For Joseph, Pharaoh’s dreams revealed what God was “about to do” (Gen. 41:28, NKJV) in the land. Joseph, however, does not call on Pharaoh to believe in Joseph’s God. Instead, Joseph’s immediate response is action. Joseph proposes an economic program. Interestingly, only the economic part of Joseph’s discourse is retained by Pharaoh, who seems more interested in the economic lesson than in the spiritual meaning of the dream and God’s role in producing it.

 Read Genesis 41:37-57. What is God’s place in the success of Joseph?

 Pharaoh selects Joseph to take charge not so much because he had interpreted his dreams correctly and revealed the forthcoming problem of the land, but because he had a solution to that problem, because his “advice was good” (Gen. 41:37, NKJV), an opinion also shared by Pharaoh’s servants. Pharaoh’s choice seems to have been more pragmatic than religious. And yet, Pharaoh recognizes that the presence of “the Spirit of God” (Gen. 41:38) is in Joseph, who is qualified as “discerning and wise” (Gen. 41:39), an expression that characterizes the wisdom that God gives (see Gen. 41:33; compare with 1 Kings 3:12).

 All the details reported in the biblical text fit the historical situation of Egypt at that time. Politically, the fact that Pharaoh appoints Joseph as vizier is not unusual in ancient Egypt, where cases of foreign viziers have been attested.

 The next seven years are years of abundance in such a way that the grain production becomes “immeasurable” (Gen. 41:49, NKJV), a sign of supernatural providence. The comparison “as the sand of the sea” (Gen. 41:49) reveals that this is God’s blessing (Gen. 22:17). Joseph personally reflects that blessing in his own fruitfulness, a coincidence that evidences the presence of the same God behind the two phenomena. Joseph has two sons whose names show Joseph’s experience of God’s providence, which has transformed the memory of pain into joy (Manasseh) and the former affliction into fruitfulness (Ephraim). What a powerful example of how God turned some bad into something very good!