Genesis 47:23-24 “Then Joseph said to the people, "Indeed I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh. Look, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. (24) And it shall come to pass in the harvest that you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh. Four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and for your food, for those of your households and as food for your little ones.”
Although God ordains His ministers to receive payment for the government services they provide, He does not condone excessive taxation of a nation’s citizens. In the above quoted passage of scripture God gives us an indication as to what level of taxation He deems to be adequate. God is the one who gave Joseph wisdom and understanding to govern the nation of Egypt, and so we see in this passage that the level of taxation that God deems sufficient to finance a nation’s government is one fifth or twenty percent of their citizens’ income. When Joseph instituted that level of taxation in Egypt that nation prospered. And so nations that tax their citizens at this level will receive blessing from God and have more than enough to cover the costs incurred in governing their nations. However nations that choose to tax their citizens excessively, i.e. substantially more than twenty percent will not experience the blessing of God and they will begin to experience problems in their economies. The reason for that is because greed begins to take control of those governments as they work to appropriate more and more of a nation’s wealth for themselves. Surprisingly that was one of the traps that King Solomon fell into, for towards the end of his reign he began to place an undue burden on the Jewish population through excessive taxes. And so at the end of his reign when his son Rehoboam ascended to the throne in his place, the citizens of Israel approached Rehoboam to ask him to ease up on his father’s excessive tax burden placed on the nation. Rehoboam refused to listen to them however, and actually threatened to increase their taxes. As a result, ten of the tribes of Israel chose to secede from the nation rather than to continue paying the excessive taxes imposed upon them. And so when Rehoboam tried to enforce his taxation on those states they responded by killing his finance minister and forcing King Rehoboam to flee for his life to the capital city of Jerusalem. The nation then came to the brink of a civil war as King Rehoboam tried to enforce his authority militarily, but God intervened and prevented him from doing so. The final outcome of that episode was that the nation was split into two from that point onwards, i.e. Israel and Judah (1 Kings 12:1-19). Clearly God does not condone excessive taxation and will eventually replace governments that choose that path, for it leads them to become more and more corrupt over time.
Michael E.B. Maher
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