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Jacob Forced the Oath and the Oath Became the Rod That Broke Egypt

Jacob made Joseph swear by Abraham's covenant before he died. Centuries later, that oath was already burning inside the staff that struck Egypt ten times.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Dying Man Refuses a Promise
  2. The Rod Already Burning in Jethro's Garden
  3. Why Ten Plagues and Not More or Fewer
  4. Zipporah and the Covenant She Saved

A Dying Man Refuses a Promise

Jacob was dying in Egypt, surrounded by the finest that the most powerful kingdom on earth could provide, and he was terrified. Not of death. Of the wrong burial. He called Joseph, the son he had mourned for twenty-two years and then recovered, the son who now ran Egypt's food supply, and made one request. Take me home to Canaan. Bury me with my fathers.

Joseph said yes. Jacob told him to swear.

Joseph was insulted. He was vizier of Egypt, the second most powerful man in the known world. His word was not the word of a slave to be guaranteed with an oath. Jacob held his ground. Place your hand under my thigh and swear by the covenant of Abraham. The same gesture Eliezer had made when Abraham sent him to find a wife for Isaac. The most binding oath the patriarchs knew, sworn on the sign of circumcision, on the covenant itself.

Joseph swore. Then Jacob bowed his head toward the top of the bed and gave thanks to God for what the oath meant. Not thanks for the burial promise. Thanks because the same covenant sealed in the body of Abraham was still the most powerful thing in the world, capable of holding the word of the vizier of Egypt to its mark.

The Rod Already Burning in Jethro's Garden

In Midian, years before Moses was born, Jethro had a rod in his garden that no one could pull from the earth. It had been planted there since the days of creation, inscribed with the name of God and with the ten plagues that would come to Egypt, and every man who had tried to pull it out and take it for himself had failed.

Moses walked into the garden and pulled it out with one hand.

The rabbis read the rod as the physical object in which the long machine of redemption had been stored since the beginning. The names of the plagues were already on it. The power to split the sea was already inside it. Zipporah's father, who had inherited it across many hands from Adam and Noah and Abraham and down to Joseph and then to Egypt, had brought it to Midian without knowing he was keeping it in trust for the man who would need it.

Why Ten Plagues and Not More or Fewer

The number was not arbitrary. Egypt had enslaved Israel and made their lives bitter with hard service. The ten plagues answered, one for one, the ten ways Israel had been broken in bondage. The rabbis counted the specific cruelties: the bricks without straw, the beatings, the drowning of the infant boys, the forced labor in the field, the forced labor in construction, the watching of children die. Each plague was a precise reversal of a specific Egyptian crime, delivered in kind.

But the number also connected back to something older. God had created the world with ten utterances. He had offered ten trials to Abraham. Now He was undoing Egypt with ten acts of power. The number ten ran through the structure of divine action the way load-bearing beams run through a building. You could not see them from the outside, but the whole thing stood on them.

Zipporah and the Covenant She Saved

On the road back to Egypt, with the commission from the burning bush burning inside him, Moses nearly died. God came to kill him at the inn because he had not yet circumcised his son. Zipporah took a flint and did it herself, throwing the foreskin at Moses's feet, and the threat withdrew.

The rabbis saw this as the covenant defending itself. Jacob had made Joseph swear by the sign of circumcision. Moses's own son was uncircumcised, which meant Moses was carrying the rod of the covenant while the covenant was unpaid in his own household. Zipporah, who had not been raised in the covenant, acted faster than Moses to preserve it. The rod that would break Egypt depended on the woman from Midian to keep the account current.

GinzbergCovenantZipporahPlagues
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 1:363Legends of the Jews

Jacob, nearing the end of his life in Egypt, makes a request of Joseph: to be buried in the ancestral land, the land of Canaan. But Jacob wasn't content with just a promise. He wanted an oath. A solid, unbreakable vow.

Jacob wanted Joseph to swear in a very specific way: by placing his hand under Jacob's thigh, invoking the sign of the covenant of Abraham. This was the customary way oaths were taken among the Patriarchs. It was a deeply symbolic gesture, connecting the oath to the very promise God made to Abraham regarding his descendants and the land.

Joseph, understandably, was a little taken aback. "Thou treatest me like a slave," he protested, according to Legends of the Jews, a comprehensive collection of rabbinic tales compiled by Louis Ginzberg. "With me thou hast no need to require an oath. Thy command sufficeth." He felt his word should be enough. After all, he was a powerful man in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh! He was his father's beloved son! Surely that counted for something.

Jacob persisted. He feared, as Ginzberg tells us, that Pharaoh might order Joseph to bury him in the royal sepulchre in Egypt. He needed the assurance of an oath to truly be at peace. So, why the insistence on this particular method of swearing?

Perhaps Jacob was worried about the pressures of Egyptian court. Perhaps he knew his son's heart, but questioned the world around him. Maybe it was about legacy, ensuring the connection to the covenant and the land of promise remained unbroken.

Joseph, ultimately, relented and gave his oath. But he refused to perform the ritual exactly as Eliezer, Abraham's servant, had done when swearing to find a wife for Isaac. The text subtly explains the difference: Eliezer was a slave, bound by duty. Joseph was a free man, acting out of love and respect for his father. What was appropriate for a servant would have been unseemly for a son. The story draws a distinction between obligation and genuine commitment. It's a powerful idea. Sometimes, the most meaningful promises are those freely given, born not of duty, but of love and a deep sense of connection.

What does this ancient story tell us? Maybe it’s about the complexities of family relationships, the subtle dance of trust and doubt. Maybe it’s about the enduring power of tradition and the importance of keeping promises, both to others and to ourselves. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a reminder that even the most powerful people still need reassurance from those they love.

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Legends of the Jews 4:125Legends of the Jews

In legend, this extraordinary rod wasn't crafted by human hands. No, this rod, as Zipporah herself explains, was "created in the twilight of the first Sabbath eve" – that liminal space between the week of creation and the first day of rest.

The journey it took to get to Moses! the very first human entrusted with such an object. From Adam, it passed down through generations: to Enoch, then to Noah (can you imagine what Noah could have done with that on the Ark!), then to Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and finally to Jacob, who carried it all the way to Egypt, bestowing it upon his beloved son, Joseph. So says the Legends of the Jews, drawing from various Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) traditions.

What happened then? Well, when Joseph died, the Egyptians, in their grief. Or perhaps their greed, ransacked his house. Among their spoils was the rod, which they brought to Pharaoh's palace.

Here's where things get even more interesting. Jethro, Zipporah's father, was, at the time, one of Pharaoh's most trusted sacred scribes. He saw the rod, recognized its significance, and, overcome by desire, he. stole it. A bit of a moral gray area, wouldn't you say? But perhaps he felt destined to safeguard such a holy artifact.

He took it home, and for years it remained in his possession. The story continues that one day, while walking in his garden, Jethro stuck the rod in the ground. When he tried to remove it, he found it had taken root and was blossoming. A sign, perhaps?

And here’s the twist. Jethro, as we learn, used the rod as a test for potential suitors for his daughters. He insisted that any man who wanted to marry one of them had to pull the rod from the ground. But, Zipporah reveals, as soon as they touched it, "it devours them!" A rather effective, if somewhat dangerous, method of weeding out unsuitable husbands!

But what made this rod so special? Zipporah tells us that "the Ineffable Name" (the unpronounceable name of God) was engraved upon it, along with "the ten plagues that God will cause to visit the Egyptians in a future day." So this wasn’t just any rod; it was a prophecy etched in wood, a divine blueprint for the Exodus to come.

This incredible object, imbued with divine power and bearing the weight of generations, was destined for one man: Moses. And it would play a pivotal role in the liberation of the Israelites, turning from a simple staff into a symbol of divine authority and miraculous power. A reminder that even the most ordinary object, when touched by the hand of God, can become extraordinary.

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Legends of the Jews 4:286Legends of the Jews

It’s the sheer, focused intensity of it all. And at the heart of that intensity? The ten plagues.

Why not five? Or twenty?

The answer, like so much in Jewish tradition, is layered with meaning. According to Legends of the Jews, God Himself declared the reason: "I will take vengeance upon the Egyptians for having desired to destroy the nation that is My first-born." The Egyptians sought to destroy Israel, God's first-born nation, and the plagues were a direct response.

There's more to it than simple retribution. It's about covenant, about testing, about the very nature of divine justice. The text continues, “As the night divided itself for Abraham, that his enemies might be vanquished, so I will pass through Egypt in the middle of the night, and as Abraham was proved by ten temptations, so I will send ten plagues upon Egypt, the enemy of his children."

See the connection? Just as Abraham, our patriarch, was tested with ten trials – representing the ultimate test of faith and devotion – so too was Egypt subjected to ten plagues. The ten plagues weren't just punishments, they were a parallel, a mirror reflecting Abraham's trials. They were a demonstration of God's unwavering commitment to His covenant.

And then there’s the tenth plague, the most devastating of them all: the slaying of the firstborn. A plague so severe, so final, that it broke Pharaoh's resistance and forced him to let the Israelites go. It was a terrible price, reflecting the Egyptians' earlier attempt to destroy Israel, God's own "firstborn." The concept of "measure for measure" (midah k'neged midah) is a central theme in Jewish thought.

Now, here’s another intriguing detail: how long did this whole plague saga last? It wasn't a quick affair. From the first plague to the final release, a full year elapsed. Why a year?

Because "twelve months is the term set by God for the expiation of sins." A year is a time of reckoning, of atonement, of purification. The deluge lasted a year; Job suffered a year; sinners endure hell for a year. Even the final judgment upon Gog at the end of time will stretch across a year.

A year marks a complete cycle, a turning of the wheel. It’s a period long enough for true repentance, for genuine change. The duration of the plagues, therefore, wasn't arbitrary. It was divinely ordained, a period of intense suffering leading to ultimate redemption, not just for the Israelites, but perhaps also, in some cosmic sense, for the Egyptians themselves.

So, the next time you read or hear the story of the Exodus, remember the ten plagues. They're not just a list of divine punishments. They’re a complex tapestry woven with themes of covenant, testing, justice, and ultimately, redemption. A year of upheaval, of transformation, that continues to resonate with us today.

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Legends of the Jews 1:362Legends of the Jews

Our story today touches on exactly that – the vulnerability that even the mightiest among us can face.

As he neared the end of his life, he had a very specific request. And not just one time, but three times he repeated it. Why? Well, the Rabbis teach us that repeating a request three times is the height of good manners! It shows respect and earnestness. Can you imagine the scene? The patriarch, drawing on his last reserves of strength, making sure his wishes are perfectly clear.

Think about Jacob's life for a moment. According to the Rabbis, the entire world was created for his sake! And his grandfather, Abraham? He was saved from a fiery furnace thanks to Jacob's merits. Yet, here he is, in his twilight years, dependent on others.

The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) highlights something incredibly poignant here. "Even a king depends upon favors in a strange land." Jacob, a man of immense spiritual stature, found himself in Mitzrayim (Egypt), a stranger in a foreign land. He needed help. He needed favors. And to get them, he had to rely on his son, Joseph.

And here's the real kicker: when Joseph promised to fulfill his father's wish, Jacob bowed before him. Bowed before his own son! It’s a striking image, isn’t it?

Why would he do that? The Talmud tells us "Bow before the fox in his day." Meaning, even if someone isn't inherently worthy of our respect, we must show deference to them when they hold power. Even if it's our own child! Joseph was in a position of authority in Egypt. Jacob, wise and pragmatic, recognized this reality.

Ginzberg in Legends of the Jews beautifully illustrates this moment, reminding us that even those who possess immense inner strength and past glories can find themselves reliant on the kindness and authority of others. It's a reminder that life is full of unexpected turns, and that humility and respect are virtues that transcend status and circumstance.

So, what does this teach us? Perhaps it's a lesson in empathy. A reminder that everyone, regardless of their background or accomplishments, experiences moments of vulnerability and dependence. And maybe, just maybe, it's a call to be a little more understanding and compassionate when someone asks for our help, even if they seem like they should have all the answers. Because, as the story of Jacob reminds us, we're all just human, navigating this world together.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 47:29Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis

When Jacob asked Joseph to bury him in Canaan rather than Egypt, he did not ask for a simple promise. In (Genesis 47:29) he asked Joseph to "put thy hand under my thigh", a euphemism the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves directly as "put thy hand on the place of my circumcision."

This is the oldest oath in Torah. Abraham asked Eliezer to swear the same way in (Genesis 24:2) when sending him to find a wife for Isaac. Now Jacob does it with his son. The Targum makes sure the reader cannot miss what is being sworn upon: ot brit, the sign of the covenant.

The Oath That Cannot Be Broken

Why swear on circumcision? The rabbinic answer is that a shevua, an oath, requires something holy to swear upon. The brit milah is the most physically personal mark of the covenant, the place where the Jewish body itself carries the signature of Abraham's promise. An oath sworn on the brit binds not just the word but the flesh of the one swearing.

Jacob was asking Joseph for something enormous: to transport his father's body out of Egypt, through Pharaoh's bureaucracy, across the Sinai, and all the way to the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. Such a journey would require royal permission, military escort, diplomatic negotiation. A casual promise would not survive all the obstacles. An oath on the brit would.

What Jacob Feared

The Targum, whose traditions are preserved also in Midrash Rabbah, hints at the fear behind the oath. Jacob had seen his wife Rachel die on the road and be buried in haste by the wayside (Genesis 35:19). He had seen Egyptian burial customs, mummification, pyramids, gods of the underworld. He refused to be folded into that system. The Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebekah already rested, was the one address in Jacob's universe that mattered for his bones.

An oath on the brit ensured Joseph could not be dissuaded, not by Pharaoh, not by Egyptian mourning ritual, not by the logistical nightmare of the journey. The covenant itself would push him forward.

The Covenant as Contract

The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, reaching its final form between the 4th and 8th centuries CE, uses this verse to teach something lasting about Jewish commitment. The deepest promises are not made with words only. They are made with the body, with the piece of the body that carries the oldest yes of the people.

The takeaway is a question. What, in your life, is so important that you would swear upon what your body already remembers? Jacob's answer was: my burial. Joseph's answer was: I will do according to thy word.

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