Who are the archers in Genesis 49:23?
11.06.2025 14:47
If the rains fail for two years the famine can be catastrophic (though the season is so unpredictable that it is usual to save grain from year to year). On the third year sometimes a true prince is singled out as the victim. (In the same way as the dwellers of the hills dislocate limbs of princes of the blood and hang them in the sun to die, until the rains come.)
Still others say the ten brothers attacked Joseph with arrows and that Joseph defended himself heroically. The young men fire arrows directly above with simulated whoops of fury to encourage the rain to come. Joseph is possessed by a divine frenzy and his bow and arm becomes a blur; in furious movement they appear still. [3]
[1] Baali chetsim Lords of arrows, or bowmen. Varavu includes the idea of archers and of 10.000’s and multiply. The precise meaning, grammar, syntax of these verses has become hopelessly corrupted.
The whoops of anger become wails of mourning from the women and male worshippers of Baal who dip their garments in the blood which is flowing into the chariot floor, use it to bless their children, or even eat the dust it touches. [4]
A furious battle of arrows fought by 10 brothers against one. A ritual to bring rain. Involving a sacrifice.
[4] I wanted to draw the connection implied by marar. In Gen 49.23 it is translated as provoked, attacked bitterly (it describes the attack). In Zech 12.11 it refers to the bitter mourning that follows (the death of the same figure, there called Hadad-Rimmon). In Ruth, Naomi (of whom Bethlehem Rachel is the type, mourning for her children because they are no more) uses it. It’s the bitterness of losing a (firstborn) son, and especially the mourning of women.
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This is why so many kings of Israel die, by some account at least, in a chariot battle. They are struck by an arrow, often not aimed but falling at random. They are sometimes disguised, that is, not wearing their distinctive royal robe at the time they are struck. They are sometimes propped up, bleeding, in their chariot for the duration of the battle, before being taken to the city where they die and receive mourning rites.
The accounts of kings - Ahab, Ahaziah, Josiah - all blur together, which is why I interpret the historical as ritual myth. In 1 Kings 22.38 the dogs who lap Ahab’s blood are sacred male prostitutes, and I assume the scene once described Baalite sacred mourning, not contempt.
[2] This conflates the story of Joseph in Genesis with the myth of Tammuz. The Sun is a relative of Tammuz and a few times mercifully transforms him, allowing him to escape; but Tammuz is always taken in the end. The bird call is from Isa 24.16. It says: RavEE-lee, ravEE-lee. Ay-lee. Bugadim bugadoo. ve-bugud. Bugadim bugudoo.
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[3] 49.24 yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile Yashav implies stillness, pazaz furious movement. A divine frenzy is implied, like when David dances before the Ark. This is the only time the bow is mentioned in connection with Joseph, in Genesis.
The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely [1]
As the arrows come down they inevitably hit one of the young men, who is Joseph. There is a chariot which carries an image or effigy which wears a long-sleeved robe. When one is severely wounded or killed, they take the robe and put it on him. They take him in the chariot to Shechem.
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Megiddo I interpret from meged “natural bounty”, as in the blessing of Moses on Joseph in Deut 33. Hadad-Rimmon seems to conflate two deities, Baal and Tammuz, a sky god and a vegetation deity. But this makes sense here, where wheat depends on the rains first. In the Baal cycle, Baal is killed and his sister searches the underworld collecting the pieces of him; he is later restored. So he was a Tammuz type god (dying and rising, vegetation) before he was promoted to a supreme sky god. The identification of Megiddo mourning with Joseph is preserved in the rabbinical End Times myth of the messiah of Joseph.
Others say he was rescued; that the brothers relented and sold him. Or that he was taken bound to the underworld by Galla demons.
So the young men go out and re-enact what happened at Dothan, when the ten brothers jealously turned on Joseph and killed him. This is a sacrifice to get the rains to fall.
Some say they put Joseph in a dry well with no water. Two days he cooked in the sun which stood directly above him at noonday, and hoarsely cried out for mercy. On the third day he died. Or others say he cried so piteously that on the third day the sun had mercy and transformed him into a bird, whose call says “I thirst, I thirst. By traitors betrayed.” [2]
Notes:
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It refers to a Josephite custom of the plains. In high summer, in the middle of the month of Tammuz, everything burns up. If the rains fail to come the wheat crop will fail.