Joseph in Egypt: A Man for All Seasons

Bruce Waltke, in his brilliant Genesis commentary, points out that “the account of Jacob” from 37:2–50:26, the final toledot of Genesis, maps God’s unifying of Abraham’s line. Here God makes Abraham’s family “worthy covenant partners” (p.191) via two unlikely heroes: Joseph and Judah. Reuben was firstborn, but unworthy of his position. So, God replaced him with two of his younger brothers. Judah, the older of those two, was like an inside architect, bringing family unity and ultimately serving as tribal head for king David’s line. Joseph, the younger one, worked on Wall St., on Capitol Hill, ruling Egypt and working its economy, acting as God’s external agent, rescuing the family from physical destruction.

It is quite interesting, in fact, to ask who of these two did replace Reuben as firstborn. Judah, as noted, became head of David’s tribe, the leader of the brothers, and eventually the tribe from which Jesus came. But Joseph’s two sons alone were next-generation-significant, becoming half tribes alongside the 11 brothers. By giving them each an equal share in the blessing, Jacob had given Joseph the double share of the inheritance, something that was the privilege of the firstborn son.  Note also how these grandsons of Jacob have the same younger-favored-over-older (48:14) dynamic typical of Genesis. Which of the two—Judah or Joseph, then—held the status of firstborn? This is perhaps up for discussion. But what cannot be doubted is that Judah and Joseph are important characters in Genesis 37–50, important for understanding the climactic unification of Abraham’s family line.

It seems appropriate, therefore, to write an essay focused on characters in this story and their examples. Most certainly God’s agency is central, but human agency is important, too. This is a story of God—just as the whole Bible is about God—redeeming his people. But this section particularly invites us to consider how God redeems his people through human dynamics. This is reflected in how commentators see the last toledot as seemingly more “secular” than the earlier chapters of Genesis. God’s agency is a little more hidden, understated. In doing so, this section thereby thrusts human agents forward to center stage, inviting us to think of them and relate to them, inviting us to learn from their lives.

Judah would be a fantastic figure for focus, noting how God used him within his family line to bring peace and restoration. This is needed today, especially given the number of broken families and broken churches, but for the purpose of this article our attention will center on Joseph, since he is the one bringing us to Wall Street, to Capitol Hill; closer to what it looks like to be a Christian in the workspace. What does it mean to operate with God and for God in the marketplace?

This article is part of a larger series over this coming month; one later will be devoted to Daniel. How does Joseph compare to Daniel? Seemingly the two have much in common. But while Daniel’s story shares Daniel’s life-choices directly, Joseph’s story is hazier. Daniel and his friends choose not to eat tainted foods, yet also to learn from instructors in Babylonian culture; they make key decisions when to obey and disobey government policy. Genesis 37–50 is quite different. While Joseph (we can assume) was teachable, that he learned from slave instructors, that he negotiated well while in power etc., much of this information is implied not stated. Why?

Genesis focuses on the unstoppable work of God in Joseph’s life, rather than Joseph’s skill and ingenuity. As part of this, note the repeated phenomenon of dreams—found in Daniel’s life too (see Dan. 2 and 4)—but as an extraordinary all-encompassing phenomenon in Joseph’s life; like a golden thread tying all together. Walter Brueggemann has argued that Genesis 40 says little else, other than that God used dreams to shape all, preparing us for Chapter 41; the fulfillment of God’s original dream-promise for Joseph. We will need to work a little harder, therefore, when focusing on Joseph, being careful to decipher all things written, careful not to read more into his life than the text actually says. So, there is an interesting tension in Genesis 37–50: while these chapters are more focused on human agency than early Genesis, they hardly approach that of Daniel.

The first theme to note in Genesis 37–50 is transformation, the way we must allow ourselves to believe the power of God is at work despite us. If we are to operate as Christians in the world we must know how to deal with mistakes, with shortcomings, to believe that the Lord is able to take even broken vessels like us and use them. A couple of years ago I met a man who had served as a State Senator, but who planned to never run again. When first elected, he was determined not to be “irrelevant” as a Christian. Yet he was only too conscious of operating within a system that valued self-promotion and compromise (good and bad). This created more of a gray area for him than expected. Had he really pleased God during his time in office? What about the gray?

What we notice first in this story of Joseph is that God can take a fallen person, redeem his life, and use him powerfully. One gets the impression of Joseph being carried along by God. Joseph begins entirely spoilt, entirely narcissistic, entirely arrogant in his attitude toward others. As Robert Alter points out in his Hebrew Bible, Joseph is first presented as an apprentice shepherd, one who should have been learning from his father and brothers. And yet almost immediately he takes it on himself to be a critic—evaluating them! Then there are the dreams. He receives from the Lord two dreams about his future, two dreams showing how he will be better than them. Yet in none of this does he acknowledge the Lord. Neither is he humble. Alter points out the sheer arrogance of Joseph’s approach. Normally a person receiving a revelation would say “Look!” once, drawing attention to the divine epiphany. Joseph instead cries “Look!” three times, as if to rub their noses in the dreams’ content.

All of this is turned around later, of course, as he gives God glory when asked about dreams in prison and when brought before Pharaoh in chapters 40–41. But this only goes to show how far he had come, how far he needed to come in his maturity.

This is a helpful and necessary starting point when thinking about how to be Christians in the world. We must recognize that we are all works in progress, and that we must press forward, of course seeking the right way, but also trusting that God is directing our way and even bringing good out of bad. Martin Luther’s much maligned expression “Sin boldly” appears in a letter to his friend Philip Melanchthon, who seems worried about questionable pietistic practices in a way that paralyzes him. Luther’s response is to urge his friend forward. Of course, this is not an encouragement to dive into worldly principles. We must love righteousness. But read aright, Luther encourages us when we are overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, overwhelmed by our fast-changing environments and the ethical dilemmas we face. God is bigger, and big enough to shape things even in the midst of our wrestling and even in failures. Listen to Luther’s words in context:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [or sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13), are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.

In Romans 14 Paul speaks of Christians judging other Christians who are immature, and in the midst of effectively saying “mind your own business” he writes: “It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (14:4). We are not what we should be or want to be (to paraphrase one Puritan). But we are not what we were, nor one day will be! The world is a big and complex place, and especially when we are young. It can be an extremely frightening place. But the great encouragement of this story is that God is bigger. Stick with him. He is big enough to overcome past problems and to even use our failures to achieve his marvelous purposes!

To play the story forward, we know that through the jealousy of his brothers, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt. There he was bought by the captain of the guard, Potiphar. It is in this man’s service that Joseph first starts to shine. Implicit in this story is that Joseph was compliant, serving well for the good of Potiphar’s household, bringing success which earned him to place of rule over all Potiphar’s affairs. He clearly must have been trustworthy, because Potiphar entrusted him with all his affairs:

⁴ So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. ⁵ From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. ⁶ So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate.” (39:4-6).

We must take all these implications to heart as we think about how to operate in the world, but notice that all this is not the point of focus in Genesis. We only infer these things; we are not actually told all the good ways Joseph served. This is because the overarching emphasis is on the Lord being with Joseph and bringing him success, which Potiphar recognized.

The old saying, “you make your own luck” means that if we put ourselves in good places by hard work and skill, things that might be fortuitous will sooner or later come our way. This is a helpful truism to remember, a vote for hard work and personal application. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the narrative’s point is God’s good fortune towards Joseph. We see this in the italicized part of the quote above. But it is also mentioned in the two verses before: “² The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. ³ His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands” (39:2-3) The first part may be interpreted as the Lord blessing him through skill. But the second reads more akin to “luck”, Midas touch. Seemingly everything Joseph touched for Potiphar turned to gold.

This is perhaps challenging to apply today because it reminds us of our utter dependence of God and his hand: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest” (Ps 127:1-2). What this ought to make us realize, as James the brother of Jesus writes, is that we need to ask the Lord for everything in prayer, looking to him as our source of life and blessing: “You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:2-3). Even though we do not read that Joseph prayed (but see Nehemiah 2:4 for a wonderful example of prayer in similar circumstances), the wider context of Scripture teaches us that because God is in charge of success, we must speak to him, come to him, commit our ways to him. It is easy to be fatalists—things will turn out a certain way no matter what I do. But the beautiful wider truth of Scripture is that this same God of Joseph, who controls all things, invites us into his plans, into the mystery of prayer. Hear James again: “You do not have because you do not ask.” What we see here in James is God inviting us to interact with him in real ways and believe that our prayers actually shape the course of history… one way or the other!

Then Potiphar’s wife enters the narrative. She lusts after Joseph because he is handsome and (very likely) because he is powerful—always something to watch out for if we come into sudden success! People will want you, but for the wrong reasons. From here, however, her approach is not one of begging but demanding, demanding quite brazenly that he lie with her. In the Hebrew text she offers a two-word demand, suggesting she also perceived herself to be a person of power. There is no attempt to negotiate, no attempt to reason. As the narrator presents her, she is like a spoilt child, demanding to have Joseph. Noteworthy then is Joseph’s response. Contrasting her two-word demand is his breathless 35-word speech in Hebrew, reasoning over what is right:

“Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. ⁹ He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:8–9)

His words affected her (at least in some way), as in her subsequent attempts to get him she softens the demand “Lie beside me!” instead of “with me” (v. 10). Yet in the end we see that nothing has really changed, as she pesters him constantly and then ultimately turns to physical force, again in a parallel two Hebrew words, grabbing his coat.

Thinking of the workplace, the narrative warns us that there will be people who think themselves powerful enough to cut across rules to get us to do what they want. Becoming a person of power puts you into the path of others with presumed power, and with power comes the desire to bend and break rules to selfish ends. In C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, both Digory’s uncle and the Witch state that rules are only for the lowly, not the powerful. Powerful people are (supposedly) above the rules. But never believe this lie! Note in this story that gaining power often comes with a new kind of suffering. Not only had Joseph suffered the humiliation and pain of rejection by his brothers and abandonment to slavery, now he suffers the daily temptation of being offered indulgent pleasure but needing to resist. And as Christians we must resist. To sleep with Potiphar’s wife was wrong, first according to common decency (as the first part of Joseph’s speech shows), but more than this because of God, as the last part demonstrates: “great wickedness and sin against God” (v.9). Do not be afraid to be—and live as—a Christian in the workplace. The world may have shifting standards. But as one who has the Spirit of the living God, we know what is right and must do it! Over and again, I have heard stories where people do what is right and the Lord ultimately remembers them. I have heard firsthand of a banker overseas whose boss wanted him to do a shady deal, helping a family member gain a loan where they should not have. This man refused because he was a Christian. In the end, his boss promoted him because he said, “You clearly have principles, which means I can trust you.” Of course, the story does not always end well like this.  Joseph’s did not at first. But we may be surprised how often it does! But in the final analysis, even if it does not go well, we can trust Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, that we will have rewards in heaven. Joseph had a fear of God and we must too if we are to avoid temptation.

This highlights a final standout feature of the Joseph story, his willingness to see the hand of God in his life, which, I will suggest, is quite a bit more subtle in maturing Joseph than we might think. In the beginning of the narrative, Joseph has a dream about his brothers’ sheaves bowing down to his, and of the sun and moon bowing down. This (as Alter notes) is quite ‘secular’ in its framing compared with other dreams in Genesis. Part of the point was that there is no need for interpretation, everyone (his father and brothers) easily understands what it means, which stands in sharp contrast to what will happen when Joseph is in prison with Pharaoh’s two assistants. As we move forward to the story in prison (Gen. 40), we note that when the two assistants to Pharaoh have dreams, the Narrator notes that dreams really do have a science to them; like a puzzle they have to be “solved” (a better translation than “interpreted”). The real problem for the two men, therefore, is that in prison there is no way they can access someone with expertise, someone to crunch the numbers and give them an answer. Joseph’s response seems almost naïve, but is based on the conviction that God is behind all: “Do not solutions belong to God? Please tell them to me.” (40:8). There is of course a place in the workplace to know when and where we are unqualified to solve problems that have a particular science to them—I am not saying that while working as a janitor you should advise your boss on his stock portfolio, just because you are a Christian! But there is some place, based on this story, for Christian to know that God’s ways work, within what everyone sees as the real science of the world (compare 40:16 and 41:12–13).

I frame my discussion here at an extreme to make a point. Yes, of course, Joseph was going about his business, working hard, showing integrity, showing wisdom and insight in the tasks he was given. But when we are talking about ability, we also see a boldness, a worldview in which Joseph believes God is at work, meaning that he as God’s servant can speak into such matters. This sense of redeemed confidence is subtle and in the wrong hands could be taken wrongly. But there seems to be almost an optimism that might be read in this, a freshness that because God is in everything, we have something to offer in solving almost any puzzle. In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul tells Christians that instead of going to secular court, they should just ask the lowliest believer for a verdict! Paul’s point is that when it comes to the most important matters of right and wrong, any Christian (operating within God’s framework) is likely to get the most important things right. Thus, like Joseph we who have a Christian worldview ought to expect that when we bring God’s wisdom to bear on circumstances that wisdom will make sense to others. Within limits and obviously with care, may we too have boldness to believe that God’s ways work, and that we can have a voice into the real mechanisms of this world.

Where does this leave us in seeking insights from the life of Joseph? 1) Joseph was brash and made mistakes, but none too big for God to redeem; 2) Joseph opposed power-plays with reason and more importantly a divine fear of God; 3) Joseph had confidence in God being God over the world, enabling him to speak into every problem needing solving.

But further: 4) Joseph is not afraid to include the Lord overtly and give glory to him over himself (41:16, 25); 5) Joseph is also bold in suggesting more than just the dream’s interpretation, in suggesting a solution which shrewdly hints at him being competent to help (41:34); 6) Joseph did not blame God for his troubles, but credited God with success (41:51–52); 7) Joseph planned ahead in ways that gave others confidence in him (41:53–55); 8) Joseph was hands-on in his leadership, present with what was happening (42:6); 9) Joseph was bold and assertive where he needed to be (42:7–11); 10) Joseph was adept at negotiating (chapters 42–43); and finally 11) Joseph was able to see the Lord’s hand in everything (45:4–8).

This list is substantial. And so much of it gives encouragement that as Christians operating in the world. We should be concerned to build skills and competence. But notice how much of this story is about the Lord and the need to trust him! This is the greatest takeaway, the greatest provocation from Joseph’s life. We must never end up being practical atheists, living as Christians when around Christians but as worldly when operating in the world. Joseph’s story is a wonderful testimony of how God is present and involved in all of life. Whether we feel we have failed or not, he is big enough; whether we feel like this world is too big and complicated, he is big enough! His ways work and we who are Christians need to believe this and press into it!