[Teachldsseminary] Joseph and marrying in the covenant

[Linda Harper]

This is an excerpt  that gives a good historical background of Egypt at the
time.  It's from Elder Mark E. Peterson: Moses, man of Miracles in the
chapter:  Israel in Egypt 1977 Deseret Book Company


It is of importance to note that Joseph married Asenath, a Semite girl of
the Hyksos tribe and a daughter of Potipherah, a priest in the Hyksos
regime. Therefore, she was not of Egyptian blood, but Semite. Joseph also
was a Semite, so he married within his own race. 

The pharaoh of this period, it will be remembered, was exceptionally kind to
Jacob, the father of Joseph, and to Jacob's entire family. He gave them one
of his choice agricultural areas, Goshen, where they grew and thrived. 

The pharaoh's great kindness to Jacob may also be related to the fact that
Jacob was a Semite in a foreign land, as of course was his son Joseph. It is
therefore not to be wondered at that pharaoh would authorize an expensive
funeral procession back to Semite Palestine where the Semite Jacob was to be
buried. Jacob is believed to have died about 1689 B.C. This was some forty
years after the invasion by the Hyksos and about ten years after the arrival
of Joseph in Egypt. 

The Bible speaks of one pharaoh "who knew not Joseph." This is an
interesting commentary, and it is related to an important event in Egyptian
history. 

In 1567 B.C. one of the weak regional rulers, Ahmosis, an Egyptian vassal
king who had been tolerated by the Hyksos because of his supposed weakness,
began a war of liberation. So great was the hatred of the populace toward
the Hyksos, and so universally did they respond to the attempt at
liberation, that they united in a mighty effort that eventually drove the
Hyksos out of the country. 

This gave rise to the XVIII Dynasty and what is known as the New Kingdom. A
revived spirit of liberation and hope swept through Egypt. All thought of
further submission to any foreign power was gone. Native Egyptian pharaohs
now came into power; and one of them, the great Thutmosis III, determined,
as we would say in our day, that the best defense is a strong offense. He
thereupon decided to conquer the world and nearly did so. His armies drove
through Palestine, beyond the great bend in the Euphrates, and over-ran
Syria. By the time Amenophis III came to the throne, Egypt was dominant in
that entire portion of the world. It was into such an age that Moses was
born.

These new pharaohs, wholly Egyptian and completely hateful toward the Semite
Hyksos, and all Semites for that matter, were the pharaohs that "knew not
Joseph." It was by them that the Israelites-"alien" Semites that they
were-had been placed under bondage.