Anonymous Asks (373)

“Why did Pharaoh give Joseph so much authority in Egypt?”

The question is a reference to the events of the latter portion of Genesis 41, in which the king of Egypt takes a thirty-year old foreign prisoner fresh out of the local hoosegow and promotes him to the second-highest position in the kingdom, allowing him unprecedented discretion and political influence. “All my people shall order themselves as you command.”

It’s fair to say nobody saw that coming, and the first-time reader can be forgiven for saying, “Huh. That’s unlikely.” Because it was.

To be faithful to the text, scripture doesn’t tell us in so many words all that motivated Pharaoh to make this unusual appointment, but we can certainly draw inferences from the information we are given. If we are going to speculate about motive, let’s do it from all the data points we can gather.

Pharaoh’s Spirit was Troubled

All this started with God, who tormented Pharaoh with a pair of dreams he was convinced meant something significant. Like many in his position, he was a superstitious man who believed dreams could be omens, and these were truly ominous.

Cows are not carnivores. If a normal person went to sleep and saw seven ugly, skinny cows chowing down on seven attractive, plump cows, as Pharaoh did in his first dream, chances are he would find those images viscerally disturbing. Pharaoh did. We read, “his spirit was troubled”. His second dream restated the theme. The skinny, unhealthy cows became seven ears of blighted grain swallowing up seven ears of healthy grain. Pharaoh’s conclusion: he was getting a supernatural message, and he needed to get to the bottom of it urgently. He did not attribute his sleep disturbance to indigestion.

The only problem was that none of his magicians and wise men could give him an answer to his question about what these dreams were intended to signify. Pharaoh was truly vexed.

A Miraculous Answer

At the moment of Pharaoh’s greatest perplexity, his trusted chief cupbearer suddenly recalled that he had met a young man in prison two years earlier who was skilled in interpreting dreams. Everything he had said to the cupbearer and others came true. Pharaoh prudently called for Joseph to be brought before him.

Everything about Joseph’s manner was convincing. He took no credit for his unusual skill, wisely attributing his knowledge to God. He was obviously not trying to self-promote. His manner with Pharaoh was respectful but not unctuous or excessively flattering. God not only gave Joseph a plausible interpretation for Pharaoh’s dreams, but he also gave Joseph the discretion to deliver the message convincingly.

Perhaps Pharaoh was suffering from what today we would call a case of confirmation bias; let’s concede that. But the explanation Joseph gave the king for his dreams was precisely the sort of thing Pharaoh hoped and expected to hear if God had really spoken to him.

Plans to be Made

First, Joseph confirmed Pharaoh’s impression that his dreams were ominous. Seven years of good crops were about to be followed by seven years of dire famine all through the Near East. Something needed to be done about this. If the king of Egypt did not take immediate action, his people would fail to plan for the coming famine, and would surely starve.

Second, Joseph offered a solution both simple and elegant: select a competent man to manage the crisis and have him take logical steps to resolve it. This takes the pressure entirely off Pharaoh and puts it where any career politician likes it: on someone else. If the new administrator failed, it gave Pharaoh a level of plausible deniability and someone else to blame. If he succeeded, Pharaoh got the credit for promoting him.

Joseph was sufficiently astute that he did not put his own name forward. Even if he had been the cunning sort, he had no reason to imagine the king would decide to draft him into service. He was a foreigner and convicted criminal.

Nothing to Lose

Joseph’s suggestion gave the king absolutely nothing to lose. If he followed Joseph’s plan, he would tithe all the grain of Egypt for the seven plentiful years to come. If the plentiful years never came, he could always drop the proposed tax. If they did come, the taxation would appear reasonable and justified. Then, just supposing Joseph’s prophesied famine never came about, what would be the harm? He’d have storehouses full of grain at no cost to the royal purse. If the famine did appear as Joseph expected and Pharaoh now feared, then Joseph’s plan would provide a solution that would stave off the grumbling, uncertainty and probable eventual rebellion that tends to follow months of empty stomachs.

Furthermore, think about Pharaoh’s position at this point. Circumstances had discredited all his trusted advisors. None of them had been any help to him at all. The best of them could do nothing more than point him to someone who could help, and that someone was standing right in front of him.

On top of that, nobody was objecting. Joseph’s proposal made sense not only to Pharaoh but to “all his servants”. There was no risk in implementing it when everyone around him was saying, “Hey, great idea!”

A Plausible, Falsifiable Proposition

In short, Joseph handed Pharaoh a plausible, falsifiable proposition, one he could immediately test at no risk to himself and his kingdom. The proof of Joseph’s connection to God would come almost immediately. By hiding the interpretation from Pharaoh’s most skilled advisors, God had neatly seen to it that the king had nobody left among the Egyptians to call on. The Lord had arranged the circumstances to produce precisely the outcome he intended. And everyone around Pharaoh loved the idea.

With all that in front of him, who else should Pharaoh have put in charge? Unlikely as it seems initially, when you look carefully at the circumstances of Joseph’s appointment, it makes sense.

Moral of the story: If you’re ever going to identify a problem to your boss, best to come with a solution as well. Especially one that’s all upside.