43 / 337
-43-
“Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has made all this known to you,
there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my
palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to
the throne will I be greater than you.’ So Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I hereby
put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt. ’”
“Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s
finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and placed a gold chain around
his neck. He had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command, and men
shouted before him, ‘Make way!’ Thus he put him in charge of the whole
land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I am Pharaoh, but without
your word no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt.’ Pharaoh gave Joseph
the name Zaphenath-Paneah (meaning savior) and gave him Asenath,
daughter of Potiphera, priest of on [
priest of On and father-in-law of
Joseph]
, to be his wife. And Joseph went throughout the land of Egypt
.”
(Genesis 41:38-45)
The Hebrew tribe was led to Egypt because of hunger, and was delivered
into Egypt in its earliest stages through the sinful actions of the ten
brothers. The name Zaphenath-Paneah, means “savior,” suggested
deliverance or that part of prophesies were fulfilled in that time; however, it
is not complete in our time. Without the famine, Jacob and his sons would
have stayed in the desert. While in Egypt, they had food, but they were in
jeopardy of losing their faith. Certainly, they thrived in Egypt because the
tribe was a small group and departed as a large nation.
The scripture portrays the captivity as the bondage of hard labor, and
perhaps it was toward the end of their stay. However, we may now see that
it was a spiritual bondage until the physical pains were too much to bear.
Otherwise they would not have obeyed Moses. Without pain and suffering,
an exodus would have been impossible, because they may have been all too
comfortable with the Egyptian gods and lifestyle. God’s will at that point in
time was to deliver them from evil—does this sound familiar today? Clearly,
evil can be recognized as attempting to seduce and hold the Hebrews
captive. As stated by the Egyptians, the pharaoh was god on earth, and evil
desired victory. Without bondage and injustice, they would have been
spiritually defeated, and evil would have defeated man when man’s destiny
is to defeat evil.