Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/305

Rh Joseph the Dreamer

—Joseph's

V

Act

287

second meeting with his brothers and

the reunion of the family.

Not only may

the story be easily cast into dramatic form,

The

but the dramatic note pervades the entire narrative.

dreams of Joseph's boyhood but foreshadow the actual relations which are later to obtain between him and his brothers. Similarly the casting of Joseph into the pit by his brothers is

dramatically reversed

when Joseph

puts one of his brothers

into prison as hostage for the return of the other brothers,

Likewise there is dramatic paralby the old, grief-stricken father, but more clearly perceived by the remorseful brothers, who knew somewhat of Joseph's fate, between Joseph's going down to Egypt as a slave, doomed apparently to a life of hopeless toil and suffering, and Benjamin's coming to the same country, and, because of the pitcher being found in his sack, being doomed seemingly to the same fate. They had including the youngest.

vaguely

lelism,

deliberately

felt

sold

Joseph as

would save Benjamin from Dramatically, too,

less.

when Simeon

picted,

is

is

slave

a



very

this

and now when they they are power-

fate,

consciousness of guilt de-

their

cast into prison,

be but the just punishment for the

and they

it

to

wrong they had done

to

feel

Joseph (XLII, 19-24). And equally dramatic is the scene where the brothers converse openly before Joseph, and reveal their innermost thoughts, and acknowledge their guilt and express their remorse for their crime, unaware that Joseph understands their every word.

Above

all,

Egyptian

the tragic pathos

before

forth

steps

and

lord,

the

the scene where Judah

of

and

mighty,

offers himself

seemingly

implacable

for the lad Benjamin, in

order that the latter might be saved from slavery, and their father might be loss

of

Bible,

his

but in

reversal

of

spared the killing grief of the additional

youngest son, all

an

literature.

earlier

is

unsurpassed, It,

too,

situation.

not only

constitutes

The

brothers

a

in

the

dramatic

had

sold \n