Genesis 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.