Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

isaac,

On Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:41:30 -0500, Isaac Fried wrote
>>>> You mean the minister did not trust Joseph with his meals being afraid of being poisoned by the wife or by the boy?

once more i fail to trace the logic here. egyptian rulers did not trust ANYBODY with their meals. and they tended to
kill the cooks (and antbody else) for the smallest suspicion every now and then. this is suggested
in genesis, and (i imagine) can be verified by the historians.

>>> The question here is first of all who is the הוא HU doing the eating.

this is my reading of this text. it describes joseph's authority granted to him by the minister.
clearly the phrase in question states that this power of authority included all THE MINISTER'S internal affairs...
i hope so far you agree. observe that the term "all his internal affairs" must be exaggerated, as stories always
tend to simplify things. it is quite possible that in reality joseph was
 
...except THE MINISTER'S own meal!! indeed,

1) it would be overly naive to leave this inspection with a foreigner, and second in command, who may have
all the motives to poison his boss.

2) it would make no sense the minister inspecting JOSEPH's meal - if he wanted to poisen joseph a simple
execution would do. so, "he" cannot be joseph.

observe that joseph's reply is of identical pattern, except that THE MINISTER's meal is replaced
with THE MINISTER's wife. the didactical point of doing so is to dissociate joseph (and his power of
authority) from the woman.

in the second phrase the wife is clearly THE MINISTER's. by analogy, it makes sense to assume that
in the first phrase the meal is also THE MINISTER's.

nir cohen

>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
> On Dec 9, 2012, at 10:45 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. wrote:

>
>

> לא ידע אתו מאומה כי אם הלחם אשר

> הוא או
> confided to him all but the food which he was eating.
> [but clearly not confiding his meals with the second of command...]
>
>

--
Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)