Genesis 41
1 After two years, Pharaoh saw a dream. He thought himself to be standing above a river,
Two complete years later, the king of Egypt had a dream. In the dream, he was standing alongside the Nile [River].
2 from which ascended seven cows, exceedingly beautiful and stout. And they pastured in marshy places.
Suddenly seven healthy fat cows come up out of the river. They started eating the grass that was on the riverbank.
3 Likewise, another seven emerged from the river, filthy and thoroughly emaciated. And they pastured on the same bank of the river, in green places.
Soon seven other cows, unhealthy-looking and thin, came up behind them from the Nile [River]. They stood alongside the fat cows that were on the riverbank.
4 And they devoured those whose appearance and condition of body was so wonderful. Pharaoh, having been awakened,
Then the unhealthy thin cows ate the seven healthy fat cows. And then the king woke up.
5 slept again, and he saw another dream. Seven ears of grain sprung up on one stalk, full and well-formed.
The king went to sleep again, and he had another dream. This time he saw seven heads of grain that were full of kernels of grain and ripe, and all growing on one stalk.
6 Likewise, other ears of grain, of the same number, rose up, thin and struck with blight,
After that, the king saw that seven other heads of grain sprouted on that (OR, on another) stalk. They were thin and had been dried up by the hot east wind.
7 devouring all the beauty of the first. Pharaoh, when he awakened after his rest,
Then the thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven ripe full heads. Then the king woke up. He realized that he had been dreaming.
8 and when morning arrived, being terrified with fear, sent to all the interpreters of Egypt and to all of the wise men. And when they were summoned, he explained to them his dream; but there was no one who could interpret it.
But the next morning he was worried about the meaning of the dream. So he summoned all the magicians and wise men who lived in Egypt. He told them what he had dreamed, but none of them could tell him the meaning of the two dreams.
9 Then at last the chief cupbearer, remembering, said, “I confess my sin.
Then the chief drink-server said to the king, “Now I remember something that I should have told you! I made a mistake by forgetting to tell it to you.
10 The king, being angry with his servants, ordered me and the chief miller of grain to be forced into the prison of the leader of the military.
One time you were angry with two of us. So you put me and the chief baker in the prison in the house of the captain of the palace guards.
11 There, in one night, both of us saw a dream presaging the future.
While we were there, one night each of us had a dream, and the dreams had different meanings.
12 In that place, there was a Hebrew, a servant of the same commander of the military, to whom we explained our dreams.
There was a young Hebrew man there with us. He was a servant of the captain of the palace guards. We told him what we had dreamed, and he told us what our dreams meant. He told each of us the meaning of our dreams.
13 Whatever we heard was proven afterwards by the event of the matter. For I was restored to my office, and he was suspended on a cross.”
And what happened was exactly the same as the meanings that he told us: You said I could have my previous job again, but the other man was killed by being hanged. [The Hebrew man’s name was Joseph].”
14 Immediately, by the king’s authority, Joseph was led out of prison, and they shaved him. And changing his apparel, they presented him to him.
When the king heard that, he told some servants to bring Joseph to him, and they quickly brought Joseph out of the prison. Joseph shaved and put on better clothes, and then he went and stood in front of the king.
15 And he said to him, “I have seen dreams, and there is no one who can unfold them. I have heard that you are very wise at interpreting these.”
The king said to Joseph, “I had two dreams, and no one can tell me what they mean. But someone told me that when you hear someone tell about a dream he has had, you can tell that person what the dream means.”
16 Joseph responded, “Apart from me, God will respond favorably to Pharaoh.”
But Joseph replied to the king, “No, I cannot do that. It is God who knows the meaning of dreams, but he will enable me to tell you their meaning, and they will mean something good.”
17 Therefore, Pharaoh explained what he had seen: “I thought myself to be standing on the bank of a river,
The king said to Joseph, “In my first dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile [River].
18 and seven cows climbed up from the river, exceedingly beautiful and full of flesh. And they grazed in a pasture of a marshy greenery.
Suddenly seven healthy fat cows came up out of the river, and they started eating the grass that was on the riverbank.
19 And behold, there followed after these, another seven cows, with such deformity and emaciation as I had never seen in the land of Egypt.
Soon seven other cows, ugly and thin ones, came up behind them from the river. I never saw such ugly cows in all the land of Egypt!
20 These devoured and consumed the first,
The thin ugly cows ate the seven fat cows that came up first.
21 giving no indication of being full. But they remained in the same state of emaciation and squalor. Awakening, but being weighed down into sleep again,
But afterwards, no one would have known that the thin cows ate them, because they were just as ugly as they were before. Then I woke up.
22 I saw a dream. Seven ears of grain sprang up on one stalk, full and very beautiful.
Then I had another dream. I saw seven heads of grain. They were full of kernels of grain and ripe, and they were all growing on one stalk.
23 Likewise, another seven, thin and struck with blight, rose up from the stalk.
Then [to my surprise] I saw seven other heads of grain that sprouted. They were thin and had been dried up by the hot east wind.
24 And they devoured the beauty of the first. I explained this dream to the interpreters, and there is no one who can unfold it.”
The thin heads of grain swallowed the seven good heads. I told these dreams to the magicians, but none of them could explain to me what they meant.”
25 Joseph responded: “The dream of the king is one. What God will do, he has revealed to Pharaoh.
Then Joseph said to the king, “Both your dreams have the same meaning. God is revealing to you in your dreams what he is about to do.
26 The seven beautiful cows, and the seven full ears of grain, are seven years of abundance. And so the force of the dreams is understood to be the same.
The seven healthy cows represent seven years. The seven good heads of grain also represent seven years. The two dreams both have the same meaning.
27 Likewise, the seven thin and emaciated cows, which ascended after them, and the seven thin ears of grain, which were struck with the burning wind, are seven approaching years of famine.
The seven thin ugly cows that came up behind them and the seven worthless heads of grain that were dried up by the hot east wind each represent seven years (of famine/when food will be very scarce).
28 These will be fulfilled in this order.
It will happen just as I have told you, because God has revealed to you what he is about to do.
29 Behold, there will arrive seven years of great fertility throughout the entire land of Egypt.
There will be seven years in which there will be plenty of food throughout the land of Egypt,
30 After this, there will follow another seven years, of such great barrenness that all the former abundance will be delivered into oblivion. For the famine will consume all the land,
but after that there will be seven years (of famine/when food will be very scarce). Then people will forget all the years when there was plenty of food, because the famine that will come afterward will ruin the country.
31 and the greatness of this destitution will cause the greatness of the abundance to be lost.
The people will forget how plentiful food was previously, because the famine will be very terrible.
32 Now, as to what you saw the second time, it is a dream pertaining to the same thing. It is an indication of its firmness, because the word of God shall be done, and it shall be completed swiftly.
The reason God gave to you two dreams is that he [wants you to know] that this will happen, and he will cause it to happen very soon.
33 Now therefore, let the king provide a wise and industrious man, and place him over the land of Egypt,
“Now I suggest that you should choose a man who is wise and can make good decisions. I suggest that you appoint him to direct the affairs of the whole country.
34 so that he may appoint overseers throughout all the regions. And let a fifth part of the fruits, throughout the seven fertile years
You should also appoint supervisors over the country, in order that they can arrange to collect one-fifth of all the grain that is harvested during the seven years when food is plentiful.
35 that now have already begun to occur, be gathered into storehouses. And let all the grain be stored away, under the power of Pharaoh, and let it be kept in the cities.
They should collect this amount of grain during those seven years that are coming, when there will be plenty of food. You should supervise them as they store it in the cities.
36 And let it be prepared for the future famine of seven years, which will oppress Egypt, and then the land will not be consumed by destitution.”
This grain should be stored so that it can be eaten during the seven years when there will be a famine here in Egypt, so that the people in this country will not die from hunger.”
37 The counsel pleased Pharaoh and all his ministers.
The king and his officials thought that this would be a good plan.
38 And he said to them, “Would we be able to find another such man, who is full of the Spirit of God?”
So the king said to them, “(Can we find any other man like Joseph, a man to whom God has given his Spirit?/It is not likely that we will find another man like this man, one to whom God has given his Spirit!)” [RHQ]
39 Therefore, he said to Joseph: “Because God has revealed to you all that you have said, would I be able to find anyone wiser and as much like you?
Then the king said to Joseph, “Because God has revealed all this to you, it seems to me that there is no one who is as wise as you and who can decide wisely about things.
40 You will be over my house, and to the authority of your mouth, all the people will show obedience. Only in one way, in the throne of the kingdom, will I go before you.”
So I will put you in charge of everything in my palace. All the people here in Egypt must obey what you command. Only because I am king [MTY] will I have more authority than you.”
41 And again, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Behold, I have appointed you over the entire land of Egypt.”
Then the king said to Joseph, “I am now putting you in charge of the whole country of Egypt.”
42 And he took the ring from his own hand, and he gave it into his hand. And he clothed him with a robe of fine linen, and he placed a necklace of gold around his neck.
The king took from his finger the ring that had his seal on it, and he put it on Joseph’s finger. He put robes made of fine linen on him, and he put a gold chain around his neck.
43 And he caused him to ascend upon his second swift chariot, with the herald proclaiming that everyone should bend their knee before him, and that they should know that he was governor over the entire land of Egypt.
Then he arranged for Joseph to ride around in the chariot [that showed that he was] the second-most important man in the country. When Joseph rode in the chariot, men shouted to the people who were on the road in front of him, “Get off the road!” So the king put Joseph in charge of everything in the country.
44 Likewise, the king said to Joseph: “I am Pharaoh: apart from your authority, no one will move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”
The king said to Joseph, “I am the king, but no one in the whole land of Egypt will do anything [IDM] if you do not permit them to do it.”
45 And he changed his name and called him, in the Egyptian tongue: ‘Savior of the world.’ And he gave him as a wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis. And so Joseph went out into the land of Egypt.
The king gave Joseph a new name, Zaphenath-Paneah. He also gave him Asenath to be his wife. She was the daughter of Potiphera, who was a priest in a temple in On [city]. Then Joseph became known (OR, traveled) through all the land of Egypt.
46 (Now he was thirty years old when he stood in the sight of king Pharaoh.) And he traveled throughout the regions of Egypt.
Joseph was 30 years old when he started to work for the king of Egypt. To do his work, he left the king’s palace and traveled throughout Egypt.
47 And the fertility of the seven years arrived. And when the grain fields were reduced to sheaves, these were gathered into the storehouses of Egypt.
During the next seven years, the land produced abundant crops, so there was plenty of food.
48 And now all the abundance of grain was stored away in every city.
As Joseph supervised them, his helpers collected one-fifth of all the grain that was produced during those years, and stored it in the cities. In each city, he had his helpers store up the grain that was grown in the fields that surrounded that city.
49 And there was such a great abundance of wheat that it was comparable to the sands of the sea, and its bounty exceeded all measure.
Joseph had them store up a huge amount of grain. It looked as plentiful as the sand on the seashore. There was so much grain that after a while they stopped keeping records of how much grain was stored, because there was more grain than they could measure.
50 Then, before the famine arrived, Joseph had two sons born, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, bore for him.
Before the seven years of famine started, Joseph’s wife Asenath gave birth to two sons.
51 And he called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, saying, “God has caused me to forget all my labors and the house of my father.”
Joseph named the first one Manasseh, [which sounds like the Hebrew word that means ‘forget]’, because, he said, “God has caused me to forget all my troubles and all my father’s family.”
52 Likewise, he named the second Ephraim, saying, “God has caused me to increase in the land of my poverty.”
He named his second son Ephraim, [which means ‘to have children]’, because, he said, “God has given me children here in this land where I have suffered.”
53 And so, when the seven years of fertility that occurred in Egypt had passed,
Finally the seven years in which there was plenty of food ended.
54 the seven years of destitution, which Joseph had predicted, began to arrive. And the famine prevailed throughout the whole world, but there was bread in all the land of Egypt.
Then the seven years of famine started, just as Joseph had predicted. There was also a famine in all the other nearby lands, but although the crops did not grow, there was food everywhere in Egypt, because of the grain they had stored up in the cities.
55 And being hungry, the people cried out to Pharaoh, asking for provisions. And he said to them: “Go to Joseph. And do whatever he will tell you.”
When all the people of [MTY] Egypt had eaten all of their own food and were still hungry, they begged the king for food. So the king told all the people of Egypt, “Go to Joseph, and do what he tells you to do.”
56 Then the famine increased daily in all the land. And Joseph opened all of the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians. For the famine had oppressed them also.
When the famine was very bad throughout the whole country, Joseph ordered his helpers to open the storehouses. Then they sold the grain in the storehouses to the people of Egypt, because the famine was very severe all over Egypt.
57 And all the provinces came to Egypt, to buy food and to temper the misfortune of their destitution.
And people from many [HYP] nearby countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was very severe everywhere [HYP].
