CPCC Bible Study: Genesis 39 - 40

1
      Summary: This chapter begins exactly where 37 ended, before the detour through Judah's personal drama. Joseph has been taken to Egypt by the slavers and sold to Potiphar.

2
      Time Passes, we don't know how much. (remember that phrase, it gets used again soon.)
      "way hi" (and was) YHWH "et" (with) Yoseph, "way hi" (and was) 'he' a man "tsalach" (prosper / thrive / success) 'and he was' in "bayith" (house / household) of "adon" (master / owner) the "Mitsri" (Egyptian).
      This verse makes the point that Joseph is working in the household and not out in the fields or tending herds.

3 - 5
      Summary: his owner sees that YHWH is with him, and everything Joseph does comes out good. So the owner favors him, and made him "paqad" (in charge / oversee / care for / etc) the house. And with Joseph in charge, YHWH blessed the Egyptian's house and field.
      Comment: one has to wonder how an officer in the court of Pharaoh would know the name of name of his household slave's Deity. But all we have to go on is the text.

6
      Summary: The owner leaves everything in Joseph's hand, including the bread he has for supper. And Joseph was "yapheh" (beautiful / handsome / fair).
      That final statement in verse six is a definite foreshadowing of trouble to come. We know that because this is the second description of the appearance of a male character in Genesis. Remember the discussion of Esau both as a baby and a young man? We have no idea what anybody else this side of Adam looked like.

7 - 9
      Time passes. We don't know how much.
      Summary: The owner's wife, the text does not use her name, or even the owner's name in this section, 'likes' Joseph, and invites him to have sex with her. He refuses and makes a speech about his job in the house, and that she is the only thing that 'the master' has reserved for himself. See the quote above.
      No, really, go read the quote, that is verse nine.
      Now remember, this is hundreds of years before The Law of Moses that prohibited such extra-curricular recreation. Which, evidently, at least one of Joseph's brothers was practicing as per the previous chapter. So 'the sin' here would have been the violation of trust, and, perhaps, the abuse of position... which happened to Joseph's own sister.

10
      Summary: she keeps after him, and he continues to refuse and...
      .... "hayah" (to be / occur / become) "im" (together with) her....
      ... he refuses to be alone with her.

11 - 12
      Time passes, we don't know how much.
      Summary: Joseph goes to work and finds nobody else in the house. She catches him by his robe and tells him to have sex with her. He slips out of his cloak and runs outside.
      It was obviously a setup in that the rest of the household staff were out.

13 - 15
      Summary: She has his cloak as evidence, so she calls the rest of the servants back in, and accuses the "ibri" (Hebrew) man of sexual assault.

16 - 20
      Summary: the owner comes home, she tells the story. He gets angry and has Joseph thrown in prison.

21
      "hayah" (to be / with / happens / etc) YHWH "eth" (with) Yoseph, and "natah" (inclined / bend toward) him "checed" (lovingkindness / mercy / goodness / etc), and "chen" (favor . grace) "ayin" (sight / eyes) "sar" (chief / captain) of the "sohar" (prison / dungeon).

22
      Time passes....
      Summary: and 'the warden' turns the daily operation of the jail over to Joseph.
      Now you have to wonder if Joseph thinks that this was exactly the position he was in at his former job, and look how that worked out.

23
      Summary: the jailer didn't have to concern himself with the place and YHWH was with Joseph and everything he did was successful.

end 39

Chapter 40

1 - 3
      Time Passes, we don't know how much.
      Summary: the king's ....
      The original Genesis text switches back and forth from "paroh" to "melek" in reference to the ruler of Egypt, using the terms Pharaoh and King interchangeably.
      Summary: the king's "mashqeh" (cupbearer / steward (today he'd be called a personal waiter / server)) and "aphah" (baker) "chata" (gone wrong / was guilty / blamed) by the king. And the Pharaoh was angry with the "sar" (chief / principal) cupbearer and chief baker, so he threw them in prison.
      The text never uses anybody's name in this scene.

4
      Summary: the warden put Joseph in charge of taking care of them while they were in the can.

5
      Summary: The cupbearer and baker each had a dream.
      This verse goes back through who each of them is, and who they had been working for, and where they are now. This information is restated in verse 7.

6 - 7
      Summary: Evidently they share a cell, and Joseph checks on them in the morning and sees they are "zaaph" (upset / sad / haggard / dejected). So Joseph asks them why.

8
      Summary: they say they had a dream and there is no interpreter. Joseph tells them that interpretations come from God, so he asks them to tell him the dreams.

9 - 11
      Summary: the cupbearer had a dream about three vines and grapes and making wine for the king's cup.

12 - 15
      Summary: Joseph explains it as in three days he'd be restored to his old job in the palace. And when he is, to remember him because he doesn't belong in prison.

16 - 17
      Summary: the baker, saw the answer was good, then he tells him about his dream about threes, and some bread, and he had the king's bread in a basket on top of his head and the birds came and ate it.

18 - 19
      Summary: Joseph's answer isn't good. In three days, the king will remove the baker's head and feed it to the birds.

20 - 22
      Summary: The king has a feast, and recalls the two from the prison. The cupbearer he restored to his old job. But the baker he had executed.

23
      But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph.

- end 40 -

chapter 41
1 - 7
      Time passes.... except this time we know how much,
      Two Full Years.
      Summary: Pharaoh has a couple of dreams, and we get to read all about them.
      Seven fat cows come out of the Nile River end up being eaten by seven sickly cows. Then seven good heads of grain are devoured by seven thin heads and the east wind.
      The 'East Wind' is significant. Their wind directions were the opposite of ours. To us, an 'east wind' is coming from the east. To them, the "qadim / khamsin" is a wind that blows TO the east from the west or, worse, south-west, out of the Sahara Desert, which are totally dry and ridiculously hot, and can bring dust storms that last for over a year, and bury entire villages and even change the course of the Nile. It was one of these winds that caused Joseph's famines.

8
      Summary: The king wakes up, and calls for everybody he can call for. But nobody could explain his dreams.
      The word "chartom / cheret" (includes astrologers, and other 'diviners' and seers) is used, which is different than a 'magician' which many English translations resorts to. Also used is "chakam" (wise man / learned / sage). Those groups may or may not include priests of the local gods.

9 - 13
      Real Quick Summary: The cupbearer says "oh, yeah, there was this guy in jail...."

14 - 16
      Summary: Pharaoh calls for Joseph. They clean him up and give him a haircut. Joseph tells the king that it isn't him but 'Elohim that gives the message.

17 - 24
      Summary: Cows and wheat ... and the Astrologers and Sages were clueless.

25 - 32
      Summary: Joseph tells Pharaoh that this is what 'Elohim is about to do. Seven good years of cows and crops, then seven bad years resulting in famine. And because you had the dream twice, it's going to really bad around here.

33 - 36
      Analysis and Comment: Now Joseph either offers some sound advice, a bit of self promotion, or, both. He tells Pharaoh to find a "bin" (perceptive / understanding / discerning) and "chakam" (wise / learned) man and put him in charge of Egypt to prepare for the bad times ahead. Let him take a fifth of the harvest in the good years and store it.... etc.
      Remember, the king just called in all the usual suspects and they couldn't help him, then this guy that was in the pokey explains it all.

37 - 41
      Summary: The Pharaoh likes the advice, and says that since the "Ruach 'Elohim" (Spirit of God) is in this guy, let's use him. And makes him second in command of the Egyptian economy. Only in regard to matters of the throne is Pharaoh greater than Joseph. A position sometimes referred to as the Vizier, a sort of Regent that does the hard work of ruling so the real king can do.... whatever.

42 - 49
      Note: the key here is that Joseph is now Thirty Years Old. He was 17, or so, when he was sold. So he's been in Egypt for about twelve years.
      Paraphrase: the king sets Joseph up with a ring, and a wardrobe, and a ride with a loudspeaker that told everybody to bow as he passed (yeah, that's in the text, sort of).... and the kings tells him that everybody in the country now works for you. And while he was at it, the king gave Joseph an Egyptian name "Tsaphenath Paneach" ('the living God speaks'), and the daughter of a priest of On for a wife. Then Joseph went on tour. And during the years of plenty, Joseph gathered in grain 'like the sand of the sea'.

      One reason that Pharaoh built a traveling show around Joseph was that Joseph was now representing Pharaoh. And when the peasants saw the parade coming, they knew he was important. Even today, we expect people who are that important, to look important, they have an entourage, they dress a certain way, and so on:
"Your job is to put on a splendid performance of the role you have been given."
- Epictetus to Agrippinus a Greek territorial governor,

      At the time, the working capital of Egypt may have been either in the ancient city of Memphis, which incorporates part of the pyramid district of Giza outside the present metropolis of Cairo, and is across the river from the Heliopolis (which we'll come back to), or at Thebes, which is about halfway up the Nile. Or at other smaller settlements depending on the wishes of the current Pharaoh.
      As for who the priest was working for that supplied the girl given to Joseph, which, again, shows that the women involved had little to no say in the matter, that is a bit more interesting. The text states that he was a priest of On. This is a shortened form of the word for the Heliopolis on the eastern bank of the Nile, which is a known archaeological location, and a center for the temples and devotional activity to the god of the noon day sun: Ra-Horakhty and later Amun-Ra.
      Given that the priest with the daughter was right there, and later, when Joeseph's family shows up and is given land in the river delta, Goshen, which isn't far downstream, that most of this action takes place at the palace in Memphis.

50 - 52
      Summary: Joseph's wife gives him sons. One is named "Menashsheh" (Manasseh) meaning 'God made me forget my toil', and the other is "Ephrayim" (Ephraim) - fruitful.

53 - 57
      Summary: The seven years of bumper crops ends, the famine arrives on the East Wind, the people cry for bread, and Joseph opens the storehouses.
      Foreshadowing: everybody in foreign lands went to Egypt to buy grain.
      -----stay tuned for next week's episode!

References and links: Outside links will open in new tab/window.
The Interlinear: Hebrew - English https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/39.htm

Contemporary English Version https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2039&version=CEV

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Memphis and its Necropolis
"The capital of the Old Kingdom of Egypt has some extraordinary funerary monuments, including rock tombs, ornate mastabas, temples and pyramids. In ancient times, the site was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World."
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/86/

A Tourist Page: https://www.memphistours.com/egypt/egypt-wikis/egypt-pyramids/wiki/memphis

A background page about The City of On (Heliopolis) https://foundations.vision.org/heliopolis-city-two-tales-41

"Egyptians worshipped at Heliopolis over the course of countless lifetimes and thousands of years. The earliest known temples there date back nearly 4,600 years, to the first days of Egypt’s pyramids."
https://archaeology.org/issues/march-april-2019/features/egypt-heliopolis-excavations/

More about Epictetus and those he advised... which included, eventually Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
https://dailystoic.com/paconius-agrippinus/

The Genesis Study Index Page

NOTE: The Bible Study Lesson presented above is posted as a reference document to begin a conversation of the topic. And that's it. Please accept it at such.

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