When we left them last week, Jacob's family had finally gotten back in touch. Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers twenty-two years earlier, has embraced them and expressed a desire to reconnect with his long-lost father. “Hurry and ascend to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph: God has set me as lord of all Egypt! Come down to me; don't delay! You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me'” (Genesis 45:9-10). Goshen was apparently a region of the east Nile Delta, a “stretch of wetlands along the easternmost of the Nile's distributaries.”1 As one of the first parts of Egypt you'd reach coming down through the desert from Canaan, it was already a popular area for new arrivals.2 “I'll support you there..., lest you and your house and all that's yours come to poverty..., for there are still five years of famine” (Genesis 45:11). It's a tougher time than Jacob and his sons had thought; Joseph has foreknowledge that this has been just the tip of the pyramid. Nobody so far has asked, “Why?” But it all started with: “Cursed is the ground for your sake! In toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life.... By the sweat of your nose shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken” (Genesis 3:17-19). Famines – even this one – are “a prime instance of the curse.”3 The curse began a couple chapters into the book of Genesis; now it climaxes as we near the end.
As Joseph talks with his brothers, meanwhile word reaches the palace that these men who've arrived are, in fact, the brothers of Joseph. That “was good in the eye of Pharaoh and in the eye of his servants” (Genesis 45:16), Joseph being deeply popular in palace circles. Pharaoh's liked and trusted Joseph for nine years now; given that Joseph views himself as something of “a father to Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:8), it might be that this Pharaoh is actually somewhat younger than Joseph.4 As Joseph has just dictated a message for his brothers to give their father, Pharaoh now summons Joseph and dictates a message for Joseph to give his brothers.5
Joseph tells his brothers to “hurry and bring my father down here” (Genesis 45:13), and Pharaoh similarly asks that they “load your beasts and depart, go to the land of Canaan, and take your father and your houses, and come to me” – it's less than clear if the 'me' is Joseph or Pharaoh (Genesis 45:17). Joseph assures his father that “I'll support you” (Genesis 45:11); Pharaoh says, “I'll give you the good of the land of Egypt, and you'll eat of the fat of the land” (Genesis 45:18). So far, it's a pretty nice match. But there's a big difference still. Joseph's original invitation is for Israel to come down to Egypt and bring “your flocks and your herds and all that you have” (Genesis 45:10). Pharaoh commands that Joseph's brethren “let not your eye pity your stuff, for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours” (Genesis 45:20). Where Joseph invites the flocks and herds, Pharaoh makes no mention of animals, just “your little ones and your wives.” Where Joseph mentions the family's moveable property – tents, clothes, pots and pans, all that – Pharaoh directly (and unknowingly) contradicts him. Pharaoh says they can just abandon those in Canaan, because they'll gain better Egyptian goods on arrival. As they come, Pharaoh pictures them coming as blank slates ready to be rechiseled in hieroglyphics – ready to be acculturated, assimilated, absorbed by this new Egypt with arms wide open to the world on Egypt's terms.6
Pharaoh authorizes Joseph's brothers to take wagons in order to transport this anticipated human cargo (Genesis 45:19). “And the sons of Israel did so, and Joseph gave them wagons according to the mouth of Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:21). We heard last Sunday, at the end of a very long story, how Jacob at first couldn't believe what his sons were telling him; but, once he'd heard Joseph's message as they relayed it and “saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob came to life; and Israel said, 'It is enough: Joseph my son is still alive! I will go and see him before I die'” (Genesis 45:27-28). He's been talking about death a lot lately, but for now he's got something vital to live for. He just needs to go and see.
So “Israel lifted up with all that was his” – a clue that he hasn't decided to leave everything behind, as Pharaoh wants – “and he came to Beersheba” (Genesis 46:1). This Well of the Oath is where Abraham cut a covenant with Abimelech (Genesis 21:31-32), where Isaac heard the LORD and built an altar (Genesis 26:23-25), where Jacob himself grew up and where he saw his mom for the very last time (Genesis 27:10). So here he's come yet again, to this familiar southern limit of Canaan, and – no doubt on his dad's altar – “he sacrificed sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac” (Genesis 46:1). Later Jews speculated that Jacob paused there on Pentecost and, remembering his dream where God had placed such a premium on bringing him back to the land from Aram (Genesis 28:15), “he was afraid to go down into Egypt,” and considered asking Joseph to come meet him there in Canaan instead.7 His own father Isaac had been forbidden by a direct revelation to ever go down to Egypt at all (Genesis 26:2). Who's to say that isn't a law binding on Jacob now? And if they go, will they be risking their claim on this land?8 Might they forever “remain in Egypt and thus bring the promise to nought?”9
If Israel's hoping that this spot where his dad was reassured by the God of Isaac is a place where Israel can get a similar comfort and guidance, his hope doesn't disappoint him. That night, in a vision in the sleepy darkness, a voice urgenly calls for him: “Jacob, Jacob!” – the same voice that had called from heaven to the mountain, “Abraham, Abraham!” (Genesis 22:11). Now as then, the hearer responded, “Here am I,” ready and receptive (Genesis 46:2). The voice in the night identifies himself as “the El, the God of your father,” and tells Israel, “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt” (Genesis 46:3). What was forbidden to Isaac isn't forbidden to Israel. Isaac's just wasn't the right time. God had pledged, long ago, to Abraham that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you..., so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2); and now, the voice tells Israel, Egypt is the forge where it's to happen: “for into a great nation will I make you there” (Genesis 46:1).
God has spoken. We won't hear him go on the record again for centuries, until he breaks his deafening silence by calling out, “Moses, Moses!” (Exodus 3:4). Awaiting that far-off name, “Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father and their little ones and the wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him” (Genesis 46:5). Before the revelation, Jacob saw “wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him” (Genesis 45:27); now, they're Pharaoh-sent. But, bucking Pharaoh's script, “they also took their livestock and their acquisitions which they'd acquired in the land of Canaan, and they came into Egypt” (Genesis 46:6).
While on the way, Israel had dispatched the son he trusted best – none other than Judah, who'd proven himself through Benjamin's safe return – to run on ahead, to visit Joseph one-on-one and arrange for a rendezvous with the family, not at Joseph's house, but in this nearer borderland. “He sent Judah before his face to Goshen, to point out before his face to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph harnessed his chariot and ascended, to meet Israel his father, to Goshen” (Genesis 46:28-29). Joseph's eagerness to see his father, to hear his father's voice, can hardly be contained. Joseph is so proud of the man he's become, and wants Jacob to be proud of him, too. It's an utterly human instinct.
So we read that, there in Goshen, Joseph “appeared to him” (Genesis 46:29). Throughout the Old Testament, this phrase, 'he appeared to him,' never has a human subject except here. So far it's always been, “The LORD appeared to Abram” (Genesis 12:7), “God appeared to Jacob” (Genesis 35:9) – and now it's used of Joseph? Well, that fits with his insistence that his brothers “tell my father all my glory in Egypt” (Genesis 45:13). As he rides up in his large, stately chariot, wearing finest linens and loaded with the purest gold adornments, Joseph's aiming to manifest his glory like an Egyptian god, awe-inspiring and radiant.10 But no sooner does the aspiring deity manifest his glory to his father than he hugs him tight and, in the sight of his brothers and sisters-in-law and nephews, he breaks down into extended sobs. It's a touching scene, but not much of a divine appearance. You'll notice that we read “no reciprocal show of emotion on Jacob's part,” no hint that he also cries on Joseph's neck – can he recognize his lost son as found yet, or not?11 But he says he can die at peace now that he's at least seen Joseph's face and has confirmed for a fact that the son reported dead is alive after all (Genesis 46:30).
A question hovers over the place they meet: now that they're together at last, does Jacob become a character in Joseph's Egyptian story, or does Joseph become a character in Israel's Abrahamic story – or is there a third way yet to be found?12 Joseph sees that the whole family is there – we skip right past all the introductions of the youngsters to Uncle Joseph the Bald, the smoothest-skinned son of Jacob the Smooth (cf. Genesis 27:11) – and knows that there's work to be done. For all Joseph's bragging of being “ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:8), he needs to secure their right to settle in Goshen – and that means talking to Pharaoh, whose invitation had not only not named a district but had also avoided words like 'settle,' 'dwell,' or even 'sojourn.'
So Joseph lays out his plan. He'll first lay out the basic facts before Pharaoh, sharing essential information on the family's arrival and lifestyle and also explaining – perhaps a bit apologetically – that, despite Pharaoh's kind offer, they've hauled all their stuff down with them (Genesis 46:31-32). Next, Joseph predicts that Pharaoh will want to hear from some of them, and that Pharaoh will ask them about the work they do, despite Joseph having already told him. When he does, Joseph wants them to follow a very precise script: “Men of livestock have your servants been, from our youth and until now, both we and our fathers” (Genesis 46:33-34). He explains to them that upper-class Egyptians don't like to associate with anyone “shepherding a flock,” so while Joseph will admit that to Pharaoh before making the introductions, they'd best not repeat it when asked, but should simply lay claim to an unbroken family tradition of breeding livestock.13 This way, Pharaoh should let them “dwell in the land of Goshen,” an area ideal for that lifestyle, while staying on the fringes of society at a comfortable distance from most Egyptians. That'd be most agreeable to Pharaoh, and will also help them slow the process of being digested into Egypt. They'll “keep their distance from those who worship sheep.”14 But is that enough?
As chapter 47 opens, Joseph does as he said he would. He seeks an audience with Pharaoh and says much of what he said he'd say – almost. He'd told them he'd say that the arrivals were “my brothers and the household of my father” (Genesis 46:31), but he mentions only “my father and my brothers,” as if confining the group to a smaller size (Genesis 47:1). He told them he'd say they “have come to me” (Genesis 46:31), but he actually just says that they “have come” and are presently in Goshen (Genesis 47:1). Most pivotally, while Joseph follows through on admitting that his family's brought “their flocks and their herds and all that's theirs,” he backs down from using that dreaded word 'shepherd' (Genesis 47:1). Then, “from among his brothers, he took five men” – likeliest to leave a decent impression15 – and these men “he presented to the face of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:2).
Pharaoh follows the script unknowingly but perfectly. He asks the men exactly what Joseph had guessed he'd ask them: “What is your work?” But with Joseph having gone off-script, so do his brothers. Literally the first word out of their mouth is 'shepherd'! “Shepherding flocks, your servants are, both we and also our fathers” (Genesis 47:3).16 Then, after an awkward pause, they add: “To sojourn in the land we have come, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for heavy is the famine in the land of Canaan.” They leave the impression they just want to ride out the famine where there's some pastureland left. “And now please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen,” they plead (Genesis 47:4). Their words manage to assure Pharaoh that “they have no political interests or ambitions,” and would be content to be unobtrusive guests at the edge of the kingdom.17
Pharaoh doesn't answer the brothers, doesn't say one word to them. Instead, he speaks straight to Joseph. What does he say? “Your father and your brothers have come to you.” That makes them your problem, Joe.18 “The land of Egypt is before your face,” at your disposal. So, by all means, “in the best of the land, settle your father and your brothers; let them settle in the land of Goshen,” as you've hinted and they've asked (Genesis 47:5-6). They're welcome to settle down there – but only because they're blood relatives of Joseph, who has Pharaoh's continuing esteem.19 Pharaoh even, surprisingly, tells Joseph that “if you know any among them to be men of skill, set them as princes of livestock over what's mine!” (Genesis 47:6). It's a fitting offer, given that Asiatics like them often got “involved in cattle administration or herding in Egypt,”20 but if any are found fit to do this, they'd be low-level “officers of the crown” and have a sturdier legal standing.21
We've skipped over, thus far, everyone's favorite surprise when reading the Bible: a census! There's a listing of the members of Jacob's clan taking up a big chunk in the middle of chapter 46. It's not only a dizzying batch of names, it's not easy to get the math to line up like it's supposed to. The names don't all match other copies of this same list in Numbers and Chronicles. It's got some people in it who can't be there. For example, Judah can't be older than forty-five, and his sons Er and Onan grew up and died out before his twin boys Perez and Zerah were even conceived, so they should be toddlers when carted into Egypt – yet this list gives Perez his two sons awhile (Genesis 46:12). The list gives Benjamin ten sons (Genesis 46:21), but Moses says later that a few of them are actually grandsons (Numbers 26:40) – but, either way, Benjamin's in his mid-twenties, so ten sons is a tough stretch anyway! Ultimately, St. Augustine commented here that “all these things, which seem insoluble, undoubtedly have an important purpose; but whether they can all be literally consistent..., I do not know.”22
But step back from the names, and maybe we can see the bigger picture. The conclusion of this little census is that “all the souls of the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy” (Genesis 46:27). That must have meant something near and dear to the Israelites, because the Bible's next book opens the way the census does here and promptly posits that “all the souls who went out from the thigh of Jacob were seventy souls” (Exodus 1:3). Moses later preaches that “with seventy souls your fathers went down to Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:22). It mattered even to Stephen in the New Testament, though his Greek Bible had different numbers (Acts 7:14).23 Why? Remember that the other year, we looked at the tenth chapter of Genesis, which represented the nations of the known world as a family tree descending from Noah's sons. And how many nations did Jews count as they read Genesis 10? Seventy.24 So here, at the tail end of Genesis, Israel's family is being shaped as the seed of a new world, an Abraham-shaped world, bursting onto the scene and “set among the seventy nations.”25
If the buried secret of chapter 46 is this census, there's a secret in chapter 47, too, and it's domestic policy of the kind you might hear about on C-SPAN. We've been skipping mostly past Joseph's way of handling the crisis he was put in office to address. Remember his original pitch to Pharaoh: first, there should be one “discerning and wise man” with plenary authority to coordinate the crisis response; second, under him should be “overseers of the land” who implement the plan at a regional level; third, during the first seven years, the overseers should mobilize the land for emergency preparedness and “gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and store up grain under the hand of Pharaoh, food in the cities, and let them guard it: it shall be the food as a supply to the land for the seven years of famine that will be in the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:32-36).
So, once Pharaoh put Joseph in charge, what did Joseph do? He went all over Egypt and, since the seven years of plenty were so lavish, “he gathered up all the food of these seven years... and he put the food in the cities; the food of the field in every city which surrounded them, he gave into its midst. And Joseph stored up grain like the sand of the sea, so much that he ceased to count it, as it couldn't be counted” (Genesis 41:46-49).
As the famine took hold in northeast Africa and southwest Asia, “in all the land of Egypt there was bread” at first (Genesis 41:54), but when private stockpiles were depleted and “all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all Egypt, 'Go to Joseph. Whatever he says to you, do!'” (Genesis 41:55). Joseph then became “the one who sold to all the people of the land,” who had authority to distribute the national grain reserve dispersed throughout all Egypt's cities (Genesis 42:6). As the one man in the land with near-exclusive control over the basic staples of existence during these years, one reader sees him “exercising his god-like power over life and death” in the way he deals with the people.26
As Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, two years of the famine are past, and the third is soon to be underway, with four more to come (Genesis 45:6). By this point, “there was no bread in the land, for the famine was very heavy, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted from the face of the famine” (Genesis 47:13). It seems like a death sentence, certain to return all in Canaan and in Egypt to the ground whence they were formed from the first. The sweat running down their noses couldn't scratch up bread to feed their families. But in the face of this disaster, we read how “Joseph gave them bread,” that “he comforted them with bread” (Genesis 47:17). When all's said and done, Egypt as a whole speaks to Joseph with one voice, crying out to him, “You have sustained us alive!” (Genesis 47:25). It's language we haven't heard since God told Noah to bring into the ark living creatures “to sustain them alive” (Genesis 6:19). Egypt is hailing Joseph as the world's new Noah, who's preserved the seed of life through the disaster, making Egypt itself an ark of safety for all lands.27
But maybe the devil's in the details. How's this sausage made? Joseph doesn't give bread; he sells it. Egyptians – like all the foreigners descending in desperation to their land – have to purchase grain from the government. So, during these earlier years of the famine, “Joseph collected all the silver that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain that they bought; and Joseph,” rather than embezzle this profit for his own ends, “brought the silver to the house of the Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:14). He's faithful and zealous on his boss's behalf, using his role “to further augment and consolidate Pharaoh's power.”28 Then what? Time passes, and “the silver was spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan.” And so “all Egypt came to Joseph, saying, 'Provide us bread! Why should we die in front of you? For the silver has ceased'” (Genesis 47:15).
Here's the crucial moment. There's no more silver to collect – not at the high prices Joseph must have been able to charge for grain, now that he's got a food monopoly. Here are the starving people, without money, asking to be fed. He could distribute the bread freely, as an entitlement of citizenship or even just as human kindness. On the other hand, “a person who is able to exploit someone else's assets ceases to bother with his own.”29 Trying to give grain freely by rationed amounts per person could give rise to black markets; anybody slipping through the cracks could starve.30 And so Joseph makes a decision: no free lunches. Considering that all this grain was confiscated by the government from the Egyptian people in the first place, effectively Joseph's demanding that “the very farmers who produced and harvested the food buy back their own product.”31 So, without silver as a currency, he turns to a barter system with moveable property: “Provide your livestock, and I'll give it to you for your livestock, if the silver has ceased” (Genesis 47:16). And so “they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses and for the livestock of the flock and for the livestock of the herd and for the donkeys; and he comforted them with bread for all their livestock that year” (Genesis 47:17).
That year ended. But the famine didn't. In this next year, Egypt turned to Joseph yet again. Their rations were gone. They had no silver left, and now their livestock was all state property. Egypt laments, “Nothing remains before the face of my lord but our bodies and our ground! Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our ground? Buy us and our ground for bread, and we with our ground will be slaves to Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the ground may not be desolate!” (Genesis 47:18-19).
This time, it was their suggestion; Joseph merely accepted their terms gladly. “Joseph bought all the ground of Egypt for Pharaoh, for Egypt sold every man his field,” not freely but “because the famine prevailed upon them; and the land became Pharaoh's” (Genesis 47:20), so as “to build up the stock of property which lay in the public domain.”32 The sole exception was that “the ground of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a statutory ration from Pharaoh, and they ate the rations that Pharaoh gave them; on this basis, they didn't sell their grounds” (Genesis 47:22). As for the people, there are questions about what the original text said.33 The Hebrew text passed down to us says that “he made them pass over into the cities from one end of the territory of Egypt to the other” by a population transfer (Genesis 47:21).34 But some ancient copies apparently read instead that “the people he enslaved for himself as servants.”35 So “he took possession of all the land for Pharaoh at the same time as he reduced all the Egyptians into slavery.”36 Thus “freedom was taken away in all the land of Egypt,” so that Egypt “became the house of bondage” even to its own people.37
It's an alarming picture, that the boy sold by his brothers into slavery could so easily allow his adopted nation to sell themselves into slavery. When similar policies were introduced at Jerusalem, so that fields were mortgaged and people sold into slavery to afford grain during a famine, Nehemiah was outraged and “brought charges against the nobles and the officials” (Nehemiah 5:1-7); what words might Nehemiah have for Joseph?38 Some readers today worry that, in what seems like his “crafty, unforgiving leadership,”39 Joseph “outpharaohs Pharaoh” as he “centralizes all ownership,”40 as “the Egyptians must literally sacrifice all ownership of the means of production in order to survive,”41 as he “strips them of their dignity.”42 If God declared to Jacob that “in you and in your seed shall all the families of the ground be blessed” (Genesis 28:14), what does it mean when Joseph takes the ground away from the families of Egypt? Does he bless them, or break them... or both?
What's happening here is the transformation of Egypt into an anti-Israel.43 In Egypt, the people sell themselves into slavery for generations; in Israel, one who sold himself into slavery would, in the seventh year at the latest, “go out free, for nothing” (Exodus 21:2). In Egypt, Joseph keeping the Egyptians alive authorized the statute; in Israel, the statutes are commanded “for our good all the days, that [God] might keep us alive” (Deuteronomy 6:24). In Egypt, the land is given up to Pharaoh, with the exception of the priests as the sole other landowners; in Israel, “no portion is given to the Levites in the land, but only cities to dwell in” (Joshua 14:4), for “it is Pharaoh who wishes his priests... to work at the cultivation of the soil, not of the soul.”44 In Egypt, Pharaoh lays claim to a fifth of every harvest; in Israel, the LORD himself lays claim to simply a tenth (Leviticus 23:30).
At the same time the native Egyptians are surrendering silver, stock, soil, and self, how are things with Goshen's newest settlers? Quite well: Joseph engineered things to “cause them to live in considerable prosperity.”45 Just before we heard that there was no bread in the land, we read that “Joseph sustained his father and his brothers and all the house of his father with bread, according to the mouth of the little one” (Genesis 47:12), possibly meaning that he assigns each individual a sufficient ration. Where the Egyptians go into slavery to afford bread, the first Israelite immigrants are given bread for free, courtesy of the Egyptian government.
Thus, “Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they seized possession in it, and they were fruitful and they multiplied exceedingly” (Genesis 47:27). We'll hear the same thing early in the next book, that “the Sons of Israel were fruitful and teemed and multiplied and became very, very numerous, and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). Back at Bethel, God had urged Jacob to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 35:11), as Isaac had prayed would happen (Genesis 28:3); but that was echoing God's commitment to make Abraham “exceedingly fruitful” (Genesis 17:6), which was a plan built on God's blessing on the sons of Noah that they “be fruitful and multiply and fill the land” (Genesis 9:1), which repeated God's blessing on humanity at the dawn of creation, that we “be fruitful and multiply and fill the land” (Genesis 1:28).46 But notice that not once, in all of Genesis until now, have we explicitly heard fruitfulness come to fruition – we've heard blessings of the hopes of fruitfulness, encouragements to multiply and fill, but here it's become an accomplished fact.
So when we read that phrase again, we're thrown back to before the ground was cursed, before the ground was forfeit. You know, the word 'ground' has scarcely shown up at all since the days of Noah, and suddenly here, in this chapter, we get over 25% of the 'ground' in Genesis – twice as many uses as there were before the fall. Then, in Genesis 3, humanity evicted from the garden was sentenced to “slave for the ground from which he'd been taken” (Genesis 3:23). Now, forty-four chapters later, as Egyptians give themselves and their ground alike into slavery, Israel teems and swarms in Goshen like they're frolicking in Eden, as though Joseph's bread were tasty fruit from the tree of life. If Adam's so-called 'knowledge' brought a deadly curse onto the ground, Joseph has a wisdom from God that, at least in part, triumphs over the curse and leads to life.47
And so “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years” (Genesis 47:28). The first five of those correspond to the final five years of famine; that means Jacob and his family stayed when the famine ended. They stayed as the Nile rose to restore the land to life, to let the Egyptians' seed become viable crops. Israel stays settled in the land of Goshen, because God has spoken. And during Jacob's last years and beyond, there are just two groups who aren't somehow slaves of the state: the priesthoods, and the Children of Israel. To the average Egyptian farmer, how might this look? He owes new taxes at every harvest, and has less than his father because he's had to sell everything just to survive those tough years. But that immigrant ghetto over yonder spent those same years getting fat off government handouts – eating for free the grain he grew in the good years and had to pay to taste. Now those foreigners continue exempt from these new taxes, while those like him whose ancestors have walked this land for millennia are at risk of losing their country? Well, something's got to be done!
Unwittingly, it seems like Joseph has created a reason for Egyptians to resent the Hebrews and has built the machinery of state oppression that, a few generations down the line, will be ready and available to aim at the Hebrews. See, eventually there'll rise “a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). Famously, during this season of Egyptian history, significant parts of the country were taken over by pharaohs who weren't even Egyptian, whose parents were settlers from north of Canaan; the Egyptians dubbed them 'rulers of foreign lands.' This broke down the Middle Kingdom, and a New Kingdom couldn't begin until a ten-year-old prince from Waset came to power and, in his quarter-century reign as Ahmose, led a campaign to reconquer Lower Egypt from the 'rulers of foreign lands' and reunite Egypt again as one.48 Ahmose or one of his successors would be a new king who knew not Joseph; Egyptian “dread in the face of the Sons of Israel” would express itself in hate and, using the power established here, would make them labor on the grand projects of the New Kingdom. Arguably, Joseph “set the scene for hundreds of years of suffering,”49 having created “the conditions for the eventual bitter enslavement and oppression of his own people.”50 Try as he might, Joseph's Goshen can't be Eden. It can only be a crucible for forging a nation for greater dreams by far (Genesis 15:12-16).
In the midst of this swirl of confusion, there's one key moment at the eye of the storm. Before the family settles fully in Goshen, “Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before the face of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:7). Unlike Joseph's brothers, Jacob doesn't use 'lord' and 'servant' language as he speaks with the king of all Egypt; he certainly doesn't bow before Pharaoh.51 Jacob has no need to quake before this young man who takes himself for the earthly manifestation of a god; Israel has wrestled God in the dark, Israel has met God in visions of the night, and Israel – at Israel's best – will accept no imitations. Though Jacob at his advanced age is carried to and fro, he exits Pharaoh's presence at his own initiative, without asking permission, and under his own power, without seeking help. But before he goes, what does he do? He blesses Pharaoh (Genesis 47:10). Israel imposes a blessing onto the head of this friendly neighborhood god-king, so called. And “it is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (Hebrews 7:7). Israel, without bravado, simply blesses. He blesses Pharaoh king of Egypt, because Israel's called to bless. So bless Israel does, without compromise.
In Joseph we see a glimpse – however imperfect – of “the Lord Jesus, taking pity on the hungers of the world,”52 the “Christ who subjugates all things to himself by the gift of wheat.”53 He gives more freely than Joseph could, and more abundantly than Joseph could – but the price is, yes, that, “having been set free from sin, we become slaves,” not of Pharaoh, but “of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). “What do we get from refusing to have such a master?” asked St. Augustine. “We shall only remain under the devil, and also suffer from the famine, and still not escape from the authority of our true Lord.”54 Jesus goes straight not for our silver or stock or soil, but for our souls – he wants our heart, he wants our all, to be at his service. It's not because he wants to dominate us, but because he wants to liberate us. And he stakes his claim to us by feeding our lives on every word from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), and most fully by the Bread of Life on his altar (John 6:53).
The cross is steady as the world turns – that's the great saying.55 The ways of this world aren't stable, any more than the conditions and policies of ancient Egypt. As we're sent into the world, we have to be careful – as Jacob was – not to become of it (John 17:14-16). We don't leave behind all we've been graced with, in expectation that the world has something better. Instead, we come and find our place where we can live as Christians in this Egypt, where we can put love into practice, where we can be disciples bearing fruit for God. Then we multiply; then we teem; then, from seventy souls, we become as the very sand beneath or stars above. Refusing to be co-opted, we nevertheless stay close enough to bring a blessing – to feed hungry bodies and hungry souls, to supply justice where once was none, to do mercy, to lift up, to sustain life where death lays claim to reign. This can be our Goshen – until all things are made new, and every hunger is satisfied for good, and the best of all heaven is held before us by the King of Kings, our Good Shepherd at last adored by all creation. Amen!
1 Daniel Hillel, The Natural History of the Bible: An Environmental Exploration of the Hebrew Scriptures (Columbia University Press, 2006), 103.
2 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 309-310.
3 Brian O. Sigmon, “Between Eden and Egypt: Echoes of the Garden Narrative in the Story of Joseph and His Brothers” (Marquette University, PhD dissertation, 2013), 226.
4 Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (Lexham Press, 2021), 118.
5 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 613.
6 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 613.
7 Jubilees 44:1-3, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:134.
8 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.170-171, in Loeb Classical Library 242:239.
9 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 40.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:198.
10 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 622.
11 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 319.
12 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 431.
13 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 624; Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (Lexham Press, 2021), 122.
14 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 40.6, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:198; see also Nili Shupak, “The Egyptian Background of the Joseph Story: Selected Issues Revisited,” in Richard E. Averbeck and K. Lawson Younger Jr., eds., An Excellent Fortress for His Armies, A Refuge for the People: Egyptological, Archaeological, and Biblical Studies in Honor of James K. Hoffmeier (Eisenbrauns, 2020), 348-349.
15 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 180.
16 Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (Lexham Press, 2021), 122-123.
17 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 320; cf. Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 393.
18 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 320-321.
19 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 627.
20 Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Reality (Bloomsbury, 2016), 128.
21 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 320.
22 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.152, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:75.
23 Compare Acts 7:14 to Genesis 46:8-27 LXX, in Susan C. Brayford, Genesis (Brill, 2007), 183-185.
24 b. Sukkah 55b, in Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, ed., Koren Talmud Bavli (Koren Publishers, 2013), 10:274.
25 Jubilees 44:34, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:136.
26 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 571.
27 Timothy J. Stone, “Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 67.
28 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 566.
29 Ambrose of Milan, De officiis 2.79, in Ivor Davidson, Ambrose of Milan: De Officiis (Oxford University Press, 2001), 313.
30 Andrew E. Steinmann, Genesis (IVP Academic, 2019), 434.
31 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2024), 91.
32 Ambrose of Milan, De officiis 2.80, in Ivor J. Davidson, Ambrose of Milan: De Officiis (Oxford University Press, 2001), 313.
33 Andrew E. Steinmann, Genesis (IVP Academic, 2019), 435.
34 This reading is reflected also in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.190, in Loeb Classical Library 242:247; Targum Onqelos Genesis 47:21, in Aramaic Bible 6:154; and Targum Neofiti Genesis 47:21, in Aramaic Bible 1A:210.
35 Genesis 47:21 LXX, in Susan C. Brayford, Genesis (Brill, 2007), 189; see also the Samaritan version of Genesis 47:21 in Benyamim Tsedaka, tr., The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah (Eerdmans, 2013), 115.
36 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 65.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:251.
37 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 16.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:214.
38 Shira Weiss, Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible: Philosophical Analysis of Scriptural Narrative (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 117-118.
39 Casey A. Strine, “The Famine in the Land Was Severe: Environmentally Induced Involuntary Migration and the Joseph Narrative,” Hebrew Studies 60 (2019): 65.
40 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 633.
41 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2024), 91.
42 Megan Warner, “'You Shall Not Do as They Do in the Land of Egypt': Joseph and the Perils of Uber-Assimilation as Response to Involuntary Migration,” Hebrew Studies 60 (2019): 48.
43 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 634.
44 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 16.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:221.
45 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 65.9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:248.
46 Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (Lexham Press, 2021), 125-126.
47 Brian O. Sigmon, “Between Eden and Egypt: Echoes of the Garden Narrative in the Story of Joseph and His Brothers” (Marquette University, PhD dissertation, 2013), 241.
48 On all this, see, e.g., Anna-Latifa Mourad, Rise of the Hyksos: Egypt and the Levant from the Middle Kingdom to the Early Second Intermediate Period (Archaeopress, 2015); Irene Forstner-Mรผller, “The Hyksos State,” in Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, eds., The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East (Oxford University Press, 2022), 3:1-47.
49 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2024), 91.
50 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 403-404.
51 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Books, 2003), 628.
52 Ambrose of Milan, On Joseph 7 §41, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:216.
53 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.28, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:143.
54 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 37.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/2:196.
55 The slogan of the Order of Carthusians: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.
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