Génesis 41

¹Two whole years later Pharaoh had a dream. He was standing beside the Nile, ²and seven cows came climbing up out of the river, handsome and plump, and began feeding in the marsh grass. ³Then seven other cows came up from the Nile behind them, poor-looking and scrawny, and stood next to the first cows on the riverbank. ⁴And the ugly, scrawny cows devoured the seven handsome, plump ones. At that Pharaoh awoke. ⁵Once he was asleep again, he dreamed a second time: seven ears of grain, plump and fine, were growing up on one stalk. ⁶Then seven other ears came up behind them, thin and burnt dry by the east wind. ⁷And the thin ears gulped down the seven plump, full ones. Then Pharaoh woke up and found that he had been dreaming. ⁸When morning came, Pharaoh was uneasy in spirit. He summoned every magician and wise man in Egypt and described his dream to them, but none of them could tell Pharaoh what it meant. ⁹Then the chief cupbearer spoke up and said to Pharaoh, “Today I must bring up my own faults. ¹⁰There was a time when Pharaoh was angry with his officials, the chief baker and me, and he had us held in custody in the house of the commander of the guard. ¹¹On the same night he and I each had a dream, and each dream carried a meaning that fit the man who dreamed it. ¹²With us in custody was a young Hebrew, a slave of the commander of the guard. We described our dreams to him, and he explained them, telling each man what his own dream meant. ¹³Everything happened just as he said it would: Pharaoh put me back in my post, and he hanged the baker.” ¹⁴So Pharaoh summoned Joseph, and they hurried him up out of the prison pit. Joseph shaved, put on clean clothes, and went in to Pharaoh. ¹⁵Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and nobody can tell me what it means. Word has reached me that you only need to hear a dream to explain it.” ¹⁶Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in my power. God will give Pharaoh an answer for his good.”^{a 17}So Pharaoh began to describe it to Joseph: “There I was in my dream, standing at the edge of the Nile. ¹⁸Up out of the river came seven cows, plump and handsome, and they fed in the marsh grass. ¹⁹Seven more cows came up behind them, weak, very ugly and all skin and bone. In all the land of Egypt I have never seen cows so bad. ²⁰And the lean and ugly cows devoured the first seven, the fat ones. ²¹Yet once the fat cows were inside them, nobody would have known it; they looked as wretched as they had at first. Then I awoke. ²²Then, in my dream, I saw a single stalk with seven ears of grain on it, full and fine. ²³Behind them sprang up seven more ears, shriveled, thin and burnt dry by the east wind. ²⁴And the thin ears gulped down the seven good ones. I described all this to the magicians, and not one of them could tell me what it meant.” ²⁵Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s dreams carry a single message. God has told Pharaoh ahead of time what he is going to do. ²⁶The seven good cows stand for seven years, and so do the seven good ears of grain. It is all one dream. ²⁷Likewise the seven scrawny, ugly cows that followed them mean seven years, and the seven empty ears dried out by the east wind mean seven years of famine. ²⁸That is what I told Pharaoh: God has let Pharaoh see in advance what he is about to do. ²⁹Seven years are coming in which all Egypt will have a great abundance. ³⁰But after them will come seven years of famine. People will forget there was ever plenty in Egypt, and the famine will exhaust the land. ³¹The plenty will not even be noticed in the land, so crushing will the famine be that comes after it. ³²Pharaoh dreamed it twice because God has fixed this in place, and God will waste no time in carrying it out. ³³So Pharaoh should now choose someone with understanding and wisdom, and give him authority over the land of Egypt. ³⁴Pharaoh should act now to place supervisors over the land and collect a fifth of Egypt’s harvest during the seven good years. ³⁵Let them collect every bit of food from the good years now coming, and stockpile grain in the cities under Pharaoh’s control, guarding it as a food supply. ³⁶This food will then be a stockpile for the land to draw on during the seven years of famine that Egypt will face, and the land will not be wiped out by the famine.” ³⁷This advice pleased Pharaoh and all his officials. ³⁸Pharaoh asked his officials, “Could we ever find another man like this one, a man who has the spirit of God in him?”^{b 39}Then Pharaoh turned to Joseph. “God has let you know all of this,” he said, “so there is nobody with your insight and wisdom. ⁴⁰You will run my household, and all my people will do as you say. The throne alone will set me above you.”^{c 41}And Pharaoh told Joseph, “Look, I am placing you over all the land of Egypt.” ⁴²Pharaoh slipped the signet ring off his hand and placed it on Joseph’s. He had him dressed in clothes of fine linen and hung a gold chain on his neck. ⁴³He let him ride in the chariot that was second only to his own, and men called out ahead of him, “Bow down!” In this way Pharaoh set him over the entire land of Egypt.^{d 44}“I am Pharaoh,” he told Joseph, “and yet no one anywhere in Egypt will so much as move a hand or a foot unless you allow it.” ⁴⁵Pharaoh renamed Joseph Zaphenath-paneah and married him to Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. And Joseph went out to take charge of the land of Egypt. ⁴⁶Joseph was thirty years old when he took up his post before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Leaving the king’s presence, Joseph made a tour of the whole land of Egypt. ⁴⁷In the seven years of plenty the land produced heaping handfuls. ⁴⁸Throughout those seven years in Egypt Joseph gathered up all the food and laid it up in the cities. Every city received the food from its own surrounding fields.^{e 49}Joseph amassed grain in huge quantities, as plentiful as the sand by the sea. In the end he gave up counting it, for there was too much to count. ⁵⁰Two sons were born to Joseph before the first year of famine came. Their mother was Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. ⁵¹Joseph called his firstborn son Manasseh, “because,” he said, “God has let me forget all my hardship and my father’s whole household.” ⁵²The second son he called Ephraim, “because,” he said, “God has made me fruitful in the country where I was afflicted.” ⁵³The seven years of plenty that Egypt had enjoyed came to an end. ⁵⁴Then the seven years of famine set in, as Joseph had said they would. Famine struck every land around, yet all over Egypt people still had food. ⁵⁵Before long the whole land of Egypt felt the hunger too, and the people appealed to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh’s answer to all Egypt was, “Go to Joseph. Whatever he tells you, do it.” ⁵⁶The famine covered the whole face of the land. Joseph threw open every place where grain was stored and began selling it to the Egyptians, and the famine kept its hard grip on Egypt.^{f 57}The whole world came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, since the famine had tightened its hold everywhere on earth.