Commentary on Genesis 45:1-15

Wil Gafney

The story of Joseph's reunion with his brothers is among the most tender in the scriptures.

His own brothers hated him, (Genesis 37:4), and kidnapped him, (Genesis 37:23). They had

even planned to murder him, (Genesis 37: 18ff). They "settled" for selling him into slavery,

(Genesis 37:28), a possible if not likely death sentence.

And now, in today's lesson Joseph is in a position to get revenge on them. They need him.

He does not need them. The famine that he Pharaoh has dreamed about has come to pass,

(Genesis 41:17ff); Egypt has grain in abundance because of Joseph's interpretation of the

Pharaoh's dream and their mutual stewardship in preparation, (Genesis 41:49). Yet Joseph

does not take revenge on his brothers. He provides for them and their families. He receives

them as his brothers. He embraces and forgives them.

The lesson of forgiveness in this passage is particularly poignant; combined with Joseph's

rags-to-riches story, it is something like a fairy tale. Unfortunately those lessons are

entwined with a deeply problematic theological gloss: that the human trafficking in the

story was a tool of God to save the lives of Joseph and his family from the impending

famine, verses 5-8, justifying the actions of his brothers in selling him into slavery. While

that narrative device makes for great theater in the story of Joseph, it paints an unrealistic

glaze over the institution of slavery in and beyond the bible.

Joseph's experience of slavery in the narrative was one in a million and does not mitigate

against the unjust dehumanizing institution utilized by the Egyptians and other ancient

peoples including the Israelites, or American chattel slavery in North and South America

and the Caribbean or the contemporary sexual trafficking of women, girls and boys. The

claim of verse 8, "it was not you who sent me here but God" should perhaps be understood

in this story as Joseph's perception of his circumstances and not as a broader religious

sanction of slavery, human trafficking or any other social ill over which an individual

triumphs. Joseph does what so many people do, which is try to make sense out of what he

has experienced by drawing on his own limited understanding of God.

The focus on Joseph, his perceptions and his experiences in the narrative is a reminder that

biblical literature, like all literature, has its own perspectives and biases. The text is not

interested in the wellbeing of any of Pharaoh's other slaves and indeed has reported on

Pharaoh's idiosyncratic practices of imprisoning, freeing and executing them at will in

Genesis 40:20-21.

Today's lesson presents an opportunity to think about the claim that the God of the

scriptures is the God of all and, the Israelite perspective in the scriptures that God is on

their side and not that of the Egyptians or the Canaanites or any other peoples. While

subsequent biblical writings will proclaim a God of universal fidelity and justice, this is not

one of them.

Christian readers have been quick historically to identify ourselves with the Israelites, as a

result many have never thought about the fate of the ordinary Egyptian, Canaanite,

Babylonian, Persian and other peoples who are decimated at the margins of the Israelite

scriptures. Yet Joseph himself stands as a bridge between cultures. He lives as an Egyptian

with an Egyptian name, Zaphenath-paneah and an Egyptian wife, Asenath, (see Genesis

41:45). Their children Ephraim and Manasseh (and the tribes they represent) are half-

Egyptian. His brothers Judah and Simeon also marry and have children with women from

the surrounding communities, (see Genesis chapter 38 and 46:10). His grandfather Laban,

Rachel's father (who was also his great uncle as the brother of his grandmother Rebekah),

was an Aramean, Genesis 25:20. And his great-grandparents Abraham and Sarah were from

Chaldea which would later become Babylonia and in our time, Iraq.

Joseph's complicated family history teaches us that Israelite identity was a cultural and

religious one and not an ethnic or even national one in his time -- and for some time to

come. In Joseph's story the Israelites and Egyptians are not pitted against one another.

There will be enough food for all because of his stewardship. Indeed the later oppressive

relationship between the Egyptians and the Israelites will develop because of the ascension

of a Pharaoh who does not remember Joseph, who does not know anything about him or

what he did for both of their peoples, (Exodus 1:8).

Remembering Joseph, telling his story, means remembering that some family relationships

are deeply troubled, even violent. Remembering Joseph means reminding ourselves that

even in the most deeply troubled family that has experienced unimaginable rupture, that

forgiveness and healing are possible. Remembering Joseph and telling his story through

this lessen provides an opportunity to reflect on our stewardship, generosity and

relationships with others, neighbors and strangers. And lastly, today's lesson with its focus

on Joseph reminds us that our actions have consequences that we may not be able to

foresee.

One of the unexpected legacies of Joseph and his administration in Egypt was that he who

had been sold into slavery and been raised to power and privilege, developed and deployed

the very institution of slavery under which his own people would suffer for four hundred

years. As he represented his adopted land and people during the great famine, Joseph took

everything the Egyptian people had in exchange for food: their money (Genesis 47:14),

their livestock (Genesis 47:16), and their land (Genesis 47:20), but it was not enough. In

Genesis 47:21, Joseph "enslaved the Egyptian people from one end of Egypt to the other."

Joseph may have been forgotten, but his wholesale commodification of people, their bodies

and their labor was not.

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A Working Preacher User ( August 11, 2011 at 08:24 AM)

If one wishes to focus on the topic of slavery in this portion of Scripture, a lesson that

should arise out of the story is that God once again demonstrates His power to defy the lust

of evil intent and turn even human evil to a good purpose. As in this story, the good

outcome may not be apparent for many years, but in God's economy it never arrives late.

This certainly does not justify the enslavement of one human by another, but it does

recognize that nothing we may do to each other will defeat God's plan of reconciliation and

redemption.