{"id":40220,"date":"2018-09-16T16:31:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=40220"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:08:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T13:08:14","slug":"joseph-enslaves-the-egyptians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/joseph-enslaves-the-egyptians\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Enslaves the Egyptians"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why is there a book of Genesis?<\/span><\/p>\n

The literary function of Genesis, in the context of the Pentateuch as a whole, is to set up the situation at the beginning of Exodus, where the Israelites change from a family into a nation\u2014of slaves. \u00a0Since God promises in Genesis 12 to give the land of Canaan to Abram and his family, what sense does it make for them to be enslaved elsewhere for a couple of centuries before that promise is fulfilled?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the story the Israelites told about themselves included that interval of oppression in Egypt. \u00a0How to explain it? That is the task of Genesis, which it approaches in more than one way. Genesis 47 gives a socio-political explanation for the Israelites\u2019 enslavement, by describing its \u201cprequel\u201d: the enslavement of the entire Egyptian people by a Hebrew.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Joseph tells Pharaoh that after seven years of plenty famine will strike the land of Egypt, he is installed as grand vizier and accumulates a large enough store of grain to feed Egypt during the years of scarcity, by collecting the grain of the seven years of plenty in government storehouses. But when the famine strikes, instead of dispensing the grain that was collected for the emergency, he <\/span>sells<\/span><\/em> it back to the people who grew it. \u00a0Eventually, they tell him, \u201cNothing is left before your lordship but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, we and our land too? Buy us and our land for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh\u201d (Gen 47:18-19).<\/span><\/p>\n

In Gen 47:25 they literally say, <\/span>ve-hayyinu avadim le-Pharaoh<\/span><\/em> (\u201cwe will be slaves to Pharaoh\u201d), exactly matching what the Israelites are to tell their children ever after: <\/span>avadim hayyinu le-Pharaoh<\/span><\/em> (\u201cwe were slaves to Pharaoh,\u201d Deut 6:21). \u00a0The next time you sing \u201cAvadim Hayyinu<\/em>\u201d at your Seder table, give some thought to that irony.<\/span><\/p>\n

After this, what happens to the Israelites in Exodus is simply a case of measure for measure: Joseph enslaves the Egyptians unfairly (in return for the grain which they themselves grew), and the descendants of Joseph\u2019s family are, in turn, unfairly enslaved by the Egyptians. \u00a0It is presented as if it were almost historically inevitable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph\u2019s enslavement of the Egyptians does not merely provide a reason for the enslavement of the Israelites; it also serves as the plot mechanism which brings the Israelites to Egypt in the first place. \u00a0And this episode, of course, is just the culmination of the saga of Joseph\u2019s father Jacob. But that story will have to wait for the next time around.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more at<\/span> https:\/\/mcarasik.wordpress.com\/2012\/04\/03\/why-were-the-israelites-enslaved\/<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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