Genesis 39-41

Living Bible

39 When Joseph arrived in Egypt as a captive of the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased from them by Potiphar, a member of the personal staff of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Now this man Potiphar was the captain of the king’s bodyguard and his chief executioner. ² The Lord greatly blessed Joseph there in the home of his master, so that everything he did succeeded. ³ Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph in a very special way. ⁴ So Joseph naturally became quite a favorite with him. Soon he was put in charge of the administration of Potiphar’s household, and all of his business affairs. ⁵ At once the Lord began blessing Potiphar for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs began to run smoothly, his crops flourished and his flocks multiplied. ⁶ So Potiphar gave Joseph the complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. He hadn’t a worry in the world with Joseph there, except to decide what he wanted to eat! Joseph, by the way, was a very handsome young man.

⁷ One day at about this time Potiphar’s wife began making eyes at Joseph, and suggested that he come and sleep with her.

⁸ Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in the entire household; ⁹ he himself has no more authority here than I have! He has held back nothing from me except you yourself because you are his wife. How can I do such a wicked thing as this? It would be a great sin against God.”

¹⁰ But she kept on with her suggestions day after day, even though he refused to listen, and kept out of her way as much as possible. ¹¹ Then one day as he was in the house going about his work—as it happened, no one else was around at the time— ¹² she came and grabbed him by the sleeve^[a] demanding, “Sleep with me.” He tore himself away, but as he did, his jacket slipped off and she was left holding it as he fled from the house. ¹³ When she saw that she had his jacket, and that he had fled, ^14-15 she began screaming; and when the other men around the place came running in to see what had happened, she was crying hysterically. “My husband had to bring in this Hebrew slave to insult us!” she sobbed. “He tried to rape me, but when I screamed, he ran, and forgot to take his jacket.”

¹⁶ She kept the jacket, and when her husband came home that night, ¹⁷ she told him her story.

“That Hebrew slave you’ve had around here tried to rape me, ¹⁸ and I was only saved by my screams. He fled, leaving his jacket behind!”

¹⁹ Well, when her husband heard his wife’s story, he was furious. ²⁰ He threw Joseph into prison, where the king’s prisoners were kept in chains. ²¹ But the Lord was with Joseph there, too, and was kind to him by granting him favor with the chief jailer. ²² In fact, the jailer soon handed over the entire prison administration to Joseph, so that all the other prisoners were responsible to him. ²³ The chief jailer had no more worries after that, for Joseph took care of everything, and the Lord was with him so that everything ran smoothly and well.

40 ^1-3 Some time later it so happened that the king of Egypt became angry with both his chief baker and his chief butler, so he jailed them both in the prison where Joseph was, in the castle of Potiphar, the captain of the guard, who was the chief executioner. ⁴ They remained under arrest there for quite some time, and Potiphar assigned Joseph to wait on them. ⁵ One night each of them had a dream. ⁶ The next morning Joseph noticed that they looked dejected and sad.

⁷ “What in the world is the matter?” he asked.

⁸ And they replied, “We both had dreams last night, but there is no one here to tell us what they mean.”

“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Joseph replied. “Tell me what you saw.”

^9-10 The butler told his dream first. “In my dream,” he said, “I saw a vine with three branches that began to bud and blossom, and soon there were clusters of ripe grapes. ¹¹ I was holding Pharaoh’s wine cup in my hand, so I took the grapes and squeezed the juice into it, and gave it to him to drink.”

¹² “I know what the dream means,” Joseph said. “The three branches mean three days! ¹³ Within three days Pharaoh is going to take you out of prison and give you back your job again as his chief butler. ¹⁴ And please have some pity on me when you are back in his favor, and mention me to Pharaoh, and ask him to let me out of here. ¹⁵ For I was kidnapped from my homeland among the Hebrews, and now this—here I am in jail when I did nothing to deserve it.”

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that the first dream had such a good meaning, he told his dream to Joseph, too.

“In my dream,” he said, “there were three baskets of pastries on my head. ¹⁷ In the top basket were all kinds of bakery goods for Pharaoh, but the birds came and ate them.”

^18-19 “The three baskets mean three days,” Joseph told him. “Three days from now Pharaoh will take off your head and impale your body on a pole, and the birds will come and pick off your flesh!”

²⁰ Pharaoh’s birthday came three days later, and he held a party for all of his officials and household staff. He sent for his chief butler and chief baker, and they were brought to him from the prison. ²¹ Then he restored the chief butler to his former position; ²² but he sentenced the chief baker to be impaled, just as Joseph had predicted. ²³ Pharaoh’s wine taster, however, promptly forgot all about Joseph, never giving him a thought.

41 One night two years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River, ² when suddenly, seven sleek, fat cows came up out of the river and began grazing in the grass. ³ Then seven other cows came up from the river, but they were very skinny and all their ribs stood out. They went over and stood beside the fat cows. ⁴ Then the skinny cows ate the fat ones! At which point, Pharaoh woke up!

⁵ Soon he fell asleep again and had a second dream. This time he saw seven heads of grain on one stalk, with every kernel well formed and plump. ⁶ Then, suddenly, seven more heads appeared on the stalk, but these were shriveled and withered by the east wind. ⁷ And these thin heads swallowed up the seven plump, well-formed heads! Then Pharaoh woke up again and realized it was all a dream. ⁸ Next morning, as he thought about it, he became very concerned as to what the dreams might mean; he called for all the magicians and sages of Egypt and told them about it, but not one of them could suggest what his dreams meant. ⁹ Then the king’s wine taster spoke up. “Today I remember my sin!” he said. ¹⁰ “Some time ago when you were angry with a couple of us and put me and the chief baker in jail in the castle of the captain of the guard, ¹¹ the chief baker and I each had a dream one night. ¹² We told the dreams to a young Hebrew fellow there who was a slave of the captain of the guard, and he told us what our dreams meant. ¹³ And everything happened just as he said: I was restored to my position of wine taster, and the chief baker was executed, and impaled on a pole.”

¹⁴ Pharaoh sent at once for Joseph. He was brought hastily from the dungeon, and after a quick shave and change of clothes, came in before Pharaoh.

¹⁵ “I had a dream last night,” Pharaoh told him, “and none of these men can tell me what it means. But I have heard that you can interpret dreams, and that is why I have called for you.”

¹⁶ “I can’t do it by myself,” Joseph replied, “but God will tell you what it means!”

¹⁷ So Pharaoh told him the dream. “I was standing upon the bank of the Nile River,” he said, ¹⁸ “when suddenly, seven fat, healthy-looking cows came up out of the river and began grazing along the riverbank. ¹⁹ But then seven other cows came up from the river, very skinny and bony—in fact, I’ve never seen such poor-looking specimens in all the land of Egypt. ²⁰ And these skinny cattle ate up the seven fat ones that had come out first, ²¹ and afterwards they were still as skinny as before! Then I woke up.

²² “A little later I had another dream. This time there were seven heads of grain on one stalk, and all seven heads were plump and full. ²³ Then, out of the same stalk, came seven withered, thin heads. ²⁴ And the thin heads swallowed up the fat ones! I told all this to my magicians, but not one of them could tell me the meaning.”

²⁵ “Both dreams mean the same thing,” Joseph told Pharaoh. “God was telling you what he is going to do here in the land of Egypt. ²⁶ The seven fat cows (and also the seven fat, well-formed heads of grain) mean that there are seven years of prosperity ahead. ²⁷ The seven skinny cows (and also the seven thin and withered heads of grain) indicate that there will be seven years of famine following the seven years of prosperity.

²⁸ “So God has showed you what he is about to do: ²⁹ The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout all the land of Egypt; ³⁰ but afterwards there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten and wiped out; famine will consume the land. ³¹ The famine will be so terrible that even the memory of the good years will be erased. ³² The double dream gives double impact, showing that what I have told you is certainly going to happen, for God has decreed it, and it is going to happen soon. ³³ My suggestion is that you find the wisest man in Egypt and put him in charge of administering a nationwide farm program. ^34-35 Let Pharaoh divide Egypt into five administrative districts,^[b] and let the officials of these districts gather into the royal storehouses all the excess crops of the next seven years, ³⁶ so that there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come. Otherwise, disaster will surely strike.”

³⁷ Joseph’s suggestions were well received by Pharaoh and his assistants. ³⁸ As they discussed who should be appointed for the job, Pharaoh said, “Who could do it better than Joseph? For he is a man who is obviously filled with the Spirit of God.” ³⁹ Turning to Joseph, Pharaoh said to him, “Since God has revealed the meaning of the dreams to you, you are the wisest man in the country! ⁴⁰ I am hereby appointing you to be in charge of this entire project. What you say goes, throughout all the land of Egypt. I alone will outrank you.”

^41-42 Then Pharaoh placed his own signet ring on Joseph’s finger as a token of his authority, and dressed him in beautiful clothing and placed the royal gold chain about his neck and declared, “See, I have placed you in charge of all the land of Egypt.”

⁴³ Pharaoh also gave Joseph the chariot of his second-in-command, and wherever he went the shout arose, “Kneel down!” ⁴⁴ And Pharaoh declared to Joseph, “I, the king of Egypt, swear that you shall have complete charge over all the land of Egypt.”

⁴⁵ Pharaoh gave him a name meaning “He has the godlike power of life and death!”^[c] And he gave him a wife, a girl named Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis. So Joseph became famous throughout the land of Egypt. ⁴⁶ He was thirty years old as he entered the service of the king. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and began traveling all across the land.

⁴⁷ And sure enough, for the next seven years there were bumper crops everywhere. ⁴⁸ During those years, Joseph requisitioned for the government a portion of all the crops grown throughout Egypt, storing them in nearby cities. ⁴⁹ After seven years of this, the granaries were full to overflowing, and there was so much that no one kept track of the amount.

⁵⁰ During this time before the arrival of the first of the famine years, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of the sun god Re of Heliopolis. ⁵¹ Joseph named his oldest son Manasseh (meaning “Made to Forget”—what he meant was that God had made up to him for all the anguish of his youth, and for the loss of his father’s home). ⁵² The second boy was named Ephraim (meaning “Fruitful”—“For God has made me fruitful in this land of my slavery,” he said).

⁵³ So at last the seven years of plenty came to an end. ⁵⁴ Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There were crop failures in all the surrounding countries, too, but in Egypt there was plenty of grain in the storehouses. ⁵⁵ The people began to starve. They pleaded with Pharaoh for food, and he sent them to Joseph. “Do whatever he tells you to,” he instructed them.

^56-57 So now, with severe famine all over the world, Joseph opened up the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians and to those from other lands who came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph.