Hey, welcome back on Thursday as we finish up the week in Genesis 41,
looking at the Joseph stories and specifically this moment we saw yesterday where Joseph stood before
the Pharaoh who had had dreams that no one could interpret and Joseph did interpret them
and warned the Pharaoh that his dreams indicated without doubt and without possibility of avoiding
it seven good years in Egypt followed by seven very tough years in Egypt.
And Joseph was so bold at the end of that conversation to suggest to the Pharaoh that
they ought to prepare and that those preparations should be overseen by someone wise,
someone capable.
He doesn’t go so far as to recommend himself but if you read between the lines it seems
likely.
So we pick up the story today in verse 17 as Joseph and Pharaoh kind of continue this conversation.
The proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants.
Pharaoh said to the servants,
“Can we find anyone else like this one
in whom the Spirit of God dwells?”
So Pharaoh said to Joseph,
“Since God has shown you all this,
there is no one so discerning
and wise as you.
You shall be over my house and all my people shall order themselves as you command.
Only with regard to the throne will I be greater than you.”
And Pharaoh said to Joseph,
“See, I set you over the land of Egypt,
removing the ring from his hand.” Pharaoh gave it
to Joseph.
He arrayed him in garments of fine linen,
put a gold chain around his neck,
had him ride in the chariot of the second in command,
and they cried out in front of him,
“Bow the knee.”
Thus, he set him over the land of Egypt.
Yeah, why don’t we stop there for a minute, Michael.
There is a tendency.
As
you read this,
this is superlative language,
and on the surface,
it seems challenging to
imagine that the Pharaoh,
the divine king or the believed to be divine king of Egypt,
would say these things so expressively to Joseph.
“You’re the greatest only.
The only thing I will have the throne and you won’t.
That will be the only difference between us.”
When the Bible tells stories of Hebrews interacting with foreign kings,
this is often the kind
of language that gets used.
We see it again in Daniel.
We see it a little bit in Ezra and Nehemiah.
There is a kind of flavor to the Israelite versions of the story in which the supposedly
most powerful person recognizes and praises the lowly Hebrew.
They love that aspect of the story.
Whether this is the literal idea of what Pharaoh told him or whether it’s the idea that this
is true and it results in Joseph being raised to power,
there’s probably a little wiggle
room to discern that.
Yeah, so my commentator here makes note of the fact that it’s impossible to know exactly
what is intended when Pharaoh says “your God” or that God has been the one who has given
this to you.
Does Pharaoh mean the Hebrew God?
God is more of a broad term for God,
but that is,
as we set up yesterday,
that’s really the crux of this story,
is that ultimately the God of Israel is the one whose blessing
upon Joseph makes it so that it’s possible for the greatest empire on earth to survive
what is going to be one of the most tumultuous seven years that follow the seven years of plenty.
So,
what’s happening here is very much a kind of besting of the opponent kind of story,
but it’s deeply embedded in Joseph’s own story because here we see the end of this narrative
or rather this theme that we’ve had throughout Joseph’s story.
You remember the cloak,
we’ve mentioned numerous times how important that is.
Well, he lost the cloak his dad gave him,
then he lost the cloak that he had at Potiphar’s
house and that was the thing that led to him going to prison.
Now he gains one,
and this one is made of fine linen we’re told,
and it becomes for him
a symbol,
a marker in his own story of ascendancy for all of the stair stepping down
that we’ve had, Clint.
Now we’re seeing not a small stair step up,
right?
It’s not like he went up in small degrees in the way that he went down, no,
it’s been a catapult to the very top of the very power structure.
Second in command of Egypt is
tantamount to saying the most important person,
the Secretary of State.
I mean, when you think of that cabinet-level position,
Joseph just inherited that out of prison.
Yeah, started the day in prison and ends the day at the right hand of Pharaoh,
and we just continue here just quickly.
“I’m the Pharaoh, and without your consent,
no one shall lift hand or foot in all of Egypt.”
Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphinapaniya,
which means like sustainer of life in Egyptian, something like that,
gives him the daughter of the high priest to be his wife,
thus Joseph gained authority over the land of Egypt.
And the next verse tells us,
“Joseph was 30 years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh
king of Egypt.” So a relatively young age,
an amazing transformation,
again,
wrongly imprisoned to now second in
command with the Pharaoh,
renaming him,
gushing over his ability,
putting him in charge of all of Egypt,
giving him one of the most eligible and desirable spouses in terms of
the political structure, the high priest’s daughter.
And so Joseph here becomes cemented.
He becomes engrafted into Egypt.
He has lived there,
but now he is Egypt in some way.
And he is in the most inner of inner circles.
And it is now his task
to see that Egypt is in a place to prosper and to survive during
these difficult years that he has predicted.
Clint, I think that this is where this story actually starts making a new path for me.
And this is just my own opinion,
so take it as that.
But for me, this is where this story begins to get a little interesting,
because if you know what’s to come,
there’s going to be a lot of adversity.
There’s going to be a lot of struggle because of the people of Israel’s connection with Egypt.
And if you know some of the certainly post-Pentateuch-type books where once the law is given and we start
to get some of this language about what you should and should do,
what’s in and outside
the kind of behavior of the people of God,
marrying outside of the family of faith is generally frowned upon.
And so the idea that here Joseph is marrying an Egyptian woman,
not just any Egyptian woman,
but one who’s connected to the practicing priest of another religion.
And the fact that he’s taking this position of power at Egypt and that he’s going to serve
a people who in very short chapters is going to become the enemy of Israel,
is I think one of the striking notes of Genesis is because there’s really not a lot of moral judgment
given on this here.
We’re not told he did an improper thing in marrying this woman.
The text doesn’t give us really any reason to believe that he’s doing the wrong thing
in helping Pharaoh avert this crisis.
In fact, we’re going to see how it has waves of benefit for other people as well,
even his own family.
So, you know, I think what’s beautiful about this narrative is it includes some things
that are nuanced and would even be challenging to the reader.
There’d be some things here that might sting a little bit,
but they’re in here and they’re
allowed to be in here.
They really, it owns the earthiness and messiness of making choices and being in life and that
God can really still be with us along the way.
I think Joseph’s story is remarkable in so many ways and for some of its contradictions,
I find it really interesting.
Yeah, and it sets the stage really,
I think, Michael.
I do think you’re right.
It is a shift in the story and let me not so much read this,
the rest of this chapter,
but to summarize for you,
during the seven years,
Joseph’s plan as you might expect goes
exceptionally well.
In fact, there’s a little note here,
“Joseph stored grain in such abundance like the sand
of the sea that he stopped measuring it because it was beyond measure.” That’s verse 49.
And then we’re told in verse 50,
he has two sons.
One is named Manasseh,
which means something like to forget and the next son is named Ephraim,
which means something like to bear fruit.
And so these are his words,
“God made me forget my hardship in my father’s house.”
And the second he named Ephraim,
“For God made me fruitful in the land of my misfortunes.”
And it’s an interesting question.
There’s really no insinuation that Joseph plans to return home.
There’s a sense in which maybe at this point in the story,
he believes this to be a permanent transition.
It’s not really clear.
The Bible doesn’t share that with us.
One thing that is of interest is that historically,
even in this book and throughout the rest
of the Old Testament,
marrying outside of your own people group,
marrying outside of the Israelites is for the most part frowned upon.
Not exclusively,
but as a general rule that’s looked down upon.
And here,
not only does he marry,
he has two sons,
Manasseh and Ephraim, both who will be important and have some lingering importance in the rest of the narrative and in through
the rest of the scripture.
And so it is,
Joseph is one of the few characters that I can think of in which this kind of
intermixing with another tribe,
with another people group becomes engrafted into this story.
Again, it happens.
You’ve got Ruth and Boaz.
You’ve got some others.
You’ve got Rahab.
But this is,
I think this stands out because it doesn’t happen very often.
And oftentimes, Clint, in the later stories of the Old Testament,
that’s connected to some form of being conquered by another nation.
It’s the larger power coming in and doing damage to the people of Israel.
Here,
it is the Israelite,
it’s Joseph who comes with no power.
He comes as a slave.
And miraculously,
he jumps through the ranks of Egyptian political power in society and
he finds himself as a 30-year-old,
essentially conducting business on behalf of the Pharaoh.
This
kind of story sets up the whole basis for Exodus.
I mean, that’s where this story will end and Exodus will pick up and it provides for us
the reasoning for how we get to Egypt.
But on the other hand here,
I think this story is an inversion of what we expect because
you don’t expect Pharaoh to be the one to make a choice based upon wisdom.
You don’t expect him to give any credence to the one true God.
And yet he,
in giving Joseph this power,
is in some ways giving credence to wisdom.
He’s giving credence to the voice of God,
the interpretation of a dream
given only because of God.
So in the midst of this,
we find that even the characters who will be enemy later
are in this moment more than that.
They’re three-dimensional, they’re making decisions.
And in this case,
it turns out to be a decision that the text applauds.
It certainly encourages the fact that this was the right choice in choosing Joseph
because of the extravagantly blessed outcome that we’re going to see at the end.
Yeah, and it
remains the case that Joseph understands that his story is intertwined,
is linked with God’s story.
You wouldn’t necessarily notice this,
but let me point it out for you.
In both of the cases of his sons,
those are Israelite names.
Those aren’t Egyptian names.
And he says in those cases,
both of them have reference to God.
God made me forget.
God has made me fruitful.
Joseph has not lost,
even though he resides now in a place of power,
strength,
authority,
in a foreign land,
he has not lost his anchoring in the Israelite story,
the history,
the language,
and the God that he remains faithful to.
So again, no surprise.
I’m sure you saw this coming in the story.
It plays out exactly as Joseph has predicted,
seven good years,
seven bad years.
And during those seven bad years, because of Joseph,
Egypt is prepared.
They have an abundance.
And so not only are they able to fend for themselves and to care for themselves in a time of need,
but there is such surplus that envoys and people from other nations and local,
from the surrounding area come to them to buy extra grain.
Egypt now is poised to help and prosper from this being prepared that Joseph has overseen.
And really, this is what sets the stage for us to return to the first part of Joseph’s story.
It is this reality that Egypt has what others don’t and that they’re coming to Egypt
to try and get some of it.
This is what sets the occasion for Joseph to find himself in proximity or in the company
of his brothers again.
We don’t want to run ahead because that will dominate our conversations next week,
but it is what Joseph has done that sets the groundwork for returning to the patriarch story
and for engineering a moment in which he stands in front of his brothers,
though they won’t know that initially.
Yeah, so to make that point explicitly,
Clint, let’s look here.
Verse 47,
“During the seven plenteous years,
the earth produced abundantly,
gathered up the food of the seven years plenty.”
Sorry,
verse 49, “So he stored up grain in such abundance as like the sand of the sea.”
When’s the last time we heard sand of the sea or sand?
We were talking about the promise,
right?
The idea that your offspring will be like sand.
So that’s just an illusion back to what we’ve already seen in the story.
There are different contexts,
but that kind of thing is not included on accident.
Look at verse 57 here.
“All the world came to Joseph in Egypt.”
Who was the promise for?
Remember when we were talking about Abram?
It was for the world.
So once again, we have the massive scope of that original promise that God has made.
Now it was to God’s people.
We’ve seen the lineage.
We know how that’s connected, but Joseph’s story,
though different in so many ways,
is directly connected to these themes that we’ve already seen.
They’re included here on purpose.
And it reminds us that God’s path does take some really strange turns,
but this is still God’s way of blessing the world.
This is God keeping God’s promise and doing so in a really,
really big if but unexpected way.
So Joseph here is…
I think it’s an amazing story because it includes all of these little details
that if you just read past them,
Clint, you wouldn’t see the connection to the stories that came before.
Yeah, I think as we read Scripture,
it’s always important to pay attention to some of those
things that get repeated.
That’s not accidental, and it’s often not just the way language is used.
It often is specific.
It’s on purpose, and it’s helpful to understand that larger context.
And so that’s where we end this week.
That’s what sets the stage for next week as we will find that among those who come to Egypt
hoping for help or seeking assistance will be none other than Joseph’s brothers.
And that is a fascinating part of the story.
I hope you can be with us.
The next three or four chapters of this book are very interesting,
somewhat difficult, somewhat convoluted at times,
but a lot of very interesting themes.
And I think there’s some stuff that you will find,
if not helpful, you will at least find engaging.
Yeah, that’s really well said.
You’re not going to want to miss next week,
but we’re glad that you’ve joined us for this week and hope that you all have a great weekend.