Genesis 50; Exodus 1-2

FINALLY I have finished the first part of the book Genesis and all of it's exciting begatting and characters with strange logic. I can now move on to the second book titled "Exodus the Second Book of Moses." I had one pesky chapter of genesis left so let's get that out of the way real quick.

Chapter 50 Genesis: 

Joseph buries Jacob where he said he was going to without any problems. The children of Jacob/Israel live happily ever after. Moving on.

I think that effort deserves a celebrational gif:

I am 50 chapters into this book and according to my kindle, 4% of the way finished. At this rate, I might finish this blog just before I die, if I stay healthy.

Chapter 1:

So the Jacob clan continue what the bible folk are good at, begatting. After many a year, there is a new king of Egypt who never knew Joseph who helped the king before him so he doesn't have any loyalty. He mostly just has hate and paranoia. He decides that those Hebrews do far too much begatting and could be a threat against the Egyptians someday. So to prevent them from becoming future enemies, he enslaves them to make pyramids and such. He also tells a couple of midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill any Hebrew baby boys. Girls don't count.

The midwives do not do this because they are not monsters. They lie to the Pharaoh and God rewards them with some houses. The Pharaoh is super pissed and order that all Egyptians should kill Hebrew boys by throwing them into the river.

This panda properly conveys how I feel about babies being thrown into rivers:

Chapter 2: 

There is a Hebrew boy named Moses born who is a descendent of Levi. His mother hides him in some bushes by the river and the Pharaoh's daughter finds him and takes pity. She sends for a Hebrew midwife to nurse him. An Egyptian midwife wouldn't do because Hebrew babies need Kosher nips. The Pharaoh's daughter takes Moses as her own son.

The book skips over Moses's growing up and teenage angst. Now he is a grown man and sees an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew. Moses diplomatically and passionately speaks to the Egyptian and convinces him violence and prejudice is wrong. JK he just murders him and hides the body. Fantastic role model. On the second day, Moses sees two Hebrews fighting. He asks them why they would fight when they are brethren. The Hebrews get sassy:

"Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killdest the Egyptian?"

i.e. "Who made you the boss? Are you going to kill us like to did the Egyptian? Is that how you solve all your problems Moses?"

Moses realizes that word has spread about his murdering and decides to flee. He goes to Midian and sits by a well and meets 7 daughters of a priest. He helps them water their flock and his minor effort convinces their father that Moses should get one of his daughters as a wife. Is that the second or third time someone's gotten a wife by sitting around a well? It's pretty easy to land yourself a wife in this book. They're practically handing them out. Hold a door open? Bam wife. Buy a lady a drink? You could probably marry her and her sister.

And now you shall bare my children.

Back to Egypt. The children of Israel/Jacob cry about their plight and God hears them and suddenly remembers that covenant he made to protect the Hebrews. Must have gotten it smudged on his calendar.

Genesis Chapter 46-49

Chapter 46: 

Jacob takes his whole family to Egypt with God's blessing. There's a big list of everyone's names. Jacob reunites with Joseph and says that he can die now. I thought he might literally die on the spot because that seems like something that would happen in this book. Joseph tells his family that they must be cattle people now because Egyptians aren't into sheep people. Sheep people are no longer stylish.

Sheep are so last season.

Chapter 47:

Back to that famine thing. Apparently, the famine is so bad that people are feinting from hunger now. The cost of corn is going up and people can't afford to pay anymore. Joseph cuts them a deal that they can trade their livestock in for food. They can trade they're walking, living, breathing food, for corn. They are trading in what could be prime rib and frozen yogurt for...corn. People then run out of livestock to trade so they offer themselves and their land. They offer to sell themselves as servants to the Pharaoh. Joseph's such a nice guy that he takes them up on their offer to sell themselves into slavery. They buy up everyone's land in Egypt and give them seeds to grow food. He tells them that they get to keep 4/5ths of the crops but 1/5th goes to the Pharaoh. So...they just had those seeds laying around the whole time did they? Couldn't...plant them before in these last 7 years to stop the famine? This famine thing is a half-assed plot device.

Jacob/Israel knows he's dying. He calls his son over for his favorite thing, thigh caressing: 

"I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me"

 He tells Joseph that he doesn't want to be buried in Egypt. His body must be taken to where his own fathers are buried.

Chapter 48: 

Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons. His vision isn't great and he puts his favorable blessing hand on the younger son Ephraim. Joseph is a little annoyed, thinking his father is having a senile moment and tries to switch his father's hands. 

"Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head." 

Jacob informs his son that this is not a senile thing. The younger son, Ephraim, is going to be better and have awesome seed. I think this is probably because Jacob still has some issues about being the less favored younger brother who had to steal his blessing. He's passing his daddy issues down onto his son. 

Then Jacob says: "Behold, I die." I hope I get to say that when I die. 

Chapter 49: 

Ok I guess Jacob STILL isn't actually dead. He calls all his sons together to insult them a bunch. Reuben is unstable and "shalt not excel" because he slept with his father's prostitute. Thought he'd just forget about that eh Reuben? Simeon and Levi are "instruments of cruelty" because they slaughtered a bunch of people for their raped sister. 

Yolo.

Jacob then proceeds to bless his other less shitty sons. He compares Judah to a lion and says that his future offspring will be royalty and have money and wine and stuff. Even though Judah did some messed up stuff such as suggest that his younger brother Joseph be sold into slavery and screwing around with his daughter in law, he redeemed himself by risking himself a couple of chapters ago. I am not going to review how he did this because I can't make it sound funny, just go back and read the blog. Zebulun gets the sea or ships or something. Isaachar gets called a "strong ass" but in a nice way. He's going to have burdens. Probably slavery burdens. Dan will be a serpent and does anyone else think Jacob's blessings are starting to sound like zodiac horoscopes? I don't think this whole blessing will thing would be legally binding today. 

Anyway, Dan's a snake that's going to bite horse heels which probably isn't a good thing. Gad will have a troop overcome him but...he's going to be ok in the end. Asher will have royally fat bread. Naphtali is a deer let loose. Joseph is a fruitful bough? By a well? I wish I could make this make more sense. Just...so many damn metaphors in this. I need pictures. Diagrams. Something. 

Jacob continues with the fruitful bough metaphor. Joseph is a fruitful bough. His brothers are archers with shitty aim. Joseph is special and will be blessed with breasts and wombs. 

Benjamin, the cute youngest brother that Joseph was so fond of will be a ravenous wolf. He will devour pray and just be generally awesome and horrifying. It's always the cute ones. 

Jacob reminds them that they better make sure he gets buried in the right place. 

The End. 

Fuck metaphors.  

Genesis Chapter 42-45

Chapter 42:

The famine's still going on and it's so bad that it spreads past Egypt where Joseph's horrible brothers live. Jacob/Israel sends his sons out to go get corn. Everyone in the world is stuck eating corn for 7 years. I just need to emphasize this. All the brothers except for the youngest go out to Egypt to retrieve the only food left and meet up with the brother they sold into slavery. Joseph hides his face and proceeds to mindfuck with his brothers over the course of the next couple of chapters as he well should.

He claims that he thinks that his brothers are a bunch of spies and has them locked up. Good start. He asks them about their family, if they have another brother and if their father is alive. They tell him yes to both questions. Joseph then tells them that the only way he can trust that they're not spies is if they send the youngest brother back to him. He will let them all go except for Simeon who has to stay tied up in Egypt as collateral. The brothers think that this is retribution for what they did to their brother. They are very intuitive.

He sends them off with tons of corn and sneaks the money they were going to use to pay for the corn back in their bags. This serves to make the brothers super paranoid. They explain what happened to their father and insist that they need to take Benjamin, the youngest back to Egypt so they don't get in trouble. Reuben promises that he'll bring Benjamin back to Jacob and even offers to kill two of his own sons, Jacob's grandsons, if he fails. Yes, because after losing 4 sons, the thing that would cheer Jacob up is to kill off some grandkids. Reuben is an idiot but at least his sandwiches are nice.

Chapter 43:

Jacob has still refused to send Benjamin after all this time. I guess he didn't really like Simeon all that much to begin with. Eventually they run out of food and Alzheimer Jacob's all:

"Hey go get more food."

And his sons are all:

"Hey remember when we were called spies and locked up and how one of your sons is still locked up? Remember when that happened?"

They insist again that they need to take the youngest Benjamin to Egypt if they want more food...and also if they want to free that other brother or whatever. Eventually Jacob agrees and sends Judah with Benjamin along with the original money, more money, and treats for the mysterious man who locked them up. Here's where I get confused. They say there's a famine and all there is to eat is corn one minute and the next, Jacob's family has honey and almonds to send. Almonds beat out corn every time. Why haven't they been eating almonds?

So they all head out and meet up with Joseph again but they still don't know it's Joseph. Joseph has a weird emotional moment when he sees his younger brother Benjamin:

"And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother"

I care a lot about my little brother too but I can't say that my bowels have ever yearned for him. I guess I just don't love enough.

Joseph comes off as really generous. He frees Simeon and they all have dinner together but not with the Egyptians because Egyptians don't eat with Hebrews; that would be an abomination.

They give the money and snacks to Joseph and all is well. When the brothers are sleeping, Joseph has their bags packed with the money again along with food and a silver cup put in Benjamin's bag.

Chapter 44:

Once they head out, Joseph sends his steward after them to accuse them of stealing. See? Mindfucking. He has them brought back and says that the one who has the silver cup in his bag must stay and be his servant. Perhaps this is because Benjamin and Joseph share the same mother unlike the other brothers and he feels a special connection or perhaps this is because Joseph's bowels yearn for Benjamin.

Judah goes on and on about how giving him Benjamin would just kill their father. Benjamin is the only son Jacob has left from the wife he actually wanted to marry in the first place, the other son is gone. This moves Joseph to reveal himself.

Chapter 45: 

Joseph finally reveals who he is to his brothers. He tells them that he's totally over the slavery thing. That actually they didn't do this to him, God did. God had a plan for him to save everyone from the famine. Joseph is the most optimistic guy ever. It makes me a little sick. Joseph sends his brothers to get his father so that he can see him again. He tells them that they can come and live with him in Egypt and he will take care of them during the famine. Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin return to Jacob who is super thrilled that Joseph is alive. Here's how I imagine the conversation:

"Hey dad! Good news! Your favorite son's alive!"

"OMG this is great news."

"Yeah! And he's practically the king of Egypt!"

"How did he get to Egypt? Wasn't he supposed to be killed by an animal or something?"

"Ummmm....."