Joseph in Prison

Joseph is still in prison when two new prisoners arrive. Pharaoh's officers. The chief butler (who served Pharaoh's wine) and the chief baker had “offended their lord, the king of Egypt” (40:1). Pharaoh put them in the same prison as Joseph, and “the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them” (40:4). Noticing sadness. One morning Joseph “looked at them, and saw that they were sad” (40:6). Joseph had every reason to think only about his own troubles. Instead he noticed theirs and asked, “Why do you look so sad today?” (40:7). Pointing to God. They had both dreamed, “and there is no interpreter of it.” Joseph answered, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please” (40:8). He did not claim to have special powers. He said God was the one who knew. Faithful in prison. Joseph had been sold by his brothers, falsely accused and locked up. But he kept serving, kept caring for others and kept trusting God. That is a picture of faith in a hard place.

In 40:1-8 two of Pharaoh's officials end up in the same prison as Joseph. The officials. The sar hammashqim, the “chief butler” or cupbearer, served Pharaoh his wine. The sar ha'ophim was the “chief baker.” Both were important men who stood close to the king every day, and both had made Pharaoh angry (40:1-2). They were kept “in the house of the captain of the guard” (40:3). That was Potiphar's title in 39:1, so Joseph was still under the man who had bought him. Joseph as servant. “He served them” (40:4) uses the Hebrew word sharat (say: shah-RAHT), which means personal service. Joseph had been treated unfairly for years, yet he served these men well. One morning he saw that they were sad and asked them why (40:6-7). Suffering had made Joseph kind, not bitter. Dreams in Egypt. Egyptians took dreams very seriously. They had trained experts and even books for explaining them. Locked in prison, the two men could not reach any of those experts, so they said “there is no interpreter” (poter, 40:8). God gives the answer. Joseph replied, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (40:8). Understanding dreams was not a skill Joseph had learned. It was something God revealed. Joseph says the same thing again before Pharaoh (41:16, 25, 28, 32). Years later Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar that wise men could not explain his secret, “but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets” (Daniel 2:27-28). That same God speaks to us today, and He has shown us His greatest truth in His Son, Jesus.

One day two important men came to the prison. One had served the king his wine. The other had been the king's baker. They had made the king angry. Joseph was put in charge of them. One morning Joseph saw that they both looked sad. He asked, “Why do you look so sad today?” They had both had dreams, and nobody could explain them. Joseph said, “Only God can explain dreams. Tell me your dreams.” Joseph did not take the credit for himself. He pointed them to God. Even in prison, Joseph cared about other people.

Two sad men in prison had dreams. Joseph took care of them. He said, “Only God can explain dreams.”

The butler goes first. The vine. In his dream, a vine with three branches budded, blossomed and ripened, and he pressed the grapes into Pharaoh's cup (40:9-11). Joseph explains: “The three branches are three days. Now within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place” (40:12-13). “Remember me.” Then Joseph asks for help: “Remember me when it is well with you… make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews; and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon” (40:14-15). Joseph is honest about his pain and his innocence. The baker. Encouraged, the baker tells his dream of three baskets, with birds eating Pharaoh's bread (40:16-17). Joseph tells him the hard truth: in three days Pharaoh will put him to death (40:18-19). It happened. On Pharaoh's birthday, the butler was restored and the baker was hanged, “as Joseph had interpreted to them” (40:20-22). Forgotten. “Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him” (40:23). And it was “two full years” before anything changed (41:1).

In 40:9-23 the two dreams have two very different endings. Wordplay. Joseph told the butler, “Pharaoh will lift up your head” (40:13). That meant Pharaoh would give him back his job. He told the baker, “Pharaoh will lift off your head from you” (40:19). That meant the baker would be put to death. The same Hebrew phrase, nasa' rosh (say: nah-SAH ROHSH), is used for both men, and 40:20 uses it once more when Pharaoh calls them both out “among his servants.” Joseph's request. In 40:14-15 Joseph asks for help. It is the only time in all his years of suffering that we hear him plead for himself. “I was stolen away” is a doubled verb in Hebrew (gunnov gunnavti), which makes it strong: he really was kidnapped. “I have done nothing” says he was innocent. The word for “dungeon” is bor, the same word as the pit his brothers threw him into (37:24). Honesty with the baker. Joseph did not soften the bad news (40:19). Loving people means telling them the truth, even when it is hard to hear. It came true. Everything happened “as Joseph had interpreted” (40:22). That proved the meanings had come from God, just as Joseph said (40:8). Forgotten. “Did not remember… but forgot” (40:23) says the same thing twice to make it strong. The man Joseph hoped would help him let him down. Then came “two full years” (41:1; literally “two years of days”), the longest silence in Joseph's life. Psalm 105:19 tells us what God was doing in that time: “Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.” God had not forgotten Joseph. He was shaping him for what came next.

The wine servant told his dream first. He saw a vine with three branches and ripe grapes. He squeezed the grapes into the king's cup. Joseph said, “In three days the king will free you.” Then Joseph asked, “Please remember me. Tell the king about me.” Next the baker told his dream. He had three baskets of bread on his head. Birds were eating the bread. Joseph said this meant the king would put the baker to death. Three days later it all happened, just as Joseph said. The wine servant went back to work. But he forgot all about Joseph for two whole years.

One man's dream meant he would go free. The baker's dream was sad news. The free man forgot Joseph.

“At the end of two full years,” Pharaoh dreams (41:1). Two dreams. Seven fat cows come up out of the Nile and are eaten by seven thin cows (41:2-4). Seven plump heads of grain are swallowed by seven thin heads blighted by the east wind (41:5-7). Pharaoh's spirit is troubled, and “there was no one who could interpret them” (41:8). The butler remembers. “I remember my faults this day,” the butler says, and tells Pharaoh about “a young Hebrew man” in the prison (41:9-13). Out of the dungeon. “They brought him quickly out of the dungeon; and he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh” (41:14). Egyptians were clean-shaven; Joseph gets ready to stand before the king. “It is not in me.” Pharaoh says, “I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream.” Joseph answers, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (41:15-16). Standing before the most powerful man in the world, Joseph gives all the credit to God. The meaning. “God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do” (41:25, 28): seven years of plenty, then seven years of severe famine. The dream came twice “because the thing is established by God” (41:32). Then Joseph gives wise advice: appoint a wise man and store a fifth of the harvest in the good years (41:33-36).

Genesis 41:1-36 is the turning point of Joseph's life. Pharaoh's dreams. Everything in the dreams belongs to Egypt: the Nile (ye'or), cows grazing in the reeds (achu, a word borrowed from Egyptian), and grain scorched by the hot east wind. God spoke to Pharaoh in pictures he knew. The dream came twice to show that it was certain (41:32). The numbers stand for years, just as Joseph explained, and there is no hidden code in them. The experts fail. The chartummim (“magicians”) and wise men could not explain the dreams (41:8, 24). The same word is used for Pharaoh's magicians in Exodus 7-8. All the wisdom of Egypt could not tell what God was about to do. The butler's “faults.” “I remember my faults this day” (41:9) may mean both the wrong that put him in prison and his forgetting Joseph. Even now he speaks of Joseph only as “a young Hebrew man… a servant” (41:12). A new man. Joseph shaved and changed his clothes (41:14). He went in a prisoner and came out ready for a king's court. Clothes keep marking the turns in Joseph's life (37:23; 39:12; 41:42). “Not in me.” Joseph's answer begins with one strong Hebrew word, bil'aday (say: bil-ah-DYE), meaning apart from me, or not in me (41:16). Then he says, “God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” The word for peace is shalom (peace, welfare). In the most powerful court on earth, Joseph put the God of Israel at the center. Wise planning. Joseph did not stop at explaining. He gave Pharaoh a plan (41:33-36). When God shows us what is true, He expects us to act wisely on it. Proverbs 6:6-8 praises the ant for the same kind of planning ahead.

After two years, the king had two dreams. Seven skinny cows ate seven fat cows. Seven thin heads of grain ate seven fat ones. None of the king's wise men could explain the dreams. Then the wine servant remembered Joseph at last. The king sent for Joseph quickly. The king said, “I hear you can explain dreams.” Joseph said, “I cannot. But God will give you an answer.” Then Joseph explained. Egypt would have seven years of good crops. Then would come seven years of hunger. “Choose a wise man,” Joseph said. “He can save food in the good years.” Joseph's plan was very wise.

The king had dreams. Joseph said, “God will give the answer.” There would be lots of food, then no food.

Pharaoh and his servants like Joseph's plan (41:37). “The Spirit of God.” “Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?” (41:38). Even Pharaoh recognized that Joseph's wisdom came from God. Lifted up. “You shall be over my house… only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you” (41:40). Pharaoh puts his signet ring on Joseph's hand, clothes him in fine linen, puts a gold chain around his neck and has him ride in the second chariot, while people cry, “Bow the knee!” (41:42-43). The slave who lost two garments now receives royal ones. A new name and a family. Pharaoh names him Zaphnath-Paaneah and gives him a wife, Asenath (41:45). Joseph is thirty years old (41:46). He has two sons and names them Manasseh, “God has made me forget all my toil,” and Ephraim, “God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction” (41:51-52). Saving many. For seven years Joseph stores grain “as the sand of the sea” (41:49). When famine comes, “Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, ‘Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, do’” (41:55). “All countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain” (41:57). God had raised Joseph up to save many lives.

In 41:37-57 God lifts Joseph up and uses him to feed the world. Pharaoh sees God's hand. Pharaoh asks about “a man in whom is the Spirit of God” (41:38). The Hebrew words are ruach Elohim (say: ROO-akh el-oh-HEEM), the same words used in Genesis 1:2. Even a king who did not worship Israel's God could see that Joseph's wisdom came from Him. Dressed for power. Pharaoh gave Joseph his signet ring, which let him seal the king's orders. He also gave him fine linen (shesh, another Egyptian word), a gold chain and the second chariot (41:42-43). This is how Egyptian kings set a man in high office. People cried avrekh before him (41:43). No one is sure exactly what that word means, and the NKJV translates it “Bow the knee!” The dreams God gave Joseph as a teenager (37:7-9) were starting to come true. Name and marriage. Pharaoh gave Joseph the Egyptian name Zaphnath-Paaneah (41:45). We do not know its exact meaning. He also gave him a wife, Asenath, the daughter of a priest of On, the city later called Heliopolis. The sons' names. Manasseh comes from nashah, to forget, and Ephraim from parah, to be fruitful (41:51-52). Both names praise God for healing and blessing Joseph in a place of pain. Joseph did not pretend the pain never happened. He thanked God for what He did in the middle of it. Food for the world. “All countries came to Joseph” (41:57). God had promised Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him (12:3), and here that blessing begins to reach the nations. Soon Jacob's own sons will come to Egypt for grain.

The king liked Joseph's plan. He said, “God's Spirit is in this man!” So the king put Joseph in charge of all Egypt. Only the king was greater than Joseph. The king gave Joseph his own ring. He gave him fine clothes and a gold chain. Joseph rode in a royal chariot. People shouted, “Bow down!” For seven years Joseph stored up grain. There was so much that nobody could count it. Then the hungry years came. The king told everyone, “Go to Joseph.”

The king made Joseph a ruler. Joseph saved food for seven years. Then he gave food to many hungry people.

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