by Angela Hunt
His eleven brothers seemed content to remain in the fertile pasturelands of the Delta where they herded flocks of sheep and goats and raised cattle. In his inner heart, Yosef wondered if they remained because they enjoyed living in the area or if guilt compelled them to linger so Yisrael could spend his remaining years in fellowship with the son they had sold into slavery.
But their motivations did not matter. God Shaddai had led the sons of Yisrael to the Black Land, and Yosef, vizier of Egypt, had been their salvation in the time of famine. They owed their lives to him, though Yosef suspected many of them would rather die than admit it. Most of his brothers despised Egypt as devoutly as they had once despised Yosef, for it was a hedonistic kingdom, given to idolatry and wine and the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness had never come easily to the sons of Yisrael, but they had been quick to accept help from Egypt’s bountiful fields and generous granaries. And, after begging forgiveness for their harsh treatment of Yosef so long ago, they had accepted their brother and his place in the royal society.
Yosef’s mind curled around fond memories of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and the Royal Wife, Queen Tiy. He had been the current Pharaoh’s tutor, guardian and counselor for nearly thirty years; he had nurtured Amenhotep through the death of his father, numerous rivalries and crises at court, and the threat of war. He had even advised the young king to marry for love when it became apparent that Amenhotep’s heart had fixed itself on Tiy, a commoner.
One of Yosef’s many honorary titles was “Father to Pharaoh,” but God Shaddai had wrought it in word and deed. Perhaps—Yosef’s gaze strayed to the strong profiles of his own sons—he was more a father to Pharaoh than he was to the two young men who rode beside him now.
But God Shaddai had placed him in Pharaoh’s life, and had seen fit to keep him in the royal throne room. He had lived fifty-seven years in the shadow of El Shaddai’s guiding hand; he had seen the best and worst life could offer. And because he was as certain of his calling as he was of the sunrise to come, Yosef’s heart brimmed with peace.
But what feelings stirred in his sons’ hearts, he could only imagine.
The sun was not shining over the Delta.
Bilious black clouds, blown from the Great Sea, hung so low over Goshen they seemed to compress the earth. Yaakov’s sons and grandsons huddled outside the patriarch’s tent, their heads lowered as if they sought to escape the rain to come. As Yosef and his party approached on the trail from the river, Re’uven lifted his hoary head and nodded in a grim greeting.
“He waits for you and your sons,” he said, striding toward Yosef in stiff dignity. “He will not rest until he has spoken to you.”
Yosef forced a smile and nodded before lifting the flap of his father’s tent. Dinah and Tizara stood inside, and their faces broke into relieved smiles as Yosef entered. Dinah moved away toward the brazier, where glowing coals held back death’s chill, but Tizara bowed herself to the ground.
“Rise, Tizara,” Yosef said, momentarily annoyed by his niece’s obeisance. His eyes flitted over the still form on the fur-lined bed. “Are we too late?”
“Of course not, my lord.” Tizara lifted her head. “He has tremendous strength, and he waits for you. I will wake him.”
Moving as softly as a shadow, she placed a gentle hand on the old man’s bare shoulder. Yaakov’s cheekbones jutted forth like tent poles under canvas and the fullness of his lips had shrunken to thin lines of gray. Yet an inherent strength remained in his face, and when the heavy eyelids lifted, the faded eyes were still compelling.
“Grandfather Yisrael,” Tizara whispered, “your son Yosef has come.”
With visible effort, Yisrael sat up and peered in Yosef’s direction. “My son?”
“Yes, Father.” Leaving the dignity of his own authority behind, Yosef stepped forward, once again a dutiful son waiting to hear his loving father’s wishes.
“I am glad you have come.” Yisrael’s words came slowly, as if drawn from a deep well. “Listen to what I will tell you, for I am old, and will soon join my father and his father.”
“I am listening,” Yosef answered, his voice thick.
A look of tired sadness passed over Yaakov’s features. “God Shaddai was seen by me in Luz, in the land of Canaan. He blessed me and he said to me, ‘Here, I will make you bear fruit and will make you many, and will make you into a host of peoples. I will give this land to your seed after you, as a holding for the ages.’”
He paused, gathering strength. “So now, your two sons who were born before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine. Efrayim and Menashe, like Re’uven and Shim’on, let them be called mine! But any sons you beget after them, let them be yours, by their brothers’ names let them be called, respecting their inheritance.”
Yosef nodded silently. By his words Yaakov had indicated Menashe and Efrayim would share Yaakov’s inheritance equally with the other eleven sons—in effect giving Yosef the double blessing due the firstborn, and immediately passing it on to Yosef’s children. Re’uven was Yaakov’s eldest son, but Yosef was the firstborn of Rahel, whom Yaakov had always considered his true wife. Even though after Rahel’s death Yaakov had come to love Lea, his second wife, he never forgot he had intended for Rahel and Yosef to hold the favored legal position of the first wife and firstborn son.
The patriarch squinted past Yosef. “Who is with you?”
“The sons God gave me here, in the land of Mizraim.”
The point of the old man’s tongue slowly moistened his underlip. “Pray bring them over to me, so I may give them my final blessing.”
Immobilized by the shock of grief, Yosef could not turn, but Menashe and Efrayim had heard and were already moving toward their grandfather’s bed.
Yisrael lifted trembling arms and searched for the strong shoulders of his grandsons. When his fingers had firmly grasped each young man, he pulled them close, kissed their cheeks and embraced them.
“Oh, my son Yosef—” his voice rang with awe as his arms encircled Yosef’s sons “—I never expected to see your face again, but God has let me see your children as well!”
Yosef stumbled forward to kneel at his father’s side, and Menashe drew back to make room. In respect for Yisrael’s age and position, the young men bowed their heads while Yosef clasped his father’s hand and wept. The flash of joy that ignited at their reunion had not dimmed in seventeen years; too soon he would again endure the wretched suffering of parting.
“Now,” Yisrael said, his voice fragile and shaking, “bring your sons to me, so I may bless them.”
Yosef stood and motioned to his sons. Efrayim had been about to approach Yaakov on the left side of the bed, near Yaakov’s right hand, but Yosef made a sharp gesture, indicating that the young men should switch places. Menashe, as the eldest, should receive the greater blessing, traditionally bestowed with the right hand.
Yosef’s heart swelled as his handsome sons fell to their knees to receive the blessing. Yisrael closed his eyes, lifted his hands toward heaven and spoke in a voice that rang with command: “The god in whose presence my fathers walked, Avraham and Yitzhak, the god who has tended me from the day I was born until this day, the messenger who has redeemed me from all ill-fortune, may He bless the lads!” Yisrael then crossed his arms. The right hand, which should have fallen on Menashe’s head, fell instead on Efrayim’s. Apparently unaware of his mistake, the old man continued. “May my name and the name of my fathers, Avraham and Yitzhak, continue to be called through them! May they teem like fish to become many in the midst of the land!”
“Wait, Father,” Yosef interrupted. A thin blade of foreboding sliced into his heart as he watched history repeat itself. Yaakov stole Esav’s rightful blessing, Lea usurped Rahel’s rightful place. Second-born Efrayim should not be favored above Menashe…
“Not so, Father.” Yosef took hold of Yaakov’s right hand, intending to lift it from Efrayim’s head and place it on Menashe’s. “Indeed, this one at your right side is the firstborn, pla
ce your right hand on his head.”
“No, son.” Yaakov lifted his pale eyes, the light of intent shining in them. “I know what you are thinking. The firstborn will be a people, he, too, will be great, yet his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a full-measure of nations.” He lowered his gaze to his grandsons. “By you shall the children of Yisrael give blessings to one another, saying, ‘May God make you like Efrayim and Menashe!’”
As his spidery hands fell from the boys’ heads, Yaakov leaned back in exhaustion, but contentment shone on his face. “I am dying.” He looked up at Yosef. “But God will be with you. He will return you to the land of your fathers. And I give you one portion over and above your brothers.” He paused, his chest heaving. “Call the others, for I must speak with them before I depart on my final journey.”
Stunned by the sound of weakness in his father’s voice, Yosef darted to the tent doorway and hoarsely summoned his brothers.
Menashe stood silently in the shadows with the women as his grandfather pronounced his final blessing on his sons: Re’uven, Shim’on, Levi, Yehuda, Zevulun, Yissakhar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naftali, Yosef and Binyamin. Many of the uncles wore puzzled looks, Menashe noticed, as blessings and warnings poured from Yaakov’s tongue; Shim’on and Levi seemed to wilt beneath their father’s harsh words. But the blessings Yisrael bestowed had little to do with the men as Menashe knew them, and he wondered if the old man’s words were meant to be taken literally. Would God Shaddai bring Yisrael’s predictions to pass? And what had Yaakov intended when he gave Efrayim the blessing of the right hand, the blessing that rightfully belonged to the firstborn?
Perhaps he shouldn’t allow the gesture to bother him. After all, what was a blessing? A dying man’s words, a heartfelt wish for prosperity. Ordinarily the firstborn would receive double the inheritance of any other children, but he and Efrayim would share Yaakov’s estate evenly with their eleven uncles. So the blessing wasn’t a matter of property or inheritance. Yaakov had said that Efrayim would have more descendants, but in the space of a man’s lifetime, what did that matter?
Yet his younger brother will be greater than he. The memory of those words burned in Menashe’s brain. He and Efrayim had always engaged in the typical battles and contests of sibling rivalry. Until recently Menashe had been two years smarter, two years stronger, two years taller than his brother. But now that he was twenty-five and Efrayim twenty-three, maturity had evened the ground from which they competed. In time he would be two years slower, two years weaker, two years nearer the tomb…
Why should a blessing bother him? Looking around, Menashe noticed that none of his uncles seemed terribly upset by their father’s predictions. Shim’on and Levi, for instance, whom Yaakov had practically cursed for their fierce anger, stood in the back of the room, composed and quietly awaiting their father’s passage to Sheol.
From his couch, Yaakov rallied his strength again; the women helped him sit up. “I am about to be gathered to my kinspeople.” His breath rattled in his throat and his eyes closed as if he did not have the energy even to look around the room. “Bury me by my fathers, in the cave that is in the field of Makhpela, that faces Mamre in the land of Canaan. There they buried Avraham and Sara his wife, there they buried Yitzhak and Rivka his wife, there I buried Lea.”
He murmured a few other comments in a voice too low for Menashe to hear, then Yaakov lay back, curled on the bed and breathed his last.
A pain squeezed Menashe’s heart as his weeping father threw himself on the patriarch’s body and kissed Yisrael’s sunken cheeks.
Jokim, son of Shela, son of Yehuda, sat outside by the fire, joining a circle of weeping men. Though none of them were so foolish to think that a man one hundred forty-seven years old could live forever, Yaakov had always been among them, the one constant in a sea of change and trouble. Yaakov was the one who decreed that they should always live in tents so they could move when and wherever God Shaddai commanded; Yaakov heard the voice of God Almighty in the night. Yosef would be the patriarch now; he had inherited the blessing of the firstborn, but Yosef seemed as distant as a mountain on the horizon. He kept himself in the city of Thebes, and he would forever be drawn away by his duty to Pharaoh.
Jokim looked over at his father and grandfather. Pain had carved merciless lines on Yehuda’s face and tears streaked his heavy white beard. Jokim’s father, Shela, drew his lips in and stared at the fire as though the mysteries of Yaakov’s life flickered there. Silence, thick as wool, wrapped itself around the mourners as each man strove to imagine the days to come without Yaakov’s pervading influence.
Uneasy in the somber heaviness, Jokim slipped away from the old men and wandered among the tents. The women had no time to mourn; their hands were busy preparing food and making beds for the guests who would soon descend on them. The Canaanites traditionally mourned for thirty days: three days of tears followed by seven days of lamentation, followed by twenty days of receiving those who came to pay their respects and offer condolences. Yaakov of Hebron had been well-known and respected in the land of Canaan. Kings and princes from the entire civilized world would soon begin to wend their way to Goshen in order to acknowledge the great man who had begotten an even greater son.
Jokim stopped at the sight of Menashe and Efrayim near the animal pens. The two brothers, both of whom were about his age, were strikingly handsome even though they dressed and painted themselves in the manner of the Egyptians. They wore fine Egyptian wigs, neatly trimmed and anointed with oil, and the white of their kilts dazzled against the somber hues of Yaakov’s tents and the Hebrews’ dyed tunics. Menashe, the elder, had a lean and narrow face. His smooth olive skin stretched over high cheekbones, and his carbon-black eyes seemed to pierce whomever they studied. A healthy beard had begun to shadow his chin and upper lip, and Jokim supposed that the Egyptians had not had time to shave before boarding the barge that brought them to Goshen.
Now Menashe’s brow was furrowed, his hands tight on the rail of a pen that confined a group of lambs too young to swim through the encroaching floods.
“Hello, cousins,” Jokim said, approaching cautiously. He did not know his Egyptian relatives well, for Yosef and his sons spent very little time in Goshen. Menashe and Efrayim rarely accompanied the vizier on the infrequent occasions when he did visit, and Jokim could not recall speaking to his kinsmen more than once or twice in his lifetime. But here they were, of the same age, and apparently caught up in the same flood of confusing emotions.
Menashe inclined his head in a formal gesture, but Efrayim flashed Jokim a heartfelt smile. “Greetings. Jokim, isn’t it? You are Shela’s son?”
“Yes.” Jokim tried not to let his relief show in his face. Yosef’s sons were nearly Egyptian royalty; he had heard they often dined with Pharaoh’s children. Yosef’s wife, their mother, had been a beautiful Egyptian noblewoman, so Efrayim and Menashe had inherited attractiveness and position from both parents.
Efrayim, Jokim decided, must have received his mother’s looks. His face was not as narrow as Menashe’s, his eyes not as direct or piercing. At his neck, a dark curl escaped from under the straight tresses of the Egyptian wig, and his smile was wide and quick, immediately putting Jokim at ease.
“Shall we sit?” Efrayim pointed to the rail fence. “We would like to hear what has happened in the past few days. Unfortunately, in Thebes we do not often hear reports from the Delta.”
Jokim smiled, realizing that Efrayim was being tactful. Most people in Thebes cared nothing about what happened to the Hebrews at Goshen.
He shrugged and perched on the top rail of the pen. “The weakness came on Yisrael gradually. He grew weaker and more feeble, and last night he told the women to send for Yosef. My grandfather Yehuda saw it coming—for the past week he has said the end was drawing near.”
Jokim tilted his head and studied Efrayim’s expressive face. “Can you tell me what went on inside Yisrael’s tent? My mother said I should not go in.”
&
nbsp; Efrayim shot a quick glance at his older brother, who muttered something in the Egyptian tongue and walked away.
“Yisrael gave his blessings.” Efrayim’s left brow rose a fraction. “He included me and Menashe among his sons. We did not expect that, of course, but the most unusual thing—” He paused.
Jokim leaned closer. “What unusual thing happened?”
“It probably won’t mean much to you,” Efrayim said, moistening his well-formed lips, “but he placed his right hand on my head even though I knelt at his left side. My father sought to correct Yisrael’s mistake, but Grandfather insisted that he meant to do it.” A hint of boastfulness crept into his voice. “Yisrael said I will be mightier than my brother.”
Jokim leaned backward, astonished by the news and Efrayim’s casual delivery of it.
Efrayim lifted both brows as his face split into a wide grin. “Oh, the drubbing I can give Menashe now! He always held it up to me—his being the elder, of course. But he’ll never say anything again, because I can answer him with Yisrael’s own words. I am to be a mightier man, and from me will come a tremendous nation!”
Jokim stared in amused surprise. The boast would have sounded impertinent coming from anyone else, but Efrayim uttered it with such bold nonchalance that it did not seem untoward or tactless. “What do you think Yisrael meant?”
“I don’t know,” Efrayim answered, slipping from his perch on the rail. “But I will have a merry time with Grandfather’s words while I can. It is not every day that I manage to defeat my elder brother.”
Chapter Two
With her fellow musicians in the queen’s chamber, Jendayi lowered her head and waited for a cue from Akil. The queen’s companions, whomever they were, had fallen silent at the song’s conclusion and Jendayi wondered why they did not speak. The uncomfortable silence was an almost palpable reminder that the enslaved musicians were people who needed time to rest strained fingers and breathless lungs.
