Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Dave Washburn:

You wrote:  “The focus of the story is Joseph's ability to interpret dreams. 
The Pharaoh could have the baker impaled for burning the morning toast, 
because the Pharaoh was pretty much all-powerful. You're creating a cure for 
which there is no known disease.”

1.  If that were the case, then why does the text describe the fine baskets 
of which the Baker dreams as being XRY, being a word which university 
scholars say in their published works never appears elsewhere in the Bible, 
but which has the same three letters as XRY at Genesis 14: 6?

2.  When you write “The Pharaoh could have the baker impaled for burning the 
morning toast, because the Pharaoh was pretty much all-powerful”, that seems 
to imply that Pharaoh often took arbitrary actions that in many cases may 
have been ill-advised, and that in particular the Baker may not have actually 
been guilty of anything much more serious than “burning the morning toast”.  
But how does that approach square with what we read in the very next chapter 
of Genesis?

“And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his 
servants.  And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find [such a one] as 
this [is], a man in whom the Spirit of God [is]?  And Pharaoh said unto 
Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, [there is] none so 
discreet and wise as thou [art]:  Thou shalt be over my house, and according 
unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be 
greater than thou.  And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over 
all the land of Egypt.  And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put 
it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a 
gold chain about his neck”.  Genesis 41: 37-42

Is Pharaoh being portrayed as doing that arbitrarily in an action that could 
easily have been ill-advised, perhaps because Pharaoh was confident that 
unlike the Baker, Joseph would be sure not to “burn the morning toast”?  No, 
both in chapters 40 and 41 of Genesis, the early Hebrew author is portraying 
Pharaoh as doing the right thing for the right reason.

In order for us the audience to understand that in chapters 40 and 41 Pharaoh 
is doing the right thing for the right reason, we must know what the nature 
of the Baker’s treason was in chapter 40.  The fact that the fine baskets/CLY 
were XRY is the key clue.  That reveals that the Baker was planning to 
contravene Pharaoh’s new Year 12 anti-XRY policy of breaking with the XRY 
state of Naharim.  The early Hebrew author goes out of his way to show 
solidarity with Pharaoh’s controversial Year 12 anti-XRY policy:  (i) YHWH 
guarantees Canaan to the Hebrews as against the XRY at Genesis 15: 18-21;  
(ii) Rebekah reams out Esau’s XRY wives at the end of chapter 27 of Genesis;  
and (iii) the family statues that should have been returned to Naharim are 
never so returned, and in fact Rachel sits on them at the wrong time of the 
month!  Genesis 31: 34-35

Your view that Pharaoh was all-powerful, period, misses the essence of these 
stories.  Everyone knew that Pharaoh was all-powerful in Egypt.  The critical 
question, however, was whether Pharaoh’s controversial anti-XRY policy that 
he had inaugurated in Year 12, and which was much discussed, often 
negatively, in Year 13, was the right thing for Egypt to do.  [Note also the 
Amarna Age ambience of the phrase “Pharaoh…put a gold chain about his neck”, 
which is one of the best-known images coming out of Amarna, and which recalls 
only Amarna, not any other era.]

3.  The critical issue here, upon which no one but me has made a single 
comment, is the meaning of the Biblical Hebrew word XRY at Genesis 40: 16.  
In my opinion, that word explains the nature of the Baker’s treason, and 
nicely sets the stage for us the audience to know that Pharaoh will do the 
right thing for the right reason when he elevates Joseph in the next chapter. 
 The key to an historical understanding of the Patriarchal narratives is to 
focus on the Biblical Hebrew word XRY at Genesis 40: 16.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois