Jacob And
Pharaoh: A Brief Encounter
Jacob and
Pharaoh’s brief interaction over Jacob’s age raises many questions about the
complex relationship between the two.
By Rabbi Pamela Wax
The following article is reprinted with permission from The Union of American Hebrew Congregations. For a free e-mail subscription to the UAHC’s
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Parashah Overview
- Judah pleads with Joseph to free
Benjamin and offers himself as a replacement. (44:18-34)
- Joseph reveals himself to his brothers
and forgives them for selling him into slavery. (45:1-15)
- Although the famine still rages, Pharaoh
invites Joseph's family to "live off the fat of the land."
(45:16-24)
- Jacob learns that Joseph is still alive
and, with God's blessing, goes to Egypt. (45:25-46:33)
- Pharaoh permits Joseph's family to
settle in Goshen. Pharaoh then meets with Jacob. (47:1-12)
- With the famine increasing, Joseph
designs a plan for the Egyptians to trade their livestock and land for
food. The Israelites thrive in Egypt. (47:13-27)
Focal Point
Joseph then brought
his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
Pharaoh asked Jacob, "How many are the days of the years of your
life?" And Jacob answered Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my
sojourn [on earth] are 130 years. Few and hard have been the days of the years
of my life, and they have not attained the life spans of my fathers during the
days of their sojourns." Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left Pharaoh's
presence" (Genesis 47:7-10).
Your Guide
Was this encounter
between Pharaoh and Jacob a meeting of equals?
Why did Pharaoh ask
Jacob his age, and what emotions seem to be underlying Jacob's response?
Why doesn't Pharaoh
respond to Jacob's confessional outpouring?
What is the
significance of the wording "days of the years" as opposed to just
"years?"
What do you imagine
was the content of Jacob's blessing to Pharaoh upon his arrival and departure?
By the Way…
"How many are
the days of the years of your life?" This was asked wonderingly, such old
age as Jacob reached being rare in Egypt. And since Jacob looked older than his
years, the wonder was even greater (Sforno on Genesis 47:8 in his Commentary
on the Torah).
It is only with a
few select people that each day is full of importance and is considered by them
as having a special meaning. A really true human being does not live years, but
days…. Thus Pharaoh, too, says here: "How many are the days of the years
of your life?" And in putting the question "How old are you?" in
these words, he reveals the deep impression the dignified behavior of Jacob has
made on him (Samson Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 47:8-9 in his translation of The
Pentateuch, volume 1, 1959).
Our Sages tell us
that when Jacob came to Egypt, the land was blessed by his presence and the
famine ended. When Pharaoh saw that Jacob was so old, he was afraid that Jacob
might not live much longer and that when he died, the blessing might cease.
Jacob understood Pharaoh's intention and answered wisely that while he was
indeed 130 years old, he was still much younger than his fathers [were when
they died], and it was the troubles he had experienced that made him look so
old (Sha-agat Aryeh on Genesis 47:9 in Torah Gems, volume 1, p.
332).
[Integrity] is the
accrued assurance of [one's] proclivity for order and meaning--an experience
that conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no matter how dearly it is
paid for. It is the acceptance of one's one and only life cycle as something
that had to be, and that, by necessity, permitted no substitutions; it thus
means a new, a different love of one's parents. The lack or loss of this
accrued ego integration is signified by the fear of death: the one and only
life cycle is not accepted as the ultimate of life. Despair expresses the
feeling that the time is now short, too short for the attempt to start another
life and to try out alternate roads to integrity (Erik Erikson, The Eight
Ages of Man, in which he characterizes the final stage of life as a
struggle between "ego integrity and despair").
Do not go gentle
into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage,
rage against the dying of the light (Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into
That Good Night").
One can only imagine
that Pharaoh, who was accustomed to being viewed as a god, was brought
uncomfortably close to being reminded that he, too, was of flesh. Surely Jacob
would have been able to read on Pharaoh's face the desire for him to quickly exit
from this audience, and so he lets Pharaoh off the hook by blessing him and
leaving. Thus ends Israel's first and only meeting with Egypt on an equal
footing. From then on, the House of Israel would look upon Egypt only from a
high station or from a low station--or glancing backward from the road as it
flees toward its own Land (Joel Rosenberg, "Alternate Paths to Integrity:
On Old Age in the Hebrew Bible" in A Heart of Wisdom, edited by
Susan Berrin).
Og [Pharaoh's
servant] would not believe his own eyes; he thought Abraham was standing before
him, so close was the resemblance between Jacob and his progenitor. [The
midrash assumes that this is the same Pharaoh whom Abraham encountered in
Genesis 12.] Then Pharaoh asked about Jacob's age, to find out whether he
actually was Jacob and not Abraham (Midrash HaGadol I, 692-3, as cited
in Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews, volume 2, page 123).
On seeing kings of
Israel, one says: "Blessed be the One who has imparted glory to those that
fear God." On seeing non-Jewish kings, one says: "Blessed be the One
who has imparted glory to God's creatures" (Talmud, B'rachot 58a).
And with what
blessing did he bless him? That the Nile should rise to his feet (Rashi on
Genesis 47:10).
Long live the king;
long live the king! (II Samuel 16:16).
Your Guide
Which explanation
for Pharaoh's question is the most plausible to you?
Which of the texts
do you think best explains Jacob's response?
Where would you
place Jacob on the scale between the two poles of ego integrity and despair,
per Erikson?
How do Rosenberg and
the Sha-agat Aryeh illuminate Pharaoh's character?
Take note of the
fact that Jacob lived for another 17 years beyond this episode. (His final days
are recounted in Genesis 47:28-50:14.) Did Jacob go "gently" or did
he "rage against the dying of the light?"
Compare and contrast
the three statements from B'rachot 58a, Rashi, and II Samuel that our
tradition offers as possible blessings to Pharaoh.
How is Jacob and
Pharaoh's encounter relevant to current world events?
D'var Torah
This brief encounter
between Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, and Jacob, the spiritual patriarch of a
fledgling tribe of nomads, raises a number of questions about power and
spiritual leadership. How did these two leaders size each other up, and what
did each intuitively understand about the other's authority and influence?
Was Pharaoh's
question about Jacob's age an insulting attempt to control an old man, or was
he looking to Jacob for spiritual advice and wisdom? Consider whether Jacob's
revelation about his age was a calculated political move to assuage Pharaoh's
fears or the confessional banter of a man expressing his own fears.
Were the blessings
that Jacob offered Pharaoh upon his arrival and departure his own one-upmanship
of a man who was considered a half-god, or were they a genuine spiritual
offering? If theirs was a meeting of equals, as Rosenberg suggests, was there
substance to their interchange, or was it a lost opportunity?
While we can't
answer these questions definitively, pondering them offers us insight into the
psychological and political complexities inherent in Jacob and Pharaoh's
meeting and, by extension, in all human encounters.
Rabbi Pamela Wax
is the assistant director of the UAHC Department of Adult Jewish Growth.
The Union of American Hebrew
Congregations is the central body of Reform Judaism in North America,
uniting 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 synagogues. UAHC services include camps, music and book
publishing, outreach to unaffiliated and intermarried Jews, educational
programs, and the Religious Action Center in
Washington, DC.
