“Now there arose a new
king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
Exodus 1:8
There are seventeen people
named in the first section of the book of Exodus, from which today’s Old
Testament lesson is taken. The author of the book, which we will be reading
from on Sundays for most of the next three months, does a fine job of setting
up his story. He begins with Jacob, the
last of the great patriarchs, who resettled his family in Egypt. He gives the names of all twelve of his sons,
from whom Israel’s tribes are descended.
He recounts the birth of Moses, the eventual hero of the story. His older sister, Miriam is named, and we’re
even introduced to Shiprah and Puah, the midwives who delivered him. Seventeen people are named, but the narrator
can’t quite recall just who was king in Egypt.
This is certainly intentional, and highly
ironical.[1] Because the king of Egypt—probably the Pharaoh
Rameses II—was undoubtedly the most important man in the world at the
time. He held absolute power in the
world’s most aggressive state. He was
owner of all property in the world’s wealthiest state. The art and literature of the world’s most
advanced culture celebrated his exploits.
If he was, in fact, Rameses II, he had a harem so large that he left
behind at his death a hundred sons and fifty daughters, whose descendants
formed a social class, the Ramesids, that dominated Egyptian society for
decades after his death.[2] He was worshipped as a god in life, and a
massive monument honored him in death.
His was not a name anyone of his time could forget. But to the narrator, he is simply “a new king
over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
