Kavanot: פרשת מקץ תשפ״ה

After 13 years a slave, Yosef is made viceroy of Egypt and gets a new name.

This is very common in תנ״ך: with a promotion or change in status comes a new name (think of אברם becoming אברהם). And it’s still true today; when I graduated medical school I became Doctor Wachsstock.

The question is, what does his new name mean? The Torah tells us (בראשית יז:ה)‎ והיה שמך אברהם כי אב המון גוים נתתיך. ”Doctor“ means “teacher”, which I guess fits. Note that the new name reflects “folk etymology”; it sounds close to the intended meaning, not that it literally comes from that root.

Onkelos translates צפנת פענח as “revealer of secrets”:

צפנת from צפון, ”hidden“, makes sense. But פענח is a hapax legomenon.

So the Midrash says it’s a portmanteau word.

This all assumes that צפנת פענח is a Hebrew phrase. Since I doubt Pharaoh would give him a Hebrew name (but see Ramban who disagrees), that implies that צפנת פענח is a translation of the actual, Egyptian name. The other possibility is that צפנת פענח is Egyptian, and what we have in the Torah is a transliteration of the original. Ibn Ezra makes that point:

The JPS assumes it is a transliteration:

But that obviously is a guess, and doesn’t seem to fit the story. I figured I could guess as well, and I looked at a Hieroglyphics dictionary:

The אם למקרא, a 19th century Italian academic commentary by הרב אליהו בן אמוזג, synthesizes the two approaches:

In other words, צפנת פענח is a loose transliteration into (obscure, but still real) Hebrew words that have a similar meaning.

I like that last one. But the truth is that we know nothing. But that very fact is odd. When someone gets a name change, it usually comes with an explanation. I would argue that is exactly the point here: all that matters is that Yosef gets an Egyptian name. Part of that is setting up the scene to come:

Which is true but there’s more than that. Giving him an Egyptian name and a noble Egyptian wife (בת פוטי פרע כהן אן) meant he was no longer a foreign slave; he was Egyptian. He was first presented to the Egyptian court as a נער עברי עבד:

But Pharaoh is an absolute dictator. נמוסי מצרים don’t matter. He says Yosef is Egyptian, and had always been Egyptian, so he has always been Egyptian.

And so, in the words of the famous תנ״ך commentator Andrew Lloyd Rice, Yosef’s story is over. Now starts the story of Psomtemphanek.

But it’s not just that Pharaoh declares him Egyptian. He himself becomes Egyptian.

This helps answer the famous question: why doesn’t Yosef write home? He is no longer a slave; he could send a messenger to Canaan. Rav Bin Nun addressed this is an essay in the first issue of מגדים, in 1986.

He turns the question around, from Yosef’s point of view.

As far as he can tell, he has been abandoned by his family, including his father. Obviously, the בחירה process has rejected him and he is no longer part of בני ישראל. Joseph is still יוסף הצדיק, though. If he is to be an Egyptian, he can be a good Egyptian—(בראשית מב:יח)‎ את האלקים אני ירא.

So the irony of צפנת פענח as “revealer of secrets” is that it is the name started the very process that hid the true meaning of everything that had happened. Yosef was not the יודע עתידות. No one could predict how things would unfold until the moment that it all comes together.

And the history of Yosef, and of בני ישראל as a whole, starts again.