Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 41:1

And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.

1 7. Pharaoh’s Dreams

1. two full years ] i.e. from the execution of the chief baker.

river ] Heb. Yeor, i.e. the Nile, as always in the O.T., except Job 28:10; Isa 33:21; Dan 12:5-6. The Heb. word reproduces the Egyptian. According to Egyptologists it stands for the Egyptian aur, “stream,” or aur-aa, “the great stream,” Assyr. ia’uru, “stream.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

– Joseph Was Exalted

1. y^e‘or, river, canal, mostly applied to the Nile. Some suppose the word to be Coptic.

2. ‘achu, sedge, reed-grass, marsh-grass. This word is probably Coptic.

8. chartumym, exegetai, hierogrammateis, sacred scribes, hieroglyphs. cheret stylus, a graving tool.

43. ‘abrek bend the knee. In this sense it is put for habrek imperative hiphil of barak. Those who take the word to be Coptic render it variously – bow all, bow the head, cast thyself down.

45. < tsapenat–paneach, Tsaphenath-paneach, in the Septuagint – Psonthom–Fanech. Revelator occulti, Kimchi. This is founded on an attempted Hebrew derivation. Soter kosmou in Oxford MS., servator mundi, Jerome. These point to a Coptic origin. Recent Egyptologists give P-sont-em-ph-anh, the-salvation-of-the-life or world. This is a high-flowing title, in keeping with Eastern phraseology. ‘asnath, Asenath, perhaps belonging to Neith, or worshipper of Neith, a goddess corresponding to Athene of the Greeks. poty–pera, Potiphera, seems to be a variation of Potyphar, Potiphar Gen 37:36. ‘on or ‘on, On =Oein, light, sun; on the monuments TA-RA, house of the sun. beyth shemesh, Jer 43:13, Heliopolis, north of Memphis, on the east bank of the Nile.

51. m^enasheh, Menasheh, causing to forget.

52. ‘epraym Ephraim, double fruit.

Here we have the double dream of Pharaoh interpreted by Joseph, in consequence of which he is elevated over all the land of Egypt.

Gen 41:1-8

The dreams are recited. By the river. In the dream Pharaoh supposes himself on the banks of the Nile. On rite green. The original word denotes the reed, or marsh grass, on the banks of the Nile. The cow is a very significant emblem of fruitful nature among the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic symbol of the earth and of agriculture; and the form in which Isis the goddess of the earth was adored. Dreamed a second time. The repetition is designed to confirm the warning given, as Joseph afterward explains Gen 41:32. Corn (grain) is the natural emblem of fertility and nurture. Blasted with the east wind The east wind. The east wind is any wind coming from the east of the meridian, and may be a southeast or a northeast, as well as a direct east. The Hebrews were accustomed to speak only of the four winds, and, therefore, must have used the name of each with great latitude. The blasting wind in Egypt is said to be usually from the southeast. And, behold, it was a dream. The impression was so distinct as to be taken for the reality, until he awoke and perceived that it was only a dream. His spirit was troubled. Like the officers in the prison Gen 40:6, he could not get rid of the feeling that the twofold dream portended some momentous event. The scribes – the hieroglyphs, who belonged to the priestly caste, and whose primary business was to make hieroglyphic and other inscriptions; while they were accustomed to consult the stars, interpret dreams, practise soothsaying, and pursue the other occult arts. The sages; whose chief business was the cultivation of the various arts above mentioned, while the engraving or inscribing department strictly belonged to the hieroglyphs or scribes. His dream; the twofold dream. Interpreted them – the two dreams.

Gen 41:9-13

The chief butler now calls Joseph to mind, and mentions his gift to Pharaoh. My sins. His offence against Pharaoh. His ingratitude in forgetting Joseph for two years does not perhaps occur to him as a sin. A Hebrew lad. The Egyptians were evidently well acquainted with the Hebrew race, at a time when Israel had only a family. Him he hanged. The phrase is worthy of note, as a specimen of pithy brevioquence. Him he declared that the dream foreboded that Pharaoh would hang.

Gen 41:14-24

Pharaoh sends for Joseph, who is hastily brought from the prison. He shaved. The Egyptians were accustomed to shave the head and beard, except in times of mourning (Herod. 2:32). Canst hear a dream to interpret it – needest only to hear in order to interpret it. Not I God shall answer. According to his uniform habit Joseph ascribes the gift that is in him to God. To the peace of Pharaoh – so that Pharaoh may reap the advantage. In form. This takes the place of in look, in the former account. Other slight variations in the terms occur. And they went into them – into their stomachs.

Gen 41:25-36

Joseph now proceeds to interpret the dream, and offer counsel suitable to the emergency. What the God is about to do. The God, the one true, living, eternal God, in opposition to all false gods. And because the dream was repeated. This is explained to denote the certainty and immediateness of the event. The beautiful elucidation of the dream needs no comment. Joseph now naturally passes from the interpreter to the adviser. He is all himself on this critical occasion. His presence of mind never forsakes him. The openness of heart and readiness of speech, for which he was early distinguished, now stand him in good stead. His thorough self-command arises from spontaneously throwing himself, with all his heart, into the great national emergency which is before his mind. And his native simplicity of heart, practical good sense, anti force of character break forth into unasked, but not unaccepted counsel. A man discreet – intelligent, capable of understanding the occasion; wise, prudent, capable of acting accordingly. Let Pharaoh proceed – take the following steps: Take the fifth of the produce of the land. Under the hand of Pharaoh. Under his supreme control.

The measures here suggested to Pharaoh were, we must suppose in conformity with the civil institutions of the country. Thee exaction of a fifth, or two tithes, during the period of plenty, may have been an extraordinary measure, which the absolute power of the monarch enabled him to enforce for the public safety. The sovereign was probably dependent for his revenues on the produce of the crown lands, certain taxes on exports or imports, and occasional gifts or forced contributions from his subjects. This extraordinary fifth was, probably, of the last description, and was fully warranted by the coming emergency. The gathering up of all the food may imply that, in addition to the fifth, large purchases of corn were made by the government out of the surplus produce of the country.

Gen 41:37-46

Pharaoh approves of his counsel, and selects him as the discreet and wise man for carrying it into effect. In whom is the Spirit of God. He acknowledges the gift that is in Joseph to be from God. All my people behave – dispose or order their conduct, a special meaning of this word, which usually signifies to kiss. His ring. His signet-ring gave Joseph the delegated power of the sovereign, and constituted him his prime minister or grand vizier. Vestures of fine linen. Egypt was celebrated for its flax, and for the fineness of its textures. The priests were arrayed in official robes of linen, and no man was allowed to enter a temple in a woolen garment (Herodotus ii. 37, 81). A gold chain about his neck. This was a badge of office worn in Egypt by the judge and the prime minister. It had a similar use in Persia and Babylonia Dan 5:7. The second chariot. Egypt was noted for chariots, both for peaceful and for warlike purposes (Herodotus ii. 108). The second in the public procession was assigned to Joseph. Bow the knee. The various explications of this proclamation agree in denoting a form of obeisance, with which Joseph was to be honored. I am Pharaoh, the king Gen 12:15. Without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot. Thou art next to me, and without thee no man shall act or move. Zaphenath-paneah. Pharaoh designates him the preserver of life, as the interpreter of the dream and the proposer of the plan by which the country was saved from famine. He thus naturalizes him so far as to render his civil status compatible with his official rank. Asenath. The priests were the highest and most privileged class in Egypt. Intermarriage with this caste at once determined the social position of the wonderous foreigner. His father-in-law was priest of On, a city dedicated to the worship of the sun.

With our Western and modern habit we may at the first glance be surprised to find a stranger of a despised race suddenly elevated to the second place in the kingdom. But in ancient and Eastern governments, which were of a despotic character, such changes, depending on the will of the sovereign, were by no means unusual. Secondly, the conviction that the Spirit of God was in the mysterious stranger, was sufficient to overbear all opposing feelings or customs. And, lastly, it was assumed and acted on, as a self-evident fact, that the illustrious stranger could have no possible objection to be incorporated into the most ancient of nations, and allied with its noblest families. We may imagine that Joseph would find an insuperable difficulty in becoming a citizen of Egypt or a son-in-law of the priest of the sun. But we should not forget that the world was yet too young to have arrived at the rigid and sharplydefined systems of polytheism or allotheism to which we are accustomed. Some gray streaks of a pure monotheism, of the knowledge of the one true God, still gleamed across the sky of human memory. Some faint traces of one common brotherhood among mankind still lingered in the recollections of the past. The Pharaoh of Abrahams day feels the power of him whose name is Yahweh Gen 12:17. Abimelek acknowledges the God of Abraham and Isaac Gen 20:3-7; Gen 21:22-23; Gen 26:28-29. And while Joseph is frank and faithful in acknowledging the true God before the king of Egypt, Pharaoh himself is not slow to recognize the man in whom the Spirit of God is. Having experienced the omniscience and omnipotence of Josephs God, he was prepared, no doubt, not only himself to offer him such adoration as he was accustomed to pay to his national gods, but also to allow Joseph full liberty to worship the God of his fathers, and to bring up his family in that faith.

Joseph was now in his thirtieth year, and had consequently been thirteen years in Egypt, most part of which interval he had probably spent in prison. This was the age for manly service Num 4:3. He immediately enters upon his office.

Gen 41:47-49

The fulfillment of the dream here commences. By handfuls. Not in single stalks or grains, but in handfuls compared with the former yield. It is probable that a fifth of the present unprecedented yield was sufficient for the sustenance of the inhabitants. Another fifth was rendered to the government, and the remaining three fifths were stored up or sold to the state or the foreign broker at a low price. He left numbering because there was no number. This denotes that the store was immense, and not perhaps that modes of expressing the number failed.

Gen 41:50-52

Two sons were born to Joseph during the seven years of plenty. Menasseh. God made him forget his toil and his fathers house. Neither absolutely. He remembered his toils in the very utterance of this sentence. And he tenderly and intensely remembered his fathers house. But he is grateful to God, who builds him a home, with all its soothing joys, even in the land of his exile. His heart again responds to long untasted joys. Fruitful in the land of my affliction. It is still, we perceive, the land of his affliction. But why does no message go from Joseph to his mourning father? For many reasons. First, he does not know the state of things at home. Secondly, he may not wish to open up the dark and bloody treachery of his brothers to his aged parent. But, thirdly, he bears in mind those early dreams of his childhood. All his subsequent experience has confirmed him in the belief that they will one day be fulfilled. But that fulfillment implies the submission not only of his brothers, but of his father. This is too delicate a matter for him to interfere in. He will leave it entirely to the all-wise providence of his God to bring about that strange issue. Joseph, therefore, is true to his life-long character. He leaves all in the hand of God, and awaits in anxious, but silent hope, the days when he will see his father and his brethren.

Gen 41:53-57

The commencement and the extent of the famine are now noted. As Joseph had said. The fulfillment is as perfect in the one part as in the other. In all the lands – all the lands adjacent to Egypt; such as Arabia and Palestine. The word all in popular discourse is taken in a relative sense, to be ascertained by the context. We are not aware that this famine was felt beyond the distance of Hebron. Go unto Joseph Pharaoh has had reason to trust Joseph more and more, and now he adheres to his purpose of sending his people to him. All the face of the land of Egypt. And Joseph opened all places in which there was food – all the stores in every city. And sold unto Mizaim. The stores under Pharaohs hand were public property, obtained either by lawful taxation or by purchase. It was a great public benefit to sell this grain, that had been providently kept in store, at a moderate price, and thus preserve the lives of a nation during a seven years famine. All the land. This is to be understood of the countries in the neighborhood of Egypt. Famines in these countries were not unusual. We have read already of two famines in Palestine that did not extend to Egypt Gen 12:10; Gen 26:1.

The fertility of Egypt depends on the rise of the waters of the Nile to a certain point, at which they will reach all the country. If it fall short of that point, there will be a deficiency in the crops proportioned to the deficiency in the rise. The rise of the Nile depends on the tropical rains by which the lake is supplied from which it flows. These rains depend on the clouds wafted by the winds from the basin of the Mediterranean Sea. The amount of these piles of vapor will depend on the access and strength of the solar heat producing evaporation from the surface of that inland sea. The same cause, therefore, may withhold rain from central Africa, and from all the lands that are watered from the Mediterranean. The duration of the extraordinary plenty was indeed wonderful. But such periods of excess are generally followed by corresponding periods of deficiency over the same area. This prepares the way for the arrival of Josephs kindred in Egypt.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Gen 41:1-8

Pharaoh dreamed

Pharaohs dream

I.

THAT APPARENTLY INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS MAY OFTEN GROW INTO AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WORLDS HISTORY.

II. THAT GOD CHOOSES THE INSTRUMENTS OF REVELATION ACCORDING TO HIS OWN GOOD PLEASURE.

III. THAT GOD CAN SUDDENLY ARREST THE ATTENTION OF THOSE WHO ARE THE FARTHEST REMOVED FROM EVERY EARTHLY FEAR. (T. H. Leale)

Pharaohs dream and its interpretation

I. THE SUMMONING OF JOSEPH TO INTERPRET PHARAOHS DREAM.

1. The long waiting of Joseph before he attained his emancipation.

2. The wisdom of this delay in respect of Josephs circumstances.

3. Pharaohs prophetic dream.

4. The chief butlers forgetfulness.

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM.

1. The graceful way in which Joseph refers all to God.

2. Josephs calmness, produced by the consciousness of Gods presence.

3. Josephs plan in the interpretation of the dream. It was simply a providential foresight for the future. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The dream of Pharaoh

1. The dream was formed of elements with which the dreamer was somewhat familiar.

2. The dream was a Divine communication to the mind of a heathen.

3. The dream brought trouble into the heart of a monarch.

4. The dream could only be interpreted by a devout Theist.

I. THE REVOLUTIONS OF PROVIDENCE. Alternations mark the earthly history of the human world.

1. They tend to promote our spiritual discipline.

2. They remind us of the activity of God.

3. They tend to inspire us with a sense of our dependence upon

Him.

4. This method tends, moreover, to give a meaning to the Bible.

5. This method often prepares the mind to receive the truths of the Bible.

II. THE ADVANTAGES OF WISDOM.

1. It invested Joseph with a chastened humility of soul.

2. It enabled Joseph to solve the distressing inquiries of the monarch.

3. It exalted Joseph to supremacy in the kingdom.

III. THE DUTY OF RULERS. They should be–

1. Philanthropic.

2. Forecasting.

3. Economical.

Lessons:

1. How great is the Governor of the world.

2. How worthless the world is without religion.

3. How important to be in fellowship with the great God. (Homilist.)

An episode in a nations history

Imperfect as human monarchs are, and sometimes corrupt, they are beneficial to society. A government must be very rotten if it is not better than anarchy. Hence, for the most part, God designs to act through kings, and permits them to be His ministers. God has a secret to make known to Egypt, viz., tidings of approaching scarcity; and since Pharaoh is on the throne, the communication shall be made to him.

I. A MAN-MADE KING IS, AT THE BEST, IMPOTENT.

1. A dream is enough to terrify him. Yet is not this cowardly? Why should the great Pharaoh be alarmed by a night-vision? Has he not an enormous army at his back? Ah, verily, there is another Power, active, mightier, more august, hedging him on every side! What if this strange Power should be unfriendly! No wonder that Pharaohs knees tremble. He is like a fly upon the unseen mechanism of the universe. He is but a waif upon the stormy Atlantic. What is this all-surrounding Power? Possibly it may be God!

2. Further, he is a very dependent man. He cannot do without astrologers, magicians, butlers, and bakers. No; it would not do for the king to be independent. The temptation to play the tyrant would be irresistible. He is only one part of the social system, though it may be the most prominent.

3. The king is dependent upon the most obscure in his kingdom. On an imprisoned slave Pharaoh and all Egypt have to depend. Verily nobleness and worth may be found in the lowliest lot!

II. THE RING IS AN ALLY OF GOD.

1. Josephs first utterance was to acknowledge God. In substance he says, I am powerless; God can meet the case. Hers was a great opportunity for ostentation, self-display. His bearing is calm, princely, royal. Of himself he can do nothing; but he has brought the true God into court, and with God nothing is impossible.

2. This was an act of heroic faith. Joseph stood alone in that awestruck assembly. Magnates, officers, stewards, magicians, all were worshippers of Egypts countless idols. To disparage the ancient idols, powerful for long ages, were perilous to a young man and a foreigner.

III. THE REAL KING IS TRAINED IN ADVERSITY.

1. It is clear that Joseph was master of the situation. Etymologically, the word king means the man that knows. It was this that made Elijah great and powerful in the face of idolatrous Israel. This gave Daniel sovereign influence in the Chaldean court. This made Luther a monarch among men. Them that honour Me, I will honour.

2. For this royal position Joseph had been skilfully trained.

IV. THE REAL KING IS SUPREME IN EVERY EMERGENCY. Most sailors can steer the ship in fine weather; it requires a real pilot to steer safely through a storm. Pharaoh might do well enough at the helm of affairs, so long as harvests were copious, and the nation was well fed. But in presence of a night-vision, Pharaoh lost his balance; in presence of a famine, Pharaoh was staggered. (J. Dickerson Davies, M. A.)

Kine and corn

I. THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE. Prosperity and adversity succeed each other. Life generally is as variable as an April day. If a man has seven years of uninterrupted happiness, he must not expect that it will continue much longer. The most prosperous men are liable to surprises. Families that have for years been free from sickness or bereavemant may suddenly be overshadowed by the angel of death. Hopes may be blighted when they are near fulfilment, and pleasure may be followed by severe and protracted trial.

II. THE OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE OF GOD. Whatever may be the opinions held by some, we say unhesitatingly that God has the affairs of all nations and of all men under His immediate control; that He gives or withholds, as seemeth good unto Him, but always in a way consistent with human freedom. And He invites our confidence.

III. THE DUTY OF USING THE PRESENT WELL. Although we are not to be overanxious about the future, we are not to disregard it altogether. We cannot tell what demands may be made upon our resources. We must provide, as far as possible, against sickness and adversity. We must not ignore the claims of others. (F. J. Austin.)

A perplexing dream

This dream will appear to many but a jumble of incoherent ideas, which no wise man would retain in his memory. What other man ever thought, even in a dream, of kine, or of ears of corn, eating one another? Yet it is certain that this dream came from God, and that it was an intimation of future events, of exceedingly important consequence, both to the Egyptian nation, and to all the neighboring nations, and even to the church of God. Gods ways are not as our ways, nor ought we to measure His providential administration by our own rules. He discovers His mind in the manner best fitted to serve His purpose. It was not the will of God that Pharaoh should understand his own dream, till it was explained by a heaven-taught interpreter. If the meaning had been so plain, that it could have been explained by the wise men of Egypt, the design for which it was sent to Pharaoh would not have been gained. It was for Josephs sake, and for the sake of his fathers house, that Pharaoh dreamed, and that his dream required such an interpreter as Joseph. There are dreams and visions recorded in many places of the Bible, that appear to our narrow minds as dark as this dream of Pharaoh. God hath His reasons for choosing to deliver many parts of his mind in dark figures, which we would need a Joseph to interpret. But to allege that any part of Scripture ought to have been plainer than it is, would be daringly presumptuous. Every part of it was dictated to the holy men of God by that wisdom which cannot err. Every censure of the Divine wisdom must he folly and blasphemy. The darkest portion of Scripture was not written in vain. (G. Lawson, D. D.)

Importance attached to dreams

It cannot be surprising that men in all ages and countries should have attached a great importance to dreams. When the functions of the soul seem fettered, and the images of the mind appear dissolved in floating phantoms, it was thought that the direct interference of the Deity alone could give strength and direction to the relaxed faculties; that if in such a state distinct and clearly circumscribed forms were perceived, they must have a higher tendency; and that their meaning is as mysterious as their origin is supernatural. Eastern nations especially, endowed as they are with a luxurious imagination, and carried away by a love of symbolism, searched the import of dreams with eager and serious anxiety. The Egyptians and Chaldeans were foremost in the cultivation of this branch of knowledge; they developed the explanation of dreams into a complete science; the interpreters of dreams were held in the most distinguished honour; they were regarded as being favoured with the highest order of wisdom, and even with divine inspiration; they surrounded the throne of the king, accompanied the expedition of the general, and often exercised a decisive influence in the most important deliberations. But the Greeks and Romans were not less scrupulous in this respect. That dreams come from Jupiter, is a maxim already pronounced by Homer; but they were considered significant only if occurring in the last third of the night, when dawn is near; persons in distress or difficulties slept in temples, in the hope of obtaining prophetic dreams which might indicate the means of rescue; men afflicted with illness especially resorted to this expedient, in the belief that AEsculapius would reveal to them the proper remedies; and Alexander the Great actually fancied he saw, in a dream, the herb which cured the wound of Ptolemy, his friend and relation. But how deeply the faith in the reality of dreams were rooted among the ancient nations is manifest from She views entertained by the Hebrews on this subject. Dreams grew in importance among the Hebrews in the course of centuries, and after the Babylonian captivity they were classified in a complete system; they were regarded either as auspicious or ominous; harassing or frightful visions were expiated by fasts and prayer; and Philo wrote an elaborate treatise, in two books, to prove that dreams are sent by God. It could not fail, that these decided notions, on a subject so vague and uncertain, caused serious abuses, chiefly from two sides; from weak-minded dreamers, who were often tortured by visionary misfortunes, and from cunning interpreters, who knew how to take advantages of such imbecility; but sometimes, also, from wicked schemers, who made real or pretended dreams the pretext of base and selfish plans; as Flavius Josephus did, when, by treachery and cowardice, he saved his life by passing over into the camp of the enemies. Jesus Sirach, therefore, though acknowledging that some dreams are sent by God, censured severely the folly of attributing weight to all; he impressed upon his readers that many dreams are idle and empty, like the wind and the shadow, a delusion to the fool, and a phantom of deceitful hope; just as Artabanus had, long before, said to king Xerxes: The visions of dreams are not Divine; they most commonly hover around men respecting things which engaged their thoughts during the day; although the superstition of his time is reflected in the legend which he narrated, how he yet was forced to acknowledge the awful sanctity of dreams. Nor has the interest in dreams ceased since that time; they have occupied the pen of many a modern psychologist; they have given rise to some of the most beautiful works, replete with profound thought and shrewd observation; and the peculiar mystery which surrounds those remarkable phenomena, too aerial to permit of the rigid analysis of the philosopher or the man of science, will always exercise an excusable charm over the human mind. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER XLI

Pharaoh’s dream of the seven well-favoured and seven

ill-favoured kine, 1-4.

His dream of the seven full and seven thin ears of corn, 5-7.

The magicians and wise men applied to for the interpretation

of them, but could give no solution, 8.

The chief butler recollects and recommends Joseph, 9-13.

Pharaoh commands him to be brought out of prison, 14.

Joseph appears before Pharaoh, 15, 16.

Pharaoh repeats his dreams, 17-24.

Joseph interprets them, 25-32,

and gives Pharaoh directions how to provide against the

approaching scarcity, 33-36.

Pharaoh, pleased with the counsel, appoints Joseph to be

superintendent of all his affairs, 37-41.

Joseph receives the badges of his new office, 42, 43,

and has his powers defined, 44;

receives a new name, and marries Asenath, daughter of

Poti-Pherah, priest of ON, 45.

Joseph’s age when brought before Pharaoh, 46.

Great fertility of Egypt in the seven plenteous years, 47.

Joseph hoards up the grain, 48, 49.

Ephraim and Manasseh born, 50-52.

The seven years of famine commence with great rigour, 53-55.

Joseph opens the storehouses to the Egyptians, 56.

People from the neighbouring countries come to Egypt to

buy corn, the famine being in all those lands, 57.

NOTES ON CHAP. XLI

Verse 1. Two full years] shenathayim yamim, two years of days, two complete solar revolutions, after the events mentioned in the preceding chapter.

The river.] The Nile, the cause of the fertility of Egypt.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Two full years, after the butler’s restitution to his place. Heb. Years of days, for full years, as 2Sa 14:28; Jer 28:3; as a month of days is put for a full month, Gen 29:14, which is complete to a day. Nilus is called the river simply, because of its eminency, as Homer or Virgil are called the poet.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. at the end of two full yearsItis not certain whether these years are reckoned from the beginning ofJoseph’s imprisonment, or from the events described in the precedingchaptermost likely the latter. What a long time for Joseph toexperience the sickness of hope deferred! But the time of hisenlargement came when he had sufficiently learned the lessons of Goddesigned for him; and the plans of Providence were matured.

Pharaoh dreamed“Pharaoh,”from an Egyptian word Phre, signifying the “sun,”was the official title of the kings of that country. The prince, whooccupied the throne of Egypt, was Aphophis, one of the Memphitekings, whose capital was On or Heliopolis, and who is universallyacknowledged to have been a patriot king. Between the arrival ofAbraham and the appearance of Joseph in that country, somewhat morethan two centuries had elapsed. Kings sleep and dream, as well astheir subjects. And this Pharaoh had two dreams in one night sosingular and so similar, so distinct and so apparently significant,so coherent and vividly impressed on his memory, that his spirit wastroubled.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And it came to pass at the end of two full years,…. It is not a clear case, as Aben Ezra observes, from whence these years are to be reckoned, whether from the time of Joseph’s being put into prison, or from the time that the chief butler was taken out of it; the latter seems more probable, and better connects this and the preceding chapter:

that Pharaoh dreamed, and, behold, he stood by the river; it seemed to him, in his dream, as if he stood near the river Nile, or some canal or flow of water cut out of that river.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Pharaoh’s Dreams and Their Interpretation. – Two full years afterwards ( accus. “in days,” as in Gen 29:14) Pharaoh had a dream. He was standing by the Nile, and saw seven fine fat cows ascend from the Nile and feed in the Nile-grass ( an Egyptian word); and behind them seven others, ugly (according to Gen 41:19, unparalleled in their ugliness), lean ( “thin in flesh,” for which we find in Gen 41:19 “fallen away,” and withered in flesh, fleshless), which placed themselves beside those fat ones on the brink of the Nile and devoured them, without there being any effect to show that they had eaten them. He then awoke, but fell asleep again and had a second, similar dream: seven fat (Gen 41:22, full) and fine ears grew upon one blade, and were swallowed up by seven thin (Gen 41:23, “and hardened”) ones, which were blasted by the east wind ( i.e., the S.E. wind, Chamsin, from the desert of Arabia).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Pharaoh’s Portentous Dream.

B. C. 1715.

      1 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.   2 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow.   3 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.   4 And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.   5 And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.   6 And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.   7 And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream.   8 And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dreams; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.

      Observe, 1. The delay of Joseph’s enlargement. It was not till the end of two full years (v. 1); so long he waited after he had entrusted the chief butler with his case and began to have some prospect of relief. Note, We have need of patience, not only bearing, but waiting, patience. Joseph lay in prison until the time that his word came, Ps. cv. 19. There is a time set for the deliverance of God’s people; that time will come, though it seem to tarry; and, when it comes, it will appear to have been the best time, and therefore we ought to wait for it (Hab. ii. 3), and not think two full years too long to continue waiting. 2. The means of Joseph’s enlargement, which were Pharaoh’s dreams, here related. If we were to look upon them as ordinary dreams, we might observe from them the follies and absurdities of a roving working fancy, how it represents to itself tame cows as beasts of prey (nay, more ravenous than any, eating up those of their own kind), and ears of corn as devouring one another. Surely in the multitude of dreams, nay, even in one dream, there are divers vanities, Eccl. v. 7. Now that God no longer speaks to us in that way, I think it is no matter how little we either heed them or tell them. Foolish dreams related can make no better than foolish talk. But these dreams which Pharaoh dreamed carried their own evidence with them that they were sent of God; and therefore, when he awoke, his spirit was troubled, v. 8. It cannot but put us into a concern to receive any extraordinary message from heaven, because we are conscious to ourselves that we have no reason to expect any good tidings thence. His magicians were puzzled, the rules of their art failed them: these dreams of Pharaoh, it seems, did not fall within the compass of them, so that they could not offer at the interpretation of them. This was to make Joseph’s performance by the Spirit of God the more admirable. Human reason, prudence, and foresight, must be nonplussed, that divine revelation may appear the more glorious in the contrivance of our redemption, 1Co 2:13; 1Co 2:14. Compare with this story, Dan 2:27; Dan 4:7; Dan 5:8. Joseph’s own dreams were the occasion of his troubles, and now Pharaoh’s dreams were the occasion of his enlargement.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

GENESIS – CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Verses 1-8:

Scholars differ widely as to the identity of this Pharaoh.

Opinions include: 1. Osirtasen I, founder of the 18th Dynasty; 2. Assa or Assia, fifth king of the 15th Dynasty of the Hyksos Kings; 3. Thothmes III, of the 18th Dynasty; 4. Rameses III, king of Memphis, of the 12th Dynasty; 5. Apophis, a king of the Hyksos ynasty (accepted by many Green authorities as the patron of Joseph). In the “Speaker’s Commentary,” Vol. I, Canon Cook offers as a very probable conjecture that Amenemha III, the last of the 12th Dynasty, was the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time. This seems to be more in keeping with historical facts than any of the other suggested kings.

Two full years passed following the birthday celebration which brought the release and restoration of the chief butler. Joseph remained a prisoner, forgotten by the one who had promised to be his benefactor. But God was at work during this time. Once again, two dreams figure prominently in the history of Joseph This time the dreams were Pharaoh’s. Both were particularly vivid, and disturbing to the king.

In the first dream, Pharaoh stood by “the river,” the Nile. This river was sacred to the Egyptians. They worshipped it as a life-giving goddess. Its annual inundation’s brought moisture and nutrients to the land, and meant life to the crops. The seven “kine” or heifers symbolize the earth, agriculture, and the life-giving food which the land supplied. These thriving cows fed in the lush reed grass which abounded along the Nile. But these cows were consumed by the seven lank, starved cows which likewise came up from the river.

In the second dream, Pharaoh saw an incredibly fruitful stalk of corn (wheat) that produced seven bountiful ears. Historians reveal the important place which wheat held among the ancient Egyptians. Inscriptions and paintings depict some of the Pharaohs as harvesting and offering wheat in sacrifice to the gods. Like the Nile and the cattle, wheat was sacred to the Egyptians. The full ears of grain were utterly consumed by seven thin ears of grain which were blasted by a hot, dry east wind.

The text implies that the first dream perplexed Pharaoh. But when the second dream occurred on the following night, he really got concerned. He sent for the royal magicians and “wise men.” The magicians were those sacred scribes who belonged to the priestly caste and were skilled in making and deciphering hieroglyphics. The “wise men” were those endowed with capability of judgment. They were skilled in the arts and sciences, and the interpretation of dreams. None of these dignitaries was able to give Pharaoh a satisfactory interpretation of his troublesome dreams. Likely they tried, for they were subject to the king’s command. This reminds us that God’s will is not known by the wisdom of this world, but by the power of His Spirit.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. At the end of two full years (154) What anxiety oppressed the mind of the holy man during this time, each of us may conjecture from his own feeling; for we are so tender and effeminate, that we can scarcely bear to be put off for a short time. The Lord exercised his servant not only by a delay of long continuance, but also by another kind of temptation, because he took all human grounds of hope away from him: therefore Moses puts “years of days” for complete and full years. That we may better understand the invincible nature of his fortitude, we must also notice that winding course of divine providence, of which I have spoken, and by which Joseph was led about, till he rose into notice with the king. In the king’s dream, this is worthy to be observed in the first place, that God sometimes deigns to present his oracles even to unbelieving and profane men. It was certainly a singular honor to be instructed concerning an event yet fourteen years future: for truly the will of God was manifested to Pharaoh, just as if he had been taught by the word, except that the interpretation of it was to be sought elsewhere. And although God designs his word especially for the Church, yet it ought not to be deemed absurd that he sometimes admits even aliens into his school, though for an inferior end. The doctrine which leads to the hope of eternal life belongs to the Church; while the children of this world are only taught, incidentally, concerning the state of the present life. If we observe this distinction, we shall not wonder that some oracles are common to profane and heathen men, though the Church possesses the spiritual doctrine of life, as the treasure of its own inheritance. That another dream succeeded to the former, arose from two causes; for God both designed to rouse the mind of Pharaoh to more diligent inquiry, and to add more light to a vision which was obscure. In short, he follows the same course in this dream which he does in his daily method of procedure; for he repeats a second time what he has before delivered, and sometimes inculcates still more frequently, not only that the doctrine may penetrate more deeply into men’s hearts, and thus affect them the more; but also that he may render it more familiar to their minds. That by the second dream God designed to illustrate more fully what was obscure in the first, appears from this, that the figure used was more appropriate to the subject revealed. At first, Pharaoh saw fat cows devoured by lean ones. This did not so clearly prefigure the seven years’ abundance, and as many years of want in corn and other seeds, as the vision of the ears of corn did: for the similitude, in the latter case, better agrees with the thing represented.

(154) In fine duorum annorum dierum “In the account of Pharaoh’s dream, we are first struck with the use of the word אחו, ( Achu,) Nile grass, an Egyptian word for an Egyptian thing.” A note on this passage adds, “Our translators have inaccurately rendered it meadow, (ver. 2,) the aquatic plants of the Nile, particularly those of the litus kind, were so valuable in Egypt, that they were reaped in as regular a harvest as the flax and corn.” The writer proceeds, “In the next place, the seven poor and the seven fat kine attract our attention. The symbol of the cow is very peculiar and exclusively Egyptian. It is scarcely conceivable that a foreign inventor should have confined himself so closely to the peculiar Egyptian symbols. The circumstance that the kine come up out of the Nile, the fat and also the lean, has reference to the fact that Egypt owes all its fertility to this stream, and that famine succeeds as soon as it fails.” — Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 28. — Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

JOSEPH. GODS FAVORITE

Gen 36:1 to Gen 50:26

IF we began our study with the 36th chapter of Genesis we should have to do with the generations of Esau, who is Edom. It is a chapter filled with hard names of men, many of whom wore the title Duke, but like many of the lords and dukes of the present day, did nothing worthy the pen of inspiration. The men whose history God passes over with the mere statement of birth, name, title and death, we may be excused for skipping in our search for the more important characters and the more impressive lessons of the sacred Word.

The 37th chapter introduces us to such a character in Joseph, and launches us upon a study which has engaged the most serious thought of Scripture students for thousands of years. According to the reckoning of John Lord, in his essay on Joseph, this great-grandson of Abraham was born at Haran about 3701 years ago. The most distinguishing feature of his early life was his peculiar and prophetic dreams or visions. He comes before us in the blush of seventeen summers, nicknamed by those who knew him best, this Dreamer. Already in the visions of the night, God had vouchsafed to him the earnest of his coming supremacy and power. The eleven sheaves of his brethren had made obeisance, while Josephs sheaf had stood upright and received their homage. The sun and moon and eleven stars had gathered at his feet. And, when the dreams were known, his father gently reproved, but his brothers resolved and agreed to watch for a chance to act. The favorite of the household was to be put out of the way. The beauty of face that had made him a subject of parental partiality was to be despoiled. The jealousy-breeding coat was to become all crimson; the tattling tongue was to be silenced, and this business of first dreaming and then interpreting to his own profit was to be brought to a deserved end!

Such were the resolutions; and their chance came. Joseph is at last within their grasp, and with a shout of triumph they cry, as they lift their eyes to his sweet though envied face,

Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreamt (Gen 37:19-20).

The remainder of the story is familiar to every one of you, and I do not propose to give time to a rehearsal of its incidents, but rather to a consideration of its fundamental lessons.

DIVINE FAVORS DO NOT INSURE AGAINST HUMAN HATRED.

Joseph had, indeed, almost a monopoly of the favors to be coveted in this life. Through his veins there pulsed no common or unclean blood. Four of his brethren were of the meaner extraction of slave mothers, while six others were born to the tender-eyed Leah. It was Josephs good fortune, and doubtless his pride, to be the elder son of the beautiful Rachel, the only lawful wife of Jacob, because the woman of his selection, and the only one to whom he was bound by love. It may be a sin in the child to love his father and mother less because they are those in whom he can take no special pride, but I am sure that his joy is as commendable as natural who loves and delights in them the more, because they are virtuous, honorable and superior in every way. Such a pride was Josephs possession. Who of us are as grateful as we should be for godly and noble parentage?

Again, providence had favored this child in his own person. Joseph was a goodly person and well favored (Gen 29:6). Doubtless that fact accounts for some of Jacobs inexcusable partiality. He saw in the beautiful boy those princely features which called for a royal tunic as a natural complement. Beauty of person is one of Gods better gifts, and it has played its part in the role of human history. It was that charm and that alone that saved the child, Moses, and opened to him the princess nursery and put him in the splendid Egyptian school from which he graduated unto the great work of saving his people and serving his God. It was beauty of face and grace of form that brought Esther to the throne at the very time when the interests of Israel were trembling in the balance, and Gods people were waiting for just such a friend. The prominent role that Cleopatra played in the world is assigned almost entirely to the solitary circumstance of her personal charms. I have often wondered why the great artists have not made more of Joseph as a subject fit for the choicest marble, and worthy the best skilled brush.

In his spirit also, Joseph was divinely favored. So far as the record of his life goes, it would be dangerous to affirm that the splendid child, or the saintly man, Samuel, was ever possessed of sweeter temper than that which Joseph discovered in all the changing and trying experiences of his life. Not a single indictment against his conduct can be successfully sustained. If it be said that his brothers hated him on account of his intolerable pride, let it be remembered Eliab hurled at David this sentence, I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart. In each instance the bigger brother was voicing the naughtiness of his own heart instead. If he be charged with tattling because he brought unto his father the evil report of his brethren, let us answer with a question, Is silence at the sight of sin a virtue? If a report is to be made, to whom other than the father, the rightful authority? His behavior toward the woman whose unholy love his beauty had excited discovers at once a righteousness of personal character, a keen sense of others interests, and a splendid sensitiveness to sin against God that all right thinking people must admire. His dealing with the butler whose freedom he secured, to be rewarded by base neglect for two long years, proved his patience with forgetfulness and ingratitude. Toward his fratricidal brothers, whose lives eventually fell to his disposal, he discovered only the bosom of love, treating with all tenderness those who had attempted his destruction. Blood may be a good thing, and beauty a joy forever, but that magnanimity of soul which can forget a wrong, be patient with a weakness, and treat with affection those who have subjected you to contemptthat is divine! To do that is to prove ones kinship with the Son of God.

Finally Joseph was favored with dreams of a wider and nobler life. The most promising youth is the one who enjoys such visions of the night. Guizot once wrote to his son who was contesting for a university prize, You are ambitious, my boy; you have a right to be. A man at forty may be too ambitious, but at 20, never.

Now and then the world is astonished by the sudden awakening of some sleeping Samson who discovers unsuspected powers at the attack of the Philistines of opposition; but the rule is that Longfellows, while still beardless, dream of being laureates and write to their mothers asking, Do you not think I may one day write books that will be read all over the land? I think that Dr. Hillis has called attention to an important truth when, in his book A Mans Value To Society, he emphasizes the imagination as the architect of manhood.

But let no man conclude that such Divine favors will insure against human hatred. Jealousy is the blindest of passions, and envy never sees anything save through the green glasses which convert all virtue into vice, and all merit into excuses for murder. We have already seen that Josephs conduct toward his brethren was commendable and in every instance meant for their good. But as the belligerent Israelites resented Moses plea for peace between brethren, so these sons of Leah and the concubines interpreted Josephs just report of their behavior as bad tattling. How many a noble Christian man has been insulted and cruelly criticised because, forsooth, he tried to get people to live right and when they would not, reported their sins to the church!

The modern martyr is that noble Joseph who keeps out of fights himself and says to his brethren, You must behave or I shall be compelled to report you to our spiritual mother. Yes, it is one of the most significant suggestions of the sham of modern profession that it will brook no correction from the brother of tenderest love, yea, even from the officials of the church of God elected for the very purpose of counsel and, when needful, of correction.

Again, how many, Joseph-like, are hated because they have had some dream of position, influence and real worth? You have heard it said, There is one black sheep in every flock. Yes, and the converse is equally true, In a black flock one white sheep appears. In most families there is one child that early comes into possession of that broader view of character, conduct and life. How often his first utterance of the hope for the future, that has grown big within his breast, is met with some expression of contempt for such pretensions, or scorn for such pride of heart! Josephs experience and Davids has been known to the bleeding heart of many a precocious boy. An education has been resolved upon, and he begins the long climb of attainments ladder alone. It would seem enough that he should struggle single-handed, and without assistance or sympathy, but how often he must make his way upward, carrying in memory the bitter reproaches and keen sarcasm of his brothers who see nothing in his dream save concentrated egotism and vain conceit!

If any reader has suffered at one or more of these points, I come to say, Be not discouraged! Retrace your steps in nothing! Be slow to conclude you are wrong, or that it is of no use to labor against such opposition. Christ experienced it all boiled down to its last bitterness and yet, when it did its final work of lifting Him to the cross, it only hastened His crown. Josephs brethren can sell him, but if he is always right the Lord will be with him, and the sale into slavery is only an additional push toward the waiting throne.

Now for our second suggestion,

And Josephs master took him and put him into prison. But the Lord was with Joseph (Gen 39:20-21).

INNOCENCE CANNOT BE EFFECTUALLY DISHONORED.

People sometimes make the mistake of affirming that an innocent man cannot be injured. On the contrary, history is rife with illustrations of the fact that no character is so easily sullied as that of the purest and best of men and women. The principle is easy of explanation. The whiter the sheet of paper the easier it is for dirty fingers to leave their track. Some people have the impression that after all preachers and other religious people are about as capable of immoralities as are the members of any other circle. Alas! for the poisoning power of a sensational and truthless press! Many a Joseph has been silenced, and even banished for a while by such confessed lovers of the profession. They know the ease with which that lord, Public Opinion is excited to jealousy and cruel judgment. They know, too, the inability of the best man to defend himself when accused of the meanest crimes, and so they clap their hands and seek on the spotted hounds of slander. Let us ever be slow in believing charges that are calculated to humble the best reputations to the dust, and wrong the most innocent by robbing them of their good name, and opening for them the door into some dungeon of shame!

Joseph may submit to the inevitable, and under the ban of the law, languish in silence, but God has a reckoning to make, and then the Hamans will swing on the gallows, and the Mordecais ride in the royal chariot and dictate to the throne.

Innocent men, however, can best afford to be lied about and wronged, since truth has wonderful powers of coming abroad. So far as the record of Scripture goes, Joseph complains in never a word. Who doubts that by faith he saw his final triumph; and said in his heart of that prison what the three Hebrew children, of a later time, said of the fiery furnace, Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us. The innocent and righteous man, and he alone, can employ such words and give to them their weight. I come more and more to think that no enemy can effectually injure him who walks uprightly, loves the truth and obeys God.

Dr. Talmage tells how, some years ago, two professed temperance lecturers speaking in Ohio, and taking the unusual course for that class of men, maligned Christians and preachers. Among other things they claimed to be well acquainted with Dr. Talmage and declared that their former drunkenness began with drinking wine from that clergymans table. Talmage, indignant over such a charge, went to Patrick Campbell, then chief of the Brooklyn police, and requested his company to Ohio to effect the arrest of the libelous orators. Campbell only smiled and said, Do not waste your time by chasing these men. Go home and do your work, and they can do you no harm. The advice was taken, and the falsehood died of weakness, if indeed it was not stillborn. There is not a scandal in the power of the tongue strong enough to blight the life that loves innocence and clings to God. Joseph may be imprisoned and never entertain the thought of breaking jail, and yet there are not doors enough in all the dungeons of Egypt to keep him in the narrow cell. Butlers will need his help, the king will require his wisdom and God will bring him forth. This brings us to a third lesson.

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Thou shalt he over my house and according unto thy mind shall all my people be ruled, Only in the throne shall I he greater than thou (Gen 41:39-40).

PRISONS WILL NOT HOLD THE MAN FIT TO BE PREMIER.

I know of few things that will so certainly effect recognition as merit. You cant sell into slavery the man who has it. You may set a price on him and be paid it, but you cant enslave him. There was an old colored man who trotted me on his knees the year the Civil War began. He never was a slave. He was always free! He would have been free on the southern plantations where masters rode with revolver in pocket and whip in hand. You cant enslave the man who makes himself needful to you at every turn. You can put him in prison but an hour later you will need him and bring him out again. Darius once had Daniel put into a lions den. But Daniel was still freer than the king. He curled himself up in a corner of that cage and slept, while Gods angel watched with his hand at the hungry mouths. But the king went to his palace and passed the night in fasting, and his sleep went from him, and very early in the morning he made haste to see if the Hebrew was yet alive, without whom the kingdom could not run; and so Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of

Cyrus the Persian. The city authorities at Philippi tried imprisoning Paul and Silas, but next day they came and let them forth and gave them full permission to depart in freedom. You may bind the body of Zedekiah with fetters of brass, and carrying him away to Babylon, imprison him for life; but he, in whom the spirit of Joseph is, must yet rule in the throne.

Moreover he called for a famine upon the land; he brake the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant; whose feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at his pleasure and teach his senators wisdom (Psa 105:16-22).

Men are slow at times to discern merit, but even jailbirds will feel its power and witness to its presence. The incidental remarks in Acts, which say of the midnight song of Silas and Paul and the prisoners heard them, is not more significant than the sentence which informs us of Joseph that he was in favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Let no man flatter himself that he has great virtues but the world is ignorant of them. Goodness is power and will be felt, and the worlds wise men will be discovered, though a very prison seek to both hide and silence them. God knows the nooks of the universe and when there is need of a man he will find the fittest one in some corner and bring him forth.

When Saul has uncrowned himself, there is a shepherd youth known to God upon whom the mantle will fall. When Eli is old and his family are an offense to heaven, there is a boy in the temple trained, though the great outside world has never heard his name. When famine threatens Egypt and the king is unequal to the task of averting it, Joseph is lying in wait, ready to take the place by Divine appointment.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.

Gen. 41:1. The river.] So the Nile is called, by way of emphasis in the Old Testament when the scene is laid in Egypt.

Gen. 41:6. Blasted with the east wind.] The east wind here is the Chamsia from the south-east or desert of Arabia. It withers every green thing if it continues to blow any time,(Jacobus.)

Gen. 41:8. The magicians.] The scribes, the hieroglyphs, who belonged to the priestly caste, and whose primary business was to make hieroglyphic and other inscriptions; while they were wont to consult the stars, interpret dreams, practise sooth-saying, and pursue the other occult arts. The wise men. The sages, whose chief business was the cultivation of the various arts above mentioned, while the engraving or inscribing department strictly belonged to the hieroglyphs or scribes.(Murphy)

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 41:1-8

PHARAOHS DREAM

Pharaohs dream illustrates the following principles and truths:

I. That apparently insignificant events may often grow into an important part of the worlds history. Who would have thought, before the event, that this strange dream would have had any important bearing on the history of the world! Yet we know that it stands connected with the highest interests of the human race. It led to the preservation of Israel and of Egypt. It educated the people of God for the peculiar position which they were to occupy in the history of redemption. The links of the chain were these: It was not Gods will that Pharaoh should understand his dream till it was explained to him by a heaven-taught interpreter. Had the meaning of it been so clear that the wise men of Egypt could not have failed to interpret it, the very purpose for which the dream was granted would have been defeated. Then Joseph comes to the front, and is found to be the man for the times. Both the Egyptians and the Israelites by his means are preserved. A position and persistent endurance are thus given to that family out of which redemption is to spring.

II. That God chooses the instruments of revelation according to His own good pleasure. Israel, of old, was the chosen home of revelation, yet God sometimes made known His will to men of other nations. Pharaohs dream was certainly prophetic, and there is no question but that dreams like this have been vouchsafed to many outside the chosen family. God gave this dream to a heathen man. Even the possession of the gift of prophecy does not of necessity imply superior religious knowledge, or the holiness of the prophets character. Balaam had the gift of prophecy, and spake the words of God, as well as Isaiah. There may be gifts where there are few or no graces. This heathen king is made to serve God by becoming an unconscious and unwilling instrument of His will. (Pro. 21:1.) Such were the high priests in the days of our Lord.

III. That God can suddenly arrest the attention of those who are the farthest removed from every earthly fear. Pharaoh was absolute lord of the nation, yet his spirit was troubled. The common people were superstitious in regard to dreams and omens, but his princely education would surely place him above the credulous fears of the vulgar! Yet, God suddenly arrests the attention of this man by a remarkable dream. Pharaoh could afford to laugh at vulgar prejudices and superstitions, but now strange misgivings and terrors from, he knows not whence, arise within him. Thus there is a power above us which can tame the greatest of earths sons. Think of the courage and daring of Nebuchadnezzar, yet God could make him afraid like a grasshopper by the visions which he had upon his bed.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Gen. 41:1. Two years of imprisonment will appear a much longer time to one who has not learned to bear the evils of life with an uncommon degree of fortitude. In fact, it is not so much the intenseness of our trials as the duration of them that is the greatest test of our patience. Even those who have been taught of God are strongly tempted under long-continued afflictions to weary of the Lords correction.(Bush.)

Josephs exaltation was accomplished by his innocent sufferings and his good conduct. (Php. 2:6.) Carried out by Gods grace and wisdom as a divine miracle in His special providence. Its principal object, the preservation of Israel and of many nations. Its further object, Israels education in Egypt. Its imperishable aim, the glory of God, and the education of the people of God by means of the fundamental principle: through humiliation to exaltation. Its typical significance. The seal of Israels guidance in Egypt, of the guidance of all the faithful, of the guidance of Christ as the model of our divine instruction.(Lange.)

Whom God means to raise to honour, He suffers to remain, for a time, under the cross.(Cramer.)

Gen. 41:2. The cow is a very significant emblem of fruitful nature among the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic symbol of the earth and of agriculture; and the form in which Isis, the goddess of the earth, was adored.(Murphy.)

Gen. 41:3-4. These, by their leanness, portended drought and dearth, though they came up out of Nilus also. This river, when it overflows unto twelve cubits height only, causeth famine; when to thirteen, scarcity; when to fourteen, cheerfulness; when to fifteen, affluence; when to sixteen, abundance, as Pliny tells us.(Trapp.)

Gen. 41:5-7. The number seven represents the religious element in the case. The thin ears are said to be blasted with the east wind, which, when directly east, occurs in Egypt as seldom as the directly west. The south-east wind, however, is frequent. (Hengstenberg.)

Gen. 41:8. The wisdom that God reveals excels that of the world; therefore the latter is to be confounded by the former. (Rom. 8:28.)(Starke.)

Unlike the wise men of Babylon, whom Nebuchadnezzar summoned to his aid on a like occasion, and who confidently promised to unravel the kings dream as soon as it was made known to them, the magicians of Egypt, when Pharaohs dream was rehearsed in their ears, did not pretend to know the meaning of it. All their combined wisdom durst not pretend to penetrate the secrets of Divine Providence to which it referred. God, by His overruling influence upon their minds, constrained them to acknowledge their ignorance:(Bush.)

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

2. Joseph as Prisoner in Egypt (Gen. 39:1 to Gen. 41:45).

39 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaohs, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, that had brought him down thither. 2 And Jehovah was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. 3 And his master saw that Jehovah was with him, and that Jehovah made all that he did to prosper in his hand. 4 And Joseph found favor in his sight, and he ministered unto him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. 5 And it came to pass from the time that he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that Jehovah blessed the Egyptians house for Josephs sake; and the blessing of Jehovah was upon all that he had, in the house and in the field. 6 And he left all that he had in Josephs hand; and he knew not aught that was with him, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was comely, and well-favored.

EGYPT

and the Nile

Egypt is the gift of the Nile.
(Herodotus)

The Nile is 3,743 miles long from its origin at Lake Victoria in central Africa to the Mediterranean.
Numbers on the map indicate the cataracts of the Nile.
The first cataract at Aswan marks the southern limits of Egypt.

7 And it came to pass after these things, that his masters wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. 8 But he refused, and said unto his masters wife, Behold, my master knoweth not what is with me in the house, and he hath put all that he hath into my hand: 9 he is not greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife; how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? 10 And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. 11 And it came to pass about this time, that he went into the house to do his work; and there was none of the men of the house there within. 12 And she caught him by the garment, saying, Lie with me; and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. 13 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, 14 that she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in a Hebrew unto us to mock us: he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice: 15 and it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled, and got him out. 16 And she laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. 17 And she spake unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, whom thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me: 18 and it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled out.
19 And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled, 20 And Josephs master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the kings prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison. 21 But Jehovah was with Joseph, and showed kindness unto him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 And the keeper of the prison committed to Josephs hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. 23 The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand, because Jehovah was with him; and that which he did, Jehovah made it to prosper.
40 And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was wroth against his two officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. 3 And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. 4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he ministered unto them: and they continued a season in ward. 5 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison. 6 And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and saw them, and, behold, they were sad. 7 And he asked Pharaohs officers that were with him in ward in his masters house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sad today? 8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell it me, I pray you.
9 And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me; 10 and in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and its blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes: 11 and Pharaohs cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaohs cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaohs hand. 12 And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; 13 wherein yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee unto thine office: and thou shalt give Pharaohs cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. 14 But have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house: 15 for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white bread were on my head: 17 and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of baked food for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. 18 And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof; the three baskets are three days; 19 within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. 20 And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaohs birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaohs hand: 22 but he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.
41 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. 2 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well-favored and fat-fleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass. 3 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed, and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. 4 And the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favored and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. 5 And he slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven ears of grain came up upon one stalk, rank and good. 6 And behold, seven ears, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. 7 And the thin ears swallowed up the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. 8 And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.
9 Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day: 10 Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, me and the chief baker: 11 and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. 12 And there was with us there a young man, a Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. 13 And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged.
14 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharoah. 15 And Pharoah said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that when thou hearest a dream thou canst interpret it. 16 And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, 17 In my dream, behold, I stood upon the brink of the river: 18 and, behold, there came out of the river seven kine, fat-fleshed and well-favored; and they fed in the reed-grass: 19 and, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill-favored and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: 20 and the lean and ill-favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: 21 and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill-favored, as at the beginning. So I awoke, 22 And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up upon one stalk, full and good; 23 and, behold seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: 24 and the thin ears swallowed up the seven good ears; and I told it unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me.
25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: what God is about to do he hath declared unto Pharaoh. 26 The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. 27 And the seven lean and ill-favored kine that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind; they shall be seven years of famine. 28 That is the thing which I spake unto Pharaoh; what God is about to do he hath showed unto Pharaoh. 29 Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: 30 and there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; 31 and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine which followeth; for it shall be very grievous. 32 And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. 33 Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. 34 Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. 35 And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. 36 And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.
37 And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. 38 And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is? 39 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this there is none so discreet and wise as thou: 40 thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. 41 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. 42 And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it upon Josephs hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; 43 and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he set him over all the land of Egypt. 44 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt. 45 And Pharaoh called Josephs name Zaphenathpaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt.

(1) Joseph and Potiphars Wife (Gen. 39:1-23). It is a characteristic of Joseph that throughout his life his faithfulness to God brought upon him, and upon all those associated with him, the blessing of God. So it was in Potiphars household into which he was sold as a slave. Here he soon rose to the high post of overseer, and the house, we are told, was divinely blessed for his sake, a fact which even Potiphar himself recognized (Gen. 39:3-6). We have to admit that Joseph, whatever may have been his faults as a youth, certainly developed into one of the most admirable men of all those who figure in the Old Testament records, The character of Joseph stands out as one of the purest in the whole compass of sacred history. No temptation could overcome his high-toned morality, no calamity could shake his implicit faith in God. Adversity in its bitterest form did not unduly depress him, and neither did the giddiest height of prosperity generate unseemly pride. In his fathers house pampered and fondled; in slavery wantonly and falsely accused; in the palace wielding unlimited power, he was always the same truthful, pure, just, noble-minded, God-fearing man (SIBG, 279). The fact he loved God, however, and was destined to accomplish Gods will in Egypt did not make it possible for him to be spared the injustice of false accusations and undeserved imprisonment. When Potiphars wife, a fair example of her kind (whose name is Legion), tried to take advantage of his physical attractiveness and vigor by repeatedly trying to inveigle him into an adulterous relationship, he stoutly refused to be unfaithful either to his God or to his master, and fled the place of temptation, even as the Apostle advises all righteous men to do on facing the snares of the devil (1Ti. 6:11, 2Ti. 2:22; 1Co. 6:18, 1Ti. 3:7, Eph. 6:11). From this human point of view, Joseph could not betray the trust placed in him by Potiphar. It is significant, however, that he affirmed a higher motivation for his refusal, How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? Angered by Josephs refusal to accept her advances, Potiphars wife determined to get revenge. She called for the male servants in the house, who in any event would have been glad to be rid of the foreigner. She spoke of Joseph as a Hebrew using Egyptian racial prejudice to serve her purpose. On one occasion, previously, finding herself alone with Joseph, she took hold of his garment in her desire to consummate her sinful appeal. But this was the occasion on which Joseph fled, unfortunately, however, leaving the garment in her hand. Now, in her desire to make him pay for his rejection of her, she told the Egyptian servants that Joseph had been the aggressor, and that she had resisted his advances, calling for help, and seizing his garment when he fled. When Potiphar heard this report he was angered and had Joseph put into prison. (It has been suggested that he might have had some doubt about his wifes story, otherwise Joseph would have been put to death immediately.) (It should be noted, too, that Joseph had the responsibility for all the business of this household, with one exception, namely, the provision of food (Gen. 43:32). Egyptians would have considered themselves defiled, we are told, if they were to eat with a foreigner.) Some authorities call attention to the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers as an interesting parallel of this account of the temptation of Joseph. In that story it is the younger brother who is falsely accused by the older brothers wife. When the truth is finally known, the wicked wife is slain by her husband. It seems rather far-fetched to establish any significant correspondence between the two tales.

(2) Joseph in Prison (Gen. 39:20-23). The best of men have been accused of the most atrocious crimes. And there is a great readiness in men to believe an evil report, especially against the professors of religion. Here the most improbable story gains easy credit. How often is guilt honored, and innocence oppressed and punished! Yet let me not be weary in well-doing, or in resisting unto blood, striving against sin; for the bitterest sufferings, with a good conscience, are to be preferred to all the pleasures of sin. Though persecutors should be deaf to my plea, there is one, Jehovah, who seeth and judgeth. In his time he will vindicate my character and plead my cause. No prison can exclude his presence (SIBG, 279). Joseph was to learn that to them that love God all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28). When Joseph was sold as a slave he could hardly have known that God was arranging circumstances which would make possible the fulfilment of his dreams (Gen. 37:5-10). Nor could he have suspected the long years needed before the fulfilment. But of one truth he early became aware that God was with him, for no adversity could make him bitter or distrustful of God. Twice we are told that the Lord was with Joseph (Gen. 39:2; Gen. 39:21). Josephs rich spiritual insight was plainly evidenced when he attributed to God his imprisonment and slavery as well as his rise to power (Gen. 45:7-8). His brothers sinned as they wrought their own wilful wickedness, but God used it for the accomplishment of the divine purpose (Gen. 45:7, Gen. 50:20, Psa. 76:10) (HSB, 63). (Cf. Isa. 46:8-11). The story was the same in prison as it had been in Potiphars house: Joseph rose to the position of great responsibility: the keeper of the prison soon came to trust him implicitly, and finally put him in charge of all those who were in the prison. Jehovah was with Joseph and showed kindness unto him, etc., Gen. 39:21.

(3) Joseph the Interpreter of Dreams (Gen. 40:1-23). It so happened that the kings chief butler and chief baker were thrust into prison for offenses against the Pharaoh. In prison each of these men had a remarkable dream which he related to Joseph. The butler dreamed that he saw a vine with three branches, the clusters of which produced ripe grapes; these he pressed into Pharaohs cup. As scribe of the sideboard he had been responsible, of course, for the kings food and drink. The dream was in harmony with his vocation, his usual employment: however, he had done something to cause him to fall into disfavor with the monarch. Joseph interpreted the dream to signify that in three days he, the butler, should be released from prison and restored to his position. Joseph asked of this butler a favor, a very small favor in a sense, in view of the butlers restoration to his place in the royal court: he asked the butler to call the Pharaohs attention to his unjust imprisonment and to intercede for him. He did not mention the incident with Potiphars wife but did protest his innocence. He mentioned his having been stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews (Gen. 39:15), a reminder that he had not been a slave from birth. The baker dreamed that he had three white baskets on his head, the uppermost basket containing baked meats for Pharaoh which were eaten by the birds while he was carrying it. (We learn that bread baskets such as those described here appear in tomb paintings from ancient Egypt.) This dream was explained by Joseph to mean that the chief baker also should be taken from prison in three days, but only to be hung on a tree for the birds to eat the flesh off his bones. (To the Egyptian who held that the welfare of the soul in the next life would be dependent on the preservation of the body, that is, the earthly body, such a destiny would be particularly offensive.) The two dreams were fulfilled to the letter: on the third day the chief butler was restored to his office, where he immediately forgot all about Joseph and his request; and on the third day the chief baker was hanged. Joseph had to choose between his position and his purity. He chose the latter only to suffer unjust accusation and punishment for a crime he did not commit. Yet his noble stand was not in vain, for it resulted in his meeting the kings butler and baker, and this contact in turn made possible his becoming premier of Egypt under the Pharaoh (HSB, 64).

(4) Joseph the Interpreter of the Pharaohs Dreams (Gen. 41:1-36). For two whole years the chief butler forgot, and for two whole years Joseph lingered in prison. Of all the sins in the category, yet the most universal undoubtedly, what is baser, what is more deplorable, more genuinely selfish, than ingratitude? The Bible portrays heaven as essentially the place of joyous eternal thanksgiving (Rev. 5:9-14; Rev. 11:15-17; Rev. 15:2-3; Rev. 19:1-10): and in this world he who has the most thankfulness in his heart has the most of heaven in his life. At the end of the two years, however, something happened: The Pharaoh himself had two dreams, In the first he stood by the river, the Nile of course, on which the very life of all Egypt depends. Irrigation comes to the soil of Egypt by the annual overflow of the Nile; apart from this river, Egypt would be only a part of the great desert which covers all of northern Africa. The Pharaoh saw, coming up out of the river seven fat kine (cows) which proceeded to feed on the marsh-grass that grew along its banks. (In the Egyptian heiroglyphics, the ox is the emblem of agriculture). Then, behold, the Pharaoh saw seven lean cows come up out of the river and devour the seven fat ones. Then he had a second dream: in this he dreamed that seven full ears of grain came up on one stalk, and behold, seven thin ears sprung up after the good ones and devoured them. The king was sore troubled, of course; none of his magicians (not necessarily wise men, but necromancers) could interpret these dreams. Then it was that the chief butler remembered! He came to the Pharaoh with an open confession, I do remember my faults this day! and he told the king about the young Hebrew prisoner who had correctly interpreted the dreams of the butler and baker in prison. Joseph was hastily released and prepared for his meeting with the Pharaoh. As of Semitic origin of course he wore a beard, but now he must be shaved in anticipation of his meeting with the Egyptian monarch (it must be remembered that Pharaoh was only a title, like Caesar, Czar, Kaiser, etc.). Suitable clothing was provided for Joseph and he was ushered into the presence of the king. With a minimum of ceremony, the monarch quickly related to Joseph the contents of his dreams which were actually only one as to meaning. It is interesting to note that Joseph disclaimed any personal psychic powers: what God is about to do he hath declared unto Pharaoh, Gen. 41:25. Joseph then explained the dreams of the cattle and the ears of grain as descriptive of the immediate agricultural future of Egypt: the seven good cattle and seven good ears signified seven years of plenty; but the seven thin cattle and the seven bad ears signified seven bad years that would follow. God was warning the Pharaoh that he must prepare during the seven years of plenty for the seven years of famine that would inevitably follow. The dream, said Joseph, was doubled unto Pharaoh, because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Joseph then proceeds to make some recommendations. He suggests that the king appoint an administrator to be responsible for securing sufficient food during the years of plenty to provide for the needs which would arise during the years of famine. One fifth of the produce of the good years, he said, should be placed in the royal granaries for distribution throughout the land during the lean years. The king recognized in Joseph the kind of administrator he was now in need of, the kind who would serve Egypt in the impending time of crisis. Whereupon, he appointed Joseph himself as Grand Visier, or Prime Minister (over my house, Gen. 41:10). The official signet ring was given to Joseph that he would have power to issue edicts in the name and with the seal of the Pharaoh. He arrayed Joseph in vestments of Egyptian fine linen, the material used by the royal family and the highest officials of the realm. The king put the gold chain around Josephs neck, the emblem of a signal honor, and kind of distinguished service medal. He caused Joseph to ride in the second chariot, next to that of the king himself. A herald went before Joseph crying out, Abrech, meaning probably, Bow the knee. The royal command was given as stated in Gen. 41:44, and meaning, it would seem, something like Without thee, or thy command, shall no man do anything. Joseph was also given an Egyptian name, Zaphenath-paneah (a name of uncertain derivation and said to be meaningless in Hebrew). He took as his wife an Egyptian named Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, a priest of On. A characteristically Egyptian tableau of investiture: Joseph is made viceroy of Egypt; he is second only to the Pharaoh; his house is the centre of administration and he is the keeper of the kings seal. The runners before his chariot of state cry Abrek, which suggests the Egyptian thy heart to thee, beware, make way (JB, 65). These three names indicate pretty clearly the nature of the religion at that time prevailing in Egypt. Asenath signifies belonging to Neith, and Neith was the Egyptian Minerva. Potipherah means belonging to the sun, and On seems to have been identical with the Syrian Baalthe Sun-god. The Egyptians, in fact, were wholly given to idolatry (SIBG, 282). (Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom. The Sun-god in Egypt was most generally known as Re; his seat of worship was at Heliopolis in the Delta. Herodotus, the father of history, relates in detail the circumstances of his visit to Heliopolis.)

On Dreams: An Excursus

Dreams have always been fascinating subjects in human experience. What is the relation between our dream world and the world of our waking hours? Who can say? Erich Fromm tells the story of a Chinaman who had an unusual dream. In it he dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting around and sipping nectar from flower to flowera delectable experience. Suddenly he was awakened by a loud noise. Then he began to think, and ask himself: Was I, a few minutes ago, a Chinaman dreaming that I was a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly dreaming that I am a Chinaman? This, absurd though it may seem, is a question not to be dismissed too carelessly.

What is the nature of dreams? Dr. James L. Jarrett, in his excellent book, The Quest for Beauty, 5963, deals with this subject most interestingly. He writes: There is an easy answer to the question: a dream is the psychic activitythe experience of happenings, thoughts, feelings, imagesduring sleep. But to go further in our probing is not quite so easy. Why does one dream? To protect ones sleep, says Freud, by channeling certain stimuli which might otherwise wake one up. Not all agree with Freuds answer, but a more important question for our purpose is this: Why does one dream what he does dream? And this: Do dreams mean anything? Do they signify? The easy answerperhaps the most popular one, even todayis that dreams are mere nonsense, just a jumble of images as if the wind caught and scattered the snapshots from an open drawer. There is no reason for dreaming the way we doexcept, perhaps, that when our digestive system is having its troubles, we do tend to have troubled dreams; and when our feet get cold, we may have some appropriate dream, such as walking over snowbut nothing more profound than this. So there is not importance or significance to dreamsthough occasionally one may be amusing or weird enough to tell at the breakfast table, even if the audience, in such cases, is seldom as interested as the teller. Jonathan Swift in his parody of Petronius has expressed this position:

On Dreams

Those dreams that on the silent night intrude,
And with false flitting shades our minds delude,
Jove never sends us downwards from the skies;
Nor can they from infernal mansions rise;
But are all mere productions of the brain,
And fools consult interpreters in vain.
For when in bed we rest our weary limbs,
The mind unburdend sports in various whims;
The busy head with mimic art runs oer
The scenes and actions of the day before.

But not everyone has thought so lightly of dreamseven before the influence of psychoanalysis. Literature of every age expresses peoples concern with their dreams; consider Josephs interpretation of Pharaohs dream of the fat kine and the lean kine, Chaucers Nuns Priests Tale, or the wife warning her husband in Tolstoys God Sees the Truth But Waits not to undertake a journey because she had dreamed his hair turned suddenly white. Then there are Strindbergs Dream Play and Joyces Finnegans Wake, a whole novel expressive of a dreambut the list is virtually endless. Dreams, then, according to some strains of folk opinion, are important, at least sometimes. They are ominous, revelatory, prophetic. If they are shadows, they are foreshadows and had better not be lightly dismissed, though their meaning may well be ambiguous and obscure like the pronouncements of the oracles.

Our language employs two other meanings of dreaming, both so common as to require no more than mention. One is idle, profitless musing. Thus Wordsworths Expostulation and Reply :

Why, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus, for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

Another common meaning is: wishing, hoping, planning. When Jeannie of the light brown hair is dreamed of, there is present, no doubt, something more wishful than a mere phantasmagoria. The coming true of dreams is a favorite cliche of song writers and advertising copy writers.
Now, these two latter uses will be noticed to refer especially to daydreams, which differ from sleeping dreams mainly in being somewhat more coherent and certainly under better control from the conscious will of the dreamer; but as the language suggests, the similarity between day and night dreams is more impressive than their differences.
So far, then, mention has been made of four characteristics commonly attributed to dreams: irrationality or silliness, occasional prophetic quality, idleness as contrasted with up and doing, and wishfulness as contrasted with present reality.
As everyone knows, one of the distinctive and (to many people) outrageous characteristics of depth psychology is its insistence upon taking dreams seriously. [Depth psychology postulates some conception of an unconscious dimension in the self, emphasizes unconscious or hidden motivation and the emotional element in the human being. It stresses especially the irrationality of man.] Nevertheless, it by no means contradicts the common-sense notions, It too says that dreams are irrational, prophetic, idle, and wishful; and it goes on to say that however ill dreams conform to the outside world, they arise from and therefore potentially reveal the inside world of the dreamer. The primary assumption is that there is some reason for our dreaming everything we do dream. This reason, though usually not perfectly apparent at first, is discoverable; indeed, in some sense the dreamer knows the meaning of his own dream though it may require a therapist to help him realize explicitly what he knows.

We must distinguish, Freud tells us, between the surface or manifest plot of the dream and the deeper symbolic latent significance that it almost always has. A child may wish to go on a picnic and then dream of going on a picnic; but the older the child gets, the more complex and involved his dreams become. He begins to employ symbols which are at once richer and more obscure than the childs direct imagery. At the adults dreamed picnic there may be apples and flowers and ants and swings and lakes, but these things will seem somehow different from their waking selvesand they are, because they are not only themselves but are also persons and acts in disguise. Above all, the dreams are the products of our feelings and attitudes, our loves and hates, wishes and fears, confidences and insecurities. A dream may reveal to us emotions that we are unaware of, antipathies which we have never been willing to admit, dreads that we have kept hidden even without trying to, desires that we consider shameful, beneficial courses of action that for some reason we have regarded as impossible.

The symbols that dreamers employ are not, according to the psychoanalytic theory, entirely understandable without the interpretive help of the dreamer; yet men for some reason dream more nearly alike than might be supposed. Consequently, there are a number of dream symbols which have a nearly constant meaning, however particularized a significance they have in different occurrences. Water, for instance, seems always to have to do with birth, as journeying symbolizes death. And these meanings, it is curious and interesting to note, apparently do not vary much as to time and place. However unlikely it might offhand seem, there are striking similarities in the dreams of a twentieth-century Wall Street broker; his contemporary, a Zuni warrior; and their ancient predecessor, a Persian king. Yet perhaps it is not so strange either; men everywhere and in every time are born, reared, and educated; they work, marry, raise children, and die. Their bodies are much alike; they share certain basic needs. All of them must relate in a variety of ways to their fellows; all of them love and hate, know fear and hope; have times of joy and times of sorrow. Man, said someone, is the animal who knows he must die. Man, said Aristotle, is the rational animal; but, said Aristotle, he is also vegetative and carnal. And man, as all men know, is a dreamer of dreams. [Plato taught, in the Republic, that the good (just) man is the man in whom reason sits on the throne and functions to control the emotions and direct the will. He admits, however, that in every man a wild beast is lurking in his interior depths and may break loose if not continually kept in subjection by the reason and the will.]

Dreams are irrational if by that description is meant that their coherence is a coherence of emotional tone and not, necessarily, of orderly sequence of events and of images matching those of waking perception and of thoughts arranged in syllogistic pattern. Their irrationality, however, is not beyond all understanding, [The chief characteristic of man, said Aristotle, that which marks him off a man, is the range of his moral potential: he is capable either of wallowing in the gutter or walking up among the stars.]

For instance, dreams may be understood to be prophetic. Not because of their being vehicles of occult omniscience but because they are records of the past and present, which are the seedbed of the future. Take the wonderful case of Pilates wife. She warned her husband not to deal with Jesus because, she said, I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him (Mat. 27:19). May it not be that her dream showed her something about her own perception of Jesus that she had not before been quite able to acknowledge? The person who had been dreaming of falling down mountain cliffs might be advised to postpone his ascent of F-6, not because the dreams are a glimpse of fate exactly, but because they perhaps reveal a certain fear of the dreamer, a fear which might during a climb contribute to the actualization of the dreams. (The student who may wish to pursue this subject further is advised to make a study of Jungs interesting doctrine of the Collective Unconscious).

As usual, as on other matters of human experience, our great genius, William Shakespeare, has a most significant comment to give us on the subject of dreams, as embodied in Hamlets famous soliloquy:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more: and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wishd. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, theres the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. . . .

Dreams: In The Bible

Dreams, in Biblical terms, may be classified as (1) Vain dreams (Job. 20:8, Psa. 73:20, Isa. 29:8); (2) Dreams employed by God in the actualization of His designs in the production of which He works according to the laws of the mind and perhaps always makes use of secondary causes. These are (1) designed to affect the spiritual life of specific persons, e.g., the Midianites dream which was providentially overheard by Gideon and encouraged the latter to his signal victory (Jdg. 7:13). The dream of Pilates wife may have been of this character (Mat. 27:19). (2) Designed to be directive and prophetic when revelation was as yet incomplete. These carried with them, it seems, credentials of their divine origin. We find many of these in Genesis: Gen. 20:3; Gen. 28:12; Gen. 31:10; Gen. 31:24; Gen. 37:5; Gen. 37:9-10; Gen. 37:20; Gen. 40:5; Gen. 41:7; Gen. 41:15; Gen. 41:25-26. See also 1Ki. 3:5; Dan. 2:1; Dan. 2:4; Dan. 2:36; Dan. 4:1 ff; Dan. 7:1 ff.; Mat. 1:20; Mat. 2:12, The power of accurately interpreting prophetic dreams was granted to certain favored people, as to Joseph (Gen. 41:16), and to Daniel (Dan. 2:25-28; Dan. 2:47). Dreams offered as revelations to the O.T. saints were subjected to tests to determine their character. If they inculcated immoral conduct, they were by that very fact proclaimed false; and any person who sought by such means to lead Israel from the worship of Jehovah was to be put to death (Deu. 13:1-5; Jer. 23:25-32; Jer. 29:8; Zec. 10:2).

The dream is a domain of experience, having an intellectual, ethical, and spiritual significance. Living in an earthly body, we have, as the background of our being, a dim region, out of which our thinking labors forth to the daylight, and in which much goes forward, especially in the condition of sleep, of which we can only come to a knowledge by looking back afterward. Experience confirms to us the assertion of Scripture (Psa. 127:2) that God giveth to his beloved in sleep. Not only many poetical and musical inventions, but, moreover, many scientific solutions and spiritual perceptions, have been conceived and born from the life of genius awakened in sleep. [Students of psychic phenomena are unanimous in our day in affirming that the Subconscious in man is the seat of perfect memory, perfect perception of the fixed laws of nature, and creative imagination. See my Genesis, Vol. I, 4567, 460465.]

Another significant aspect of dreaming is the ethical. In the dream ones true nature manifests itself, breaking through the pressure of external relations and the simulation of the waking life. From the selfishness of the soul, its selfish impulses, its restlessness stimulated by selfishness, are formed in the heart all kinds of sinful images, of which the man is ashamed when he awakens, and on account of which remorse sometimes disturbs the dreamer. The Scriptures appear to hold the man responsible, if not for dreaming, at least for the character of the dream (Lev. 15:16, Deu. 23:10).

A third significant aspect of dreams is the spiritual: they may become the means of a direct and special intercourse of God with man. The witness of conscience may make itself objective and expand within the dream-life into perceptible transactions between God and man. Thus God warned Abimelech (Genesis 20) and Laban (Gen. 31:24) in a dream, and the wife of Pilate warned her husband against being concerned in the death of the Just One (Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, 324ff., quoted, UBD, p. 275). A good dream was one of the three things-viz., a good king, a fruitful year, and a good dreampopularly regarded as marks of divine favor; and so general was the belief in the significance that it passed into this popular saying: If anyone sleeps seven days without dreaming call him wicked (as being unremembered by God): see again Delitzsch (ibid.). The conviction of the sinfulness and nothingness of man is related by Eliphaz as realized in a dream (Job. 4:12-21).

There are many instances in Scripture of dreams in which the special will of God is revealed to men. (Cf. Gen. 28:12; Gen. 31:10-13; 1Ki. 3:5; Mat. 1:20; Act. 16:9; Act. 18:9; Act. 23:11; Act. 27:23; note that these last were night visions of the Apostle Paul). Waking visions probably are to be distinguished from prophetic dream visions, which the seer, whether by day or by night (Eze. 8:1; Dan. 10:7; Act. 7:55; Act. 10:9-16; Act. 16:9; Act. 18:9), receives in a waking state. As we have noted heretofore, dreams of presentiment (premonitions) occur frequently in Scripture (as especially were the dreams that played such an important role in the career of Joseph, Gen., chs. Gen 37:511, 40, 41; cf, Gen. 42:9). Dreams and visions are said to be two forms of the prophetic revelations of God (Num. 12:6). Still and all, we are warned against putting too much reliance on dreams (Ecc. 5:7). In the pagan world, because dreams were looked upon as communications from the gods, there arose those who professed special ability to interpret them (Magi). These men were not to be heeded if they taught anything contrary to the Law (Deu. 13:1 ff., Jer. 27:9). There are instances recorded of Gods helping men to understand dreams and the divine truth communicated through them (Gen. 40:5,ff; Gen. 41:7-32; Dan. 2:19 ff; Dan. 4:8).

In common with contemporary peoples the Hebrews sought an explanation of their dream experiences. But in the matter of the interpretation of dreams the Bible distinguishes between the dream-phenomena reported by non-Israelites and by Israelites. Gentiles such as Pharaoh (Gen. 41:15 ff.) and his high-ranking officers (Gen. 40:12 ff., Gen. 40:18 ff.) require Joseph to explain their dreams, and Nebuchadnezzar needs Daniel (Dan. 2:17 ff.). On occasion God Himself speaks and so renders human intervention unnecessary (Gen. 20:3 ff; Gen. 31:24; Mat. 2:12). But when the members of the covenant community dream, the interpretation accompanies the dream (Gen. 37:5-10; Act. 16:9 ff.).

This subject is important for the Old Testament view of prophecy. Among the Hebrews there was a close association between dreams and the functions of a prophet. The locus classicus is Deu. 13:1-5, but 1Sa. 9:9 remarks that a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer. If seer means a man of visions, then it supports Deu. 13:1; Deu. 13:3; Deu. 13:5, where the prophet is mentioned along with the dreamer without betraying any sense of incongruity. The close connection in Hebrew thought between dreaming and prophesying is again revealed in Jer. 23:25; Jer. 23:32. It is also clear that in the days of Samuel and Saul it was commonly believed that the Lord spoke through dreams as well as by Urim and the prophets (1Sa. 28:6), However, a revelation through dream phenomena was thought of as being inferior to a revelation that was received by the prophet from the Lord at first hand. This is the conclusion which Num. 12:6-8 forces upon us. Jeremiah uses the same kind of distinction in discrediting the revelations of the false prophets of his own day (Jer. 23:25; Jer. 23:32). The Word of the Lord which came to the authentic prophet was a hammer and a fire (Jer. 23:29), whereas a dream-revelation was straw (Jer. 23:28) (See NBD, s.v.).

REVIEW QUESTIONS

See Gen. 41:46 to Gen. 47:31.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XLI.
JOSEPH INTERPRETS PHARAOHS DREAMS HE IS MADE GOVERNOR OF EGYPT, AND MARRIES THERE.

(1) Pharaoh dreamed.After two years spent in the prison, the time has now come for Josephs elevation to power; and it is to be noticed that this was not brought about by those arts by which men usually attain to greatness, such as statesmanship, or military skill; nor was it by accident, but according to the Biblical rule, by the direct intervention of Providence. Just as centuries afterwards, Daniel rose to high office at Babylon by God making known to him the dream of Nebuchadnezzar; so here, the transplantation of Israel into Egypt is brought about by the revelation to Joseph of what was to be hereafter.

The river.Heb., Yeor, the Egyptian word for great river. It is the usual name in the Bible for the Nile, but is used for the Tigris in Dan. 12:5-6, and for any large river in Job. 28:10. The Pharaoh in Those reign Joseph became governor of Egypt, is generally supposed to have been Apophis, the most famous of the shepherd kings. But Canon Cook, in his Essay, On the bearings of Egyptian History upon the Pentateuch, after carefully reviewing the whole subject, decides in favour of King Amenemha III., the greatest monarch of the noble twelfth dynasty, and the last king of all Egypt.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

THE DREAMS OF PHARAOH, Gen 41:1-8.

1. Two full years Hebrews, two years of days . Comp . Gen 29:14. This may mean two years from the date of Joseph’s imprisonment, or from the date of the butler’s release. More naturally it would mean the latter, as being the thing last mentioned.

The river Hebrews, , the yeor, an Egyptian word, and used in the Pentateuch always of the Nile . It was suitable that the dream-vision of Pharaoh should be associated with the sacred river, which was to Egypt the source of fertility and life.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Joseph Is Called Before Pharaoh and Interprets His Dreams – He Is Made Vizier ( Gen 41:1-57 )

Gen 41:1-4

‘And it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh dreamed, and behold he stood by the River Nile, and behold there came up out of the Nile seven cows, well-favoured and fat-fleshed, and they fed in the reed grass. And behold seven other cows came up after them out of the Nile, gaunt and thin and bony, and stood by the other cows on the brink of the Nile. And the gaunt, thin and bony cows ate up the seven well-favoured and fat-fleshed. So Pharaoh awoke.’

Pharaoh, the great king of Egypt, was looked on as a god by the people of Egypt. To them he was Horus, son of Osiris the sun god, and on his death would indeed become Osiris, as his successor became Horus. He was relatively unapproachable except by his high officials, and had despotic powers.

We do not know which Pharaoh this was. There are indications which suggest that he must have reigned before the Asiatic Hyksos, the ‘rulers of foreign lands’, took over the Lower part of Egypt including the Nile delta (c. 1720 BC), ruling there for well over a hundred years. We shall refer to these as we come to them in the narrative. Others, however, feel that the account is best explained by assuming that this Pharaoh was one of the Hyksos rulers, in which case the above comments will not apply. The Hyksos were not worshippers of Ra.

Pharaoh dreams a dream. First seven fat cows come out of the Nile and they eat the reed grass. Then seven thin and bony cows come out of the Nile and they eat the seven fat cows for there is no reed grass. Seven is the number of divine completeness. Such dreams were considered to portend good or evil and he would be somewhat disturbed and determined to discover the meaning of the dream. But before morning came he dreamed a second time.

“The River Nile.” This translates ye’or which is an Egyptian loan word for river and is almost always used, and rarely otherwise, when the River Nile is in mind. We have thus translated ‘the Nile’.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Pharaoh’s Dream – In this ancient world of agriculture and husbandry, cows would often wander into the Nile River in order to cool off from the heat and to ward off flies. Thus, the idea of cows coming up out of the river was a common sight. I have been on the Nile River as a missionary in Uganda and seen elephants cooling off and playing in this river.

Gen 41:6 Comments – Keil-Delitzsch note that the east wind would be the scorching wind that comes off of the Arabian desert to the east of Egypt. [249]

[249] C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Pentateuch, vol. 1, in Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, trans. James Martin, in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), comments on Genesis 41:1-6.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Pharaoh’s Dream The story of Pharaoh’s dream and the interpretation by Joseph is found in Gen 41:1-32. In this dream the Lord revealed to Pharaoh future events. We find a similar story in the book of Daniel when the Lord revealed to King Nebuchadnezzar by a dream the future periods of the Gentile nations.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.

The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.

The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.

In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.

It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.

We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.

In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26

a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25

b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24

c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26

2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8

3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29

4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9

5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26

6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43

10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.

Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.

The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.

The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.

1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43

5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.

Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.

1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43

5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Genealogy of Jacob The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.

Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26 gives the account of the genealogy of Jacob, Isaac’s son. Heb 11:21-22 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when Jacob and Joseph gave redemptive prophecies, saying, “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” As Abraham’s genealogy begins with a divine commission when God told him to leave Ur and to go Canaan (Gen 12:1), and Isaac’s genealogy begin with a divine commission predicting him as the father of two nations (Gen 25:23), so does Jacob’s genealogy begin with a divine encounter in the form of his son Joseph’s two dreams. These dreams make it clear that Jacob’s divine commission was to bring his clan of seventy souls into Egypt through Joseph for four hundred years while the people multiply into the nation of Israel. This genealogy closes with the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “prince of God,” because his destiny was to father a multitude of godly seed. He fathered the twelve sons, or “princes,” who multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. His ability to father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as a prince of God, as a man who ruled over a multitude of godly seed. The Scriptures testify to Jacob’s faith in God’s promise that Joseph would rule over his brethren by the fact that he followed his son into Egypt (Gen 49:22-26), and he blessed the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh (Heb 11:21-22). The fact that Jacob died in a ripe old age testifies that he fulfilled his destiny as did his fathers, Abraham and Isaac.

The Story of Joseph The last story in the origin of the nation of Israel that is recorded in the book of Genesis is the story of Joseph. Perhaps there is no other Old Testament story so moving as when he reveals himself to his brothers. There are many truths that are taught to us in this great Bible story. We learn that if we will serve the Lord amidst persecutions, God will always bring someone into our lives to bless us. Joseph had the favour and blessings of his father as a young man in the midst of his brothers’ persecutions. He then had the blessings of Potipher as a young man in Egypt. He found the favour of Pharaoh as an adult.

God gave Jeremiah some friends who stood by him and blessed him during the most difficult times in his ministry. God gave Daniel three friends in his Babylonian captivity. God gave to Paul men like Timothy and Luke to stand by him during times of persecution and even imprisonment. But for Joseph, he often stood alone, totally trusting in God.

The Chronology of the Life of Joseph – Jacob was one hundred thirty (130) years old when he went to Egypt.

Gen 47:9, “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

Jacob died at the age of 147.

Gen 47:28, “And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.”

Joseph became ruler in Egypt at the age of 30.

Gen 41:46, “And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Joseph had two sons by the age of 37.

Gen 41:50, “And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him.”

Joseph was 39 when his family comes to Egypt.

Gen 45:11, “And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.”

Therefore, Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born.

Also, Joseph died at the age of 110 (Gen 50:22; Gen 50:26)

Gen 50:22, “And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.”

Gen 50:26, “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

Joseph as a Type and Figure of Christ Jesus In many ways we can see Joseph as a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. Note some comparisons:

1. Joseph was Jacob’s beloved son, just as Jesus was the Heavenly Father’s beloved son.

Mat 3:17, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

2. Joseph was given a coat of many colours, which was similar to the seamless robe worn by Jesus Christ, of which the Roman soldiers cast lots (Joh 19:23-24).

Joh 19:23-24, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”

3. Joseph took bread to his brothers, just like Jesus was sent as the bread of life to His people.

Mat 15:24-26, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.”

4. Joseph was rejected by his brothers like Jesus was rejected by His people, the Jews.

5. Joseph was thrown in the pit in Gen 37:24. This is like Jesus’ death on the cross (Psa 16:10)

Gen 37:24, “And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.”

Psa 16:10, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”

6. When Joseph was betrayed by his brethren and sold as a servant. Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot for thirty pieces of sliver.

7. Joseph became a servant in the house of Potiphar, just like Jesus Christ took form of a servant (Php 2:7) and (Psa 105:17).

Gen 37:36, “And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.”

Gen 39:1, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.”

Psa 105:17, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:”

Php 2:7, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:”

8. Joseph was sent to Egypt to deliver the house of Jacob (Israel) (Gen 45:7-8) like Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to deliver them.

Gen 45:7-8, “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Mat 15:24, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

9. Joseph was lifted up by Potiphar, then brought down into prison, then raised up by Pharaoh at his right hand. This is like Jesus being brought down to the grave, and then being raised to the right hand of the Father.

10. Joseph was exalted as ruler under Pharaoh, like Christians at the right hand of the Father in heaven today.

11. Some scholars suggest that Joseph’s marriage to the Egyptian is a type of Christ’s marriage to the church (especially to the Gentile church). He had two sons, which symbolizes the salvation of the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

12. Joseph’s brothers bowed down to Joseph during the famine (Gen 42:6) like Israel will bow down to Jesus one day (Rom 11:26). Israel shall be saved through the Deliverer.

Gen 42:6, “And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.”

Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”

13. Joseph revealed himself to his brothers on their third trip to Egypt. The ten brothers finally coming to Joseph and recognising him and receiving an inheritance is like Israel turning to and recognising Jesus and all being saved.

Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”

Jesus will reveal Himself to the Jews after the Church is raptured at His Second Return, thus, a third return.

14. All nations came and bowed down to Joseph, as all nations will someday come and bow down at the throne of the Lord Jesus.

15. Joseph was ruler over Egypt and the whole world, just as Jesus will reign in Zion as king of kings over the earth.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Two Dreams of Pharaoh

v. 1. And it came to pass at the end of two full years that Pharaoh dreamed; and, behold, he stood by the river, on the banks of the Nile. This was after the imprisonment of Joseph had lasted two more whole years.

v. 2. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well-favored kine and fat-fleshed, cows in the best of condition, both as to appearance and flesh; and they fed in a meadow, in the luscious grass on the banks of the Nile.

v. 3. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. The cows in the second set were in an extremely poor condition, very lean as to flesh, but they followed hard upon the first set.

v. 4. And the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favored and fat kine. The lean cows devoured the fat cows, without, however, deriving any benefit therefrom,

v. 21. So Pharaoh awoke, the vividness of the dream bringing him to his senses with a start.

v. 5. And he slept and dreamed the second time; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good, long, full, heavy ears, indicating great fertility.

v. 6. And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them. This was not a single stalk, as before, but seven individual thin stalks, scorched by the southeast wind from the Arabian desert, the so-called Chamsim.

v. 7. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. The picture had been so vivid in his mind’s eye that Pharaoh was surprised to find it a mere dream. Yet he felt that facts of unusual importance were being brought to his attention by means of these dreams.

v. 8. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled, with the full awakening came the full consciousness of important events pending; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof, men belonging to the priestly order who devoted themselves to astrology, dreams, fortune-telling, and magic, commonly considered the wise men of the nation. And Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. With all the wisdom of the kingdom at their disposal, they failed miserably, for, as one interpreter has it, “It is the doom of this world’s wisdom to be dumb where its knowledge might avail, or dependence is placed upon it. ” Interpretation that may be depended upon belongs to God.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Gen 41:1

And it came to pass at the end of two full years (literally, two years of days, i.e. two complete years from the commencement of Joseph’s incarceration, or more probably after the butler’s liberation), that Pharaohon the import of the term vide Gen 12:15. Under what particular monarch Joseph came to Egypt is a question of much perplexity, and has been variously resolved by modern Egyptologists in favor of

1. Osirtasen I; the founder of the twelfth dynasty, a prosperous and successful sore-reign, whose name appears on a granite obelisk at Heliopolis.

2. Assa, or Assis, the fifth king of the fifteenth dynasty of Shepherd kings (Stuart Poole in Smith’s ‘Bible Dict.,’ art. Egypt).

3. Apophis, a Shepherd king of the fifteenth dynasty, whom all the Greek authorities agree in mentioning as the patron of Joseph.

4. Thothmes III; a monarch of the eighteenth dynasty.

5. Rameses III; the king of Memphis, a ruler belonging to the twentieth dynasty. It may assist the student to arrive at a decision with respect to these contending aspirants for the throne of Pharaoh in the time of Joseph to know that Canon Cook, after an elaborate and careful as well as scholarly review of the entire question, regards it as at least “a very probable conjecture” that the Pharaoh of Joseph was Amenemha III; “who is represented on the lately-discovered table of Abydos as the last great king of all Egypt in the ancient empire (the last of the twelfth dynasty), and as such receiving divine honors from his descendant Rameses”dreamed. “For the third time are dreams employed as the agencies of Joseph’s history: they first foreshadow his illustrious future; they then manifest that the Spirit of God had not abandoned him even in the abject condition of a slave and a prisoner; and lastly they are made the immediate forerunners of his greatness” (Kalisch.). And, behold, he stood by the riveri.e. upon the banks of the Nile, the term (an Egyptian word signifying great river or canal, in the Memphitic dialect yaro, in the Sahidic yero) being used almost exclusively in Scripture for the Nile. This was the common name for the Nile among the Egyptians, the sacred being Hapi.

Gen 41:2

And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well-favored kine and fat-fleshed. According to Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria, the heifer was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as a symbol of the earth, agriculture, and the nourishment derived therefrom. It was therefore natural that the succession of seven prosperous years should be represented by seven thriving cows. That they appeared ascending from the river is explained by the circumstance that the Nile by its annual inundations is the cause of Egypt’s fertility (cf. Havernick, ‘Introd.,’ 21). A hymn to the Nile, composed by Euna (according to the generality of Egyptologers a contemporary of Moses), and translated from a papyrus in the British Museum by Canon Cook (who ascribes to it an earlier date than the nineteenth dynasty), describes the Nile as “overflowing the gardens created by Ra giving life to all animals watering the land without ceasing Lover of food, bestower of corn Bringer of food! Great Lord of provisions! Creator of all good things!”; And they fed in a meadow, , (LXX.), literally, in the Nile or reed grass. The word Ge appears to be an Egyptian term descriptive of any herbage growing in a stream. It occurs only here and in Gen 41:18, and Job 8:11.

Gen 41:3

And, behold, seven other kind came up after them out of the river, ill. favored and lean-fleshed. The second seven cows, “evil to look upon,” i.e. bad in appearance, and “thin (beaten small, dakoth, from dakak, to crush or beat small) of flesh,” also proceeded from the river, since a failure in the periodical overflow of the Nile was the usual cause of scarcity and famine in Egypt. And stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. The use of the term lip, , for brink, common enough in Hebrew (Gen 22:17; Exo 14:30; 1Ki 5:9), occurs also in a papyrus of the nineteenth dynasty, “I sat down by the lip of the river,” which appears to suggest the impression that the verse in the text was written by one who was equally familiar with both languages.

Gen 41:4

And the ill-favored and lean fleshed kine did eat up the seven we favored and fat kinewithout there being any effect to show that they had eaten them (Gen 41:21). So (literally, and) Pharaoh awoke.

Gen 41:5

And he slept and dreamed the second time (that same night): and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank (i.e. fat) and good. This clearly pointed to the corn of the Nile valley, the triticum compositum, which Bears seven ears upon one stalk. The assertion of Herodotus, that the Egyptians counted it a disgrace to live on wheat and barley (2.36), Wilkinson regards as incorrect, since “both wheat and barley are noticed in Lower Egypt long before Herodotus’ time (Exo 9:31, Exo 9:32), and the paintings of the Thebaid prove that they were grown extensively in that part of the country; they were among the offerings in the temples; and the king, at his coronation, cutting some ears of wheat, afterwards offered to the gods as the staple production of Egypt, shows how great a value was set on a grain which Herodotus would lead us to suppose was held in abhorrence”.

Gen 41:6

And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after themliterally, burnt up of the east, being put poetically for the fuller . It has been urged that this displays a gross ignorance of the nature, of the climate in Egypt (Bohlen), since a wind directly east is rare in Egypt, and when it does occur is not injurious to vegetation; but, on the other hand, it is open to reply

(1) that direct east winds may be rare in Egypt, but so are dearth and famine such as that described in the narrative equally exceptional (Kalisch);

(2) that the Hebrews having only names to describe the four principal winds, the kadirn might comprise any wind blowing from an easterly direction (Hengstenberg); and

(3) that the south-east wind, “blowing in the months of March and April, is one of the most injurious winds, and of longest continuance” (Havernick). Hengstenberg quotes Ukert as saying, “As long as the south-east wind continues, doors and windows are closed; but the fine dust penetrates everywhere; everything dries up; wooden vessels warp and crack. The thermometer rises suddenly from 16 20, up to 30 36, and even 38, Reaumur. This wind works destruction upon everything. The grass withers so that it entirely perishes if this wind blows long”.

Gen 41:7

And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank (i.e. fat) and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dreammanifestly of the same import as that which had preceded. The dream was doubled because of its certainty and nearness (Gen 41:32).

Gen 41:8

And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; or, rather, his mind was agitated, (LXX.), pavore perterritus (Vulgate), the ruach being the seat of the senses, affections, and emotions of various kinds (cf. Dan 2:1; Dan 4:5, Dan 4:19)and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt,the , from (unused), to engrave, whence , a stylus (Gesenius), or from , to see or explain, and , to conceal, i.e. he who explains hidden or mysterious things (Kalisch), were sacred scribes, , belonging to the priestly caste, who were skilled in making and deciphering the hieroglyphics. Besides figuring in the Court of Pharaoh (Exo 7:11, Exo 7:22; Exo 8:3; Exo 14:15) in the time of Moses, they recur again at a later period in that of the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 1:20; Dan 2:2)and all the wise men thereof. The , from , the primary idea of which is that of judging (Gesenius), were persons capable of judging, hence persons endowed with pre-eminent abilities for the prosecution of the ordinary business of life, the cultivation of the arts and sciences, the practice of divination, the interpreting of dreams, and other kindred occupations. They were the sages of the nation. And Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. The magicians of Egypt were not so conceited as their Brethren in Babylon afterwards showed themselves to be, Dan 2:4 (Lawson). That they could not explain the dream, though couched in the symbolical language of the time, was no doubt surprising; but “the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1Co 2:11), and they to whom the Spirit doth reveal them (1Co 2:10).

Gen 41:9-13

Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day:literally, my faults (sc. am) remembering today; but whether he understood by his faults his ingratitude to Joseph or his offense against Pharaoh commentators are not agreed, though the latter seems the more probablePharaoh was wroth with his servants,literally, broke out against them (vide Gen 40:2)and put me in ward in the captain of the guard’s house,literally, put me in custody of the house of the captain of the slaughterers (cf. Gen 40:3)both me and the chief baker: and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream (vide Gen 40:5). And there was there with us a young man, a Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard (vide Gen 37:36); and we told him (so. our dreams), and he interpreted to us our dreams (vide Gen 40:12, Gen 40:13, Gen 40:18, Gen 40:19); to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he (not Pharaoh, but Joseph) restored unto mine office, and him he hanged (vide Gen 40:21, Gen 40:22).

Gen 41:14

Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily (literally, caused him to run) out of the dungeon (vide Gen 40:15): and he shaved himself,this was exactly in accordance with Egyptian custom (Herod. 2.36). Wilkinson states that “the custom of shaving the head as well as beard was not confined to the priests in Egypt, but was general among all classes”. That the verb is not more exactly defined by a terra Cellowing, such as the head (Num 6:9), the beard (2Sa 10:4), but stands alone (the only instance of its intransitive use), appears to suggest that the writer was familiar with the practice of shaving (vide Havernick, ‘Introd.,’ 21)and changed his raiment,as required by the customs of Egyptand came (or went) in unto Pharaoh.

Gen 41:15

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it (literally, and interpreting it there is no one): and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret itliterally, I have heard of thee, saying, thou hearest a dream to interpret it.

Gen 41:16

And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me (literally, not I): GodElohim (of. Gen 40:8)shall give Pharaoh an answer of peaceliterally, shall answer the peace of Pharaoh, i.e. what shall be for the welfare of Pharaoh. The rendering (LXX.), though giving the sense, fails in accuracy of translation.

Gen 41:17-21

Pharaoh then relates his dreams in substantially the same terms as those in which they have already been recited, only adding concerning the lean kine that they were (Gen 41:19) such as I never saw (literally, I never saw such as these) in all the land of Egypt for badness: and that (Gen 41:21) when they had eaten them (i.e. the good kine) up, it could not be known they had eaten them;literally, and they (i.e. the good kine) went into the interior parts, i.e. the stomach (of the bad kine), and it was not known that they had gone into the interior partsbut they (the bad kine) were still ill-favored, as at the beginningliterally, and their appearance was bad as in the beginning, i.e. previously; and concerning the thin and blasted ears, that they were also (Gen 41:23) withered, from , to be hard, meaning either barren (Gesenius), dry (Furst), or sapless (Kalisch)a word which the LXX. and the Vulgate both omit. Onkelos explains by , flowering, but not fruiting; and Dathius renders by jejunae. After which he (i.e. Pharaoh) informs Joseph that the professional interpreters attached to the Court (the chartummim, or masters of the occult sciences) could give him no idea of its meaning.

Gen 41:25

And Joseph said unto Pharaoh (the inability of the magicians to read the dream of Pharaoh was the best proof that Joseph spoke from inspiration), The dream of Pharaoh is one (i.e. the two dreams have the same significance): God hath showed Pharaoh what he is about to do (literally, what the Elohim is doing, i.e. is about to do, he causeth to be seen by Pharaoh).

Gen 41:26-32

Proceeding with the interpretation of the dream, Joseph explains to Pharaoh that the seven good kine and the seven full ears point to a succession of seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt which were already coming (Gen 41:29), after which there should arise seven years of famine, in which all the plenty should be forgotten in the land, and the famine should consume, or make an end of, the land (Gen 41:30), and the plenty should not be known in the land by reason of (literally, from the face of, used of the efficient cause of anything, hence on account of) that famine followingliterally, the famine, that one, after (things have happened) so; adding (Gen 41:32), And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice (literally, and as for the doubling of the dream to Pharaoh twice); it is because the thing is established by God,literally, the word(or thing spoken of) is firmly fixed, i.e. certainly decreed, by the Elohimand God will shortly bring it to passliterally, and hastening (is) the Elohim to do it.

Gen 41:33-36

Now therefore (adds Joseph, passing on to suggest measures suitable to meet the extraordinary emergency predicted) let Pharaoh look out a man discreet (, niph. part. of , intelligent, discerning), and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers (literally, let him set overseers, , from , to look after, in hiph. to cause to look after) over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egyptliterally, let him fifth the land, i.e. levy. a tax upon its produce to that extent (LXX; Vulgate), which was double the annual impost exacted from Egyptian farmers, but which the unprecedented fertility of the soil enabled them to bear without complaint, if, indeed, adequate compensation was not given for the second tenth (Rosenmller)in the Seven plenteous years. Diodorus mentions the payment of a fifth in productive years as a primitive custom. And let them (the officers) gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and lot them keep feed in the cities (or, food in the cities, and let them keep it). And that food shall be for store (literally, something deposited) to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famineliterally; and the land (i.e. the people of the land) shall not be cut off in, or by, the famine.

Gen 41:37, Gen 41:38

And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. The advice tendered recommended itself to the-king and his ministers. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? The Ruach Elohim, as understood by Pharaoh, meant the sagacity and intelligence of a deity (cf. Num 27:18; Job 32:8; Pro 2:6; Dan 4:8, Dan 4:18; Dan 5:11, Dan 5:14; Dan 6:3).

Gen 41:39, Gen 41:40

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as (literally, after) God (Elohim) hath showed thee (literally, hath caused thee to know) all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruledliterally, according to thy mouth shall all my people dispose themselves, i.e. they shall render obedience to thy commands (LXX; Vulgate, Onkelos, Saadias, Pererius, Dathius, Rosenmller, Keil, Kalisch, Lange, Murphy, and others); though by many competent authorities (Calvin, Schultens, Knobel, Ainsworth, Gesenius, Furst, Wordsworth, et alii) the rendering is preferred, “upon thy mouth shall all my people kiss,” against which, however, is the fact that not even then were governors accustomed to be kissed on the lips by their subjects in token of allegiance. The suggestion that the verb should be taken in the sense of “arm themselves,” as in 2Ch 17:17 (Aben Ezra), does not meet with general acceptance. Only in the throne (or, more accurately, only as to the throne) will I be greater than thou.

Gen 41:41-43

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph. See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. This was the royal edict constituting Joseph grand vizier or prime minister of the empire: the formal installation in office followed. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand,the use of a signet-ring by the monarch, which Bohlen admits to be in accordance with the accounts of classic authors, has recently received a remarkable illustration by the discovery at Koujunjik, the site of the ancient Nineveh, of a seal impressed from the bezel of a metallic finger-ring, two inches long by one wide, and bearing the image, name, and titles of the Egyptian king Sabacoand put it upon Joseph’s hand (thus investing him with regal authority), and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen,, (LXX), byssus, so called from its whiteness (probably a Hebrew imitation of an Egyptian word), was the fine linen of Egypt, the material of which the peculiar dress of the priestly caste was constructed: “vestes ex gossypio sacerdotibus AEgypti gratissimae“ (Pliny, ‘Nat. Hist.,’ Gen 19:1). Herodotus (2:81) agrees with Pliny in affirming the priestly costume to have been of linen, and not of wooland put aliterally, the, the article showing that it was so done in accordance with a common customgold chain about his neck (cf. Dan 5:7, Dan 5:29). This was usually worn by persons of distinction, and appears in the monuments as a royal ornament; in the Benihassan sepulchral representations, a slave being exhibited as bearing one of them, with the inscription written over it, “Necklace of Gold”. And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had;”which is another genuine Egyptian custom, for on the monuments the king constantly appears in his war-chariot” (Havernick);and they cried before him, Bow the knee:, regarded by most ancient translators as a Hebrew word, an inf. abs. hiph. from , meaning bow the knee (Vulgate, Aquila, Origen, Kimchi), is most probably an Egyptian word either altered by the writer (Gesenius) or pointed by the Masorites (Keil) to resemble Hebrew, and signifying “bow the head ‘ (Gesenius), “bend the knee” (Furst), “Governor or Viceroy” (Kalisch), “rejoice thou” (Canon Cook in ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), “Pure Prince” (Osburn), “Robed by the king” (Forster)and he made him rulerliterally, and he set Aim (by the foregoing acts)over all the land of Egypt.

Gen 41:44

And Pharaoh-said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Joseph’s authority was to be absolute and universal.

Gen 41:45

And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnath-paaneah;an Egyptian word, of which the most accredited interpretations are (LXX); Salvator Mundi (Vulgate); “the Salvation of the World,” answering to the Coptic P-sote-m-ph-enehP the article, sots salvation, m the sign of the genitive, ph the article, and eneh the world (Furst, Jablonsky, Rosellini, and others); “the Rescuer of the World” (Gesenius); “the Prince of the Life of the World” (Brugsch); “the Food of Life,” or “the Food of the Living” (Canon Cook in ‘Speaker’s Commentary’)and he gave him to wifecf. the act of Rhampsinitus, who gave his daughter in marriage to the son of an architect on account of his cleverness (Herod; 2.121)Asenathanother Egyptian term, rendered (LXX.), and explained by Egyptologers to mean, “She who is of Neith, i.e. the Minerva of the Egyptians” (Gesenius, Furst), “the Worshipper of Neith” (Jablousky), “the Favorite of Neith” (Canon Cook in ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), though by some authorities regarded as Hebrew (Pools in Smith’s ‘ Dictionary,’ art. Joseph)the daughter of PotipherahPotipherah (“devoted to the sun”)Potiphar (vide Gen 39:1). The name is very common on Egyptian monumentspriestor prince (Onkelos.), as in 2Sa 8:18, where the word , as explained by 1Ch 18:17, means a principal minister of State, though the probability is that Poti-pherah belonged to the priestly caste in Egyptof Onor Heliopolis, (LXX.), the name on the monuments being ta-Ra or pa-Ra, house of the sun. “The site of Heliopolis is still marked by the massive walls that surround it, and by a granite obelisk bearing the name of Osirtasen I; of the twelfth dynasty, dating about 3900 years ago”. The priests attached to the temple of the sun at Heliopolis enjoyed the reputation of being the most intelligent and cultured historians in Egypt (Herod; 2.3). That a priest’s daughter should have married with a foreign shepherd may, have been distasteful to the prejudices of an intolerant priesthood (Bohlen), but in the case of Asenath and Joseph it was recommended by sundry powerful considerations.

1. Though a foreign shepherd, Joseph was a descendant of Abraham, whom a former Pharaoh had recognized and honored as a prince, and ‘ The Story of Saneha,’ a hieratic papyrus belonging to the twelfth dynasty, shows that Eastern foreigners might even become sons-in-law to the most powerful potentates under the ancient empire.

2. Though a foreign shepherd, Joseph was at this time grand vizier of the realm, with absolute control of the lives and fortunes of its people (vide verse 44).

3. Though a foreign shepherd, he was obviously a favorite of Pharaoh, who, besides being monarch of the realm, was the recognized head of the priestly caste, over whom, therefore, he exercised more than a merely external authority.

4. Though a foreign shepherd Joseph had become a naturalized Egyptian, as may be gathered from Gen 43:32. And,

5. Though a foreign shepherd, he was circumcised, which, if this rite was already observed in Egypt, and did not originate with Joseph, would certainly not prove a bar to the contemplated alliance. As to the probability of Joseph consenting to become son-in-law to a heathen priest, it may suffice to remember that though marriage with idolaters was expressly forbidden by patriarchal commandment (Gen 24:3; Gen 28:1), and afterwards by Mosaic statute (Gen 34:16; Deu 7:3), it was sometimes contracted for what seemed a perfectly adequate reason, viz; the furtherance of the Divine purposes concerning Israel, and apparently too with the Divine sanction (cf. the cases of Moses, Exo 2:21, and Esther, Gen 2:16); that Joseph may have deemed the religion of Egypt, especially in its early symbolical forms, as perfectly compatible with a pure monotheistic worship, or, if he judged it idolatrous, he may both have secured for himself complete toleration and have felt himself strong enough to resist its seductions; that Asenath may have adopted her husband’s faith, though on this, of course, nothing can be affirmed; and lastly, that the narrator of this history pronounces no judgment on the moral quality of Joseph’s conduct in consenting to this alliance, which, though overruled for good, may have been, considered in itself, a sin. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt in the discharge of his vice-regal duties.

HOMILETICS

Gen 41:1-45

Joseph before Pharaoh, or from the prison to the throne.

I. THE DREAMS OF THE MONARCH.

1. His midnight visions. Two full years have expired since the memorable birthday of Pharaoh which sent the baker to ignominious execution, but restored the butler to the favor of his royal master. Slumbering upon his bed, the king of Egypt seems to stand among the tall grass upon the banks of the Nile. First seven well-formed and full-fleshed heifers appear to climb up one after the other among the reeds from the river’s edge, where they have probably been drinking, followed by seven lean and haggard animals, walking up in the same mysterious procession, till they stand side by side with their thriving predecessors, when they suddenly fall upon these predecessors and eat them up. Startled by the strangeness of the scene, the royal sleeper wakes only to discover it a dream. Then composing himself a second time to slumber, he finds himself still standing in the Nile valley, but now looking out towards its luxuriant corn-fields. Again a strange phenomenon occurs. Growing from the soil he sees a tall, massive stalk of corn, with seven fat ears depending from its top; but scarcely has this arrested his attention, when he notices another by its side, spare and feeble, with its seven ears parched and empty, as if they had been burnt up by the hot south-east winds blowing up from the sandy wastes of Arabia. To his astonishment, as before, the fat ears are devoured by the thin. Awaking, he a second time discovers that he has been dreaming.

2. His morning agitations. The spirit of the king of Egypt was troubled first because of the dreams, which he obviously regarded as conveying to his royal mind some supernatural communication, which, however, he failed to understand; and secondly because the interpretation of them appeared equally to baffle the penetration of all the wise men and magicians of his empire, whom he had summoned to assist him in deciphering their import.

II. THE INTERJECTION OF THE BUTLER.

1. The recollection of his faults. If this referred to his ingratitude to Joseph (which is scarcely likely), that was a shortcoming which should have been remembered at least two years before, though it was better he should recall it then than never. But it is more than probable the offence spoken of was the crime for which he had been previously imprisoned by Pharaoh, and of which he now confessed himself to be guilty, as without acknowledging the justness of his royal master’s anger he could scarcely hope to experience the mildness of his royal master’s favor. That he only remembers Joseph when he deems it possible by doing so to gratify his master and serve himself indicates a disposition as hypocritical and time-serving as ungrateful and unfeeling.

2. The recital of his mercies. Narrating the story of his imprisonment, he informs the anxious monarch that he and his late companion, the chief baker, while suffering the righteous penalty of their misdeeds in the round house or State prison, had each dream on one and the self-same night; that a young man, then an inmate of the cells, a Hebrew, and a servant of the provost marshal, to whom they severally related their extraordinary dreams, volunteered to deliver their interpretation; and that the event, in the case of both himself and his companion, had turned out exactly as had been predictedthe chief baker had been hanged, while himself, the chief butler, through the royal clemency of Pharaoh, had been restored to his office.

III. THE APPEARANCE OF THE PRISONER.

1. The opening of the interview. In obedience to a royal summons, Joseph, after shaving and exchanging his prison garb for a costume suited to the high occasion, is hastily presented to the king. Regarding him with mingled feelings of respect and awe, the mighty potentate declares his dilemma,he has dreamed a dream which has baffled the ingenuity of all the Court magicians,and explains how he has heard of Joseph’s Are skill as an interpreter of dreams, upon which Joseph, disclaiming all ability in himself, and pointing Pharaoh to the true Interpreter of dreams, assures him, speaking in the exercise of prophetic faith, that God would vouchsafe to him an answer that should tend at once to the happiness of his own person and the prosperity of his realm.

2. The interpretation of the dreams. Listening to the monarch’s recitation of the singular phenomena of his nocturnal visions, Joseph

(1) declares their import to be the coming of seven years of plenty to the land, to be followed by seven years of famine, which should consume the land by reason of its severity;

(2) affirms the certainty of this prediction as involved in the repetition of the dream; and

(3) concludes by recommending as a precautionary measure that a fifth part of the produce of the seven years of plenty should be taken up and stored in granaries in the chief cities of the empire, to be distributed among the people during the seven years of faminea measure which would necessitate the appointment of one competent officer with a requisite staff of assistants, and with supreme authority to enforce the tax or compel the sale, according as the king might determine to uplift the grain.

3. The reward of the interpreter. As became one who had proved of such incomparable service to the monarch and the State, Joseph was immediately and generously recompensed.

(1) His counsel was accepted. “The thing,” or advice tendered, “was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants.” It is ever a grief to God’s prophets and Christ’s ministers when their Divinely-sent communications are rejected, as the acceptance of their heavenly messages never fails to afford them occasion of rejoicing.

(2) His person was exalted.

(a) He was constituted grand vizier of the empire, in the historian’s account of which may be noticed the monarch’s resolution and the reason of it”Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, thou shaft be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled,” or dispose themselves; the royal edict and the public attestation of it”See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring,” &c.; the extent of his authority and the limitation of ithis power was to be absolute over all the realm”without thee shall no man lift up hand or foot”only as to the throne was he to be subordinate to Pharaoh.

(b) He was naturalized as an Egyptian prince by the assignment of a new name, Zaphnath-paaneah, for the import of which the Exposition may be consulted.

(c) He was married to a daughter of the priestly caste, who formed the highest dignitaries in the State.

Learn

1. The marvelous facility with which God can accomplish his designs. God can make Pharaoh dream and the butler recollect his faults when it is time to bring Joseph out of prison.

2. The amazing incompetence of human wisdom to understand God’s riddles. The world by wisdom knows not God, any more than Pharaoh’s magicians could interpret his dreams.

3. The extraordinary insight which those have-who receive their teaching from God. Joseph can interpret the dreams of the monarch and the dreams of his officers with a like promptitude and accuracy, and God’s people have an unction from the Holy One that enables them to know all things.

4. The incomparable greatness to which Christ’s followers will eventually be raised. Joseph stepped from the prison to the palace, from the tower to the throne, from the wearing of iron fetters to the wielding of regal power; and such honor will have all the saints in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. Even now God “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people;” but then “to him that overcometh will I grant,” saith the King, “to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne.”

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Gen 41:1-57

The tried man is now made ready by long experience for his position of responsibility and honor. He is thirty years old. He can commence his public ministry for the people of God and the world. Pharaoh’s dreams, the kine and the ears of corn, like those of the butler and baker, have their natural element in them; but apart from the Spirit of God Joseph would not have dared to give them such an interpretation. Even had his intelligence penetrated the secret, he would not have ventured on a prophecy without God. Pharaoh himself acknowledged that the Spirit of God was manifestly in Joseph. We may be sure there was evidence of Divine authority in his words and manner. As a testimony to the existence of a spirit of reverence for Divine teaching, and a reference of all great and good things to God as their source, even in the minds of the Egyptians, such facts show that God had not left the world without light. The farther we go back in human history, the more simple and unsophisticated we find the minds of men, pointing to a primitive revelation, to the religious beginning of the human race, and to their corruption being the result of a fall, and not a mere negative state, the state of undeveloped reason. Joseph is lifted up out of the dungeon and made to sit among princes. He submits to the providential appointment, doubtless, under the guidance of the same Spirit which had given him his superiority. Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter because at that time to be so was to be separated from his people. Joseph the slave, already far from his home, is willing to be Pharaoh’s prime minister that he may be the forerunner of his people’s exaltation. The opportunity was not to be lost. “God,” he said, “hath made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house.” “God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.” The very names given to Manasseh and Ephraim were a testimony to his faith. His forgetting was only to a better remembering. We must sometimes hide power for the sake of its manifestation. “All countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn.” “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” As a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Hebrew slave exalted to the rule of the world and the saving of the world, from the cross to the throne. The whole story is full of analogies. He that distributes the bread of life to a perishing race was himself taken from prison, was treated as a malefactor, was declared the Ruler and Savior because the Spirit of God was upon him, was King of kings and Lord of lords. His benefits and blessings distributed to the world are immediately identified with his kingdom. He gathers in that he may give out. He is first the all-wise and all-powerful ruler of the seven years of plenty, and then the all-merciful helper and redeemer in the seven years of famine. “Joseph is a fruitful bough.”R.

HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY

Gen 41:14

The blessing of suffering wrongfully.

Joseph had probably been three years in prison (cf. Gen 41:1 with Gen 40:4). Sorely must his faith have been tried. His brothers, who had plotted his death, prosperous; himself a slave, spending the best years of his life in prison; and that because he had been faithful to God and to his master. We know the end, and therefore hardly realize his desolate condition when no sign of anything but that he should live and die uncared for and forgotten. But the trial comes more home to us when some one for whom we care, or perhaps ourselves, “endure grief, suffering wrongfully;” when unsuspecting frankness has been overreached, or trust betrayed, or feebleness oppressed. We feel not only that wrong has been done, but as if there had been a failure in God’s care. It is one thing to acknowledge the doctrine of God’s providence, and quite another to feel it under pressure of trouble. A frequent mistake to think of suffering as calling for immediate restitution. Since God beholds the wrong, should there not be some speedy token that he does so? The truth which faith has to grasp is that God is carrying out a plan, for which all these things are a preparation. We may not be able to trace it; but it is so. Thus it was with Joseph. All through these sad years God was guiding him. It was not merely that in time the cloud was removed; every step of the way had its purpose (Joh 16:20). In the prison he was learning lessons of the soul,unlearning the spirit of censoriousness and of self-complacency (Gen 37:2),and, by obeying, learning how to rule. And the course of events bore him on to what was prepared for him. Had he remained at home, or returned thither, or had Potiphar not cast him into prison, he would not have been the head of a great work in Egypt, the helper of his family, the instrument of fulfilling God’s promise. Not one step of his course was in vain; his sufferings were blessings.

I. IN SUFFERING WRONG WE ARE FOLLOWING CHRIST. He suffered for us, “leaving us an example” (1Pe 2:21) of willingness to suffer for the good of others. This is the principle of self-sacrifice; not a self-willed sacrifice (Col 2:23), but the submission of the will to God (Luk 22:42; Heb 10:7). “This is acceptable with God”to accept as from him what he sends, though we may-not see its use (Heb 12:5-7).

II. FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN THE DISCIPLINE OF SUFFERING IS NEEDFUL. If it was so in our Lord’s sinless human nature (Heb 2:10), how much more in us, who must be taught to subdue the flesh to the spirit I Without trial Christian courage and fruit-bearing graces would fail (Joh 15:2), as without the winter’s cold the forest tree would not form sound wood. And trial calls them into exercise (Rom 5:3), and through a sense of our weakness draws us nearer to God (2Co 12:7-9).

III. NOT ONLY TRIAL IN GENERAL, BUT EVERY PART OF IT WORKS GOOD. To every part the promise applies (Joh 16:20). So it was with Joseph. God lays no stroke without cause (Heb 12:10). The conviction of this works practical patience. This particular suffering has its own loving message.

IV. WE OFTEN CANNOT FORESEE THE PURPOSE OF TRIALS. How different was the end to which God was leading Joseph from anything he could have expected or hoped for! Yet far better. We can see but a very little way along the path by which God is leading us. We walk by faith that his guidance is unerring, and that which he has provided is best (Eph 3:20).M.

HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS

Gen 41:40

Joseph as prime minister.

“Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou.” Sudden elevations are often the precursors of sudden falls. It was not so with Joseph. He filled satisfactorily his position, retaining it to the end of life. He made himself indispensable to Pharaoh and to the country. He was a man of decision. Seeing what had to be done, he hesitated not in commencing it. Going from the presence of Pharaoh, he passed throughout the land, arranging for granaries and appointing officers to grapple with the seven years of famine which were imminent. Doubtless he felt the weight of responsibility resting upon him, and would have many restless nights in calculating how by means of the money then in the treasury and by forced loans to meet the expenditure for granaries, grain, and official salaries. He superintended everything. By method he mastered detail.

I. CONSIDER THE POLICY OF THIS EGYPTIAN PRIME MINISTER. Many things we admire in Joseph, but we must not be blind to the fact that he thought more of binding the people to the throne than of benefiting the people themselves. He was the first statesman of that day. His policy determined in great measure what should be the standard of internal prosperity, and what position the country should hold in the eyes of other nations. He sought to make Pharaoh’s rule absolute. He gave no benefit without payment, no supplies without sacrifice. He took all the money first (Gen 47:14), then the cattle (Gen 47:16), then the lands and their persons (Gen 47:23). He thus reduced the people of Egypt to the position of slaves. He made all the land crown lands. Thus the monarch was pleased, and the priests, being exempt, were flattered. It is possible that in this Joseph laid the foundation of that system of mismanagement, which has made the most flourishing spot in the world the basest of kingdoms. He seems also to have striven to give some sort of preeminence to his brethren, and to advance them. Exempt from the burdens pressing on others, they gained power, and would have become eventually the dominant race in Egypt, but that another Pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph, i.e. who, although he knew of his having lived and served the nation, yet recognized not his policy. The state to which Joseph reduced the Egyptians was that to which afterwards his own descendants were reduced. Thus our plans are overthrown. Time tries success, and by removing dimness from our vision enables us to test it better.

II. CONSIDER THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THIS EGYPTIAN PRIME MINISTER, He was soon led to conform to the spirit and practice of an ungodly nation. He used a divining cup (Gen 44:15, Gen 44:16), took his meals apart (Gen 43:32), recognizing and sustaining class distinctions. He learned the mode of speech common among the Egyptians, swore by the life of Pharaoh (Gen 42:15), and was affianced to an idolatress, probably a priestess (Gen 41:45). He made no effort to return to his own land, or to the pastoral life of his fathers. It was in his power also for nine years to have sent to make search for his father, who was sorrowing for him as dead, but he sent not. Not until trouble, by an apparent chance, drove his brethren to him did he appear to think of them, or of home and Jacob. When they came he was very slow to make known himself, as though he feared it might compromise him in the eyes of the Egyptians to be known to have relatives who were shepherds, an occupation which was abominable to the Egyptians (Gen 46:34). When he revealed himself to them, it was without the knowledge or presence of the Egyptians. He removed his brethren also to a distant part of Egypt: that they might not constantly, by their presence, remind him and others of his origin. We fancy that Joseph had weaknesses and imperfections such as other men had. He had dwelt in Egypt and caught its spirit. In the names he gave to his children there seems some indication of regret at his forgetfulness and wonder at his fruitfulness. Amid views that might depress there is some brightness. His forgiveness of his brethren was noble. His affection for his father returned. His faith in God was pure at last. Dying, he “gave commandment concerning his bones.” He showed that though outwardly an Egyptian, he was inwardly an Israelite.H.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Gen 41:1. At the end of two full years i.e.. Two years after the event recorded in the former chapter, God was pleased to send Pharaoh a prophetic dream, the scene of which was on the banks of the river Nile, to which AEgypt owed all its fertility: and consequently nothing could be represented with more propriety.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

FIFTH SECTION

Joseph the interpreter of Pharaohs dreams.

Gen 41:1-57

1And it came to pass, at the end of two full years [lit., days], that Pharaoh dreamed; and, behold, he stood by the river. 2And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well-favoured kine, and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow1 [bulrushes, the grass on the bank of the river]. 3And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favoured 4and lean-fleshed, and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill-favoured and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. 5And he slept and dreamed the second time; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. 6And, behold, seven thin ears, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up [in single stacks] after them. 7And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. 8And it came to pass in the morning, that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians2 [scribes: skilled in hieroglyphics] of Egypt, and all the wise men [magicians] thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dreams; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. 9Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day. 10Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guards house, both me and the chief baker; 11And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. 12And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. 13And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged. 14Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon [pit]; and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. 15And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. 16And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me:3 God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. 17And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river; 18And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fat-fleshed, and well-favoured; and they fed in a meadow; 19And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor, and very ill-favoured and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness; 20And the lean and the ill-favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine; 21And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill-favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke. 22And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good; 23And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them; 24And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. And I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me. 25And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one; God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. 26The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years; the dream is one. 27And the seven thin and ill-favoured kine, that came up after them, are seven years; and the seven empty ears, blasted with the east wind shall be 28seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh; what God is about to do, he sheweth unto Pharaoh. 29Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt; 30And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; 31And the plenty shall not be known in the land, by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. 32And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and 33God will shortly bring it to pass. Now, therefore, let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. 34Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. 35And let them gather [lay in store] all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. 36And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine. 37And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. 38And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? 39And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art; 40Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than thou. 41And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. 42And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Josephs hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain upon his neck; 43And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee;4 and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. 44And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. 45And Pharaoh called Josephs name Zaphnath-paaneah5 [gave him the title of Savior of the world; preserver of life, &c.]; and he gave him to wife Asenath [consecrated to Neith (the Egyptian Minerva)], the daughter of Potipherah [same as Potiphar; near to the sun], priest of On [light: sun; Heliopolis]. And Joseph 46went out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 47And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls [armful upon armful]. 48And he gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. 49And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. 50And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came; which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him. 51And Joseph called the name of the first-born Manasseh [the one that causes to forget; viz., Jehovah]; For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my fathers house. 52And the name of the second called he Ephraim [Frst: fruits; Delitzsch: double fruitfulness]; For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. 53And the seven years of plenteousness that was in the land of Egypt were ended []. 54And the seven years of dearth began [] to come, according as Joseph had said; and the 55dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when [also] all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth; And Joseph opened all the store-houses, and sold unto the Egyptians; 56and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. 57And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Contents of this section: The dreams of Pharaoh (Gen 41:1-7); 2. The Egyptian interpreters of dreams and Joseph (Gen 41:8-16); 3. The narration of the dreams and their interpretation (Gen 41:17-32): 4. Josephs counsel in the employment of his interpretation; 5. Pharaohs consent and appointment of Joseph as overseer (Gen 41:37-45); 6. Josephs management during the seven years of plenty, and Gods blessing him with children (Gen 41:46-53); 7. The seven years of dearth, the famine, and the buying of the corn in Egypt (Gen 41:54-57).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Gen 41:1-7. The dreams of Pharaoh.At the end of two years ().This shows Josephs long imprisonment.By the river (Lange translates: By the Nile).The Nile, as is well known, is the condition on which Egypts fruitfulness depends. Its overflowing fertilizes the soil, and when it does not occur, the crops fail.Seven well-favored kine.On the one hand was the male kine, a symbol of the Nile (Diod. Sic. i. 51), and especially sacred to their god Osiris, who invented agriculture (Diod. i. 21). The bullock was a symbol of Osiris, whose name was also given by the Egyptian priests to the Nile (Plutarch:De Iside, 33, 39, 43). On the other hand, the female kine, in the Egyptian symbolical language, was the symbol of the earth, of agriculture, and of the sustenance derived from it (Clemens Alex.Strom. v. p. 567). This agrees with the representation of Isis, who was worshipped as the goddess of the all-nourishing earth (Macrob. Saturn, i. 20), or of the earth fertilized by the Nile (Plutarch:De Iside, 38). The cow was specially sacred to her, and she was pictured with horns (Herod. ii. 41). Her symbol was the kine. Isis was, at the same time, goddess of the moon which determined the year. In hieroglyphic writing, her picture denoted the year. Knobel. Seven well-favored kine rising out of the Nile were, therefore, pictures of a seven-fold appearance of the soil made fruitful by the Nile.Seven other kine came up, ill-favored.Lit., thin (Gen 41:19), lank, lean-fleshed. They follow these well-favored ones, and appear right by their sidea typical expression of the fact that the years of famine are to follow close upon the years of plenty.And dreamed the second time.According to the ancient art of dream-interpretation, dreams that tare repeated within a short time have the same meaning; the repetition was to awake attention and secure confidence (Artemidorus:Oneirocrit. 4, 27). Knobel.Seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk.According to Knobel, the coming up upon one stalk is to denote the immediate connection of the respective heptades. But then the same thing would have been mentioned in respect to the seven thin ears. The plentiful branching of the principal stalk into separate spears and ears, is, however, an immediate appearance of fertility, whilst, on the contrary, the thin crop does not spread, but comes up in separate and slender stalks.Blasted with the east wind.With the southeast wind coming from the desertthe wind called chamsin.It was a dream.It was obvious to Pharaoh from both dreams that there was in them something very important; but the imagery had been so vivid that he awakes with conscious surprise at finding it a dream. Knobel: A beautiful series of symbols: the Nile the source of fertility, cows as representing fertility itself, and ears of corn as the result.

2. Gen 41:8-16. The Egyptian interpreters of dreams, and Joseph.That his spirit was troubled (Comp. Dan 2:2). There was something painful in the thought that though there was some evident monition to him as a sovereign, the interpretation was wanting; and the pictures were the more painful since their termination was apparently so terrible.And called all the magicians.The from , a writing stile, were the , belonging to the order of the priests, and occupied with the sacred sciences, such as hieroglyphical writing, astrology, dream-interpretation, fortune-telling, magic, and sorcery. They were regarded as possessors of the secret arts (Exo 7:11), or, in other words, the philosophers, or wise men of the nation. Keil. More particularly concerning their magic art, see Knobel, p. 311. As interpreters of dreams the Egyptian priests are also mentioned by Tacitus: Hist. iv. 83. See Delitzsch, p. 544, and Hengstenberg.But there was no one that could interpret them.Though the roots of the dream, and of its interpretation, were given in the religious symbolical science of Egypt, as Keil remarks, they failed to find its meaning; but then ho calls to mind what Baumgarten says: It is the doom of this worlds wisdom to be dumb where its knowledge might avail, or dependence is placed upon it (Job 12:20). This incapacity, however, must naturally be increased in cases where the interpretation to be brought out is evidently of a fearful nature; for the heathen court-prophets were doubtless flatterers, too, just as afterwards the false prophets in the courts of the Jewish kings.I do remember my fault.The chief butler, too, is called to the council; for together with the magicians the wise men generally were summoned to attend. The declaration of the chief butler is referred, by Knobel and Keil, to his offence against the king (Gen 40:1), and, at the same time, to his forgetfulness of Joseph (Gen 40:43). At all events, the unpleasant recollection of his former punishment was the principal cause.And they brought him hastily.A vivid representation of the turning of his fortune, caused by the rising court favor.And he shaved himself.Joseph met the excitement of his liberators with grace and dignity. He changed his garments, as is done by one who is to participate in some sacred act (see Gen 35:2). The Egyptians let the beard and hair grow, in mourning (Herod, ii. 36). So Joseph had done in the mournful time of his imprisonment. He observes the Egyptian custom. The Hebrews, on the other hand, cut off their hair and beard on such occasions. Knobel. According to Wilkinson, the Egyptian painters represented with a beard any one whom they would designate as a man of low caste, or life.To interpret it.Pharaoh draws bold inferences from the statement of the chief butler, but in a manner perfectly consistent with that of a despot who is impatient to have his expectations realized. Not even, however, the flattering words of the king, can discompose Joseph. He gives God the glory (as in Gen 40:8). But he also hopes for divine light, and courteously invites the king to narrate his dream.

3. Gen 41:17-32. The narration of the dreams, and their interpretation. The narration agrees perfectly with the first statement, and it only brings out more distinctly the subjective truthfulness of the account, that the king, in the description of the ill-favored kine, mingles something of his own reflections.What God is about to do he showeth unto Pharaoh.Joseph puts in the front the religious bearing of the dream, and in this most successfully attains his aim. Whilst unhesitatingly professing his belief that these dreams came from God, he at the same time keeps in view the practical aspect. God would inform Pharaoh, through Josephs interpretation, what he intends to do, in order that the king may take measures accordingly. The certainty and clearness of the interpretation are to be so prominently manifested as to remove it far from comparison with any heathen oracles. Knobel will have it that the Elohist and the Jehovist assume here different positions in respect to dream-revelations.

4. Gen 41:33-36. Josephs counsel in respect to the practical use of the interpretation. The candid advice of Joseph shows that his high gift did not intoxicate him; but rather, that he himself was greatly struck by the providence revealed in the dreams. It is a great delivery from a great and threatening destruction. The first demand is for a skilful overseer, with his subordinates. Then there is wanted the enactment of a law that the land shall be divided into five parts during the seven plenteous years; so that they were to give the fifth instead of the tithe (or tenth), as may have been customary; and that the royal storehouses should be built in the cities of the land, in order to be filled with corn. We have no right to say that Joseph meant in this to recommend himself. It would seem rather that he is so struck with the foresight of the great coming famine, that he cannot think of himself. Besides, the office which his counsel sketches is much less important than that which Pharaoh afterwards confers on him. There is still a great difference between a chief of the taxgatherers and a national prime minister.

5. Gen 41:37-45. Pharaohs consent and Josephs appointment.And the thing was good.The correctness of the interpretation and the certainty of its fulfilment are both here presupposed. By the rules of Egyptian symbolism their correctness could not be questioned; their certainty, however, lay in the belief that the dreams of Pharaoh were sent by God. The stress, therefore, lies upon the approbation with which Josephs advice was received. And this was so conformable to the object in view, that even had the fulfilment been doubtful, it would have been a wise measure of political economy. But Pharaoh goes farther; from the divine illumination that appears in Joseph he concludes that he is just the man to carry out the plan.Thou shalt be over my house.What follows is the direct consequence: And according to thy word.Knobel explains the Hebraism in this language ( ), lit., upon thy mouth every one of my people shall kiss), according to 1Sa 10:1 and Psa 2:12, as referring to the custom of expressing homage by a kiss, or throwing the kiss with the hand. Keil disputes this on verbal grounds; but even if the language admits it idiomatically, such an act would not be appropriate in homage paid to princes. It would be better to give here its primary significance: to attach, to unite oneself. So Joseph is nominated as Pharaohs Grand Vizier. Knobel infers from this that it is a Jehovistic insertion, and that, according to the Elohist, Joseph was made a state officer, and not a royal minister. Does he derive this from an acquaintance with the Egyptian state-calendar of those days? Before Pharaohs explanation (Gen 41:41), Knobels twofold distinction of the highest dignities falls to the ground.His ring from his hand.After the concession of the dignity, he confers on him its insignia. The first is the seal-ring, which the grand vizier or prime minister held, in order to affix it to the royal decrees (Est 3:10; Est 8:2). Keil. So also was it among the Turks (Knobel, p. 314). The second is the white byssus-robe (made out of fine linen or cotton), worn by the priests, and by which he was elevated to a rank corresponding to the dignity of his office. The third mark of honor was a gold chain about his neck, to denote distinction, and as a special mark of the royal favor. According to lian and Diodorus, it was the usual mark of distinction in the personal appearance of the judges, like the golden collar, as seen pictured upon the monuments. Delitzsch. In this dignity Joseph is now to be presented to the people; the king, therefore, makes him ride in procession through the city, in his second chariot, i.e., in the one that came immediately after the royal chariot, and caused the customary announcement of the dignity conferred to be made by a herald. The exclamation: i.e., bow down, is an Egyptian word formed from by means of Masoretic vowels which make the Hiphil and Aphel conjugation. Keil. Gerlach: Out of the, Coptic word bow the head, a Hebrew is made, bow the knee.I am Pharaoh.He again repeats the reservation of his royal dignity, but with the same definiteness he appoints him overseer of the whole land, with the consciousness that he was committing the salvation of his people to the favorite of Deity. Therefore he says: And without thee shall no man, etc.Yet for the Egyptians sake he must be naturalized. Pharaoh, therefore, first gives him an Egyptian name (the Sept.: ; for the various interpretations of which, see Keil, p. 256; Knobel, p. 314). Bunsen interprets it, creator of life. In its Hebrew transformation the word has been rendered revealer of secrets; Luther:secret counsel. In its stateliness the name is in accordance with the oriental feeling,especially the Egyptian,yet it simply expresses Pharaohs feeling acknowledgment that Joseph was a man sent by God, and bringing salvation. In him, first of all, was fulfilled the word of that prophecy: In thy seed shall the nations of the earth be blest. Next, the king gives to him an Egyptian wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potipheres (LXX, , ille qui solis est), priest at On, which was the vernacular name for Heliopolis (LXX, , city of the sun). This city of On (, changed by Ezekiel, Eze 30:17, derisively into ) was a chief city, devoted to the worship of Ra, the sun-god. Delitzsch. According to Brugsch (Travels, etc.), its name upon the monuments was Ta-R, or Pa-Ra, house of the sun. Here, from the oldest times, has been a celebrated temple of the sun, with a company of learned priests, who took the first stand in the Egyptian colleges of priests (comp. Herod, ii. 3; Hengstenberg, p. 30). Keil. The same remarks: Such an extraordinary promotion of a slave-prisoner is to be explained from the high importance which antiquity, and especially Egyptian antiquity, ascribed to the interpretation of dreams, and to the occult sciences, as also from the despotic form of oriental governments. As a parallel case, ho refers to Herod. ii. 121, where Rhampsinitus is represented as promoting the son of a mason to be his son-in-law, because, as the Egyptians excelled all men, so this one excelled all the Egyptians themselves, in wisdom. The priest rank was esteemed the highest in Egypt, as it was the caste to which the king himself belonged. Knobel (p. 315) attempts to do away the difficulty which this temple of On makes to the assumption that the Israelites were the same as the Hyksos, who are said to have destroyed the Egyptian temples. This ancient On was situated in lower Egypt, about two leagues northeast from the present city of Cairo. The situation of Heliopolis is marked by mounds of earth, now enclosing a flat piece of land, in the centre of which stands a solitary obelisk. In the vicinity is the city of Matarieh, with the well of the sun, and a sycamore-tree, under which, according to the tradition, the holy family is said to have rested.

6. Gen 41:46-53. Josephs management of the harvest during the seven years of plenty, and his blessing of children.And Joseph was thirty years old.The summary account, Gen 41:45, and Joseph went out, is here given more specifically. Knobel does not seem to know what to make of this mode of Biblical representation, in which it resumes a former assertion for the purpose of making specifications. He calls upon the reader to note that this had been already said, Gen 41:45. As the dreams are fulfilled, so Joseph fulfils his calling. His mode of proceeding is clearly stated. In the cities of the different districts storehouses are built, in which is to be laid up the fifth part of the harvest.Manasseh.In this name is expressed the negative effect of his exaltation: God has freed him from the painful remembrance of his sufferings, and from all angry recollections of his fathers house. The name Ephraim expresses, on the contrary, the positive consequence. It is a double happiness on a dark foil, as though he had said: In the land of my wretchedness there is first, deliverance, second, a raising to honor.

7. The seven years of dearth, the famine, and the selling of the grain. On the frequent occurrence of famines in Egypt and the adjacent northern countries, see Keil, p. 258. For particulars see Hengstenberg, and extracts by Schrder, p. 590.And all countries.The countries adjacent to Egypt, and especially Palestine. Aside from the fact that Egypt, in early times, was a granary for the neighboring countries, and that they, therefore, suffered also from every famine that came upon it, it is a thing to be noticed that the rain-season of these lands, as well as the rising of the Nile, was conditioned on northern rainy winds.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Josephs exaltation: 1) Considered in itself. Grounded in his destiny. Accomplished by his innocent sufferings and his good conduct (Php 2:6). Carried out by Gods grace and wisdom as a divine miracle in his providentia specialissima. Its principal object the preservation of Israel and of many nations. Its further object, Israels education in Egypt. Its imperishable aim the glory of God, and the edification of the people of God by means of the fundamental principle: through humiliation to exaltation. 2) This exaltation, in its typical significance: the seal of Israels guidance in Egypt, of the guidance of all the faithful, of the guidance of Christ as the model of our divine instruction.

2. Josephs sufferings from his brethren so turned by Gods grace that they become sufferings for their own good. Thus Josephs sufferings become a turning-point between Abels blood crying for vengeance, and the death of Christ reconciling the world. The contrast here is no contradiction. The blood of Abel was crying for vengeance in no absolute or condemning sense, whilst, on the other hand, Christs reconciliation is connected with an inward and spiritual judgment. And thus, also, Josephs brethren were to be led through a hell of self-knowledge to peace of conscience, just as Joseph individually attained, by degrees, to a complete victory over himself.
3. Pharaohs dreams, like Nebuchadnezzars, became, through the divine providence, factors in the web of the worlds history. The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord; as the rivers of water he turneth it (Pro 21:1). As the high priests (Joh 11:51) were to utter words of significance unconsciously, and unwillingly, so kings are made to serve God in acts having a significance beyond immediate intentions. Its roots, however, extended down into the dream of life. Gerlach calls attention to Nestors words concerning Agamemnons dream (Iliad, ii. 80). Heim (Bible Hours) is full on the same thought.

4. The memory of the chief butler. Forgetfulness of the smalla sharp remembrance in the service of the great. The memory as exercised in the service of God: forgetting all (that hinders)remembering all (that promotes). The change from darkness to light, from night to day, in the landscape of history.
5. Joseph as opposed to the Egyptian interpreters of dreams, Moses as opposed to the Egyptian sorcerers, Christ as opposed to the Scribes and Pharisees, Paul as opposed to heresies, etc.; or, in other words, the contrast between divine wisdom and the wisdom of this worlda contrast that pervades all history.
6. God conducts every nation by its special characteristic, by its religious forms, according to the measure of piety that is in them. Thus he ruled the Egyptians through the night-life and the world of dreams.
7. The Egyptian symbolism in the dreams of Pharaoh. These and similar thoughts, no doubt, occurred also to the Egyptian scribes, but Josephs divinely-sealed glance was necessary in assuming the responsibility of the fourteen years, as well as in the interpretation of the dreams, which afterwards appear very simple and obvious. Delitzsch. The ethical point, that divine courage is necessary for prophecy, is not to be overlooked. It was a perilous undertaking to announce to the Egyptian despot a famine of seven years. It is not correct, as Knobel states, that among the Hebrews, false prophets alone referred to dreams; and still more groundless his allegation of a difference between the Elohist and the Jehovist in this respect. Roos speaks of the gift of interpreting dreams which Joseph possessed, as a gift of prophecy, inferior, however, to that manifested by Israel and Jacob when they blessed their sons. For the dream interpreter has a handle given to him by the dream; whilst in the case of Isaac, Jacob, and other prophets, everything is dependent on direct divine inspiration. But the prophets mentioned, even those that prophesied immediately, had historic points of departure and connection. We can only say, therefore, that there are different forms for the manifestation of the prophetic spirit. Divine certainty is the common mark of all.

8. The universalistic aspect of the Old Testament appears also from the fact that our narrative, without any reserve, informs us how pious Joseph becomes incorporated in the caste of Egyptian priests. Jehovahs religion, says Delitzsch, enters into Egyptian forms, in order to rule, without becoming lost in it. Strictly speaking, it was the assuming of Egyptian customs by one devoted to the religion of Jehovah. Compare the indulgence shown by Elisha to Naaman the Syrian (2Ki 5:17-19).

9. Delitzsch: How, then, asks Lutherhow is it Christian in him to glory in having forgotten his father and his mother? This, however, is not the case; for when Joseph speaks of having forgotten his fathers house, he has surely some memory of the injuries of his brethren, and the name Manasseh is to remind him constantly of this noble resolution to forget his wrongs. Luther thus answers his own question: He intended to say, I now see that God meant to take away from me the confidence which I had in my father; for he is a jealous God, and is not willing that the heart should have any other ground of rest than himself. It is remarkable, says Knobel (p. 288), that Joseph gives no timely information of his existence, and of his exaltation, to a father who so loved him, and whom he so loved in turn, but permitted a series of years to pass, and even then was led to it by the coming of his brethren. The proper solution of this scruple, already entertained by Theodoret, we find in Baumgarten. With steadfast faith he renounced all self-acting in respect to Gods decree, which pointed to a further and more glorious aim. The first consequence to be traced was the verification of his prophecy, that his power might be placed on a stable foundation. To this there must be added the consideration that Joseph could not make himself hastily known to his father without leading to the discovery of the guilt which weighed upon his brethren. A precipitate disclosure of this dark secret might, perhaps, ruin Jacobs house irrecoverably. And, finally, it must be considered that Joseph, especially during the first years, had a call to active duties of the most stringent and pressing nature.Schrder: Since Joseph first mentions his adversity (in the declaration respecting the name Manasseh), he must have referred to his fathers house only in its mournful reminiscence as the scene of his misery. In view of the present as something evidently controlled by God, his whole past vanishes away, as comparatively of no consequence. It is the confidence of rest in Gods providence. Calvin, it is true, imputes it to him as a sin; whilst Luther calls it a wonderful declaration. Afterwards, at Ephraims birth, as Schrder remarks, Joseph held in, so to speak, his former exuberance of joy. The words, in the land of my sorrows (meaning Egypt), reveal a mournful longing for Canaan.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. Pharaohs character. A good king a blessing to his country. Pharaohs dream a mark of his care for his people, therefore, also of Gods care for him. Fruitful and unfruitful years; great means in the hand of Gods providence. Josephs deliverance beyond expectation: 1. Late beyond expectation; 2. early beyond expectation; 3. great beyond expectation; 4. entirely different from what he thought in his longing for home. Josephs deliverance and exaltation a typical order in Gods kingdom: 1. Every true exaltation presupposes a deliverance; 2. every true deliverance is followed by exaltation.Joseph and the other personages in our narrative. Joseph the Hebrew slave standing in royal dignity before the throne of Pharaoh: a. In his quiet preparation for audience; b. in his humility and his faithful confidence; c. in his fearless interpretation of the dreams according to their truth; d. in his wise counsel. Joseph, like Moses, an Egyptian prince, and yet a prince in the kingdom of God.Josephs political economy.His economy on a grand scale the type of all lesser economies. Joseph and his sons.The years of blessing.Gods care for men through the commercial intercourse of different lands.How sure the divine decrees! (the brethren of Joseph must come). Taube: Through humiliation to exaltation.The history of Josephs exaltation: 1. When in the deep, how confidently may we suffer God to guide us; 2. when on the mount, how surely from the deep does the blessing draw its verification.

First Section (Gen 41:1-7). Starke: (Plin.: Hist. v. 9). There is famine in Egypt when the Nile rises only twelve ells; there is still suffering if it does not exceed thirteen; if it rises to fourteen, there is great rejoicing.Cramer: Whom God means to raise to honor, he suffers to remain, for a time, under the cross.Schrder: At the expiration of two years of days.Luther: Joseph, oppressed with cares, counted on his fingers all the hours, days, months, whilst deeply sighing for deliverance. For the anticipation of the future the soul of man shares with that of the animal, except that in the former, by its connection with spirit, or that higher principle which constitutes humanity, such a faculty becomes perceptible in dreams, whilst in the animal it is confined to the waking state (Schubert). The number seven represents the religious element in the case. The thin ears are said to be blasted with the east-wind, which, when directly east, occurs in Egypt as seldom as the directly west. The southeast wind, however, is frequent (Hengstenberg).

Second Section (Gen 41:8-16). Starke: The wisdom that God reveals excels that of the world: therefore the latter is to be confounded by the former (Rom 8:28).Cramer: A Christian is not to judge the gifts according to the person, but the persons according to the gifts, and must not be ashamed to learn even from the lowest. A Christian should study decorum towards all, especially towards those of high rank. Serving and suffering are the best tutors for those maturing for the rulers station (Psa 113:7-8).Hall: How are Gods children rewarded for their patience! How prosperous are their issues! A true Christian does not boast of the talents confided to him, but ascribes everything to God.

Third Section (Gen 41:17-32). Starke: Bibl. Wirt.: Even to the heathen and to infidels, God sometimes reveals great and secret things, to the end that it may become known how his divine care and providence may be traced everywhere within and without the Church.Cramer: When God repeats the same things to us, the repetition is not to be regarded as superfluous, but as an assurance that it will certainly come to pass. Schrder: In prison, and upon the throne, the same humility, the same joyous courage in God.Joseph marks his Godconsciousness more distinctly before Pharaoh, by saying Ha–Elohim, thus making Elohim concrete by means of the article.

Fourth Section (Gen 41:33-36). Starke: Men generally make a bad use of abundance. The people, doubtless, imitated Josephs example, and provided for the future. Careful in earthly thingsmuch more so in heavenly things. Schrder: Gods true prophets did not merely predict the future; they also announced means of relief against the approaching evil (Calvin).He who takes counsel is the one to be helped (the same).

Fifth Section (Gen 41:37-45). Starke: Cramer: He that handles a matter wisely shall find good (Pro 16:20).[The Egyptian linen, on account of its snowy whiteness, and its great excellence, was so costly that it was thought equal to its weight in gold.]?Schrder: The kings conclusion shows how greatly Egypt esteemed the higher knowledge; since it confirms the opinion which made this nation so renowned for wisdom among the ancients.Liberation was not Josephs only want when in prison; afterward, however, he received what he did not, at first, understand (Luther).

Sixth Section (Gen 41:46-53). Starke: Wise rulers fill their granaries in time of famine, and thus teach prudence to the poor. The saving hand is full and beneficent; the squandering hand is not only empty, but unjust.Schrder: Information from Hengstenberg on the monuments and tombs, serving to elucidate our narrative.Schrder: Now is the time of exaltation, when he is to become the instrument of Gods great purposes (Krummacher).

Seventh Section (Gen 41:54-57). Starke: Cramer: It is in accordance with Christian charity that the surplus of the one shall relieve the deficiency of the other. How gloriously does God compensate Joseph for his former unhappiness. (The hate of his brothers; the favor of the king; abuse and derision, reverence; imprisonment in a foreign land, exaltation; the work of a slave, the seal of the king; stripped of his coat of many colors, clothed in white vesture; iron bands, a golden chain.)

Footnotes:

[1][Gen 41:2.. A pure Egyptian word, say most of the commentators and lexicographers; and yet no reason can be given why it is not, at the same time, Shemitic. Its occurrence, Job 8:11, is as good proof of the latter supposition, as Gen 41:2 is of the former. The thing signified, a reedy pasture, was more common in Egypt than in Judea or Arabia, and, therefore, it became better known in the early Egyptian tongue. The same may be said of .T. L.]

[2][Gen 41:8. . Here is a word used of a thing most peculiarly Egyptian, and yet there can hardly be a doubt of its root being Shemitic. It is from , stylus, a writing or graving instrument. They were the sacred scribes. See Gesenius, and Bochart, Hieroz. ii. p. 408. Comp. .T. L.]

[3][Gen 41:16: Beside me, or some one else than me. The LXX have rendered it, , as though they had read , says Rosenmller. But there is no need of this to explain the interpretation. The LXX have given the general sense correctly, since there is a negative or excluding force in . Not meno one but God can answer to Pharaohs satisfaction. The famous Hebraico-Samaritan Codex has the negative particle, and there could not be a better proof of its having followed the LXX; keeping its apparent error without its general correctness in this passage.T. L.]

[4][Gen 41:43.. It is not easy to see why there should have been so much pains to make out this to be a pure Egyptian word, or to deny its Shemitic origin. Some make it from O , inclinate contra. See Jablonsky as cited by Rosenmller. Others would make it equivalent to APEXEK, a rege cinctus. The word is almost identical with , the Hiphil imperative of , and its Hebrew sense, bow the knee or kneel (just as we make the verb from the noun) would seem the meaning, of all others, best adapted to the context. The slight variation confirms this. Had it been simply dressing up a pure Egyptian word in a Hebrew form, there is no reason why the writer should not have employed the proper Hebrew Hiphil. The word at this time, doubtless, belonged to both languages, but its solemn and public pronunciation in the shouting procession made the narrator prefer to keep the broader Egyptian sound of for .T. L.]

[5][Gen 41:45. , Zophnath–paeneah. This word is doubtless Egyptian, as there can nothing be made of it in Hebrew. LXX, . The latter part of the compound is, doubtless, a Coptic word, equivalent to the Greek , and the whole is rendered caput seculi or mundi. Vulg., salvatorem mundi. It is worthy of note as showing, that at this early day, and in this early language, a time word (age, period, cycle, etc.) was used for world, like the later use of the Hebrew , and of , for mundus in the New Testament.T. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

In this Chapter we behold the workings of GOD’S providence concerning Joseph and his household, more plainly opened to our view, and the great events leading to his own welfare, and the preservation of his Father’s family, beginning to unfold themselves, as the leading cause, for which the LORD permitted his being sold as a dare, and carried down into Egypt. The ability which Joseph had displayed, in the interpretation of dreams, in the instance of the chief butler and chief baker, raised his reputation in the court of Pharaoh; king of Egypt; and a case soon after occurring, which the LORD in his providence had so ordered that Pharaoh himself should be exercised with a dream, which none of the wise men of his court could interpret: Joseph is sent for; he explains to Pharaoh the dream; the event is found to correspond; and in consequence, Joseph is advanced to the highest dignity in the kingdom, next to Pharaoh: Joseph’s marriage, and children, are also noticed in this Chapter, together with the equity and wisdom of his administration under Pharaoh, which endears him to the Egyptians. Gen 41:1

Observe the HOLY GHOST is particular in remarking the long delay of Joseph’s deliverance from the prison. It was two full years after the chief butler’s restoration. David observes upon it, Psa 105:19 . And how sweetly doth the apostle reason upon the same subject: Heb 10:36-39 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Joseph the Optimist

Gen 41:33

Neither the personality nor the public position of Joseph accounts for his effect on posterity. His peculiarity is not that he rises to a pinnacle of earthly splendour. It is that his splendour has come out of his dungeon.

I. The portrait of Joseph is a philosophical picture the earliest attempt to delineate a theory of the universe in the form of the narrative. Joseph is made the spokesman of the new evangel. He comes before us as the advocate for optimism.

II. In the life of Joseph there are three periods:

( a ) A child of his father’s old age, he has two qualities by heredity and one by education. From his grandfather Abraham he has received the spirit of optimism, from his father Jacob the spirit of ambition, but from his mode of education the spirit of selfishness. The infirmity of this boy Joseph is just his want of encumbrances. He has never had to ask for anything twice.

( b ) The second part is one of enforced service. He is stolen from home, sold as a slave, and transferred by them to an Egyptian soldier. Suspected innocently of grave offences, he is immured in a dungeon. He begins to interpret the dreams of his fellow-prisoners and reveals his poetic genius as he never has revealed it before.

( c ) The boy of the desert, the youth of the dungeon has become the adviser of royalty. The enemies of his boyhood, these brothers whom he had wronged and his aged father are there. The old patriarchal life is there. But they are all changed. The father has given up his unjust partiality, the brothers have given up their jealousy, and Joseph has given up his selfishness, his dreams are now humanitarian.

III. There is only one feature of this portrait which has been alleged to be an artistic blemish, a blemish in its picture of optimism. It has been said, Why did Joseph let his father believe him to be dead for so many years? Had not he been unjust, selfish, monopolizing, eager to grasp more than his share. How could he better make reparation than by effacing himself, allowing his name to be blotted out from the living members of that circle whose harmony he had done so much to disturb, and whose unity he had helped to destroy.

IV. Even the closing scene of all, the hour of his death, is grandly consistent with the ideal of the picture. Why is it that the writer to the Hebrews has fixed upon this final hour of Joseph as the typical hour of his life? It is because, to be optimistic in that valley is optimism indeed, because the man who can there keep the light in his soul has proved that his faith is supreme.

G. Matheson, The Representative Men of the Bible, p. 174.

Gen 41:38-49

Many specimens of these old Egyptian signet rings have been found. A writer states that one of the largest he ever saw was in the possession of a French gentleman at Cairo. It was a massive ring, containing some 20 worth of gold. On one face of the stone was the name of a king, successor to the Pharaoh of our chapter, on the other side was the engraving of a lion with the legend, ‘Lord of strength’.

References. XLI. 38-48. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 253. XLI. 51 . Expositor (3rd Series), vol. iv. p. 401. XLII. 1-2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 234; ibid. vol. xl. No. 2379. XLII. 6. R. Hiley, A Year’s Sermons, vol. i. p. 152. XLII. 8. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 4. XLII. 9. F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 118.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Pharaoh’s Dream

Gen 41:1

Showing how soon men are led into mystery, how thin, how flimsy is the veil which separates dust, and visibility, and ordinary things, from the spiritual, the invisible, and, in some senses, the terrible. There is mystery all around us, and ever and anon God gives us a peep into that mystery, that he may tame our impetuosity and call us to considerateness and devoutness. Pharaoh was a mighty man in his day, and yet a dream was too much for his power of interpretation. He had a dream, and it mocked him. He saw strange visions, and they said nothing to him which he could render into intelligible speech. Understand that just before us there is a power of mystery and concealment, a mockery and torment which can unsettle the strongest man amongst us, can frighten us, and make poor, timorous, trembling creatures of the very sturdiest of us. This shows also the weakness of the greatest men. Pharaoh was king, but kings are not always interpreters. It would not do for one man to be every man. Men would forget themselves if they had at their girdles the keys of all locks. It is enough for some of us to dream, and to be puzzled by our dreams and visions. It would be too much for us if we were our own soothsayers, prognosticators, interpreters, and reconcilers. Every man needs the help of some other man.

Pharaoh is mighty, yet Pharaoh is puzzled by his own dreams. The prime minister for the time being is an influential man, but he might not be able to clean his own watch. The great general and warrior of the day has a renown peculiarly his own, but it might be inconvenient for him to get his own coals in. There is a meaning in these things. A man, though he be a king, wants an interpreter now and then to break into common speech the strange and terrible language which he has heard in the silence of the night-time. So the greatest, proudest man amongst us has, ever and anon, to call in the aid of some apparently little contemptible creature who has nothing but hands, or nothing but physical faculties. Let us learn from this our mutual inter-dependence, the Divine idea of unionism and reciprocity. We need one another. There is no man in the world, how brilliant soever his genius, how mighty soever his gifts, who does not need the humblest and the poorest creature to make up to him something that is wanting to complete the complement and sphere of his power.

“And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled ( Gen 41:8 ).

Showing us the discipline, the instructiveness, which may come out of the Unknown. If life were altogether a known quantity, we should forget ourselves. God recalls us, steadies us, gives us thoughtfulness, considerateness, by reminding us, now and again, that the greatest part of our being is an unknown quantity. Pharaoh was troubled. Why? Because some little rival had lifted his puny fist against his throne? He could have crushed such rivalry almost by a word. Why was the king of Egypt troubled? Because of an unknown factor; because of the elements he could not see all round about; because of something that glanced at him and then shut its eyes again swiftly; something that touched him on the shoulder and fled away. It is the same with us. God rules us often by the fear of the unknown. You saw a flash of light in your bedroom last night, after you had retired to rest, and that troubled you, shook you; you had to inquire of others in the morning to know what it was. Great man! poor insect! You thought you heard a voice, and yet there was nobody to be seen, and that chilled your marrow, you drop your pen and run out into the busy streets, that you may retone your nerves. Ha! so it ever was with you. You could not rest because there was an unexpected glance of light in your room. You thought somebody touched you, and when you looked behind there was no one to be seen. You had a dream which shook your whole nervous system, agitated, disturbed you, made you unquiet and sad. Why? be a man! What was it? A shadow, an impalpability, a dream! You are a man, with your head upon your shoulders, your eyes in your head, with hands and feet, and completeness of physical constitution. Why should you be startled, chilled, afraid, by something that is mysterious, intangible, invisible? Be a man. But you cannot. There is God’s power over you. He can frighten you by a dream; he can startle you, confound you, by an unexpected event or combination of events.

This is the difficulty with some men. They cannot rest till they have done their very utmost to find out the meaning of a dream. They are disquieted until they find out whence came an unexpected shadow, whence issued an unexpected voice. They inquire; they give themselves no rest, until they have answered such difficulties with as great a measure of satisfaction as possible. Yet they care nothing for the subtle temptations that assail the heart, for allurements that seduce the spirit into evil, nor for the unholy thoughts that steal upon their minds and poison the fountain of their highest life. They care nothing for all the Great Unknown, the entrance to which is called “Death.” Is this right? Is this reasonable? To be terrified by a vision of the night, and yet to have no care about the infinite, the invisible, the everlasting! Has God no meaning in the little frights with which he sometimes visits us? When he just touches us, as it were, with the finger-tip of mystery, when he just seizes us for one moment by some sudden fear? Is it not a hint of the unsearchable riches of his mystery and the inexpressible fulness of his resources, whereby he can torment, trouble, slay men? Those who need this exhortation, if such there be, will have but a sorry answer to give to the last great trouble, the one all-inclusive, over-shadowing fear; because by the number of times you have trembled in the presence of unexpected events, by the experience you have had of disquieting dreams, God will charge upon you the capacity of understanding the hints and the monitions which he has given in all the cloud, and mystery, and wonder of your life.

“And he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh” ( Gen 41:8 ).

Showing how old schools of thought go out; how old tuitional functions are exhausted; how men who have served their day, after a clumsy and incomplete fashion, are dispossessed, put aside; and with such naturalness and beauty of adaptation of means to ends. God does not say to the magicians, soothsayers, and monthly prognosticators, “Now, your day is done, and you must retire from the field.” He simply gives Pharaoh, king of Egypt, a dream to which they have no answer. Thus the old school drops out, and a new era of thinking, teaching, and interpretation is inaugurated. A man must not keep up old schoolisms, when those isms are no longer the answers to the dreaming day the strange, novel, tormenting life of the current time. The answers of the men referred to in this verse might have been quite enough in other cases. Up to a given point they might have been wise teachers. They had satisfied the Pharaohs of Egypt from time to time. Yet God lets down a dream from heaven, before which these men retire, themselves saying, “We have no answer to it.” This is how God trains the world. Old answers will not do always to new dreams. Old forms will not always do for new truths, or new aspects of truth, or new inspirations of Divine wisdom. Herein ought we to learn magnanimity, charity, noble-mindedness. I have a dream. Can any man tell me what it is? I have a sorrow at my heart. Can any man tell me where there is balm for such wound? My sin torments me, reproaches me, makes demands upon me which I cannot answer. Is there balm in Gilead? Is there a physician there? There are times when we would give half our kingdom for a man. A man of the right force of thought, the right capacity of sympathy, the right tone of music that wondrous, subtle, penetrating tone, which finds the ear of the soul and charms the spirit into rest and hope! There are plenty of men ; but is there a man? Countless populations; but is there a seer, a man who holds upon his girdle the one key that can unlock the wards of my difficulties and can open the lock of my life? Now there is a Man who professes to answer all questions, solve all problems, dissipate all dreams, and give us a new start in life. You may have heard his name; you may have heard it so often that it has ceased to be a name, and has become a mere sound a wavelet on the yielding air. It is a sweet name, and yet it is possible for men to have heard it until they cease to hear it. The name is this: Jesus Christ. Have you heard it before? A thousand times! Yet there is not a name in the newspapers of today which excites you less than that name. Such may be the experience of some of you. It is a terrible thing to have out lived Christ; to have made Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Golgotha historic names, spectral shadows! Yet I preach today thus: no man’s dream can be solved but by Christ; no man’s greatest dreams, Divinest dreams, visions of himself and of the future, can be solved and interpreted but by the son of Mary, Son of God!

“Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day” ( Gen 41:9 ).

Not his fault in respect of having forgotten Joseph, but his fault in the matter for which he was sent to prison in company with the chief baker. He makes a graceful speech concerning his ill behaviour, and thus introduces to the notice of Pharaoh Joseph, the Hebrew servant to the captain of the guard. The speech of the butler is a speech to which every man ought to give solemn heed: “I do remember my faults this day.” Here is the law of association. One thing suggests another, showing how concatenated and intervolved are all the affairs of this life. “I do remember my faults this day.” There are days that go back into our yesterdays and make them live again. There are little circumstances that sound, as it were, the trump of resurrection over all our past life, and summon buried things into personality and impressiveness of position and aspect. So it shall be with us all. There will come to us events, which will give recollection, which shall recall the whole chain of our life. There is a way of wrapping things up. Let us clearly understand that, lest any evil-minded man should be discouraged, lest any man who has an evil genius should be thrown into despair. Let us remind him that there is a way of doing bad things, wrapping them up with skilful fingers, and putting them away. That can be done. You can easily scratch away a little mould and hide some fault from the light, or some unholy word or mischievous deed, and throw the mould over it again, and then take your staff in hand and walk on. Do not think that your occupation, you bad Othello, is gone! The worst of it is, that seme men think that wrapping up a sin is equal to annihilation. They do a bad deed, throw it behind them, look straight on, as if their looking straight on had actually destroyed the deed. We shall come upon events that shall be reminders, upon circumstances that shall turn us round to face the past with all its variegations, its brightness and its shadows, its purities and its corruptions. What an outlook this is for some of us! There are parts of our life we do not like to think about. When we are suddenly reminded of them we call, Wine! We turn aside a little to some one and say, Play something. There is a time coming when wine and music will have lost their power of enchantment, and we shall be turned right round forced to look at the past! Oh, sirs! it is then that we shall have no little quibbling, wretched questions to put about Christ’s Cross and Christ’s atonement. When we see life from that point, and feel the bitterness and torment of sin, we shall then know that the Lamb of God never shed one drop too much of his blood, never suffered one pang too many for the sins of the world. We shall not be critics then, pedants then, little technical inquirers then. We shall feel that the Cross, and that alone, can go right into our life, with the answer to our difficulties, and the balm for our wound and sorrow.

“Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh” ( Gen 41:14 ).

There are great changes in life. Some of our lives amount to a succession of rapid changes; and it takes a man of some moral nerve and stamina to stand the violent alternations of fortune. Some men cannot bear promotion. It is dangerous to send little boats far out into the sea. Some men are clever, sharp, natty, precise, wonderfully well informed, newspaper-fed and fattened, and yet, if you were to increase their wages just a pound a week, they would lose their heads. That is a most marvellous thing, and yet nobody ever thought he would lose his head with such an increase of fortune. But it is a simple fact, that some men could not bear to step out of a dungeon into a palace: it would kill them. What helps a man to bear these changes of fortune, whether they be down or up? God, he can give a man gracefulness of mien when he has to walk down, and God can give him enhanced princely dignity when he has to walk up; a right moral condition, a right state of heart, the power of putting a proper valuation upon prisons and palaces, gold and dross. Nothing but such moral rectitude can give a man security amidst all the changes of fortune or position in life. His information will not do it; his genius will not do it. Nothing will do it but a Divine state of heart. It is beautiful to talk to a man who has such a state of heart, when great changes and wonderful surprises come upon him, when Pharaohs send for him in haste. It is always a good and stimulating thing to talk to a great man, a great nature, a man that has some completeness about him. It must be always a very ticklish, delicate, and unpleasant thing to talk to snobs, and shams, and well-tailored mushrooms; but a noble thing to talk to a noble man, who knows what prison life is, who knows what hardness of life is, and who has some notion of how to behave himself even when the greatest personages require his attendance. Few men could have borne this change. None of us can bear the great changes of life with calmness, fortitude, dignity, except we be rightly established in things that are Divine and everlasting. You will see that I cannot make too much of Joseph’s princeliness of heart and mind when I read the sixteenth verse:

“And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace” ( Gen 41:16 ).

“And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do” ( Gen 41:25 ).

God does sometimes give hints of his method among men. Not always are they complete hints; simply indications, outlines, shadows of things. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. But if we would fully entertain in our heart of hearts the Holy Ghost, I know not that we should not have more mastery over the future, keener insight into men, events, and purposes. Sure am I of this: that no man loses anything in clearness of vision, microscopic penetrating insight into character, into history, into events, by living in God and serving God. What God is about to do! Now and then God comes down just to say, “You men are only tenants-at-will; you are not proprietors, you are not even leaseholders. Boast not yourselves of tomorrow!” We should get to think that the wheat-fields and the vineyards were all ours, if the Great Proprietor did not come down now and then and breathe upon them that they should wither away, if he did not now and then withhold the dew, so that the roots of the earth cannot be nourished, if, now and again, he did not send a plague through the air to proclaim to men that they hold things but for a moment, and ought to hold them in the spirit of stewardship. So Pharaoh, having had a dream from God, and interpretation from God through the medium of Joseph, was sharp enough to say, “Then if this be the case you are the man for chancellor.” Christian people are thought to be very softheaded people, not thought to have many business notions and business qualifications; great at singing hymns and going to church, but not much in the market-place or on the exchange. I will not reply to that further than to say that it is unworthy of a reply. As if God did not know more about money than we do, and more about wheat-growing and wheat-storing than we do! as if God knew everything but how to get the morsel of bread for the meal that is due!

Believe ten thousand men when they say that they never knew what it was to have a clear mind, a far-sighted vision, until they knew God, knew Jesus Christ, not as their Creator only, but their Redeemer, their Sanctifier. Religion does not make business men, nor does it give man capacity, faculty. Religion will increase his capacity and refine his faculty. Religion understanding by that term the religion of Jesus Christ, Son of God, who lived for us, died for us, and rose again for us never diminishes the quantity of our manhood; but increases it, refines it, and gives it unity, dignity, and effect.

So we have seen Joseph through what we may term the ill-fortunes. When we come to read about him again, we shall have to turn over a new leaf, on which there seems to be nothing but brightness. Let us, before turning over that new leaf, remind ourselves that there are trials which are testing, and other trials that are punitive. Many men are distressing themselves, when they think of their trials, by imagining that they must have done something wrong, or God never could have sent such afflictions to them personally or to their household. That is a mistake. There are trials that are simply tests, not punishments; trials of faith and patience; not rods sent to scourge men because they have been doing some particular evil thing. God’s people are tried. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” The honour is not in the trial, it is in the spirit in which the trial is borne. Take the trial impatiently, with murmuring against God, and we shall be the worse for our trial, the poorer for our suffering. Take the trial as a veiled angel sent by our Father to say things to us which no other messenger could so suitably convey, then even the rod shall be precious to us, and the herald’s utterances of God shall have music in them that shall comfort and revive and cheer the heart.

We all have our trials. Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s butler and baker, king and subject, preacher and hearer, every heart has its own bitterness, its own prison hours, its own times of darkness and sorrow and agony. But there is one healing for us all. Jesus knows, knows our frame, remembers that we are but dust; knows what temptation is in its suddenness, its rapidity, its urgency, its ravenousness. He has promised to be with us when the lion comes, and the bear, and the fierce beast, and when the serpent tempts us, and our poor worn heart is failing for strength. To Christ, Son of the living God, Saviour of all men, let us crawl if we cannot fly; and the mere turning of our tear-stained eyes towards the place of his dwelling shall be accepted, as if we had spread out the strongest wings, and outstripped the eagle in our flight towards his presence! Oh, dear Son of God! hold thou us up, and we shall be safe! Hear the people when they say, Amen!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Joseph’s Elevation

Gen 41:46

Joseph was about seventeen years of age when he went out, at his father’s request, to make inquiry concerning the well-being of his brethren. We find from the text that he was now thirty years old. Think of thirteen years being required for the fulfilment of a dream! The Lord counteth not time as men count it. He sitteth upon the circle of eternity. He seems to be always at leisure: though doing everything, to be doing nothing. A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday, and all time is but as a watch in the night. But what about the effect of this long suspense upon the mind of the dreamer himself? It is hardly any comfort to us to know that God can afford to wait centuries and millenniums for the fulfilment of his purposes. There is another, there is a weaker side to this great question of the dreamer. Here is a young man exiled from his lather’s presence and the comforts of his home; labouring under the vilest imputations and the gravest suspicions; wasting, as it appears to us, thirteen prime years of his life. What about this waiting on the part of God, so far as Joseph is concerned? See, for example, how likely it was to discourage his faith in things spiritual. The youth had a dream, a vision, granted him as he believed of God; and yet through thirteen years his dream takes no shape, his vision is but a spectre of the memory not a grand ruling fact of the life. Mark how his faith comes down accordingly. He reasons thus with himself: “Up to this time I have had faith in the God of my fathers. I have believed that dream and vision, strange token and wonderful signal, all meant something in the Divine providence and government of the world. I thought my own dream had a great meaning in it: but I waited twelve months and nothing came of the dream; and twelve months more, and my vision was as nothing; and another year, and I have suffered nothing but ill-treatment, and all this ill-treatment has come to me through this very dream of mine. Verily, it was but a vexatious nightmare; or, if a vision of God, it was sent to mock my ambition and to destroy my peace.”

If the young man had run off into some such soliloquy as that, he would be a very mighty man who could justly rebuke him for taking that view of the affairs which constituted so large a portion of his life. It is so with ourselves, my brethren. There are many things which conspire to destroy our faith in the invisible, the spiritual, the eternal. There are daily occurrences which teach us that there is something higher than matter; yet there are things occurring around us which are perpetually rebuking our trust in the distant, the intangible, the spiritual, the Divine. And who are we, that we should speak to men who for thirteen years have been groaning under heavy burdens, and chide them, as if all the while they ought to have been musical, bright with Divine hope and beauty, and not sad and heavy-hearted, mournful and pathetic in tone? We should look at such things seriously, with consideration. It is a terrible thing for some men to believe in God! It takes the whole stress of their nature, and all the help which can come of their personal history and their family traditions, to bind them to the belief that, after all, though God is taking a long time to fulfil their dream, yet he is working it out, and in his own good hour he will show that not a moment has been lost, that all the dozen years or mote have been shaped into a peculiar and bright benediction.

Then look at the inferential rectitude of his brethren. Joseph might have turned in upon himself in some such way as this: “Though my brethren dealt very harshly with me, yet they had keener and truer insight into this business than I had. They saw that I was the victim of a piece of foolish fanaticism. I thought I was interpreting to them a dream of Heaven, a vision of God. When I told my dream they mocked me; they visited me with what appeared to be evil treatment. But now that I have had thirteen years of disappointment, vexatious delay, and all the consequent embitterment of spirit, my brethren were right after all. They might not have taken, perhaps, the very best method of showing that they were right; yet now I forgive them, because they were right on the main issue, and they were called of God to chide my fanaticism, my imbecility and folly.” Well, there is a good deal of sound sense in that monologue. It does appear as if the brethren were right and Joseph was wrong. The brethren can turn to thirteen years’ confirmation of their view of Joseph’s dream. They could say: “Where are his dreams now? He had a vision of greatness. All the sheaves in the field were to bow down to his sheaf, and all the stars were to make obeisance to him as the central sun. Where are his dreams now?” It is even so with ourselves. There are views of life which I get that impress upon me this conclusion: Bad men are right after all. There are what are called “facts,” which go dead against the good man’s faith and the holy man’s prayer. There are men today who can tell you that they have prayed and struggled and fought and endured, and for twelve years nothing has come of their holy patient waiting upon God, nothing that is worthy of being set against the stress under which they have suffered, the discipline that has pained them, the misunderstandings which have troubled and tormented their lives. There have, indeed, been little flecks of light upon their daily course; there have been little compliments and social courtesies; but, putting all these things together, they are not worthy to be named in comparison with the poignant anguish that their souls have endured. Yet will not history be to us a tone without language, a messenger without a message, a wasted thing, if we do not learn from this incident that if we have waited twelve years, yet, in the thirteenth, God may open the windows of heaven and pour out upon us a blessing that there shall not be room to contain? It is not easy to wait. It does not suit our incomplete nature to tarry so long. But we fall back upon history, which is God interpreted, and we find in that an assurance that when the heart is right, the outward circumstances shall be shaped and directed to our highest advantage.

Some men’s dreams do take a long time to fulfil. The butler and the baker’s dreams were fulfilled in three days. But what was there in their dreams? Everything depends upon the vision we have had of God. If we have had a butler’s dream we shall have a butler’s answer. If we have had such a dream as a great nature only can dream, then God must have time to work out his purposes. Joseph is not the only man who has suffered for his dreams. God oftentimes punishes us by making dreamers of us. Some men would be thankful today if they could close nine-tenths of their sensibility, if they could become leathern or wooden, to a large extent. This power of feeling of feeling everything to be Divine, and to have a Divine meaning in it: this power of seeing beyond the visible right into the unseen: this power of dreaming and forecasting the future brings with it severe pains and terrible penalties. Here is a man who dreams of the amelioration of his race. He will write a book, he will found an institution, he will start certain courses of thinking, he will seek to reverse the thought of his contemporaries and turn it all into a directly opposite channel. He sees the result of all this. He tells his dream, and men laugh at him. They say, “It is just like him, you know. He is a very good sort of man, but there is a great deal of fanaticism in him. He has always got some new scheme, and some very beautiful vision floating before him.” And men who never dreamed except it was that their wretched little house was being broken into feel called upon to snub him with their contempt, and to avoid him as a man who is too good or too clever for this poor common world. What are we to make of history, if we do not get out of it this lesson? that there are dreams which God gives, and there are dreams which take a long time to fulfil. We do not make history we interpret it. God causes the facts to transpire, and he says to us, “Be wise, be understanding: draw the right inferences from these circumstances.” But was it worth waiting thirteen years for? A good deal will depend upon the answer we give to that inquiry. Is there nothing worth waiting thirteen years for? Some men require twenty-five years’ hard, good schooling before they are quite as they ought to be. Other men may require only two days, and they are as sharp and clear as any scholar need be. Others require thirteen years on the treadmill, thirteen years’ discipline and scourging, thirteen years’ weaning from old affections and old associations. Observe, God was now training a spoiled child, and spoiled children cannot be drilled and put right in two hours. Some of us have been spoiled in various ways. Some with excess of goodness, and some with excess of harshness, it may be, yet spoiled. Our nature has got a twist, or we have got ideas which require to be taken out of us; and only chastisement, suspicion, imprisonment, scourging, loss, hunger, affliction, and the very gate of death itself, can bring us to that measure of solidity and tenderness and refinement which God wants, in order to start us on the highest course of our manly service Was it worth waiting thirteen years for? Yes. All countries, according to the Biblical statement, came to Joseph for food, and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn, because that the famine was sore in all lands. He was the feeder of the nations, the father, the preserver, the benefactor of innumerable multitudes! It seems to us to be an easy thing to step into that position. But we do not see the whole case; we do not see the temptations which beset it, the difficulties which combine to form that position; we do not know all the collateral bearings and issues. Let God be judge. He took thirteen years to make this man; and this man was the benefactor, and, under God, the saviour of nations. Why should not we endeavour to learn that lesson? We should like now to be second to Pharaoh. Some of us have the notion that we are tolerably ready, today, to receive all the homage which people can give us. That is our mistake. If we wait thirteen years, we shall be better; we shall be stronger and wiser, than we are now. The years are not wasted to souls that make a right use of them. Every year that goes by should lift a man up, give him enlargement of capacity, and tenderer sympathy, and sensitiveness of feeling. So Joseph waited thirteen years. But after he had waited, he went before Pharaoh, and was as Pharaoh to the people of Egypt.

“Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? ” ( Gen 42:1 ).

The old man was perfectly innocent: he had no evil tormenting associations with the word Egypt. If his sons had heard there was corn many a mile farther off than Egypt, surely these stalwart, active, energetic men would have been off before the old man chided them by this speech of his about waiting and looking upon one another. But, corn in Egypt! Some words are histories. Some words are sharper than drawn swords. Egypt was a keen double-edged weapon that went right into the very hearts of the men whom Jacob sought to stimulate. Jacob saw only the outward attitude. The sons appeared to be at their wits’ end. Jacob thought his children were inactive had no spring or energy in them; that they had faded away into ordinary people, instead of being the active, strong-limbed, energetic, and, as he thought, high-minded men of old. Men do not show all their life. Men have a secret existence, and their outward attitude is often but a deception. I have seen this same principle in operation in many stations of life. I have seen it in the Church. I have known men, whose interest in the sanctuary has begun to decline, who have been inattentive to the ministry, who have fallen off in their support of Christian institutions, and, when asked by the unsuspecting Jacobs, “Why is this?” they have said “that they do not care so much for the minister as they used to do. There is not food for the soul; they want another kind of thing; and, therefore, until some change has taken place, they must withhold support from this and from that.” So the minister has had to suffer: to suffer from unkind words, from chilling looks, from attitudes which could not be reported or printed, but which were hard to bear. And the poor minister has endeavoured in his study to work harder, and to get up the kind of food which such souls souls! could digest. He has toiled away, and in six months it has turned out that the wretch who criticised him and made him a scapegoat, was preparing for bankruptcy, and was edging his way out of the Church, that he might do it with respectability and without suspicion. Such a case is not uncommon. It may vary in its outward aspects and the way of putting it. But there are men that seek to get out of duties, and out of positions, by all kinds of excuses, who dare not open their hearts and say, “The reason is in myself. I am a bad man. I have been caught in the devil’s snare; I am the victim of his horrible temptation and cruelty.” It is the same, I am afraid, with many of you young men in the family circle. You want to throw off restraint. You want to alter this arrangement and that in the family; and you speak of your health, your friends, or some change in your affections. You put altogether a false face and a bad gloss upon the affair, so that your unsuspecting father and mother may not know the reality, the reality being that your heart is wrong, or your soul has poisoned itself. You want to be away, to do something that is truly diabolic, and which you would not like those who gave you birth and who have nourished you through life to see. Believe this, that not until the moral is right can the social be frank, fearless, happy. When men’s hearts are right they will not have anything to hide. They may have committed errors of judgment, but these have been venial, trifling. But where there is no deep villainy of the heart, men can bear to tell their whole life, and show how it is that they are fearful concerning this, or despondent concerning something else.

This law of association is constantly operating amongst men. A word will bring up the memories of a lifetime. You had only to say to ten great-boned men in the house of Jacob and say it in a whisper Egypt! and you would shake every man to the very centre and core of his being. If you could have met the oldest, strongest, sturdiest of them on a dark night, and said to him, Egypt! you would have struck him as with the lightning of God. Yes, it is a terrible thing to have done evil! It comes up again upon you from ten thousand points. It lays hold of you, and holds you in humiliating captivity, and defies you to be happy. That this may be so I think is tolerably clear from the twenty-first verse of the forty-second chapter. The men were before Joseph, after they had been cross-examined by him.

“And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore, is this distress come upon us” ( Gen 42:21 ).

Many years after the event! Their recollection of that event was as clear as if it had transpired but yesterday. Learn the moral impotence of time. We say this evil deed was done fifty years ago. Fifty years may have some relation to the memory of the intellect, but it has no relation to the tormenting memory of the conscience. There is a moral memory. Conscience has a wondrously realising power, taking things we have written in secret ink and holding them before the fire until every line becomes vivid, almost burning. Perhaps some of you know not yet the practical meaning of this. We did something twenty years ago. We say to ourselves, “Well, seeing that it was twenty years ago, it is not worth making any to-do about it; it is past, and it is a great pity to go twenty years back, raking up things.” So it is, in some respects, a great pity to bother ourselves about things other men did, twenty years ago. But what about our own recollection, our own conscience, our own power of accusation? A man says, “I forged that name twenty-five years ago, and oh! every piece of paper I get hold of seems to have the name upon it. I never dip the pen, but there is something in the pen that reminds me of what I did by candle light, in almost darkness, when I had locked the door and assured myself nobody was there. Yet it comes upon me so graphically, my punishment is greater than I can bear!” Time cannot heal our iniquities. Forgetfulness is not the cure for sin. Obliviousness is not the redeemer of the world. How, then, can I get rid of the torment and the evils of an accusing memory? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” That is the kind of answer men want, when they feel all their yesterdays conspiring to urge an indictment against them as sinners before the living God. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Can I impress this upon myself and upon you? Time cannot redeem us. Ten thousand ages hence, a man’s sin will confront him, scourge him, and defy him to enjoy one moment’s true rest. Who then can destroy sin, break its power? Whose arms can get round it, lift it up, and cast it into the depths of the sea? This is a Divine work, God’s work! It is not to be done by your ethical quacks and your dreamy speculators. It is to be done only by the mighty redeeming power of God the Son, Jesus Christ! This is the gospel I have to preach to men. Fifty years will make no difference in your crimes. Conscience makes us live continually in the present; and only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash out the stains of evil deed and unholy memory.

“And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required” ( Gen 42:22 ).

Showing how bad men reproach one another, how little unity there is in wickedness, what a very temporary thing is the supposed unanimity of bad men, how bad men will one day turn upon one another, and say “It was you!” Ha! such is the unanimity of wicked conspirators! “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not”; they will turn against thee some day. Though your swords be pointed against one man at the present hour, and you may be unanimous in some wicked deed, God’s great wheel is going round and round, and the hour cometh when the men who urged thee to do the evil deed, and share with them their unholy counsels, will seek thy heart, will accuse thee, will charge thee with participation in their nefarious, hellish designs and work. The way of transgressors is hard! Smooth for a mile or two, and then hard, thorny ravenous beasts there, serpents lurking here. It is very difficult to get back when you once start upon that way. I have known young men who have said, “We want to go just a mile or two down this road, and when we find it becomes rather intricate, we intend to turn right round; and then, after all, you will see that we have only been sowing a few wild oats, and just doing a few odd things, and by-and-by we shall settle down into solid men.” I am not so sure about it. If a man goes into the evil way, and the great Enemy of souls goes after him, he will blot out his footprints. So when the man says, “I will now go back again; I can put my feet where I put them before,” he looks for his footprints, but they have gone, and he cannot tell which is east, west, north, south! Footprints gone; landmarks altered; the whole metamorphosed, and to him downward is upward. None so blind as he, the eyes of whose soul have been put out!

All this, too, was in the hearing of Joseph. Joseph heard them say that he was their brother. They used to call him “dreamer.” He heard them say “the child,” tenderly. Once they mocked him. He heard them speak in subdued, gentle tones. He remembers the time when their harsh grating voices sent a terror through his flesh and blood, and when he was sold off to travelling merchantmen. It was worth waiting for to see further into one another, after such experiences as these. He never would have known his brethren, but for this terrible process. Some disciplines open men’s nature and show us just what they are. “His blood is required,” said Reuben. Certainly, such requirements made life worth having. There are pay days. There are days when bills become due. There are times when business men are particularly busy, because the day has come on which certain things are due and must be attended to. And shall a paltry guinea be due to you or to me, and a man’s blood never be due? Shall we be very conscientious about pounds, shillings, and pence, and forget the virtue we have despoiled, the honour we have insulted, the love we have trampled underfoot? God will judge us by our actions, and will charge upon us that we were conscientious in little things, in trivial relationships, and forgot that sometimes man’s blood is due, and man’s honour comes with a demand to be satisfied.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXIX

JACOB, JOSEPH, AND OTHERS

Genesis 35-41

This will be a running comment commencing at the thirty-fifth chapter and extending through the forty-first. Our last discussion showed the great disturbance of mind on Jacob’s part at the cruelty of Simeon and Levi in destroying the Shechemites. At this time God told Jacob to leave that place and go to Bethel. In removing, Jacob determined to purify his household from idols; if he was to have the enmity of the people, he was determined not to have the disfavor of God. So be commanded all his household to put away their strange gods and to change their garments. They also gave up the rings in their ears and noses. It is not fashionable with us now to wear rings that way, but many do. After this purification God protected them by causing a fear to fall upon the inhabitants of the land, or else Jacob’s crowd would have been annihilated on account of what Simeon and Levi bad done.

At Bethel he builds an altar and worships God, and God reappears to him and gives him a renewed assurance of his protection. He then leaves Bethel for what is now called Bethlehem, or Ephrath. At that place occurred the death of Rachel in giving birth to Benjamin. She was not buried in the cave of Machpelah, like the rest of the family, but for hundreds of years her tomb was standing and visible; they show it to you now, but not with certainty may you accept the tradition. In Gen 35:8 , we find an account of the death of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. That is the only hint as to the death of Rebekah. We infer from the fact that the old nurse had come to live with Jacob that Rebekah was dead. I may have an examination question on that point. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the names of Jacob’s sons by his several wives, which I will bring out in an examination question. The chapter closes with the death of Isaac. Jacob comes to Mamre, or Hebron, now the head of the tribe. Esau and Jacob unite to bury their father. The thirty-sixth chapter gives a genealogy of the descendants of Esau. Nothing is particular in that except the generations of Seir, father of the Horites. I will give this examination question: Why in the generations of Esau, are the generations of the Horites included? The answer is that Esau’s people moved to the country occupied by the Horites and intermarried with them. You will note that the Horites, or cave dwellers, are not prehistoric men.

The thirty-seventh chapter is devoted to the youth of Joseph, a very particular section. We find here the development of the murderous envy and hate of Joseph’s brethren toward him. An examination question will be: State what caused the envy and hatred of Joseph’s brethren toward him. The answer is: Joseph brought an evil report concerning the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, and they counted that tattling. If he had been one of the sons at work, and had reported on the others, that would have been a tell-tale business. If one in college should be appointed as a representative of the faculty, he could make a report without being justly amenable to the charge of tattling. Joseph was sent by his father to make a report. Next, Israel loved Joseph above all his other sons. I think the circumstances make it certain that he loved him justly. He was the oldest son of the only woman Jacob ever loved. He was intensely lovable, more so than any of the other boys. It is a fact, however, that there never was a case where a parent loved one child more than the others that it did not cause ill will in the family. The third reason is given here: “And he made him a full length garment.” King James Version, “a coat of many colours.” When a parent distinguishes between his children in dress he is sure to bring on a row. There Jacob made a mistake. Fourth, Joseph dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers, and they hated him yet the more. “I dreamed that we were binding sheaves, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and your sheaves stood around and bowed down to my sheaf.” If that dream originated with Joseph it shows that he was already imagining superiority over his brethren. But if it did not originate with Joseph, which it did not, as it came from God it showed a lack of wisdom in Joseph to tell the other boys. The dream was literally fulfilled in afterlife, and so must have been from God. He dreamed another dream: “Behold, I dreamed yet again, and behold the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” The sun is papa, and the moon is mamma, and the stars are the eleven brothers, the whole family bowed down. He ought never to have told that dream to those boys. He told it to his father also. To show how quickly his father understood it, he said, “Shall we indeed, thy mother and thy father and thy brethren, bow down to thee?” His brothers envied him because his father kept that saying. He knew that meant something for his boy, and he was proud of the glory the boy would attain. Here are five things, and envy can get very fat on five things.

I once delivered an address on that subject before the Wake Forest College, entitled the “Ambitious Dreams of Youth.” There do come into bright minds forecasts of future greatness, great elation and swelling of the heart in thinking about it, that cannot be doubted. Sometimes these ambitious dreams do not come from God but from the heart of the student. I told those Wake Forest boys of a young fellow out in the mountains. When he started off to school a dream ran through his mind: “I will go to Wake Forest and make the brightest record ever made in that school. I will get through the four years’ course in three. I will get up my recitations so that the faculty will be talking about the most brilliant student in the institution. I will get the class honors. When I shall have delivered the valedictory and go home, all along the way people will say, ‘There is the boy who delivered the valedictory address.’ When I get home the family and all the servants will come out in a double row, and a band will play, ‘See the conquering hero come.’ ” Then I turned to the president and said, “Mr. President, what are you going to do with these ambitious boys who see the other boys bow down and their parents bowing down before them? Those boys think they have the world in a sling.” But one thing ‘is sure, no one ever became really great who did not aspire to be great. There is an honest ambition to excel, but where the faculty of imagination is wanting and it takes that to be a dreamer that man can be successful in a matter-of-fact way, but he certainly can never be successful as an artist, sculptor, painter, or as an orator or statesman. There is a creative power in the imagination. Woe to the one who expects to be great and has it not. It is characteristic of the Spirit’s day, as foretold by Joel and expounded by Peter, “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” Sometimes men who have not the Spirit, and who find it easier to win in fancy than in fact, indulge in air castles which need to be ridiculed. There is a story in the old “Blue Back Speller” of a maiden who, walking alone with a pail of milk upon her head, fell into the following train of reflections: “The money for which I shall sell this milk will enable me to increase my stock of eggs to three hundred. These eggs, allowing for what may prove addle, and what may be destroyed by vermin, will produce at least two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will be fit to carry to market about Christmas, when poultry always brings a good price; so that by May Day I cannot fail of having enough money to purchase a new gown. Green! , let me consider, yes, green becomes my complexion best, and green it shall be. In this dress I will go to the fair, where all the young fellows will strive to have me for a partner; but I shall perhaps refuse every one of them, and, with an air of disdain, toss from them.” Transported with this triumphant thought she could not forbear acting with her head what thus passed in her imagination, when down came the pail of milk, and with it all her imaginary happiness. Dr. Wayland, one of the greatest educators in the United States, has a lecture on the “Evils of the Imagination,” that every schoolboy ought to read. Even barefoot boys, fishing in the creek, will weave stories of companies of which they are captains, and they will kill 1,000 buffaloes and 1,500 Indians. When I was canvassing for the Education Commission in Northeast Texas, I had to go about eleven miles out into the country. A lad of about twelve asked the privilege of taking me. I wondered why, but when we got out of town he turned around and said, “Dr. Carroll, I asked the privilege of taking you to this place because I wanted to talk to you. I heard your address on education, and do you know, I am going to be governor of Texas someday?” I smiled and said, “Tell me about it,” and he unfolded himself. That boy had already drawn out his own horoscope and filled out all the details of his future. He was brilliant. He had stood at the head of his classes. Instead of rebuking him I simply cautioned him and at the same time encouraged him because he had this record. He did not tell lies. He was never absent from his classes. He was never guilty of what you call schoolboy follies. He was intense in his application, and up to that time he had accomplished all that he had ever undertaken. So it would not surprise me if that boy yet becomes governor. I am waiting to see, however. One of the most instructive parts of the Bible is this that relates to the early life of Joseph and his premonitions of future greatness. Not long ago I read an account of a brilliant girl about thirteen years old. Her parents, uncles, and aunts were all trying to restrain her from following a certain line of education. She met it all by saying, “It is in me to do that. I know I can win on it. I dream about it. It fills my vision. I am irresistibly drawn to it.” And she did win on it, a country girl that became famous before the great audiences in European capitals.

This envy that had five roots, after awhile will come to a head when opportunity presents itself. A great many people carry envy and hate in their hearts and it eats like a cancer and burns like a hidden fire and no opportunity ever comes to gratify it, and the world knows nothing about it. “Gray’s Elegy” tells, in referring to the lowly graves, about “some mute, inglorious Milton” that never had a chance to follow the promptings of his muse. Not only that, but the lowly graves hold many a heart which had burned with hatred and envy and petulance that never had an opportunity to express itself in “Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.” They say that everything comes to him who waits, and so this crowd waited, and here is their chance. Joseph’s brethren left Hebron, and went to Shechem, where they had massacred the Shechemites. They were looking for territory to pasture their immense herds. The father tells Joseph to go and see if it is well with the brothers and their flocks. It is a long way from home. When the boys see him coming they say, “Behold the dreamer cometh; let us slay him and cast him into a pit.” There were ten brothers in the meeting; eight were of one mind, but two had dissenting views. Reuben, the oldest, said, “Let us not kill him. Let us cast him into the pit.” The record says that Reuben intended to carry him back to Jacob. So he stands guiltless. The other one is Judah. We find when they bind him and strip off his coat that he pleads with them, ten great strong men, binding a boy, their own brother, and he weeping. Later they saw a caravan coming called Ishmaelites in one place and Midianites in another. Midian was a descendant of Esau, whose territory bordered on Ishmael’s, and the two tribes intermingled. Now Judah said, “Let us not kill him, but sell him to this caravan to take to Egypt.” In a speech I once delivered in the chapel of Baylor University, I told of a proposition about selling a man that would scorch the paper it was written on. The high court of state plotted it, the leading preacher instigated it, and the man they proposed to sell was one of the most illustrious on the roll of fame in the United States. So they sold Joseph. Then they took his coat and dipped it in the blood of a kid, and carried it to the father to make the impression that Joseph bad been torn to pieces by wild beasts. That was the heaviest stroke that Jacob ever received. He rent his garments, put on sackcloth, mourned many days and refused to be comforted. “I am going down to my son mourning to the underworld.” We will leave him there and look at one or two other matters.

The thirty-eighth chapter is devoted entirely to some rather scaly incidents in the life of Judah. The chapter is of such a character that it forbids discussion in a public address. Read it and gather your own lessons. It commences with Judah’s sin in marrying a Canaanite woman. Two of the sons born of this marriage God killed for their wickedness. This wife became an ancestress of our Lord. He derives his descent from four women not Jewesses. Rahab, the harlot; Tamar, the Canaanite; Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, whom David took; Ruth, the Moabitess.

The next three chapters give an account of Joseph in Egypt. When the caravan reached Egypt they sold him to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. Potiphar finds his trustworthiness, purity and truthfulness and attention to business, and promotes this slave to the head of the house. When sold into slavery the brave heart ought not to despair. But the beauty of his person, great personality, evident kindly manhood, attracted Potiphar’s wife, and she fell in love with him, as some married women do. Joseph refused to Join her in this unlawful love. Whereupon, as “love unrequited and scorned turns to hate,” she accused him of the very offense which he refused to consider. So Potiphar puts him in prison. Now, though a prisoner, this man begins to work his way to the front. He is faithful to every duty. Finally he is put at the head of all the criminals in the jail. How can you put down a good man, true to God and himself? This position brings him into contact with other dreams besides his own. There are two that the birds snatched the bread of Pharaoh’s table out of fellow prisoners, the chief baker and butler of Pharaoh. Both are troubled. God sent those dreams. For a man to dream the basket on his head is a very singular thing. Joseph interpreted that to mean that he would gain his liberty but that Pharaoh would put him to death. It happened just that way. The butler dreamed about a cluster of grapes, well formed, sweet flavored, and luscious, and that he squeezed it into a goblet and handed the new wine to Pharaoh. Joseph tells him that means that he shall be restored and promoted to his old place, and says, “When you are promoted, remember me.” The butler promised well enough, but forgot. It is easy to forget the unfortunate. But after awhile God sends more dreams. This time Pharaoh has a double dream. He dreams that he sees seven stalks of grain come up in the Nile Valley, full eared and heavy headed. Right after them come up seven thin) shrivelled, parched stalks and they devour the others. He dreamed he saw seven fat beef cattle, and seven lean, ill favored, gaunt, starved specimens that ate the fat ones up. Nobody could tell Pharaoh what the dream meant. But finally the butler remembered Joseph and said, “When I was in prison there was a Hebrew lad who told us our dreams and they came out just like he said.” Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and we see him step out of the prison to stand before the monarch to explain dreams, as Daniel did later. He says each dream means the same thing, that there were going to be seven years of great plenty in which the earth would be burdened with its crops. It reminds me of what a man on the Brazos River said. Leaving out part of his language, which was very emphatic, I quote the other: “I tell you, I will have to build a wall around my field and call it a crib: there is so much corn in it.” He did make eighty bushels to the acre, and showed me a number of stalks with three full cars, standing only a foot apart and twenty feet high. Joseph said, “These seven years will be followed by seven years of drought and famine in which nothing will be made. God sent me here to provide. You ought to husband the resources of these fruitful years so that they can be spread out over the famine years.” Pharaoh was wonderfully impressed, and instantly promoted Joseph to the position of prime minister and made him next to himself. Just exactly as Joseph predicted, the thing happened. Great storage places, perfect reservoirs for holding wheat, and treasure houses were built. At the end of the first year people wanted bread to eat. Under advice of Pharaoh Joseph sold to them, taking their money, jewels, stock, land, then themselves. At the end of the seven years Pharaoh had the whole country, and Egypt was the granary of the world. “And all countries come into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn.”

That is the history of Joseph up to the time we come in touch with Jacob again.

QUESTIONS 1. Where did God tell Jacob to go from Shechem?

2. What important step did he take before going, and why?

3. How did God intervene to save Jacob from the inhabitants of the land?

4. What events happened at Bethel?

5. When did Rebekah die and what is the evidence?

6. Where did Jacob go from Bethel and what the events by the way?

7. Name the sons of Jacob by each of his wives and handmaids.

8. Where were they born?

9. Where does Jacob go from Ephrath, or Bethlehem, and what important event occurred there?

10. To what is the thirty-sixth chapter devoted, and why the genealogy of the Horites in this connection?

11. Whose is the most flawless character in history i Ana.: Joseph’s.

12. As a child, what could he say of his father and mother?

13. State in order the several causes or occasions of the hatred of his brothers.

14. What mistake did Joseph make in this?

15. What is the importance of dreams of greatness? Illustrate.

16. What is the difference between dreams of true greatness and building air castles? Illustrate.

17. What is the nature of ungratified envy and hate?

18. Cite passages from “Gray’s Elegy” to illustrate this point.

19. What was the culmination of the hatred of Joseph’s brothers? Can you find a parallel to this in the New Testament?

20. How was Reuben’s attitude toward the hostility against Joseph distinguished from that of his brothers?

21. How was Judah’s?

22. Who took Joseph out of the pit and sold him? (Gen 37:27-28 .)

23. Explain the confusion of the names of the Midianites and the Ishmaelites.

24. Compare the dejection of Jacob with that of Elijah, and show wherein both were mistaken.

25. To what is the thirty-eighth chapter devoted?

26. What was Judah’s beginning in this downward course of sin?

27. What four Gentile women became ancestress of our Lord?

28. Who became Joseph’s master in Egypt, what of his promotion and misfortune in this house?

29. How did he get out of prison and what six dreams touched his life?

30. Who was the author of those dreams?

31. To what position was he promoted in the kingdom?

32. What of Egypt at the close of the seven years of famine?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 41:1 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.

Ver. 1. At the end of two full years. ] After the butler was restored; by whose intercession Joseph hoped to have been presently delivered, but was fairly deceived. So are all such sure to be, as depend upon living men (never true to them that trust in them) or deceased saints to intercede for them to God. Deus O. M. pro ineffabili sua clementia dignetur, et in Tosterum Divo Kiliano intercessore, Amplitudinem tuam contra fidei et Ecclesiae hostes tueri fortiter, et fovere suaviter, saith Eckius, in a certain Espistle a to a Popish bishop. Such a prayer begs nothing but a denial, with a curse to boot.

a Epist. dedicat. ad Episcop. Herbipolens .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 41:1-8

1Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he was standing by the Nile. 2And lo, from the Nile there came up seven cows, sleek and fat; and they grazed in the marsh grass. 3Then behold, seven other cows came up after them from the Nile, ugly and gaunt, and they stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. 4The ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. Then Pharaoh awoke. 5He fell asleep and dreamed a second time; and behold, seven ears of grain came up on a single stalk, plump and good. 6Then behold, seven ears, thin and scorched by the east wind, sprouted up after them. 7The thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream. 8Now in the morning his spirit was troubled, so he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all its wise men. And Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.

Gen 41:1 “at the end of two full years” This, of course, relates to chapter 40, where Joseph interprets two person’s dreams, both hoping to be released from prison, and yet, this was not successful. The date is from the restoration of one servant and the execution of the other. Throughout the account of Joseph it is interesting that the author/editor gives us several dates: (1) he was seventeen years old when he was sold into slavery (cf. Gen 37:2); (2) he became second in command of the nation of Egypt when he was thirty years old (cf. Gen 41:46). With these figures it is possible to see that he had remained in jail approximately thirteen years. This is conditioned on how much time he stayed in Potiphar’s service before the incident with his wife.

“Pharaoh” Pharaoh is a collective title for all of the kings of Egypt as Hadad was for Syria, Caesar later becomes for Rome, and Czar was for Russia. The etymology of the term is uncertain, but most Egyptologists assume it is from the phrase “the great house” (BDB 829, i.e., the house of the gods). There has been much speculation about when Joseph could have arisen as second in command over all of Egypt. Many assume that it had to be during the Hyksos period known as “the Shepherd Kings,” who were apparently Semitic, not Egyptian (see AB, p. 316). They ruled from 1730 to 1570 B.C. However, it is interesting that in Gen 41:1, the term for “river,” which obviously refers to the Nile, is found in a form that only occurs during the 18th Dynasty or 1546-1085 B.C. From Egyptian documents we also learn that throughout the history of Egypt, there were Semites in places of responsibility in many other Egyptian dynasties than the two mentioned above.

“a dream” There is extensive literature, both in Egypt and Mesopotamia, concerning dreams and their interpretation. It is interesting that the two Hebrew persons involved in interpreting dreams each worked for pagan kings; Daniel in Mesopotamia and Joseph in Egypt.

The NIDOTTE, vol. 2, p. 154, makes an interesting comment about the three kinds of dreams.

1. natural sleep, Psa 126:1; Isa 29:7-8; Ecc 5:7

2. false revelation, Jer 23:25; Jer 23:27; Jer 23:32; Jer 27:9-10; Jer 29:8; Zec 10:2

3. true revelation, Gen 20:3; Gen 28:12; Num 12:6; 1Ki 3:5; Dan 2:28; Mat 1:20

Visions can often occur at night, but seem to be different from dreams. The exact nature of the difference is not stated. YHWH communicates to a person’s subconscious using symbols and metaphors with which they are familiar.

“the Nile” This (BDB 384) is the first in a series of uniquely Egyptian terms. Not only are they uniquely Egyptian terms, but the entire context is culturally Egyptian. This river and its annual flood was the source of Egypt’s life and fertility. It was considered a god (cf. Exo 1:22) to be appeased.

Gen 41:2 “seven cows” We learn from Plutarch, the Roman historian, and Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, that “cow” (BDB 831) symbolized the bounty of the earth in Egypt. As the cow was the main herd animal in Egypt, the sheep was in Palestine. The cow was an obvious choice in an Egyptian dream concerning agricultural bounty (i.e., “sleek,” BDB 421 [lit. “beautiful”] and “fat,” BDB 135).

“they grazed in the marsh grass” This is another Egyptian loan word. We know from Egyptian sources that the cattle immersed themselves in the water along the Nile for several reasons: (1) to keep cool; (2) to keep the insects off; and (3) to eat the lush growth of marsh grass (BDB 28).

Gen 41:3-4 These cows are in direct contrast with the healthy cows of Gen 41:2.

1. ugly (lit. “bad of sight”), BDB 948 I CONSTRUCT BDB 909

2. gaunt (lit. “thin of flesh”), BDB 201 CONSTRUCT BDB 142

They eat up (BDB 37, KB 46, Qal IMPERFECT) the healthy cows (Gen 41:4).

Gen 41:5 The second dream is repetitious except the cows are replaced by contrasting ears of grain (BDB 987 II).

Gen 41:6 “the east wind” This desert wind (BDB 870), so notorious for its blighting of the agricultural produce of the land, is called the “Sirroco” (Aramaic) in Palestine, where it blows from the southeast. It is called the “Khamsin” in Egypt and it comes more from the south, southeast. It is referred to in Eze 17:10 and Hos 13:15. All the food for the cattle (and thereby humans) would die.

Gen 41:8 “his spirit was troubled” The term translated “spirit” is ruah (BDB 924), which denotes the life force of animals and humans on this planet. It can be translated “wind,” “breath,” and “spirit.”

The VERB “troubled” (BDB 821, KB 952, Niphal IMPERFECT) is a rare word. It is used in the Niphal stem in Psa 77:4; Dan 2:1; Dan 2:3, and the Qal is used of God’s Spirit “stirring” in Jdg 13:25. Its basic meaning is “to thrust” or “to impel.”

“the magicians of Egypt” This seems to be another Egyptian loan word that comes from the root “to engrave” (BDB 355) and is always used of occultic knowledge (cf. Exo 7:11; Exo 7:22; Exo 8:7; Exo 8:18-19; Exo 9:11). Why an Egyptian term would be used for Babylonian soothsaying priests (cf. Dan 1:20; Dan 2:2; Dan 2:10; Dan 2:27; Dan 4:7; Dan 4:9) is uncertain. Therefore, these men were the readers, practitioners, and writers of the ancient books concerning divination, interpretations, etc. They are referred to not only in Egypt, but also in Babylon (cf. Isa 44:25; Jer 50:35; Jer 51:57) and in Persia (cf. Est 1:13; Est 6:13). The terms used in Daniel are different terms, but refer to the same type of people.

For an extensive discussion of the practices of divination and dream interpretation see A. L. Oppenheim, The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East, pp. 184-307.

“and all its wise men” This refers to the court counselors (BDB 481 CONSTRUCT BDB 314, cf. Exo 7:11; Isa 19:11-12), not necessarily the priestly class of soothsayers referred to by the former term.

“there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh” Pharaoh apparently had more honest wise men than Nebuchadnezzar, who did not trust his magi enough to give them the content of his dreams lest they make up an interpretation (cf. Daniel 2)!

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

the river: i e. the Nile.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 41

For audio go to chapter 39

Now it came to pass at the end of two full years ( Gen 41:1 ), That is after Joseph said “don’t forget me, pal”. “Oh, I won’t.” “At the end of two full years,” that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And there came up out of the river seven well favoured cows, fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other cows came up after them out of the river, they were ill favoured, leanfleshed; and they stood by the other cows upon the bank of the river. And the ill favoured and leanfleshed cows did eat up the seven well favoured and fat cows. So Pharaoh woke up. And he went back to sleep and he dreamed again the second time: and, behold, there were seven ears of corn ( Gen 41:1-5 ) Now the top of the corn was the top of the wheat where there were all these little kernels, that little straw thing at the top was called corn. It was called the corn of wheat, that top. You remember it says the disciples were going through the fields of corn on the Sabbath day and they were rubbing the corn in their hand. It isn’t corn like our maize kind of corn or sweet corn, golden or whatever. It’s that corn of wheat and they would take it when it was dry, rub it in their hands because you rub the hull off, blow it out and then you can eat it. And it’s good to eat. I like to eat wheat just fresh from the field that way. You just take and rub the corn or the top of it in your hands to get the hull off and blow it out and then eat it. And so that’s what the disciples were doing when the Pharisees found fault with them. So this is actually instead of corn, don’t think of Post Toasties or that type of corn with this, but think of the wheat. It’s that that little thing with all the kernels of wheat and the little straws going up from it that is referred to here. So in some of your other translations it might read wheat and that’s why, because in reality it is what they call the corn of wheat, but it’s that top of the wheat. And so there were seven ears of corn that came upon the one stalk, and it was rank and good. And, behold, there were seven thin ears and they were blasted with the east wind that sprung up after them. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven full ears. And Pharaoh woke up, and, behold, it was just a dream. And so it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and the wise men: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, Oh, I remember my faults today: Pharaoh was angry with his servant, and he put me in jail in the captain of the guard’s house, both me and the chief baker: And we dreamed dreams one night, both of us; and we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And there was there a young man, who was a Hebrew, he was a servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, and so it was; me he restored to my office, and him he hanged. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh ( Gen 41:5-14 ). And so Joseph shaved himself because that was the custom of the Egyptians actually. They were very clean people and so he had to shave, change his clothes to be for the Pharaoh. Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, there is none that can interpret it: I have heard them tell of you, that you can understand dreams and interpret them. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It’s not in me: but God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace ( Gen 41:15-16 ). I love that. Here Joseph is brought before the Pharaoh now because of the fact that he had interpreted dreams and the Pharaoh says, “Hey, I hear you can interpret dreams. None of my men could do it”. And Joseph said, “It isn’t in me, but God shall give you an interpretation of peace”. That’s beautiful. He’s not ready to take credit for God’s work. And it’s always a sad day when people try to take credit for God’s work. It’s always dangerous when you take the bows for God. Jonathan smote the Philistines with the great slaughter and Saul blew the trumpet in Israel. Saul was going around to get the glory. “Hey, don’t try to touch God’s glory. Don’t try to take God’s glory”. If God uses you, be thankful and give God the glory and the credit that God used you. But don’t try to tell us how smart you were or how wise you were or what tremendous program you devised. Give the glory to God for the work that God does. The same thing happened with Daniel when he was brought before Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar said, you know, “Can you give the interpretation?” He said “there’s a God in heaven who knows all things and He will give the interpretation to Pharaoh”. Daniel wasn’t about to take credit for God’s work. Joseph here in no wise taking credit for God’s work. And I admire him for this. Pharaoh said to Joseph, In my dream, I stood upon the bank of the river ( Gen 41:17 ): And he repeats the dream to Joseph about these seven fat beautiful cows grazing, and these seven lean cows coming up and eating up the fat ones. That must have been a weird dream; these skinny old cows eating up these fat cows. But then the other is just as weird because then there were these beautiful shucks of wheat and these blasted, withered shucks of wheat and the wheat starts eating up the other wheat until there’s just nothing but the skinny, blasted ones left. And Joseph said to Pharaoh [verse twenty-five], The dream of Pharaoh is one: God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do ( Gen 41:25 ). It is interesting that these dreams came in pairs. Joseph his first dreams were in pairs. First of all, it was the sheaves that bowed down to his sheave and the sun, moon and the stars bowing down to him. With the butler and the baker, the two dreams. They came in pairs. Each of them the three, one three baskets, one the three branches. And now this dream of the king is in pairs. Both of them having to do with sevens. Seven fat and seven lean. And the lean eating up the fat. So the seven thin and ill favoured cows that came up after them are seven years ( Gen 41:27 ); Or actually, The seven good cows are seven years; seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. The seven thin and ill favoured cows that came up after them are seven years; the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. And this is the thing which I have spoken unto the Pharaoh: What God is about to do he is showing unto the Pharaoh ( Gen 41:26-28 ). In other words, God is giving you an insight in about what’s to happen. It is interesting that God did give to these pagan rulers, monarchs, insights into the future. God gave to Nebuchadnezzar a marvelous insight into the future by dreams interpreted by Daniel. I imagine just because of their position. Be interesting to know what Jimmy Carter dreams about. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all of the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will consume the land; And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of the famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto the Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass ( Gen 41:29-32 ). God gave it to you twice in order that you might establish it. That’s the “mouth of two or three witnesses every word established” ( Deu 19:15 ). And so God gave the second witness to assure the truth of the thing. And it will shortly come to pass. Now therefore ( Gen 41:33 ) Here is the young slave prisoner standing before the Pharaoh of Egypt and now he is giving advice to the Pharaoh of what to do in order to save the land. “Now therefore.” Young fellow here, just thirty years old. let Pharaoh look out a man who is discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up twenty percent of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years ( Gen 41:33-34 ). Now in Egypt they used to just the taxes were ten percent. So double taxation during these good years. Let them be taxed twenty percent during the good years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up the wheat under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep the food in the cities. That the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; when the land that the land perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all of his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is ( Gen 41:35-38 )? He said find a man wise and discreet and do this. He says, “Hey, you’re the wisest one I can find”. Now I don’t think Joseph was pushing for a job when he was advising the Pharaoh, but yet the Pharaoh recognized the quality of the fact that the Spirit of God was in this man. He could see something different. And what a difference the Spirit of God makes. Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Inasmuch as God has showed you all of this, there is none as discreet and wise as you are: You will be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than you. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and he arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all of the land of Egypt ( Gen 41:39-44 ). So Joseph was given a chariot ride behind the Pharaoh’s. Men going beside the chariot crying to the people, “Bow your knee”, as Joseph went by. Those that see in Joseph a type of Jesus Christ see Jesus here in Philippians chapter two, “In the form of God, and thought it not robbery or something to be grasped to be equal with God: but he emptied himself, took upon a form of man, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God has also highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess” ( Php 2:6-9 ). The knee is being bowed. They see the exaltation of Christ who was rejected by His brethren but who will rule one day over the world. And so Joseph’s being exalted. Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnathpaaneah ( Gen 41:45 ); Which is a Coptic word, which means the revealer of secret things. and he gave him as his wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah the priest of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh the king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt ( Gen 41:45-46 ). Now isn’t it interesting how clear is our hindsight? As we look back on the trials of our lives and those hard places that we came through, when we were crying out to God and saying, “Oh God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from the cry of my roaring? God, I prayed day and night and You don’t hear. Lord, where are You?” And we thought that surely God had forsaken us and God wasn’t concerned with us. And surely we were going to perish in the wilderness. But now as we look back, we see how God was just working out His perfect plan all the way along. Years ago, when we were pastoring in Tucson, Arizona, we were just coming to the place where the church had begun to grow and there was an excited group, a young fellowship and things really were beginning to just blossom; when the bishop in the church called me and said he wanted me to take a church in Corona. Well, I had mixed emotions. If I came to Corona, I’d be near home because my parents were still living in Santa Ana where I went to high school. And so I thought, well, it’d be nice to be that close to home, get to see, you know, my family more often. And the church in Corona was quite a bit smaller than the church was now in Tucson that had really begun to blossom out. But I thought, “Oh, it’s just a matter of time. We’ll go into Corona and we’ll sparkle there and the church would grow”. I still had confidence in my abilities in those days. Corona is where the Lord began to whip out some of the confidence, I tell you. That was, that was a miserable two years. We started out with sixteen and we ended up with sixteen at the end of two years. But he, the bishop, was assuring me that as soon as he got me in his district that he would move me into a church of equal size to our Tucson church. And with these promises and so forth, we leaned upon the word of man and we decided to come. And after two years of hard labor and no results, I wrote him reminding of him of his promise and I received a letter back, which was informing me that because nothing had happened there that I really wasn’t deserving of any larger church. And that anyhow I’d have to wait till some pastor died or whatever before I could move up. So I wrote him back and said, “I really didn’t have time to wait for a pastor to die and I resigned from the ministry”. Figuring to-well, I got a laundry route for a while and I’m just figuring to get whatever I could as far as work, support the family and pretty discouraged at that point. But while we were in Corona, we met a young couple. They didn’t come to our church but his mother did. She was a very spiritual, godly woman. She used to spend a lot of time in prayer with us and encouraging us. And we kept in touch with this woman through the years. Well, there were some changes and there was a division of districts and a new bishop came in and he came to me and said, “Hey, I would like to see you back in the ministry” and offered me a church in Huntington Beach, which we took and we spent five wonderful years in Huntington Beach, close to the surf and you know, it was nice. Church was small enough that I could go surfing in the morning and take care of the church duties in the afternoon, really enjoy it. And we were seeing some marvelous blossoming forth and growth in the church there when this bishop asked me to go out and take a church in Los Serranos under very

difficult circumstances. The pastor who had started the church in Los Serranos and had been there from its inception was discovered to have been a homosexual and have been engaging some of the young boys in the church and the practices. And it was discovered and so the church was just at that, you know, it was just broken and going to pieces. And so the bishop asked me if I would please go out and see if I couldn’t minister to the people to help put things together. So under great pressure from the Lord, not the bishop because he gave me the privilege of praying about it and giving him a yes or no answer, but at this state, the Lord was putting me under pressure. I went out to Los Serranos and those were hard years; smog and tough neighborhood. It was just-it was just a bad, bad scene. But while we were there, because of our previous meeting this couple in Corona, and because the church wasn’t that far from Corona, they started over to the Los Serranos church with some couples. And the church was prospering and flourishing. The people were great. We loved the ministry to the people; we just didn’t like living in that particular area. And then my mother was not well and an opportunity came to move down to Costa Mesa. So we moved down and began to pastor here in Costa Mesa for a couple of years to be around my mother because we could tell that she wasn’t going to be with us very much longer. And so we wanted to be near her. But at this point, I just had it with denominationalism. And I was praying and seeking that God would give me a way out, that I might just serve Him freely without the bondage and the restrictions and the restraint that were being placed upon me by the denomination. By this time we had a new bishop and we just didn’t get along at all. He might be listening on the radio tonight. I want him to know I forgive. He knew-I guess somebody told him that I was sort of independent and he called me in and warned me never to go independent. But yet I just couldn’t take it any longer. And so I just resigned once more from the ministry. But these couples that had come to our church in Los Serranos during this lean time, they said, “Would you mind starting a Bible study in our home in Corona?” So we started the Bible study in their home in Corona. And God began to bless the Bible study. The thing began to grow until we had to get a-the home wasn’t big enough. We had to move in the American Legion Hall, and so we started an independent church in Corona, the first; that was God’s way to get me out of the bondage of denominationalism. So then I could look back and I could say, “Oh, Lord, those two miserable years I was in Corona, thank You, Lord. You put this in the right context, you know. Those two miserable years out in Los Serranos, Lord, Your hand was just working. Oh, Lord, You’re so wise”, you know. And I realize how God was so far ahead of me. It’s glorious how God goes ahead of us. God said to Israel after He brought them through the wilderness experience, “And every place where you pitch your tent I prepared it for you. I went before you and prepared the place for you to pitch your tent.” Now looking back I can see how God had prepared places for me to pitch my tents. As I was living in those tents, I thought I was pretty far away from God at times. I thought God has forsaken me in this place. I’m going to die in the wilderness, but not so. God’s hand was in every move. And looking back, you know, for awhile I thought, “Man, that was the greatest mistake I ever made. Boy, I sure learned not to move, you know, again at the voice of man but just really listen to God only”. And yet as I look back, I see how that God’s hand was in each move because there were the contacts made, there you know and I could see how God was putting the whole thing together from the beginning. And then even in our coming down to Costa Mesa to begin our pastoring of Calvary Chapel. We look back and we see how God’s hand was in the whole thing. God had this in mind all the time. I had no idea God had this in mind. I was hoping that he had in mind a church of two hundred and fifty people someday. And that was my ambition and my prayer. That shows how “God does exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think” ( Eph 3:20 ). Our very first service in the new little chapel that we built over here a block away. The reason why it was built to accommodate three hundred people is because in seminary I learned that you can only hold five-sixths of the seating capacity of the auditorium so you build your auditorium one-sixth bigger than what you want your congregation to be. And if your auditorium is for three hundred, you can maintain a congregation of two hundred and fifty. After that, they get so crowded they get discouraged, they don’t come back. I learned that in my pastoral theology class. So when our very first Sunday the place was packed, we had built it for expansive purposes figuring to expand into it. And when in the very first Sunday the place was packed, I thought, “Oh, it’s grand opening Sunday, everybody loves a grand opening. By next Sunday, we’ll be down to two hundred and fifty and I finally got my dream church. Imagine that! And it was my dream church, that church over there the way it was just a dream that I had of glass walls, green carpeting, burnt orange upholstered pews, overhanging walls with gardens outside. You’re sitting in a garden to worship the Lord. What could be more beautiful? My dream church, two hundred and fifty people. And we’re just going to sit there and love the Lord and grow and, you know, fellowship and all with each other and it’s just going to be great. Well, when the next Sunday the place was packed again, I began to wonder what’s going on. I really expected two hundred and fifty the second Sunday because that’s what I learned in seminary. So I want you to know it wasn’t my faith that built the church. I was confident we were going to be down to two hundred and fifty one of these days. But looking back I can see how all the way the Lord was leading. Lord had His hand upon it. The Lord was preparing. Paul, looking back in his life could see the purposes of God for each situation. Why he was born in Tarsus. Why he was educated at the feet of Gamaliel. Why he had a Greek background and a Hebrew background both. And he could see then how God was preparing him for the special ministry and special mission. And I look back at my own life and I see from the beginning how God’s hand was upon me. Though I didn’t at many times realize it or know it, yet as I look back I can see how God’s hand was protecting me. How God’s hand was keeping me. How God’s hand was watching over me for the Lord was with me. And Joseph now in the position of ruler over Egypt, he could see now the total plan of God and the picture now begins to come into focus and make sense. All of that was to get me to this place. If I’d never been thrown in the prison I would have never met the butler. I’d never have been able to interpret his dream. I’d never have been called to interpret the Pharaoh’s dream. The prison experience is necessary. If I hadn’t been sold by my brothers as a slave, I’d never come to Egypt, you see. And so you start looking back and all of a sudden, click click click, oh-ho-ho, I see God’s hand. God’s been working. His hand is on my life. And it’s always wonderful when you can get to some of those vista points. Now we go through a lot of valleys but you can’t see nothing. It’s just bleak. All you can see is just the massive cliffs around you. But God gets us out on the vistas every once in awhile. We begin to look, “Oh, yes, oh look at that valley. I can see it now and I can follow my path through the valley and I can see where all had a purpose. I’d never have gotten to this point unless I’d come through there”. Glorious to see how God’s hand leads and guides and the circumstances of our life. Those that we thought were horrible. Those that we thought were God-forsaken places. Those that we looked upon as the wilderness experiences of our life. Yet in all of those, God had a purpose. God had a plan to bring us to this place. For you see, God is preparing all of you to reign with Him. That’s God’s ultimate purpose. We shall live and reign with Him. That’s God’s ultimate purpose in your life. Now in order to groom you for this position of reigning, you’ve got to go through some schools. You’re not yet equipped to reign. You’re not yet able to reign. And so God must bring us through these necessary experiences, some of them bitter, some of them hard, some of them difficult, some of them we don’t understand. But one day when we’re reigning with Him, we’ll be able to look back on it all and rejoice and thank God for every trial and all that we went through. “Therefore, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations”( Jas 1:2 ). When you’re faced with problems and difficulties because God is working in you, preparing you for that which He has prepared for you reigning with Him forever. Rejoice. Lift up your heart. Be encouraged in the Lord. For God has a plan even in the difficult circumstances of your life. So Joseph gathered up all the food of the seven years, in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, he laid up the same. [Forty-nine] And Joseph gathered the wheat as the sand of the sea, very much, until he quit counting it; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah the priest of On bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For he said, For God, he said, hath made me forget my toil ( Gen 41:48-51 ). So “Manasseh” means forgetting. But the Lord was with Joseph even now in prosperity. Now there are many times when people acknowledge the Lord with them through the hard places. They know they can’t get through without the Lord but when the days of prosperity come, it’s a different story. But now Joseph is reigning but he still has not forgotten God. In fact, he names his first son by the fact that God has called him to forget those bitter twenty years or thirteen years of bitterness. God has caused me to forget all of the toil, all of the slave labor, all of the imprisonment. And his second son he named Ephraim: which means fruitful, for God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction ( Gen 41:52 ). Again acknowledging God, the fruitfulness; the prosperity is because of God. “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction”. The land was his hand of affliction but yet God blessed him and made him fruitful there, even as God can bless and make you fruitful in affliction. The seven plenteous years in the land of Egypt was over. And the seven years of drought began to come, the dearth, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in the land of Egypt there was bread. And when the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said to the Egyptians, Go to Joseph; and what he says to you, do. And the famine was over the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and he sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all of the countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn or wheat; because that the famine was so sore in all the lands ( Gen 41:53-57 ). So God had him down there for the preservation of the people through these seven lean years. And God had gone before; God was ahead of him. God could foresee. And that is why we have difficulty often in understanding the ways of God because we can’t see. I don’t know what lies ahead. And I’m often prone to challenge God and to question God for the things that He is doing because I can’t see what’s ahead. But because God can see down the road, He’s preparing me now for eternity. That which God is doing in my life now is always in the view of the eternal plan that He has for me. And so many times in order to fulfill eternal purposes, there is a time of temporary sorrow or grief or suffering or pain. But as Paul the apostle we are convinced that “the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. And this light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working an exceeding eternal weight of glory” ( 2Co 4:17 ). Cheer up. Go out and face the world with a smile and with a victory in your heart because you are God’s child and He’s preparing you to reign with Him eternally. Don’t get discouraged, or under the circumstances don’t think that God has forgotten you or forsaken you. God sees the travail of your heart in His soul. He knows the fetters with which you are bound. But they are all a necessary process of God, as He trains you and as He grooms you and as He brings you into that place that He might bestow upon you His glory, His power, His love that you might reign with Him, world without end. “So we look not at the things which are seen for the things which are seen are temporal. But we look at the things which are not seen for the things which are not seen are eternal” ( 2Co 4:18 ). Get our eyes upon the eternal goal, upon the eternal reward, upon that which God is working out in our lives, as far as His eternal purposes. And then we endure and we can endure our present difficulties if we keep the proper perspective. In Hebrews the eleventh chapter, talking about the Old Testament saints who went through such suffering, who went through such tribulation and trial and it said, “And they endured as seeing the invisible” ( Heb 11:27 ). You tell somebody you can see the invisible things and they think you’re crazy. But I tell you, that what gives you the enduring quality is seeing beyond just the temporary problem. Just seeing beyond this temporary material physical world, into the spiritual eternal world. That’s the thing that keeps you going. That’s the thing that gives you the enduring quality that you need. “For we’re looking for a city which hath foundation, whose maker and builder is God” ( Heb 11:10 ). And we’re going to live and reign with Him forever in His kingdom and our eyes are set like flint towards that goal as we walk together with Him. For the Lord is with us and He is working in us even in the adverse circumstances that He might bring us into the glory of His kingdom. Father, we thank You for Your work in us tonight. And we yield now our members as instruments unto righteousness unto Thee. Lord, as we look back we can truly say, “All the way my Savior led me”. And what more can I ask? What more can I desire? That Your hand be upon my life. That You be with me and lead me, Lord. I thank You. In Jesus’ name, Amen. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Still the divine activity proceeded. Now it was Pharaoh who dreamed, and now the butler remembered. The result was that Joseph was brought before the king, and as he stood in the royal presence he was still the same man, dependent on God and proclaiming his dependence. In answer to the king’s declaration that he had heard of his power to interpret dreams, Joseph said, “it is not in me: God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” He then proceeded to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. The result was that Pharaoh recognized in him “a man in whom the Spirit of God is,” and again Joseph was promoted.

It is well to note this repetition. In slavery, in prison, at the court of the king, Jehovah was with His servant. The fact was recognized in turn by Potiphar, the chief keeper, and by Pharaoh. In each case Joseph was placed in power, in the house of his master, in the prison of his confinement, and in the realm of the king. True godliness will manifest itself and it always commands respect.

Thus the great regenerative movement of God proceeded and things are seen developing toward accomplishment of the divine purpose. One of the chief values of these Old Testament histories is the revelation of these facts. Moreover, this is not merely the story of a condition of affairs that existed long ago. It still exists. In the movements of our age a divine purpose is being wrought out through human history, even though we may not detect it.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Pharaoh Dreams of Cattle and of Ears of Grain

Gen 41:1-13

This chapter tells of ascension and exaltation, and affords an inimitable type of the issue of our Lords humiliation and death. Like Joseph, He went and preached to spirits in prison, and then God highly exalted Him, and gave him a Name above every name. Rejected by his brethren, refused by those to whom he was sent, falsely accused and condemned, classed with the wicked, thrust into prison, rescuing one of his poor associates, called to a throne, it would be possible in almost every particular to substitute the name of Jesus for that of Joseph. What a corroboration of those great words of Asaph, Neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south cometh lifting up; but God is the judge, Psa 75:6-7. When sorrow falls, how quickly the world remembers the child of God, and turns to him! Those that despise and forget will seek you out some day.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 41 Josephs Exaltation

1. Pharaohs dreams (Gen 41:1-7)

2. Joseph brought from the prison (Gen 41:8-15)

3. Josephs humility (Gen 41:16)

4. The revealer of secrets (Gen 41:17-32)

5. Josephs wise counsel (Gen 41:33-36)

6. Pharaohs answer (Gen 41:37-40)

7. Josephs exaltation and marriage (Gen 41:41-46)

All is so simple that little comment is needed. The dreams impressed Pharaoh, because the cow was a sacred animal, the emblem of Isis. At last Joseph is remembered and brought out of the prison and his raiment is changed. All this finds an application in the life of our Lord. He was taken out of the grave. Compare Gen 41:16, Josephs humility, with the humility of another Hebrew prisoner, Daniel in Babylon. (See Dan 2:27-30.)

The seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine are typical. This age will close with the seven years of tribulation.

And this dream of Pharaoh and Josephs interpretation has been remarkably confirmed by the hieroglyphic inscriptions. One was discovered in 1908 which tells of the seven years of famine, because the Nile did not overflow. It has been ascertained that this was the very time when Joseph was in Egypt.

Then follows Josephs exaltation. The name of this Pharaoh was Apepi. His father and grandfather were for a time co-regents with him. He recognized the presence of the Spirit of God in Joseph. Note the beautiful comparisons with our Lord. Pharaoh said, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. Of Christ we read, Thou didst set Him over the works of Thy hands. Joseph said, God hath made me lord of all Egypt and Christ is Lord over all. Joseph is arrayed in royal vesture, and Christ is crowned with glory and honor. The word Abrech was cried before him. This word means bow the knee. According to Prof. Sayce of Oxford Abrech is the Sumerian Abrok, which means the seer. This would call for prostration. Thus every knee must bow before our exalted Lord. The name by which he was called is in the Septuagint Psomtomphanech. This is an Egyptian name, meaning saviour of the world. The word Zaphnethpaaneach means revealer of secrets. Even so Christ after He was rejected by His own brethren became the Revealer of secrets and the Saviour of the world.

Before the seven years of famine came Joseph received his bride, Asenath, the Gentile, and Christ will have His beloved with Him before the years of tribulation and judgment come. All had to come to Joseph for corn, as all must come to Christ for the bread of life.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

am 2289, bc 1715

two full years: Shenathayim yamim, “two years of days,” two complete solar revolutions; as a month of days is a full month. Gen 29:14

that Pharaoh: Gen 20:3, Gen 37:5-10, Gen 40:5, Jdg 7:13, Jdg 7:14, Est 6:1, Job 33:15, Job 33:16, Dan 2:1-3, Dan 4:5-18, Dan 7:1 – Dan 8:27, Mat 27:19

the river: Gen 31:21, Exo 1:22, Exo 4:9, Deu 11:10, Isa 19:5, Eze 29:3, Eze 29:9

Reciprocal: Gen 12:15 – princes Gen 31:24 – dream Gen 41:17 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

God Rules In the Kingdoms of Men

For two years, the butler forgot Joseph. Sold and abandoned by family. Imprisoned by a woman’s lie after doing the right thing. Hope, which seemed so bright with the promise of the butler, shattered by days, weeks, months and even years of forgetfulness. Seemingly, forgotten by God. Had we been in that prison cell, discouragement might have reigned supreme.

However, God was using the forgetfulness of the butler. If the butler had remembered Joseph right after his own release from prison, Joseph might have left the land of Egypt. How would God have preserved Abraham’s seed then? Men do not always appreciate the fact that God causes everything to happen in its season ( Eph 1:10 ; Eph 3:8-12 ). He really does work in the kingdoms of men, as this story will plainly show ( Daniel 4:25; 34-37 ).

Pharaoh’s Dream Awakened the Butler

Two years after Joseph told the butler the meaning of his dream, Pharaoh had a dream. He saw seven fat cows come up out of the Nile River. Then, seven lean cows came up and stood beside them. The lean ate the fat, but grew no fatter. Pharaoh awoke. When he slept again, he dreamed about seven full heads of grain growing on one stalk. Then, seven withered heads sprang up. The withered heads ate the full heads, but grew no fuller.

The next morning, Pharaoh was troubled by what he had seen in his dreams. He called for the magicians and wise men of Egypt. He asked them to interpret his dreams, but none could. It was then that the butler remembered Joseph in prison. He briefly related the events of two years before. He told Pharaoh of the young Hebrew who had correctly interpreted his and the baker’s dreams ( Gen 41:1-13 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Gen 41:1. At the end of two full years After the butlers restoration to his place. No doubt Joseph was some considerable time in prison before the keeper of the prison would so far trust him as to commit the other prisoners, especially the state prisoners, to his charge; and he was some time confined with them. Yet two years more pass away before his deliverance came. By this great and long-continued humiliation and trial, he was prepared for the extraordinary exaltation which God designed for him.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gen 41:1. Pharaoh dreamed. See on Isa 4:2. Whatever be the pleas of atheism and materialism against dreams of a prophetic character, it is evident enough from the gentile mythology, and from profane history, that they were fully accredited by the best and wisest of men. Cicero dreamed that while wandering in a solitary place, and much depressed in spirit, C. Marius came to him, and asked, why are you so dejected? To whom he replied, It is because I have been unjustly driven out of my native country. De Devinat. lib. 1. Now, this dream came out when Clodius, in the forty ninth year of his age, banished him from Rome. In Josephus, and in Plutarch, we have many dreams of a very striking nature. It is no way credible that a poor Hebrew servant could have been elevated, as Joseph was, without a special interposition of providence.

Gen 41:2. The riverfavoured kine. The Nile, as Pliny correctly states, rises often twelve cubits and sometimes thirteen, or 24 feet, which usually indicates great plenty. The kine then fed in pastures adjacent, and at a distance not only in the Delta, but on the west of the river, which is now a desert of sands, blown in clouds by the western winds.

Gen 41:8. His spirit was troubled. Two dreams so much alike, and so deeply impressed on his mind, very sensibly affected him.Magicians, that is, wise men, astrologers, philosophers, naturalists, and diviners. The priests of the nation were generally included under these names.

Gen 41:16. It is not in me. Joseph here ascribes to God the whole glory of his wisdom and skill; he saw Gods hand in this dream, and was confident of the answer.

Gen 41:25. The dream of Pharaoh is one. It was repeated in the corn, and in the kine, or heifers, to show that the famine would affect both man and beast.

Gen 41:34. The fifth part. The tenth part is supposed to have been due to Pharaoh; now the earth bringing forth double, this proportion, Joseph saw, would be sufficient for times of scarcity.

Gen 41:35. Lay up corn. Granaries are among the wisest precautions of society, where a country, like Africa, is so variable in its seasons. Had this been a general practice, myriads of Hams race might have been saved from perishing of hunger.

Gen 41:38. The Spirit of God. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is gradually unfolded from the beginning. Gen 1:2; Gen 6:3. The Holy Spirit inspires, teaches and guides; for futurity is to him without a veil.

Gen 41:42. Pharaoh took off his ring. How much preferable were these honours to all the seductions of uncleanness he had so lately escaped; and oh how happy shall that soul be, how highly honoured of the King of glory, when by the grace of God, he shall have overcome the beguiling snares of vice.

Gen 41:43. Bow the knee. Abrac, which in hiphil is to bow the knee. Critics lose their way in the etymon of this word, by confounding it with ab, a father. Many towns in a low situation have the same root in their name; as Abraconium, a town situate on a river in Turcomania, Abraconis in the same province, Abrante on the right shore of the Tagus, and Abrambou on the river Volta, lat. 7, on the gold coast. The French abas, and the verb, to abate, seem to resolve themselves into the same primitive.

Gen 41:44. Pharaoh, the name of all the Egyptian kings for 1400 years. The name of Ptolemy was the next in succession.

Gen 41:45. Zaphnath-paaneah. Most critics interpret this name, a revealer of secrets, others an interpreter of dreams, and a few, a saviour of the land. It is much to be regretted that they have varied so much in giving the import of Hebrew names; but this being an Egyptian name, it has not been well understood. One well acquainted with Egyptian literature reads it, the first of lords.Priest of On; that is, Heliopolis, or the city of the sun, two or three leagues north east of Cairo. The celebrated obelisk was there, which reflected the solar rays. Joseph being ennobled by Pharaoh, became by this marriage ennobled in his connections. Perhaps this priest was pious, if we may so speak, where partial idolatry existed, as was the case with the adjacent priests of Midian. And if marriage so much augmented the happiness of the holy patriarchs and prophets, why should Rome deny it to her priests? Three of the apostles, as Eusebius states, were married. It is true, that those who first planted christianity were for the most part single, because of their mission, and because of their incessant persecutions. But why should a voluntary sacrifice for the glory of the work be unnaturally imposed on the best of men in the time of peace? What political good has accrued to Spain, or any other nation, by the celibacy of the priests? See on Exo 1:11.

REFLECTIONS.

What a reverse of fortune did this afflicted man experience, and in a single day. What an elevation from the dungeon to the right hand of Pharaoh: not to destroy nations, but to preserve life. How astonishingly did the long dark and lowering clouds brighten all at once. With what admiration could he now review a well connected chain of vast events! He would see first of all, Gods design to afflict a voluptuous age with famine, and to instruct them anew in the belief of his particular providence: for man, carnal and brutish man, is apt to regard the succession of fruitful seasons merely as a well constructed machine which moves without a mover. He stops at nature, rests in second causes, nor looks so high as natures God. With this view the Lord caused abundance to overflow the land, as the waters of the Nile, and that for seven successive years. He then gave repose to nature, and famine ensued. The nations almost perished, who did not discern his way, and provide for future wants.

Joseph could now trace also the mysterious steps which had led him to his elevated station. He could now see the whole chain extended, and strange to say, the foulest of crimes as well as the greatest of virtues alike contributing to fulfil the designs of providence, and to prepare for the Messiahs coming and kingdom. He saw Gods hand in permitting him to remain seventeen years with his father, till he had become acquainted with the maxims and religion of the patriarchs. He saw next the honour of his dreams provoking the envy and hatred of his brethren, and providence availing itself of their hatred, of his mistresss temptations, of his masters anger, of the butlers ingratitude, and lastly of Pharaohs dreams to accomplish its wise designs. What a chain: and God is seen in every link! How grateful would he now be for each of his calamities. The wheel which had hurled him into the dirt of the dungeon, next elevated him to the verge of the throne, after he had been qualified by reflection and solitude for the greatness of such a change. Let us learn not to be discouraged when we suffer in a righteous cause. Gods eye is over us, his way is perfect, and whenever we are permitted to review his designs, our souls shall cordially approve of all the bitter he has poured into our cup. In a word, suffering virtue and innocence oppressed can have no finer model nor stronger example of support, than is here presented in the patriarch Joseph. We may farther observe, that if wisdom and virtue exalt an individual, it is singularly happy for a nation when the throne is surrounded by men of integrity and sound wisdom. The wicked are kept in awe by their controul: and the country rises to distinction among the nations, by the superiority of its wisdom and the vigour of its operation.

The subject strongly recommends all young men to study the character of Joseph, with a view to learn the importance of early piety. By this he became a prophet before he was seventeen years of age. By piety he acquired the first place in his fathers affections, escaped the most dangerous snares of vice, and supported his great afflictions. By piety he was raised to the right hand of Pharaoh, and we may add, to the right hand of God; for he died in the faith, giving commandment concerning his bones. He lived to see both his dreams accomplished, and to tell every future age, that they who trust in the Lord shall never be confounded.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Genesis 37 – 50

On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, – in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.

In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not.” He had “no form nor comeliness in their eyes.” They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold “his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of “grace and truth.” They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.

Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;” and they hated him yet the more….And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren.” This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.

Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth – He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing – He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as “the truth,” but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:” grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.

“And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. “But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” God sent His Son into the world with this thought, “They will reverence my son;” but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the “well beloved” of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.

ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.” (Gen. 49: 22-26)

These verses beautifully exhibit to our view “the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” “The archers” have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but “the arms of his hands have been made strong” in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at “the throne of the majesty in the heavens,” we see the same thing.

Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.” (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but “they had not had sin.” So He says, in another place, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin.” (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, “this is the heir;” but yet he said, “come, let us kill him.” Hence, “they have no cloak for their sin.” Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Genesis 41. Joseph Interprets Pharaohs Dreams and is Made Viceroy of Egypt.This is mainly from E, Gen 41:1-28 apart from Gen 41:15 b, and perhaps Gen 41:9 b entirely so. But J has been used as well in the later part. It is not worth while to attempt analysis since the two narratives must have been closely parallel. Gen 41:46 a belongs to P.

The two dreams are modelled on the same lines, and mean the same thing (cf. Gen 37:5-11 and Peters triple vision, Act 10:16); the second is more bizarre than the first, for cows do at least eat, if not each other. Cattle were used in agriculture, hence their symbolic fitness. All the magicians are called that Josephs success may stand out against the background of their failure. The narrative, which is rather diffuse, for the most part needs no comment.

Gen 41:9. my faults: either against Pharaoh, which excited the kings anger, or his forgetfulness of Joseph (Gen 40:23).

Gen 41:43. mg. Abrech: probably an Egyptian word: the meaning is very uncertain, perhaps a summons to Attention!

Gen 41:45. Zaphenath-paneah: another Egyptian expression of very uncertain meaning. That most generally accepted is The god speaks and he lives.Asenath: perhaps belonging to Neith (a goddess).On: Heliopolis, 7 miles NE. of Cairo, the chief seat of worship of Ra the sun-god. It contained a college for priests, and the high priest was a dignitary of exalted position in Egypt.

Gen 41:51. If Joseph was seventeen when sold, thirty when he stood before Pharaoh, thirty-nine when he disclosed his identity, he had been twenty years in Egypt without troubling to let his father know that he was alive.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

DREAMS SENT BY GOD TO PHARAOH

Joseph remained in prison two full years longer, a further time of learning in humiliation the practical lesson of self-discipline. But he was under God’s eye, and at the right time God sent two dreams to Pharaoh of such a character that he was greatly stirred by them. No doubt he had had many other dreams, but these were so outstanding that he could not ignore them.

In the first dream seven cows came up out of the Nile river, beautiful and well nourished, and were feeding in the meadow. Then seven other cows came up undernourished and ugly, and these ate up the well nourished cows (v.4). The second dream did not come until he had wakened and then went to sleep again. Then he saw seven ears of gain come on a single stalk, plump and good. Following them were seven others ears thin and scorched by the east wind; and the bad ears swallowed up the good ones (vs.5-7).

There was such a similarity in the dreams that Pharaoh knew they were intended to convey some meaning. In the morning he was troubled because of them. He therefore called the magicians and wise men of Egypt, but none of them could suggest any interpretation of the dream (v.8). Only then did the cupbearer wake up to the realization of his own indifference to Joseph. He told Pharaoh that while he was a prison he and the chief bake had had dreams that distressed them until a young man in the prison, a Hebrews, had interpreted their dreams, and his interpretation proved perfectly correct in each case (vs.9-13).

In this history of the imprisonment of Joseph and the butler and the baker, God was working graciously behind the scenes to both bring Joseph out of prison and to exalt him in a way that would have naturally been unthinkable for a Hebrew. Pharaoh sent for Joseph immediately, and he came shaved and with a change of clothing. Nothing was said about the reason for which he was put in prison. So far as the record goes, he was never cleared of the charge that was falsely brought against him. He evidently left this in the hand of God, who knows how to care for His servant’s reputation.

Pharaoh then told Joseph that he had been unable to find anyone who could interpret a dream for him, but has heard that Joseph is able to do this (v.15). Joseph fully disclaims any personal ability or gift for this, telling Pharaoh rather that it is God only who can give the answer, but indicating also that God would give him an answer of peace. This simple confidence in God was the secret of Joseph’s receiving such revelations from Him.

Pharaoh then tells Joseph his dreams, adding to what we have read in verses 2-7 the interesting fact that after the seven thin, ugly cows had eaten the seven well nourished ones, the thin ones remained just as this as before (v.21).

Without hesitation Joseph interpreted the dream for Pharaoh, saying, “The dream of Pharaoh is one,” that is, the second dream was simply a confirmation of the first. God was showing Pharaoh beforehand what He was going to do in Egypt. The seven cows signified seven years, and the seven good ears of grain signified seven years. Similarly, the seven ugly cows and the seven parched ears of grain each signified seven years (vs.26-27). God had chosen to reveal to an Egyptian king what He purposed to do. The well fed cows and the good ears of grain indicated that there would be seven years of abundant produce through all the land of Egypt, while the lean cows and the thin ears of grain were prophetic of seven years of famine to follow. Then because of the severity of the famine the good years would be forgotten as though eaten up by the bad years with no helpful result (vs.29-31). God does such things as this with the object of awakening people to realize that their blessing does not depend on circumstances, but on the God who brings about every circumstance.

The fact that the second dream was a confirmation of the first indicated that the matter was fully established by God and that He would quickly accomplish His purpose.

Joseph then gave Pharaoh some sound advice as to how to prepare for the future. He must appoint a wise, dependable man to manage the great work of gathering produce into storehouses throughout the land of Egypt. This would require many to help. During the even years of plenty, they would require only one-fifth of the produce of the land to be kept for the future (vs.33-36). The abundance of the first seven years must have been great. Often when people are greatly blessed they do not consider wisely what the future may hold. After they have squandered the large amount the Lord has given them, they find that the lean years come unexpectedly and they are not prepared. Similarly, when a nation has lived lavishly it is likely that a recession will strike and the whole atmosphere is filled with bitter complaining. Through such things God speaks loudly to men.

JOSEPH’S EXALTATION

The interpretation of the dream was so simple and appropriate that Pharaoh had no difficulty in believing Joseph and therefore in approving of his advice. But not only this, he realized that Joseph was the very man who was qualified for the great work of supervising the storing of Egypt’s produce. It was evident to him that the Spirit of God was in Joseph, and since God had revealed the interpretation of the dream to him, then there was no-one so discerning and wise as he (vs.37-39). 1Co 2:15 tells us, “he who is spiritual judges all things,” that is, he judges in the sense of discerning. Not only does he discern spiritual things, but he discerns rightly temporal matters better than any unbeliever does, simply because God is the Creator of material things just as well as things that are spiritual.

Thus God used the imprisonment of Joseph as a step toward a far higher dignity than he had enjoyed in the house of Potiphar. He is set over the house of Pharaoh. By Joseph’s word all the people of Egypt were to be ruled. Pharaoh would of course not give his throne to Joseph, but would depend on Joseph to be the administrator of all his affairs. The dignity of Pharaoh’s position remained, but he gave authority into Joseph’s hand (v.40). There is an analogy here. God remains always in the dignity of eternal glory, yet He has given His beloved son the place of supreme authority over His creation.

Announcing Joseph as Ruler, Pharaoh even gave him his own ring, clothed him with fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck (v.42). In all of this Joseph is typical of the Lord Jesus exalted to the right hand of God. The ring, having no end, speaks of His eternal identification with God, the fine linen reminding us of the perfect purity of His Manhood (Rev 19:8). The golden chain pictures His unity with the Father in His Godhead glory.

Then Pharaoh give Joseph the honor of riding in his second chariot and having heralds calling on the people to “bow the knee” (v.43). This surely reminds us of Php 2:9-10, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”

“Pharaoh also said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no man may lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” This was an imperial decree, just as God has decreed by the honor of His own name that without Christ there is no true work (the hand) or walk (the foot) in all the world.

Pharaoh gave Joseph the name of Zaphnaph-paaneah, which means in Coptic language “revealer of secrets,” but in Egyptian, “Savior of the world” (v.45). both are appropriate as applying to Christ, for He has revealed the Father and the Father’s counsels, and by virtue of His great sacrifice on Calvary He is indeed the Savior of the world. As to the wife Joseph was given, Asenath, we are told almost nothing, except that she was a daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. But she is typical of the church, a Gentile bride, being united to the Lord Jesus at a time when He has been rejected by Israel.

At this time we are told Joseph’s age was 30 years (v.46), the same as that of the Lord Jesus when He began His public ministry (Luk 3:23). Thus his combined time as a slave and in prison was 13 years. Now he goes out throughout all the land of Egypt, to supervise the organization of plans to gather in to many storage places the tremendous amount of grain that was only one-fifth of the super abundance that was yielded during the fruitful first seven years (vs.47-48). The amount was so great that it was found impossible to compute it (v.49).

During the seven plentiful years two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath, the first named Manasseh (v.51), which means “forgetting,” for, as he says, “God has made me to forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” This is typical of the truth of Christianity: it makes us forget the first creation with its natural relationships and its vexatious trials. But this is because it introduced something better, the new creation, of which Christ is the Head. This is involved in the name of Joseph’s second son, Ephraim, which means “fruitful” (v.52), for only in new creation is there true fruitfulness for God. Manasseh therefore implies the negative side of the truth, Ephraim the positive. Even in the land of Joseph’s affliction God had made him fruitful. thus today, when affliction is to be expected by the Christian, he is already the subject of new creation, and is therefore fitted to bear fruit for God.

The seven years of plenty come to an end, as God had forewarned by Joseph. The famine came, not only to Egypt, but to other countries also. But Egypt alone had prepared for the famine (v.54).

The people of Egypt appeal to Pharaoh for food, and he tells them, “Go to Joseph: whatever he says to you do” (v.58). How clear is the lesson here for ourselves today. The father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world (1Jn 4:14). Therefore He directs us all to the Lord Jesus as the One appointed to care for our needs. Joseph opened all the storehouses of Egypt (v.56), just as the Lord Jesus has opened the storehouses of heaven by virtue of His great sacrifice of Calvary, for the blessing of those who have found themselves reduced to spiritual poverty. One great contrast, however; is that the Lord Jesus gives freely, “without money and without price.” People from all countries came to Egypt in order to buy food (v.57). The grace of God in Christ is available for all the nations today, at a time when the whole world is in a state of spiritual famine.

In such a history we are privileged to see that the wheels of God’s government, though turning slowly and deliberately, are perfectly directed to accomplish marvelous results that will display the greatness of His wisdom and His grace throughout eternity. The history itself is wonderful history of the coming of the Lord Jesus, His rejection by His own brethren, His suffering among Gentiles, but His eventual recognition and exaltation while still His brethren, the Jewish nation, are in a state of unbelief that will require a spiritual famine to eventually awaken them to a deep need that will lead to an unexpected and marvelous revelation of their Messiah, with its abounding blessing.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

41:1 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh {a} dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.

(a) This dream was not so much for Pharaoh, as is was a means to deliver Joseph and to provide for God’s Church.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The "magicians" were "men of the priestly caste, who occupied themselves with the sacred arts and sciences of the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic writings, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, the foretelling of events, magic, and conjuring, and who were regarded as the possessors of secret arts (vid. Ex. vii. 11) and the wise men of the nation." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:349.]

Divination tries to understand the future, and magic seeks to control it. God withheld the Egyptian diviners from comprehending the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams even though the clue to their interpretation lay in the religious symbols of Egypt.

"For the cow was the symbol of Isis, the goddess of the all-sustaining earth, and in the hieroglyphics it represents the earth, agriculture, and food; and the Nile, by its overflowing, was the source of fertility of the land." [Note: Ibid.]

Yet these symbols had multiple meanings to the Egyptians, which probably accounts for the difficulty of interpretation. [Note: Wenham, Genesis 16-50, p. 391.]

"Seven-year famines were a familiar feature of life in the ancient Near East." [Note: Ibid., p. 398.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

PHARAOHS DREAMS

Gen 41:1-57

“Thus saith the Lord, that frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad; that confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers; that saith of Cyrus, He is nay shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure.”- Isa 44:25; Isa 44:28.

THE preceding act in this great drama-the act comprising the scenes of Josephs temptation, unjust imprisonment, and interpretation of his fellow-prisoners dreams-was written for the sake of explaining how Joseph came to be introduced to Pharaoh. Other friendships may have been formed in the prison, and other threads may have been spun which went to make up the life of Joseph, but this only is pursued. For a time, however, there seemed very little prospect that this would prove to be the thread on which his destiny hung. Joseph made a touching appeal to the Chief Butler: “yet did not the Chief Butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.” You can see him in the joy of his release affectionately pressing Josephs hand as the kings messengers knocked off his fetters. You can see him assuring Joseph, by his farewell look, that he might trust him; mistaking mere elation at his own release for warmth of feeling towards Joseph, though perhaps even already feeling just the slightest touch of awkwardness at being seen on such intimate terms with a Hebrew slave. How could he, when in the palace of Pharaoh and decorated with the insignia of his office and surrounded by courtiers, break through the formal etiquette of the place? What with the pleasant congratulations of old friends, and the accumulation of business since he had been imprisoned, and the excitement of restoration from so low and hopeless to so high and busy a position, the promise to Joseph is obliterated from his mind. If it once or twice recurs to his memory, he persuades himself he is waiting for a good opening to mention Joseph. It would perhaps be unwarrantable to say that he admits the idea that he is in no way indebted to Joseph, since all that Joseph had done was to interpret, but by no means to determine, his fate.

The analogy which we could not help seeing between Josephs relation to his fellow-prisoners, and our Lords relation to us, pursues us here. For does not the bond between us and Him seem often very slender, when once we have received from Him the knowledge of the Kings goodwill, and find ourselves set in a place of security? Is not Christ with many a mere stepping-stone for their own advancement, and of interest only so long as they are in anxiety about their own fate? Their regard for Him seems abruptly to terminate as soon as they are ushered to freer air. Brought for a while into contact with Him, the very peace and prosperity which that intercourse has introduced them to become opiates to dull their memory and their gratitude. They have received all they at present desire, they have no more dreams, their life has become so plain and simple and glad that they need no interpreter. They seem to regard Him no more than an official is regarded who is set to discharge to all comers some duty for which he is paid; who mingles no love with his work, and from whom they would receive the same benefits whether he had any personal interest in them or no. But there is no Christianity where there is no loving remembrance of Christ. If your contact with Him has not made Him your Friend whom you can by no possibility forget, you have missed the best result of your introduction to Him. It makes one think meanly of the Chief Butler that such a personality as Josephs had not more deeply impressed him-that everything he heard and saw among the courtiers did not make him say to himself: There is a friend of mine, in prison hard by, that for beauty, wisdom, and vivacity would more than match the finest of you all. And it says very little for us if we can have known anything of Christ without seeing that in Him we have what is nowhere else, and without finding that He has become the necessity of our life to whom we turn at every point.

But, as things turned out, it was perhaps as well for Joseph that his promising friend did forget him. For, supposing the Chief Butler had overcome his natural reluctance to increase his own indebtedness to Pharaoh by interceding for a friend, supposing he had been willing to risk the friendship of the Captain of the Guard by interfering in so delicate a matter, and supposing Pharaoh had been willing to listen to him, what would have been the result? Probably that Joseph would have been sold away to the quarries, for certainly he could not have been restored to Potiphars house; or, at the most, he might have received his liberty, and a free pass out of Egypt. That is to say, he would have obtained liberty to return to sheep-shearing and cattle-dealing and checkmating his brothers plots. In any probable case his career would have tended rather towards obscurity than towards the fulfilment of his dreams.

There seems equal reason to congratulate Joseph on his friends forgetfulness, when we consider its probable effects, not on his career, but on his character. When he was left in prison after so sudden and exciting an incursion of the outer world as the kings messengers would make, his mind must have run chiefly in two lines of thought. Naturally he would feel some envy of the man who was being restored; and when day after day passed and more than the former monotony of prison routine palled on his spirit; when he found how completely he was forgotten, and how friendless and lone a creature he was in that strange land where things had gone so mysteriously against him; when he saw before him no other fate than that which he had seen befall so many a slave thrown into a dungeon at his masters pleasure and never more heard of, he must have been sorely tempted to hate the whole world, and especially those brethren who had been the beginning of all his misfortunes. Had there been any selfishness in solution in Josephs character, this is the point at which it would have quickly crystallized into permanent forms. For nothing more certainly elicits and confirms selfishness than bad treatment. But from his conduct on his release, we see clearly enough that through all this trying time his heroism was not only that of the strong man who vows that though the whole world is against him the day will come when the world shall have need of him, but of the saint of God in whom suffering and injustice leave no bitterness against his fellows, nor even provoke one slightest morbid utterance.

But another process must have been going on in Josephs mind at the same time. He must have felt that it was a very serious thing that he had been called upon to do in interpreting Gods will to his fellow-prisoners. No doubt he fell into it quite naturally, and aptly, because it was liker his proper vocation, and more of his character could come out in it than in anything he had yet done. Still, to be mixed up thus with matters of life and death concerning other people, and to have men of practical ability and experience and high position listening to him as to an oracle, and to find that in very truth a great power was committed to him, was calculated to have some considerable result one way or other on Joseph. And these two years of unrelieved and sobering obscurity cannot but be considered most opportune. For one of two things is apt to follow the worlds first recognition of a mans gifts. He is either induced to pander to the worlds wonder and become artificial and strained in all he does, so losing the spontaneity and naturalness and sincerity which characterise the best work; or he is awed and steadied. And whether the one or the other result follow, will depend very much on the other things that are happening to him. In Josephs case it was probably well that after having made proof of his powers he was left in such circumstances as would not only give him time for reflection, but also give a humble and believing turn to his reflections. He was not at once exalted to the priestly caste, nor enrolled among the wise men, nor put in any position in which he would have been under constant temptation to display and trifle with his power; and so he was led to the conviction that deeper even than the joy of receiving the recognition and gratitude of men was the abiding satisfaction of having done the thing God had given him to do.

These two years, then, during which Josephs active mind must necessarily have been forced to provide food for itself, and have been thrown back upon his past experience, seem to have been of eminent service in maturing his character. The self-possessed dignity and ease of command which appear in him from the moment when he is ushered into Pharaohs presence have their roots in these two years of silence. As the bones of a strong man are slowly, imperceptibly knit, and gradually take the shape and texture they retain throughout; so during these years there was silently and secretly consolidating a character of almost unparalleled calmness and power. One has no words to express how tantalising it must have been to Joseph to see this Egyptian have his dreams so gladly and speedily fulfilled, while he himself, who had so long waited on the true God, was left waiting still, and now so utterly unbefriended that there seemed no possible way of ever again connecting himself with the world outside the prison walls. Being pressed thus for an answer to the question, What does God mean to make of my life? he was brought to see and to hold as the most important truth for him, that the first concern. is, that Gods purposes be accomplished; the second, that his own dreams be fulfilled. He was enabled, as we shall see in the sequel, to put God truly in the first place, and to see that by forwarding the interests of other men, even though they were but light-minded chief butlers at a foreign court, he might be as serviceably furthering the purposes of God, as if he were forwarding his own interests. He was compelled to seek for some principle that would sustain and guide him in the midst of much disappointment and perplexity, and he found it in the conviction that the essential thing to be accomplished in this world, and to which every man must lay his shoulder, is Gods purpose. Let that go on, and all else that should go on will go on. And he further saw that he best fulfils Gods purpose who, without anxiety and impatience, does the duty of the day, and gives himself without stint to the “charities that soothe and heal and bless.”

His perception of the breadth of Gods purpose, and his profound and sympathetic and active submission to it, were qualities too rare not to be called into influential exercise. After two years he is suddenly summoned to become Gods interpreter to Pharaoh. The Egyptian king was in the unhappy though not uncommon position of having a revelation from God which he could not read, intimations and presentiments he could not interpret. To one man is given the revelation, to another the interpretation. The official dignity of the king is respected, and to him is given the revelation which concerns the welfare of the whole people. But to read Gods meaning in a revelation requires a spiritual intelligence trained to sympathy with His purposes, and such a spirit was found in Joseph alone.

The dreams of Pharaoh were thoroughly Egyptian. The marvel is, that a symbolism so familiar to the Egyptian eye should not have been easily legible to even the most slenderly gifted of Pharaohs wise men. “In my dream,” says the king, “behold, I stood upon the bank of the river: and, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine,” and so on. Every land or city is proud of its river, but none has such cause to be so as Egypt of its Nile. The country is accurately as well as poetically called “the gift of Nile.” Out of the river do really come good or bad years, fat or lean kine. Wholly dependent on its annual rise and overflow for the irrigating and enriching of the soil, the people worship it and love it, and at the season of its overflow give way to the most rapturous expressions of joy. The cow also was reverenced as the symbol of the earths productive power. If then, as Joseph avers, God wished to show to Pharaoh that seven years of plenty were approaching, this announcement could hardly have been made plainer in the language of dreams than by showing to Pharaoh seven well-favoured kine coming up out of the bountiful river to feed on the meadow made richly green by its waters. If the king had been sacrificing to the river, such a sight, familiar as it was to the dwellers by the Nile, might well have been accepted by him as a promise of plenty in the land. But what agitated Pharaoh, and gave him the shuddering presentiment of evil which accompanies some dreams, was the sequel. “Behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill-favoured and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: and the lean and the ill-favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: and when they had eaten them up it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill-favoured, as at the beginning,”-a picture which to the inspired dream-reader represented seven years of famine so grievous, that the preceding plenty should be swallowed up and not be known. A similar image occurred to a writer who, in describing a more recent famine in the same land, says: “The year presented itself as a monster whose wrath must annihilate all the resources of life and all the means of subsistence.”

It tells in favour of the court magicians and wise men that not one of them offered an interpretation of dreams to which it would certainly not have been difficult to attach some tolerably feasible interpretation. Probably these men were as yet sincere devotees of astrology and occult science, and not the mere jugglers and charlatans their successors seem to have become. When men cannot make out the purpose of God regarding the future of the race, it is not wonderful that they should endeavour to catch the faintest, most broken echo of His voice to the world, wherever they can find it. Now there is a wide region, a borderland between the two worlds of spirit and of matter, in which are found a great many mysterious phenomena which cannot be explained by any known laws of nature, and through which men fancy they get nearer to the spiritual world. There are many singular and startling appearances, coincidences, forebodings, premonitions which men have always been attracted towards, and which they have considered as open ways of communication between God and man. There are dreams, visions, strange apprehensions, freaks of memory, and other mental phenomena, which, when all classed together, assorted, and skilfully applied to the reading of the future, once formed quite a science by itself. When men have no word from God to depend upon, no knowledge at all of where either the race or individuals are going to, they will eagerly grasp at anything that even seems to shed a ray of light on their future. We for the most part make light of that whole category of phenomena, because we have a more sure word of prophecy by which, as with a light in a dark place, we can tell where our next step should be, and what the end shall be. But invariably in heathen countries, where no guiding Spirit of God was believed in, and where the absence of His revealed will left numberless points of duty doubtful and all the future dark, there existed in lieu of this a class of persons who, under one name or other, undertook to satisfy the craving of men to see into the future, to forewarn them of danger, and advise them regarding matters of conduct and affairs of state.

At various points of the history of Gods revelation these professors of occult science appear. In each case a profound impression is made by the superior wisdom or power displayed by the “wise men” of God. But in reading the accounts we have of these collisions between the wisdom of God and that of the magicians, a slight feeling of uneasiness sometimes enters the mind. You may feel that these wonders of Joseph, Moses, and Daniel have a romantic air about them, and you feel, perhaps, a slight scruple in granting that God would lend Himself to such displays-displays so completely out oft date in our day. But we are to consider not only that there is nothing of the kind more certain than that dreams do sometimes even now impart most significant warning to men; but, also, that the time in which Joseph lived was the childhood of the world, when God had neither spoken much to men, nor could speak much, because as yet they had not learned His language, but were only being slowly taught it by signs suited to their capacity. If these men were to receive any knowledge beyond what their own unaided efforts could attain, they must be taught in a language they understood. They could not be dealt with as if they had already attained a knowledge and a capacity which could only be theirs many centuries after; they must be dealt with by signs and wonders which had perhaps little moral teaching in them, but yet gave evidence of Gods nearness and power such as they could and did understand. God thus stretched out His hand to men in the darkness, and let them feel His strength before they could look on His face and understand His nature.

It is the existence at the court of Pharaoh of this highly respected class of dream-interpreters and wise men, which lends significance to the conduct of Joseph when summoned into the royal presence. Such wisdom as he displayed in reading Pharaohs visions was looked upon as attainable by means within the reach of any man who had sufficient faculty for the science. And the first idea in the minds of the courtiers would probably have been, had Joseph not solemnly protested against it, that he was an adept where they were apprentices and bunglers, and that his success was due purely to professional skill. This was of course perfectly well known to Joseph, who for a number of years had been familiar with the ideas prevalent at the court of Pharaoh; and he might have argued that there could be no great harm in at least effecting his deliverance from an unjust imprisonment by allowing Pharaoh to suppose that it was to him he was indebted for the interpretation of his dreams. But his first word to Pharaoh is a self-renouncing exclamation: “Not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Two years had elapsed since anything had occurred which looked the least like the fulfilment of his own dreams, or gave him any hope of release from prison; and now, when measuring himself with these courtiers and feeling able to take his place with the best of them, getting again a breath of free air and feeling once more the charm of life, and having an opening set before his young ambition, being so suddenly transferred from a place where his very existence seemed to be forgotten to a place where Pharaoh himself and all his court eyed him with the intensest interest and anxiety, it is significant that he should appear regardless of his own fate, but jealously careful of the glory of God. Considering how jealous men commonly are of their own reputation, and how impatiently eager to receive all the credit that is due to them for their own share in any good that is doing, and considering of what essential importance it seemed that Joseph should seize this opportunity of providing for his own safety and advancement, and should use this as the tide in his affairs that led to fortune, his words and bearing before Pharaoh undoubtedly disclose a deeply inwrought fidelity to God, and a magnanimous patience regarding his own personal interests..

For it is extremely unlikely that in proposing to Pharaoh to set a man over this important business of collecting corn to last through the years of famine, it presented itself to Joseph as a conceivable result that he should be the person appointed-he a Hebrew, a slave, a prisoner, cleaned but for the nonce, could not suppose that Pharaoh would pass over all those tried officers and ministers of state around him and fix upon a youth who was wholly untried, and who might, by his different race and religion, prove obnoxious to the people. Joseph may have expected to make interest enough with Pharaoh to secure his freedom, and possibly some subordinate berth where he could hopefully begin the world again; but his only allusion to himself is of a depreciatory kind, while his reference to God is marked with a profound conviction that this is Gods doing, and that to Him is due whatever is due. Well may the Hebrew race be proud of those men like Joseph and Daniel, who stood in the presence of foreign monarchs in a spirit of perfect fidelity to God, commanding the respect of all, and clothed with the dignity and simplicity which that fidelity imparted. It matters not to Joseph that there may perhaps be none in that land who can appreciate his fidelity to God or understand his motive. It matters not what he may lose by it, or what he could gain by falling in with the notions of those around him. He himself knows the real. state of the case, and will not act untruly to his God, even though for years he seems to have been forgotten by Him. With Daniel he says in spirit, “Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another. As for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but that the interpretation may be known to the king, and that thou mayest know the thoughts of thine heart. He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.” There is something particularly noble and worthy of admiration in a man thus standing alone and maintaining the fullest allegiance to God, without ostentation and with a quiet dignity and naturalness that show he has a great fund of strength behind.

That we do not misjudge Josephs character or ascribe to him qualities which were invisible to his contemporaries, is apparent from the circumstance that Pharaoh and his advisers, with little or no hesitation, agreed that to no man could they more safely entrust their country in this emergency. The mere personal charm of Joseph might have won over those experienced advisers of the crown to make compensation for his imprisonment by an unusually handsome reward, but no mere attractiveness of person and manner, nor even the unquestionable guilelessness of his bearing, could have induced them to put such an affair as this into his hands. Plainly they were impressed with Joseph; almost supernaturally impressed, and felt God through him. He stood before them as one mysteriously appearing in their emergency, sent out of unthought-of quarters to warn and save them. Happily there was as yet no jealousy of the God of the Hebrews, nor any exclusiveness on the part of the chosen people: Pharaoh and Joseph alike felt that there was one God over all and through all. And it was Josephs self-abnegating sympathy with the purposes of this Supreme God that made him a transparent medium, so that in his presence the Egyptians felt themselves in the presence of God. It is so always. Influence in the long run belongs to those who rid their minds of all private aims, and get close to the great centre in which all the race meets and is cared for. Men feel themselves safe with the unselfish, with persons in whom they meet principle, justice, truth, love, God. We are unattractive, useless, uninfluential, just because we are still childishly craving a private and selfish good. We know that a life which does not pour itself freely into the common stream of public good is lost in dry and sterile sands. We know that a life spent upon self is contemptible, barren, empty, yet how slowly do we come to the attitude of Joseph, who watched for the fulfilment of Gods purposes, and found his happiness in forwarding what God designed for the people.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary