Genesis 39-40

Sorry about the lack of posts recently...life keeps getting in the way.

I'm also looking to move this thing to a dedicated host at some point in the relatively near future, since blogspot kind of sucks for this sort of thing.

Anyway, here are two more chapters of Genesis.

Genesis 39

To recap, Joseph, after annoying his brothers with his constant tattling and predictions they would all bow down before him, got sold to some nomads called the Ishmeelites, who in turn sold him to Potiphar, who put him to work.

As it turned out, Joseph was really good at whatever it was that Potiphar was making him do, and so he was given a promotion to House Overseer, which not only came with a nicer room, but also a 30% reduction in beatings. Joseph likewise excelled at his new position, and made Potiphar even more obscenely rich than he already was. Potiphar eventually came to trust Joseph so much that he gave Joseph control over every aspect of his household, to the point where all he (Potiphar) had to do was sit around getting fed grapes all day while his wealth grew at the hands of Joseph.

Unfortunately for Joseph, Potiphar had a bit of a hussy for a wife. One day, Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph, but he refused, saying that he wouldn’t want to repay Potiphar’s kindness by banging his wife. Potiphar’s wife, not accustomed to being refused, and also not aware of how desperate she must have looked, tried to get Joseph to sleep with her on a daily basis. Joseph did his best to avoid her, but one day he really had to pee so he went into the house and ran right into her. Since there was no one else around, she started to really lay it on thick. Joseph was really in no mood for her shenanigans, and besides his back teeth were floating, so he turned and tried to run while she was still holding his shirt. His shirt came off in her hands, and he ran off.

Potiphar’s wife, seeing that Joseph had left his shirt, called out to the other men in the house and told them that Joseph had tried to rape her, but luckily she managed to scream loud enough to scare him so badly that he forgot to take his shirt with him as he ran off. Potiphar, wisely deciding to trust his primary nooky provider over the man whom he had entrusted with all of his affairs for years, threw Joseph in prison. Once in prison, Joseph repeated his old act and kissed up to the prison keeper to the point where he was put in charge of all the other prisoners. As Potiphar before him had done, the prison keeper let Joseph do whatever he wanted, and Joseph made the place into a model prison, which in those days likely meant that he developed a highly efficient beating and starvation program.

Genesis 40

It came to pass that Pharaoh’s butler and baker offended him in some way, possibly by forgetting to grovel sufficiently when bringing him his wine and cake, and so he threw them in prison. As luck would have it, they landed in Joseph’s prison, and he was put in charge of them. After a year in prison, they both had a dream on the same night. Since apparently not having someone tell you what your dream meant was a big problem in Egypt, they were both very depressed that no dream interpreters had offended Pharaoh recently. Joseph saw that they were upset, even though they hadn't even received their daily beatings yet, and asked them what their problem was. After hearing of this whole dream interpretation thing, Joseph offered to interpret the dreams for them.

The butler had dreamed of a vine with three branches that sprouted grapes. In this dream, the butler took the grapes, made grape juice, and gave Pharaoh a cup of it. Joseph stated that this meant that the butler would get his old job back in three days. Then, Joseph gave the butler a business card and asked him to put a good word in with Pharaoh, since he was getting kind of tired of hanging out in a prison all day every day.

The baker, seeing that the butler’s dream meant he was getting out of that shithole of a prison, asked Joseph to interpret his dream too. The baker’s dream was of him holding three baskets of bread on his head. Birds came and ate the bread from the top basket. Joseph told him this meant that Pharaoh would have him hanged in three days, and birds would eat his flesh. For some reason, the baker was not thrilled by this interpretation.

Fortunately for the butler, and unfortunately for the baker, both of Joseph’s predictions came true. Unfortunately for Joseph, the butler later accidentally used the business card Joseph had given him to write down his phone number for this cute girl at the Pyramid Club, and so never got around to mentioning Joseph to Pharaoh.