Seek God at All Times
a commentary on Genesis 41
Welcome back to another Biblit! This week we are diving into Genesis 41 where we finally get to see something good happen in Joseph’s life! If you thought waiting for 5 chapters in Genesis to see good news for Joseph was hard, think about it from his perspective. It’s been 13 years since he was sold into slavery by his brothers. Well, let’s not keep you waiting any longer, let’s jump into the context and see what happens.
Context
If we recall from last week, Joseph had interpreted the chief cupbearer and chief baker’s dreams. The baker died and the cupbearer was put back into office and “forgot” Joseph. Well, two years have now passed and the Pharaoh himself has some dreams that need interpretations.
This was a pretty big deal. The people of Egypt viewed their king as a direct representative to the gods, if not a god himself. His dreams would have carried a lot of weight and significance to everyone.
Pharaoh is bummed, though, because none of his magicians can interpret his dreams.
Somehow this sparks a memory for the cupbearer and he tells Pharaoh about this Joseph guy who can interpret dreams.
Pharaoh summons Joseph who immediately shaves, changes, and goes to the king. Apparently in Egypt a beard was a big no-no for anyone except the king, who often wore an artificial beard. Not to mention wearing prison rags would have been a disgrace to the king.
Pharaoh tells Joseph that he’s having these dreams his magicians cannot interpret. He says he has heard that Joseph can interpret them and wants to know if it’s true. Joseph responds in a similar fashion to the cupbearer and baker 2 years prior:
“It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.” (Genesis 41:16 ESV)
The Pharaoh tells Joseph the two dreams. One of the dreams is of 7 plump cows that are eaten by 7 ugly cows. The other dream was of 7 hearty ears on one stalk that were swallowed up by 7 pitiful ears.
Joseph, through the divine prophecy of God was able to interpret the dreams. He told the king that for 7 years Egypt would have a bountiful harvest, but that after, Egypt would be struck by a 7 year famine worse than ever before. He also said that the reason there were 2 dreams (like when Joseph himself had 2 dreams) was that this event was both fixed by God and coming soon.
He didn’t stop there, though. Pharaoh asked for an interpretation, but God provides abundantly. Joseph was given both the vision of the future as well as wise counsel on actions they should take next.
Joseph relays God’s plan to the king to hire an overseer to store up ⅕ of the produce for the 7 plentiful years as a reserve for the 7 years of famine.
Pharaoh then does something no one probably saw coming.
He announced he wants Joseph to be that overseer!
He makes Joseph the vizier of Egypt. He also gives Joseph a signet ring, linen clothing, and a gold chain, which are mentioned in numerous Egyptian texts for similar use.
The vizier was second in command of Egypt. Just as with Potiphar, except instead of being in charge of a household, Joseph was in charge of an entire nation! In fact, in some dynasties of Egypt, the vizier had way more power than Pharaoh himself.
The king gives Joseph this insane promotion, a new name, Zaphenath-paneah, which might mean “the one who furnishes the sustenance of the land,” and the daughter of Potiphara as a wife!
Joseph goes out and begins his work for the Lord! He saves not only the Egyptian nation, but many other nations surrounding them, including his own family.
Before the famine arrived, Joseph had two sons with his new Egyptian wife. Manasseh, coming from the word “to forget” and Ephraim similar to the verb meaning “to be fruitful.” Essentially, Joseph recognized God’s sovereign control over his life. He is saying that God is one who can both heal his painful memories and also make him fruitful in the worst circumstances.
Joseph proceeds with the plan and they store up produce for 7 years just as he told Pharaoh. When the famine began, Joseph was in charge of selling any of their food to the people in need!
Interpretation
There are a couple of commendable and questionable things that I saw in this passage I wanted to bring up.
Joseph’s Heart of Faith
Joseph has not had the best life over the past 13 years. His twenties were not all they were hyped up to be for him. His brothers abused him and sold him into slavery, Potiphar’s wife lied about him and threw him in prison, and the cupbearer forgot him and left him in prison.
We saw how well Joseph persevered under immense sexual temptation, but that’s not the only kind of temptation coming after him. I’d imagine he was tempted to be resentful, angry, and seek revenge too.
Does he, though? No! The coolest part to me is that he comes out of prison and speaks to Pharaoh about God in the same exact way he did 2 years before with the cupbearer.
This shows me that Joseph’s relationship with God has not deteriorated. If anything, it’s gotten stronger since he remained faithful for 2 years in prison!
Seeking Wrong Counsel
I wonder why the Pharaoh’s dream interpreters said they couldn’t interpret his dreams. Dreams, as I said earlier, were seen as images, visions, or messages from the gods.
For instance, the famous “Dream Stele'' was a dream Thutmos IV had that was basically the god Ra telling him if he uncovered the Sphinx, then he’d become Pharaoh. This is an example of a clear “message from the gods.”
Other times, Pharaoh might have his dream magicians perform “spells” or rituals to try and induce a dream message from the gods. This was pretty specific to which god they wanted the message from.
So why couldn’t the dreams be interpreted by the magicians?
The dreams seem pretty straightforward; the magicians could have given a good guess. Clearly, 7 is pretty important, and the idea of something lesser overcoming something greater.
Another thought is that perhaps not only does God reveal the interpretation only to Joseph, but perhaps He hides the interpretation from the magicians as well?
Whatever the reason, we know what happens and God is sovereign and in control of the situation. Pharaoh should never have gone to the magicians for the answer that only God held.
Pharaoh’s Immense Trust
Pharaoh’s reaction is pretty cool too. I mean, Joseph is this Hebrew prisoner and Pharaoh just takes him at his word?
One possible reason for this has to do with who Pharaoh was. There are a couple of debates as to which dynasty of Egypt was reigning at this time. The two most common theories are either a 12th dynasty Pharaoh or a 17th dynasty one.
I am writing a bonus Biblit that delves into this further as it’s pretty interesting. I only mention it here because if it was the 17th dynasty Pharaoh, he actually would have also been a Semite like Joseph, so perhaps that is why he trusted Joseph.
Whatever the reason was, Pharaoh trusted Joseph and God so much he put them in charge of his entire nation!
That’s incredible!
He is someone that seeks messages from all these fake gods, but the second the true God gives him a message, he does a complete 180 and puts his faith into that message. I think that’s pretty cool, but maybe that’s just me.
Application
I think all 3 of these points can be applied to our lives:
Joseph was faithful in the darkest of times. He was faithful to God in the low times where he had nothing, and God rewarded him for it!
Joseph was faithful with very little in prison, so God knew he’d be faithful with very much when in charge of Egypt.
God will go on to use him to bless many nations including Egypt; more of God’s promises to Abraham being fulfilled!
The question I ask myself is whatever life circumstance I’m in, am I trusting God and living a faithful life?
If all I do is look for the next thing, or the “big” thing to do with my life, why would God grant it? If I’m not faithful in the little, why would I be faithful in the big?
I love the way Anne Lamott sums up it in her book, Bird by Bird, “If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.” (pg 218).Always seek God for our answers. It seems simple, but when we have a decision to make in life, how often do we go to prayer first?
We have all the information in the world at our fingertips; not only our fingertips but also our voice too. “Siri, do this, do that.” Right? We can seek all sorts of advice for how to live our lives and what the future might hold.
There are so many financial articles out there about what the stock market might do in the next day, week, month, or year!
Do we pray about it first, though? Or do we seek the guidance of the dream magicians of the world today?
Go all-in for God. This one might be the only stretch, but I know from other scripture it’s true.
Again, we don’t know the heart posture of Pharaoh, but we do know his actions. He hears God’s truth and immediately acts on it, putting Joseph in complete charge of Egypt.
As we’ll see in the coming weeks, he continues to honor Joseph too. We don’t know if he is believing in God or just Joseph, but either way, it reminds me of this truth:
We need to be fully committed to the Lord.
If Pharaoh had waited and been like, “ok, we’ll see how this plays out first,” then people would have died.
Isaiah 29 puts these kinds of people like this:
“this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.” (Isaiah 29:13 ESV).
Jesus also talks about this in his parable of the sower:
“And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” (Mark 4:16-17 ESV).
Are we living fully for God, or just going through the motions ready to fall away the second life gets busy or difficult?