News Flash!!
Boy Wonder Hatches Plan To Confiscate The Population’s Wealth, Livelihood, Land and Freedom!
The Country Is Reduced To a Slave State!
And the people are grateful not to starve.
-or-
Compassionate Young Genius, Takes Lead, Navigating the People Through Dark Times, Saving Millions From Starvation.
It’s an old story:
Stage 1: The brilliant plan:
Genesis 41:34 [Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh, after interpreting his dreams was:] Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven years of plenty. 35 And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. 36 And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.' 37 And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants.
Stage 2: Accumulate the grain.
41:47 And in the seven years of plenty the earth brought forth in heaps. 48 And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. 49 And Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until they left off numbering; for it was without number.
Stage 3: State Monopoly, Enrich Pharaoh, Enslave the People.
First, grab all the money.
47:13 And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, 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, for the grain which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house.
Second, take all the livestock.
47:15 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 bread; for why should we die in your presence? for our money fails.' 16 And Joseph said: 'Give your cattle, and I will give you [bread] for your cattle, if money fail.' 17 And they brought their cattle unto Joseph. And Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the asses; and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year.
Third, confiscate the land, enslaving the people.
18 And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him: 'We will not hide from my lord, how that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord's; there is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands. 19 Wherefore should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be bondmen unto Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.' 20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them; and the land became Pharaoh's.
Fourth, uproot the population.
21 And as for the people, he removed them city by city, from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof. … 23 Then Joseph said unto the people: 'Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh. Lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. 24 And it shall come to pass at the harvest, that you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.'
Fifth, they are so grateful. Yay, Joe & Pharaoh are job creators!
25 And they said: 'You have saved our lives. Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's bondmen.'
Dreamcoat Wonder Boy – Rox or Sux?
Is Joseph a heartless vulture capitalist in the service of tyranny or a wise, pragmatic leader making the best of a horrible political and economic situation?
The simple reading of the text is not kind to Joseph or his plan. As Rabbi Alex Israel says:
…Joseph comes over in these stories not as a moral example but rather something of an despotic opportunist. Look at the evidence: First he the people hand over all their money, their livestock is next, then their land, and finally the people themselves become his slaves. He has enslaved the entire nation! The population is in crisis, people are starving, resources are scarce. And what of Joseph? He is interested in making a quick buck for the treasury! Manipulating a national emergency to gain greater central control of the country for Pharaoh, he appears to be a heartless leader taking advantage of a nation in distress. Where is the humanitarian relief? What about human compassion? This account does not reveal the compassionate disposition that we expect from a Joseph! Where is his heart?
Many modern commentators tend to agree with this reading. However, the classical commentators and their traditional apologists say there are nuances to the story which put Joseph and his leadership in a more positive light. These require a closer reading of the text:
The Egyptians were willing to be slaves, Joseph made them sharecroppers.
Nachmanides (RaMBaN) commentary on this passage:
47:19 “…buy us and our land: They said to Joseph that he should buy their very bodies - that they be slaves to Pharaoh.... the verse states that (v. 47:20) “Joseph bought all the land, ”.and it does not say that he bought them (as slaves), only their land. They said that they wished to be purchased as slaves to the king to be treated as he saw fit. But Joseph wanted to buy only the land and stipulated that they would be perpetual leaseholders or tenants of Pharaoh.
When Yoseph told them (v.47:23) “I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh”, he means not that he has acquired them as slaves but rather that through their farmland they will serve him. In truth the king should take 80% of the income and leave you only with 20%, but, says Joseph, I will be kind. You will take the (80%) share due to the landowner and Pharaoh will take the (20%) due to the tenant farmer. But you will be ‘owned’ by Pharaoh in that you may not abandon working your fields of your own volition.”
Joseph ensured rations were distributed fairly.
A Midrashic commentary, Bereshit Rabbah (91, 4) say about Joseph as governor that he decreed that “it was prohibited for one man to enter the country with two asses and for assess to transport the produce from one place to another, and no one was permitted to enter the country without registering his name…” Commentator Nahama Leibowitz writes that this was to make sure that no one would take more than the needs of their household during the famine.
Although the people were uprooted, Joseph kept communities together.
Throughout history, relocating subjugated populations has been a widely used means by dictators to disempower the populace and reduce uprisings. Consider the forcible relocation of indigenous peoples by colonists in the Americas, the resettling of Tibetans by the Chinese or the dislocation of the Kurds by the Turkish goverment in recent times. The softening aspect of Joseph’s leadership, say the apologists, was that he kept local communities together:
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch (19th. C) 47:21 “And as for the people, he removed them city by city” ... the inhabitants of one whole city all together to another city. The whole land had become state property, and to make this newly acquired right completely actual, every owner had to leave property that had hitherto been his own and move to another district, so that a general evacuation took place. But Joseph’s wisdom tempered the edict by arranging that the residents who had always lived together remained together and found themselves still together with their friends but only in a fresh environment. So that the old social and communal conditions remained the same.
Some loose ends, which there is neither time nor space to pursue here:
• What exactly happened with the surplus grain during the years of plenty? Did Joseph (a) lay a 20% tax on all production, (b) buy the surplus at low prices, or (c) confiscate all the harvest, doling out only a limited amount to the people?
• What does verse 41:56 mean: “And when the famine became severe in the land of Egypt, Joseph laid open all that was within and rationed out grain to the Egyptians.” Was the grain distributed generously or strictly rationed?
• If Joseph had not been a prisoner at the time he was called to interpret the dreams, might he have proposed a solution that left the Egyptians with more freedom and dignity?