GENESIS XLI:1-XLIV:17

JOSEPH (YOSEF) THE GREAT TECHNOCRAT

Yosef appears before Pharaoh (Par’o), extracted from the depths of his cell in the dungeon, because the “cupbearer,” who certified whether the wine was not poisoned, recalled that during his own stay in prison he had met a young Hebrew who correctly interpreted a dream for him. Now Par’o himself had the strange dream of 7 skinny cows and 7 fat cows, and an additional dream about the same number of thin sheaves and bulging sheaves, and he didn’t know how to interpret them. 

The astrologers and soothsayers offered their assessments, but Par’o was not satisfied with their interpretations. Yosef, on the other hand, claiming that he could only interpret dreams according to God’s instructions, offers a very sensible explanation. The 7 fat cows are, in reality, 7 years of plenty that will be followed by 7 years of scarcity, symbolized by the 7 lean cows. The repetition of the dream implied the immediacy of its realization. Moreover, Yosef continues, Par’o had to select a person who could implement and direct policies to deal with the situation. The territory had to be divided into departments and the surplus stored during the season of plenty to face the years of certain famine that would follow, Yosef said.

Yosef deserves admiration. The interpretation of the dream had been revealed to him by God. Instead, the measures to be taken were suggestions he was proposing. Apparently, Yosef was a great manager, a quality that the elder Yaacov discovered and therefore named him “r’oe tson“, the keeper of his numerous cattle. 

In defiance of Yosef‘s leadership, the brothers left the patriarchal home in search of pasture for the animals. The father instructed Yosef to go and find the brothers to inquire about their welfare. But deep down, Yaakov was rebuking Yosef, because the cattle was his responsibility and he didn’t understand how it was possible for him to allow his brothers to decide to drive the cattle to other people’s lands without prior consultation.

Yosef used to tell his father about the lies of his brothers, a fact that led to brotherly enmity. Actually, Yosef was probably giving regular reports to the father about the happenings in the home, because he had been appointed to such a task. Yosef had been appointed by his father as the leader of the brothers and had to keep the patriarch informed of all relevant events. 

Although Yosef was fulfilling an assigned task, it can be intuited, according to the text, that he highlighted the weaknesses of his brothers and perhaps took pleasure in doing so. Exegetes of the biblical text explain that he told his father that his brothers ate the flesh of an animal before slaughtering it, had incestuous relations, and were not careful about the idolatry that reigned in the environment.

During his formative years, Yosef appears as a consummate technocrat who disdains feelings, a fact that manifests itself when he rejects the amorous advances of Potiphar’s wife. Having been appointed as a sort of regent, to give quantitative reports of the harvest in the years of plenty, the number of storehouses to be used to store the grain.

This vocation for numbers and technology is challenged when the brothers come to stock up on food during the years of scarcity that plagued the entire region. The presence of the brothers brings out the other component of Yosef’s personality, his tendency to dream: his romantic and sentimental qualities. 

Although the brothers committed the crime of selling him as a slave to a caravan of merchants, Yosef stated that they were only fulfilling the destiny God had laid out for the family, so that he could save them during the period of famine. The biblical characters are complex, and the text lays them bare, showing their defects and shortcomings. And there is also an additional reason to assume the authenticity of these texts. Nothing is hidden, and the reader is free to express his preference for one character or another, because in the end much can be learned from each of the actors who participate in the drama that the Bible exposes. Even from those with whom you don’t sympathize.