Joseph in the Bible, Why Are the Hyksos Significant?

Jealousy consumed Joseph’s ten older brothers. Their father, Jacob, obviously loved Joseph best. Jacob had given Joseph a special long robe with sleeves made of many colors. This was an unheard-of luxury in a family of shepherds. It was a coat most likely to be worn by nobles.

To add to their annoyance, Joseph had dreamed his brothers would someday bow down to him. 

When Joseph visited them in a place far from home, the brothers resolved to rid themselves of their pesky little brother.

The Ishmaelites, who bought Joseph for twenty pieces of silver traveled to Egypt. They would sell Joseph into slavery. Little did the brothers realize they had just set in motion God’s plan to save them and their families. 

Shortly before Joseph’s arrival in Egypt, the Hyksos had conquered northern (lower) Egypt. The new rulers were a collection of Semitic tribes from Palestine and Canaan.

Unlike the original inhabitants of Egypt, these Semites were distant relatives of Joseph’s family. Semites, like Abraham’s family, were shepherds and farmers.

Known as the ‘Shepherd Kings,’ the Hyksos ruled Egypt from approximately 1730 until 1580 BC. They settled just north of the Red Sea. The fertile plains of the Nile Delta were perfect for their agricultural lifestyle. 

Having the Hyksos rule northern Egypt during this time was important to God’s plans. The ancient Egyptians detested Semites and had no respect for shepherds. (Genesis 46:34)

To learn more about the Hyksos, see: Hyksos Invasion of Egypt

Joseph was fortunate to arrive in Egypt during the Hyksos reign. Joseph’s fate might have been very different under the original Egyptian pharaohs.

A Hyksos captain of the guard named Potiphar purchased Joseph. In time, Joseph became his chief steward. False accusations by Potiphar’s wife resulted in Joseph’s imprisonment.

Joseph might have felt God had abandoned him. I know sometimes I feel like that. However, God had a plan enabled by Joseph being in prison. We need to remember that sometimes the Lord has plans for us we can’t see. We must trust God the way Joseph did.

In prison, Joseph gained a reputation for accurately interpreting dreams. Pharaoh had a dream that he wanted interpreted. The Pharaoh summoned Joseph. Pharaoh’s dream prophesied seven years of bountiful crops, followed by seven years of famine. 

Joseph proposed that Pharaoh collect one-fifth of the harvest during the seven plenteous years and store food for the seven years of famine. Afterward, Pharaoh decided Joseph was the right man for the job of collecting and later distributing the food. Pharaoh declared, “Thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled. Only in the throne will I be greater than thee.” 

Therefore, Joseph became Grand Viceroy. (Prime Minister) Because the Hyksos were of Semitic origin, they welcomed a talented young Semite into their administration.

Israel (Joseph’s father) heard there was food in Egypt. Because Israel’s family were farmers and shepherds, the famine was a major hardship. So, he sent ten of his sons to buy grain. They were required to ask permission from the Viceroy of Egypt (Joseph). The brothers did not know they were fulfilling Joseph’s dream as they bowed down to the Egyptian viceroy. 

Joseph knew the famine would last many more years. He gained permission from the pharaoh to bring his family to Egypt.

Joseph settled his family in a part of the Nile delta known as Goshen. Goshen was a land of lush, well-watered fields where their herds could prosper. The Hebrews later cultivated the land, growing emmer wheat and barley used to make bread and brew beer. Both staples of the Egyptian diet.

The Bible tells us: everything works together for good to those who love the Lord. (Romans 8:28) This seems to have been true for Joseph and his father.

The Hyksos ruled Egypt from approximately 1730 until 1580 BC. Archaeologists have struggled with this time period in Egyptian history.

The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers. All except this specific time period. According to Werner Keller, The Bible as History, P. 86 “Archaeologists have discovered neither documents nor monuments from this whole period. The records, which showed hardly a break for centuries, suddenly stopped in 1730 BC. From then on, for a long time, an impenetrable darkness lay over Egypt. Not before 1580 BC did contemporary evidence appear once again.” 

The ancient Egyptians despised the Hyksos. They loathed the idea that these foreign rulers had dominated them for 150 years. No wonder they wanted to erase this part of their history. 

Cleon Skousen in *The Third Thousand Years*, p. 95, states: “When the Egyptians finally drove out the Hyksos, they could be expected to smash their monuments, burn their records, deface their stone-carved histories, and eventually wipe out every trace of the hated foreigners.” Somewhere in the havoc and shambles of that deliberate, methodical destruction was the remarkable story of the Hebrew Viceroy of Egypt named Joseph.” 

After conquering the Hyksos, the victors left their capital city of Avaris to crumble into the Nile and the Nile to silt over it. Later, the Egyptians built their new capital atop the ruins. In this way, the Hyksos and the story of Joseph became a forgotten chapter of Egyptian history.

The only archeological evidence that Joseph was ever in Egypt is a 200-mile irrigation canal named Bahr Yusef or Joseph’s Canal.

Recently, at the Tell of Daba, an archaeologist found a statue of an Asiatic (Hyksos) ruler. While someone destroyed the face, the clothing and mushroom hairstyle clearly show Semitic influence.