I have an unpopular opinion about one the Bible's most celebrated heroes. And sure, he was overall a good person, but he unfortunately laid the groundwork for the later enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt.
That man was Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.
To understand what I mean, you have to look past his rise to power in Egypt. Joseph was able to properly interpret the dreams of Pharaoh and this allowed him to be second in command to Pharaoh. Not a bad gig considering he was just a prisoner on the morning he was escorted to the royal chambers.
But what he did next would ultimately lay the groundwork for the enslavement of his family.
For seven years, Joseph had one fifth of the grain produced by the Egyptians confiscated and stored away for the coming seven years of famine that God had revealed to Pharaoh via his dreams. Nothing wrong with this, after all it was to save the lives of Egypt and the surrounding nations that might end up being affected by the famine.
Then the famine hit. And so, Joseph's family came to Egypt to buy grain since there was so much stored in Egypt that it could not be counted.
And thus Joseph was reunited with his family and Pharaoh had his entire family move down to Egypt. Joseph told his father and brothers, however, that they needed to ask to settle in Goshen since they were sheep and goat herders. Raising livestock was apparently the lowest task in Egypt, usually reserved for the dregs of society.
When Jacob and his family appeared before Pharaoh, Pharaoh granted them the "privilege" of raising Pharaoh's own livestock. This is an important point for what comes later. Of course, we can assume that Jacob's family was given grain from the stores without having to pay for it since they were relatives of not-quite-Pharaoh.
What Joseph does next is what probably sealed the deal for future enslavement. During the famine, the Egyptians were forced to pay for their grain rations from Pharaoh's stores. And when the money ran out, they gave up their livestock to Pharaoh. Then, ultimately, they became slaves to Pharaoh. All of them.
A foreigner came into their country, became second to the king, took their grain, then sold it back to them in exchange for their freedom. And he took all their goats and sheep and had his own family raise them. Because at this point, all the livestock was owned by Pharaoh and Pharaoh's livestock was now in the hands of Jacob and his family.
And while much of this benefited Pharaoh, I doubt his family felt the same. Eventually, I'm sure a member of the royal family rose up and rallied the natives against the foreign invaders who had swindled them out of their livelihoods and futures.
You may point out that this is how people behaved back then and that I'm looking at it through rose-colored glasses. And while that may be true, there is one thing that bothers me. This is the fact that when God passed the law unto Moses a few centuries later, He made sure to require that the Israelites not deprive others of their livelihoods and that all debts would be forgiven at specific periods of time. In other words, this is the opposite of what Joseph himself did to the Egyptians.
If Joseph had simply rationed the grain to the native Egyptians during the famine and charged foreigners for it, the Israelites may very well have not been enslaved a century or two later.
Were they wrong to be enslaved? Yes they were. But what Joseph did to the Egyptians was also wrong and he is responsible for their misery down the line.