The allies of Pharaoh

This season I restore a tradition that was strongly established in this column-to reflect on theological questions around the period commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Easter) as well as his birth and ministry (Christmas). Usually however, the real essence of those reflections, as anyone who can read between the lines might observe, will usually be to draw contemporary lessons from the scriptures.
I focus today first on a misunderstanding I observed since 2015 as many Christians used the example of Joseph (who the Bible tells us rose to be a high minister of state, minister of finance and indeed prime minister) who served in Pharaoh’s government to justify or rationalize their political choices. The first misconception was that Joseph did not CHOOSE to go to Egypt! Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers who were envious of his favourite or preferred son position amongst his siblings. They hated him for recounting the dream in which his brothers bowed down before him and determined to destroy his destiny in order to cut short his dreams-“…Look, this dreamer is coming! Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit…We shall see what will become of his dreams!”
In the event through a divinely ordered set of circumstances (including the intervention of Reuben, Joseph’s brother), he escaped death and was instead sold into slavery ending up in Egypt. Joseph did not opt to go into Egypt in order to seek or consummate an unequal yoke of a political and economic alliance with Pharaoh! He was not driven by personal ambition or the quest for money or political power to travel to Egypt to join Pharaoh’s political movement or government! None of the events that culminated in Joseph’s journey to Egypt or his elevation therein were due to any scheming, self-positioning, sycophancy, struggle or muted voice-none of it was sought by Joseph or desired by him. It was all divinely arranged and therefore God resolved it all for Joseph’s good. Anyone who willingly constructs a journey to Egypt or alliance therein out of his or her own will, cannot rely on Jehovah to work it out for his or her good! Indeed if things do not end tragically in such circumstances, it will be evidence not of divine guidance, but mercy!
There is a second misapplication of the story of Joseph that I have noticed in the Church for ages-we end the story of Joseph at the happy ending of Prime Ministership in Egypt and the tactical good fortune that came to Israel as Joseph’s positioning in Egypt enabled him to rescue his family when they came to seek food in Egypt during the famine. There are many good stories in between-Joseph’s discipline; his gifts of interpretation of dreams; his industry and managerial skills; refusal to yield to the many temptations in Egypt; his foresight and financial insight that led to Egypt accumulating sovereign savings during the agricultural boom which enabled Egypt and Pharaoh to benefit during the recession (unlike Nigeria!) etc. but in my reading of Joseph’s story, I have always noted that the story actually reached a bad junction, not in Genesis but in Exodus, “…Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph…”!
It is deliberate mis-education when we teach the story of Joseph and the great suffering of the children of Israel in Egypt that followed as though they were two different stories! They are one and the same story and even though in the case of Joseph, it was Almighty God who took him and the Jews into Egypt, yet it required slavery, forced labour and great suffering; the great and mighty hand of God; and ten plagues to extract the Jews from the strong hand of Pharaoh! If it was so difficult to get the Jews out of Egypt, how much more difficult might it be for those who willingly went into alliance with Pharaoh in Egypt out of their own human calculations? May God show mercy!
The other point is the risk, almost inevitably when you go into an alliance with the enemies of God’s children, that sooner than later, your utility with Pharaoh might expire and there might arise a king who knew not Joseph! In our own case, the very Pharaoh with whom some in the Church constructed a congress, immediately turned against his “Josephs” and started appropriating the benefits of the state for him and his few only! And then turned on God’s congregation and started killing and pillaging them and their lands, and putting them to waste! Unlike in Joseph’s time, the contemporary allies of Pharaoh did not have to wait for a succeeding Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, before their sufferings and tribulations began! Again, may God have mercy!
There is a final point, and perhaps that is where the story truly ends-the end of Pharaoh is certain from the beginning! The story will end with God overthrowing Pharaoh and his Egyptians in the Red Sea and they would perish therein and the children of God would make an exodus from Egypt into their promised land. However Pharaoh did not meet his end alone-he perished along with his chariots, horsemen and all his army that came into the Red Sea after the children of God. In effect Pharaoh and all those who allied with him perished along with him.

 
Opeyemi Agbaje