota of power he already has.1

Following God’s instructions, Moses repeatedly offers Pharaoh what sounds like a compromise: that Pharaoh give the Israelites a three-day vacation to hold a festival for their God in the wilderness.2 (Meanwhile Moses informs the Israelites that the real goal is a new life in a different country.) Pharaoh refuses, and the God character responds by devastating Egypt with a series of “plagues”: miraculous disasters. The plagues devastate the country and harm or kill human beings, including both the Israelite immigrants God has adopted, and Pharaoh’s native Egyptians.

The Ten Plagues, Erlangen Haggadah, by Judah Pinchas, 1747

Before the seventh plague, hail, God tells Moses to pass on this information to Pharaoh:

“For by now shalachti my hand, and you, you and your people, would be wiped off the earth by bubonic plague. However, on account of this I have let you stand: to show you my power, so that my name will be made known over all the earth.” (Exodus 9:15-16)

shalachti (שָׁלַחְתִּי) = I could have sent forth, I could have released. (A kal form of the verb shalach, שָׁלַח = sent, let go. Throughout this week’s Torah portion, forms of the verb shalach are used both when God releases a plague, and when Moses and Pharaoh talk about releasing, or not releasing, the Israelites.)

In other words, God is refraining from simply killing every native Egyptian. The purpose of sending one plague after another is to spread the word about God’s awesome power, and to eventually make Pharaoh so terrified that he gives in and lets the Israelites go out into the wilderness.

Pharaoh’s strategy is to keep refusing to give the Israelites permission to go. He assumes they would never leave Egypt without his permission, probably because then his army would kill them.3

Plague of Death of the Firstborn, Erlangen Haggadah, by Judah Pinchas, 1747

So much is at stake that neither of the God character nor the pharaoh is willing to stop them. Only after the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, does Pharaoh concede defeat.

Yet these entrenched enemies soften their positions briefly in this week’s Torah portion, in the story of the seventh plague: hail.

Ethics of a god

The first three plagues in the book of Exodus/Shemot afflict everyone in Egypt indiscriminately. When God turns the Nile into blood, the Israelites as well as the native Egyptians are affected by the shortage of both drinking water and fish.4 The second plague, frogs, and the third, lice, also affect everyone in Egypt without exception.

Then the God-character seems to notice that his demonstrations of power are causing suffering to the people he plans to rescue. Before the fourth plague, swarms of mixed vermin, God declares that all the Egyptians will be affected, but the region occupied by Israelites, Goshen, will be vermin-free.5

The Israelites also get a divine exemption from the fifth plague, cattle disease; the ninth plague, darkness; and the tenth, death of the firstborn. (Through the oversight of either the narrator or the God character, no exception is mentioned for the sixth plague, boils, nor for the eighth plague, locusts.)

The seventh plague, hail, is a unique case. No hail falls on Goshen, where the Israelites live. But this time God gives some of the Egyptians a chance to reduce their losses ahead of time. God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh and his court:

“Here I will be, about this time tomorrow, raining down a very heavy hail, the like of which has never been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. So now, shelach your livestock and everything in the field that is yours! Every human and beast that is found in the field and has not been gathered into [its] house, the hail will descend upon them and they will die.” (Exodus 9:18-19)

shelach (שְׁלַח) = Send! Send in! (Another kal form of shalach.)

Perhaps God is testing Pharaoh to see whether he rejects everything God says, not just the demand to give the Israelites a three-day leave of absence. Pharaoh is stubborn and does not issue any orders about his own livestock or field slaves.

Plague of Hail, Erlangen Haggadah, by Judah Pinchas, 1747

But everyone in the audience hall hears God’s advice regarding the coming hailstorm, and some of Pharaoh’s courtiers act on it.

Whoever feared the word of God among the servants of Pharaoh had his slaves and his beasts flee into the houses. But whoever did not pay attention to the word of God left his slaves and his beasts in the field. (Exodus 9:20-21)

The hail still destroys the barley and flax crops and shatters trees throughout all of Egypt—except Goshen, where the Israelites live.6 This means a loss for even the God-fearing landowners, since all Egyptians now face a future shortage of food (barley and fruit) and clothing (linen from flax). The hail also kills or injures the slaves of the Egyptian landowners who ignored God’s warning and left them out in their fields along with the livestock.

The God character must notice that some of Pharaoh’s courtiers now believe in the power of the God of Israel. This is progress on God’s agenda of becoming known as the supreme deity. An ethical and intelligent deity would now devise a way to exempt every Egyptian who fears the God of Israel from the suffering and death that will be caused by the last three plagues.

But God’s lenience preceding the seventh plague does not last. The three plagues in next week’s Torah portion, Bo, affect all Egyptians without exception. The tenth and final plague kills the firstborn son of everyone in Egypt who does not paint blood on the doorframe of their house—and God does not tell anyone but the Israelites about this sign.

And it was the middle of the night, and God struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, to all the first-born of the livestock. (Exodus 12:29)

For the plague of hail, God experimented with mitigating the damage to Egyptians who feared God. But the final and most horrible plague punishes all Egyptians, even those who are eager to let the Israelites leave.

Ethics of a king

During the first six plagues, Pharaoh makes two false promises to let the Israelites go, but breaks them as soon as the plagues are removed.7 He does not express any guilt over the devastation to his country and its people.

But he appears to have a change of heart during the seventh plague, hail.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said to them: “I am guilty this time. God is the righteous one and I and my people are the wicked ones. Plead to God that there will be no more of God’s thunder and hail, va-ashalchah you, and you will not continue to stay.” (Exodus 9:27-28)

va-ashalchah (וַאֲשַׁלְּחָה) = and I will send away, let go, set free. (A piel form of the verb shalach.)

Plague of Hail, Golden Haggadah, Spanish, ca. 1320

Only here and during the eighth plague, locusts, does Pharaoh say he is guilty. When the hail is pummeling the land, he qualifies his confession in two telling ways. He classifies his people as well as himself as “wicked” even though so far, only Pharaoh and his taskmasters have harmed the Israelites. And he says he is guilty “this time”, ignoring the previous six times he refused to release the Israelites.

Does Pharaoh really believe he acted unethically? Or is he just saying so in the hope that a little groveling will help to get the plague of hail removed?

After all, Moses has not been frank with Pharaoh. So far he has kept repeating God’s request that the pharaoh give the Israelites three days off to worship their God in the wilderness. Pharaoh, by adding “and you will not continue to stay”, hints for the first time that he suspects the truth: if the Israelites got a three-day head start, they would not return to Egypt. Both Moses and Pharaoh hide their true agendas.

This week’s Torah portion ends:

And Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ended. Then he added to his guilt, and his heart was unmoved,8 his and his courtiers’. And Pharaoh’s heart hardened, and he did not shilach the Israelites, as Hashem had spoken through Moses. (Exodus 9:34-35)

shilach (שִׁלַּח) = let loose, let go, sent away. (Another piel form of the verb shalach.)

It is the narrator who says Pharaoh “added to his guilt” by being hard-hearted and refusing to let the Israelites go. Pharaoh himself is no longer talking about guilt. He has returned to his stubborn refusal to recognize that he cannot win against God. And Pharaoh’s courtiers stand with him this time.

By now Pharaoh knows that every time he refuses to release the Israelites another plague strikes Egypt. Perhaps during the hail he realizes that he, too, bears some responsibility and guilt for the damage the plagues have done. But then he returns to making  his own status as Egypt’s absolute ruler his top priority. He does not free the Israelites until the plague of the firstborn kills his own son and heir.

Both God and Pharaoh soften briefly during the story of the plague of hail. The God character enables the Egyptian landowners who take God seriously to protect some of their property. Pharaoh entertains the idea that he is wrong to prioritize his pride and his free labor over the health and safety of his own Egyptian citizens. Yet this softening quickly vanishes without leading to a moral improvement in either character.

It is easy to keep on angling to get what you want, regardless of the consequences for anyone else. I have acted that way myself, until I realized the damage I was doing and repented.

But some individuals are too narcissistic to feel compassion and repent. Occasionally a narcissist says or does something that appears to be kind and compassionate but, as I know from personal experience, this temporary kindness may be only a ploy to win favor. When push comes to shove, narcissists will harden again, because nothing is more important than their own agendas.

The book of Exodus paints the characters of both God and Pharaoh as narcissistic. Nevertheless, people still enjoy a story about a battle between two superpowers, regardless of the collateral damage in human lives.

But in our own lives, may we remember to look and see whether we are harming others as we pursue our own agendas. And may we protect ourselves, and others, from narcissists who cannot see the harm they do.

And may we not confuse God with the narcissistic God character in the book of Exodus.

  1. See my post Bo: Pride and Ethics.
  2. Exodus 5:1-3, 7:16, 8:21-24, 10:9-11, 10:24-26.
  3. Pharaoh and his charioteers do pursue the Israelites in Exodus 14:6-10 after Pharaoh changes his mind about letting them go.
  4. Exodus 7:20-24.
  5. Exodus 8:17-8:18.
  6. Exodus 9:16, 9:25, 9:31.
  7. Pharaoh promises to let the Israelites go during the plague of frogs in Exodus 8:4 and backs out in Exodus 8:11. He promises during the plague of vermin in Exodus 8:21 and 8:24 and backs out in Exodus 8:28.
  8. The Hebrew reads: vayakhebeid libo (וַיַּכְבֵּד לִבּוֹ) = and his heart was heavy. In English, the idiom “heavy heart” means sadness. But in Biblical Hebrew, a “heavy heart” is unmoved or immovable.

Shemot: Demagogue

Demagogue (noun): a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Egypt has too many immigrants! says the pharaoh says at the beginning of the book of Exodus, in the Torah portion Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1). If the immigrant population increases any more, we’re in trouble!

“Hey, the Israelite people are countless, more numerous than we are! Come, let us use our wits, or else they will increase. Then it will happen that war will be proclaimed against us, and [these people] will actually join our enemies and make war against us, then go up from the land!” (Exodus/Shemot 1:9-10)

Semites visiting Egypt, Tomb of Knumhotep II, c. 1900 BCE

A few centuries before, in the book of Genesis, a pharaoh appreciated Joseph’s service so much he invited Jacob’s clan of 70 people to migrate from Canaan to Egypt. Now they have so many descendants that some of the native Egyptians are nervous. The pharaoh escalates their fears by predicting both that the Israelites will rise against the Egyptians, and that they will leave Egypt and, presumably, stop contributing to its economy.

Today demagogues in many western nations spread the notion that immigrants and their descendants will take away jobs, use up public resources, and change the culture of the country. Why did the pharaoh at the beginning of the book of Exodus raise the specter of civil war instead?

The scenario the pharaoh describes in this week’s Torah portion may have actually happened when a Semitic people called the Hyksos conquered northern Egypt and ruled it from 1638 to 1530 B.C.E.. A recent analysis of teeth found in skeletons in the remains of Aravis, their capital in the Nile delta, indicates that the Hyksos came from an established immigrant community within Egypt.1

Ramesses II capturing enemies, c. 1250 BCE

None of the pharaohs in the book of Exodus are named, but the first one to speak is sometimes identified with Ramesses II, who ruled in 1279–1213 B.C.E. and built a new capital city, Pi-Ramesses, near the old site of Avaris. During his reign Canaan was a colony of the Egyptian Empire, populated by Semites but controlled by Egyptian administrators and soldiers. Nevertheless, historical memory of the Hyksos might have haunted Egyptians.

After fomenting fear and loathing of the Semitic Israelites living in Egypt, the first pharaoh in Exodus takes two actions. First he takes advantage of the anti-Semitism he has revived to get free labor for his own projects.

Then they set over them [the Israelite men] overseers for corvée labor in order to oppress them with their forced labor, and they built cities of warehouses for Pharaoh: Pitom and Rameseis. (Exodus 1:11)

Native Egyptians are probably glad their pharaoh is conscripting resident aliens instead of them. However, this corvée labordoes not address the pharaoh’s original claim that the Israelites are dangerous because they might fight on the enemy’s side in a war. Even though the Israelite men are supervised by Egyptian overseers, they might revolt if an army from another country promised them liberation.

(The first book of Kings provides an example of rebellion due to forced labor. King Solomon imposes corvée labor on his own people, sending Israelite men in shifts to quarry stone in Lebanon for building Jerusalem’s new temple. Unlike the Israelites in Egypt, Solomon’s laborers work in the quarries one month, then get two months off at home.2 The levy continues for further building projects in the northern part of Solomon’s kingdom.3 When Solomon’s son and successor, Rechavam, announces he will work the northern Israelites harder, they revolt and set up their own kingdom.4)  

The first pharaoh in Exodus, besides taking advantage of the anti-Semitism he has revived in order to levy forced labor, attempts to commit gradual genocide. He orders the midwives for the Israelites to kill the male infants of Israelite women, but let the females live.5 Perhaps his rationale is that the boys would grow up to become soldiers fighting against the native Egyptians. A more efficient way to commit genocide would be to kill the girls as well, since they will give birth to future generations. But the cultural assumption was that girls could be trained as servants and concubines and safely absorbed into the Egyptian population. Why deprive the native Egyptians of a class of docile domestic servants?

But the midwives disobey the pharaoh.

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them: “Why have you done this thing and let the boys live?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh: “Because the Ivriot are not like the women of Egypt, because [they are] chayot. Hey! Before you come to them to serve as a midwife, they have given birth.” (Exodus 1:18-19) 

Ivriot (עִבְרִיֺּת) = female Hebrews.  (Plural female of Ivri, עִבְרִי. The term Ivri may be related to the term habiru in letters sent from Canaan to Egypt in the 14th century B.C.E.. The habiru were a marginal social class of outsiders, often outlaws or mercenaries. In Hebrew, Ivri is related to the verb avar, עָוַר = pass through, cross over; an ivri is a boundary-crosser or a nomad. Today the Hebrew language is called Ivrit, עִבְרִית.)

chayot (חָיוֹת) = wild animals.

The midwives probably refer to the Israelite women as Ivriot and chayot in order to sound as if they are as anti-Semitic as the pharaoh.6 They get away with their excuse; the pharaoh refrains from punishing them.

Although classic commentary says the two spokeswomen for the midwives, Shifrah and Puah, and actually Moses’ mother and sister, Pharaoh would hardly respond positively to their excuse if they were Semites! But why would the Israelite women use Egyptian midwives? The Torah offers no explanation. Why complicate a juicy story?

Even though the pharaoh lets the midwives off the hook, he still needs to pander to the masses he has inflamed. So he incites the native Egyptians to take violent action.

Then Pharaoh commanded his entire people, saying: “Every son that is born, you shall throw him into the Nile. But every daughter you shall keep alive.” (Exodus 1:22)

Vigilante groups of Egyptian men must have responded by searching Israelite houses, seizing infant boys, and drowning them. The next two sentences in the Torah portion are:

And a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son. And she saw him, that he was good, and she hid him for three months. (Exodus 2:1-2:2)

This baby boy is Moses, who is later adopted by a daughter of the pharaoh who does not share her father’s anti-Semitism.

I believe the pharaoh in this story acts unethically by inciting murder, by imposing corvée labor on residents of his country in a time of peace, and by encouraging prejudicial acts against native-born children of an immigrant population. But not everyone today would agree with me. Demagogues have risen in more than one modern Western nation in the 21st century, and a few have even been elected as heads of state.

Since the pharaoh in this week’s Torah portion is an absolute ruler, he can issue inflammatory orders without fear of reprise. I pray that all demagogues who incite violence in our time will be brought to justice.

  1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-foreign-takeover-ancient-egypt-was-uprising-not-invasion-180975354/
  2. 1 Kings 5:27-31.
  3. 1 Kings 11:26-28.
  4. 1 Kings 12:1-20.
  5. Exodus 1:16.
  6. Exodus 1:17-19. See my post Shemot: Disobedient Midwives.

Vayechi: When Jacob Bows

The prophecy

Joseph has two prophetic dreams when is seventeen, according to the Torah portion Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1-40:23). After the second dream, he tells his brothers:

“Hey, I dreamed a dream again! And hey! The sun and the moon and eleven stars mishtachavim to me!” And he reported [it] to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said to him: “What is this dream that you dreamed? Will we actually come, I and your mother and your brothers, lehishtachot to the ground to you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, and his father observed the matter.  (Genesis/Bereishit 37:9-11)

mishtachavim (מִשְׁתַּחֲוִים) = were bowing down, were prostrating themselves. (From the root verb sh–ch–h, שׁחה = bow down deeply in humility, do homage.)

lehishtachot (לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת) = to bow down. (Also from the root sh-ch-h.)

Joseph’s Second Dream, by Owen Jones, 1865

Joseph’s father, Jacob (a.k.a. Israel), is over 100 years old at this time, and so far the Torah has not mentioned him bowing down to anyone except his brother, Esau.

The previous prostration

That happened in the Torah portion Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43), when the two brothers met again after a twenty-year estrangement. Esau had vowed to kill his brother after Jacob had cheated him out of both his birthright and the blessing he expected from their father. Jacob had fled to his uncle’s house in Charan. When he finally headed home again, after acquiring a large family and his own fortune, he learned that Esau was coming down the road with 400 men to intercept him. Jacob did everything he could think of to prevent disaster: sending his brother generous gifts ahead of time, praying to God, and finally, as Esau came into view with his troop,

He himself went across to face him, vayishtachu to the ground seven times, until he came up to his brother. (Genesis 33:3)

vayishtachu (וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ) = and he bowed down, and he prostrated himself. (Also from the root sh-ch-h.)

In the Hebrew Bible, prostrations are a way to demonstrate humility and deference to a superior—usually to a king or to God. By bowing down to Esau seven times, Jacob is symbolically renouncing any advantage he tried to get over Esau in his youth, and demonstrating as graphically as possible that he considers Esau his superior. His prostrations are the equivalent of a puppy rolling over and exposing its throat to an older dog.

Inferior to nobody

After Jacob and his family and servants depart from Esau in peace, he does not bow to anyone for over forty years. Why should he? Jacob, jealous of his twin brother’s extra rights as the firstborn, has always been self-conscious about his position in life. After he failed to secure the rights of a firstborn son by fraud, he labored in Charan for twenty years until he had earned them. Now Jacob is a chieftain with twelve sons, many slaves and employees, and a great  wealth of livestock. The chieftain of the town of Shekhem treats Jacob as an equal, and when he makes an offer to Jacob he goes out to his camp instead of summoning him to his own residence in town.1

Jacob does not bow down to God, either. He first encounters God in the dream with angels on a stairway, and when he wakes up he treats God as someone to bargain with, vowing to give God a tithe of his wealth if God protects him and brings him safely back home.2 When Jacob worships God, he does so by pouring oil on a stone or burning animal offerings on an altar.3

Jacob and his people settle somewhere near Hebron/Chevron in Canaan.4 After Jacob’s older sons come home from the field without their younger brother and show their father Joseph’s bloody tunic, Jacob thinks his favorite son is dead. He mourns Joseph for 22 years. During that time Joseph is actually living in Egypt, where he rises from slave to viceroy. Finally Joseph sends for his father and his whole extended family in last week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (Genesis 4:18-47:27).

And Joseph harnessed his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet Israel [a.k.a. Jacob], his father. And he appeared to him, and he fell on his neck and he wept on his neck a long time. Then Israel said to Joseph: “I can die now, after seeing your face, that you are still alive.” (Genesis 46:29-30)

But the prophetic dream Joseph had when he was seventeen is not fulfilled. Jacob’s brothers have already bowed down to him many times, but his father has not.

Jacob does not bow down to Pharaoh, either, when Joseph presents him at court. He greets the king of Egypt with a blessing, and answers Pharaoh’s inquiry about how old he is by saying he is 130, and his life has been hard and short.5 Then Jacob blesses the king again, and leaves.

The prophecy fulfilled

Jacob finally bows down for the second time of his life on his deathbed, in this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26).

Then the time approached for Israel [a.k.a. Jacob] to die, and he called for his son, for Joseph, and said to him: “If, na, I find favor in your eyes, place, na, your hand under my thigh and do a loyal and faithful deed for me: don’t, na, bury me in Egypt. When I lie down with my forefathers, then bring me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial place!” (Genesis 47:29-30)

na (נָא) = please, pray, I beg you. 

Joseph gives his word, but Jacob wants the formal hand gesture of an oath as well.6

And he [Israel/Jacob] said: “Swear to me!” And he swore to him. Vayishtachu, Israel, upon head of the bed. (Genesis 47:31)

vayishtachu (וַיֱִשְׁתַּחוּ) = and he bowed. (Also from the root sh-ch-h.)

Many classic commentators wrote that Jacob bowed toward the head of his bed, because the presence of God is at the head of the bed of a sick person (and prepositions are ambiguous). But that interpretation implies he was standing up. The Torah has already told us that Jacob is 147, and his death is approaching. I have been at the beside of four people near death, and I believe even Jacob would be too feeble to stand up during his final days.7 Perhaps he is seated on his bed, resting against a cushion, and he manages to bow at the waist.

In that case, he is not bowing toward the head of his bed; he is probably bowing to Joseph. This was the opinion of 12th-century rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, known as Rashbam, who wrote: “ ‘And Israel bowed low’: To Joseph, from the place where he was at [the top of] the bed.”8

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (1255-1340 C.E.), known as Rabbeinu Bachya, added: “Seeing that Joseph had agreed to honour his father by undertaking to fulfill his wishes, Yaakov in turn prostrated himself before him to show that he respected the position Joseph occupied as effective ruler of the country.”8

Jacob spent the first hundred years of his life struggling to be the one on top, the one in charge. But during his final years in Egypt, he accepts that his son Joseph is his superior. He knows he is dependent on Joseph to carry out his final request, so he uses the language of an inferior, using the subservient phrase “if I find favor in your eyes” and repeating he word na. Then he uses the gesture of a humble inferior, coming as close as he can to a prostration.

This is the moment when Jacob fulfills the prophecy of the dream his son Joseph had when he was seventeen.

Jacob on his Deathbed, woodcut, 1539

After that, Jacob lives long enough to do the equivalent of rewriting his will, adopting Joseph’s two sons as his own so they will receive shares of the inheritance equal to those of Joseph’s brothers. Jacob also delivers his own prophecies to all his sons, predicting what will happen to the tribes that descend from them. Finally he orders all twelve of his sons to bury him with his deceased family members in the cave of Machpelah in Canaan.

And Jacob completed commanding his sons, and he drew back his feet in the bed, and he expired, and he was gathered to his people. (Genesis 49:33)

One prostration to Joseph before he died was enough for Jacob.

“Honor your father and your mother,” says the fifth of the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus. In my post Yitro, Mishpatim, & Va-etchanan: Relative or Relevant? Part 1, I suggest that parents should also honor their children. But should they show humble submission to them, as Jacob did by bowing to Joseph on his deathbed?

Nobody would advise submission to a callow seventeen-year-old. But what about when the child is middle-aged, and the parent’s ability to deal with the world is declining in old age? If the adult child is competent and kind, then it would be better to humbly submit to that child’s arrangements than to insist on complete autonomy. I hope that is what I will do when I am considerably older—though I do not expect to live to age 147!

  1. Genesis 34:6-24.
  2. Genesis 28:20-22.
  3. Jacob’s journey south from Shekhem ends at the home of his father, Isaac, in Hebron/Chevron (Genesis 35:27). After that, the Torah only says Jacob lives “in the land of Canaan”, without specifying the location. His first stop on the way to Egypt is Beir-sheva, which is south of Chevron.
  4. Genesis 28:16-19, 33:19-20, 35:6, 35:13-14, 46:1.
  5. Genesis 47:7-10.
  6. Biblical Hebrew sometimes uses the word for “thigh”, yareich (יָרֵךְ) as a euphemism for the genitals. According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, midrash written between 630 and 1030 C.E., Jacob said: “O my son! Swear to me by the covenant of circumcision that thou wilt take me up to the burial-place of my fathers in the land of Canaan to the Cave of Machpelah.” (translation of Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 39:13 by sefaria.org)
  7. This is the first of Jacob’s three deathbed scenes. In the second, he has to summon his strength (vayitchaek, וַיִּתחַזֵּק) to sit up in bed.
  8. Both quotations are from sefaria.org.

Vayeishev & Vayigash: Is Joseph Ethical?

It is one thing to take an ethical stand when only you and a few other individuals are concerned. It can be harder to perceive and make the most ethical choice when a whole population is affected.

Joseph as ethical examplar

I have written before about Joseph’s iffy behavior as a troubled seventeen-year old and his older brothers’ inflated response: selling him as a slave to a caravan bound for Egypt.1 I have also written about how twenty years later Joseph saves his brothers’ lives and declines to take revenge, though he could easily enslave them; he merely puts them through a nerve-wracking test.2

Joseph acts even more ethically when he is propositioned by the wife of his Egyptian owner, Potifar. God blesses Joseph with success in everything he does, and Potifar promotes him to steward over his household in the Torah portion Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1-40:23). Potifar’s wife notices how good-looking Joseph is, and asks him to lie down with her.3

And he refused, and he said to his master’s wife: “Hey, with me, my master is not concerned about what is in the house, because everything that is his, he placed in my hand. There are none greater in this house than I am, and he has not withheld anything at all from me except you, since you are his wife. So how could I do this great wickedness, and be guilty before God?” (Genesis/Bereishit 39:8-9)

Joseph Flees Potiphar’s Wife,
by Julius Schnorr von Carlsfeld, 19th century

Joseph feels intuitively that committing adultery with his owner’s wife would be wicked. Potifar did not enslave him, but merely purchased him as a slave. Since then his owner has treated him well and trusted him completely. Joseph believes it would be wrong to cheat him.

He also believes that adultery is wrong according to God. Although the God of Israel does not explicitly prohibit adultery until the Ten Commandments,4 God has already punished two kings who unknowingly attempted adultery with Joseph’s great-grandmother Sarah. Furthermore, adultery is a general taboo in the region; both kings were appalled when they discovered what they had almost done.5

So when Potifar’s wife approaches him again, Joseph flees.

Several years later, Pharaoh has two significant dreams, and Joseph is called upon to interpret them. He tells Pharaoh that the dreams are God’s warning that Egypt will have seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Then he advises Pharaoh to appoint someone make sure grain is stockpiled during the years of plenty. Pharaoh appoints Joseph viceroy in charge of all agriculture in Egypt.6

He spends the next seven years commandeering and storing Egypt’s excess grain. The Torah does not say how Joseph acquires the grain; it may be through eminent domain, for the public good. Or he may purchase the grain, as the United States purchases crude oil to stock its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Either way, Joseph is earning his livelihood as Pharaoh’s agent in an ethical way.

We learn what Joseph does during the seven years of famine in this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27).

Joseph, Overseer of the Pharaoh’s Granaries,
by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1874

Joseph as capitalist

During the first year of famine, Joseph sells grain from the government’s reserves for silver, the currency of that time and place, and brings the silver into Pharaoh’s palace. The second year of famine, there is no more silver left in either Egypt or Canaan.

Then all the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying: “Give us bread! Why should we die in front of you? For the silver is all gone.” (Genesis 47:15)

Rather than distributing grain for free, Joseph offers to trade grain for livestock. So that year Pharaoh acquires ownership of all the horses, donkeys, cows, and sheep in Egypt.

In the third year of famine, the Egyptians tell Joseph:

“We cannot hide from my lord that all the silver and the cattle [we] possessed have gone to my lord. Nothing remains before my lord except our bodies and our soil. Why should we die before your eyes, us and our soil? Keneih us and our soil for bread, and we will be slaves to Pharaoh. And give us seed, so we will live and not die, and the soil will not turn into desert.” (Genesis 47:18-29)

keneih (קְנֵה) = Acquire! Buy! (An imperative form of kana, קָנָה = acquired through purchase, ransom, or production.)

By the third year of the famine, the Egyptians are in the position of debt slaves who must sell both their land and themselves just so they can eat. Their poverty is entirely due to the weather, which is an act of God.

How does Joseph respond? First he acquires all the farmland in Egypt for Pharaoh—all except for the land Pharaoh had previously allotted to the priests,7 and the land of Goshen where Pharaoh invited Joseph’s extended family to settle.8

Vayiken, Joseph, all the soil of Egypt for Pharaoh, since all the Egyptian sold their fields because the famine was too strong for them. And the land became Pharaoh’s. (Genesis 47:20)

vayiken (וַיִּקֶן) = and he acquired. (Another form of kana.)

Since Pharaoh has a monopoly on all the grain remaining in the region, Joseph can sell the grain at any price he likes. If laissez-faire capitalism is ethical, then Joseph’s acquisition of all the farmland is ethical.

Next, in order to make sure that the Egyptian farmers know they no longer own the land they farm, Joseph moves whole communities to different areas. People have the same neighbors as before, but they live in a different place, and farm different plots than their parents and grandparents.

Is this ethical? It could be worse; at least Joseph deports existing communities together, so people have the same friends, neighbors, and social structure in their new location. But they do not have a choice about where to live. In that respect, they have indeed become slaves rather than citizens.

The Hebrew Bible accepts slavery as a necessary evil, but decrees that Israelites may only sell themselves as debt slaves for a term of six years. In the seventh year they must be freed, unless they choose to undergo a ritual committing them to their owner for life. And when owners free their slaves, they must supply them with goods that will give them a start in their new life.9

So if Joseph were ethical by later Israelite standards, he would buy the Egyptians as temporary slaves, and set them free after a reasonable number of years.

If he were ethical by modern standards, he would acquire their land, but not their bodies. No doubt they would choose to work for the government as tenant farmers for a while, since it was the only way they could get food. But when times improved, they would be free to choose another form of livelihood.

After Joseph acquires the farmland for Pharaoh and deports whole communities, he takes one more step.

Then Joseph said to the people: “Hey, kaniti you and your soil today for Pharaoh. See, there is seed for you, and you shall sow the soil. And when you harvest, you will give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths will be yours to sow the field and to eat, you and everyone in your households and your little ones.” (Genesis 47:24)

kaniti (קָנִיתִי) = I have acquired. (Another form of kana.)

Thus Joseph institutes a system of serfdom, turning the people into permanent tenant farmers. Every year the farmers must give Pharaoh 20% of their harvest. It is not a tax on their income, but rather a split of the profits between the owner of the land and the workers who do the labor.

The farmers gratefully accept this arrangement simply in order to eat. They would rather be alive with no freedom and no belongings, than dead of starvation.

And they said: “He has kept us alive! We found mercy in the eyes of my lord, and we will be slaves to Pharaoh.” (Genesis 47:25)

Mandating a tenant farmer arrangement in perpetuity certainly benefits Pharaoh and his government, which will now receive a steady annual income of grain. Joseph is a successful administrator. But is his arrangement ethical?

Some classic commentators praised Joseph for his moderation. Since Egyptian farmers got to keep four-fifths of their harvest, they did not suffer hardship, according to Radak (13th-century rabbi David Kimchi) and 16th-century rabbi Obadiah Sforno. Sforno also noted that all slave-owners were responsible for feeding their slaves, so in the event of another famine Pharaoh would have to provide his tenant farmers with food.

However, the bottom line is that few human beings want to be someone else’s property. We want to make our own decisions about where we live and how we earn a livelihood. Joseph did less harm to the farmers of Egypt than he might have, but his actions were still unethical.

Is he motivated by a desire for revenge due to his own enslavement? Joseph threatens his brothers with slavery, but does not impose it. He knows them, and he overhears them admit to each other that they were guilty of enslaving him.10 He feels empathy for them, and turns away to weep.

He also feels warmhearted toward Potifar, who promoted him and trusted him. But he does not have any feelings about the farmers of Egypt.

I believe Joseph’s ethics are imperfect because he is human. It is hard to imagine the viewpoint of thousands of people you have never met. Yet someone with power in government must do just that in order to make ethical decisions. Saving lives is good, but it is not the only good.

  1. See my post Vayeishev: Favoritism.
  2. See my posts Mikeitz: A Fair Test, Part 1 and Part 2.
  3. Genesis 39:6-7.
  4. Exodus 20:13.
  5. Genesis 15:11-20, 20:1-7 and 47:27.
  6. Genesis 41:1-46.
  7. Genesis 47:22.
  8. Genesis 47:1-6, 47:11-12.
  9. Exodus 21:2-6, Deuteronomy 15:12-18.
  10. Genesis 42:21-24.

Vayeishev & Mikeitz: Blame

When something bad happens that is neither an accident nor an act of God, who gets the blame?

Blame a beast

Joseph’s ten older brothers cannot stand him anymore in last week’s Torah portion, Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1-40-23). Their father, Jacob, dotes on him, and he lords it over his brothers. When they are out with the flocks Joseph spies on them, and brings back bad reports to Jacob.

Jacob Weeps over Joseph’s Tunic,
by Marc Chagall

Once the brothers say they are taking the flocks to Shekhem, but they make an additional day’s journey to Dotan. There they look back down the road, and see their seventeen-year-old brother. Is there no escape?

Several of the older brothers decide to kill him then and there, throw his body into a pit, and tell Jacob a wild beast ate him. But Reuben tells them to throw him in alive, so his blood will not be on their hands. When Joseph prances up tot them, they grab him, strip off his fancy clothing, and heave him into the nearest dry cistern. Then while they are eating lunch, they see a caravan heading for Egypt, and Judah convinces his brothers to sell Joseph to the traders as a slave. That way they get rid of him and make some money, too. Before they go home, the brothers dip Joseph’s fancy clothing in goat’s blood. The ploy works; when they show the bloody garment to Jacob, he believes Joseph was killed by a wild animal. So far, they have escaped the blame.

Blame the victim

Meanwhile a high-ranking Egyptian named Potifar buys Joseph. Potifar notices that everything his new slave undertakes succeeds, so he advances Joseph to the position of steward of his household. Then Potifar’s wife tries to seduce the handsome young slave, but he refuses her on ethical grounds. When she grabs at his clothing he runs away, leaving his garment in her hand.1

When Potifar comes home, his wife shows him Joseph’s garment and says:

“He came to me, the Hebrew slave that you brought to us, to fool around with me! But it was like I cried out at the top of my voice, and he left his garment beside me and he fled outside.” (Genesis 39:17-18)

Blaming the victim works; Potifar sends Joseph to prison.

Blaming the guilty for a different crime

Joseph’s run of success continues in prison, and thanks to God he correctly interprets the dreams of two men in custody awaiting their sentences. One is executed and the other is exonerated, exactly as Joseph predicted. Two years later, in this week’s Torah portion, Mikeitz (Genesis 41:1-44:17), Pharaoh has two troubling dreams that none of his advisors can interpret. The exonerated man remembers Joseph, and he is brought up from prison.

Joseph tells Pharaoh that both of his dreams mean the same thing: seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine. Then he gives Pharaoh some advice about stockpiling grain during the years of plenty. Pharaoh is so impressed with the young man that he elevates Joseph to his second-in-command. Joseph becomes a successful minister of agriculture.

After seven years, the famine comes not only to Egypt but to the whole known world. Jacob sends his ten older sons from Canaan down to Egypt to buy grain.

And Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but he acted like a stranger to them and he spoke to them harshly … (Genesis 42:7)

They do not recognize Joseph, who was seventeen when they sold him. Now he is thirty-seven, he has an Egyptian name, he shaves and dresses like an Egyptian, and he speaks through an interpreter.2 Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies. They blurt out the first reason that comes into their heads why they are innocent of this charge.

Joseph’s Brothers Bow to the Governor, by Owen Jones, 1865

And they said: “Your servants are twelve brothers! We are sons of one man in the land of Canaan. But hey, the youngest is with his father now, and the one is not.” (Genesis 42:13)

Joseph uses this scant information as a means to get the youngest of the twelve brothers down to Egypt—Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother as well as the only innocent one. He puts his ten older brothers in the guardhouse for three days, then announces that one of them must stay behind under guard while the rest go home with the grain.

“But the youngest brother you must bring to me, so your words will be verified and you will not die.” … And they said, one to another: “Ah! We are asheimim on account of our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he was pleading to us for pity, and we did not listen. Therefore this distress has come to us.”  (Genesis 42:20-21)

asheimim (אֲשֵׁמִים) = bearing the consequences of guilt. (A form of the verb asham, אָשָׁם = became guilty.)

The brothers finally blame themselves for doing something wrong. And they consider their punishment under a false charge their just deserts—although Reuben then tries to exonerate himself by saying:

“Didn’t I say to you: Don’t techetu about the boy? But you did not pay attention. And now here is the reckoning for his blood!” (Genesis 42:22)

techetu (תֶּחֶטְאוּ) = you be blameworthy, be at fault. (A form of the verb chata, חָטַא = was blameworthy, was at fault, missed the mark.)

Blame others for your own misery

Joseph keeps Simeon under guard while the others take grain home to their extended family. When they tell their father what happened, he complains:

“I am the one you bereave of children! Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and [now] you would take Benjamin! Everything happens to me!” (Genesis 42:36)

Now that Joseph is gone, Benjamin is the only remaining child of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. Jacob flatly refuses to let Benjamin go.

The famine continues. When Jacob’s family in Canaan has eaten all the Egyptian grain, he tells his sons to go back to Egypt for more. Judah points out that the Egyptian minister said they could not see him again unless they brought their youngest brother with them.

And Israel [a.k.a. Jacob] said: “Why did you treat me badly, telling the man you had another brother?” (Genesis 43:6)

Again, Jacob thinks only about himself, and blames his ten older sons for his own misery. They are, in fact, guilty of taking Joseph away from him, but they sold Joseph to relieve their own misery, not to afflict their father. But a narcissist does not think other people have their own independent motives.

Take the blame in advance

Then Judah steps up and promises to take responsibility for Benjamin. First he points out that if Benjamin does not go down to Egypt, he will die of starvation, along with the rest of the family.

Then Judah said to Israel, his father: “Send the young man with me, and we will go, and we will live and not die: me, you, and our little ones. I myself will be the pledge; from my hand you can seek him. If I do not bring him back to you and place him before you, then chatati for all time.” (Genesis 43:8-9)

chatiti (חָטָאתִי) = I am blameworthy, I have missed the mark. (Another form of the verb chata.)

Judah makes no extravagant promises, but he does accept blame ahead of time if anything goes wrong. That is enough. Jacob lets Benjamin go with his brothers to Egypt.

Accepting the blame when you are guilty is an ethical response. Yet humans instinctively shrink from being blamed. We do not want to look bad, and we do not want to be punished. On the other hand, humans find it all too easy to blame others without knowing the whole story.

Joseph’s ten older brothers are all responsible, in one way or another, for his disappearance from Canaan. But they deceive their father so that his blame will fall on a wild beast rather than on any of them. Jacob fails to investigate at the time, and years later he blames them for his misery over the loss of Joseph even though he has no evidence against them. He is not an ethical blamer.

Potifar’s wife takes pre-emptive action by delivering a false accusation before Joseph can tell Potifar what actually happened. Blaming the victim is still a common strategy of the guilty.

Joseph does not even try to defend himself against the woman’s accusation. But he makes a false accusation himself when his brothers come to him to buy grain. His accusation lets him manipulate circumstances so that his brothers finally blame themselves for their old crime, and so that in the long run he can transplant his whole family to Egypt, alive and well. The only punishment he afflicts on his guilty brothers is their anxiety about what he will do to them.

Judah turns out to be the best at handling blame. Although as a young man he is guilty of talking his brothers into selling Joseph as a slave, he changes over the years—most notably when he sentences his daughter-in-law to death for an illegal pregnancy, then learns the rest of the story. He publicly admits he was wrong and stops the execution.3

By the second year of famine, Judah is able to accept blame ahead of time for whatever happens to Benjamin, knowing that it is the only way he can get food for the whole family. And in next week’s Torah portion, Vayiggash, Judah fulfills his pledge by volunteering to become a slave in order to save Benjamin from that fate.

Some of the characters in Genesis never change. But others learn how to accept blame when they deserve it. May more of us today learn how to overcome our natural tendencies to slap blame on others and dodge it ourselves. If Joseph and Judah can change, so can we.

  1. See my post Vayeishev: Stripped Naked.
  2. Genesis 41:14, 42:23.
  3. See my post Vayeishev & Mikeitz: Symbols of Authority.

Toledot & Vayishlach: Wrestlers

(This week’s Torah portion is Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1-40:23), the beginning of Joseph’s story. But before I write about Jacob’s favorite son, I have more to say about Jacob, a.k.a. Israel, and whom he wrestles with—both face to face and alone—in last week’s portion, Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43).)

Jacob spends the first sixty years of his life wrestling—with his brother, with his uncle, with God, and with himself—always maneuvering to steal the privileges that he is, or feels, unentitled to.

Wrestling over a birthright

Twins wrestle in Rebecca’s womb at the beginning of the Torah portion Toledot (Genesis 25:19-28:10). Esau is born first, so in the world of the ancient Israelites he is entitled to inherit twice as much of their father Isaac’s wealth as his brother. He is also slated to become the head of the extended family and to serve as its priest.

And after that his brother came out and his hand was hanging on to Esau’s akeiv, so they called his name Ya-akov. And Isaac was sixty years old when they were born. (Genesis 25:26)

akeiv (עָקֵב) = heel.

Ya-akov (ֺיַעֲקֺב‎) = “Jacob” in English. (From ya-ekov, יַעְקֺב  = he grasps by the heel, he cheats; from the same root as akeiv.)

The Birth of Esau and Jacob, by Master of Jean de Mandeville,
Bible Historiale, 1360’s

Even at birth, Jacob did not want to be left behind. Judging by his later attempts to cheat Esau out of his firstborn rights, this detail about his birth might even mean that Jacob was trying to pull Esau back so he could come out first.

Jacob gets his foolish brother to agree to swap his rights for a bowl of lentil stew.1 But there are no witnesses to that transaction, so he is still insecure. When their blind father, Isaac, summons Esau to receive a deathbed blessing, Jacob follows instructions from their mother, Rebecca, to impersonate Esau and appropriate the blessing.2 Then he flees to his uncle’s house in Charan so Esau will not murder him.

Wrestling with an uncle and a guilty conscience

Jacob spends twenty years in Charan in the Torah portion Vayeitzei (Genesis 28:10-32:3), wrestling verbally with his uncle Lavan, who also becomes his employer and father-in-law. Jacob’s first goal is to marry Lavan’s younger daughter, Rachel, but he arrives without any goods he can offer as a bride-price, and instead of bargaining with Lavan he generously offers to work for him as a shepherd for seven years. I believe Jacob handicaps himself because he feels guilty about impersonating Esau and lying to his father. (See my post Vayishlach: Message Failure.)

Lavan turns out to be no more honorable than Jacob was when he stole Esau’s blessing. In a surprise move, he switches brides on Jacob’s first wedding day, then gets him to agree to serve another seven years of unpaid labor so he can marry the daughter he wanted in the first place.3 Jacob’s guilt still prevents him from trying to make a better bargain.

But after fourteen years of service, Jacob wins the next round of bargaining by claiming the black sheep and spotted goats as his wages henceforth. Lavan agrees, then tries to cheat him by removing all the animals of that description from the flock ahead of time. But Jacob breeds more of them, and in six years he is richer than his uncle.4 Lavan and his kinsmen simmer with resentment.

Once again Jacob has to flee, this time heading back to Canaan with his large household and his flocks. His route skirts the land of Edom, where Esau has become the chieftain. In the Torah portion Vayishlach, he sends a propitiating message to his twin brother, and his messengers return with the news that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Hastily Jacob assigns some of flocks to his servants to bring to Esau as gifts. Then he transports his whole family and the rest of his servants and flocks across the Yabok River, and returns to the other side alone.5

Wrestling the wrestler

Jacob Wrestling with an Angel, by James J.J. Tissot, ca. 1900

And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the dawn rose. (Genesis 32:25)

At night this “man” apparently looks and feels like a human being, and even injures Jacob’s hip.6 But at dawn it becomes apparent that the wrestler is not human.

Then he [the “man”]said: “Let me go, because the dawn is rising.” And he [Jacob] said: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:27)

Desperate to protect himself and his family from Esau, Jacob has already sent his brother lavish gifts, and reminded God of their deal twenty years before.7 Now he tries to extract a blessing from the mysterious wrestler. What he gets is a second name.

And he [the “man”] said: “It will no longer be said [that] Ya-akov is your name, but instead Yisrael, because sarita with gods and with men and you have hung on.” (Genesis 32:29)

Yisrael (יִשְׂרָאֵל) = “Israel” in English. (Possibly yisar, יִשַׂר = he strives with, contends with (a form of the verb sarah, שׂרָה = strive; contend) + Eil, אֵל = God, a god; therefore: he strives with God. On the other hand, a subject usually follows a verb in Biblical Hebrew, so Yisrael could mean “God strives” or “God contends”.)

sarita (שָׂרִיתָ) = you have striven with, contended with. (Another form of the verb sarah.)

The wrestler knows that Jacob has already striven with humans; he was born hanging onto his brother’s heel, and he maneuvered against Esau in Canaan, and Lavan in Charan. Now he has striven with a being that might be God, or at least one of God’s messengers.

And Jacob inquired and said: “Please tell me your name.” But he [the “man”] said: “Why do you ask for my name?!” And he blessed him there. (Genesis 32:30)

Perhaps the mysterious wrestler says “Why do you ask for my name?” because God’s angelic messengers have no names.8

Blessings are usually spelled out verbally in the book of Genesis,9 like prophecies and promises. But the statement that someone blessed someone else may follow or precede the actual blessing; the text does not bother about the exact chronological order. In this case, the unnamed messenger’s blessing is: “It will no longer be said [that] Ya-akov is your name, but instead Yisrael”.

So Jacob called the name of the place Peniyeil, “Because I have seen God panim to panim yet my life was saved.” (Genesis 32:31)

Peniyeil (פְּנִיאֵל) = Face of God (penei,פְּמֵי= face of + Eil).

panim (פָּנִים) = face, faces.

Jacob is now convinced that he wrestled until dawn with a manifestation of God.

But it also makes sense to say that Jacob wrestled with himself, as one aspect (or face, or camp10) of his psyche strove against another. Among the many commentators who have reached this conclusion are Shmuel Klitsner, who wrote that Jacob’s conscious mind wrestles with his unconscious;11 Jonathan Sacks, who wrote that the person he wants to be wrestles with the person he really is;12 and David Kasher, who wrote that his instinct to use guile in order to achieve control wrestles with his underdeveloped faith in God.13

Perhaps the question “Why do you ask for my name?” arises because one side of Jacob already knows he is wrestling with himself.

Ya-akov and Yisrael meet face to face at dawn. Neither side wins the wrestling match. The stalemate at dawn could be a triumphant integration. But it does not last. After Jacob/Israel settles at Shekhem in the land of Canaan, his sons begin taking control over the family away from him.

For the rest of his life, he alternates between complaining about being cheated by his sons, and calmly doing what he must while leaving outcome to God.

It is hard to walk your own path in life instead of trying to get what someone else has. And it is hard to find peace and clarity when you have a pair of camps facing one another inside you.

I spent the first sixty years of my own life wrestling with myself. On one side, I want to do all the right things for other people; on the other side, I want to succeed at my calling. Age has refined my ethics and softened my desire for public success. I am still a pair of camps confronting one another. But now when I face my other self, I smile in recognition.

  1. Genesis 25:29-34. See my 2011 post Bereishit & Toledot: Seeing Red.
  2. Genesis 27:1-30. See my 2012 post Toledot: Rebecca Gets It Wrong.
  3. Genesis 29:15-30. See my post Toledot: Unrequited Love.
  4. Genesis 30:25-43.
  5. Genesis 32:4-24. See last week’s post, Vayeitzei & Vayishlach: Pair of Camps, and my 2021 post, Vayishlach: Message Failure.
  6. Genesis 32:26 implies that the wrestler dislocates Jacob’s hip, but Genesis 32:33 implies an attack of sciatica.
  7. Genesis 32:10-13, in reference to Genesis 28:10-22.
  8. According to Judges 13:16-18 and Genesis Rabbah 78:4.
  9. See Genesis 9:1-7, 12:2-3, 14:19-20, 16:10-12, 22:15-18, 24:60, 26:2-4, 27:28-29, 27:39-40, 28:1-4, 35:9-12, 48:10-16, 48:20, and 49:1-28. Exceptions are Genesis 32:1 and 47:7.
  10. See last week’s post, Vayeitzei & Vayishlach: Pair of Camps.
  11. Shmuel Klitsner, Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis, Urim Publications, Jerusalem, 2006, pp. 126-127.
  12. Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, “Be Thyself: Vayishlach 5781”.
  13. David Kasher, ParshaNut, “The Man in the Midrash”, Parshat Vayishlach.