Why the Midianites Feared Simon and Jacob's Blessings Needed Sharing

Ginzberg reads the Midianites' fear of Simon as God's mechanism to sell Joseph alive and Jacob's deathbed blessings as gifts that required tribal sharing.

Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, the early-twentieth-century compilation of midrashic and aggadic narrative, holds two passages on how the cosmic system distributes events and blessings across families and generations. One passage describes how the Midianites who found Joseph in the pit were structurally afraid of Simon, and how God planted the desire for Joseph in them so that he would be taken far away rather than killed. The other passage describes Jacob's deathbed blessings to his sons and his insistence that the tribes share their blessings, with each tribe's gifts meant to benefit all the others.

Both passages share one structural claim. The cosmic system orchestrates fear and distribution to preserve life and to extend blessing across structural channels that exceed any single recipient.

What it means for the Midianites to be afraid of Simon

Ginzberg's account of the Midianite fear opens with the structural orchestration. The brothers, consumed by envy, had cast young Joseph into a pit. Then the Midianites appeared. The Ginzberg tradition records that they were not just any passersby. Their arrival was part of a larger plan orchestrated by the hand of God.

The Midianites were afraid, terrified even, of Simon. Picture them intimidated, speaking nervously, their words betraying their unease. Did you not say you threw this boy in the pit because he was rebellious? What will you do with such an insubordinate slave now? Sell him to us. We are ready to pay whatever you ask. The structural fear became the operational mechanism. The Midianites bargained quickly to secure Joseph before Simon's anger could turn on them too.

How God planted the desire to take Joseph far away

The midrash compiles the structural reason for the encounter. God, in his infinite wisdom, planted the desire for Joseph within the Midianites. He wanted to ensure that Joseph would be taken far away from his brothers, preventing them from carrying out a more permanent deadly plan. The structural design was preservation through distance.

The brothers, oblivious to the gravity of their actions, agreed to sell Joseph as they sat down to eat. The price was their brother's freedom, his future, his very life. The structural moment was chilling. The midrash also notes God's structural reading of the sale. Over a meal you sold your brother, and thus Ahasuerus shall sell your descendants to Haman over a meal. The structural pattern would echo into Purim's history.

Why selling Joseph linked to the annual Seder retelling

The midrash extends the structural reading. Because you have sold Joseph to be a slave, therefore shall you say year after year, slaves were we unto Pharaoh in Egypt. The annual Seder retelling traces structurally back to this moment. The Israelites' enslavement in Egypt and its annual remembrance both rooted in the original sale of Joseph by his brothers.

The structural picture is that one act echoes across generations through specific channels. The sale produced the enslavement. The enslavement produced the Exodus. The Exodus produced the Seder. The Seder produces the annual remembrance. The cosmic system tracks the chain through millennia, with each generation's structural participation in the same original act through the operational form of retelling.

What it means for Jacob to name his sons as animals representing kingdoms

Ginzberg's account of Jacob's deathbed takes up the parallel structural distribution. When Jacob calls Benjamin a wolf, Judah a lion, and Joseph a bull, he is not just offering animal comparisons. These animals represent powerful kingdoms. Babylon as the lion, Media as the wolf, and a future kingdom of wickedness to be subdued.

The descendants of these three sons would play key roles in bringing these kingdoms to their end. Daniel, from the tribe of Judah, brought down Babylon. Mordecai, a Benjamite, conquered Media. Joseph's descendants would subdue that final kingdom before the Messianic age. The structural assignment of cosmic enemies to specific tribes was operational rather than just symbolic.

How Jacob insisted the tribal blessings be shared

After blessing each son individually, Jacob addressed them all together. He acknowledged his limitations, saying that Moses would continue and complete these blessings. Jacob insisted that the blessings were not meant to be hoarded. The tribe of Judah should share in the fine wheat of Benjamin, and Benjamin should enjoy the goodly barley of Judah.

Each tribe's blessings should benefit all the others. The structural vision was of mutual support and interdependence. The structural design of Israel as Klal Yisrael, the collective, required that each part contribute to the whole. The blessings given to one were not just for that one. They were meant to uplift and enrich the entire community.

The two passages converge on the same kind of structural distribution. The cosmic system orchestrates events through specific structural channels. The Midianites' fear of Simon was the channel through which Joseph was sold alive rather than killed. The deathbed blessings were the channel through which Jacob's gifts to his sons would be distributed across all the tribes through mandatory sharing. Both passages show that the cosmic system works through structurally distributed channels rather than through localized concentrations.

The Ginzberg tradition teaches that the reader's own structural moments and their own blessings participate in the same kind of distribution. Their fears that produce specific actions may be structural mechanisms for preserving lives. Their gifts that benefit themselves may be operational requirements that they share with the structural community around them. The two passages close with a composite image. A group of Midianites afraid of Simon haggling to take Joseph cheap as God's structural mechanism for preserving his life. A Jacob on his deathbed naming Benjamin a wolf and Judah a lion and insisting they share their tribal blessings. A reader, situated within their own structural distributions, recognizing that the cosmic system orchestrates around them in the structurally specific ways the midrash documents.