Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

39:10-11 - It seems like some people just have the worst luck, and in this case, it happens to be Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his turd brothers, and God blessed him with prosperity for his master’s house, but now his master Potiphar’s wife is coming after him. We discussed yesterday some of the reasons why Joseph’s response to her when he declined her proposition, was so profound. The IM makes another point that is profitable, saying, “Joseph’s answer to the advances of Potiphar’s wife shows his great personal righteousness. King Benjamin taught the Nephites that ‘when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.’ If that principle were to be stated negatively, it would read, ‘when ye are exploiting or sinning against your fellow beings, you are only sinning against God.’ Joseph understood this principle perfectly and answered Potiphar’s wife by pointing out that it would be a terrible thing to take advantage of his master in this way. He ...

39:7 - The household of Potiphar has been thriving under Joseph’s care and Potiphar trusts Joseph enough that he has completely taken a hands-off approach to his business dealings, this is a really big deal as people in Potiphar position don’t get there by taking a hands-off approach to anything. But here comes the rub, at some point Potiphar’s “wife case her eyes upon Jospeh; and she said, Lie with me.” This is an absolutely no-win situation for Joseph and as soon as she propositions him, he must have known that his days in Potiphar’s household were numbered. If Joseph refuses, she could resort to any number of retaliatory actions, including but not limited to: falsely accusing Joseph of inappropriate behavior, making it her personal life mission to make his life miserable, etc. We know that anciently women didn’t have any rights, so she couldn’t really go much legally, or that she probably didn’t have any choice when it came to marrying Potiphar to begin with, and surely Potiphar wa...

39:1-6 - As if the Judah and Tamar event was never mentioned, we get back to Joseph's story. Last we heard from him at the end of chapter 37, Joseph was sold to Midianites as a slave and then sold to Potiphar, who was "an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard," in Egypt. We don't know exactly what Potiphar's responsibilities were as "captain of the guard," it has been speculated as being anything from the highest ranking official in the Egyptian military, to Pharaoh's personal bodyguard, or the head of the police force, or even the man in charge of the executioners, which will come up here shortly. As a slave to Potiphar, "the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man." Now in what ways could Joseph have been prospered by the hand of the Lord, because personal prosperity and enslavement don't usually go together. Let's look at Joseph's father Jacob's prosperity that came to him while he was a servant to Laban. Jac...

38:20-30 - The terms of Judah's arrangement with the prostitute he had sex without without seeing her face as to recognize her as his daughter in law, was that he pay her a "kid" which is a baby goat I think, but he had to go get the kid from the field, so he left some of his identifiable personal affects with her as collateral. After he has sex with her, he doesn't even take the kid to her himself, he sends his friend "the Adullamite" to find "the harlot, that was openly by the way side." He didn't see her where Judah said she would be, so he asks around the people there and they all answer, "there was no harlot in this place." the friend returns to Judah saying, "I cannot find her; and also the men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place." Judah basicall says, "no worries, don't sweat it, I tried to pay her but it just didn't work out, let's not make a big deal about this." I'm ...

38:12-19 - With Tamar living at her father’s house, Judah is just living his best life, but at some point Judah’s wife, who is only referred to as “the daughter of Shuah,” dies. One of the sources that I listened to mentioned that this was noted in the record because it was meant to signify that Judah did not commit adultery, so what else was he supposed to do with no wife? Not have sex with prostitutes? I mean, come on, be reasonable. Judah goes “unto his sheepshearers to Timnath, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.” So Judah isn’t keeping to his own kind either, just like so many of his demonized kinfolk. I don’t know if this was the turning point for Tamar, when she realized that Judah wasn’t going to honor his commitment to her as her father-in-law, maybe she thought that with Judah’s wife dead, that he would marry her instead, which is probably what he should have done by way of his culture. Shearing the sheep seems to play a big part of the story here because it is mentioned...

38:1-11 - Chapter 38 seems like a stick thrown into bicycle spokes, because in 37 and 39 we are focused on Joseph and his “adventures.” I spent some time yesterday looking around to see if I could find some other meaning on this chapter and why not only is it here at all but why it’s here specifically in the narrative. I assumed that this is thrown in where it is because it’s telling a chronological story, but I don’t think that’s the case. Long story short, I didn’t find a whole lot of subtle meaning in chapter 38 but there are a few things to note. Judah, the brother who’s bright idea it was to sell Joseph into slavery instead of letting him starve to death in a pit, leaves his family. I don’t know if it was a temporary journey or if it was a permanent resettlement. In his travels, he comes across a Canaanite woman “and he took her, and went in unto her.” First, marrying outside of the faith is what caused so many problems with Esau, so it seems a little unfair to have it be no big ...

37:19-22 - After all these years and all the demonstrations of favoritism show to Jospeh, what is the final straw that angered the boys enough to want to kill him? In verse 19, it gives the answer, “and they said one to another, behold, this dreamer cometh.” It was Joseph’s dreams, or more likely his talking about the dreams that really pushed the anger over the edge. TB makes a note that their extreme reaction to Joseph’s dreams indicates that they most likely believed that they were real and that they would in fact one day be subservient to Joseph, but if they kill him, well, problem solved. The bright idea that they have is to “slay him, and cast him into some put, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” Interestingly, Reuben is the one who pumps the brakes here, suggesting that they don’t kill him, ‘but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him.” His suggestion is to throw him in a pit a...

37:12-17 - Poor Joseph has really kind of been set up here by Jacob because of the blatant favoritism, all his brothers hate him now and it seems like Joseph had no idea how deeply this hatred ran and Jacob surely didn’t have any idea, which really makes me wonder just what exactly was he thinking? In fact, Jacob is so oblivious to his sons’ animosity towards Joseph that he sends Joseph out to check on his brothers when they are tending their flocks in Shechem. Interestingly, TB notes that it was pretty bold of the boys to take their flock to Shechem to feed them when they had just slaughtered and kidnapped almost all of the inhabitants of that city previously as revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah. This might have been why Jacob sent Joseph to check on them, to make sure there wasn’t any trouble between them and the people that they had left behind in the city. Joseph heads to Shechem to check on his brothers’ well being but when he gets there he finds that they are not there,...

37:1-4 - It seems that with the lineage of Esau all spelled out, that his story is settled enough to move back to Jacob, and where the story really wants to go: Joseph. Now I’m not a fan of Jacob, and I’ve said that plenty, but the level of disdain that I have for Jacob is the same level of love that I have for Joseph, which is to say, a lot. Jacob had moved his whole household and “dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.” At this point all 12 of his sons have been born and Joseph is 17 years old, and it seems that Jacob’s sons are shepherds. There was a point when Joseph had been out tending the flocks with his brothers from Bilhah and Zilpah who would have been Gad, Asher, Dan, and Nephtali and when they got home “Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.” Tom Bradford from the Torah Class describes this situation are Joseph being not only young, but one of the youngest brothers, he went and tattled to his dad. Tom asks the question, “did a...

36:1-43 – Chapter 36 isn’t one of those where I’m going to cite it very much because it is basically just the lineage of Esau and his sons and grandsons through his various wives, and where they went to live after Isaac died. I’m not exactly sure on the timetable here, if they moved before Isaac died or afterward, and it might not even matter that much. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure where Jacob even lived specifically, so it’s all kind of a mess to me. Reading through some different articles about chapter 36, here are some of the take away lessons from it: 1. Esau’s lineage was placed here by Moses because as the Hebrews were leaving Egypt, they were to pass the land of Edom without fighting with the current inhabitants, and the reason why was kindship. With this lineage, Moses showed that the Edomites were distant family to Israel and so they should be left alone on the journey to the promised land of Canaan. 2. God fulfilled the promises made to Esau by Isaac in his blessing, ...