Episode 319 - "Desperate Times Lead to Desperate Measures" - Genesis 47:13-28

Gen. 47:13 Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. 15 And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.” 16 And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. 18 And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. 19 Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

Gen. 47:20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh’s. 21 As for the people, he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. 22 Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.

Gen. 47:23 Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. 24 And at the harvests you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.” 25 And they said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” 26 So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s.

Gen. 47:27 Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

We could summarize this section rather quickly, couldn’t we? We could boil it down to something like, “The famine became so severe that virtually all of Egypt became Pharaoh’s slaves.” That would be accurate according to the text. Unfortunately, if that were all there were to it, it wouldn’t make sense in terms of its significance within the greater story of Joseph and the even greater narrative of the Bible. Why does Moses include this?

The first thing we need to do is set aside our twenty-first-century values and sensibilities, and not jump to conclusions that Joseph or the LORD himself is unjust in how the events unfold. The LORD gave Pharaoh a dream of the seven years of bountiful harvest followed by the seven years of famine. Then he revealed the meaning of that dream to Pharaoh through Joseph. Could not the LORD have prevented the famine? Certainly! Yet, later on, the only explanation we get about how Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery is that the LORD sent him to Egypt to save their lives from the famine. The LORD is strictly described as being merciful by fulfilling his covenant promises and, through Joseph, blessing Egypt as well as Jacob’s family. So, what is the point of telling the reader that things got so bad that the people sold themselves as slaves to Pharaoh?

First, it was their idea. Survival for themselves and their families was more important than anything else. Neither Pharaoh nor Joseph brought this arrangement about through government or military conquest and oppression. Second, the arrangement was that their payment to Pharaoh was twenty percent of their income. It was an arrangement that was just for the people whose crops didn’t produce as much as someone else’s. Some scholars point out that a 20% tax was lower than what was common in the ancient world.

All things considered, this story reveals that God is faithful to his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s descendants, blessing Jacob’s family (See Gen 47:27) and blessing Egypt because of Joseph’s management of this crisis. People were able to live and not die.

This life has its trials, and sometimes the solution may not fit our expectations of what is ideal. But that doesn’t mean that the LORD has abandoned people or the cause of mercy and justice. Perhaps the trials are a means of getting us to recognize God’s love and compassion for us, and to trust that he is good and faithful. The Israelites who were entering the land God had promised them would need to remember this, and Moses recorded this to instruct or remind them of God’s provision for life.