The dead trickster and his shrewd children? The persuasive use of the double quotations of a dead patriarch in Genesis 49:29-50:21

Introduction

Dead characters rarely featured in biblical narrative. ¹ Apart from the ghost of Samuel at Endor, the Hebrew Bible is largely preoccupied with the world of the living and the animated characters located in this narrative space. ² The presence, conversations, and activities of dead people appear to have no special significance in the ordering of the plot, characterization, and polemic intent of its stories. ³ In this regard, the dead characters appear to have no significant foothold in the representational mapping of biblical stories. ⁴ On the contrary, the Hebrew Bible is filled with the genealogy of dead characters, dying stories of its heroes and heroines, and the dead notices of its major and minor characters. ⁵ From this perspective, one could readily say that a sizable portion of its narrative space is devoted to these dead notices. Of course, dead notices often offer climatic closure to the representations of characters in biblical narrative. ⁶

Ironically, while the Hebrew Bible is replete with stories of dying and dead notices, there is rarely a reference to, and a quotation of the speeches of a dead character by other characters in its narrative space. As a thumb-rule, the narrator of the Hebrew narrative rarely preoccupied himself with the sayings of a dead character or never builds his story around it. ⁷ The words of a dead character are not quoted or put to new use by characters of biblical stories. ⁸ In Genesis 49:29-50:21, however, the narrator presented a story where in two places and in close proximity, characters quoted the words of a dead character to aid their persuasion. In this story, Joseph quoted the words of his dead father Jacob in order to persuade Pharaoh to allow him the burial of his father in Canaan and not in any of the royal tombs in Egypt (50:4-5, cf. 49:29-32). ⁹ Similarly, Joseph’s brothers also quoted the words of their dead father Jacob in their quest to persuade Joseph to forgive them for their past misdeed (50:14-21). In these two places, characters made the skilful use of dead character’s speech in order to influence, persuade, or even manipulate another character. In both of these instances, the words of a dead character is brought back to life and stylistically employed as a tool of enticing another character to act in some desired ways. Significantly, the pericope understudy is the only story in the entire Hebrew narrative where the words of the dead are quoted twice in the same proximity with the sole intention to persuade other characters in the story—to act in a particular way that will invariably favour the characters quoting the words of the dead. Consequently, the article investigates the quotations and stylistic use of the words of their dead father—Jacob—by Joseph and his brothers in their quest to subtly persuade and to carry out their individual schemes. Seen from this perspective, the use of the words of a dead character—Jacob—known for his deception, to persuade and even deceive others underscores the continuous haunting presence of Jacob’s ghost over his children. ¹⁰

Joseph’s quotation of his dead father (50:4-5, cf. 49:29-32)

The narrator of Joseph narrative accorded Jacob two dying-bed scenes (47:29-31 and 49:29-33). ¹¹ Surprisingly, Jacob is the only character in the entire patriarchal narratives whose dying-bed scene is reported, thus underscoring the theological and ideological importance of these scenes to the narrator. ¹² In the first dying-bed scene, Jacob called his son Joseph and commanded him to bury him at the family tomb in Canaan. ¹³ Binding Joseph with a solemn oath, he told Joseph to show him ‘kindness and faithfulness’ by burying him in Canaan and not to bury him in Egypt (v.29). ¹⁴ In this dying scene, the presence of the brothers of Joseph is not mentioned, but the focalization was narrowed on Joseph and his singular responsibility in burying his father. ¹⁵ He begins here to assume the status of the new pater familias, thus replacing Jacob. ¹⁶ Similarly, the details of the burial place were not given and the legal transition that led to the purchase of the family burial site was equally absent. However, in the second dying-bed scenes, the burial instructions of Jacob were directed at the entire children of Jacob (49:29-32). ¹⁷ The particular attention given to Joseph in the first dying-bed scene is missing in the second dying-bed scene, and there is also the absence of the detailed description of the legal transaction on the purchase of a family burial site for Abraham’s descendant in Canaan. Concerning this particular scene, Gordon Wenham observed, ‘[t]he phraseology here … is detailed and precise, emphasizing Israel’s legal title to the burial ground’. ¹⁸ According to Walter Brueggemann, Jacob’s speech in the second deathbed scene is a reference to the ‘inalienable property right’ of the patriarch. ¹⁹ Consequently, Jacob in this dying-bed scene describes Abraham’s buying of this burial site from Ephron the Hittite, and the subsequent burial of Abraham himself and Sarah there, Isaac and Rebekah and Leah - the wife of Jacob was also buried at this family site. In this burial instruction, Jacob directly connects himself with the preceding patriarchs and identifies himself with them at death. Like the first dying-bed scene, Jacob here identifies himself with his ‘fathers’ and places himself in genealogical continuation with these ancestors. However, bringing these two dying-bed scenes in focus, Joseph quoted and paraphrased the original instructions given by his father earlier to him in the first dying scene, and later to his brothers in the second dying scene.

Considering the character of Joseph’s quotation of his dead father, the narrator first places Joseph in a scene of petition before Pharaoh’s court where he sought Pharaoh’s permission to bury his dead father—outside of Egypt. ²⁰ It is interesting to note that Joseph requested ‘Pharaoh’s household’ (אל־בית פרעה‎) to speak in the ‘ears’ of Pharaoh for him (באזיפרעה‎). ²¹ These intermediaries were shouldered with the task of presenting the request of Joseph to Pharaoh. Mediated by the ‘household’ of Pharaoh, Joseph made important changes in his quotation of the original burial instructions by his father in 49:29-32. ²² Clearly sensitive to the racial and possible offensive undertones in the original statement of his father, Joseph’s quotation of his father reveals an element of intriguing artistry. In the original instructions of Jacob to his children, Jacob said,

Then he charged them and said to them, ‘I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a burial site. ‘There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah—the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth’. (49:29-32)

Here, Jacob’s speech is directly concerned with the family resting place in the cave and field of Machpelah and the long list of the patriarchs and their wives buried in this family burial site. The speech of Jacob is notably spiced with the peculiar and uniqueness of the covenant family, who, even in death, are separated from other people in Canaan. In this speech also, one perceives that Jacob also directly reminded his children of the piece of land which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite, thus further underscoring their legal connection to the land of Canaan. However, in quoting the words of his father, Joseph made significant changes to the original speeches of his father by eliminating the excessive legal connection of his family to Canaan as suggested in the original speech of his father. The narrator said,

Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, ‘If now I have found favor in your sight, please speak to Pharaoh, saying, “My father made me swear an oath and said, ‘I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan’’. (50:4-5)

With the quotation mark לאמר‎ directly opening his dead father’s words, Joseph merely shortened and paraphrased the words of his father thus: ‘I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan’. In his study of biblical character quoting of each other, George Savran has described the ideological functions often at work when a character shortened, makes changes, or even paraphrased the original words of another character. He notes Joseph’s quotation of his dead father’s earlier speech in terms of a ‘strategic delivery’ with persuasive intent. ²³ Concerning this, Savran observed,

In a similar testament to the effectiveness of quotation, in Gen. 50:5 Joseph appeals to Pharaoh to allow him to bury his father in Canaan on the basis of an oath sworn in 47:29-31. While the actual swearing in 47:31 may have had more to do with Jacob’s doubts about Joseph’s willingness to leave the comfort of Egypt, Joseph uses it in 50:5 to persuade Pharaoh to let him go and perform his filial obligation. Further modifications in the wording of the quotation made by Joseph would seem to indicate that Pharaoh had to be treated delicately in this matter. ²⁴

In this regard, one perceives the importance of Joseph’s shortening, changing, or paraphrasing of the original instructions of his dead father. In these changes, one sees first the important element of omission. Wenham observed,

Joseph tactfully leaves out Jacob’s comments about not wanting to be buried in Egypt or that he wants to be buried with his ancestors (cf. 47:29–30). This might suggest a lack of commitment to Egypt. Instead, Joseph stresses that Jacob has already prepared the tomb (cf. 2 Chr 16:14) and that, having buried his father, he will certainly return. ²⁵

Remarkably, he omitted the highly ethnocentric tone of his father’s original speeches and focused this speech now to a dug grave at Canaan. He also omitted the legal transactions between Abraham and Ephron made in the original speech of his father, particularly the important legal connection of the patriarchs to Canaan through their purchase of burial site there. In Joseph’s version of his father’s original speech, it seems the burial of Jacob at Canaan is deliberately detached from its place in the continuous burial of the patriarchs at this particular burial site. Rather the burial of Jacob is treated as a request of a dying man who had merely dug himself a tomb in Canaan. The idea in Joseph’s quotation of his father conveyed by the force of ‘I dug for myself in the land of Canaan’ disconnects and isolates Jacob’s burial from his ancestral forbears who had used the cave of Machpelah as a family burial site. In fact, the force of the communal orientation inherent in Jacob’s original statement of ‘gathering to my people’ is here replaced with an isolated burial rite that is intentionally detached from the communal patriarchal orientation of Jacob’s original statement. In this isolated burial request for his father, Joseph refused to mention the family cave and talks about ‘dug’ grave. This version of Jacob’s words technically omitted or avoided the family heritage and the ancestral significance of the burial site and only treated Jacob’s instruction as mainly an ordinary request to bury his father in Canaan, thereby leaving out the details of his family religious and legal connections to the land of Canaan as attested and suggested by Jacob’s original instructions (Gen 47:29-31).

In his study of Jacob’s original request, Raymond de Hoop recognized the politeness of Jacob’s burial demand from his son Joseph, which is introduced with the deferential statement ‘if now I have found favor before your eyes …’. ²⁶ According to him, ‘[t]his expression is generally found in a situation in which a subordinate addresses his superior …’. Hence, Jacob persuasively employed politeness in the delivery of his instructions to his son. In addition, Savran also observed that ‘Joseph deletes the phrase “if I have found favor in your eyes” from within the quotation’ of his father’s speeches ‘and uses it instead as part of his own entreaty to Pharaoh in 50:4’. ²⁷ Consequently, ‘[w]hat was successful from father to son now succeeds from servant to master’. ²⁸ It is also interesting to note that Jacob repulsed been buried in Egypt, and bind Joseph with an oath to take him back to the Promise land. However, the quotation of Joseph to Pharaoh and his household deliberately left out these details particularly the mentioning of Egypt in the speech of Jacob. Through this device, Joseph’s quotation of his father omitted the offensive tone of his father’s original words and changed these speeches in order to persuade Pharaoh. Concerning these changes, Savran also added,

Certainly Jacob’s entreaties not to be buried in Egypt … [‘]Do not bury me in Egypt[’], and … [‘]Carry me out of Egypt[’]—would have been highly offensive to a royal court that had been so hospitable to its foreign guests. The ancestral, religious aspect of Jacob’s phrase … (Let me lie with my fathers) is rendered by Joseph as … (In the tomb which I dug out for myself in the land of Canaan); it is now Jacob’s own gravesite in another country. It has been suggested that Pharaoh might have been more amenable to the idea of a personally ‘prepared’ gravesite, much the way that an Egyptian might stock his own burial place with all his requirements for the hereafter. ²⁹

Equally important, the oath of Joseph to his father itself bears similarity to the oath that Abraham asked Eliezer to take when he went to take a wife for Isaac (24:2, 9). In the case of Abraham, it describes the total displeasure of Abraham that his son Isaac will leave the Promiseland and return back to Aram or the land of Abraham’s birth. Similarly, Jacob demands of Joseph that he should not be buried in Egypt, but he must take him back to the land of Canaan for burial. These are the only two contexts where a patriarch required from either a son or a servant to swear by placing his hands on his ‘thigh’ (24:9; 47:29). Concerning the similarity of these two oaths, Wenham observed, ‘Jacob appears consciously to be imitating his grandfather here. Both patriarchs’ great concern was the fulfillment of the covenant promises: Abraham by securing a wife for his son, Jacob by his burial in the land of promise’. ³⁰ In the first instance of this oath, the patriarch Abraham shows a repulsion for his son to marry from Canaan or to go back to the land of Abraham’s birth, in the same way, the words of Jacob reveal certain displeasure and refusal to be buried among the Egyptians. ³¹ However, these Jacob’s sentiments were clearly omitted and unexpressed in the quotation of his speech to Pharaoh. Concerning these changes in Joseph’s speech to Pharaoh, Waltke and Fedricks observed, ‘Joseph tactfully omits the oath ceremony and prohibition against burial in Egypt’. ³² From the preceding perspective, it appears Joseph intentionally shortened the original words of his dead father in order to accomplish certain persuasive goals. In this version of his father’s words, he concealed the covenant and legal connections of his family to the land of Canaan, and merely states his father’s request for burial at Canaan without disclosing the important covenantal ties of his father’s family to the land of Canaan. The reason for this subtle concealment and shortening of his father’s original words was to protect his status as the prime minister of Egypt whose fidelity is solely to the Egyptian kingdom—and he should exercise no strong ties to another foreign land. Consequently, the shortening or paraphrasing of his father’s original words was done to protect this self-interest. Here, the characterization of Joseph as a shrewd character is subtly achieved by the changes in Joseph’s quotation of his father. According to Savran, ‘[c]haracterization is most often accomplished by having the quoter change the language of his original speech in a significant and revealing way’. ³³

Joseph’s brothers’ quotation of their dead father (50:14-21)

Similarly, the brothers of Joseph decided to also use their dead father’s words to persuade Joseph. In this particular instance, their citation of Jacob’s words is not like Joseph who merely rephrased or shortened the original words of his father. However, in the case of Joseph’s brothers, the entire words of their father were concocted or forged with the intention to persuade Joseph into forgiving them of their sins against him. In fabricating this story, the brothers of Joseph quoted words which were presumably spoken by their father while alive. The narrator said,

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?’ So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father left these instructions before he died: “This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.” Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father’. (50:15-17)

The citation is in the category of an unverifiable quotation because we are not told when this conversation transpired between Jacob and his sons. The concoction of this scheme is reflected in their question, ‘‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?’’ This question is a deliberation among the brothers and directly influenced the fabrication of the entire scheme. ³⁴ They directly envisaged the possibility of Joseph getting back at them, and they sought to forestall this event from happening by appealing to the fabricated words of their dead father, which he supposedly spoke to them while he was still alive. ³⁵ Classifying this quotation as a case of an ‘unverifiable quotation’, Savran observed, ‘[t]he nature of the comment, together with the stated motivations of the brothers in 50:15, points to the conclusion that this statement has been fabricated by the brothers’. ³⁶ Similarly, Meir Sternberg said,

There has been no hint of such a deathbed prospection, nor indeed of Jacob’s discovery of the crime for which he allegedly urges forgiveness. Taken together with the emphasis on the brothers’ fear of revenge, their unsupported report makes sense as a desperate fabrication. ³⁷

Surprisingly, they described the quoted words from their father in terms of ‘instructions’ (צוה‎) before his death (50:16). This description of the quoted words from their father as ‘instructions’ is possible in imitation of the words used by the narrator himself in describing the last instructions given by Jacob to his children in 49:29. To further tell us that the quoted speeches of their dead father was merely a scam to deceive Joseph, the narrator also provided a clue by the phrase, ‘When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said …’. Thus, the phrase suggests that the death of their father necessitates the entire scheme to deceive or manipulate Joseph into forgiving them. Significantly, they have earlier used the supposedly death of Joseph to deceive their father (Gen 37:31-35), they are now also using the actual death of their father to deceive Joseph. The story of the brothers’ deception has come full cycle. In both places, the brothers of Joseph fabricated the story to deceive first their father - and now Joseph. There is an important inclusio here which subtly connects Joseph brothers’ deception of their father earlier on - using the supposedly death of Joseph as scheme, and their use of the actual death of their father here to deceive Joseph in the closing narratives of Genesis.

In addition, like Joseph’s use of their dead father’s words, they also employed the use of a messenger in passing over the concocted speech from their dead father to Joseph (v. 16). ³⁸ Playing the central role in these concocted speeches attributed to Jacob is the issue of forgiveness. ³⁹ For the brothers of Joseph, the usage of their father’s words to ask the need for forgiveness comes from the patriarchal status of Jacob who now is speaking from the dead to address or settle unresolved conflicts among his children. In this regard, the dead father here has become a convenient symbol of authority which the brothers of Joseph employed in their quest to persuade him against any possible thought of personal revenge or retaliation. ⁴⁰ Understanding the logics of Joseph’s brothers, the words of the dead could be summoned back to life in order to resolve or address the conflicts between members of the same family, hence their reference to the words of their dead father as a means of persuading Joseph towards forgiveness and reconciliation. According to Thomas W. Currie, ‘[t]he novelistic plot of the story of Joseph and his brothers reaches a fitting denouement in this moving scene …’. ⁴¹

Furthermore, Joseph’s brothers also described themselves to Joseph as ‘servants of the God of your father’ (עבדי אלהי אביך‎), thus identifying themselves with Jacob, their father, and his God. By this identification, they presume that any attack on them is also a direct attack on Jacob and his God. Consequently, the use of their dead father’s words was to protect themselves against the increasing political powers of Joseph and to get themselves a protective covering against his wrath or desire for revenge. Through this scheme, the brothers of Joseph invented and attributed words to their dead father which are designed to persuade Joseph to act favourable towards them. When their words reached Joseph (50:17), the narrator reported that he wept. Significantly, this is the last weeping scene in the book of Genesis. ⁴² It cumulates several references to Joseph’s weeping in the Joseph narrative (42:24; 43:30; 45:15; 46:29; 50:1, 17). Interestingly, the weeping scene here forms also a kind of inclusio in the story of Joseph which began with Jacob weeping over the death of Joseph (37:5), his weeping for the death of his father in chapter 50 verse 1, and he is now again weeping over his own brothers (50:17). To fulfil the original dreams of Joseph, the brothers bowed down to Joseph and declared that they are his ‘slaves’ (50:18, cf. 37:6-11). They have moved from being the ‘slaves’ or ‘servants of the God of your father’ in verse 17 to ‘slaves’ of Joseph in verse 18. In tears, Joseph declared the sovereign hands of Yahweh in the entire story of his life and the redemptive purposes in all the difficulties of his life. ⁴³ By his tears, it seems Joseph saw through their schemes and addressed the fears involved in their citation of the words of their dead father as protective shield from his revenge (50:19).Thus, the book of Genesis closes with this emotional mood and directly underscores Joseph’s assurance and promises to take care of the families of his brothers, and thus allaying their fears of possible revenge. ⁴⁴ Creatively, through these two quotations of their dead father, the narrator brought to an end the story of the Joseph narrative particularly the stylistic usage of quotations earlier on by Joseph’s brothers in persuading their father—Jacob to allow them to return to Egypt (Gen 42:31-34). ⁴⁵ Ironically, while in this particular scene, the brothers of Joseph quoted Joseph who in this story is also perceived by his brothers as dead in order to persuade their father Jacob, the book of Genesis ends with the fabricated quotation of the words of their dead father Jacob in order to persuade Joseph. ⁴⁶

Conclusion

From the preceding study, we underscore certain significance of this present pericope. First, this pericope is the only text in Hebrew narrative where a character or characters uses the words of a dead character for some favourable persuasive goals. Second, this pericope climaxes the intriguing plot of the Joseph narrative particularly in resolving the tension between Joseph and his brothers. In addition, the pericope brings a closure to the stories of tricksters in the patriarchal narratives by its representation of trickish characters who wanted to use the words of the dead to achieve some subtle interests. ⁴⁷

By this representation, it seems the deception in the life of the patriarch Jacob is repeated in the life of his children, and in this sense, the ghost of Jacob has come to haunt his family. Similarly, the narrator of the Joseph narrative helps to further the characterization of Joseph and his brothers, and shows the continuous presence of sibling rivalry among Joseph and his brothers up to the end of Genesis. According to Wenham, this is ‘the penultimate scene of the Joseph story … for here the great theme of this story, the tension between Joseph and his brothers, is finally resolved’. ⁴⁸ The resolution of this sibling rivalry is clearly portrayed with the intriguing presence of scheming and manipulation of the words of Jacob by Joseph and his brothers. The omissions and changes in the speeches of Joseph and his brothers were purposefully deployed for persuasive ends. In the quoted speeches of Jacob, the character of Jacob comes alive and his ghost seems to haunt and hover over the world of the story. Through this narrative device, the continuous actions of Jacob in the lives of his children even after death brought important closure to the Joseph story in the echoing of the two central concerns of the closing stories of Genesis, namely, the preoccupation of Jacob’s children with the burial of the patriarch in Canaan, and the quest to resolve and settle the differences among the children of Jacob.

Seen from this perspective, the narrator possibly reports the past with these two main concerns of fidelity to the Promiseland and the theme of reconciliation for Jacob’s children because he wants to provide guidance for the continuous tribal and ethnic tensions among the different tribes. Concerning the latter, de Hoop has described the interplays of the pro-Judah and pro-Joseph agendas in the end of Genesis which seek to appropriate Jacob’s blessings for either Joseph or Judah through these stories. ⁴⁹ The inward ethnic conflicts preserved in these stories appear to transcend these pro-Joseph and pro-Judah traditions of ancient kingship by de Hoop to include daily patterns of conflicts and reconciliation which naturally come from the interactions among the tribes. Consequently, the pictures of Joseph and his brothers making use of their dead father’s speech to pursue self-centred interests may mirror dimly the intrigues, the interfaces, and the interplays of these tribal tensions and conflicts in the world of the narrator, which are now projected and deployed in the telling and description of the origin, royal lining, and individual characteristics of Israel’s 12 tribes. ⁵⁰ Within this cultural memory, the speeches of a dead patriarch—Jacob—would continuously speak to the reconciliatory aspirations and ideals of a tribally diversified society of ancient Israel in - creative and persuasive ways.