Legends of the Jews, Volume 2 — Chap. 1-20 – Joseph
THE NATIONS AT WAR
Hadad, the king of Edom, who had failed to gain fame and honor in the Egyptian campaign, was favored by fortune in another war, a war against Moab.
The Moabites shrank from meeting Hadad alone, and they made an alliance with the Midianites.
In the thick of the fight the Moabites fled from the field of battle, leaving the Midianites to their fate, and these deserted allies of theirs were cut down to a man by Hadad and his Edomites.
The Moabites saved their skins, and suffered only the inconvenience of having to pay tribute.
To avenge the faithlessness practiced against them, the Midianites, supported by their kinsmen, the sons of Keturah, gathered a mighty army, and attacked the Moabites the following year.
But Hadad came to their assistance, and again he inflicted a severe defeat upon the Midianites, who had to give up their plan of revenge against Moab.
This is the beginning of the inveterate enmity between the Moabites and the Midianites.
If a single Moabite is caught in the land of Midian, he is killed without mercy, and a Midianite in Moab fares no better.
After the death of Hadad, the Edomites installed Samlah of Masrekah as their king, and he reigned eighteen years.
It was his desire to take up the cause of Agnias, the old ally of the Edomites, and chastise Zepho for having gone to war with him, but his people, the Edomites, would not permit him to undertake aught that was inimical to their kinsman, and Samlah had to abandon the plan.
In the fourteenth year of Samlah's reign, Zepho died, having been king of Kittim for fifty years.
His successor was Janus, one of the people of Kittim, who enjoyed an equally long reign.
Balaam had made his escape to Egypt after the death of Zepho, and he was received there with great demonstrations of honor by the king and all the nobles, and Pharaoh appointed him to be royal counsellor, for he had heard much about his exceeding great wisdom.
In the Edomite kingdom, Samlah was succeeded by Saul of Pethor, a youth of surpassing beauty, whose reign lasted forty years.
His successor upon the throne was Baal Hamon, king for thirty-eight years, during which period the Moabites rose up against the Edomites, to whom they had been paying tribute since the time of Hadad, and they succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the stranger.
The times were troubled everywhere.
Agnias, the king of Africa, died, and also the death of Janus occurred, the king of Kittim.
The successors to these two rulers, Asdrubal, the son of Agnias, and Latinus, the king of Kittim, then entered upon a long drawn out war of many years.
At first the fortune of war favored Latinus.
He sailed to Africa in ships, and inflicted one defeat after another upon Asdrubal, and finally this king of Africa lost his life upon the battlefield.
After destroying the canal from Kittim to Africa built many years before by Agnias, Latinus returned to his own country, taking with him as his wife Ushpiziwnah, the daughter of Asdrubal, who was so wondrously beautiful that her countrymen wore her likeness upon their garments.
Latinus did not enjoy the fruits of his victory long.
Anibal, the younger brother of Asdrubal and his successor in the royal power, went to Kittim in ships and carried on a series of wars lasting eighteen years, in the course of which he killed off eighty thousand of the people of Kittim, not sparing the princes and the nobles.
At the end of this protracted period he went back to Africa, and reigned over his people in quiet and peace.
The Edomites, during the forty-eight years of the reign of Hadad, the successor of Baal Hamon, fared no better than the people of Kittim.
Hadad's first undertaking was to reduce the Moabites again under the sovereignty of Edom, but he had to desist, because he could not offer successful resistance to a newly chosen king of theirs, one of their own people, who enlisted the aid of their kinsmen the Ammonites.
The allies commanded a great host, and Hadad was overwhelmed.
These wars were followed by others between Hadad of Edom.
and Abimenos of Kittim.
The latter was the attacking party, and he invaded Seir with a mighty army.
The sons of Seir were defeated abjectly, their king Hadad was taken captive, and then executed by Abimenos, and Seir was made a province subject to Kittim and ruled by a governor.
Thus ended the independence of the sons of Esau.
Henceforth they had to pay tribute to Kittim, over which Abimenos ruled until his death, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign.
[426] JOSEPH'S MAGNANIMITY
As Joseph was returning from the burial of his father in the Cave of Machpelah, he passed the pit into which his brethren had once cast him, and he looked into it, and said, "Blessed be God who permitted a miracle to come to pass for me here!"
The brethren inferred from these words of gratitude, which Joseph but uttered in compliance with the injunctions of the law, that he cherished the recollection of the evil they had done him, and they feared, that now their father was dead, their brother would requite them in accordance with their deeds.
They observed, moreover, that since their father was no more, Joseph had given up the habit of entertaining them at his table, and they interpreted this as a sign of his hatred of them.
In reality, it was due to Joseph's respect and esteem for his brethren.
"So long as my father was alive," Joseph said to himself, "he bade me sit at the head of the table, though Judah is king, and Reuben is the first-born.
It was my father's wish, and I complied with it.
But now it is not seemly that I should have the first seat in their presence, and yet, being ruler of Egypt, I cannot yield my place to any other."
He thought it best therefore not to have the company of his brethren at his meals.
But they, not fathoming his motives, sent Bilhah to him with the dying message of their father, that he was to forgive the transgression and the sin of his brethren.
For the sake of the ways of peace they had invented the message; Jacob had said nothing like it.
Joseph, on his part, realized that his brethren spoke thus only because they feared he might do harm unto them, and he wept that they should put so little trust in his affection.
When they appeared, and fell down before his face, and said, "Thou didst desire to make one of us a slave unto thyself.
Behold, we all are ready to be thy servants," he spoke to them gently, and tried to convince them that he harbored no evil design against them.
He said: "Be not afraid, I will do you no harm, for I fear God, and if ye think I failed to have you sit at my table because of enmity toward you, God knows the intentions of my heart, He knows that I acted thus out of consideration for the respect I owe to you."
[427] Furthermore he said: "Ye are like unto the dust of the earth, the sand on the sea-shore, and the stars in the heavens.
Can I do aught to put these out of the world?
Ten stars could effect nothing against one star, how much less can one star effect anything against ten?
Do you believe that I have the power of acting contrary to the laws of nature?
Twelve hours hath the day, twelve hours the night, twelve months the year, twelve constellations are in the heavens, and also there are twelve tribes!
You are the trunk and I am the head—of what use the head without the trunk?
It is to my own good that I should treat you with fraternal affection.
Before your advent, I was looked upon as a slave in this country—you proved me a man of noble birth.
Now, if I should kill you, my claims upon an aristocratic lineage would be shown to be a lie.
The Egyptians would say, He was not their brother, they were strangers to him, he but called them his brethren to serve his purpose, and now he hath found a pretext to put them out of the way.
Or they would hold me to be a man of no probity.
Who plays false with his own kith and kin, how can he keep faith with others?
And, in sooth, how can I venture to lay hand upon those whom God and my father both have blessed?"
[428] As Joseph's dealings were kind and gentle with his brethren, so he was the helper and counsellor of the Egyptians, and when Pharaoh departed this life, Joseph being then a man of seventy-one years of age, the king's last wish was that he might be a father unto his son and successor Magron, and administer the affairs of state for him.
Some of the Egyptians desired to make Joseph king after the death of Pharaoh, but this plan met with opposition on the part of others.
They objected to an alien on the throne, and so the royal title was left to Magron, called Pharaoh, according to the established custom the name given to all the Egyptian kings.
But Joseph was made the actual ruler of the land, and though he was only viceroy in Egypt, he reigned as king over the lands outside of Egypt as far as the Euphrates, parts of which Joseph had acquired by conquest.
The inhabitants of these countries brought their yearly tribute to him and other presents besides, and thus did Joseph rule for forty years, beloved of all, and respected by the Egyptians and the other nations, and during all that time his brethren dwelt in Goshen, happy and blithe in the service of God.
And in his own family circle Joseph was happy also; he lived to act as godfather at the circumcision of the sons of his grandson Machir.
His end was premature as compared with that of his brethren; at his death he was younger than any of them at their death.
It is true, "Dominion buries him that exercises it."
[429] He died ten years before his allotted time, because, without taking umbrage, he had permitted his brethren to call his father his "servant" in his presence.
[430] ASENATH
God gives every man the wife he deserves,[431] and so Asenath was worthy of being the helpmeet of Joseph the pious.
Her father was Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's magnates, ranking among the most distinguished of them by reason of wisdom, wealth, and station.
His daughter was slender like unto Sarah, beautiful like Rebekah, and radiant in appearance like Rachel.
Noblemen and princes sued for her hand when she was eighteen years of age.
Even Pharaoh's appointed successor, his first-born son, demanded her in marriage, but his father refused to comply with his wish, because he did not consider her a proper wife for one destined to sit upon the throne.
The daughter of the Moabite king, he insisted, was a more suitable match for him.
But Asenath rejected every proposal of marriage, and avoided all intercourse with men.
With seven maidens born the same day as herself, she lived in retirement in a magnificent palace adjoining that of her parents.
It happened in the first of the seven years of plenty that Joseph planned to visit the place in which Potiphar resided, and he sent word to him that he would put up with him, at his house.
Potiphar was enchanted with the honor in prospect for him, and also with the opportunity it would afford him of bringing about a marriage between Asenath and Joseph.
But when he disclosed his plan to his daughter, she rejected it with indignation.
"Why shouldst thou desire to see me united with a vagabond, a slave," she cried out, "one that does not even belong to our nation, but is the son of a Canaanitish herdsman, a fellow that attempted to violate the honor of his mistress, and in punishment for this misdemeanor was thrown into prison, to be liberated thence by Pharaoh for interpreting his dream?
Nay, father, never will I become his wife.
I am willing to marry the son of Pharaoh, the future ruler and king of Egypt."
Potiphar promised his daughter not to speak of the plan again.
At that moment Joseph's arrival was announced, and Asenath left the presence of her parents and withdrew to her own apartments.
Standing by the window, she saw Joseph pass, and she was so transported with his divine beauty and his indescribably noble carriage that she burst into tears, and said: "Poor, foolish me, what shall I do?
I permitted myself to be misled by friends, who told me that Joseph was the son of a Canaanitish shepherd.
Now I behold the splendor that emanates from him like unto the splendor of the sun, illuminating our house with his rays.
In my audacity and folly I had looked down upon him, and had spoken absurd nonsense against him.
I knew not that he was a son of God, as he must be, for among men such beauty as his does not exist.
I pray Thee, O God of Joseph, grant me pardon!
It was my ignorance that made me speak like a fool.
If my father will give me in marriage to Joseph, I will be his forever."
Meantime Joseph had taken his seat at Potiphar's table, and he observed a maiden looking at him from one of the palace windows.
He commanded that she be ordered away, for he never permitted women to gaze at him or come near to him.
His supernatural beauty always fascinated the noble Egyptian ladies, and they were untiring in the efforts they made to approach him.
But their attempts were vain.
He cherished the words of his father Jacob, who had admonished his son to keep aloof from the women of the Gentiles.
Potiphar explained to Joseph that the maiden at the window was his virgin daughter, who never permitted men to abide near her; he was the first man she had ever looked upon.
The father continued and made the request of Joseph, to allow his daughter to pay him her respects.
Joseph granted the favor he desired, and Asenath appeared and greeted him with the words, "Peace be with thee, thou blessed of God Most High," whereunto Joseph returned the salutation, "Be thou blessed of the Lord, from whom flow all blessings."
Asenath desired also to kiss Joseph, but he warded off the intimate greeting with the words: "It is not meet that a God-fearing man, who blesses the living God, and eats the blessed bread of life, who drinks of the blessed cup of immortality and incorruptibility, and anoints himself with the fragrant oil of holiness, should kiss a woman of a strange people, who blesses dead and unprofitable idols, and eats the putrid bread of idolatry, which chokes the soul of man, who drinks the libations of deceit, and anoints herself with the oil of destruction."
These words uttered by Joseph touched Asenath unto tears.
Out of compassion with her, he bestowed his blessing upon her, calling upon God to pour out His spirit over her and make her to become a member of His people and His inheritance, and grant her a portion in the life eternal.
THE MARRIAGE OF JOSEPH
The appearance and the speech of Joseph made so deep an impression upon Asenath that no sooner had she reached her apartment than she divested herself of her robes of state and took off her jewels, and put on sackcloth instead, strewed ashes upon her head, and supplicated God amid tears to grant her pardon for her sins.
In this manner she spent seven days and seven nights in her chamber.
Not even her seven attendants were permitted to enter her presence during the time of her penance.
The morning of the eighth day an angel appeared unto her, and bade her put away her sackcloth and ashes and array herself in state, for this day she had been born anew, he said, to eat the blessed bread of life, to drink of the cup of life immortal, and anoint herself with the oil of life eternal.
Asenath was about to set food and drink before her guest, when she perceived a honeycomb of wondrous form and fragrance.
The angel explained to her that it had been produced by the bees of Paradise, to serve as food for the angels and the elect of God.
He took a small portion of it for himself, and the rest he put into Asenath's mouth, saying: "From this day forth thy body shall bloom like the eternal flowers in Paradise, thy bones shall wax fat like the cedars thereof, strength inexhaustible shall be thine, thy youth shall never fade, and thy beauty never perish, and thou shalt be like unto a metropolis surrounded by a wall."
At the request of Asenath, the angel blessed also her seven attendants, with the words, "May the Lord bless you and make you to be seven pillars in the City of Refuge."
Thereupon the angel left her, and she saw him ascend heavenward in a chariot of fire drawn by four steeds of fire.
Now she knew that she had not been entertaining a human being, but an angel.
The celestial messenger had scarcely departed, when a visit from Joseph was announced, and she hastened to array and adorn herself for his reception.
When she washed her face, she caught sight of it in the water, and saw it to be of such beauty as never before, so great had been the transformation wrought by the angel.
When Joseph came, he did not recognize her.
He asked her who she was, whereto she replied, "I am thy maid-servant Asenath!
I have cast away my idols, and this day a visitant came to me from heaven.
He gave me to eat of the bread of life and to drink of the blessed cup, and he spake these words unto me, 'I give thee unto Joseph as his affianced wife, that he may be thy affianced husband forever.'
And furthermore he said, 'Thy name shall not any more be called Asenath, but thy name shall be City of Refuge, whither the nations shall flee for safety.'
And he added, 'I go to Joseph, to tell him all these things that have reference to thee.'
Now, my lord, thou knowest whether the man was with thee and spoke to thee in my behalf."
Joseph confirmed all she had said, and they embraced and kissed each other in token of their betrothal, which they celebrated by a banquet with Potiphar and his wife.
The wedding took place later in the presence of Pharaoh, who set a golden crown upon the head of the bridegroom and the bride, gave them his blessing, and made a seven days' feast in their honor, to which he invited the magnates and princes of Egypt and of other countries.
And during the seven days of the wedding festivities the people were prohibited, under penalty of death, from doing any manner of work; they all were to join in the celebration of Joseph's marriage.
