If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
16 January. Genesis chapters 46-47
These chapters complete the story of Jacob/Israel as Joseph is permitted by Pharaoh to bring his tribe – all 70 of them! – to Egypt where they can survive the long drought that God had revealed in an earlier dream. These families, given land for grazing, will form the nucleus of the “people of Israel” in Egypt, in the saga of the Exodus.
Meanwhile, Joseph is acting on behalf of Pharaoh to distribute the stockpiled grain to the people of the land. But this is no foodbank or humanitarian aid as we think of it nowadays (even as I write, nearby Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought for 50 years, and charities are appealing for money to provide its people with food). This calculating ruler thinks only of his own wealth, not his people’s well-being, and demands not only all their money, but their animals, land and even their own bodies as slaves in return for food. The Egyptians may have had one of the greatest civilisations of the ancient world in some respects, but if the Biblical account is accurate, some at least of their rulers must have been tyrants as bad as any in history.