Hoping for Hate To assuage their guilt, Joseph's brothers might
hope Joseph takes revenge for their sins against him. This
week's portion, Vayekhi, focuses on the events surrounding
Jacob's death. As he realizes he is dying, Jacob calls to his
sons and blesses them (although some of the "blessings" are
mostly recriminations) and instructs them to bury him in the
grave of his fathers. After Jacob's death, Joseph's brothers
fear that Joseph will now avenge their earlier mistreatment of
him. They send a message to Joseph saying that their father
Jacob had requested that Joseph forgive his brothers' sins.
There is a syntactical irregularity in the verse that records
this exchange: "And Joseph's brothers saw that their father had
died, and they said, 'Lest (lu ) Joseph will hate us and repay
us all of the evil that we have done him.' And they sent to
Joseph saying, 'Your father commanded before his death...'"
(Genesis 50:15-16). The medieval commentator Rashi notes that
elsewhere in the Bible, the word "lu" always