After Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams in Genesis 41 and he was given authority over all of Egypt, Pharaoh also gave him a wife: Asenath, the daughter of a pagan Egyptian priest. I like to think that Asenath abandoned her father’s religion in favor of Joseph’s, but Scripture doesn’t tell us, and extra-biblical traditions can’t be trusted. Asenath’s relationship with YHWH is ambiguous.
The principle behind Deuteronomy 7:1-6 forbids marriage to pagans as Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 7 and 2 Corinthians 6. Yet when Jacob discovers this later, he offers no rebuke, neither does Moses nor God anywhere in Scripture. In fact, Joseph’s sons by Asenath were embraced by Jacob and adopted as heirs as if they were his own sons.
One could say that Joseph should have refused marriage to Asenath on the basis that it violated the laws of God, but there were at least two factors that could have prevented him from doing so:
- First, he knew at this point that his mission was to save Egypt. If he refused Pharaoh’s orders, would he have jeopardized his ability to carry that out?
- Second, it’s important to remember that Joseph, despite being made prime minister of the most powerful nation on earth at the time, remained a slave. He might not have believed he had the power to refuse.
There is perhaps another factor.
Egypt is a prophetic stand-in for the whole world. Joseph was a prophet and might have been aware that his entire life–his dreams, coat, betrayal, burial, “resurrection”, and ascent to the throne–was prophetic of a future Messiah who would save his people from a spiritual famine and make that salvation available to the whole world.
Contrary to much Christian teaching today, the Bride of Christ is not a new thing created in Acts 2, but the continuation of something that God promised to Abraham and created at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Israel, including the natural descendants of Abraham according to the promise through Isaac as well as those from among the nations who join Israel and obey Israel’s God, is and has always been the Bride of Christ.
In the time of Yeshua’s first incarnation, the natural descendants of Jacob were scattered across the known world, many of them completely unaware of their genetic heritage, not unlike today. Even those who called themselves Jews and lived in Judea were following a man-made religion more than they were following the commandments of YHWH. Those Gentiles who put their faith in Israel’s Messiah and repented from their paganism also become members of the Body of Christ.
Together, the Jews who returned to God’s instructions and the Gentile believers who rejected the pagan lies of their forefathers, are like Asenath, the daughter of a pagan priest married to the Savior of Israel. Asenath was a living prophecy of the faithful remnant of Israel and the adoption of a mixed multitude from among the nations.
