How to handle success well? (Gen 41:37-57)

The story of pastors leading megachurches or tele-evangelists who acquire world-wide fame and enormous success and then fall into sin has become almost a cliché these days. Handling the adulation of the masses, living with others’ worshipful deferment to their leader, the assumption that those leaders can do no wrong can become exhilarating to the point where leaders no longer distinguish between how they are seen by others and what they really are. While this kind of pattern is particularly noticeable in leaders who reach great heights, it is a temptation that we are all susceptible to. Success, the improvement of our circumstances, be it emotionally or financially, is one that can go to our head. Israel on the threshold of the Promised Land will be later admonished never to forget where they have come from and how they needed to depend on God in the desert, otherwise they might start thinking that their prosperity in the land is their own doing (Deut 8:11-20).

From rags to riches

Joseph is a good example of this pattern that God seems to take His people through to help their process of remembering Him. It often starts with humiliation before exaltation. For Joseph, this took thirteen years of slavery in a foreign land, some of it involving imprisonment (Gen 41:46 cf. 37:2). But now, there is a dramatic change in his circumstances. His exact position in the Egyptian hierarchy is somewhat debated (was he prime minister, master of Pharaoh’s palace or something else?), but his great power is not in question (Gen 41:40-41, 43-44). The symbols of his authority are recognisable from contemporary Egyptian accounts of high officials. Pharaoh’s signet ring would give Joseph power to authorise decisions, wearing fine linen garments and a gold necklace were symbols of Pharaoh’s approval and his reward of those who did him great service (Gen 41:42). Likewise, riding around in a chariot would have been a status symbol (v.43). Being given an Egyptian name and a wife from a powerful priestly family signals Joseph’s acceptance into the upper echelons of Egyptian society.[1]

How Joseph handled success

Egypt’s bumper crop that is beyond measure finds its counterpart in Joseph’s fruitfulness as his family grows (Gen 41:46-49, 50-52). Once again, the promises to Abraham of blessing on him and his descendants and blessing on those who bless them (Gen 12:2-3) implicitly surface in this description. Not only that, but when famine comes, this great-grandson of Abraham will become a source of blessing, even deliverance and life, as he provides grain for those in the land and beyond (Gen 41:55-57). We get a window into how Joseph lived through these years and handled his success through the naming of his sons (Gen 41:51-52). In both names, he acknowledges God as the author of his success and fruitfulness. Yet in a strange way, it is also a window into his prior suffering. He lived through trouble and although Manasseh means ‘making to forget’, ironically, he would recall his former trouble and his family every time he said his son’s name. God has made it up for him and in that sense he was made to forget his former deprivation, but his testimony is a form of remembering where he came from and that God has brought him out of it. Likewise, Ephraim (‘fruitfulness’) is an acknowledgement of God as well as a reminder of suffering in a land that is not home.

Acknowledging God

The point then is that the source of success, God, must be acknowledged and one’s former humble circumstances remembered. This is no unhealthy dwelling on suffering and need, but a joyful recognition that the Lord has brought about the change. Whether in the wilderness of difficulty or in the land of plenty, we depend on God who is the source of all good things in our lives. Those who recognise this are the ones who can handle success and become a source of life-giving blessing for others. This pattern, of course, is most well-known from the NT, evident in Jesus’ humbling on the cross and exaltation in his resurrection bringing us salvation and life (Phil 2:5-11). It is, however, the pattern that we as Christians are called to follow, too (v.5).

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[1] On, or what later Greeks called Heliopolis, was the place of sun-worship, the dominant and national form of worship in Egypt. What Joseph’s name means in Egyptian is uncertain. Perhaps something like ‘God speaks; he lives’. Although intermarrying with women from other nations is frowned on even as early as the patriarchal narratives, no blame is attached to Joseph marrying an Egyptian woman (nor Moses later taking a Midianite wife; Exod 2:21). It seems that the disapproval against intermarriage at this stage is particularly strong against Canaanite women, i.e. the ones local within the Promised Land.

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