Joseph's Commission Genesis 41

To see Genesis 41 without my comments click HERE.

It was two years after the Chief Butler was restored to his position with the Pharaoh when he suddenly remembered Joseph being in prison. The provocation for his rememberance was because the Pharaoh dreamed a dream that was not interpretable by himself nor by any of his “Wise men nor Magicians.” After hearing about Joseph's ability to interpret dreams from the Butler the Pharaoh sent for Joseph. The Pharaoh's dream consisted of unnatural acts being committed by famished kine eating fattened kine and 7 fatted ears of corn on stalks being eaten by 7 famished corn. “Kine” of course is plural for cows, and stalks of corn only grow up to 3 ears on each stalk maximum. The number seven in this dream is the number of spiritual completeness.

The Pharaoh recognized the seriousness of Joseph's interpretation.

Because this was 2 dreams that were the same it fulfilled the law of double witness that it came from Father Yahweh and would come to fruition soon v.32. Joseph's interpretation which came from God, was that there would be 7 years of plenty immediately followed by 7 years of famine and he told the Pharaoh to start preparing for it by putting an honorable man in charge of all the food and to collect 20% of all the crops to redistribute during the years of famine. Obviously, the years of plenty produced much more crop then years previously because 20% of a normal crop yield would not produce enough crop to feed everyone for the years of famine.

The Pharaoh recognized the wisdom of Joseph and recognized the righteousness of the Father being the one and only true God. He also knew there was none that was as wise and righteous as Joseph, so he put Joseph himself in charge of the collecting of the corn for Egypt. Joseph's position in Egypt was second in command as he acted as both Governor and Chief Treasurer over all of Egypt. The Pharaoh gave Joseph his personal ring. The ring was used to make an impression so Joseph could write checks. This was unusual for an Egyptian Pharaoh to do this because the Egyptians detested Hebrew sheep herders and would not even eat with a Hebrew at that time.

When Joseph was put second in command for Egypt, the Pharaoh gave Joseph a wife named Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On which she gave him two sons named Manasseh which means “forgetfulness” and Ephraim which means “fruitful.”

The land of On is located just South of the Nile Delta near Cairo.

I have heard before that some believe that Joseph's wife Asenath was an Egyptian by race. This of course is not true due to the fact that the blood line of the Messiah was pure as outlined in Luke Chapter 3 and the Messiah was not to come for the Egyptians. This can be easily be shown through the story of Hagar the Egyptian and Ishmael that did not receive the birthright from Father Abraham Gen 16 and Gen17.

The truth is that the Bible is about Israel and is written to Israel. The Bible does not mention any other group of people except for the Hebrew/Israelites with exception of when others come into contact with the Hebrew/Israelites. So anytime the Bible doesn't mention the race of a person, which in this particular case of Asenath it's automatically known they are referring to an Israelite, or the fair skin racial stock Israel came from such as given in the examples of .the wives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The land of On was in the southern Egyptian empire South of the Nile Delta and is the place where the free Hebrews of Egypt lived with their sheep. The land of On is also the same place where Mary and Joseph took the Messiah when Herod the Great was seeking to kill him. There's also evidence that there were shepherd kings that settled this land of On came directly from Melchizedek King of Salem (Salem of course was the ancient name of what we now call Jeru-Salem) Gen 14. Some believe that this person Melchizedek was actually Shem (Noah's son) and this may very well be possible because Shem was alive at the time of Abraham. The concept of Joseph's children being of pure racial stock is best summed up by Dr. Howard B.Rand in his book “Primogenesis” which on page 117 he writes:

“The priestly caste to which Joseph's father-in-law, the priest on On, belonged was undoubtedly of the line of Shem. Apparently Shem's descendants were established in the office of priesthood in Egypt at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid. Thus, the purity of the racial stock of the appointed seed was preserved in the birth of these boys to Joseph and Asenath. But it was to be expected that the descendants of these two sons would have characteristics very different from the rest of Jacob's descendants. This fact is borne out in the history of their posterity.”

Chapter 41 Closes stating that Joseph gathered up 20% of the corn from the prosperous years in Egypt and filled the storehouses with an uncountable amount of corn which he in turn sold back to the Egyptians. Some may think that selling the corn back to the Egyptians would not be the right thing to do because the corn was originally the Egyptians to begin with. The reason that he was justified to sell it back to the Egyptians is found in Jasher 50:20 when it's written that the food of the individual Egyptians was not stored properly, was full of vermin, and unfit to eat. The Egyptian government (Joseph) had to build storehouses, properly store the grain, guard the storehouses, and properly ration the corn.

I also want to add that Egyptian history talks about an Egyptian that saved Egypt and the known world that went by the name of Imhotep. It's my belief that Imhotep and Joseph were one and the same. I have posted in the past about why I believe that Joseph is Imhotep in Is Joseph Imhotep? Part 1 and in  is Joseph Imhotep? Part 2.

I pray all will see the faith of Joseph that had the faith of a mustard seed that eventually saved Egypt, the Hebrew/Israelites, and the entire known world.

Praise the Lord!