27 myths
Benjamin was the last son Jacob could bear to lose. When famine pressed hard enough, even a father twenty-two years into grief had to open his hands.
Joseph left the cell in borrowed clothes to stand before Pharaoh. In Hebron that same day, Isaac's eyes closed. The grandfather never saw the throne.
Joseph chained Simeon in front of his brothers, then ordered good food sent to the cell as soon as they left. The cruelty and the care were the same plan.
Jerusalem stood in her own rubble and counted every span of years that had ended for somebody else. Heaven answered by naming what it had kept.
Benjamin was trapped, Joseph was hidden, and Judah stepped forward. The brothers had to answer for the sale they buried.
Joseph is gone, Jacob said, and you would take Benjamin. Reuben put his two sons forward as if they could fill that hole.
All Egypt was down at the river for the flood festival. Zuleika stayed home, perfumed the hall, and sat in the doorway Joseph had to walk through.
Zuleika tried to possess Joseph by force. Asenath fasted, cast off her idols, and waited until heaven remade her soul for covenant.
Pharaoh's throne sat atop seventy steps. A foreign prince could climb thirty-one, a petitioner three. Joseph came from the cell and climbed all seventy.
The Egyptian governor made small talk with the youngest brother. How many sons do you have? Ten. And what are they called?
They came through the gate in the same hour and gave the clerks the same father. Then they spent the day hunting the streets for a sold boy.
The magicians guessed at seven fat cows until Pharaoh ordered them killed. Hangmen waited. Then a Hebrew cry knocked him off the throne.
Jacob counted it out loud. Joseph gone, Simeon gone, and now Benjamin. His sons waited in the doorway with the grain sacks already roped to the donkeys.
Potiphar's daughter mocks the slave Joseph, then sees him from her tower and falls. Seven days in ash, an angel, and paradise honey remake her.
Pharaoh's son rides out to seize Joseph's wife by force, and a boy's pebbles and Asenath's prayer break the ambush on an open road.
The famine grew sore in Canaan. Jacob saw silver back in every sack. He would not send Benjamin until the house had no bread left.
Jacob would not send Rachel's last boy down to Egypt. At the table a man they did not know piled Benjamin's plate seven times higher than theirs.
Ten grown sons hung back from the road to Egypt. Their father hoped past the bloody coat, then sent them off with the name of the God who says Enough.
Simeon sat in an Egyptian cell. Benjamin clung to Jacob's sleeve. Hunger pressed the house until Judah forced the choice.
Pharaoh woke with the river still in his mouth. His magicians had words for the dream. None of them could fill the hollow cows.
The magicians who failed to read the king's dream watched a prisoner take their place at court. Then they began carrying stories to Pharaoh.
At thirty Joseph left prison for a ring, a gold collar, and power so total no Egyptian could arm or ride without his word, then buried grain in caverns.
Jacob asked why his sons feared the road to Egypt. They split across ten gates against the evil eye, then bowed to a bearded stranger who remembered dreams.
The brothers emptied their sacks in Canaan and found every man's money bundled inside. Simeon was still in an Egyptian cell, and the silver looked like a trap.
Jacob refused, then yielded. He packed gum, honey, and double silver, and sent Benjamin south into a house where five portions and first wine waited.
Hauled from a dungeon at dawn, Joseph rides Pharaoh's second chariot while heralds shout his praise, and a strange new name spells out his whole life.
Two terrified kings wake in the dark, one with the dream still vivid and one with the vision torn away, and only the bell in Pharaoh's chest can be quieted.
