Lets get back to Joseph's family - They flourished in Goshen, remember that they'd brought all their possessions and animals with them from Cannan and they were also receiving all the supplies they needed to live a comfortable life from their royal benefactor. No doubt they would have also traded with their neighbours, exchanging food for land, livestock and possessions, thereby increasing their family wealth. It must have seemed strange to the Egyptians, here they were selling and exchanging everything they had just to survive, while here were this group of foreigners who in comparison were living in luxury and didn't really have a care in the world! But what could they do or say when they were under the protection of Pharaoh and his number two, Joseph?
When Jacob died, Joseph and his whole family followed the wishes of Jacob and took his body back to Cannan to lay him to rest in the plot of land that Abraham had bought as a burial place for his beloved Sarah. They were accompanied by Egyptian officials and soldiers, this was probably the first state funeral attended by foreign dignitaries! So, if they'd decided to stay after the funeral, the locals who'd survived the famine wouldn't have been able to put up much of an objection, due to the presence of the Egyptians. Anyway, they'd lived there only a few years previously and would have been known in their own right. This would have been an opportune time to move back, but as you know, after the funeral everyone went back to the comfortable life in Egypt!
If we pick up the story in the book of Exodus chapter 1, we find that a number of years had passed by, Joseph and all his brothers had died, but the Israelites were still enjoying living in Egypt and were still continuing to multiply. In verse 8, it states: 'Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.', so it’s safe to assume that this is at least 2 or 3 Pharaohs after the one Joseph had served, as his direct descendant and some of his courtiers would definitely have remembered all that Joseph did for Egypt. So this new Pharaoh, with no attachment to Joseph or his people, assesses the country and is worried that the Israelites have grown sufficiently in number to be a real threat to his power. So he orders that the Israelites are to be treated as slaves. (Exodus 1:11-14) 'So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.'
I’m sure that the forcing of the Israelites into slavery didn’t happen overnight. If it had been a royal decree that as of midnight tonight that all Israelites had to report to the local town hall where they would surrender all their possessions and sign up for a life of slavery, then we would have seen people fleeing the country with all that they could carry. It’s more likely that it was a gradual change, as we’ve seen many times in history, where more and more restrictions are gradually placed on a group of people, while at the same time propaganda is published to justify the changes. The slow, subtle changes usually meet the least resistance.
Was this always God's plan or did the Israelites disobey along the way? Did they lose sight of why God took them to Egypt? Or did they forget the promises that God has given to Abraham? If we go back into Genesis 15:13-16: 'Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
I am left wondering, if it was a part of God’s plan, did Israel need to lose its freedom before it could really appreciate it? If they had returned to Cannan after the famine, would they have fully appreciated what God had done for them? Would they have remembered every year the return home and marked it with a festival, as they still remember and celebrate their exodus from Egypt to this day, with the festival of Passover? Would they have taken freedom and liberty for granted?
One thing you can definitely say, is that the Israelites were fruitful during their time in Egypt, going from about 70 to approximately half a million!
Applications to our journey - As you can probably tell, I could have gone on for much longer, each time I read a passage with an open mind, I see new things. If God had provided us with everything we needed to set up Time2 as soon as we’d left ngm, would we have fully appreciated it? Having moved in with our daughter and grandson, which has meant having a lot of our possessions in storage, we will really appreciate having a home of our own, with space to breath and places of peace. It has also taught us how to share our lives with others and to value our times alone and to make the most of our time as a couple.
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