Bereshit 50:15-21 - Yosef and his brothers: A happy ending?

Does the story of Yosef and his brothers have a happy ending? From a historical perspective the answer is no because the story led to the children of Yaakov being enslaved in Egypt. However, just within the book of Bereshit, is the family one big happy family by the end of the story? This question depends on whether the brothers and Yosef were truly reconciled in the end.

After Yosef identified himself to his brothers, he cried upon them and kissed them, 45:14,15. Do these actions indicate a full reconciliation? Most likely no since only Yosef and Binyamin cried, and all we learn is that the brothers were able to speak to Yosef, which does not imply that there was a reconciliation.

Seventeen years later, when the family returns to Egypt from Canaan after burying Yaakov, there is a strange conversation between Yosef and the brothers. 50:15-18 records that the brothers were worried that Yosef would take revenge on them after Yaakov died so they sent a messenger to Yosef offering to be his slaves. This offer is identical to Yehuda's offer to Yosef when Yosef trapped Binyamin with the goblet seventeen years earlier, 44:16.

Yosef responded by crying (50:17), presumably because he realized that after all these years the brothers still feared him, and then he stated “Do not fear, am I in G-d’s place?” 50:19. This phrase "Am I in G-d's place" was the same language used by Yaakov when he had his fight with Rahel, 30:2. N. Leibowitz (1976, p. 560) argues that this same phrase has a different meaning when used by Yaakov and Yosef. She claims that when Yaakov said “Am I in G-d’s place?” he was shirking responsibility, but when Yosef said the same words, he was "abasing himself to save his brother’s feelings." I think the phrase should be understood in a similar fashion in both cases. Yaakov was saying he did not have the power to give Rahel children, and similarly, Yosef was saying that he did not have the power to punish his brothers. With this understanding, this response implies that Yosef thought that the brothers had been wrong and that G-d should punish them.

Afterwards, Yosef stated that “you (the brothers) planned evil against me,” (50:20) and this recollection also insinuates that he did not completely forgive them. If the past was really forgotten, then Yosef should not have mentioned this phrase.

Yosef then stated that everything was okay since G-d worked out that everything was for the best because Yosef saved many people. Yosef then declared that he would sustain them (the brothers), and the Torah records that he comforted them and spoke to their hearts, 50:20,21. Do these verses indicate that the brothers achieved a true reconciliation with Yosef? Thomas Mann in his remarkable work, "Joseph and his Brothers," seems to say yes. He ends his re-telling of the story (1999, p.1207), "Thus he (Yosef) spoke to them and they laughed and wept together and stretched out their hands as he stood among them and touched him, and he too caressed them with his hands."

I have my doubts. Yosef's statement that it all worked out for the best since he was able to keep many people alive, le-hachayyot am rav, 50:20, is very similar to what he said seventeen years earlier when he identified himself to the brothers, le-hachayyot lachem le-phleta gedola, 45:5-8. If the brothers were still scared of Yosef seventeen years after the first time that Yosef expressed this idea, then it is unlikely that a repetition of the same idea would lead to a reconciliation. The Torah does not record any response from the brothers, and the most that can be derived from 50:21 is that Yosef reassured the brothers that they should not be sacred of him.

Did Yosef and the brothers reconcile after this conversation? The only conversation between them that is recorded afterwards is that Yosef asked the brothers to take his bones back to the land of Israel, and the brothers swore that they would honor his request, 50:24,25. Is this considered a reconciliation? The fact that Yosef made the brothers swear is not necessarily a sign that they were not reconciled since Yaakov also made Yosef swear to bury him in the land of Israel, 47:30,31. Yet, agreeing to a dying man's request is not a sign of reconciliation.

 
If Yosef and the brothers were not reconciled in the seventeen years after Yosef identified himself, then there is no reason to think that the situation improved afterwards. According, my inclination is that the brothers were not truly reconciled, and then the story of Yosef and his brothers does not have a happy ending.

Bibliography:

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.