Chronicle 39 Anno Stellae 5918, Chronicle 40 Anno Stellae 5920, Chronicle 41 Anno Stellae 5923: RetroStar Chronicles, #2

By R.D. Ginther

      The story continues with the sons of Yacob and their plot against their youngest brother Yosef in Chronicle 39. There is a war waged for his soul but eventually a decision was made to sell him. There is an interesting interaction between Yosef and the Ishmaelites, his slave masters and an unusual relationship seemed to blossom. It was not difficult to sell Yosef in Mizraim and for a very high price, as Potiphar was enthralled with Yosef and had to own him. Later on, Yosef is passed onto the Overseer Nu who took him under his wings to train him as his assistant. Still OP was re-creating these early days of this Hebrew clan but why? This was the perplexing thought of Wally IV who hovered, sometimes anxiously to anticipate OP's next move. Thankfully Dr. Pikkard had left an assessment of OP which could prove very helpful in strategizing his next move against this nemesis. The destruction of galactic clusters continued as OP surges towards Earth again. Can Wally stop OP in time? In the meanwhile, all he can do is hover close by to watch the events as they unfold and with the help of 'forbidden category' FC, maneuver the paths of key players away from certain destruction.

 

      In Chronicle 40, there is a shift in Yosef's relationship with the overseer Nu, who worked him relentlessly. Nevertheless, Yosef prevailed, of course with divine intervention.  Soon Yosef was informed as to why he was treated so harshly but not until sometime after the death of Nu. Yosef, who proved himself to be a superb overseer, took over the position even with the approval of fellow workers. Potiphar was more than pleased with the improvements that Yosef made in his estate, decided to hand it all over for him to care for his entire estate.

     

      In Chronicle 41, Yosef was tested by his fellow workers who wanted to see what kind of Overseer he really was. To their surprise, he was nothing like his predecessor. However, in his glee to follow the rules, Yosef made a terrible mistake. Recognizing his error,  he sought to make amends and make things right again which won the hearts of his fellow workers all the more, and especially Potiphar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Aug 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201870157

Book preview

CHRONICLE 39

ANNO STELLAE 5918

1  The Many-Colored Robe

Not so?  Simeon and Levi, leaping up with clenched fists, challenged him.

Why argue with me about it?  It is already done! Judah laughed in their red, inflamed faces. 

He knew full well, his fists and arms were twice theirs in size and power. 

You know father never forgets an injury to his honor and name.  Well, he would never forget, after Shechem, that you burned the city to the ground after killing all their men and boys, and that after you betrayed the Covenant with them you made!

He reserved his final blow to now:  And, last of all, he would never forget you two were the ringleader who put our brothers up to it!

Then others had their say, and even Judah was silenced when he was reminded that the princely robe had gone not to him, nor to any of the four hand-maid's sons, but to young, seventeen-year-old Yosef.

Yes, he passed over you too, Mighty One! Levi jeered in Judah’s face.  What do you stand to get from all the favor you think you have with our father?  I’d say nothing but a donkey’s arse!  Isn’t that right, Simeon?

Judah shook his head at the outrage and sat down, having no more to say.

United in their rage, the ten sons of the first wife Leah, and the concubine-wives  Bilhah, and Zilpah,  knew exactly what they must do to put disjointed things back in their proper places and restore proper hierarchy in the badly leaning Patriarchy. 

Arising by night as planned, they seized some hapless flocks of sheep and goats and set off north to Shechem and practically ran them to death in their haste to get as far from Yacob’s camp as they could.  Possibly, they might never return to Yacob and divide the flocks and all set up independently as chieftains? 

But the move to that location was to serve another purpose, in truth, a most sinister one.  A desolate ruin, it was a perfect place to lure Yosef into their nets.  Thwarted by an Ishmaelite bone-dealer come to renew his supply of  face whiteners at Shechem,  where  had left the brothers had left piles of bones from the Shechemites they had murdered in their beds, without the privacy they preferred to commit their restoration of the Patriarchy in, they were obliged to trek further on to another necropolis, Dothan.

Dothan was even better to hole up in, as it had been dead ruins for centuries, by the looks of it.  Why would anyone come and disturb them there?  When they wished, they would send word to Father Yacob that they were at Dothan and ask him to please send Yosef with some provisions.  They were in no hurry yet to do so, however, as they knew not far from Dothan were some Ken’anite villages with a lot of pretty, willing harlots in them. 

As days passed without word of them sent to him by their hireling messenger,  Father Jacob grew anxious and summoned his Favorite.  Since he felt he could not trust anyone else, he confided to Yosef the pressing matters on his old heart.

Perhaps his sons were laying in ditches, wounded by some band of renegades,  or perhaps they were squabbling amongst themselves again.  In any case, what had happened to them and the flocks?  His precious flocks! 

He needed to know, and so after much embracing and fatherly tears and tender entreaties, warning Yosef of wild beasts, highwayman, and road-side Ken'anite harlots, Yakob sent his Favorite forth, by moonlight in the dark, just as his brothers had gone forth.  The less this journey of his son was made public, the better, Yacob reasoned, as then no word would get to his brothers up north in time to alert them to his coming.  He wanted a report, you see, of their behavior away from home.

Go and see how the flocks and your brethren are faring, Yacob the worry-wart  told his young son.  Whether they are well and doing their work, or whether— 

So,  very early in the dark of the new day, Yosef set out with one man-servant and some provisions. 

It was a dangerous undertaking for a Hebrew, as Yacob well knew.

Ken'anite cities throughout  the land were hostile to his people, remembering the infamous raping and sacking of  Shechem by the Hebrew family clan.  Fortunately, there were few cities of any note surviving along the mountain road to the north.

In Abraham's time armies of Aramaean tribesmen had swept in from the Arabian deserts and annihilated flourishing cities such as Dothan from north to south.

Shechem alone had been rebuilt and regained some former prosperity, only to fall to Yacob's wily and bloodthirsty sons who burnt and leveled it, after taking everything of value including some women and girls thought pretty enough for slaves and concubines.

Shechem was a bad taste in Yosef’s mouth, but youth is never encumbered much by sad, old events.  He had been just a young boy when the massacre was done, and had not gone to the city and seen what his brothers did there. 

Consequently,  Yosef could not imagine old mothers held by the hair of their heads, while Simeon and Levi slit their throats.  Or babies grabbed by the feet from their nursing mothers and swung so their heads were bashed against the stone lintels of the doorways.  Or young girls as young as five or six or seven raped, then ripped with a dagger from between their legs to their necks. Or even the grown men and their sons, lying helpless in their beds, their circumcisions preventing them from rising to defend themselves in their families, watching their womenfolk be ravished and killed, only to close their eyes on such scenes as soon as the Hebrews swung Shechemite swords and cut off their heads or impaled them on stakes set up in the courtyards. 

Such brutal scenes took place frequently in the world,  without the Hebrews, of course, but Yacob was alone in hating any such behavior of his people perpetrated against unsuspecting neighbors, pagan or not.  His God had forbad it, and Yacob obeyed, only his sons had passed from his control.

Singing happily to pass the time, the Favorite accompanied himself on a gold lyre from far-off Keftiu, or Kaphtor as Hebrews would say, and it was his sweet strains and the tinkling of bells on his mule's reins that carried first to the ominously silent, smokeless, ghost city of Shechem in the cleft of two heavily wooded mountains. 

A portion of the fire-blackened wall loomed over the tops of oaks that clustered round a once busy well.  Where hundreds of people daily congregated, exchanging important business or mere gossip, where children played and dogs lounged,  a lone man worked at his barely respectable trade of making bones into powders of various grades and fineness that could be sold in big city markets to rich and poor women alike.

Dumah the Ishmaelite bone-dealer was still recovering from an unlucky meeting with Hebrews even though he continued working as before, reducing bones and skulls for cosmetic skin whiteners.

Wounding and driving off his Ken'anite servants, they played with him roughly because he was not only Ishmaelite but small in stature and, moreover, over-fleshed—an obese dwarf, in other words. 

Just to be extra mean, perhaps, the thieves had stolen his saddle-blankets as  well, necessities for heavy-laden donkeys on the long journey down to Mizraim. 

Hearing sweet music, Dumah  paused in his work.

With an extremely fat hand he shaded two bulging, bloodshot eyes as he peered into the distance where vultures flew in hungry circles.  Not especially careful about modesty in such lonely places as Dothan, he had his robe rest on a stake and was attired only in a loin cloth rag.  Thus he stood as he observed the tell-tale cloud of dust approaching Shechem, and so he remained when the Favorite caught sight of him. 

Finding nothing to fear in a mere youth accompanied by an old man, Dumah made no move toward the long, curved dagger laid aside while he washed.

By Hibishu's holy paps! he swore.  What is this that heaven has sent my way? he marveled as he took in the wayfarer's dazzling robes.

Forgetting common courtesies, unmindful of his own undress, he rushed toward the Favorite. 

Whom are you seeking in this forsaken place, my pretty prince? the bone-dealer inquired as the peacock-plumed Favorite drew up on his fine, white mule beside the well. 

So intently was Dumah ogling and snuffing at the Favorite's perfumed robe and saddle-blanket that he took little notice of other wonders.  Never had he seen a robe so blue—blue as zarah flowers, whose valuable fibers clothed the high and mighty of Mizraim—or so red—as Damascene rubies in the nose-rings of  rich women—or so richly embroidered along the edges with silver pomegranates—a royal signature seen only on the robes of the kings of  Mitanni,  Uratu,  Assyria,  Babelen,  and Hatti—all places he had been and sold his cosmetics with a 1000 per cent mark-up.

Morning of fragrance! the Favorite greeted him, bowing from the waist to the older man despite the Ishmaelite's uncouth manners and shameless condition.  He, nevertheless, maintained a cautious eye,  which any Hebrew was trained from childhood to do. 

How so?  Now Hebrews and Ishmaelites were sworn enemies ever since a rejected first-born Ishmael persecuted his favored young brother, Isaac, and Isaac's mother Sarah cast Ishmael and Hagar his mother into the southern Wilderness of the Pelican.  Nothing of Sarah's legal but heartless act nor of Ishmael's resentful treatment of Sarah's son over the lost Birthright was ever forgotten; the rancor between the two kindred peoples, both of the household of Abraham, was a wall none could pass over.  Yet there was no avoiding each other in such a small country as Ken'an, and there were inevitable dealings, chiefly business, where money alone temporarily sweetened rancorous relations and prevented bloodshed and mayhem. 

Have you seen my brethren,  Hebrews with flocks,  pass by this place? Yosef inquired, holding out a large silver piece to sweeten the Ismaelite’s big, protruding tongue. 

Dumah shook his head indignantly, for he hated the thought of Hebrew pelf after all their man-handling.  A single piece of silver was not enough to repay him for his losses at the hands of those ruffians!

Putting the silver away in a jeweled purse, the Favorite tried again.  He began describing his brothers. 

Reuben the first-born has a bush of  hair  tied on the back of his head and rides a mule like mine.  He carries a silver staff cunningly worked like a double-headed serpent and leads on before his brethren.  Then comes Simeon who has a scar across both lips and no nose to speak of since a falling pine cone, he said, fell from a tree and smacked it flat.  At his heel lopes  faithful Levi, missing upper teeth when he opens his mouth wide to laugh.  Then limping, stalwart, long-of-face Issachar—his toe spirited away by a spear!  Zebulun never will say but is more fortunate with half an ear.  And mighty Judah has the leg and arm to match Mamre's oaks and stands taller than...

Dumah had heard enough detail by then to recall every single robber from this terrible family of Yosef’s. His body began a violent twitch and shudder, convulsing fold on fold of flesh, and he staggered dramatically backwards a few paces as he stared aghast at the Favorite.

How can you, looking so like a noble prince, be kin to those blood-thirsty villains?

Dumah thrust out short, immensely thick, stumpy arms toward the ruined city.

Are they not the ones who slew these wretched Shechemites, whose bones I grind into fine powders for the wealthy ladies of Mizraim?

He paused for breath, then indignantly continued.  Godless ruffians!  They claimed to know only one invisible god, who no doubt is as cruel as they proved to me!  May the merciful gods in high heaven strike them and their god down with a thousand thunderbolts for making such evil sport of me with their knives!

Dumah paused again to turn and bent over to show his visitor his badly bruised backside.

For did they not tie me round with my own rope and smite me wickedly on my most tender parts? 

The bone-dealer lightly touched his wounds and grimaced.  I had done them no evil.  I even offered to let them have my Ken'anites as slaves and lie with them as with male priests in the temples, if they would let me alone.  Instead they drove off my men-servants into the wilderness to perish without water, leaving me helpless.  If  I had not escaped by slipping off from their camp when they were busy shouting and brawling amongst themselves, no doubt the murderers would have staked me and left me food for eagles.

Deeply pained by the story, the Favorite followed Dumah's gaze and saw long-necked vultures crowding the upper walls of Shechem.  His hands clenched the silver-trimmed saddle-blanket as he thought of the Ishmaelite's ordeal and the disgrace it had added to his father's name.

With tears welling in his  eyes, he then turned back to find the Ishmaelite was no longer indulging righteous indignation but observing him with sly amusement.

Glancing about, the Favorite also saw many stray skulls, piles of whitish powder, heaps of sacks, and a pair of Ken'anite gods—ugly snake-tailed and goat-legged beings made of clay and painted red as Eder's Tower—standing by Shechem’s well, the only one not blocked up by the Hebrews in their attack on the city.

Though it was oppressively hot even in the shade of the trees, the Favorite shuddered. Visibly recoiling from all these horrors, he, nevertheless, straightened on his mount and his faultlessly handsome, beardless face appeared stern as any grown man's.

Sire, do you not know you are treading on holy, Hebrew ground?  For this well which you are pleased to defile with your gods was dug by my father, and the field adjoining was bought by him from Prince Hamor.

The bone-dealer's response was mock-amazement.

By Chillelu's cloven hoof!  he exclaimed, making a sour face.

He bowed low to the Favorite, his naked backside, wide as an ox's, again showing to good advantage. 

What is your name, O prince? he said, running oily, fat fingers along the saddle-blanket as he gazed upwards with feigned humility.  Only royalty wears such wonderful things as you do!

The Favorite looked down at the obscenely obese dwarf and was mortified to see how his bone-whitened hands fondled his things, as if he were appraising the value of every item, from the embroidery of his saddle-blanket to his gold-hemmed sleeves.

Leaning his black, hairy paunch against Yosef’s white mule, the dwarf continued to gaze up at the Favorite with mingled impudence, envy, and puzzlement.  Then he chuckled low in his throat and was no longer puzzled. 

How , O prince, can you enjoy such fine things and not be first-born?

The Favorite's face grew instantly pale, but he kept silence.

The Ishmaelite's eyes gleamed challengingly. Ah, it is as I thought, Hebrew!  You are the poor, young fool who tattles on his elder brothers, disgracing them before their father, for I heard them all talking about you and saying that—

The Favorite would have turned away at that moment, but a fat hand had seized his mule's reins while its owner doubled over, snorting with laughter.

Gasping for breath, he finally straightened up.  They call you that dreamer! Dumah hooted. Tell me your fine dreams and oracles, O prince, and I will give you my own true interpretation! 

Dumah again doubled over with laughter and his remaining shred of modesty, his loin cloth, shot off.

When he had recovered and stood up again, the Favorite was ready to answer for himself. 

Yes, I am a dreamer of dreams, but not the breezy-headed fool you think!

The bone-dealer turned suddenly grim.  Only a fool would dream mighty things for himself and then tell his elder brothers and the family's first-born how one day he would rule over them all!  Does such a fool want to be killed by his older brothers, eh?

The dreamer had nothing at this point to deny.  He was one against many, one who lived and breathed the Covenant, and the fact was so palpable it stopped the scoffer in his tracks.

He  simply gazed down at Dumah, and the simple truth, as it must, defeated its cunning antagonist. 

It was Almighty God who had promised Ken’an to the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Ken’an’s people would be judged and dispossessed by God because of their shameless, cruel religion,  but only if  His people remained faithful and did not intermarry with the Ken’anites;  if they did that they destroyed the Covenant and