Vayechi: One Shechem over your Brothers

Here is my parshablog roundup from 2013 on Vayechi, with about 45 posts. Since then, in 2014, I posted about how Saadia Gaon and others rendered שִׂכֵּל אֶת יָדָיו as based on the word sechel, wisdom or discernment. Meanwhile others recognized a sin / samech switchoff and point to סכל meaning to cross / be foolish. In 2017, I discussed a Samaritan variant for אָרוּר אַפָּם / cursed is their anger and וְעֶבְרָתָם כִּי קָשָׁתָה / their fury is harsh, making it adir and chevratam. A bunch of other thoughts. I also discuss the matching of וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַל-רֹאשׁ הַמִּטָּה with וַיִּתְחַזֵּק, יִשְׂרָאֵל, וַיֵּשֶׁב, עַל-הַמִּטָּה, and suggest that the bowing / lying prostrate wasn’t being thankful for Yosef’s oath. Rather, redivide the pesukim and make it a sign of his sickness, causing Yosef’s visit. At the end, Yaakov regains his strength.

Here is another idea or two for this parasha.

(1) Bechor Shor comments on the first pasuk:

וַיְחִ֤י יַעֲקֹב֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם שְׁבַ֥ע עֶשְׂרֵ֖ה שָׁנָ֑ה וַיְהִ֤י יְמֵֽי־יַעֲקֹב֙ שְׁנֵ֣י חַיָּ֔יו שֶׁ֣בַע שָׁנִ֔ים וְאַרְבָּעִ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת שָׁנָֽה׃

Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, so that the span of Jacob’s life came to one hundred and forty-seven years.

and notes a parallelism. Yaakov saw Yosef at first for 17 years and at the end for 17 years. Chizkuni makes it parallel, that Yosef supported his father for 17 years just as Yaakov supported him for the first 17 years.

(2) This year, I am interested in the shechem echad with which Yaakov rewarded Yosef:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֔ף הִנֵּ֥ה אָנֹכִ֖י מֵ֑ת וְהָיָ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ עִמָּכֶ֔ם וְהֵשִׁ֣יב אֶתְכֶ֔ם אֶל־אֶ֖רֶץ אֲבֹתֵיכֶֽם׃

Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die; but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your ancestors.

וַאֲנִ֞י נָתַ֧תִּֽי לְךָ֛ שְׁכֶ֥ם אַחַ֖ד עַל־אַחֶ֑יךָ אֲשֶׁ֤ר לָקַ֙חְתִּי֙ מִיַּ֣ד הָֽאֱמֹרִ֔י בְּחַרְבִּ֖י וּבְקַשְׁתִּֽי׃ {פ}

And now, I assign to you one portion more than to your brothers, which I wrested from the Amorites with my sword and bow.”

The meaning of Shechem Achad is uncertain, but I’m familiar with the two famous explanations given by commentators, sometimes by the same person.

(A) The actual city of Shechem; either already captured or to be captured in the future.

(B) A portion; or some other arcane noun which poetically indicates a portion, like shoulder → sloped mountain range or shoulder → load → portion; or from some unknown word.

Explanation (A) always seemed too midrashic for me. Hey, he said Shechem, and there is a city named Shechem which occurred in the Biblical narrative, somewhat involving Yosef!

However, the meforshim I read just were local brief comments on the one verse, rather than set out all it has to recommend it. I probably won’t either, but some thoughts.

1. In the Biblical narrative in sefer Bereishit, the location Shechem appears several times. Avraham passed through the land unto Shechem - perhaps named later (12:6); Yaakov went to Shechem, and there was the whole incident with Dinah (33:18); Yaakov’s household surrendered their idols and earrings which Yaakov buried under a terebinth in Shechem (35:3); Yaakov sends Yosef to his brothers because they are grazing in Shechem (37:13).
   
   So Shechem has a whole history, including a very personal history for Yosef himself.
   

2. Indeed, in the Dinah incident, Shimon and Levi destroyed Shechem. If Yaakov said that he conquered this Shechem Echad with his sword and bow, this may be a reference to this very city, and we see the fulfillment.
   

3. Jumping forward, Shechem is indeed in Yosef’s portion. See this map from Wikipedia, or Yeshoshua 17:7 describing the lower border of Menasheh, and how it is also referred to as Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim (20:7):

On the map, Shechem is towards the very bottom of Menasheh’s position, and just a bit above where Ephraim’s portion juts up. So both of Yosef’s sons are connected to it.

4. In Yehoshua 24:25, the leader Yehoshua, a descendant of Yosef / Ephraim, makes a covenant in Shechem. Later, but a few pesukim after, they bury Yehoshua in the Ephraim hill country, in his own portion.
   

5. And, it continues (24:32), they bury the bones of Yosef in Shechem, which it takes pains to mention that Yaakov had already purchased. וְאֶת־עַצְמ֣וֹת י֠וֹסֵף אֲשֶׁר־הֶעֱל֨וּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֥ל ׀ מִמִּצְרַיִם֮ קָבְר֣וּ בִשְׁכֶם֒ בְּחֶלְקַ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָנָ֧ה יַעֲקֹ֛ב מֵאֵ֛ת בְּנֵֽי־חֲמ֥וֹר אֲבִֽי־שְׁכֶ֖ם בְּמֵאָ֣ה קְשִׂיטָ֑ה וַיִּֽהְי֥וּ לִבְנֵֽי־יוֹסֵ֖ף לְנַחֲלָֽה׃ ; The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the piece of ground that Jacob had bought for a hundred kesitahs from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, and which had become a heritage of the Josephites.
   
   That sounds like a plausible connection to Yaakov’s explicit designation. Consider וַיִּֽהְי֥וּ לִבְנֵֽי־יוֹסֵ֖ף לְנַחֲלָֽה. How had it become Yosef’s nachalah? I mean aside from any lottery or capture?
   

6. There’s another verbal analogy, a gezeira shava of sorts, in this same perek 24 in Yehoshua:
   
   וָאֶשְׁלַ֤ח לִפְנֵיכֶם֙ אֶת־הַצִּרְעָ֔ה וַתְּגָ֤רֶשׁ אוֹתָם֙ מִפְּנֵיכֶ֔ם שְׁנֵ֖י מַלְכֵ֣י הָאֱמֹרִ֑י לֹ֥א בְחַרְבְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א בְקַשְׁתֶּֽךָ׃

   I sent a plague ahead of you, and it drove them out before you—[just like] the two Amorite kings—not by your sword or by your bow.
   
   The Biblical author is surely thinking of the “sword and bow” of Yaakov.
   
   This is also the close of the entire sefer of Yehoshua, just as Vayechi was the close of sefer Bereishit, so that might have made the author bear this in mind even more so.
   
   Still, we have to decide how much weight to give to books authored later (even under Divine inspiration in Neviim) regarding how they shed light on earlier Biblical books in Chumash.
   

7. If “shechem” is to mean shoulder / slope, that generally hilly mountainous area in Ephraim is a good location for fulfillment. Though maybe that is what is called Shechem (despite being named the same as Shechem son of Chamor).
   

8. Radak tries to kvetch the future conquest by Yosef’s descendants as the “sword and bow”. This needs slight kvetching, turning past to future tense, but since Biblical Hebrew doesn’t really have past and future tense, just perfect and imperfect, which vav hahipuch shows can function in either way; and since this is archaic poetry and indeed prophecy of what would eventually occur — look one pasuk ahead, בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים — this doesn’t seem like an insurmountable difficulty.
   
   Still, I don’t think we need to say this, and earlier Biblical events involving Shimon and Levi would suffice.

9. Using echad seems rather strange for a proper noun, a place name, which makes me prefer portion.

So, I don’t think it impossible, even on a peshat level, for this to involve the actual city of Shechem. If it does not, and was just intended to mean a portion, then there may be a level of multivalence in play. The very fact that meforshim grapple with its meaning, and this includes clear pashtanim, suggests that the ambiguity was part of authorial intent, on a peshat level. The meaning was still portion, but the reader is supposed to call the actual city of Shechem to mind.