Brian Somers Torah: Genesis 41:1 – 44:17
Haftarah: I Kings 3:15 – 4:1
New Testament/Brit Chadassah: Matthew 27:15-46
Chapter 41 opens two years later. During this time, Joseph has been forgotten in prison by the chief cupbearer whose dream he interpreted. Joseph requested that the cupbearer appeal to Pharaoh and get him out of prison, but the cupbearer forgot. Joseph didn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself, but kept busy administering the prison for the prison warden, to use a modern term.
But, as we shall see, when Joseph was most needed, the cupbearer remembered him.
During this time of waiting on the Lord, Joseph learned patience and humility. Joseph had been well trained by his father Israel growing up. Now YHVH took over and provided the refinement that Joseph needed to prepare him for his great destiny.
Fathers, are we training our sons and daughters like Israel trained Joseph and his other brothers? Men, are we heeding the lessons that our earthly and heavenly fathers set for us? Women, are you learning the skills and how to best be a helpmate to your men?
One night, the Pharaoh of Egypt had a pair of dreams. He remembered them both and asked his wise men for the interpretation. None of them could figure it out. Then the cupbearer remembered Joseph and told his master about him.
12 Now a Hebrew youth was there with us, a servant of the captain of the bodyguard, and we told him the dreams, and he interpreted our dreams for us.
Genesis 41:12
Note that from the start, Joseph was known as a Hebrew and Pharaoh knew that.
When Pharaoh heard the testimony of his cupbearer, he knew he had nothing to lose by asking a Hebrew prisoner about his dreams. Therefore, he had Joseph brought to him. The Egyptian servants of Pharaoh had Joseph shaven, cleaned and given clothes fit for an audience with their ruler. That implies that up to this point, Joseph had been bearded.
Pharoah got right to the point.
15 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” 16 Joseph then answered Pharaoh, saying, “It has nothing to do with me; God will give Pharaoh an answer for his own good.”
Genesis 41:15-16
Joseph refused to claim any credit for his gift of interpreting dreams but was simply the messenger. The word “God” translates as “elohim”. Joseph was telling Pharaoh that his Hebrew God was the One telling Pharaoh what He was about to do and would Himself explain the meaning of the two dreams.
Centuries later, Amos restated this concept in more pithy terms.
Certainly the Lord God does nothing Unless He reveals His secret plan To His servants the prophets.
Amos 3:7
Pharaoh accepted what Joseph said and told him the two dreams. Joseph understood what they meant and explained it to Pharaoh in straightforward terminology without putting himself anywhere in the explanation.
After delivering the explanation, Joseph, on his own initiative, presumed to offer Pharaoh advice on how to deal with the 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine. Joseph was now in his element. He was a master of administration and resource management. His years of experience learning with his father combined with his experience administering Potiphar’s household and the jail now came together in that moment.
Joseph was 17 when he was sold into slavery and now he was 30 years old standing before Pharaoh. That is 13 years living and working among different socioeconomic classes of Egyptians. He learned their language, how they thought and interacted with each other. He took all of that and put together a practical series of steps to handle the future famine literally on the fly.
That ability to quickly synthesize a comprehensive solution and communicate it clearly to the Egyptian ruler impressed Pharaoh and his staff immensely. None found fault, and none disagreed when Pharaoh realized that the man he needed to deal with the famine was the Hebrew slave standing in front of him. Pharaoh was himself intelligent and recognized that intelligence in the Hebrew slave and to all appearances was not personally threatened by him.
Joseph was immediately promoted from slave to the #2 position in Egypt. Maybe that would be the vizier or prime minister or chief executive. Whatever the proper term is, the only one outranking Joseph was Pharaoh himself.
However, Pharaoh seems to have realized that to make Joseph acceptable to his people, he would have to “Egyptianize” Joseph. Therefore, Joseph received Pharaoh’s signet ring to show he wielded royal authority, white linen clothing and the gold Egyptian necklace. A bit later, Pharaoh gave Joseph a different name and a wife, Asenath, the daughter of the Priest of On.
To all outward appearances, the Hebrew slave now looked like an Egyptian noble, but still remained Hebrew at his core. After being “Egyptianized”, he got right to work. There is no indication that Joseph had any other responsibility than guiding Egypt through the next 14 years of plenty and famine.
Joseph, using his royal authority, required that every grain producer give him 20% of their abundance. He stored that grain in secure storehouses in the cities throughout Egypt, and had these facilities guarded at government expense. Then when the famine came and food ran out, he opened the storehouses and started selling grain back to the citizens, as well as to foreign buyers in the region.
A thought to consider for the modern reader: Joseph did not give away the stored grain for free. The text does not say what he charged for his stored grain, but Genesis chapter 47 describes how he accepted gold, silver, land, and even people selling themselves into slavery to eat. That transformed Egyptian society by the end of the fourteen years. Joseph worked for Pharaoh and his job was making sure there was food for everyone able to buy for 7 long years of famine.
Then after the famine ended and the people were again able to sow and harvest, Joseph gave them seed to use to plant the first crop. In exchange, Pharaoh would receive 20% of their harvest and the farmers kept the other 80% for themselves.
This has been a rather extensive discussion of how Joseph preserved and transformed Egypt during the 7 years of feast and 7 years of famine. We studied how Joseph developed his abilities in administration and thought fast on his feet in solving problems. Now it’s time for his brothers to enter the scene and face Joseph’s three tests. Remember, Joseph is the absolute ruler of Egypt, except for Pharaoh himself. His word is law and no one is going to challenge him.
As Joseph is a picture of Yeshua, so also is Yeshua’s Word Law, and none can challenge Him. Another thought to consider is that Pharaoh is the sovereign over Egypt. He made Joseph the #2 ruler after him. Then Joseph dealt with the men of Egypt. Pharaoh himself told his people to go to Joseph and do what he said. This follows the hierarchy in I Corinthians 11:3. Pharaoh parallels God the Father, Joseph parallels God the Son, and then of course the whole population of Egyptian men are the Man.
God the Father <- God the Son <- Man <- Woman
Two years into the famine, ten men show up in Joseph’s “office”. We are not told what kind of a building he worked in. Joseph looked at these 10 men and recognized them immediately, while they in turn didn’t recognize him. Remembering his dreams of long ago, Joseph put together another plan on the fly to test his brothers.
Let’s review what Joseph endured at the hands of his brothers, excluding Benjamin. They resented and hated him because their father clearly favored Joseph and gave him a colored coat. They threw him in a pit and ignored his cries for mercy. They sold him as a slave. Then, they lied to their father and showed him his torn and bloody coat and implied Joseph had been killed by a wild beast or two. The tests that Joseph devised would see if they had repented from those specific sins.
He called them spies. While they denied their charges by identifying themselves as brothers, all sons of one man, he rejected their defense (which was true) and threw them into jail for three days. This parallels their having thrown him into the pit and also his having to endure being in prison for at least 2 years.
After three days, he released them and said to them that he was now testing them to see if they were honest men, not spies. They would be given food and sent home, except one brother would have to stay behind in prison. The second oldest brother Simon was bound in front of them and remanded back to prison. When the food ran out, they would have to bring the youngest brother, Benjamin, back in order to buy more food.
The brothers were confounded at this turn of events. Speaking to each other in Hebrew, not Egyptian, they saw in the present situation recompense for what they had done years earlier to their brother Joseph.
21 Then they said to one another, “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; for that reason this distress has happened to us.” 22 Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Now justice for his blood is required.”
Genesis 42:21-22
The brothers knew what they had done to Joseph was wrong. They knew this was the settling of accounts, and they did not like it one bit. Distress for distress is the basic idea, similar to eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
Yet, what other choice did they have? They needed the food for their families at home, so they took the food home, and left Simon in prison for some time.
When the food ran out, Israel told his sons to return to Egypt and buy food. Money wasn’t the problem for him, but sending his last son Benjamin, who was the only remaining son of his beloved Rachel, to Egypt was a huge problem. He didn’t trust his sons not to “misplace” Benjamin. Reuben offered his two sons to his father for execution if Benjamin didn’t return. Israel was not moved by this “offer”. Reuben was not accepting personal responsibility; if he failed, someone else would pay the price.
Simon was in an Egyptian jail. Levi said nothing that Moses recorded. Judah now spoke up. He was in a position to speak authoritatively because he too had endured the loss of his two older sons and avoided giving Tamar to his youngest son, Shelah. Judah understood all too well what his father was going through, having lost Joseph nearly twenty years ago, and Simeon in jail, and now this foreign Egyptian potentate was demanding his youngest son? Judah accepted that as Shelah was important to him, so too was Benjamin, Rachel’s son, important to their father. Judah had been the one who suggested selling Joseph into slavery. He knew he was guilty for doing that, but could not tell his father the truth. So he looked at his father and said that he himself would be accountable for Benjamin and would do whatever he humanely could do to ensure that Benjamin would return. Israel looked at him, knowing that Judah was like him, carrying pain for the loss of two of his sons. Israel was not willing to entrust Benjamin to Reuben, but he was finally and reluctantly willing to trust Judah with Benjamin, because he truly had no choice.
The sons of Israel now returned to Egypt and stood in front of Joseph. It was time for the second test. Would showing extreme favoritism to Benjamin elicit violent reactions of disdain, envy and hate, like they had reacted when their father showed favoritism to Joseph years earlier?
Joseph invited his brothers to lunch. He puzzled them by seating them in the correct birth order from oldest to youngest. Then he blatantly showed favoritism to Benjamin and observed what happened. The brothers were confused but none of them showed any bad reactions.
When it was time for the brothers to go home, Joseph set up one more test. He hid his silver cup in Benjamin’s grain sack and sent the caravan on his way. Then he sent his servants after the brothers’ caravan and accused them of being thieves. Joseph’s servant told the brothers that whoever had the silver cup would become Joseph’s slaves. What would the brothers do? They had ignored Joseph’s cries in the pit. Would they abandon Benjamin, the favorite and beloved son?
They all turned around and went back to face Joseph for the charge of theft. So far, so good.
Next week, we will see what happens in the dramatic conclusion to the third test!