The Story of Joseph and His Brethren/Part 1/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
IT was while in prison, and in consequence of being there, that Joseph had the opportunity of manifesting the wisdom God gave to him, which led to his being brought into the presence of Pharaoh, and thus to his being elevated to the high place he occupied in Egypt, and through this again to be so great a blessing to his father's house and to the people of other countries.
Pharaoh had been wroth with two of his officers, the chief of the butlers and the chief of the bakers, and he put them into the prison where Joseph was. Each of these two officers dreamed a dream in one night. When Joseph came unto them in the morning they were sad. And this brings out incidentally the kindness and amiability of Joseph's character. He inquired—"Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day?" Their dreams had saddened them. They related to him their dreams, and Joseph told them the interpretation of them. The interpretation promised life and honour to one, and dishonour and death to the other. And so it came to pass. After three days Pharaoh restored the butler to his office, and hanged the baker on a tree.
When Joseph gave the butler assurance of restoration to his office, he made this request to him: "Think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house; for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon."
One would think that so simple and pathetic an appeal, from one who had brought so much hope and comfort to his mind, would have been readily and gratefully responded to by his fellow-prisoner, when he regained his liberty. But alas! "the chief butler remembered not Joseph, but forgot him." True to human experience is this incident. Benefits received in adversity are too often forgotten in prosperity. Fortune, as the world would express it, seems to have turned her back upon Joseph. His very virtues seem to be the cause of his misfortunes; his benefits bring him no relief Injury and forgetfulness consign him to the dreary dungeon. Yet the Lord was with him. But the Lord's time of deliverance had not yet come. He who sees the end from the beginning knows how much affliction His children need. It would frustrate the divine purpose to communicate this knowledge to them. The trial of their virtue requires that they should wait patiently in trust and hope. There is no sign of Joseph murmuring against God, though he justly complained against the injustice and ingratitude of men.
The time of Joseph's deliverance came at last. Two full years had passed since the butler had been restored to his office and had given the cup into Pharaoh's hand,—but Joseph was still in the dungeon. Had the butler remembered Joseph and mentioned him to Pharaoh, he might have been set at liberty, and left to make what use of it he could; but now God was to do for him more than he could have done for himself,—he was about to open for him a passage from the prison to the throne. Pharaoh himself now had his dreams. In those days, when dreams were regarded as warnings and instructions given from God in enigmatical shape, men attached great importance to them. Still greater importance must have been attached to the dreams of a king, not only because of his greatness, but because these visions might be supposed to have some reference to public affairs, to be portents of national calamities or blessings. Such was the character of Pharaoh's dreams. When the king awoke in the morning, after having had two very singular dreams, "he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof, and Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh." It was now that the butler remembered Joseph. Beginning with the very proper acknowledgment, "I do remember my faults this day," he relates to Pharaoh how the Hebrew prisoner had interpreted his and the chief baker's dreams, and how exactly they had been fulfilled. Then "Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon; and he shaved himself and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh." Here is an event told more like a dream than a sober reality. Joseph, but a few minutes since immured in a dungeon, seemingly in filth and rags, is hastily cleaned and attired, and placed in the presence of Pharaoh, the richest and most powerful monarch of the East. But how noble yet simple is the deportment of Joseph in this mighty presence, but still more, how self-denying and true to his God, in his confidence of being able to give the true meaning of Pharaoh's dreams! When the king addressed him in complimentary terms, saying—"I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it, Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying. It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." Great must have been the inducement in his position, if not to claim, at least not to disclaim, the power which was thus freely ascribed to him. We are all too prone to claim God's talents bestowed upon us as our own. We may learn a great lesson from Joseph's noble and pious testimony; always to give God the glory due unto His name for every good or gift that we possess.
Pharaoh's dreams and Joseph's interpretation of them are well known, and are singularly expressive. Pharaoh dreamt that while he stood on the banks of the Nile there came up out of the river seven kine, fat-fleshed and well favoured, and they fed in a meadow; and there came up after them seven kine, poor and very ill-favoured and lean; and the seven lean kine did eat up the seven fat kine. And when the seven lean had eaten up the fat kine, it could not be known that they had eaten them; for they were still as lean and ill-favoured as at the beginning. In his second dream Pharaoh saw seven ears of corn upon one stalk, full and good, and after them seven ears withered and thin; and the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. These dreams were certainly extraordinary, and might baffle human ingenuity to read them. Whatever conjectural explanation might have been given them, none but God, as Joseph had said, could give the true interpretation; for none but He can know future events. Joseph told Pharaoh that God had shewed the king what He was about to do. The seven good kine and the seven good ears were seven years of great plenty, and the seven lean kine and seven thin ears were seven years of famine, that God was about to cause in all the land of Egypt; and the famine was to be so grievous that the previous plenty would not be known. Such was the interpretation given by Joseph. And here, indeed, God was with him, for human wisdom could not have revealed it.
But Joseph not only explained the dream, and thus gave from God premonition that was of the greatest value, not for the benefit of Egypt only, but of all surrounding countries, but he advised Pharaoh to turn the dream to good account, by saving during the seven plenteous years, to meet the necessities of the seven years of scarcity. He counselled him to look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt, and appoint officers under him, to gather the fifth part of the food of the plenteous years, and lay up corn and keep food in the cities against the seven years of famine.
This wise counsel Pharaoh was wise enough to take, and he shewed no less wisdom in appointing Joseph to fill the office which he had proposed. "Can we" said the king to his court, "find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" In adopting Joseph, he said, "Inasmuch as God has shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art; thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have made thee ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck." Pharaoh also gave him to wife Asenath, daughter of the priest of On. Joseph was now indeed recompensed for his long affliction. Honour and wealth and happiness were now his; and he gave expression to his thankfulness, as the people in those times were wont to do, in the names he gave to his two sons. One he called Manasseh, which signifies forgetting, "for God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil and my father's house;" and the other he named Ephraim, which signifies fruitful, "for God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction."
But Joseph's life was now not only a prosperous but a useful one. During the seven plenteous years he gathered up corn even as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left off numbering. "But when the seven years of plenteousness were ended, the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said."
And this brings us to the most interesting part of Joseph's history, and one in which we see the hand of God, as the principal end which His providence had in view, in bringing Joseph through so many seemingly unfortunate circumstances to his present elevation in Egypt.