Story 64 Joseph’s Life in Egypt
The Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the entire land of Egypt. He took off his own signet ring and put it on Joseph’s finger. The ring was a seal that would be pressed into melted wax. Any letter or scroll that had an impression from that ring had the same authority as a command from the Pharaoh himself! Joseph was the most powerful decision maker in the land!
With his new position, Joseph was given fine, rich clothes to wear as a symbol of his royal power. The Pharaoh gave Joseph a chariot to ride second only to his own. Everywhere Joseph went it was with the grandeur and ceremony of royalty. Men would go ahead of him announcing his presence and commanding everyone to make way! The people of Egypt would stop everything and bow as Joseph flew by on his chariot of gold.
The Pharoah gave Joseph a new Egyptian name. He would be known as Zaphenath-Paneah. It meant “God speaks and lives.” The life of Joseph pointed to the God of Abraham every time someone spoke his name. The Pharaoh also gave Joseph a wife. Her name was Asenath, the daughter of a nobleman from an elite priestly family in Egypt.
Joseph was thirty years old when God raised him from his prison cell. Thirteen years after he was sold into slavery in Egypt, he began his rule over it, empowered by God to save it from famine and disaster.
Joseph’s life is a model that the servants of God have looked to ever since the story has been told. It has brought comfort to millions of God’s children as they try to understand times of hardship and pain. Thousands of years later, a man named Peter, a servant of God and a friend of the Lord Jesus would write: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (I Peter 5:6). Surely Joseph is a wonderful picture of that glorious truth.
As Joseph travelled around the nation preparing storehouses and collecting grain in the seven years of plenty, Asenath bore him two sons. Joseph named the firstborn Manassah, which means “forget.” It was a praise to God. The new turn in Joseph’s life and the gift of a treasured son helped him forget the pain and loneliness of his life in Jacob’s house and the final betrayal. With his new blessings, his thirteen years as a slave and prisoner in Egypt seemed to fade in the distance. He named his second son Ephraim, which sounds like the Hebrew words for “twice fruitful.” Joseph was amazed and delighted that God had given him life and happiness in the land that had started out as the place of his great suffering. A second son proved once again to Joseph that God’s abundant blessings were on every area of his life.
Joseph wore the clothing of Egypt and took the Egyptian name the Pharaoh gave him. But he was still dedicated to the covenant the LORD had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We know this because Joseph did not give his sons Egyptian names. Manasseh and Ephraim were Hebrew names, the language of Joseph’s family. Even though he was far from home and wildly successful in a foreign land, Joseph held on to his faith in the promises of God. He had faith that one day his sons would be restored as a part of God’s covenant family.
The seven years of abundant harvests came to an end, and the famine came on with a vengeance. The Lord had determined that he was going act in history, and he revealed it to the ruler of Egypt in a dream so that the Pharaoh could prepare. The whole world was under the pressure and fear of coming starvation. Egypt was the only place where salvation could be found. God had prepared the nation well.
Soon, the people of Egypt began to cry out to Pharaoh for help. The Pharoah pointed to Joseph, and told them to do whatever he said. Joseph had the extreme joy of opening the storehouses to the hungry people. Through this son of God’s covenant with Abraham, they would have plenty of food to eat, and they would be able to keep their cattle and flocks alive as well.
Through his position, Joseph would be able to bless the people of the surrounding nations as well. As the famine grew more and more severe, the people from all the nations around began to come to Egypt for food.
The hunger had also spread to the house of Jacob in the land of Canaan. He began to fear for the lives of his family. Then the news came that Egypt had storehouses of grain. Little did Jacob know that his own Joseph was the reason! Jacob told his sons, “‘Why do you just keep looking at each other? I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.’” Ten of Joseph’s brothers made the journey down to Egypt. Jacob’s sons, normally so divided, were acting together to save the covenant family. But Jacob would not let Benjamin go. He had already lost Joseph, the first son of his beloved Rachel, to wild animals. Or so he thought. He was not about to risk losing Benjamin, too!
One day, Joseph was going about his business as the highest official in the land, giving out grain to everyone who had need. A group of ten men came before him and bowed down low to the ground. It didn’t take Joseph long to realize that these men were his very own brothers! Do you remember the dream Joseph had as a young man about the sheaves of wheat? They were a symbol of his brothers bowing down to him. I wonder if Jacob remembered his dream. It was starting to come true. Now Joseph stood before them with all the power of Egypt on his side. These men had plotted his murder and sold him to be a slave. What would Joseph do now that he was in control of the situation? How would he use his power?