NOTES for Gen 41:25-57

Joseph not only interpreted Pharaoh's dreams; he also devised how to use the developing situation to strengthen the Egyptian state. Here it must be kept in mind that the very appearance of Joseph, and then of all his fellow tribesmen, in Egypt would have been impossible if Egypt had not been seriously weakened at that time. A weak Egypt could not resist the Semitic nomadic tribes that invaded the country from the east, from the direction of the Sinai Desert. In history this invasion of Egypt by Semitic tribes is known as the invasion of the Hyksos. They not only founded their settlement in the Nile delta; they even occupied the Egyptian throne, the ancient throne of the pharaohs. The first dynasty of the New Kingdom, whose history begins with the Hyksos invasion, was a dynasty of Semitic origin. Only under the pharaohs of the first dynasty of the New Kingdom, a Semitic dynasty, could Joseph have made the career at court that he made, and his fellow tribesmen too could have moved peacefully and safely to Egypt only during the rule of those same pharaohs.

Egypt had weakened largely because by the end of the preceding era, the Middle Kingdom, the problem of regional separatism traditional for that country had again become acute. Egypt, after all, had from the beginning been formed out of many regions, each of which was originally independent. The inhabitants of the Egyptian regions remembered their former independence for a long time, occasionally reminding the central authority of it. Regional separatism was fed, not least of all, by large landowners - not all of them, of course, but those who, not being in service, lived on their estates.

Joseph's plan was directed precisely against them. It was impossible simply to take their estates from them: that would have been illegal, and Egypt was a legal and law-abiding state. Taking them for debts was another matter; there was no room for argument there, because debts had to be repaid one way or another. And debts would inevitably appear: the overwhelming majority of farms worked for the market, and crop failure meant losses at first and then ruin.

One year of drought and crop failure could still be survived by borrowing grain for sowing for the next year's harvest; however, in the second year, if there was a crop failure, the estate itself would have to be pledged - and seven dry years, and therefore seven years of crop failure, lay ahead. The estates inevitably had to pass to the treasury for debts, replenishing the state land fund.

In this way Joseph strengthened the state to which his fellow tribesmen were to move. They would move there so that later, after several centuries, their descendants would have to flee from this strengthened state, where there was no longer any place for them. For now, God had placed Joseph where he could save his fellow tribesmen from famine. This is how He leads His people and His nation through the twists of history.