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The Pharaoh Who Came After Joseph Remembered Nothing

Joseph saved Egypt and Israel lived there in peace until a new Pharaoh rose who chose not to remember. The drowning decree came before the whips.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Inheritance Joseph Left Behind
  2. The New Pharaoh and the Decree of Drowning
  3. What God Saw
  4. The Forgetting That Broke the World

The Inheritance Joseph Left Behind

The Israelites had saved Egypt. That is where the story of the Exodus begins. Not with the plagues, not with the whips, but with the generation that decided to forget what Joseph had done.

Joseph had read Pharaoh's dreams when no one else could. Seven fat years, seven lean. He had organized the granaries, rationed the food, kept Egypt from collapse while the ancient Near East starved around it. Pharaoh made him second-in-command. The Israelites prospered in Goshen. They grew. They multiplied. For generations, the memory of Joseph's service was the currency that bought Israel's safety in a foreign land.

The New Pharaoh and the Decree of Drowning

Then a new Pharaoh rose. Legends of the Jews, drawing on the Babylonian Talmud and earlier midrashic collections, is direct: the new Pharaoh was not merely indifferent. He was worse than the old one. He looked at the growing population of Israelites and made a political calculation. Their numbers were a threat. Their presence was a risk. The memory of Joseph was inconvenient.

The first decree was not forced labor. It was drowning. The Book of Jubilees records the command in its starkest form: Pharaoh issued an order that all male children born to the Hebrews were to be cast into the Nile. This continued for seven months before Moses was born. For seven months, Hebrew mothers watched their sons killed the moment they drew breath, and then the eighth month came, and Yocheved gave birth to the child she would hide for three more months before the river took him in a different way.

What God Saw

The Israelites were not silent under all of this. They cried out. Their groaning went up from the brick pits and the riverside and the houses where mothers concealed newborns behind grain sacks and under blankets. God saw the burden. God saw the heavy work. The Legends tradition is careful to note that God's response was not primarily a reward for righteousness. The Israelites were not full of good deeds at this point. They were empty, ground down by years of oppression, their observance compromised by proximity to Egypt's practices. God moved toward them anyway, because the covenant was older than their faithfulness, and the promise made to Abraham had not expired.

The Forgetting That Broke the World

There is something precise about the kind of evil the new Pharaoh represents. He was not ignorant of Joseph. He chose not to know. That is the sharper thing. A new king who knew nothing of Joseph might be dangerous out of simple ignorance. The tradition suggests something more calculated: a deliberate abandonment of obligation, a decision to treat gratitude as a liability and memory as a burden.

What followed from that decision took generations to play out. The bricks, the mortar, the drowning decree, the midwives who feared God more than they feared Pharaoh, Moses hidden in the reeds, the burning bush, the plagues, the sea. All of it begins with a Pharaoh who looked at a people his kingdom owed its survival to, and decided to enslave them instead.

PharaohMosesEgyptBondageExodusJoseph
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Book of Jubilees 47:6Book of Jubilees

The familiar story is this: Pharaoh, gripped by fear of the Israelites' growing numbers, decrees that all newborn Hebrew boys be cast into the Nile. A brutal, heartbreaking command. And as the Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that retells and expands upon the biblical narrative, specifically Chapter 47, tells us, this wasn't a fleeting moment of terror. This went on.

“And Pharaoh, king of Egypt, issued a command regarding them that they should cast all their male children which were born into the river.” The text says, “And they cast them in for seven months until the day that thou wast born.” Seven months of unimaginable grief and fear.

Then Moses is born. His mother, Yocheved, bravely hides him for three months, a risky act of defiance fueled by a mother's love. But inevitably, she can no longer conceal him.

So, what does she do? She builds an ark. Not the massive ark of Noah, of course, but a small, protective basket. She covers it with pitch (kopher) and asphalt (zefet), sealing it against the waters of the Nile. She places the baby Moses in this tiny vessel.

And here's where the Book of Jubilees adds some beautiful, intimate details: "and placed it in the flags on the bank of the river, and she placed thee in it seven days, and thy mother came by night and suckled thee, and by day Miriam, thy sister, guarded thee from the birds."

Seven days. Seven days of Yocheved sneaking to the riverbank under the cover of darkness to feed her baby. Seven days of young Miriam, watchful and brave, protecting her little brother from danger. The sheer dedication, the unwavering love, the palpable fear. These are not just names in a story; they are people. Yocheved, driven by maternal instinct and faith. Miriam, stepping up to protect her family in the face of unimaginable adversity.

This passage in Jubilees gives us a more human, visceral understanding of the Moses story. It's a reminder that even the greatest leaders have humble beginnings, and that their journeys are often shaped by the love and sacrifice of those around them. It transforms a familiar narrative into a poignant evidence of family, faith, and the enduring power of hope in the face of despair. It also emphasizes the important role Miriam played in the Exodus story.

What does this little peek behind the curtain tell us? Perhaps that even in the darkest of times, acts of love and courage, no matter how small they may seem, can have a profound and lasting impact. And that sometimes, the greatest heroes are not those who wield power, but those who protect and nurture life in the face of overwhelming odds.

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Legends of the Jews 4:147Legends of the Jews

They were enslaved, toiling under Pharaoh’s harsh rule. They’d hoped things would get better when he died, maybe his son would be more merciful. But nope. The new Pharaoh? Even worse than the old one. They were groaning under the weight of their suffering.

God saw it all.

The text says, "And God saw the burden of the children of Israel, and their heavy work, and He determined to deliver them." A simple statement, but packed with so much meaning. He didn't just notice their suffering; He saw it. He understood the depth of their pain, the weight of their oppression. And He decided to act.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. It wasn't exactly because they deserved it. The text is pretty blunt about this! It wasn’t for their own righteousness. They "were empty of good deeds," as it says in Legends of the Jews. God knew they’d mess up. He even knew they'd build and worship the golden calf (Ginzberg). Can you imagine? Knowing all that, He still chose to redeem them.

So why did He do it?

Well, the text gives us two reasons. First, He remembered His covenant with the Fathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A promise is a promise. A covenant is even more than that. It's a sacred bond.

And second, He looked upon their teshuvah, their repentance. Teshuvah is a powerful word, meaning not just regret, but a turning, a return. It indicates they were sorry for their sins, and they promised to follow God’s word once they were free (Ginzberg). They made this promise even before they heard the Ten Commandments! That's some serious commitment. He accepted their promise, their sincere intention, "to fulfil the word of God after their going forth from Egypt even before they should hear it."

So, think about that. Even when we're at our lowest, even when we're not exactly deserving, there's still hope. God sees our suffering. He remembers His promises. And He values our sincere desire to turn towards Him. Maybe, just maybe, that's enough to spark redemption.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 162:11Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Another interpretation: that the theaters and circuses were filled with them. Immediately they decreed against them that they should keep apart from them. "And there arose a new king over Egypt" (Exodus 1:8). Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Was he really a new king? Rather, he made new against them decrees of calamity. Another interpretation: he was the same Pharaoh as before, except that they said to him, "Come, let us scheme against this nation." He said to them, "Until now we have lived off what is theirs, and shall we scheme against them? Were it not for Joseph, those men would have no hands." Immediately they brought him down from his throne for three months, and when he saw this he said to them, "Whatever you say, I will obey you," therefore "there arose a new king." The prophet said, "They have dealt treacherously against the LORD, for they have begotten strange children" (Hosea 5:7), for they would bear children and not circumcise them. "Now shall the new moon [chodesh] devour them," "new" is written, "there arose a new [chadash] king." "Who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8), he did not recognize Joseph. To what is the matter compared? To one who stoned the statue of a duke. The king said, "Take him and cut off his head. Today he did this to that one, tomorrow he will do the like to me." The Holy One, blessed be He, said: now "he did not know Joseph," tomorrow he will say "I do not know the LORD" (Exodus 5:2).

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