Before Jacob heads to the reunion with Joseph, God visits him in a dream. God is always doing that: visiting people in dreams. It's a wonder that God isn't described more often as being a unicorn.
"I am God," God says unnecessarily. "The God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation."
"I have a question, Lord," Jacob asks. "You know what's going to happen in the future, right?"
"I do," God says.
"Just checking. Because I skipped ahead in this book and believe me, it isn't pretty."
Jacob gathers all of his belongings and his descendants--66 in all--and makes his way to Egypt. His reunion with Joseph is tearful one. That Joseph is one weepy bitch, let me tell ya. As soon as Jacob enters the room, Joseph is weeping on his neck. I think he needs Zoloft.
"Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive," Jacob says. That Jacob is happy to die now that he finally has time to spend with his long-lost son speaks volumes about the strength of their relationship.
Joseph sets aside some land in Goshen for his father and brothers, but it comes with one odd stipulation: they must lie and tell pharaoh that they raise cattle and not sheep. "Every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians," Joseph says. "It's the sheep fucking thing. Grosses the Egyptians out big time.
Yet when they meet with the pharaoh they readily admit to their evil sheep-fucking ways. Pharaoh is unconcerned and puts them in charge of his cattle as a favor to Joseph and so they won't be so abominable. They're still abominable though, being Jewish and all, but raising cattle will mean no one will spit on them as they walk by.
Pharaoh then violates one Miss Manners's rules and asks Jacob his age.
"The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years," Jacob says. "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."
Pharaoh is silent. Then says, "What?"
"I'm old," Jacob says. "I'm really, really old."
Famine continues to rage throughout the land. Due to some unwise investments in some Internet startups, all the money pharaoh has made selling corn to his own people is suddenly worthless. The people come to Joseph demanding bread, but they cannot pay for it because the stock market took such a nose dive. Joseph comes up the kind of seemingly fair and equitable deal only a bleeding-heart capitalist would think up: he will give bread to the people for a whole year if they give to him all their cattle, horses, birds, and horses.
"Why don't we just eat all these animals instead of trading them for some bread?" someone in the crowd pipes up.
"Shut up," someone else says. "He's an unelected government official with unlimited power. He must have our best interests at heart."
The year passes and the people approach Joseph again. Desperate for food and aware of the bad deal they struck last time, they decide to cut out the middleman and screws themselves over. "My lord also hath our herds of cattle," they say. "There is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands. Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh."
"Sold!" Joseph shouts.
Is anyone exempt from the mass sell out? Oh yeah. The priests. And Jacob and his family, out there in Goshen. Figures.
Adding insult to injury, Joseph makes the people sow the land that is no longer theirs and render unto pharaoh a fifth of the yield. Not that there's much yielding going on, what with the devastating famine and all, a detail that somehow escaped the author.
In a complete non sequitur, Jacob decides it's time to die. "If now I have found grace in thy sight," Jacob says, "put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me." And just like Abraham did to his servant, Jacob farts of Joseph's hand.
"And one more thing," Jacob gasps.
"Anything, father," Joseph says.
"Pull my finger."
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