Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

42:29-38 - Nine of the ten brothers who left Jacob in Canaan show back up after going to Egypt to buy grain during the famine and of course they have to tell their father what happened and explain why they came back without Simeon. They tell him about being accused as spies and that this crazy governor guy kept Simeon in prison until they come back to Egypt with their youngest brother Benjamin. Now I’m not exactly sure how they justified to themselves that this made sense at all, or how they thought that bringing another man that they say is their brother will somehow prove that they are not spies. I don’t even know if it did make sense to them or if these demands were just as bizarre to them as they are to me. Jacob reacts about as expected basically saying that if they take Benjamin to Egypt and something happens to him, then he will have lost both of his favorite sons, Joseph and Benjamin, and Simeon and that he will literally die. Reuben, as TB describes him, the consummate polit...

42:21-24 - Even though we know that the Bible isn't chornologically accurate, it makes it seem like the conversation that the brothers have between themselves as to why all of this misfortune is befalling them happens after Joseph has given them the alternate ultimatum that only one brother stay imprisoned instead of nine of them. It would make sense to me that all the brothers were imprisoned, and while there they had this conversation and Joseph overheard them, that's why he changed his mind as to letting nine of them leave instead of just one, but I guess why he changed the terms of their proof of not being spies and whether or not it has anything to do with this conversation, doesn't really matter. Surprisingly, after the ten brothers are accused of being spies by the governor over all the land of Egypt, they start to do a little self-reflection and come to the conclusion that all this misfortune is because "we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we ...

42:1-6 - Even though the process of transferring the wealth of Egypt from the common people to Pharaoh took many years, it was still well within the time frame of the people’s remembrance, being taxed of a significant portion of their crops, then having to buy that food back at inflated prices where they were hungry. Long story short, the people were probably pretty angry with the Egyptian government, and Joseph was the front facing symbol of that system, regardless of whether he personally believed it to be immoral. We’re not exactly sure at what point in the famine the land of Canaan becomes impacted enough to look elsewhere for food, but at some point, presumably several years into the crisis, “Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, (and) Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?” Since the time that the boys sold Jospeh off as a slave to travelers, we have only heard about what has happened to Judah with the Tamar business, in which he can assume that he was humi...

47:14-26 - The key word in verse 56 of chapter 41 is “sold” in that the grain and corn that was confiscated or “taxed” at 20% from the Egyptian people by their Semite conquering overlords, is being “sold” back to them when they are on the brink of starvation. If it were me, I’d be furious that I would have to pay money to buy back the food that I grew with my own hands but was stolen by the government, and I’m sure that the Egyptian people felt that same way. But the “how” of the food being sold to Egyptians and to foreigners throughout the land is important as is explained by TB and Genesis 47. During the initial part of the crisis, the food was sold for money, and a lot of money at that. TB explains in this Torah Class article, “This was no welfare. The price for those stored grains was VERY high. We see from the upcoming story of Genesis 42 and 43 that several BAGS of silver was required to buy food from Egypt for the clan of Jacob; food would normally not have required a sum of m...

41:55-57 - In Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph interpreted that there would be 7 years of abundance in Egypt followed by 7 years of devastating famine, and so Pharaoh appointed Joseph to execute a plan in which a 20% tax was levied on the Egyptians to store so that the people wouldn’t starve to death when the famine came. It’s important to remember here that the ruling class of Egypt at the time, to include Joseph, wasn’t Egyptian, but instead Semites, Joseph being an Israelite and the rest of the rulers being Bedouins. This dynamic is important to keep in mind but we’ll come back to that. I had never considered the when, how, or why of this famine because Egypt and the middle east is so far away and it is hot and desert there, so of course there is famines all the time because the water situation is so precarious all the time. But then again, we have to remember that Mesopotamia is the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq and is also known as the fertile crescent, w...

41:45-54 - There is some significant geopolitical information that comes into play at this point in the story, most of it is explain by TB from Torah Class so we’ll be relying heavily on that. The first point that needs to be made is that in order to cement Joseph’s new position of power, Pharaoh gives him a new name which is Zaphnath-paaneah, which is translated into Egyptian as meaning “he who is called life,” and “gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-perah priest of On.” I always wondered why marrying outside of the lineage was so off limits, but Jospeh did it because he had no choice, to refuse Pharaoh would have been a big problem, plus, there were no other women there of his lineage. Or was there? TB mentions repeatedly, and I’ve heard it in other LDS places as well, but at the time of Joseph, Pharaoh wasn’t Egyptian, but instead was Semitic, meaning a descendant of Shem, just like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Initially, back in chapter 39 when we learn that Josep...

41:1-7 - The time after the butler was reinstated must have been tortuous for Joseph because he fully expected the butler to go back to Pharaoh and be so grateful for the dream interpretation that he immediately told all the important people about Joseph and he would be freed any second! I bet every time the door opened or every time a stranger came into the prison, Joseph must have had a thrill hoping that it was someone from the palace coming to rescue him. That must have been horrible, and it lasted two years before someone did finally show up and say “hey come with me to see the Pharaoh.” While Joseph languished in prions, the butler was going about his daily life, just chillin, until two years later, “that Pharaoh dreamed.” The dream was that Pharaoh stood by the river, presumably the Nile, and seven really fat, healthy cattle came out of the river and grazed in the meadow. Then seven “ill favoured and leanfleshed,” cattle came out of the river and ate the healthy cows. The proba...

40:1-7 - If I have my timeline right, then Joseph was 17 when he was sold into slavery, then he was taken out of prison when he was 30 which means he spent 12-13 years in Egypt going through his transformation process. I’m not exactly sure how long he worked in Potiphar’s house and how long he was in prison, but my guess is that it was relatively split time because he had to earn the trust and favor of Potiphar and the chief jailer in order to be put in and excel in those leadership positions. In prison, specifically because it was the place where Pharoah’s prisoners were kept, there were two members of Pharoah’s staff that displeased him and were “put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.” This is probably where the idea came from that Joseph was put into some kind of holding cell attached to Potiphar’s house. Potiphar is described as “an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard,” in Genesis 37:36, so now this ...

39:21-23 – I stopped at verse 20 last time with only 3 verses left in chapter 39 because I wanted to get more background on what Joseph’s experience in prison would have been like. I imagined it like the opening scene from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves where it’s starvation and torture and cutting off hands, etc. I also wondered how Joseph would have even had the opportunity to show his management capabilities if he was just stuck in a cell all day long like in the Count of Monte Cristo. So I wanted to get some insight into the logistics of his imprisonment so it would make more sense to me. Unfortunately I didn’t get the clarity that I was hoping for, with a consensus among scholars about the situation. There were multiple articles written about how the prison that Joseph was put into was attached to Potiphar’s house and was more of a house arrest type of situation, so in that case, of course there would have been opportunity for God’s favor to shine through Joseph. This would make se...