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sermonette: Joseph in Egypt

Real History in Genesis
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 17-Jun-06; Sermon #780s; 20 minutes

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You know that I'm a student of history. And whenever I get a chance, I try to, Read history read the scholars, see what they are saying. I particularly enjoy, of course biblical history. Because You know, it's part of my job. I need to know this stuff. So lately, I've been reading an interesting book called Israel in Egypt. It's by a scholar named James K. Hofmeyer. And I believe he's associated with Wheaton College there in Illinois. His book is an effort to show that what the Bible presents as history, Uh, in the later parts of Genesis, from about the time of Joseph and the early chapters of Exodus, all the way up to Sinai, basically, or at least possible. He doesn't try to say that yes, they are absolute history, although I think he believes this, but he's trying to show from archaeology and other things that have come up, In the study of these times that, yes, They are possible. This is called in scholarly language historicity. If it could be said that something is essentially, Uh, historistic, then we can say that there is a good chance that they actually happened as presented in, in God's word. Hoffmeyer goes to great lengths to show that scripture contains an an essential historicity during the time of Joseph, all the way through the time of Moses, particularly the time of Israel's arrival at Sinai. Now, we in the church assume this sort of thing by faith. We know that God does not lie. He's not a man that he should lie, as the scripture says. And since we believe that the Bible is his book, that he is ultimately the author of the Bible, the things that are written in it are true. That they really happened. If God says he performed a miracle to do this or that, we believe that he performed a miracle. If he says that a certain person lived at a certain time and did a certain thing, we say yes, indeed, that's what happened. But we do this by faith. We may concede that fallible men have in their transmission of the word down to our time messed a few things up, and there are places in the Bible where it says things that are a little bit absurd, once you understand the underlying. History of it, like in one place. I can't remember the exact verse, but it says, um, and Joshua reigned one year in Jerusalem. And then it says something else about, Uh, one, and I can't remember it all, but it's, if you Look at it in its context, you'll find that there is a number that's dropped out. So, Men are fallible. They miss things. They mess things up and We just have to understand that that was not important to our salvation necessarily a simple historical detail like that. But, in fact scripture is essentially free of error. There is far more corroboration for the Bible and its contents than there is for any other historic document. There is maybe one or two copies of, let's say, Julius Caesar's Exploits. In Britain, but there are thousands of copies of the New Testament. And many copies of the Old Testament. Of course, the Jews had a habit of destroying old copies so that after they'd been recopied and they had a reason for doing this, and I do not have the time to go into it right now. But that's why there is not a lot of old copies of the, of the Old Testament. OK, um, The Bible contains internal proofs as well. And these are ones that scholars either do not or will not see because they are generally rather agnostic, agnostic people. They're willing to go so far as to say, because they fit the historical record that biblical events happened or may have happened, but nearly across the board, they are unwilling to admit God's hand in events. Where the Bible will ascribe an event to God, they are far more likely to reason around it and assert that, Natural forces did this or there was a natural flow of events or even coincidence. Cause such a thing to happen. I want to look at one of these internal proofs today, one that is part of the activities of Joseph in Egypt. And what we will find is that the detail found in God's word. Detail that just seems kind of tossed in there. is is showing that God is indeed involved and that he is working out his plan and it proves then the essential historicity. Of these events. Now, before we go any further, we need a little background information about the rulers of Egypt at the time of Joseph. They're known to history as the Hyksos, H Y K S O S, Hyksos. I'm quoting here from the New Unger's Bible dictionary. This word is Egyptians for rulers of foreign lands or shepherd kings. They were a mixed race, predominantly Northwest Semitic. Notice that they were Semitic, which gradually infiltrated Egypt and finally took control around 1720 BC, and they ruled till about 1550 BC. So that was just under 200 years. They reigned during dynasties 15 and 116. Their capital was at Zoan, also called Tanis, in the delta. It's not too far from Goshen. Archaeological excavations have uncovered many Hyksos remains. They introduced the horse and chariot into Egypt, as well as the composite bow, so they were very militaristic and they were very strong. These implements of war made possible the new empire of Egypt after 1550 BC and the expulsion of the Hyksos. The Hyksos dynasties of Egypt were brought to an end when Camos and Amos expelled them from the delta, and there was ongoing war from about 1600 to 1550 BC. So this is the area we are looking at. Essentially the time of Joseph. So Joseph rose to power under Hyksos Pharaoh, who was, as we saw here, Semitic. That means that they were, well, I, I know a little bit more about the Hyksos than I read here, that they were probably Aramaeans, which means that they were probably very closely related to Hebrews. And so when Joseph and his family came into Egypt, they were seen as perhaps distantly related, but allies. They were of the same people. They were Semites And so when they came in from Canaan, through which the Hyksos had come, by the way, in order to conquer Egypt, then, They were seen as brothers. Now they were still despised because they were shepherds, as we find later on, but they were thought to be related peoples. They were not looked down upon in the same way as they would have been had it had been a native Egyptian dynasty there. OK, let's go to Genesis 41. I'm going to have to speed up here. Genesis 41, This is the time when, when Pharaoh has his dream about the cows, the 7 fat cows and the 7 lean cows. And let's start in verse 34 excuse me, verse 33. This is right at the end of Joseph's interpretation, and he advises Pharaoh, Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this and let him appoint officers over the land to collect 1/5 of the produce of the land of Egypt in the 7 plentiful years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh and let them keep food in the cities. Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the 7 years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine. So the advice was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants. Then, of course, he chooses Joseph to be the one to head this. And he says verse 40, you shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word. Only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you. And so he elevates him there. And let's see, he gets a wife, down there in verse 45. And it gets a name change as well, which is translated, he is the savior of life or he's the savior of the world something similar to that. By the way many of you have asked from time to time whether this Azeeth, daughter of the priest of An, was an Egyptian. No, she was not. She was an Aramaean. She was a Hyksos, so she was Semitic. She was pagan, but she was, she was essentially of the same stock. As the rest of of Joseph's family. OK, 46. Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt. Now in the seven plentiful years, the ground brought forth abundantly. So he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt and laid up the food in the cities. He laid up in every city the food of the fields which surrounded them. Joseph gathered very much. as the sand of the sea until he stopped counting, for it was without number. You can just imagine how much food that he gathered. Verse 53, then the seven years of plenty which were in the land of Egypt ended, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said, the famine was in all lands, but in the land of, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Then Pharaoh said to the Egyptians, Go to Joseph. When he says to you, do. The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, and the famine became severe in the land of Egypt. So all countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain because the famine was severe. In all lands. Now, this was a fairly worldwide famine. At the very least, it had struck all around the Mediterranean area. And so, what I want you to see here is what Joseph has done. He imposes a 20% tax on the people. Now this is not severe. Take a look at your own taxes come next April. 20% is not bad. I bet you would love to have a 20% flat tax, some of you. OK. Uh, he proposes, In doing this, he proposes adding to Pharaoh's power by gathering and storing any additional foodstuffs, not just the 5th that he gets from the people, but everything that is grown in Egypt that can be stored, he says, store for this period of time. Uh, and this would be maybe lands that the crown owned. Now, this would make Pharaoh food wealthy. It was money in the bank, you might say. And then when Joseph was made second in command take this back. Um, Want to go back a little bit when he was made 2nd in command. He was put over all the land of Egypt. It says. Now it doesn't say that he had any power over Egypt's international affairs or over the military or anything like that, but he was basically the governor of Egypt itself. We would call him the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of all those things that dealt particularly with Egypt all rolled into one. And then he, after the famine, or after the seven years started of plenty, he went into overdrive, and he collected everything he could, every scrap of food, and he built storage cities, very much like what we hear about in Exodus 1 that the Israelites built for those Pharaohs. And so he gathered so much that soon he could not keep track of it all. It became impossible to quantify. Now once the food began to be in want, The people cried out to Pharaoh, and he directed them directly to Joseph and said, Ask him. Then Joseph sold them food, exchanging money for food. And so now Pharaoh was not only food wealthy, he still had a great deal of food. He became. Wealthy, wealthy in terms of currency, he had the wealth of the land. Soon people from surrounding nations who heard that Egypt had food began to come into Egypt for food. They began to fill the coffers of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh became really their overLord. He owned them. So, they were Became poor, weak, and essentially at his mercy. Do you see what Joseph is doing for Pharaoh here and for Egypt? OK, if we go on to Genesis 47, and I'd recommend that you read verses 13 through 26, that's most of the chapter. You'll find that this section reiterates what Joseph did, but it gives a little bit more detail. What it tells you that in the end, by the end of the 7 year's famine, Joseph had bought all the livestock of Egypt. He had bought all the people of Egypt. He had bought so much of what had happened of, of the people around Egypt, that Egypt was now By virtue of this act of God, a world empire. They did not have to conquer anyone. All they had to do was have food, and Pharaoh himself became. Immensely wealthy and immensely powerful. Now, There is also another detail in here that it says the priests were exempted from all of this, and Pharaoh. Gave rations to the priesthood. So what this set up then was a Semitic dynasty that was very wealthy and very powerful in alliance with The priesthood The native Egyptians who they had taken over a century or so before were downtrodden and suppressed and ground into the dirt. OK. Israel comes into Egypt at this time as allies of this very powerful. Alliance between the Pharaoh and the priesthood. And Just add in a little bit of time. A little bit of injustice. And what do you get Insurrection, rebellion, and eventually overthrow of the Hyksos. And by this time Joseph is dead. The Israelites have been ensconced in Goshen for 100 years or so, and let's go to Exodus 1. This is just after that rebellion has occurred and it's been successful. The native Egyptians are back in power. Verse 8, verse 7, but the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. Now you get from this that they probably did not. Involve themselves in the war. They were protected in Goshen. And suddenly, after this new king in verse 8, it says there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Suddenly this new king looks up and says, We've got a couple million of the Hyksos allies on our doorstep in Goshen. What are we going to do? He said to his people, Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Remember, they had just gone through rebellion and insurrection, years of slavery. And warfare, they were weakened. They had come out on top, but they were weakened, and here these Hyksos-like people were still there. Very wealthy, very mighty. They, if had they wanted to, they could have probably taken over Egypt themselves. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happened in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us and so go up out of the land. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Python and Ramses, Py Atom and the Egyptians and Ramses. So it's not surprising then that the Egyptians figured out how to trick them and put them in slavery. Now let's go back and see why all this happened. Genesis 15, and we will close right here. Genesis 15:12. This was just after Abraham made a sacrifice to God and made a covenant with him. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then he, God, said to Abram, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them and will afflict them 400 years. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now this prophecy was in God's mind the whole time all of these things happened. He was working things out in the events of the life of Joseph to move his plan along. Now remember we said that Joseph was named Zafnath Pena. Which means savior of the world or Savior life. Because God was working with Joseph in order to bring all this about, to bring this prophecy in Genesis 15 about. Joseph not only saved Egypt and made it the most powerful nation on Earth. He not only saved his family and made it prosperous and abundant, but he was also instrumental under God for saving Israel from Egyptian bondage just as the prophecy predicted. Are Israel's sojourn in Egypt and the exodus historical? You bet they are.