2.4 – The Harvest
The Gifts
Joseph dreamed of his brothers, each of them caught in a spider’s web and unable to escape. The flocks of sheep filled the edges of the web, and Jacob the father sat atop one corner. A strong wind set in motion the gossamer lines crisscrossing between borders that held everything inside.
Although the web heaved violently in the strong wind, every player held tightly to his place on the fragile lines holding the unity together.
Every player had been a prisoner of the circumstance of birth. Escape was not an option, only acceptance or futile rebellion. Each brother consciously chose acceptance, but futile rebellion against the rigid confines of birth order had been the unconscious choice that had overruled everything else.
A new thought crossed his mind, or rather an old thought with a new perspective. There was an old proverb stating that every obnoxious act by someone that causes us distress is a cry for help.
Senen and Meri came to mind immediately, and no doubt Ruia, as well. In their own unique and difficult attitudes, each of these men was no doubt crying out for help, desiring change but unable to create a new identity for a new future.
But the morning called and the work of the day with it. The stable cleaning completed, Joseph would report to Senen for new instructions for a new day. He left the roof with Shabaka and they went down to their rooms.
The rising sun brought Senen with orders for the day.
Joseph was shaving when Senen stepped through the open doorway. “You will go to the estates in the Fayum that will soon be flooded. There is still barley and emmer wheat to be harvested.”
Senen turned to Shabaka, seated on the low wooden bed, to let him know that he was included, also.
“You will leave now and report to the foreman in the Fayum. There is a bag of food and another of water to take with you."
To Joseph, he added, "Shabaka knows the way from last year, and he will teach you the art of Egyptian harvesting."
As a parting comment, Senen added, "You are to be exposed to as many tasks as possible to see where you are best suited. These are my orders.” The last words were spoken with a laugh and clearly directed at Joseph.
Senen left, his laugh lingering behind.
“You harvested last year,” said Joseph “What is it like?”
Shabaka, seated on his bed and looking at the floor, shook his head. “When it comes to farming, the year – your life – is carved in the seasons of the crops.
“First, there is plowing with an ox, or a donkey if you are very poor, or with your own hands if you have nothing. Managing the animal and the plow is hard, but better than what the poor souls who have no animal must do.
“But then there is the season of the back breaking work of hoeing the earth, keeping out the weeds and grasses, with a hoe whose handle is hardly two feet long. Wood is too expensive to waste on a longer farmer’s hoe.
“This alternates with bearing the shoulder destroying yoke for carrying water from the nearest canal to your crop late in the season.
“And then we come to the time of harvest, when the body is baked in the sun and your arms cry out for rest.
“Such is the year of the Egyptian farmer, three seasons - planting, growth, and harvesting - and each season is another stone added to his load, one more test to see when he will break.
“At least we are participating only in the harvest. Harvesting is simple: reach out and grab with your left hand, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat, for hour after hour, day after day, from sunrise to sunset.
“The only things that keeps the harvester going through the heat and the weariness of hard labor are the five gifts of Hathor.”
“What are these gifts?” asked Joseph.
“When your arms are so tired you cannot lift them, reach out with your left hand to hold the stalk while the right comes to cut off the grain. As you reach out with your left hand, you see your four fingers and thumb representing the five gifts.
“Think of the five things that you would miss the most if you were to die today. Remember these gifts as you work. They will give you the strength to carry on.”
“And what would your five gifts be, Shabaka?”
“The cool of the evening on the roof, the barley stew with vegetables, beer, the celebration of the Nile, and the wife that I will have someday.” Simply reciting them gave the young man a softer edge.
“And yours, Joseph? Do not think on them too hard. What first five come to mind?”
As a slave who owned nothing except a ring, a blanket, and two sets of clothes (one of which was not really his), it would be easy to deny that he had any gifts. But that was not Joseph’s spirit. Thankfulness had become a part of his nature since he had lost everything that he once assumed was his by some kind of divine right.
He smiled at the thought. Yes, everything came from God, including the necessary nudges (or less subtle means) for returning a man to the path he should walk.
Without further thought, he said, “My God, my father, the freedom to think, friends, and the friends I have not yet met.”
“Ah, people and not things…relationships are your treasure then.” Shabaka’s summary statement was almost a question.
“Other things perish with the using. But relationships only grow stronger,” replied Joseph.
Looking out the door through which Senen had just exited, he added, “And some must grow very much stronger.”
Shabaka laughed. “Good luck on that one!”
Joseph smiled, and speaking with confidence added, “God will help me in His time on that one.”
Shabaka smiled at this optimistic view, seeming to take no notice of where Joseph put his trust.
Senen had their necessities ready for them, as promised, and Joseph and Shabaka set out on foot toward the Fayum.
A small oasis provided a break from the afternoon heat. Several different groups of people were there, mostly traders bringing goods to or from the Fayum.
They walked until dark, camped, and set out the next morning.
They reached the edge of the Fayum Basin in the late afternoon of the second day. In the very far distance a huge lake reflected the late afternoon sun. A flat land heavy with crops extended from that lake to the bottom of the hill upon which they stood.
“The water will come to the foot of the hill in a good year,” said Shabaka, “or at least that is what I have been told. Last year was such a year.”
Joseph was reminded of a sea of this size on the Jordan River. To think of so much water available, and in the desert, was almost beyond belief!
The land immediately below them had been planted, but not yet harvested. The area cleared was in the distance toward the rising lake. Great plots of unharvested crops stretched from that point to the edge of the basin where they now stood.
There was a village further around the rim, above the expected flood plain, and they made their way toward it.
“Some of the people own their land here, and there are many who rent land from the king. When the first king who made Itj-tawy his home came, he claimed the land that had no clear title. Everyone pays a tax on their crops, and the renters pay everything except a portion assigned for their own use.
“This is just one more source of revenue for the king to support his estate, his scribes, and his army.”
Upon arrival at the village, Shabaka led Joseph to the king’s tax collector, who assigned them to one of the work crews for the following morning. The man also pointed them toward the camp for the men of that crew so that they could arise for work in the morning with them.
Shabaka and Joseph made their way to the encampment some distance away, near the barley. As they approached, they could distinguish the fields that had been harvested near the water from those closer to them that were yet to be cut. The sun had set by the time they arrived.
The workers, a dozen in each crew, had returned from the fields only a short time before. Shabaka and Joseph made their way to the camp of their crew. There had been only ten men until now, and these men welcomed the addition of two to restore balance to their workloads.
The last task of the morning and of the afternoon was taking the cut heads of grain to the threshing area. This was a low circular wall in the field in which cattle would trod on the kernels, separating the grain from the husks.
Winnowing, tossing the separated pieces in the air, completed the process as the steady wind blew away the lighter husks and the grain fell to the ground.
The straw must be gathered, also, and saved for use in everything from bedding (for humans and livestock) to baskets and roofing.
Grain and straw were stored in granaries nearby, although much was transported elsewhere for the use of the king’s servants and army.
The whole process was very labor intensive, as Joseph was to experience over the next several weeks.
Pawara
There were dozens of teams in the fields here, placed ahead of the rising water toward the hills surrounding the Fayum Depression. Over the years, a system had evolved that allowed maximum harvest at peak ripeness in minimal time.
The men moved through the fields in a row, each reaching out with the left hand to grab a handful of barley stems while the right hand used a curved knife to remove the head. The stalks were left in place to be harvested later, still before the flood, while the barley heads dropped to the ground were collected before the midday break and the end of the day.
By the first afternoon, Joseph understood Shabaka’s description of the job as his arms felt too heavy to lift again. The value of thinking of the five gifts of God, the spirit of remaining thankful for what is good even in the midst of trials, provided the only comfort to an exhausting task that would continue for weeks.
Joseph thought much of what he had learned in the past weeks, and how to apply this limited knowledge to the present.
The task of cutting the barley stems became almost entirely automatic. Even in slavery he had found blessings, and he had experienced isolated moments of victory over his enslavement. Here in the field of toil and sweat, he was learning how to connect those moments of victory into a pattern of peace.
But this work was not peace itself. No, it was only a mental exile to a wilderness in which the mind could become numb. He must keep his mind open and alert.
Manual labor was the most abundant resource in Egypt, and often the cheapest. Although there were beasts of burden, primarily donkeys and some oxen, animals were expensive to feed and water and limited in their capabilities.
There were tools, but the shortage of wood in Egypt meant that much of the better wood was imported and expensive. Egyptian tamarisk could be used to make hand tools; acacia for smaller tool handles, pegs, and nails; and sycamore for larger tools, boxes and coffins. But supplies of these species were limited.
Shorter lives were the cost of cheap labor, but what was that in the mind of the owner compared to increased wealth?
This was not the way things were meant to be. Definitely this was not the way of the nomad.
The plants were in rows and a section assigned to each crew and then to each man. There was a rhythm to the work. The days were mostly silent as each man worked his own section, but Joseph occasionally found himself meeting the man to his left as each came simultaneously to their row’s end.
Joseph asked the man about his life and family in short bursts over the first few days. The talk provided some distraction from the mind numbing repetitive actions.
The man’s name was Pawara, and he had a wife and several sons and daughters. The children helped their mother tend their garden and do chores. Childhood was training for adulthood.
About 30 years of age or perhaps a little more, he was one of the older workers. In fact, not all that many who did this work lived to such an old age. Even on Pawara, the work of twenty plus years in the fields had taken its toll.
But Pawara’s spirit was good. He worked at the same pace as Joseph and they learned a lot about each other over the next several days. Joseph was impressed that a man so long in this back breaking work accepted the challenge of each day as if it were his own crop.
At one point, Pawara even remarked that he was sometimes rewarded for his labor with extra food, although this was not always the case. But whether his family received extra rations or not, the reward for their work was life until the next harvest.
Joseph did not think the change a coincidence when the section to which he was assigned on the fifth day placed him in frequent contact with another worker.
Renni
Renni was in almost every way the opposite of Pawara. Perhaps twenty years old, Renni had assumed the fine art of complaining as if it were his own invention. He had a wife and child, but the child was too young and the wife not well enough to work. And he found that his wages for work always seemed less than he deserved.
The two men only found themselves near one another at times for the first few hours. Renni did not try to keep Joseph’s pace and soon was reaching the ends of rows where Joseph had been long before.
As Joseph continued to out distance Renni, he recognized two of his half-brothers in his two co-workers: Pawara was Gad, the first son of Leah’s maid. He never seemed defeated no matter what happened to him. Even when the older sons of Leah abused him, he seemed to come out on top.
Renni, however, was like Dan, the first son of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid given to Jacob to bear her a son. With four half-brothers ahead of him, plus an additional brother and six half-brothers following him, he appeared to have abandoned any effort at achieving anything and was content to go through the motions of living without scratching the surface.
Mindlessly grabbing the stalks and swiping off the heads with his sickle, Joseph’s thoughts had long since changed from picturing the 5 gifts as his left hand reached out to grab the next stalks. Now he was focused on how the world at large might be reduced to seeing his ten half-brothers as patterns for everyone.
His dream of his brothers in Egypt, some associated with the Egyptians Joseph knew at the time, came back to him. “Yes,” he thought, “they do provide a pattern!”
But then he thought of the men who did not fit the pattern, men like Teyma and Captain Potiphar. Yes, there were other types of men, too.
Perhaps the world was not so easily divided into ten personalities.
And what type was he? Did he fit a pattern? He did not see where he fit.
The thought did occur to him: “If I cannot restore my brothers to who they were intended to be, at least I can help the people around me be who they were meant to be. Yes, there are both good and selfish reasons for helping them, too.”
Renni did indeed appear to be another “Dan,” criticizing and back-biting. His life story was one of abandonment and abuse, surviving by his cunning. Listening to his history, (and it sounded too ugly to have been made up), Joseph had wanted to help the man, but this was not the time or place. There was nothing to be done but to cut the heads off the current handful of stalk and offer encouragement. The lesson at hand was enough for the day.
He thought of his ten brothers again. Their action toward him had been unjust, but now that he understood their frustration, their action was understandable, even though not excusable.
Joseph left these questions open for the time being. Grab, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat…. He performed the process over and over.
But the thought kept returning to his mind: Were Renni’s bad experiences and unrewarding relationships what had undermined his will to work, to achieve, even if only in these menial tasks under the orders of others?
Joseph talked to the overseer at the end of the day.
“Would you pair me with Renni tomorrow morning so that we will start the day working closely together?”
Joseph stood before the man, sweating, dirty, and exhausted, not unlike most every other worker as the sun slipped below the horizon. But Joseph might as well have been a two-headed donkey judging from the overseer’s reaction.
Clearly caught off guard, the man replied, “So you want to hang back tomorrow and work as slowly as Renni, do you? I was thinking today that I should take the whip to him and give him an incentive.
“Yes, you can start beside him tomorrow and both of you can feel the lash.”
Joseph held up his hand. “No, you have whipped him before, and still he lingers. Let me work with him. I have only one thing to ask.”
“You do not have anything to ask. You have only to work. There is a scribe who records all that we harvest, and we must reach our goal. You have worked well, but if you pair with him, your work will slow down and you will see the whip!”
“That is fair: if work slows, we both get the whip. But if work is done more quickly, you will benefit because you will look good in the eyes of your master.” Joseph could see that he now had the man’s full attention.
“All I ask is that when his work improves, you give him a cup of beer while he works in addition to the water when we all stop to drink. Show him one small reward for improving, and you will find he works even harder.”
“A cup of beer will make him a better worker? You have been in the sun too long!”
“If he works better for one cup of beer, is that not a gamble worth taking? It is a small price and a big return.”
The man eyed Joseph. Everyone else had left the field by now, drinking water from the containers at the edge of the fields, relaxing in the deepening dusk.
“Alright. And I will watch. Beer or the whip. One or the other. The reward will fit the act.”
Joseph smiled. “Let us both hope it is the beer.”
As promised, the overseer started Joseph and Renni side by side the next morning.
Everyone started the morning with a big drink of water. Containers of water were always available where they slept. The water from the muddy lake was allowed to sit overnight. The sediment sank to the bottom leaving clear refreshing water on top. One learned not to let the long handled cup go too deeply!
Joseph raised the long handled cup full of water before he drank a second time, saying, “Let’s have extra. It will be a long hot morning.”
Renni followed his example and took an extra cup.
After making his first few cuts, Joseph said, “I am bored with this job, every moment is the same. Let’s make it interesting. I’ll bet you half my lunch that I can beat you to the end of the tenth row.”
Renni looked at Joseph with the same amazement as the overseer the evening before. “Why would you want to do that, to work harder? Just to get half my lunch?”
“Or I could lose, and you would get half my lunch. But now there is a reason to work faster and this is what will happen: Think how much faster the time would go if we are in a race. Who would get the victory and the prize, half an extra lunch? That would at least make it interesting.”
They were moving farther apart, deeper into their own sections. Joseph knew he had little time.
“Come on! What do you have to lose? – maybe half a lunch but definitely a long morning. What do you have to gain? – maybe half a lunch and definitely a short morning.”
Renni shook his head, but he smiled at the thought. “You’re on!” he said.
Joseph saw the man’s actions pick up speed and fall into a rhythm Joseph would not have imagined yesterday. Joseph let his own speed increase, getting into his own rhythm: grab, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat….
At the increased speed, working down and back up to the center five times, Joseph and Renni met in the center at about the same time on each row. Joseph challenged Renni on their fourth meeting that they had only one more set of two rows and that he was going to make sure he beat Renni to the end of the tenth row.
Renni just gave a grunt and increased his speed a notch.
Joseph worked down the row and back up the last one at the same pace he had used throughout the morning. Approaching the end of the final row, he saw Renni ahead. They both sped up, but Renni maintained his lead.
When Joseph finished the row, Renni was waiting. “I look forward to that extra portion at lunch.”
Joseph nodded his head. “You deserve it.” Shading his eyes and looking at the sun, he added, “And it is not that long from now.”
As if on cue, the overseer came up with a cup of beer.
“Renni, you have worked well this morning. Have a little something extra.”
He held the cup in his out stretched hand to Renni.
Surprised, Renni hesitated, and then he reached for the handle. He took a long draught and then held the cup out to Joseph. “Do you want to finish it?”
Joseph accepted with thanks and a smile. As he drained it, he looked over the cup at the overseer. He made a slight nod of his head in thanks as he passed the handle of the empty cup to the overseer.
The overseer took the empty cup and looked up at the sun. “Only an hour or so until the noon break. Keep up the good work.”
They started to cut again. Joseph began to tell the story of how he came to be in Egypt. As they moved farther away from each other, the distance too great for conversation, Joseph said, “I’ll finish the story when we get close on the next row.”
As he expected, this was enough incentive for Renni to keep the pace. The morning had passed quickly already, and a meal and break were very near.
Joseph gave Renni half his lunch, as promised. Renni smiled and accepted. As he was finishing, he returned the last crust of bread to Joseph.
“I am full. You finish.”
Joseph knew this was not true, so the portion that was offered was all the more appreciated.
The afternoon continued with the intermittent conversation, the two men meeting toward the end of a row and continuing conversation down part of the next.
Renni’s story was a hard one, much harder than Joseph’s. It would take more than a day of comradery with one fellow human being to overcome.
At the end of the day, Joseph made a point of steering Renni near the overseer as they brought the cut heads to the threshing area. The overseer again performed his role as if rehearsed, “Good work today.”
Joseph could see that Renni was not used to compliments. Perhaps he was learning how to gain them and to see their value.
Over the next few days, the overseer never let up in his execution of orders, but he maintained a supportive attitude toward Joseph and Renni, occasionally talking with them during the noon break or at the end of the day.
There was finally an opportunity for Joseph, alone with the overseer, to suggest that when they needed another overseer, Pawara would make a good leader, and if the overseer would encourage him, Renni might develop, also. Renni was a good worker now, but Pawara already was a natural leader.
Sebek
The nights of rest seemed short and the days of harvest long, but these all passed. Joseph was paired with Renni for a while, but encouraged the overseer to pair Renni with a particular man that seemed a good match. By now, the overseer trusted Joseph’s suggestions.
Joseph asked to be joined with Sebek, a man who appeared very similar to Renni.
Joseph tried the same approach with Sebek as he had with Renni, but nothing seemed to spark the man’s interest.
Sebek’s story was not that different from Renni’s, but not the telling of it or even the prospect of more to eat with Joseph’s bet drew him out of his negative state.
By now, they were ready to move from barley to emmer wheat, harvesting another of the king’s crops. On the last day of barley harvest, Joseph gave up hope for a better life for Sebek. The man had sunk into his pit of self-pity and Joseph could not resurrect him. The man would work sufficiently to avoid the whip, but no more than that.
Joseph’s efforts with Sebek taught yet another lesson, one best stated in the language of Petra, “You can lead a donkey to water, but you cannot make him drink.”
Joseph met other workers, too, primarily in the short evenings between eating and sleeping.
Some workers seemed to match the oldest four of Leah, less visible versions of Ruia/Reuben, Senen/Simeon, Meri/Levi, and Irsu/Judah. Others could be identified with the other six brothers, as he had seen Issachar in Sebek and Dan manifested in Renni. And some did not fit this simple typing.
Both Pawara and the overseer had mentioned that Irsu instructed his scribes to be very strict. Perhaps that was as it must be, but it appeared that numbers were all that mattered. Both men wondered aloud if that was the instruction of the king, or if it was Irsu who was the cold-hearted one. Was Judah also as unforgiving, as strict as Irsu to his way of thinking? Joseph could imagine that being true.
But everyone had a story, an indelible past recorded in his memory, and how he responded to that past determined his future.
Joseph had to admit, each man was a bit different from a single type. Although each member of a type responded to the world in a similar manner, the mold that shaped them varied, and their consistencies were generalities, not specifics. Some could even come to see the world differently, like Renni, with a little help.
And some did not conform to a pattern at all, as far as Joseph could see.
One of the men said that for the season, each man would receive one of his day’s cutting of barley, and one of emmer wheat. For a family, this amount plus whatever the women could grow by their dwelling in the way of onions, melons, and such, was sufficient for them to live. But they could afford very few children.
Joseph had heard the word poverty, but he had associated the condition with men who preferred idleness, those who refused to give an honest day’s work. He now understood the concept of the “working poor,” people who labored constantly for others and were rewarded with the bare minimum for survival.
Sometimes, the reward was not even enough for survival. More than once, word passed through the fields of a man dropping dead in the field in the midst of their work.
He knew of no such concept as “working poor” among those in Canaan who lived as nomads with their flocks or herds. The nomad lived with his flock or herd, or attached himself to a man who needed more eyes and hands to watch and guard his animal wealth. A man worked and he lived, or he did not work and he begged, scraping by on the cast-offs and charity that he could find.
Joseph confessed his failure with Sebek to the overseer and asked to be put wherever would work best as they moved to harvesting the emmer wheat.
The End of a Season
High summer had passed, But little changed as summer sun and heat persisted. As they worked, the lake grew, stretching fingers into the nearest fields. They now worked where the waters had remained for the shortest period and a second set of seeds had been planted after a first harvest. This smaller area with a second harvest was now the last land vulnerable to the approaching flood.
What had been distant on the first day was moving toward them, and their work was moving only at the same speed. Some work crews had begun removing the stalks, but they were fewer and not moving as quickly as the men.
The stalks were laid out to draw, and once dry they were usable as straw. Although not food even for animals (except as a last resort) there were many uses for straw, including animal bedding, baskets, bricks, and such. They must not lose any to the growing lake.
Joseph did not see how their pace could quicken, and yet it did. Another day and they had reached the end of the unharvested grain, but now they must continue with the stalks.
The water was touching the base of the first rows near the lake, and here they began uprooting these bare skeletons. The process went somewhat more quickly as the pulling of the stalks and throwing them down went even faster than cutting the heads from the plants. They pulled out the stalks and bundled them. Then they were loaded on donkeys and carried to where they could dry beneath the hot sunny sky.
By the time a month had passed since the arrival of Joseph and Shabaka, almost half the plain had some level of water. Another couple of months and the water would reach its limits, if the inundation met expectations. And all that water would not only soak into the soil, but would deposit a rich layer of fertile silt, a black gold for the farmer.
When the water receded in the fall, the cycle would begin again with the planting of seeds in the loose fertile soil.
Thoughts of the back-breaking work with the short hoe, as described by Shabaka, made Joseph hope that he would be spared that burden. But he had survived this task, hard as it was, and he had learned from it. He hoped there would be no need for a second lesson.
Joseph continued to work with a number of different men, coming to understand better the servitude even of the “free.”
Continue reading
The Gifts
Joseph dreamed of his brothers, each of them caught in a spider’s web and unable to escape. The flocks of sheep filled the edges of the web, and Jacob the father sat atop one corner. A strong wind set in motion the gossamer lines crisscrossing between borders that held everything inside.
Although the web heaved violently in the strong wind, every player held tightly to his place on the fragile lines holding the unity together.
Every player had been a prisoner of the circumstance of birth. Escape was not an option, only acceptance or futile rebellion. Each brother consciously chose acceptance, but futile rebellion against the rigid confines of birth order had been the unconscious choice that had overruled everything else.
A new thought crossed his mind, or rather an old thought with a new perspective. There was an old proverb stating that every obnoxious act by someone that causes us distress is a cry for help.
Senen and Meri came to mind immediately, and no doubt Ruia, as well. In their own unique and difficult attitudes, each of these men was no doubt crying out for help, desiring change but unable to create a new identity for a new future.
But the morning called and the work of the day with it. The stable cleaning completed, Joseph would report to Senen for new instructions for a new day. He left the roof with Shabaka and they went down to their rooms.
The rising sun brought Senen with orders for the day.
Joseph was shaving when Senen stepped through the open doorway. “You will go to the estates in the Fayum that will soon be flooded. There is still barley and emmer wheat to be harvested.”
Senen turned to Shabaka, seated on the low wooden bed, to let him know that he was included, also.
“You will leave now and report to the foreman in the Fayum. There is a bag of food and another of water to take with you."
To Joseph, he added, "Shabaka knows the way from last year, and he will teach you the art of Egyptian harvesting."
As a parting comment, Senen added, "You are to be exposed to as many tasks as possible to see where you are best suited. These are my orders.” The last words were spoken with a laugh and clearly directed at Joseph.
Senen left, his laugh lingering behind.
“You harvested last year,” said Joseph “What is it like?”
Shabaka, seated on his bed and looking at the floor, shook his head. “When it comes to farming, the year – your life – is carved in the seasons of the crops.
“First, there is plowing with an ox, or a donkey if you are very poor, or with your own hands if you have nothing. Managing the animal and the plow is hard, but better than what the poor souls who have no animal must do.
“But then there is the season of the back breaking work of hoeing the earth, keeping out the weeds and grasses, with a hoe whose handle is hardly two feet long. Wood is too expensive to waste on a longer farmer’s hoe.
“This alternates with bearing the shoulder destroying yoke for carrying water from the nearest canal to your crop late in the season.
“And then we come to the time of harvest, when the body is baked in the sun and your arms cry out for rest.
“Such is the year of the Egyptian farmer, three seasons - planting, growth, and harvesting - and each season is another stone added to his load, one more test to see when he will break.
“At least we are participating only in the harvest. Harvesting is simple: reach out and grab with your left hand, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat, for hour after hour, day after day, from sunrise to sunset.
“The only things that keeps the harvester going through the heat and the weariness of hard labor are the five gifts of Hathor.”
“What are these gifts?” asked Joseph.
“When your arms are so tired you cannot lift them, reach out with your left hand to hold the stalk while the right comes to cut off the grain. As you reach out with your left hand, you see your four fingers and thumb representing the five gifts.
“Think of the five things that you would miss the most if you were to die today. Remember these gifts as you work. They will give you the strength to carry on.”
“And what would your five gifts be, Shabaka?”
“The cool of the evening on the roof, the barley stew with vegetables, beer, the celebration of the Nile, and the wife that I will have someday.” Simply reciting them gave the young man a softer edge.
“And yours, Joseph? Do not think on them too hard. What first five come to mind?”
As a slave who owned nothing except a ring, a blanket, and two sets of clothes (one of which was not really his), it would be easy to deny that he had any gifts. But that was not Joseph’s spirit. Thankfulness had become a part of his nature since he had lost everything that he once assumed was his by some kind of divine right.
He smiled at the thought. Yes, everything came from God, including the necessary nudges (or less subtle means) for returning a man to the path he should walk.
Without further thought, he said, “My God, my father, the freedom to think, friends, and the friends I have not yet met.”
“Ah, people and not things…relationships are your treasure then.” Shabaka’s summary statement was almost a question.
“Other things perish with the using. But relationships only grow stronger,” replied Joseph.
Looking out the door through which Senen had just exited, he added, “And some must grow very much stronger.”
Shabaka laughed. “Good luck on that one!”
Joseph smiled, and speaking with confidence added, “God will help me in His time on that one.”
Shabaka smiled at this optimistic view, seeming to take no notice of where Joseph put his trust.
Senen had their necessities ready for them, as promised, and Joseph and Shabaka set out on foot toward the Fayum.
A small oasis provided a break from the afternoon heat. Several different groups of people were there, mostly traders bringing goods to or from the Fayum.
They walked until dark, camped, and set out the next morning.
They reached the edge of the Fayum Basin in the late afternoon of the second day. In the very far distance a huge lake reflected the late afternoon sun. A flat land heavy with crops extended from that lake to the bottom of the hill upon which they stood.
“The water will come to the foot of the hill in a good year,” said Shabaka, “or at least that is what I have been told. Last year was such a year.”
Joseph was reminded of a sea of this size on the Jordan River. To think of so much water available, and in the desert, was almost beyond belief!
The land immediately below them had been planted, but not yet harvested. The area cleared was in the distance toward the rising lake. Great plots of unharvested crops stretched from that point to the edge of the basin where they now stood.
There was a village further around the rim, above the expected flood plain, and they made their way toward it.
“Some of the people own their land here, and there are many who rent land from the king. When the first king who made Itj-tawy his home came, he claimed the land that had no clear title. Everyone pays a tax on their crops, and the renters pay everything except a portion assigned for their own use.
“This is just one more source of revenue for the king to support his estate, his scribes, and his army.”
Upon arrival at the village, Shabaka led Joseph to the king’s tax collector, who assigned them to one of the work crews for the following morning. The man also pointed them toward the camp for the men of that crew so that they could arise for work in the morning with them.
Shabaka and Joseph made their way to the encampment some distance away, near the barley. As they approached, they could distinguish the fields that had been harvested near the water from those closer to them that were yet to be cut. The sun had set by the time they arrived.
The workers, a dozen in each crew, had returned from the fields only a short time before. Shabaka and Joseph made their way to the camp of their crew. There had been only ten men until now, and these men welcomed the addition of two to restore balance to their workloads.
The last task of the morning and of the afternoon was taking the cut heads of grain to the threshing area. This was a low circular wall in the field in which cattle would trod on the kernels, separating the grain from the husks.
Winnowing, tossing the separated pieces in the air, completed the process as the steady wind blew away the lighter husks and the grain fell to the ground.
The straw must be gathered, also, and saved for use in everything from bedding (for humans and livestock) to baskets and roofing.
Grain and straw were stored in granaries nearby, although much was transported elsewhere for the use of the king’s servants and army.
The whole process was very labor intensive, as Joseph was to experience over the next several weeks.
Pawara
There were dozens of teams in the fields here, placed ahead of the rising water toward the hills surrounding the Fayum Depression. Over the years, a system had evolved that allowed maximum harvest at peak ripeness in minimal time.
The men moved through the fields in a row, each reaching out with the left hand to grab a handful of barley stems while the right hand used a curved knife to remove the head. The stalks were left in place to be harvested later, still before the flood, while the barley heads dropped to the ground were collected before the midday break and the end of the day.
By the first afternoon, Joseph understood Shabaka’s description of the job as his arms felt too heavy to lift again. The value of thinking of the five gifts of God, the spirit of remaining thankful for what is good even in the midst of trials, provided the only comfort to an exhausting task that would continue for weeks.
Joseph thought much of what he had learned in the past weeks, and how to apply this limited knowledge to the present.
The task of cutting the barley stems became almost entirely automatic. Even in slavery he had found blessings, and he had experienced isolated moments of victory over his enslavement. Here in the field of toil and sweat, he was learning how to connect those moments of victory into a pattern of peace.
But this work was not peace itself. No, it was only a mental exile to a wilderness in which the mind could become numb. He must keep his mind open and alert.
Manual labor was the most abundant resource in Egypt, and often the cheapest. Although there were beasts of burden, primarily donkeys and some oxen, animals were expensive to feed and water and limited in their capabilities.
There were tools, but the shortage of wood in Egypt meant that much of the better wood was imported and expensive. Egyptian tamarisk could be used to make hand tools; acacia for smaller tool handles, pegs, and nails; and sycamore for larger tools, boxes and coffins. But supplies of these species were limited.
Shorter lives were the cost of cheap labor, but what was that in the mind of the owner compared to increased wealth?
This was not the way things were meant to be. Definitely this was not the way of the nomad.
The plants were in rows and a section assigned to each crew and then to each man. There was a rhythm to the work. The days were mostly silent as each man worked his own section, but Joseph occasionally found himself meeting the man to his left as each came simultaneously to their row’s end.
Joseph asked the man about his life and family in short bursts over the first few days. The talk provided some distraction from the mind numbing repetitive actions.
The man’s name was Pawara, and he had a wife and several sons and daughters. The children helped their mother tend their garden and do chores. Childhood was training for adulthood.
About 30 years of age or perhaps a little more, he was one of the older workers. In fact, not all that many who did this work lived to such an old age. Even on Pawara, the work of twenty plus years in the fields had taken its toll.
But Pawara’s spirit was good. He worked at the same pace as Joseph and they learned a lot about each other over the next several days. Joseph was impressed that a man so long in this back breaking work accepted the challenge of each day as if it were his own crop.
At one point, Pawara even remarked that he was sometimes rewarded for his labor with extra food, although this was not always the case. But whether his family received extra rations or not, the reward for their work was life until the next harvest.
Joseph did not think the change a coincidence when the section to which he was assigned on the fifth day placed him in frequent contact with another worker.
Renni
Renni was in almost every way the opposite of Pawara. Perhaps twenty years old, Renni had assumed the fine art of complaining as if it were his own invention. He had a wife and child, but the child was too young and the wife not well enough to work. And he found that his wages for work always seemed less than he deserved.
The two men only found themselves near one another at times for the first few hours. Renni did not try to keep Joseph’s pace and soon was reaching the ends of rows where Joseph had been long before.
As Joseph continued to out distance Renni, he recognized two of his half-brothers in his two co-workers: Pawara was Gad, the first son of Leah’s maid. He never seemed defeated no matter what happened to him. Even when the older sons of Leah abused him, he seemed to come out on top.
Renni, however, was like Dan, the first son of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid given to Jacob to bear her a son. With four half-brothers ahead of him, plus an additional brother and six half-brothers following him, he appeared to have abandoned any effort at achieving anything and was content to go through the motions of living without scratching the surface.
Mindlessly grabbing the stalks and swiping off the heads with his sickle, Joseph’s thoughts had long since changed from picturing the 5 gifts as his left hand reached out to grab the next stalks. Now he was focused on how the world at large might be reduced to seeing his ten half-brothers as patterns for everyone.
His dream of his brothers in Egypt, some associated with the Egyptians Joseph knew at the time, came back to him. “Yes,” he thought, “they do provide a pattern!”
But then he thought of the men who did not fit the pattern, men like Teyma and Captain Potiphar. Yes, there were other types of men, too.
Perhaps the world was not so easily divided into ten personalities.
And what type was he? Did he fit a pattern? He did not see where he fit.
The thought did occur to him: “If I cannot restore my brothers to who they were intended to be, at least I can help the people around me be who they were meant to be. Yes, there are both good and selfish reasons for helping them, too.”
Renni did indeed appear to be another “Dan,” criticizing and back-biting. His life story was one of abandonment and abuse, surviving by his cunning. Listening to his history, (and it sounded too ugly to have been made up), Joseph had wanted to help the man, but this was not the time or place. There was nothing to be done but to cut the heads off the current handful of stalk and offer encouragement. The lesson at hand was enough for the day.
He thought of his ten brothers again. Their action toward him had been unjust, but now that he understood their frustration, their action was understandable, even though not excusable.
Joseph left these questions open for the time being. Grab, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat…. He performed the process over and over.
But the thought kept returning to his mind: Were Renni’s bad experiences and unrewarding relationships what had undermined his will to work, to achieve, even if only in these menial tasks under the orders of others?
Joseph talked to the overseer at the end of the day.
“Would you pair me with Renni tomorrow morning so that we will start the day working closely together?”
Joseph stood before the man, sweating, dirty, and exhausted, not unlike most every other worker as the sun slipped below the horizon. But Joseph might as well have been a two-headed donkey judging from the overseer’s reaction.
Clearly caught off guard, the man replied, “So you want to hang back tomorrow and work as slowly as Renni, do you? I was thinking today that I should take the whip to him and give him an incentive.
“Yes, you can start beside him tomorrow and both of you can feel the lash.”
Joseph held up his hand. “No, you have whipped him before, and still he lingers. Let me work with him. I have only one thing to ask.”
“You do not have anything to ask. You have only to work. There is a scribe who records all that we harvest, and we must reach our goal. You have worked well, but if you pair with him, your work will slow down and you will see the whip!”
“That is fair: if work slows, we both get the whip. But if work is done more quickly, you will benefit because you will look good in the eyes of your master.” Joseph could see that he now had the man’s full attention.
“All I ask is that when his work improves, you give him a cup of beer while he works in addition to the water when we all stop to drink. Show him one small reward for improving, and you will find he works even harder.”
“A cup of beer will make him a better worker? You have been in the sun too long!”
“If he works better for one cup of beer, is that not a gamble worth taking? It is a small price and a big return.”
The man eyed Joseph. Everyone else had left the field by now, drinking water from the containers at the edge of the fields, relaxing in the deepening dusk.
“Alright. And I will watch. Beer or the whip. One or the other. The reward will fit the act.”
Joseph smiled. “Let us both hope it is the beer.”
As promised, the overseer started Joseph and Renni side by side the next morning.
Everyone started the morning with a big drink of water. Containers of water were always available where they slept. The water from the muddy lake was allowed to sit overnight. The sediment sank to the bottom leaving clear refreshing water on top. One learned not to let the long handled cup go too deeply!
Joseph raised the long handled cup full of water before he drank a second time, saying, “Let’s have extra. It will be a long hot morning.”
Renni followed his example and took an extra cup.
After making his first few cuts, Joseph said, “I am bored with this job, every moment is the same. Let’s make it interesting. I’ll bet you half my lunch that I can beat you to the end of the tenth row.”
Renni looked at Joseph with the same amazement as the overseer the evening before. “Why would you want to do that, to work harder? Just to get half my lunch?”
“Or I could lose, and you would get half my lunch. But now there is a reason to work faster and this is what will happen: Think how much faster the time would go if we are in a race. Who would get the victory and the prize, half an extra lunch? That would at least make it interesting.”
They were moving farther apart, deeper into their own sections. Joseph knew he had little time.
“Come on! What do you have to lose? – maybe half a lunch but definitely a long morning. What do you have to gain? – maybe half a lunch and definitely a short morning.”
Renni shook his head, but he smiled at the thought. “You’re on!” he said.
Joseph saw the man’s actions pick up speed and fall into a rhythm Joseph would not have imagined yesterday. Joseph let his own speed increase, getting into his own rhythm: grab, cut with the sickle, drop the bundle, take a step, and repeat….
At the increased speed, working down and back up to the center five times, Joseph and Renni met in the center at about the same time on each row. Joseph challenged Renni on their fourth meeting that they had only one more set of two rows and that he was going to make sure he beat Renni to the end of the tenth row.
Renni just gave a grunt and increased his speed a notch.
Joseph worked down the row and back up the last one at the same pace he had used throughout the morning. Approaching the end of the final row, he saw Renni ahead. They both sped up, but Renni maintained his lead.
When Joseph finished the row, Renni was waiting. “I look forward to that extra portion at lunch.”
Joseph nodded his head. “You deserve it.” Shading his eyes and looking at the sun, he added, “And it is not that long from now.”
As if on cue, the overseer came up with a cup of beer.
“Renni, you have worked well this morning. Have a little something extra.”
He held the cup in his out stretched hand to Renni.
Surprised, Renni hesitated, and then he reached for the handle. He took a long draught and then held the cup out to Joseph. “Do you want to finish it?”
Joseph accepted with thanks and a smile. As he drained it, he looked over the cup at the overseer. He made a slight nod of his head in thanks as he passed the handle of the empty cup to the overseer.
The overseer took the empty cup and looked up at the sun. “Only an hour or so until the noon break. Keep up the good work.”
They started to cut again. Joseph began to tell the story of how he came to be in Egypt. As they moved farther away from each other, the distance too great for conversation, Joseph said, “I’ll finish the story when we get close on the next row.”
As he expected, this was enough incentive for Renni to keep the pace. The morning had passed quickly already, and a meal and break were very near.
Joseph gave Renni half his lunch, as promised. Renni smiled and accepted. As he was finishing, he returned the last crust of bread to Joseph.
“I am full. You finish.”
Joseph knew this was not true, so the portion that was offered was all the more appreciated.
The afternoon continued with the intermittent conversation, the two men meeting toward the end of a row and continuing conversation down part of the next.
Renni’s story was a hard one, much harder than Joseph’s. It would take more than a day of comradery with one fellow human being to overcome.
At the end of the day, Joseph made a point of steering Renni near the overseer as they brought the cut heads to the threshing area. The overseer again performed his role as if rehearsed, “Good work today.”
Joseph could see that Renni was not used to compliments. Perhaps he was learning how to gain them and to see their value.
Over the next few days, the overseer never let up in his execution of orders, but he maintained a supportive attitude toward Joseph and Renni, occasionally talking with them during the noon break or at the end of the day.
There was finally an opportunity for Joseph, alone with the overseer, to suggest that when they needed another overseer, Pawara would make a good leader, and if the overseer would encourage him, Renni might develop, also. Renni was a good worker now, but Pawara already was a natural leader.
Sebek
The nights of rest seemed short and the days of harvest long, but these all passed. Joseph was paired with Renni for a while, but encouraged the overseer to pair Renni with a particular man that seemed a good match. By now, the overseer trusted Joseph’s suggestions.
Joseph asked to be joined with Sebek, a man who appeared very similar to Renni.
Joseph tried the same approach with Sebek as he had with Renni, but nothing seemed to spark the man’s interest.
Sebek’s story was not that different from Renni’s, but not the telling of it or even the prospect of more to eat with Joseph’s bet drew him out of his negative state.
By now, they were ready to move from barley to emmer wheat, harvesting another of the king’s crops. On the last day of barley harvest, Joseph gave up hope for a better life for Sebek. The man had sunk into his pit of self-pity and Joseph could not resurrect him. The man would work sufficiently to avoid the whip, but no more than that.
Joseph’s efforts with Sebek taught yet another lesson, one best stated in the language of Petra, “You can lead a donkey to water, but you cannot make him drink.”
Joseph met other workers, too, primarily in the short evenings between eating and sleeping.
Some workers seemed to match the oldest four of Leah, less visible versions of Ruia/Reuben, Senen/Simeon, Meri/Levi, and Irsu/Judah. Others could be identified with the other six brothers, as he had seen Issachar in Sebek and Dan manifested in Renni. And some did not fit this simple typing.
Both Pawara and the overseer had mentioned that Irsu instructed his scribes to be very strict. Perhaps that was as it must be, but it appeared that numbers were all that mattered. Both men wondered aloud if that was the instruction of the king, or if it was Irsu who was the cold-hearted one. Was Judah also as unforgiving, as strict as Irsu to his way of thinking? Joseph could imagine that being true.
But everyone had a story, an indelible past recorded in his memory, and how he responded to that past determined his future.
Joseph had to admit, each man was a bit different from a single type. Although each member of a type responded to the world in a similar manner, the mold that shaped them varied, and their consistencies were generalities, not specifics. Some could even come to see the world differently, like Renni, with a little help.
And some did not conform to a pattern at all, as far as Joseph could see.
One of the men said that for the season, each man would receive one of his day’s cutting of barley, and one of emmer wheat. For a family, this amount plus whatever the women could grow by their dwelling in the way of onions, melons, and such, was sufficient for them to live. But they could afford very few children.
Joseph had heard the word poverty, but he had associated the condition with men who preferred idleness, those who refused to give an honest day’s work. He now understood the concept of the “working poor,” people who labored constantly for others and were rewarded with the bare minimum for survival.
Sometimes, the reward was not even enough for survival. More than once, word passed through the fields of a man dropping dead in the field in the midst of their work.
He knew of no such concept as “working poor” among those in Canaan who lived as nomads with their flocks or herds. The nomad lived with his flock or herd, or attached himself to a man who needed more eyes and hands to watch and guard his animal wealth. A man worked and he lived, or he did not work and he begged, scraping by on the cast-offs and charity that he could find.
Joseph confessed his failure with Sebek to the overseer and asked to be put wherever would work best as they moved to harvesting the emmer wheat.
The End of a Season
High summer had passed, But little changed as summer sun and heat persisted. As they worked, the lake grew, stretching fingers into the nearest fields. They now worked where the waters had remained for the shortest period and a second set of seeds had been planted after a first harvest. This smaller area with a second harvest was now the last land vulnerable to the approaching flood.
What had been distant on the first day was moving toward them, and their work was moving only at the same speed. Some work crews had begun removing the stalks, but they were fewer and not moving as quickly as the men.
The stalks were laid out to draw, and once dry they were usable as straw. Although not food even for animals (except as a last resort) there were many uses for straw, including animal bedding, baskets, bricks, and such. They must not lose any to the growing lake.
Joseph did not see how their pace could quicken, and yet it did. Another day and they had reached the end of the unharvested grain, but now they must continue with the stalks.
The water was touching the base of the first rows near the lake, and here they began uprooting these bare skeletons. The process went somewhat more quickly as the pulling of the stalks and throwing them down went even faster than cutting the heads from the plants. They pulled out the stalks and bundled them. Then they were loaded on donkeys and carried to where they could dry beneath the hot sunny sky.
By the time a month had passed since the arrival of Joseph and Shabaka, almost half the plain had some level of water. Another couple of months and the water would reach its limits, if the inundation met expectations. And all that water would not only soak into the soil, but would deposit a rich layer of fertile silt, a black gold for the farmer.
When the water receded in the fall, the cycle would begin again with the planting of seeds in the loose fertile soil.
Thoughts of the back-breaking work with the short hoe, as described by Shabaka, made Joseph hope that he would be spared that burden. But he had survived this task, hard as it was, and he had learned from it. He hoped there would be no need for a second lesson.
Joseph continued to work with a number of different men, coming to understand better the servitude even of the “free.”
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