Genesis is true. We found Joseph. (YouTube Video Transcript)

(00:00:00) Your YouTube transcript will appear here (00:00:00) If you dig deep enough into the mud of (00:00:02) the Nile Delta, you eventually hit a (00:00:04) layer of history that makes (00:00:06) Egyptologists very uncomfortable. For (00:00:09) 200 years, the timeline of the Bible and (00:00:11) the timeline of secular history have (00:00:13) been at war. We're told that the (00:00:15) patriarchs are myths. Critics insist (00:00:18) there's no evidence for a population of (00:00:21) Semitic shepherds living in Egypt during (00:00:23) the Middle Kingdom and that the Exodus (00:00:25) is a fairy tale because no record exists (00:00:28) of a Hebrew slave becoming a prince of (00:00:30) Egypt. But they're looking in the wrong (00:00:32) place and they're looking for the wrong (00:00:34) man. Scholars often search for a (00:00:37) character from a Sunday school flannel (00:00:39) board. A boy in a technicolor dream coat (00:00:41) who acts nice and forgives his brothers. (00:00:44) But the Joseph of history, the Joseph (00:00:47) who actually walked on this earth, he (00:00:49) wasn't just a nice guy. He was a master (00:00:52) strategist. (00:00:54) Scripture tells us in Psalm 105 that (00:00:57) Pharaoh made him lord of his house and (00:00:59) the ruler of all of his substance to (00:01:01) bind his princes at his pleasure and (00:01:04) teach his senators wisdom. He was the (00:01:06) most brilliant, ruthless, and effective (00:01:09) political operator of the ancient world. (00:01:11) He didn't just survive Egypt, he broke (00:01:13) it. He took a decentralized, feudal mess (00:01:16) of warlords and forged it into the first (00:01:19) true superpower of the Bronze Age. He's (00:01:22) there in the record. His face is on the (00:01:24) statues. His name is in the king's list. (00:01:28) You just have to know what you're (00:01:29) looking for. Today, we're going to walk (00:01:31) into the ruins of Avarice. We're going (00:01:34) to brush away the sand from a Syrian (00:01:36) palace that probably shouldn't exist. (00:01:38) And we're going to look at the face of (00:01:40) the man who sold the world to Pharaoh. (00:01:42) But before we dig up the governor, I (00:01:44) want to make sure that you've got the (00:01:46) tools to follow this investigation. The (00:01:48) timeline we're talking about is a little (00:01:50) complex. And if you're just listening (00:01:52) now, it can be hard to visualize where (00:01:54) the Middle Kingdom ends and where the (00:01:56) Hixos period begins and where all of (00:01:58) these pieces fit together. So, I've put (00:02:01) together a full visual timeline graphic (00:02:03) and a free preview of a chapter of my (00:02:06) upcoming book, Dynasty of Slaves. It (00:02:08) maps all of this out for you. It breaks (00:02:11) down the dynasties and the dates and the (00:02:13) archaeological layers we're discussing (00:02:15) today. The only way to get it is to join (00:02:17) my email newsletter. It's completely (00:02:19) free. It's where I share the raw (00:02:22) research, the book updates, and some of (00:02:24) the deep dive content that doesn't make (00:02:26) it onto YouTube. So, click the link in (00:02:29) the description, sign up, and I'll send (00:02:30) you the timeline and the book preview (00:02:32) directly to your inbox. (00:02:35) Okay, now that's out of the way. Let's (00:02:37) get back to 1670 BC. (00:02:42) It always starts with the river. In (00:02:45) Egypt, the Nile isn't just water. It's a (00:02:48) god named Hoppy. For thousands of years, (00:02:51) Hoppy makes a promise to swell the banks (00:02:53) of the Nile River in the season of (00:02:55) inundation. He promises to deposit the (00:02:57) black silt from the Ethiopian highlands (00:03:00) onto the fields, ensuring that if the (00:03:02) pharaoh maintains mahat, which is the (00:03:05) cosmic order, the people will eat. The (00:03:08) entire civilization is built on this (00:03:10) single fragile wager. The pyramids, the (00:03:14) temples, the golden masks, they all (00:03:16) depend on it. But in the late 12th (00:03:18) dynasty, the water stops rising. (00:03:21) The records of this time are terrifying, (00:03:23) describing a Nile that is lazy and low. (00:03:26) The canals turn into cracked mud. The (00:03:29) green belt of the delta begins to (00:03:31) recede, turning a sickly yellow brown as (00:03:34) the desert starts to creep in. For the (00:03:36) first time in centuries, the people of (00:03:38) Egypt look at their gods and realize (00:03:40) they're silent. Hoppy, for all intents (00:03:43) and purposes, is dead. And when the (00:03:46) river dies, the politics explode. (00:03:50) The reality is Egypt at this moment (00:03:52) isn't one big happy family. It isn't the (00:03:54) unified empire of Rammeses that we see (00:03:57) in the movies. It's a fractured feudal (00:03:59) mess. The real power isn't in the royal (00:04:02) palace. It's held by the Nomarks. These (00:04:04) are the regional governors, local (00:04:06) warlords who rule over their provinces (00:04:08) like little kings. They command private (00:04:10) armies and enforce their own tax (00:04:12) systems, paying only lip service really (00:04:14) to the pharaoh while answering to no (00:04:17) one. But most importantly, the Nomarks (00:04:19) control their own private graineries. (00:04:23) For generations, these warlords have (00:04:25) been hoarding the wealth of the Nile. (00:04:27) They're proud, independent, feudal (00:04:28) holdouts who refuse to let the central (00:04:31) government rule. But hunger has a way of (00:04:33) humbling even the proudest warlord. (00:04:36) As the famine grinds on year after year, (00:04:39) the private stockpiles of the noarks (00:04:41) begin to run dry. The local peasants (00:04:44) start rioting. The private armies are (00:04:46) starving. The warlords look at their (00:04:49) empty silos and realize they have a (00:04:51) choice. Keep their pride and die, or (00:04:54) swallow their pride and beg. So, a (00:04:57) procession begins. I can imagine them (00:05:00) traveling north, the boats of the great (00:05:02) southern lords drifting down the (00:05:04) shrinking Nile, heading toward the Delta (00:05:07) and the fortress city of Avarice. They (00:05:10) arrive at the royal storehouses, hats in (00:05:12) hand, desperate for grain and ready to (00:05:14) make a deal with the pharaoh. But when (00:05:16) the doors of the administration center (00:05:18) open, they aren't met by a pharaoh at (00:05:20) all. They aren't even met by a (00:05:22) traditional Egyptian priest with a (00:05:23) shaven head and a leopard skin robe. (00:05:26) They're met by a foreigner. He's a young (00:05:28) man about 30 years old. Although clean (00:05:31) shaven in the Egyptian style, his (00:05:33) features are unmistakably Semitic. He's (00:05:36) carrying a throw stick, the symbol of a (00:05:38) shepherd, and it rests casually against (00:05:40) his shoulder. He'd be wearing royal (00:05:42) linen, a gift from the pharaoh, but he (00:05:44) speaks with the accent of a Canaanite. (00:05:46) He looks at these starving warlords, the (00:05:48) men who have ignored the throne for (00:05:50) centuries, and he tells them, "I have (00:05:52) the grain. The silos are full. The king (00:05:56) has prepared for this." The warlords ask (00:05:59) for the price, and they expect a tax or (00:06:01) a fee, of course. But the foreigner (00:06:04) shakes his head. He doesn't want their (00:06:06) money or their gold. He wants their (00:06:08) land. The Bible records the desperation (00:06:11) of the moment in Genesis 47. The people (00:06:14) cry out, "Why should we die before your (00:06:17) eyes? Buy us and our land for food, and (00:06:20) we with our land will be servants to (00:06:22) Pharaoh." (00:06:23) So the deal is struck. Verse 20 confirms (00:06:26) the hostile takeover. It says, "And (00:06:29) Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for (00:06:31) Pharaoh. So the land became Pharaoh's. (00:06:35) This is the moment the middle kingdom of (00:06:36) Egypt is dismantled. The warlords sign (00:06:39) the papers. The grain is released and (00:06:42) the rulers of foreign lands called the (00:06:44) Hixos dynasty begins. (00:06:47) Historians like Meno call them invaders (00:06:50) claiming they conquered without a (00:06:51) battle. But looking at the broader scope (00:06:54) of history, we know the truth. They (00:06:56) didn't invade. They just bought the (00:06:58) place. And in the rest of this story, (00:07:01) we're going to look at the so-called (00:07:02) invasion that didn't actually happen. (00:07:04) The linguistic connection between (00:07:06) Joseph's political title and the name of (00:07:08) the mysterious Hixos king. The discovery (00:07:10) of a curious statue of a Semitic man (00:07:12) wearing a multicolored coat. How the (00:07:15) Hixos consolidated their power in (00:07:17) exactly the same way Joseph did in (00:07:19) Genesis. And finally, I'll end this (00:07:22) investigation with the nail in the (00:07:24) coffin connection that's too (00:07:25) mind-blowing to mention or ignore. But (00:07:29) first, the invasion that wasn't an (00:07:31) invasion at all. If you open a standard (00:07:34) history textbook to the year 1650 BC, (00:07:38) you're going to find a very strange (00:07:39) story. Historians call this the second (00:07:42) intermediate period. It's considered a (00:07:44) dark age, a time of chaos and collapse. (00:07:48) And if you ask a traditional (00:07:49) Egyptologist what happened, they'll tell (00:07:51) you that suddenly out of nowhere, a (00:07:54) mysterious race of invaders called the (00:07:56) Hixos swarmed across the border. They (00:07:59) quote an ancient Egyptian historian (00:08:01) named Mana. Writing over a thousand (00:08:04) years later in the 3rd century BC, Mana (00:08:06) claims that these invaders of an obscure (00:08:08) race had the audacity to invade the (00:08:11) country. He writes and he says this, "In (00:08:14) the reign of King Dudamos, for what (00:08:17) cause I know not, a blast of God smoteed (00:08:19) us and men of obscure race invaded the (00:08:22) land." Mana admits something crucial (00:08:25) here. He says they conquered easily and (00:08:28) without a battle, but then he pivots to (00:08:31) violence. He claims they burned the (00:08:33) cities and demolished the temples and (00:08:35) treated the natives with cruel (00:08:37) hostility, enslaving women and children. (00:08:40) It sounds terrifying and violent. It (00:08:42) sounds like an ancient blitz creek. But (00:08:44) here's the problem. When archaeologists (00:08:47) dig into the ground at the city of (00:08:48) Avarice, the capital of these Hixos (00:08:50) kings, they don't find a war. The (00:08:53) primary excavator of this site is Dr. (00:08:55) Manfred Beak. He spent decades peeling (00:08:58) back the layers of the delta here. And (00:09:00) when he reached the layers corresponding (00:09:02) to the rise of the Hixos, he found (00:09:04) essentially nothing. There's no (00:09:06) destruction layer from this time. There (00:09:08) are no burnt walls. There are no mass (00:09:10) graves of soldiers defending the border. (00:09:13) There is no evidence of any kind of (00:09:15) siege. The invasion is a ghost. It never (00:09:19) really happened. (00:09:21) So, we have a mystery. How do you (00:09:23) conquer the greatest empire on earth (00:09:24) without a battle? How do foreigners take (00:09:27) over the throne of pharaohs without (00:09:29) firing a single arrow? You do it the way (00:09:31) all peaceful takeovers happen. The (00:09:34) politics of economics. (00:09:36) There's no war to find in the dirt of (00:09:38) Avarest because we're actually looking (00:09:40) for an administrative takeover based on (00:09:41) economics. We're looking for a new deal (00:09:44) that would make Wilson and Roosevelt (00:09:46) blush. (00:09:48) What archaeology confirms is a slow (00:09:50) peaceful infiltration. We see Smitic (00:09:53) pottery styles appearing gradually, then (00:09:55) Semitic housing, and then Semitic burial (00:09:58) customs. The population of Avarest (00:10:00) starts as a small group of guests, then (00:10:03) grows into a multitude, and finally (00:10:05) they're the ones running the (00:10:06) administration. (00:10:08) Mana was right about one thing. They (00:10:10) took the country without a fight. But he (00:10:13) was wrong about the fire and the sword. (00:10:15) His take is most likely Egyptian (00:10:17) propaganda mixed with a little bit of (00:10:18) historical fact. Historians call them (00:10:21) the Hixos. The Bible calls them the (00:10:24) family of Jacob. And I'm going to show (00:10:26) you that they are the exact same people. (00:10:29) So, if they weren't invaders, who were (00:10:31) they? And more importantly, who was (00:10:33) their leader? In criminal (00:10:35) investigations, names are like fossils. (00:10:38) They get buried under centuries of dirt. (00:10:40) They get compressed by translation, and (00:10:43) they get distorted by time. But if you (00:10:45) know how to brush off the dust, the (00:10:47) original shape is still there. Mano (00:10:49) gives us the name of the very first (00:10:51) Hixos king. He calls him Salatis. (00:10:55) Now, the sol is not an Egyptian name. It (00:10:58) doesn't mean anything in the Egyptian (00:11:00) language. For centuries, this name has (00:11:02) baffled Egyptologists. They just assume (00:11:04) it's some foreign barbarian word that (00:11:06) got garbled in translation. (00:11:09) But if you know your Hebrew and you know (00:11:11) your Bible, that name should set off an (00:11:13) alarm in your brain. Salatis is the (00:11:16) Greek transliteration of a very specific (00:11:19) Semitic word, Shalit. (00:11:21) And what does shalit mean? It doesn't (00:11:24) mean king. The Hebrew word for king is (00:11:26) melc. That's the root of the name (00:11:28) MelkiseDC. Shalit is something else. It (00:11:32) means the ruler or the governor. It's a (00:11:35) title for a man who holds absolute (00:11:36) authority, but authority that has been (00:11:39) delegated from somebody else. Now, I (00:11:41) want you to turn your Bibles to Genesis (00:11:43) 42:6 with me. Look at how the text (00:11:47) describes Joseph at the height of his (00:11:48) power. It doesn't just call him a (00:11:50) prince. It uses a very specific (00:11:52) technical title. It says, "Now Joseph (00:11:55) was the governor over the land." The (00:11:58) Hebrew word there, Ha Shalid. Do you see (00:12:02) what just happened? The Bible calls (00:12:04) Joseph the Shalit. The Egyptian history (00:12:07) books record the very first Semitic (00:12:09) ruler as Salatis. It's the same title. (00:12:12) It's the same man. Mano writes that this (00:12:15) king, Salatis, was famous for one (00:12:17) specific administrative action. He (00:12:19) didn't build pyramids. He didn't fight (00:12:21) wars. Manos says he measured corn. Think (00:12:26) about that. If you know the story of (00:12:28) Joseph, it's definitely starting to ring (00:12:30) some bells. Of all the things a (00:12:32) historian could remember about a king, (00:12:34) his battles, his wives, his monuments. (00:12:38) Mano remembers that he was obsessed with (00:12:40) the grain supply. He controlled the (00:12:42) economy with an iron fist by controlling (00:12:45) the corn. (00:12:46) Now, does that look familiar to you? (00:12:49) We're looking at Joseph here, the Grand (00:12:52) Vizier, the man who saved the known (00:12:54) world by controlling the corn in Egypt. (00:12:57) To the starving Egyptians, he wasn't (00:12:59) just a bureaucrat. He was the man with (00:13:00) the keys to life. He was the Shalit. (00:13:04) And this changes the entire narrative of (00:13:06) who the Hixos actually were. The word (00:13:09) Hixos comes from the Egyptian phrase (00:13:11) Heekkhakashut or Hekashet. For a long (00:13:14) time, historians translated this as (00:13:16) shepherd kings, but modern Egyptology (00:13:19) has corrected that. It literally (00:13:21) translates to rulers of foreign lands. (00:13:24) It was the title given to the chieftains (00:13:26) of the Semitic tribes living in the (00:13:27) delta. It was the title given to Joseph (00:13:30) and his family as they consolidated (00:13:31) power. They weren't invaders. They were (00:13:34) the administration. They were the ones (00:13:36) keeping the lights on when the Nile went (00:13:38) dark. But we don't just have a name. (00:13:41) Surprisingly, we actually have a face. (00:13:44) This is where the investigation moves (00:13:45) from linguistics to hard evidence, (00:13:48) specifically at the archaeological site (00:13:50) of Teldaba, the ancient city of Avaris, (00:13:53) capital of the Hixos. For years, this (00:13:56) site was just a mound of dirt in the (00:13:58) delta. But starting in the 1960s, the (00:14:00) Austrian Archaeological Institute, led (00:14:02) by Manfred Beak, began to dig. It's (00:14:05) important to note that Bitak is a (00:14:07) secular archaeologist, not trying to (00:14:09) prove the Bible. He's simply recording (00:14:11) what he finds in the ground, which is (00:14:13) the best type of archaeologist in my (00:14:15) opinion. What he found in Stratum D2, (00:14:18) the layer dating to the late 12th and (00:14:21) early 13th dynasty, shouldn't exist in (00:14:24) Egypt, at least not according to the (00:14:25) official story. He uncovered the (00:14:27) foundations of a massive residential (00:14:29) complex, but it wasn't an Egyptian (00:14:31) house. It was a palace built in the (00:14:33) style of Assyrian Mitel Sal. It's the (00:14:36) middle house style. This is the kind of (00:14:39) mansion you would find in a Canaan or (00:14:42) Syrian or northern Mesopotamian area. A (00:14:46) Semitic architectural design planted (00:14:48) right in the middle of the Egyptian (00:14:50) delta. And who lives in a house like (00:14:52) that? Well, it belonged to a (00:14:54) high-ranking official who was incredibly (00:14:56) wealthy and powerful yet refused to (00:14:59) fully assimilate. He didn't want to live (00:15:01) like an Egyptian noble. He wanted to (00:15:03) live like a Hebrew patriarch. He was a (00:15:05) man who walked into the halls of (00:15:07) Pharaoh, but when he went home at night, (00:15:09) he wanted to feel like he was back in (00:15:11) his hill country of Canaan. (00:15:14) But the house isn't the only thing that (00:15:15) matches the Bible. It's the backyard, (00:15:18) too. In the garden behind this massive (00:15:20) villa, archaeologists found a private (00:15:23) family cemetery containing exactly 12 (00:15:26) main tombs arranged around the central (00:15:28) courtyard. (00:15:30) Now, stop and think about that for a (00:15:32) moment. Who is the famous Hebrew (00:15:34) patriarch with 12 sons? It's Jacob. The (00:15:38) archaeology shows us a massive Semitic (00:15:40) clan living in the best land of Egypt (00:15:42) governed by a single family of 12 (00:15:45) leaders. Among these 12 tombs, however, (00:15:48) one was different. 11 of them were (00:15:50) standard monumental graves. But the 12th (00:15:53) was a small pyramid tomb. In the Middle (00:15:56) Kingdom, you don't give a pyramid tomb (00:15:57) to a foreigner or a shepherd. You give (00:16:00) that to a pharaoh or a queen. This is a (00:16:03) royal honor reserved for someone with (00:16:05) the highest status in the land. Inside (00:16:08) that tomb chapel, they found the (00:16:09) fragments of a colossal limestone (00:16:11) statue. Although it had been smashed in (00:16:13) antiquity by someone wanting to erase (00:16:15) this man's memory, enough of the (00:16:17) fragments remained for archaeologists to (00:16:20) reconstruct the figure. The statue (00:16:22) depicts a man sitting on a throne with (00:16:24) three distinct features. First, his skin (00:16:28) is pale yellow. the specific Egyptian (00:16:30) art code for Asiatics or Semites as (00:16:33) opposed to the reddish brown Egyptians. (00:16:36) Second, his hair is styled in a massive (00:16:38) red mushroom qua, a distinctively (00:16:41) non-Egyptian style typical of the (00:16:43) northern Semitic tribes. And third, (00:16:46) resting against his shoulder in his (00:16:48) right hand is a throw stick, not a (00:16:50) scepter or a weapon of war, but the tool (00:16:53) of a shepherd used to guide sheep. We're (00:16:55) looking at a Semitic ruler living in a (00:16:57) Syrian palace in the Delta, surrounded (00:17:00) by 12 family tombs, buried with royal (00:17:03) honors, and holding a shepherd's staff. (00:17:06) But the detail that seals it is the (00:17:07) paint. Faint traces of paint cling to (00:17:10) the statue's shoulder revealed that he (00:17:12) wasn't wearing white linen, which would (00:17:14) have been typical for royals. He was (00:17:16) wearing a striped multicolored coat of (00:17:19) black, red, white, and blue. (00:17:23) We're looking at the face of Joseph (00:17:24) here. We are looking at the shalit. But (00:17:27) the mystery doesn't end with the statue. (00:17:29) It ends with the body. When the (00:17:31) archaeologists opened the burial chamber (00:17:33) beneath the pyramid, they expected to (00:17:36) find a mummy, gold, and maybe some (00:17:38) jewelry. Instead, the tomb was empty. (00:17:42) You might think it was grave robbers, (00:17:44) which is a fair guess in Egypt. But (00:17:46) grave robbers are predictable. They take (00:17:48) the gold and leave the bones because (00:17:50) bones are worthless. In fact, they (00:17:52) usually trashed the mummy looking for (00:17:54) amulets. In this tomb, it was the (00:17:56) opposite. There was no gold left. Sure, (00:17:59) but there was no bones either. The (00:18:01) sarcophagus was clean. Why would a thief (00:18:05) steal a skeleton? Well, they wouldn't is (00:18:07) the truth. But a family would. Turn to (00:18:11) Exodus 13:1 19. It says this, "And Moses (00:18:15) took the bones of Joseph with him, for (00:18:17) he had straightly sworn the children of (00:18:19) Israel, saying, God will surely visit (00:18:22) you, and you shall carry up my bones (00:18:24) away hence with you." When the (00:18:26) Israelites left Egypt in the middle of (00:18:28) the chaos of the plagues, they didn't (00:18:29) just grab their dough and their gold. (00:18:32) They went to the garden of the old (00:18:33) Syrian palace, opened the pyramid tomb (00:18:36) of their ancestor, and honored their (00:18:38) oath. They carried the bones of the (00:18:40) dreamer out of Egypt and took them home (00:18:42) to the promised land. So we have the (00:18:45) man, we have his name, and we have his (00:18:48) statue. But now we have to ask a hard (00:18:51) question about how he used that power. (00:18:53) The story of Joseph is often taught as a (00:18:55) nice moral lesson about forgiveness, (00:18:57) which it is. That's true. But (00:18:59) politically, it's a thriller. It's (00:19:02) closer to The Godfather than it is to (00:19:04) It's a Wonderful Life. And if you read (00:19:06) Genesis 47 carefully, it's actually (00:19:09) pretty terrifying. When the famine hit, (00:19:12) Joseph didn't just give the food away. (00:19:14) He wasn't running a charity, after all. (00:19:16) He was running a state. And he used the (00:19:18) crisis to execute one of the most (00:19:20) aggressive political takeovers in human (00:19:22) history. The Bible is very honest about (00:19:25) the steps of his consolidation. (00:19:28) Step one, the liquidation of capital. (00:19:30) First, the people spent all their money. (00:19:33) Joseph collected every silver ring, (00:19:35) every gold debon, and every piece of (00:19:37) currency in Egypt and in Canaan. He (00:19:39) brought it all into Pharaoh's house. (00:19:41) Step two, the liquidation of assets. (00:19:44) When the money was gone, the people (00:19:46) cried out for bread, and Joseph said, (00:19:48) "Give me your livestock." So they (00:19:50) brought him horses and flocks and herds, (00:19:52) their donkeys. He stripped the people of (00:19:55) their independent wealth and transferred (00:19:56) it to the crown. And then step three, (00:19:59) the liquidation of freedom. Finally, (00:20:02) when they had nothing left, they came to (00:20:04) him and said, "Buy us and our land for (00:20:06) bread, and we and our land will be (00:20:08) servants to Pharaoh." And Joseph did it. (00:20:12) Genesis 47:20 records the sale. It says, (00:20:15) "And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt (00:20:18) for Pharaoh. For the Egyptians sold (00:20:20) every man his field, because the famine (00:20:22) prevailed over them, so the land became (00:20:25) Pharaoh's." (00:20:27) Think about what that means politically. (00:20:29) For centuries, the Middle Kingdom has (00:20:31) been paralyzed by those feudal holdouts, (00:20:34) the local warlords we talked about in (00:20:36) the beginning. They owned their own land (00:20:38) and they were completely independent. In (00:20:41) one stroke, Joseph wiped them out. He (00:20:44) dismantled the feudal system. He (00:20:46) stripped the warlords of their power (00:20:47) bases. He centralized all the wealth, (00:20:50) all the land, and all of the authority (00:20:52) into the hands of the king. He destroyed (00:20:55) the old order and created the absolute (00:20:57) monarchy of the new kingdom. This was a (00:20:59) process that had begun generations (00:21:00) earlier. Actually, the archaeological (00:21:02) record shows the diminishing power of (00:21:04) the Normarchs for a while. But Joseph's (00:21:06) economic policy mixed with the brutal (00:21:09) famine was the final straw. Now, his (00:21:12) intentions were good. He wanted to save (00:21:14) people from starvation. He was acting as (00:21:16) a wise steward for his boss. But in (00:21:19) doing so, he built a machine of absolute (00:21:21) power. Later in the Bible, in (00:21:24) Deuteronomy 4:20, God calls Egypt the (00:21:27) iron furnace, Kurha Barzel. It's an (00:21:30) industrial term. It means a smelting (00:21:33) furnace used to refine metal. And Joseph (00:21:35) is the one who built it. This is the (00:21:38) dark irony of the story. Joseph saved (00:21:41) his family from starvation, but by (00:21:43) centralizing absolute power, he created (00:21:45) the very weapon that would eventually be (00:21:47) turned against them. He was the savior (00:21:49) who ended up building the cage. (00:21:52) And the tragedy of history is that as (00:21:54) long as a Pharaoh who knew Joseph was on (00:21:56) the throne, that machine protected the (00:21:58) Israelites. The Hebrews lived in the (00:22:00) best of the land in Gan. They prospered. (00:22:04) They multiplied. They were the protected (00:22:06) class of the administration. (00:22:08) And so, Joseph constructed the perfect (00:22:10) weapon for a tyrant. He centralized the (00:22:13) economy and enslaved the population to (00:22:15) the state. And he didn't realize that a (00:22:17) few generations later, a new king would (00:22:20) arise, a king who didn't care about (00:22:22) Joseph, and he would find his weapon (00:22:24) waiting for him. He would turn it (00:22:27) against the very people who built it. (00:22:29) But the story of the dynasty doesn't end (00:22:31) with Joseph. Okay, Scott, if Joseph was (00:22:34) the first Hixos king, who was the (00:22:36) second? Did the dynasty continue or did (00:22:38) it fall apart when he died? (00:22:41) Mano gives us the answer. And once (00:22:43) again, the linguistics are incredible. (00:22:47) In Mano's list of Hixos kings, the (00:22:49) successor of Salatis, that's Joseph, is (00:22:52) a king named Benon. Now, just like (00:22:55) Salatis, Benon is total gibberish in (00:22:58) Egyptian. It has no root, no meaning, (00:23:01) and no history in the hieroglyphic (00:23:02) language. But in Hebrew, it's crystal (00:23:05) clear. Benon is a perfect Greek (00:23:08) transliteration of the Hebrew word (00:23:10) Benoni. (00:23:12) Does that name ring a bell? Well, turn (00:23:15) back in Genesis 35:18. (00:23:18) We're on the road to Bethlehem, Jacob's (00:23:20) beloved wife, Rachel. She's the mother (00:23:22) of Joseph. She's in labor again. The (00:23:25) text says, "And it came to pass as her (00:23:27) soul was in departing, for she died, (00:23:30) that she called his name Benoni, but his (00:23:34) father called him Benjamin." (00:23:37) It means son of my sorrow. (00:23:40) But his father, Jacob, refuses to let (00:23:42) that be his destiny. He renames him (00:23:44) Benjamin, which means son of my right (00:23:47) hand. Benjamin was Joseph's full (00:23:49) brother. They were the only two sons of (00:23:51) Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife. They were (00:23:53) the dreamer and the right hand. When (00:23:56) Joseph rose to power, the Bible tells us (00:23:59) he had a special affection for Benjamin. (00:24:01) At the feast in Genesis 43, he gives (00:24:04) Benjamin five times as much food as the (00:24:06) others. He tests his brothers to see if (00:24:08) they will betray Benjamin like they (00:24:10) betrayed him. So when Joseph the Shalit (00:24:13) King Salatis finally died at the age of (00:24:16) 110, who took the keys to the kingdom? (00:24:19) Well, it didn't go to Ephraim or (00:24:21) Manasseh right away. His Egyptian-born (00:24:23) sons. It seems that the leadership of (00:24:26) his Semitic dynasty stayed with the (00:24:28) Rachel line. The second shepherd king of (00:24:30) Egypt was Ben Oni, King Benon. (00:24:34) This gives us a picture of the Hixos (00:24:36) period that is radically different from (00:24:37) the barbarian invasion story that the (00:24:40) Egyptologists try to tell. We aren't (00:24:42) looking at a chaotic rotation of (00:24:43) warlords. We're looking at a family (00:24:45) business. They held the throne. They (00:24:47) held the military. They held the (00:24:49) economy. And for nearly a hundred years, (00:24:52) the shepherd kings ruled the delta. They (00:24:55) built the city of Avarice into a (00:24:56) massive, thriving metropolis. They (00:24:59) controlled the trade routes to Canaan. (00:25:01) They imported olive oil, wine, and (00:25:03) textiles. And they lived like princes. (00:25:06) They were the head and not the tail, (00:25:08) above only and not beneath, like (00:25:10) Deuteronomy 28:13 says. But that is (00:25:14) exactly where the danger was hiding. So, (00:25:17) let's zoom out and look at a big picture (00:25:19) of this investigation. We started with a (00:25:21) mystery, the question of who were the (00:25:23) Hixos? History told us they were (00:25:26) invaders who conquered without a battle. (00:25:28) Archaeology told us there was no war, (00:25:30) only a massive Semitic settlement. (00:25:32) Linguistics told us their first king was (00:25:35) named Governor Shalit, and their second (00:25:37) king was named son of Mysaro, Benoni. (00:25:41) And the ground itself gave us a statue (00:25:42) of a Semitic official wearing a coat of (00:25:45) many colors, buried in a pyramid with no (00:25:48) bones inside. To me, the verdict is (00:25:51) clear. The dynasty of slaves began as a (00:25:54) dynasty of kings. They weren't invaded (00:25:56) by the Hixos. They were the Hixos. We (00:25:59) love to quote Genesis 50:20. It's the (00:26:02) verse we put on coffee mugs and the (00:26:04) verse we use to comfort ourselves when (00:26:06) things go wrong sometimes. It says, "But (00:26:09) as for you, you thought evil against me, (00:26:12) but God meant it unto good to bring to (00:26:14) pass as it is this day to save much (00:26:17) people alive." And it is an encouraging (00:26:20) verse. It's true. It's beautiful. And (00:26:22) it's wonderful. God used the betrayal (00:26:25) and the pit and the prison and the (00:26:27) famine to position Joseph to save Israel (00:26:30) and many more. But there's a dark side (00:26:32) to that verse that we rarely talk about. (00:26:34) What happens when the good turns sour? (00:26:37) What happens when the provision becomes (00:26:40) a prison? God meant it for good to save (00:26:43) people alive. That was the mission, (00:26:45) survival. But once the famine was over, (00:26:48) why did they stay for so long? Why did (00:26:50) they get comfortable in Avarice? Why did (00:26:53) they build palaces and adopt Egyptian (00:26:55) titles? They stayed because the good (00:26:58) felt too good to leave. They traded the (00:27:00) tent of Abraham for the palace of (00:27:02) Avarice. They traded the promise of a (00:27:04) rugged land in Canaan for the luxury of (00:27:06) the Nile Delta. They preferred the power (00:27:09) of Goan over the purpose of God. And (00:27:12) that is the trap of success. You see, (00:27:14) Gan was never meant to be a permanent (00:27:16) address. It was a shelter from the (00:27:18) storm. It was a place to weather the (00:27:20) famine. But the family of Jacob treated (00:27:22) it like a destination. They fell in love (00:27:24) with the system Joseph built and the (00:27:26) influence and the comfort that he (00:27:28) brought them. And because they wouldn't (00:27:29) leave on their own, God had to let the (00:27:32) wheel of history turn. He had to allow a (00:27:34) new pharaoh to rise up. A series of (00:27:37) nationalists starting with second (00:27:38) enricho and then Kamos and then finally (00:27:41) Amos the first who didn't care about (00:27:43) Joseph, who didn't care about Benoni and (00:27:46) who didn't care about the economy. (00:27:48) Because sometimes the only way that God (00:27:50) can get his people to move is to make (00:27:53) the place where they are unbearable. (00:27:55) This is my encouragement for you today. (00:27:58) We all have our goons, don't we? We have (00:28:00) those seasons where God blesses us with (00:28:02) influence or comfort or a job that pays (00:28:05) well or maybe a community that feels (00:28:07) safe and we thank God for it. We should (00:28:10) these things are blessings. But we can (00:28:12) never let our comfort zone become our (00:28:15) cage. There comes a moment in every (00:28:17) believer's life where the season of (00:28:19) saving much people alive shifts to a (00:28:22) season of get up and go. And when that (00:28:25) shift happens, do we have the courage to (00:28:27) leave the comfort of what was once a (00:28:29) blessing? Do we have the courage to walk (00:28:31) away from the status and the security? (00:28:34) Or will we stay until the blessings turn (00:28:36) into a curse?