I’m doing the One Year Bible readings (works great on my Nook), and am just finishing Genesis.
We’ve all heard countless sermons about Joseph’s miraculous rise to the Number Two spot in Egypt. But I’ve never heard a sermon from Genesis 47, which tells how he carried out his job during the famine years.
By this time, his family has settled in Egypt, in the land of Goshen–the best land in Egypt. I imagine other families were expelled from Goshen to make room for Jacob’s clan and all their herds. That probably made some people mad, people capable of holding multi-generational grudges (not unlike today’s Palestinians).
(By the way–I wonder if Joseph and the brothers ever told Jacob what had really happened. About Joseph being sold into slavery, rather than being killed by an animal. I’ll bet they agreed, “Hey, Dad’s an old man. He can’t handle hearing this,” and that Jacob never learned the true story.)
Anyway, when the 7 years of famine struck (after the 7 good years), Joseph had enough food stored up to feed the Egyptian people. But he didn’t just give it away. No, he made them pay for it. Even though they had already grown it.
First, Joseph took their money, until they didn’t have any more to give. Then he took their livestock as payment, until, as the Bible says, Pharoah owned all the horses, sheep, donkeys, goats, and cattle in the land. When they had no more livestock to trade for food, he took their land. The people, understandably, freely gave up everything to get food. When they had no more assets to give, they gave themselves as slaves.
In the end, Joseph had pretty much nationalized the whole Egyptian economy. He controlled the food supply, owned every piece of land, owned all the livestock, and owned the very people as slaves. Everything now belonged to Pharoah. And Joseph had made it happen.
Throughout this, God’s direction is never mentioned, nor did Joseph give glory to God in any way. The reason, I’m sure, is that God didn’t want anythng to do with it. That’s not the way God wants people to govern.
Again, I’ve never, not once, heard a sermon even mention this. Kind of hard to explain to kids, how this is the same guy with the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
But consider Joseph’s dilemma. With his family in the land, Joseph lost much of his own freedom. He couldn’t act out of principle. Not anymore. Because if he displeased Pharoah in any way, not only might his own life be forfeit (like that poor baker’s), but so might the lives of all of his family. He had to protect them, and that meant doing whatever it took to appease Pharoah.
I imagine this weighed heavily on Joseph. He knew that, when he was out of the picture, his family–whom he had brought to Egypt, and sheltered, and provided for–would be in grave danger. That’s why he talked to them about returning to Canaan once he was gone.
Exodus tell us that a king “who knew not Joseph” came to power. Maybe some of this king’s friends or relatives were among those former Goshen-dwellers whom the Israelites displaced, and they wanted revenge. Exodus 1 says enemies engaged in fear-mongering about these immigrants, saying they were becoming too numerous and might help overtake the country (sounds like Americans talking about Hispanic or Muslim immigrants). And fear worked. Whereas the whole rest of Egypt had been enslaved under Joseph, now the Jews–Joseph’s people–became slaves. Payback.
Just some interesting musing about the potential backstory.
I read Exodus 19 the other night, and found something curious.
I occasionally feel bothered by our efforts, as the Christian church, to adopt the world’s ways in order to appeal to the world. There are lots of advantages to doing that, and yet, I don’t know, it sometimes just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I’m just getting old and allergic to edgy.
