In our journey from Darkness to Light, we travel with Joseph to Egypt. It was painfully obvious Joseph was his father's favorite. Cultural clues in the narrative indicate Jacob intended to make Joseph his vested heir. This violates custom and such law as applied to the situation, but would not be a sin, per se. The elder brothers were jealous, but might not have balked so much had Joseph been a little easier to tolerate.
Joseph was not arrogant, but immature. Consider: The fundamental nature of civility, the art of living peacefully with others, is paying attention to boundaries. Physical boundaries are obvious, ranging from markers of real estate to the concept of personal space. In blunt terms, you can do anything you please inside your own boundaries, but there are times when your circumstances require you to recognize reduced space ownership, and you simply aren't free to swing your arms wildly when your neighbors are within arm's reach. People who refuse to recognize conditional curtailments of their personal space are uncivilized. The concept certainly extends to communication. Not everything passing through your head is appropriate for discussion with every passing ear. Children typically struggle to understand the concept of appropriate topics and content, telling perfect strangers their most intimate details. Joseph, in his exuberance over his dreams, failed to observe wise boundaries. We can be sure his experience as a slave in Midianite custody, probably lasting a month or more, was sufficient to make him a little more circumspect.
The Joseph narrative (Genesis 39-50) is by far the very best storytelling we see in the Old Testament. While some pretty significant details are missing, since the writer assumes his audience was familiar with that time and place, we are drawn into the story with such power and grace, we come away feeling we had been there. This is the epitome of Hebrew communication arts, as the very structure of the language, the logic itself, gives highest priority to transmitting a first-hand experience. The language is evocative, not descriptive. There simply is no place in Hebrew culture for a dry statement of facts, of clinical description. The highest value in that culture was shaping your loyalties, not catering to your curiosity. The narrative begins with Joseph having already learned to serve, already determined to glorify his God.
There can be no doubt Joseph was a spiritual giant. The primary evidence is his ability to serve genuinely. Holding God's interests first looks an awful lot like honest love for those you serve. God blessed that devotion with unparalleled wisdom. Potiphar was heartbroken by the accusation against Joseph, but declined to execute him. Joseph was not deterred, but continued serving as before. Eventually court officials brought him to Pharaoh's attention and he served equally well in the Egyptian court.
It is necessary to offer some details the writer assumes we would know. The office of Pharaoh was already long endowed with pretensions of demi-god status. Business in the court was loaded with ceremony and ritual, utterly pagan. On a human level, Joseph would be forbidden to have any part of it. On a spiritual level, it was necessary to endure it for God's purpose. Perhaps the best explanation is Joseph knew his God was real, but lived in a world where monotheism was simply incomprehensible. We know of a certainty the Egyptians had access to very convincing black magic, but we are conditioned to be very skeptical and cynical, even at a subconscious level. No one living at that time would have ever conceived of our frame of mind on such things. There would be nothing schizophrenic about Joseph holding loyalty for his own God, while accepting the temporal requirements of his situation under the authority of some other batch of local gods. His state of mind is not part of the story because the writer assumed a Hebrew audience, who would have grasped the subtleties, and still see Joseph as a model of holiness.
Notwithstanding the ritual veneer of Pharaoh's supposed divinity, we see a distinct limit to his political power. Best we can tell from historical sources, he was essentially first among many nobles, with some fluctuation in what he might pull off at any given time. Much would depend on the level of support from various noble houses in his realm. Most obvious is the matter of titular ownership -- his nobles owned their various domains in a rather weak feudal framework. By the time Joseph was finished keeping them alive through the famine, that titular ownership had been transferred to the royal household. The balance of power was changed forever, so to speak. When the next batch rulers rose to power there, they assumed the system already in place. We believe they were not native Egyptian, so naturally it was necessary for them to cement their position as the top level of society by elevating the divinity of Pharaoh even farther. Revolt against their position was no longer purely political, but darkly dangerous as rejecting the gods of the Nile.
This sets the stage for the sheer arrogance of trying to revive the ancient Egyptian monument building. Previous ruling dynasties probably fell in part from the sheer economic exhaustion caused by the likes of the pyramids. However, this new group chose the route of slavery to reduce the cost of their ambitious building projects, and the Hebrews were hardly the only victims of these incredibly harsh conditions. However, the Hebrews belonged to another God not tied to the Nile pantheon. A critical element of God's revelation, particularly in humbling the Egyptians, was raising His profile among the plethora of pagan religions. Joseph was uniquely placed by God's divine wisdom to set the stage, upon which yet another man would later stand as founder of the identity of the Nation of Israel.
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By Ed Hurst
14 April 2009
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