Blood Covenant Origins

by C. A. Gray

  All the questions made my head spin. I had been merely a servant in Potiphar’s house, and now my own home would be many times as grand as his. I weakly indicated that I trusted the master architects’ tastes and would be extremely gratified by whatever they chose. Lateef gave a short nod to this. Then he announced, “Pharaoh also hopes that my lord will be pleased to take Asenath to wife: she is the daughter of Poti-Pherah, priest of On.”

  I had heard about the Egyptian god On, of course; he was one of many Egyptian gods. I had a brief flash of concern that my wife would worship another god, but then I realized, what alternative did I have? The same would be true of any woman in Egypt. At least they were polytheists, and therefore would not object to my worship of the one true God. And, given the new name Pharaoh had bestowed upon me of God Speaks and He Lives , the same appeared to be true of Egyptians in general.

  “I would be most honored,” I told Lateef.

  He beamed. “Splendid. We shall arrange the wedding to coincide with the completion of your house, so that you may have a home for your bride.”

  Pharaoh recruited so many workers to construct my home and storage facility that both were completed within a few months. During that time, I met and courted Asenath, and was dazzled by her. Pharaoh had clearly selected her for me not only because of her pedigree, but also for her own merits. Beautiful, accomplished, and demure, she was one of the most highly sought women in the land. I was pleased to find that she was also very intelligent when I gave her the opportunity to engage with me on matters of state, and at least did not object to my worship of the Lord. I would hope for more than mere acquiescence to Him in time.

  I otherwise spent my days touring the land of Egypt, observing the abundance of the land, and directing the collection of one fifth of the produce for drying, pickling, salting, smoking, or fermenting. Until my granaries were completed, I stored what I could, where I could, but I had designated store houses before long.

  One day on these tours, I caught sight of my old master, Potiphar. He saw me, too. After a moment’s hesitation, he bowed, his expression like stone. I approached him alone, motioning for some of my servants who usually moved with me to remain behind. I did not know what I would say until we stood face to face.

  “Zaphenath-Paneah,” Potiphar growled my new name pointedly. “Tell me, does Pharaoh know your true identity, Joseph the adulterous Hebrew slave-turned-prisoner?”

  I searched Potiphar’s face. “I believe you know, deep down, that I never betrayed you, and never would have. As I told you at the time, it was your wife who attempted to seduce me, and left me no choice but to run. She accused me because I jilted her.” I watched as Potiphar’s face turned red with suppressed rage, and he balled his fists at his sides. But as I was now second in command over Egypt, he would not dare assault me. “Your own heart tells you this is true,” I went on, “in fact, you suspected her of infidelity long before I came to your house, I believe. I advise you to stop misdirecting your anger and confront her. In the meantime, whether you come to see this or not, I forgive you for what you did to me.”

  His mouth fell open, and he gave a short, affronted laugh. “ You … forgive me ?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, “because there is nothing you, or even Edrice, could ever do to me that the Lord would not ultimately use for my good. And whatever you think of my forgiveness now, when you finally admit the truth to yourself, you will be glad of it.”

  Before he had a chance to reply, I turned around and returned to my chariot, without looking back.

  Once my home was completed, Asenath and I married, and her father Poti-Pherah presided over the ceremony. The whole of Egypt was invited to participate in the feast, during those years of great abundance. I was grateful once again that my experience with Asenath was not tainted by guilty flashbacks to a sordid experience with Edrice.

  Years passed, and the sharp tang of painful memories faded in light of my newfound blessings and abundance. Asenath bore me two sons in those plentiful years, Manasseh and Ephraim. Toward the end of the seven years of plenty, very occasional moments of nervousness plagued me. What if the time of plenty continued, when I had achieved my position only because I had predicted seven years of famine? All of Egypt, and Pharaoh himself, would call me a false prophet…

  But I stopped those thoughts before I could fret more than a few moments about them. It wasn’t, of course, that I wanted drought and famine—but the Lord had shown me that it would occur for a reason. He had never misled me before. Pharaoh had two dreams, each depicting the same thing. It was not in doubt.

  The first few months of the eighth year indeed produced an abrupt change. By the spring, it was clear that the early rains would not come. Even if the latter rains in the fall arrived on time, it would not matter; there would likely be no harvest. Sure enough, by harvest time, when there was nothing, the people began to cry out to Pharaoh for food, and Pharaoh sent them to me. I had previously been busy in a leisurely sort of way; now I found myself called upon day and night by citizens desperate to feed their families. By that winter, it was not just Egyptians who came to see me; word had spread far and wide that there was food in Egypt, and many surrounding nations came to purchase it.

  Then one day, I sat on a grand elevated chair at the top of a dais outside the central granary, and scanned the line of supplicants waiting to speak to me. My eyes fell upon a group of ten men dressed in Hebrew tunics, and I caught my breath.

  I steeled my expression so as not to give anything away, standing as they approached. I could tell that they did not recognize me. A lump rose in my throat as they bowed before me, the granary of wheat behind me. I had a flash of my first dream: eleven sheaves of wheat bowing to mine.

  Here it was. The fulfillment, over twenty years later. Almost… there were only ten of them. Where was Benjamin?

  I prayed silently, and with a flash of insight I knew that now was not the moment to reveal myself. I had forgiven them long ago, but had they changed? Or were they still the same evil men who had first plotted to kill their brother, and then sold him into slavery? I wanted to know. I needed them to volunteer information about themselves, and I could think of only one way to do this: put them on the defensive.

  So I pretended not to recognize them either, or to understand their language. I spoke to them through the interpreter at my side, asking in Egyptian, “Where do you come from?”

  My brother Reuben, the eldest and always their spokesperson, stepped forward and answered in Hebrew, “From the land of Canaan. We have come to buy food.”

  I narrowed my eyes at them. “You are spies!” I pronounced, “You’ve come to look for Egypt’s weaknesses.”

  I could feel the strange look from my interpreter as he translated my message, but I ignored him, watching my brothers’ responses.

  Issachar spoke up next. “We’ve only come to buy food. We’re all the sons of the same man; we’re honest men; we’d never think of spying.”

  I snarled, “No. You’re spies. You’ve come to look for our weaknesses!”

  I watched them all exchange helpless looks with one another. Then Reuben spoke up again. “There were twelve of us brothers—sons of the same father in the country of Canaan. The youngest is with our father, and one is no more.”

  I swallowed this reference to myself without flinching. So they’d told others I was dead after all. I said, “It’s just as I said, you’re spies. This is how I’ll test you. As Pharaoh lives, you’re not going to leave this place until your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you to get your brother while the rest of you stay here in jail. We’ll see if you’re telling the truth or not. As Pharaoh lives, I say you’re spies.”

  Their eyes widened, and I gestured to several of my guards to surround them, as they all loudly protested and struggled. It didn’t matter; ten though they were, they were no match for Egyptian guards.

  “Take them to the dungeon overseen by Shakir,�
� I said with a wave of my hand, and did not look back, attending to the next in line.

  I knew that Shakir would treat them kindly, even without knowing who they were to me. He could not do otherwise. But I wanted them desperate enough to do as I asked. I also admit, I wanted them to feel just the tiniest bit of what they had done to me—not to get even (three days could never do that), but to spark a bit of empathy when they finally learned the truth. After all, they did not know what kind of a man I was, or what I might do to them next. They were at my mercy, just as I had been at the mercy of Potiphar and Shakir.

  I slept very little those three days. It took all the will I had not to run to the prison each day and reveal myself. At last on the third day I went with my Hebrew translator, pausing at the threshold in a strange moment of deja vu —it was the first time I had set foot in the dungeon since Pharaoh had summoned me, now nine years ago. I had seen Shakir in those years, but only in my official capacity as a supplier of grain to the prison, and at my wedding. Shakir saw me first, and bowed low.

  “My lord Zaphenath-Paneah,” he said, with just the tiniest smirk in his voice.

  I gestured to my translator, “Go on inside, I shall meet you there.” Then I pulled Shakir outside and closed the door behind him, so that none of the prisoners could hear us. He beamed and I embraced him.

  “It’s good to see you, Shakir.”

  “Joseph!” he whispered, and then reproached me, “You never come to see us anymore!”

  “I’ve been busy,” I confessed with a shrug and a smile. “But I’ve missed you.”

  “Sure, sure you have…”

  “How are the men I sent to you three days ago?”

  He shrugged. “About like all new prisoners. Angry, terrified. I put them all in one cell. They’ve come to blows with each other a few times.”

  I sighed, running a hand across my face. “Listen, are there still any prisoners in there who might remember me and call me by name?”

  “A few. Amon and Gamal. And Horos too. Why?” he regarded me curiously.

  “I can’t explain right now, but I don’t want the new prisoners to know my Hebrew name. Can you go in and tell Amon, Gamal, and Horos to act like they’ve never met me before?”

  A spark of understanding lit Shakir’s face as he put it together. “Those men are Hebrew too… you knew them, didn’t you?” Then his eyebrows shot up. “They’re not…” he let the question trail off, and gasped as I nodded.

  “They are. But tell no one .”

  Shakir cackled, and clapped his hands together in his mirth. “They’re the brothers who sold you! Oh, this is rich… are you going to have them executed, then?”

  “No!” I said at once. “I’m just trying to get them to apologize!”

  His glee melted into confusion. “Apologize?” he said, like he’d never heard the word before. “For ten years as a slave and three as a prisoner… you want them to… apologize .”

  “Yes!” I hissed. “And I want them to bring my other brother, the only one who didn’t betray me. And to tell me what’s become of my father. Will you help me?”

  Shakir blinked at me, and shook his head. “I guess… if that’s really all you want. I’d hang them if I were you, but it’s your call, of course.” He went back inside to tell the three remaining prisoners to pretend I was a stranger, and then poked his head back outside and whispered, “All right, all clear.”

  I met the eyes of the other prisoners, who bowed and murmured my Egyptian name. I flashed a smile at Amon, Gamal, and Horos, but I needn’t have worried: they all gazed at me with disbelief and reverence, either awed by my current position even though they knew me, or else they were much better actors than I’d expected.

  I approached the cell Shakir led me to, though I’d have known the one anyway: it was the only cell large enough for ten men. They looked haggard, sleepless, and a few of them seemed listless. The translator waited for me and came to my side. When my brothers saw me approach, half of them jumped to their feet, and alerted the other half with swift nudges and kicks to do the same. I gave them a curt nod.

  “Do this and you’ll live,” I said abruptly. “I’m a God-fearing man. If you’re as honest as you say you are, one of your brothers will stay here in jail while the rest of you take the food back to your hungry families. Bring your youngest brother back to me, confirming the truth of your speech, and not one of you will die.” The translator repeated my words in Hebrew, and the brothers turned and whispered to one another, also in Hebrew, unaware that I understood them.

  “Now we’re paying for what we did to our brother—we saw how terrified he was when he was begging us for mercy,” hissed Dan. “We wouldn’t listen to him and now we’re the ones in trouble.”

  “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t hurt the boy’?” Reuben cut in. “But no, you wouldn’t listen. And now we’re paying for his murder.”

  A lump sprang to my throat, and I turned abruptly away, beating a path to the office-cell that was once my own just in time to hide my tears. I buried my face in my hands and wept.

  They truly believed I was dead! Perhaps they thought I had died in the slave caravan, or that my master had beaten me to death. Such a thing was far from unheard of. At least I knew one thing: their consciences still smote them for what they had done. Was that enough? Should I reveal myself now?

  Not yet, I thought, with a flash of my second dream. In it, the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed to me. That would have to represent Benjamin, my father, and my stepmother, in addition to the ten brothers who were here already. This could not yet be the end of the story.

  When I had composed myself again, I returned, assuming the character once again of their Egyptian overlord.

  “Well? Have you chosen who will remain behind, while the rest of you return and bring your youngest brother?”

  Reuben began to step forward, but Simeon placed a hand on his shoulder, and stepped forward in his place.

  “I shall stay,” he offered. “Let my brothers return to Canaan.”

  I gave a quick nod, and Shakir opened the cell, and handed me a length of rope. I made a show of binding Simeon’s wrists together, and gestured for the other nine to leave the cell. Many of them did not even cast Simeon a backward glance, I noted, and frowned inwardly. Maybe they weren’t yet so different as I had hoped. I would have to prod them to repentance a little harder.

  I sent word on ahead to the granary to fill the sacks of the nine Hebrew brothers with grain, and to likewise place the payment back in each brother’s sack, along with provisions for the several week journey back to the land of Canaan—but I told the servants strictly to make sure they did not tell the brothers that their money had been returned to them. I knew this order would raise eyebrows also, but no one but Pharaoh himself could contradict my orders, and he did not bother himself about such matters.

  Nearly six months I waited. I knew there would be some delay, as I had sent my brothers with grain to last about that long. I did not dare visit Simeon in the prison during those months, though I sent word to Shakir on a regular basis to ask how he fared.

  Toward the end of those months, though, I began to look for my brothers in my grain line every day. Then, one day, I saw them—with Benjamin! I caught my breath as I saw my brother’s face as a grown man for the first time. He was young of course, and while the other nine looked fidgety and nervous, I could only describe Benjamin’s expression as excited. He gazed around Egypt in open wonder, and his expression reminded me forcefully of my son Ephraim’s as he discovered the world for the first time. I could hardly wait to introduce Manasseh and Ephraim to their uncle.

  Before they could reach the front of the line, I beckoned one of my servants to my side and pointed them out. “Take these men into my house and make them at home. Butcher an animal and prepare a meal; these men are going to eat with me at noon.”

  The servant gave a swift nod and made his wa
y down the dais to where my brothers waited their turn. I smothered a laugh as I watched Reuben and Issachar startle upon being addressed. I hardly attended to the man and his wife who were speaking to me; most of my attention was focused upon my brothers’ anxious expressions as the servant led them away. I suspected what they must be thinking: this was a set up. I thought they’d stolen the money they had brought to pay for grain the first time, and I was trying to lull them into complacency, before accusing them of theft and taking them all as slaves.

  Asenath would know who they were of course—I’d told her six months ago, and she’d listened to me agonize nightly over when I would at last see them again. She wouldn't know they were coming to dine today, but when she saw the strange Hebrew men and noted their number, she’d figure it out. I knew I could count on her to maintain the charade as long as I chose.

  I finished with the couple before me, and beckoned another servant over, gesturing with my eyes in the direction of my brothers. “Send word to my steward,” I murmured, “and if those men say anything about finding their money in their sacks the last time they came, assure them that we received their payment in full, and not to worry themselves. And please also fetch their brother from the prison and bring him to them as well.”

  My servant bowed and did as I bid him.

  I paid little attention to the rest of the queue until noon, only half listening to their stories and pleas, sometimes accidentally cutting them off as I signaled for the servants to bring them grain. At last, word came that the feast had been prepared, and I leapt to my feet in relief, hurrying toward my home, where I knew my brothers waited. I entered through the back, and Asenath met me with a quizzical look on her face, dandling Ephraim on her hip. I gave her a quick kiss, and nodded, in response to all the questions on her face. Before she could ask me anything else, I washed my hands and feet, and made my way into the main dining space where my brothers stood waiting awkwardly. When I entered, they all bowed to me as one, each man offering the present of coins he had brought back with him. Once again, I saw the stars from my second dream—all eleven of them this time. I took a moment to steady myself as my brothers straightened again. Then I cleared my throat.