Debt-Slavery Passages in the Tanakh as a Lens for Reading Joseph's Enslavement of the Egyptians in Genesis 47:13–26: Explorations in Canonical Hermeneutics

Methodology: Canonical Approach

The methodology of the present study is a canonical approach, building on the work of Brevard Childs. Strictly speaking, Childs's canonical approach is a framework rather than a methodology. He gives this theme a detailed treatment in his Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture:

It may then be accurate to state that, for Childs, the term “canonical approach” functions as a stance of deliberately using the canon as a foundation and a lens for the tasks of biblical theology and exegesis. Harrisville likewise understands Childs in this way. He states: “The term ‘canon’ (without the article) suggests not a new exegetical technique but a context from which the literature is to be understood and interpreted” (Harrisville: 13).

The notes given on “Old and New Testament context” in the introduction to Childs' Exodus commentary indicate that in the case of the Old Testament context, a “canonical” reading is at one level simply looking at the passage in question in the context of the final form of the text instead of a previous fragmented literary or pre-literary source (Childs 1974: xiv–xv). However, this concept extends much farther. Childs's emphasis on canon has multiple implications for the analysis of a passage, from looking at the purpose of its placement in the overall structure of the final form of a book (Childs 1974: xiv–xv), to finding explicit citations or discussions of it elsewhere in the canon, and finally drawing it into conversation with related material and examining the implications of the interplay of the passages (Childs 1992: 325–36).

Thus, the present study, in light of the interpretive concern regarding the ethics of Joseph's enslavement of the Egyptians, explicitly and deliberately restricts itself to passages that give a clear ethical perspective on debt-slavery as canonical materials for reading Genesis 47:13–26. While making use of and interacting with traditional historical criticism, the overriding concern is the literary comparison of the attitude toward debt-slavery in these various texts. Thus, it shares Childs' emphasis on the final form of the text, while his concern for the role of the Bible in the “community of faith” is a question that will have to wait for another day (Childs 1979: 74). This may additionally shed light on how a post-exilic audience may have evaluated Joseph's use of debt-slavery, while not being rigidly bound to the understanding of the initial generations of readers. With this tightly focused interest in debt-slavery in view, the texts that will be used to generate readings of Genesis 47:13–26 in the present study are Exodus 21:1–6, Leviticus 25:39–55, Deuteronomy 15:12–18, 1 Samuel 8, Jeremiah 34, and Nehemiah 5.

Pentateuchal Slave Laws

The most significant passages in the Pentateuch relating to debt-slavery are the slave codes in the law. Before reading Genesis 47 in light of them, it is necessary to make some brief observations regarding their harmonization. A number of studies compare the slave laws found in the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21:2–11), the Holiness Code (Lev 25:39–55) and the Deuteronomic Code (Deut 15:12–18) (Klein 1982: 212–21; Phillips: 51–66; Schenker: 23–41; Wolff: 259–72; McConville: 259–81). While debating the individual dating of each code and drawing lines of dependence is not congruent with the synchronic focus of this study, the hermeneutical disputes surrounding the precise instructions given by the codes and the possibility of their harmonization are relevant and deserve serious interaction. Two such issues must be considered: the place of females and the unique material in Leviticus.

Deuteronomy 15:12 and 17 insert notices that female slaves should receive the same seventh year release benefits and permanent service markings that are seemingly given exclusively to males in Exodus 21:2–6. Some would read Deuteronomy as polemically responding to Exodus on this point and negating the marriage-slavery provisions of Exodus 21:7–11. Chirichigno, however, on the basis of similar laws in ancient Nuzi tablets argues that Exodus 21:7–11 was specifically concerned with a type of “marriage contract,” the situation in which a woman is sold into concubinage, as opposed to the non-sexual household labor assumed by Exodus 21:2–6 and Deuteronomy 15:12–18 (Chirichigno: 246–54). He concludes that the slave regulations of Deuteronomy do not overrule those found in Exodus 21:7–11, as Deuteronomy “most likely did not abrogate this institution” of “the sale of a free-born Israelite daughter as a wife or concubine” (Chirichigno: 282). This is supported by Christensen, who states regarding Deuteronomy 15:12, “The equal treatment of the sexes … does not indicate that the law here supersedes that of Exod 21:7–11, which refers only to sale for the purpose of marriage” (Christenson: 320).

The main difficulty posed by Leviticus 25:40 is the apparent disparity in the number of years before a debt-slave can be released, with the 49-year cycle of the “year of jubilee” being the key time, not a fixed seven year period, as in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Key to understanding Leviticus 25:39–43 is noting the specific situation being addressed, which seems to be the enslavement of the head of a household along with his family, not just an isolated person. This seems unavoidable from the presence of the phrase “he and his sons with him” in v 41. Chirichigno describes the gap between this and the circumstances described in Exodus and Deuteronomy, stating, “This law clearly refers to the head of a nuclear or extended family who is forced to enter into servitude with his family (v 41). This law is different from those manumission laws [of Exodus and Deuteronomy] … both of which refer to the sale of dependents by their family” (Chirichigno: 330). In this case, the jubilee return makes perfect sense; a family would regain their freedom and their land (v 41: “to the possession of their fathers”) at the same time. In comparison, Exodus 21:3 speaks to the situations of a slave who either stays single or is married and childless, and Exodus 21:4 portrays a scenario in which a man marries and has children while in slavery. This is supported by Schenker, who states, “Exodus does not consider the case where a debt-slave is bought and sold together with his children, while Leviticus 25 precisely deals with this case” (Schenker: 33). He further elaborates a convincing synthesis of the debt-slavery codes of the Pentateuch:

Genesis 47:13–26 in the Context of the Pentateuchal Slave Laws

Exodus 21:2–6 prescribes the mandatory release of a male Hebrew debt-slave (but not a wife and/or resultant children given to him by his master) after six years of service, with an option of making the enslavement permanent if the slave so desires. This year of release constitutes a genuine divergence from Joseph's policies, showing there was an ideal of making the state of servitude temporary and that it would come to an end. (Compare Genesis 47:26, “and it stands to this day.”) Significantly, this impetus toward release does assume that the newly freed slave would be capable of sustaining himself by other means. Joseph's overhaul of the country's entire economy would have made this kind of resumption of individual sufficiency impossible. Nonetheless, the allowance made by the law for making the enslavement permanent must show that for some this state was nonobjectionable, and this must be considered as well. Also Joseph, by enslaving an entire population, did not potentially divide families created in servitude, as in the scenarios described in Exodus 21:4.

Leviticus 25 outlines a process of a family sinking into progressively more desperate financial straits, not entirely unlike the process recorded in Genesis 47. Leviticus 25:23–28 states that if a poor man has to sell some of his land, he always has the right to redeem it. (Also, it will eventually be given back in the jubilee). This contrasts with Joseph's permanent economic alterations, particularly his land seizure; the movement here is toward people keeping their land, or being able to regain it. Leviticus, however, portrays the land being bought back through the generosity of friends and family, not crown relief.

Leviticus 25:35–38 addresses the case of a fellow Israelite who has fallen on hard times; he is to be treated as a “stranger” and a “sojourner.” Verses 36 and 37 prohibit lending money on interest to such a man. Verse 37 states, “nor give him your food for profit.” This contrasts with Joseph's use of food as a bargaining chip to gain the money, animals, land, and bodies of the Egyptians.

Next, Leviticus 25:39–43 covers the situation where a man sells himself (“he sells himself to you”) due to economic impoverishment. After the instructions for the release in the jubilee year and return to the family land possession are given in vv 40–41, a lengthy motivation clause is provided by vv 42–43. In comparison with the instructions for dealing with individual slaves in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the enslavement of an entire family addressed in Leviticus is somewhat closer to the national enslavement of Genesis 47. Leviticus 25:39–40 specifically states this family leader is not to be treated as a slave [ebed] (contrast Genesis 47:25 “we will be ebedim ‘slaves’ to Pharaoh,”) but instead as a sojourner, as in the scenarios addressed above. Next, the release from the state of servitude and the return of the family to their ancestral land in the year of jubilee is effectively a reversal of Joseph's policies.

In Deuteronomy 15:12–18, a contrast is created when comparing the blessing provisions described in vv 13b–14 with the process of enslavement in Genesis 47. A departing slave is to be liberally gifted with livestock (tson); this contrasts with the trading away of livestock in desperation for food that happened in Genesis 47:17 (tson was one of the several categories of animals the Egyptians are said to have given to Joseph). While the word for “threshing floor” (goren) does not appear in Genesis 47, food/grain was something that was used as a bargaining piece that caused people to surrender all their money, cattle, land, and selves. Deuteronomy 15:14, “you shall give to him,” is the opposite of the direction of resource distribution in Genesis 47. Also, it is interesting to note how in Deuteronomy 15:15 there is a preponderance of the use of the second person in the motivation clause (“You were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you”) placing the emphasis on how the wealthy landowner was once a slave in Egypt, rescued by God, and stands responsible for how he treats those in need; Joseph likewise was once a slave who came to be a slave holder.

1 Samuel 8:11–18

A significant occurrence of the topic of slavery is found in 1 Samuel 8:11–18, Samuel's list of dire warnings about the perils of having a king like the other nations. Among the potential dangers of electing a king he lists the use of the people's children in his service (vv 11–13), the seizure of their lands and crops (vv 14–15), the seizure of their servants and flocks (vv 16–17), and most significantly, in v 17, that the people would become slaves of the king.

Using the verb laqah (“take”) four times, Samuel emphasizes how a king would seize various assets that belonged to the Israelites. Parallels between things that the king was said to seize and things the Egyptians gave up or suffered dearly to obtain in Genesis 47:13–26 include fields (Gen 47:20/1 Sam 8:14), grain/seed (Gen 47:19, 23, 24/1 Sam 8:15), donkeys (Gen 47:17/1 Sam 8:16), and flocks (Gen 47:17, 21/1 Sam 8:17). Additionally, the phrase used in v 17 to prophesy the king's enslavement of the Israelites uses the same l (“to”) preposition + ‘badiym (“slaves”) construction found in the Samaritan Pentateuch reading of Genesis 47:21. (Also compare the pledges of the Egyptians that they will be slaves of the crown in Genesis 47:19 and v 25 using the verb hayah [“to be”] and ‘badiym [“slaves”].) In 1 Samuel 8 the Israelites are threatened with having to turn over a tenth of their grain and vineyards (v 15) and their flocks (v 17). Interestingly, the verb used in these two verses, ‘asar (“take the tenth”), is elsewhere used in Jacob's vow to God in Genesis 28:22, Levitical tithing regulations in Deuteronomy 14:22 and 26:12, and the renewing of the practice of the tithe in Nehemiah 10:38, 39. This possibly may suggest that the kingly behavior described here was a wrongly monarchal appropriation of a donation that was meant for the house of God.

In the relation of 1 Samuel 8 and Genesis 47, the question must be asked how the bridge is being crossed between Joseph's (functioning as part of the Egyptian government) treatment of the Egyptians and the Hebrews and a later political situation involving intra-Israelite subservience. Additionally, while 1 Samuel 8:11–18 repeatedly emphasizes the future king's “taking” things belonging to the Israelites, the progression of verbs in Genesis 47 is rather cluttered with terms such as “give,” “buy,” and “sell,” which throughout emphasize (at least after the initial exchange of vv 15–17) the initiative of the Egyptians in instigating this particular arrangement. Furthermore, the type of slavery referenced in 1 Samuel 8:17 is most generally interpreted as forced labor for building projects, such as that later incorporated by Solomon (Klein 1983: 77–78; Tsumura: 259–60), while as mentioned before, there is no hint of forced labour in Genesis 47, which most clearly resembles debt-slavery. Read canonically, multiple possibilities unfold.

Viewing 1 Samuel 8 as responding to Joseph's treatment of the Egyptians results in Joseph coming off substantially better than the hypothetical king described by Samuel. While Samuel's king only “takes” (giving to his select favorite officials) the bargaining process of Joseph was for the purpose of giving provisions to the Egyptians to get them through the famine. Furthermore, the institution of debt-slavery can hardly be compared to the harshness of forced labor. Nevertheless, the one-fifth tax imposed by Joseph comes off as harsh when a one-tenth tax described by Samuel is intended to be an extreme punishment, and furthermore, Joseph's brothers in Genesis 47 sound suspiciously familiar to the officials mentioned in 1 Samuel 8:14–15 who receive handouts from the king while the rest of their countrymen have property confiscated and are put into slavery. Perhaps the canonical function of 1 Samuel 8 (when read in light of Genesis 47) is to emphasize the cruelty of the future Israelite monarch (primarily his property seizures and forced labor) while simultaneously casting doubt upon the morality of Joseph's tithe and preferential treatment of his brothers.

Thus, one senses a resonance of the loss of property and tax burden suffered by the Egyptians, though as a whole Joseph comes off much better than Samuel's future king. The main point drawn out of this comparison, then, would seem to acknowledge that some aspects of Joseph's policies for the Egyptians were less than ideal. 1 Samuel 8:11–18 would seem for the most part to describe an Israelite king far harsher than Joseph was to the Egyptians, while gazing unfavorably on Joseph's tax system and overall tendency towards the extraction of material resources.

Jeremiah 34

Jeremiah 34 deals quite in depth with the debt-slavery practices of the Israelites during this time. After a recorded prophecy in vv 1–7 promising the imminent destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar but with the prospect of a peaceful death for Zedekiah, an announcement of another prophecy occurs in v 8. Some background information for this prophecy is provided by vv 8–11, which note that King Zedekiah had made a covenant with the people that involved the people promising to release their male and female Hebrew slaves. After a brief time of following this mandate, the people then recaptured their slaves. The content of the prophecy itself, found in vv 13–22 begins with a reminder of the covenant made with the Exodus generation, which included the (possibly oft-transgressed?) mandate to free all Hebrew debt-slaves after six years (vv 13, 14). The decree to free the slaves was a righteous act (v 15) but its breaking constituted profaning God's name (v 16) and as a result judgment and destruction for Jerusalem and its people is described in vv 17–22.

A number of key words and phrases tie this passage to the slave codes of the Mosaic law (Exod 21:2–11; Lev 25:39–55; Deut 15:12–18) and other relevant passages (although the precise details of these connections cannot be covered here). Crucially, although the terminology employed for the legal paraphrase in Jeremiah 34:14 is sometimes exclusive to the laws of either Exodus or Leviticus (Holladay: 240), it is consistently found in Deuteronomy, and thus it would seem that for this “quotation” Jeremiah was primarily relying on Deuteronomy, (though referencing the phrasing of a general seventh-year release text as well as texts more directly dealing with slavery). Nevertheless, his choice of diction is somewhat more freely plucked from other books in vv 8–11.

This section emphasizes the initiative of the slave owners, who themselves were slaves in Egypt, in releasing their slaves. This mixes the idea of release from debt-slavery with the jubilee (a connection already found in Leviticus 25). Therefore, this passage illustrates how seriously the release laws were taken in the eyes of God. The implications of the overwhelming emphasis on Deuteronomic phraseology and vocabulary would seem to point to the specific debt-slavery situation described in Jeremiah 34 being more similar to Deuteronomy 15:12–18 than Exodus 21 or Leviticus 25, while the Levitical jubilee terminology may have been intended to emphasize the importance and significance of the release itself. In summary, Jeremiah 34 clearly shows the importance of following the release laws in debt-slavery, but does not directly attack the institution itself.

Several interesting thematic parallels between Genesis 47 and Jeremiah 34 are worth noting. The kingly participation in Jeremiah 34 is a unique feature, as here the king enacts a covenant to free all of the people's debt-slaves during a time of national unsettlement. This can be compared to the ruling figure of Genesis 47, who progressively trades food for all the people's resources until they are forced to sell themselves into slavery. However, the king of Jeremiah 34 was not indicted for directly enslaving anyone, and Joseph can be compared with the landowners of this passage. Here, the landowners did initially follow the covenant initiative to release their slaves (something Joseph is not recorded as having done), but they then quickly slid away from this attempt at obedience and took their slaves back (a situation not encountered by Joseph). The difficult aspect of this situation is determining the motivation for the people's actions, as the warfare conditions and costs of maintaining slaves would conceivably have presented a deterrent to their upkeep (Keown: 187). Unlike Joseph, who had the means to maintain the people's wellbeing, this choice of the Israelites in Jeremiah 34 seems ill-informed given the siege conditions. In Genesis 47 this economic arrangement is motivated by the hard conditions of the famine, while in Jeremiah 34:17 famine is a punishment promised for the Israelites for their disobedience in the act of taking back their slaves. In Genesis 47 the loss of people's resources is reported as a fact of the situation of the famine (but Joseph's economic arrangement provided for resources to be sent to the crown, which was then able to support the people), while in Jeremiah 34:17 the destruction of the Israelite's property is proclaimed as a curse for their injustice to their own people. The theme of resource distribution can also be detected in Jeremiah 34:22, which warns that enemies will seize and destroy Israel's cities, a fate far worse than the sacrifice of some material resources.

For a somewhat ambiguous conclusion, one must admit that the mandatory release regulations are a genuine advance over the situation of Genesis 47. Additionally, Zedekiah's initiative in freeing the Hebrew slaves can be contrasted with Joseph's initiative in enslaving the populace. Aside from these two factors, which would gaze unfavorably on Joseph's actions, in almost every other way (particularly concerning resource distribution) the actions of Joseph seem quite reasonable and certainly more benevolent than those of the Israelite landowners of Jeremiah 34.

Nehemiah 5:1–13

Nehemiah 5:1–13 describes the intriguing and relevant problem of intra-Israelite debt-slavery faced by the returned Jewish community. Vv 2–5 describe three different groups of people who have been mistreated by being forced to surrender their children to slavery or their lands and property to creditors in order to afford to purchase grain or pay the taxes imposed by the nobility. This enrages Nehemiah (v 6), and he calls a meeting, accusing the nobles of exacting interest from their own people (v 7). He further argues that while he and some of his followers have been attempting to buy back their fellow Jews from foreign enslavement, what the nobles are doing is counterproductive because it simply places the lower classes into enslavement to other Israelites (v 8). Nehemiah then states that this practice goes against the fear of the Lord (v 9), orders an ending to the gathering of interest (v 10), and commands that all seized property must be returned (v 11). The people's response of obedience and Nehemiah's dire warning for those who reneged on their promise are recorded in vv 12–13.

The loss of possessions bemoaned by the people in v 3 points to a situation in which they, as Williamson states, “owned land that they could use as security against a loan to tide them over the period of difficulty” (Williamson: 237). Inability to repay these loans resulted in the loss of fields, vineyards, and houses. This seizure of their assets was a breach of the prohibitions against the permanent loss of such things in Leviticus 25:31–34. Fensham notes that the word translated here as “mortgage” (from the participial form of arab) is used in this way only in this place in Nehemiah, as it more commonly means “surety” or “barter” elsewhere (Fensham: 191).

Regarding v 5, both Blenkinsopp and Williamson make the observation that neither the Jews nor Nehemiah state that the law has been broken, and neither does Nehemiah appeal to the law to enforce correct behavior (Blenkinsopp: 258; Williamson: 239). Debt-slavery as such and even selling one's children into slavery was permissible under the law (Exod 21:2–11; Deut 15:12–18) albeit with the stipulation of a seventh year release (a feature never mentioned in Nehemiah 5). In cases where money is lent to the poor, the exacting of interest is forbidden (Exod 22:24; Lev 25: 36, 37; Deut 23:20, 21; the violation of this ordinance is reported in Nehemiah 5:7, 10), and furthermore anything essential for one's livelihood taken as collateral (the cloak being the prime example of Exodus 22:24–27 and Deuteronomy 24:10–13) cannot simply be seized. From this comparison both Blenkinsopp and Williamson conclude that there was in this case a general concern more for the spirit of the law than the letter of the law (a point they both return to later). As Blenkinsopp states, “procedures permissible in themselves are excluded in the case of the poor, and one of these is forcible seizure of pledges against defaulting” (Blenkinsopp: 258). Central to this claim is the repeated use of “brother,” here placed in the mouths of the Israelites instead of the narrator as in v 1. Reminiscent of the diction of the slave laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, this serves to emphasize the solidarity the Israelites are to have with each other, and brings to mind several passages that use “brother” and would speak harshly of the treatment they are undergoing, such as the passages mentioned above prohibiting exacting interest from an Israelite, as well as the seventh year release command of Deuteronomy 15:2, 3. Based on these passages which directly prohibit exacting interest from a fellow Hebrew or seizing his property permanently, it is not entirely clear that Blenkinsopp's diagnosis that Nehemiah acted on a “traditional ethos, which comes to only partial expression in the law” (Blenkinsopp: 258) is correct. As the issue of the periodic release is not mentioned in this passage, it may be the case that enforcing the practice would be impractical, or that, as Williamson argues, the year was too far away to make possible the necessary righting of wrongs in an acceptable amount of time (Williamson: 238). If so, then there could be legitimate grounds for stating that Nehemiah was in some way going beyond the literal legal code to a more realized application of the purpose of the law (Clines: 111–117; Fishbane: 129–31).

In v 7, the substance of Nehemiah's charge is based on the outrage of the collection of interest from fellow Hebrews, the legal basis of which has been addressed above. It would seem apropos at this time to note that beyond the legal passages of Exodus 22:24; Leviticus 25:36, 37 and Deuteronomy 23:20–21 a number of wisdom and prophetic passages condemn unjust exaction of interest: Ezekiel 18:8, 13, 17; 22:12; Psalm 15:5; Proverbs 28:8. This accusation is further fleshed out in v 8, as Nehemiah notes that while he and his compatriots have been redeeming fellow Jews from slavery to foreign masters (in keeping with the mandate of Leviticus 25:48–49), other Jews have been selling their countrymen into slavery. The wording of this phrase does not clarify whether these Jews are being sold to other Jews or to foreigners (to be later redeemed by other Jews). In any case, this selling of fellow countrymen would violate Leviticus 25:42. The admonition to the fear of God in v 9 recalls the use of this theme in Leviticus 25:17, 36, 43 as a motivational statement for obedience (though in Nehemiah “fear” is cast as a noun rather than a verb). Nehemiah's description of his “lending” money and grain to his fellow Israelites is taken differently by Blenkinsopp and Williamson; for Blenkinsopp, “he is not confessing guilt … he is saying it is possible and necessary to do so without the abuses which they had come to abolish” (Blenkinsopp: 260), while for Williamson, “Nehemiah candidly admits that he, his family … have also been involved in these practices” (Williamson: 240). The use of the first person plural in the next clause (“Let us give back”) would support the theory that Nehemiah is involved in this restoration as well.

The commands for enacting justice are given in v 11: all property and taxes of assets must be returned to those who forfeited them due to debt. This constitutes an annulment of the original loans. Thus Blenkinsopp concludes that Nehemiah's actions in some ways resembled the carrying out of a year of Jubilee, citing the parallels of “fear of God” (noted above), “restitution of ancestral property” (Lev 25:27–28, 41), “prohibition of reducing fellow Israelites to slavery” (Lev 25:39, 46), and “charging interest on loans to the poor” (Lev 25:36) (Blenkinsopp: 259). It may be worth noting that 1 Samuel 8:14 lists fields, vineyards and olive orchards as things that an unjust ruler would confiscate. In conclusion, while only indirectly alluding to the commandments of the Mosaic law, Nehemiah enforces its strictures and possibly applies it in a way that transcends a wooden application.

Nehemiah 5 contains a number of features that parallel the situation described in Genesis 47: Desperate times created by a famine, the dire necessity of obtaining food/grain, some form of a tax, the seizure of fields for payment of debts, and eventual enslavement for debts. One of the most striking contrasts is the response of the common people. While the Egyptians seem to accept their fate of loss of resources and servitude (after the initial request for a handout in Genesis 47:15), the Israelites find similar circumstances to be unacceptable. Likewise, while acknowledging the discontinuities between the regal position of Joseph and the position of Nehemiah, Nehemiah becomes angry when he learns of this extraction of fields and even people as slaves, demanding reparations, while Joseph is directly responsible for the withholding of resources for food. However, as a cautionary note it should be realized that the outright seizure of lands and houses leading to dispossession in Nehemiah would have looked somewhat different from the implementation of the semi-feudal system described in Genesis 47. Additionally, it seems as though the Israelites in Nehemiah 5 were selling off their children into debt-slavery, while entire families (or the nation as a whole) were taken into debt-slavery in Genesis 47. There is no charging of interest in Genesis 47. Significantly, Nehemiah seems to emphasize generosity to a greater degree than does Joseph. In fact, Nehemiah's actions are virtually the opposite of those of Joseph; while Joseph leads a nation desperate for food into debt-slavery and loss of their property, Nehemiah commandeers a reversal of a somewhat analogous situation, setting people free from their creditors and making it possible for them to obtain food without entering a cycle of bondage to lenders. Once again, it is this theme of resource distribution that seems to emerge in the context of situations involving debt-slavery.

If Joseph is compared to the nobles (Neh 5:7), however, then Nehemiah's accusations would seem to apply against him. In a famine situation where people were desperate for food, he confiscated their other material resources and eventually their property and bodies due to their need to survive. The only difference is that he carried it out on a grand scale as opposed to the situation in Nehemiah. Another intriguing shared feature is the appearance of priests near the end of each account. In Genesis 47:22, 26 the narrator mentions that the Egyptian priests are exempt from the land buyout and receive an allowance from the crown, while in Nehemiah 5:12 the priests join with the others in pledging that they will not be complicit in the extortion of the common people. Therefore, in many ways Nehemiah 5 significantly contrasts with Genesis 47, as it depicts the overturning of a somewhat similar situation, and it is primarily in the realm of resource distribution that Joseph compares poorly with Nehemiah.

Conclusions

The key point emerging from a comparison of the slave materials of the Pentateuch with Genesis 47 is not so much the morality of the institution of slavery itself as it is the spirit behind the distribution of material resources to the impoverished and to departing slaves. This supports my thesis that when read in the broader context of passages dealing with slavery, the practices of Joseph in Genesis 47 are not culpable on the basis of his employment of debt-slavery, but seem less than ideal in the area of resource distribution. The principal texts from the prophets and writings that this study found fruitful for comparison with Genesis 47:13–26 were 1 Samuel 8, Jeremiah 34, and Nehemiah 5. In many cases the purpose and application of Joseph's debt-slavery was for the most part more benevolent than the situations described in these texts, but the theme of resource distribution persistently reappeared in ways that would contrast between the effect of the depletion of the Egyptian population in Genesis 47:13–26 and the overall impetus and imperative towards charitable and generous resource distribution mandated throughout relevant slavery passages in the prophets and writings. Additionally, the stress placed on the release of slaves in Jeremiah 34 shows Joseph's actions to be deficient in this area. There, these findings demonstrate that when read in the broader context of slavery materials in the Prophets and Writings, Joseph's enslavement of the population was non-objectionable but his resource distribution practices were less than ideal.