Genesis 41 explained: Joseph Goes from Prison to Power

Pharaoh's two dreams (vv. 1-8)

Egypt's harvests depended on the Nile flooding each year, so cows coming up from the river and heads of grain stood for the country's food supply. Thin cows eating fat ones and wind-scorched grain swallowing good grain deeply troubled the king, and none of his experts in reading dreams could explain them.

The forgotten favor remembered (vv. 9-14)

Two years after Joseph read his dream in prison, the king's wine servant finally mentions him, perhaps as much to please Pharaoh as to repay Joseph. Joseph is rushed out of the dungeon and shaved, since Egyptians kept smooth faces and he had to look fit to stand before the king.

God gives the meaning (vv. 15-32)

Joseph says the skill is not his own, but God will give the answer. Both dreams mean the same thing: seven years of rich harvests, then seven years of famine so severe the good years will be forgotten, and the dream came twice because it is settled and coming soon.

A plan to store grain (vv. 33-36)

Joseph adds practical advice: appoint a wise manager and have officials collect a fifth of each harvest during the good years. The grain would be kept in the cities under the king's control, so the country would not be ruined when the famine came.

Joseph put in charge (vv. 37-45)

Pharaoh makes Joseph second only to himself, giving him the royal seal ring used to stamp official orders, fine linen, a gold chain and a chariot, plus an Egyptian name whose exact meaning scholars are unsure of. His marriage to Asenath, daughter of a priest of On, a major religious city, made this foreigner part of Egypt's ruling class.

Plenty, sons, then famine (vv. 46-57)

Joseph, now thirty, stores more grain than anyone can count, and names his sons Manasseh, which sounds like 'forget', and Ephraim, which sounds like 'fruitful', marking his old pain and his new life. When famine hits every land, Egypt alone has food, and Christians have often read Joseph, raised from a dungeon to feed the world, as a picture of Jesus.

Key verse: Genesis 41:16

Something to think about

Joseph waited two more years after the one person who could help him forgot him; what keeps someone going when the help they were counting on doesn't come?