so I guess we know what time it is. We're back in Genesis 41 again tonight. Potentially concluding it, maybe not. Before we get started tonight, being most of us understanding what today is, it's September 11th, I'm gonna offer up a prayer before we get started and just kind of contemplate the how life changed for so many around the world on that day. So let's pray. Father, we come to you on this day. In many ways, it's a normal church night for us, but in so many ways, it's not a normal night. But we reflect on what happened on this date, 2001, when this country was attacked within our own borders for the first time since 1941 by an outside threat. God, we want to remember the families of those who lost loved ones. We want to remember those who are still struggling with grief and suffering from what they saw and what they were a part of. Lord, only this evening I heard on the news that there are people still struggling with health-related issues that are directly connected to the fallout from the buildings collapsing. God, I want to lift our nation to you. We're also in the midst of a political season, and many of us watched the debate last night and probably didn't come away feeling a whole lot better about some of the things we saw. But Lord, in all these things, we want to give you the honor and the glory and the praise and understand that you're in control. Even when everything looks like it might be out of control on the worldwide stage, at the national level, at the state level, Even in our own personal lives. Well, we also heard of another tragedy today. Many of us did of this pastor in Columbia, a neighboring town for us that was arrested for some sort of sexual misconduct with a minor. Released from jail and committed suicide, took his own life today in a hospital. Lord, we don't know the trail of devastation left behind by the events that led up to that event and the events after that, but Lord, we pray for those people that are involved directly and indirectly as well. God, our nation's hurting. People are hurting. Let us remember those who ran into those buildings to try to save others. Let us be grateful for those that you provide that would do it again tomorrow. Lord, we commend this time as we open your word to you, honoring glorify you in Christ's name amen well it's kind of a hard transition from that to this but I felt some of that on my heart and needed to be taken to the throne of grace this evening genesis 41 so last week we started genesis 41 and we looked at these dreams that had happened two years after the dreams that Joseph had interpreted for the cupbearer, the baker, and Pharaoh has these dreams, and it disturbs his sleep. He wakes up, goes back to sleep, has another dream. Nobody can interpret it. They go get Joseph. Joseph comes in and says, I can't, but God can. And so he interprets the dream for Pharaoh, which the two dreams were really one, speaking of the famine that was coming. And Joseph, no hesitation, shares what's going to happen, seven years of famine. I mean, seven years of good, I'm sorry, seven years of plenty, or more than plenty, and that they are to store up in the storehouses, the grain, for the seven years of famine that were to come. And we kinda ended with Pharaoh accepting what Joseph had to say, and you might remember, Joseph just, Joseph even tells him what you need to do. You need to store up enough, and tells him how much, and we'll see soon that they had more than enough to store up, And Pharaoh, we closed last week with verse 37, and the proposal seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his servants. And that's where we ended last week. This week, for those of us, most everybody in here is old enough to remember Paul Harvey, now we get to hear the rest of the story of this for tonight. I'm gonna start at verse 38 and read five, six, seven verses here, and then we'll walk back through it. Immediately on the heels of Pharaoh saying it or the proposal seeming good to Pharaoh and all his servants. Here's what happens next verse 38 Then Pharaoh said to his servants. Can we find a man like this in whom is a divine spirit? I know some of your translations say the Spirit of God So Pharaoh said to Joseph since God has made you know all of this. There is no one so understanding and wise as you are you shall be over my house and according to your command all my people shall do homage and Only in the throne I will be greater than you. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh removed his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck. And he had him ride in his second chariot, and they called out before him, bow the knee. And he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission, no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphonath-Paniah, and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of An, as a wife. And Joseph went forth of the land of Egypt." Joseph has come quite some way from what we found him when he was around 17 years old, and the dreams upset his brothers, and he was sold into slavery, hasn't he? As we shared last week, the most powerful man on the face of the earth at that time would have been Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Egypt was the most powerful nation in the world at that time. And Joseph going from in a pit to a slave and servant to the bodyguard of this very man, accused of adultery by this man's wife, thrown in the jail again, forgotten by these two guys, or forgotten by one guy, the other guy was forgotten himself, when he lost his head, but forgotten by this man, and then two years later. So a lot of time has transpired, and here Joseph is now at the right hand of the most powerful man on the face of the earth. What's that? Yeah. Yep. So because of this, I hope y'all caught, Verse 38 that we started with, how quickly Pharaoh goes from a question to a statement in verse 39. So what does that say about that question? What kind of question would we call it? This is an English class, but it's a rhetorical question, right? Pharaoh's saying, can we find a man like this? And who was the divine spirit or the spirit of God, as some of y'all's translations might say? Verse 38, I don't think there's any gap between 38 and 39. So Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has made you know all of this, there's no one so understanding and wise as you are. Pharaoh already made up his mind. He doesn't need to seek counsel. He does from time to time, but he doesn't need to to do what he wants to do. So it's a rhetorical question kind of out to everybody listening. You may think of anybody else better than this guy? No, it's him. It's him. Remember again that he gave him some bad news. There's going to be a famine coming, but he had told him how to prepare for it. He could have just took the advice and said, thank you so much. Go back to jail. But he didn't, right? I mean, so what do we see at work there that we've talked about so much? The providence of God at work, right? I mean, all these things that happen, and we talk about us being in tough spots sometimes. 20 plus years, Joseph went through all these things and events, and there would be times that seemed like things were looking up for him, right? And then he gets thrown back down. And now he's at the right hand of Pharaoh, and he's about to be the very instrument of deliverance that God would use to deliver this family that he's made this covenant promise to all the way back when he called Abraham out of the land. God's providence and his hand at work and all the events are glorious to behold. There's never any question from this fight, though. There's a guy coming right out of a jail cell. Right. And he just takes you forward. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. Yeah, so the point I think there, brother, when you talk about there's no doubt, there's no question, there's a couple things that work. From a practical human standpoint, they really believed in the foretelling of dreams. We've established that. The second part of it is we know later on how God moves on the heart of a pharaoh, right? He does the same thing here, too, does he not? To push that point. Because there's not really any earthly way for us to grasp that. We have dreams. Somebody tells us, we're going to believe everything you said, especially something this major, and to elevate somebody to that position. So I think we've got the practical part of that. And even if you go back to when Joseph was put in jail for supposing that this king's wife drove him out of the bus, there's no mention of him saying, hey, I didn't do that. No, there's not. There's not any mention of him. I think there's something to that, brother, because if y'all heard what Brother Mike said, that there's no mention of him trying to defend himself when Potiphar accused him, Potiphar's wife accused him. There's no mention of after he's left in the jail cell for two years of begging somebody to let me out. Hey, somebody come bring that cupbearer in here. Remind him. We don't have any evidence of that happening in the scripture. But there's something about to happen that I think is a very telling part of Joseph's character in regards to that specifically. He didn't whine and complain that we have in Scripture in those times. Everything that's about to be poured out upon him, all these earthly treasures and authority and position and status, what we're about to read, and I know I'm kind of putting the cart before the horse here, but I'll blame Brother Mike because he led me down this path. What's about to happen here is all this stuff that's about to be lavished on him, what does he do when it's given to him? He just sets his hands to the plow and goes and does what he's supposed to do and doesn't hold that. We don't have any evidence of him saying, look at me now, look at me now either. It says a lot about his character, right? In the deepest pit that he was in to the highest elevated status he could get. We don't see any commentary from Joseph of woe is me or look at me either. That's a good example for all of us, too, though, right? I mean, it's something we struggle with, honestly, don't we? At the lowest pit of our life, woe is me, it's easy for us to get to. And when things look a little favorable to us, sometimes we've got to fight back that temptation to, hey, look at what I got now. Anyway, I think Joseph's a good example. This has been the third time his brother's coach went on the bus, and he was in jail, or he didn't fit. Yeah. And then when the team's wife Yeah Yeah, and all of it is in God's plan and purpose to get him exactly where he is in the midst of all this Good it's good stuff. I want to focus on one thing in this section. We talked about it last week I believe I know we did when when Joseph went to Pharaoh and And he, by the way, can we say, is there no more distinction of how country folks say Pharaoh? I mean, we say it, about a country, you can say it, Pharaoh. We put an extra syllable in everything. But anyway, when he says God, remember what word we said he uses for God there? It's not Yahweh, it's not the personal name of God, and Marty said something pretty good on Facebook Messenger about that earlier today. But he used the word Elohim, which means the divine one, or a singular divine power. And that's the same word that Pharaoh uses when he's talking back to Joseph of Elohim is with you. Elohim is with you. Not to go too deep into that, it's just interesting when you see these different uses of God, names of God. Now again, we've pointed out a couple times before, Daniel is described in the same way that the Babylonian king Belshazzar talks about somebody else we know that we studied through a couple years ago. and related to dreams, Daniel, right? Same kind of language. Remember, Belshazzar said this, now I have heard about you that the spirit of God is in you, the spirit of Elohim is in you, same language, and that illumination, insight, and extraordinary wisdom have been found in you. That's Daniel 5.14. The same kind of language used about Daniel from this Babylonian king is what Pharaoh is saying about Joseph. A lot of similarities. So he puts him in charge, verse 39. Pharaoh is impressed with one thing above all others, God is with Joseph. He recognizes something, and that might speak to the point Michael was talking about earlier, too. He pays recognition also to the fact that Joseph, when he came before Pharaoh, he didn't say, yeah, I can figure it out, I can interpret this dream. What did Joseph say? God can. And so I think there's probably a little bit of something there too, the way Pharaoh said, okay. He mentions it a couple of times. The spirit of God is with you. The spirit of God is up in you because the spirit of God, again, not the personal God. He didn't have that personal relationship. He uses the word Elohim. So it puts him over his own house. The same exact expression used when he was put over Potiphar's house back in chapter 39, exact same language. Now, I saw this in a commentary, and I don't know if any of y'all's translations have this. It might. I said when I was reading through this, verse 40, you shall be over my house according to your command. All my people shall do homage. Does somebody have something different there? Do homage to you. No? Submit your orders, okay. So the literal Hebrew reading, and there's some English translations that have this, say that they will kiss you. They will kiss you. That's kind of what the literal Hebrew says. We've changed that because it doesn't sound right, but that's what the literal Hebrew says. So what does that mean? That means in that world, it wasn't that odd of a thing, right? It'd be like a kiss on the cheek or bow down to you and that kind of authority. It's kind of an idiomatic talk, though. To kiss an idol, to kiss something is paying respect to that person. You see it in Psalm 212. You see it in 1 Kings 19. This means that Joseph will be admired, served, and they will follow what he tells them to do. That's possible, too. That's possible, too, of kissing the signet ring that he's about to receive. And he says in 41, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. He keeps repeating this, right? And this isn't just for Joseph's sake. This is probably a full throne room at the time. Everybody listen, Joseph's in control. Listen, Joseph's in control. It's his authority. His authority only answers to me. And he's making sure, y'all get the point what I'm saying here. You listen to what he tells you to do. Now, verse 42, 43, kind of are interesting to you. We've talked about Joseph going into the pit, going into jail, all these things that happened to him. Look at the contrast in 42. Pharaoh removed his ring, put it on Joseph's hand, clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck. Now, remember all the way back to whenever his brothers wanted that look like he died? What was one of the things they really didn't like about Joseph? That pretty coat he had that daddy gave him, right? His connection to clothing and appearance and stuff comes back again. And what the Pharaoh was putting on him is worth so much more than what his shepherd father put on him, in the material sense at least, in the value monetarily of what it was worth. He's now wearing a robe given to him by Pharaoh. He is wearing the very ring that Pharaoh takes off of his hand and puts it on his hand. Y'all have all seen pictures, well not real pictures, but movies or depictions of Egypt and those big gold necklaces they would wear? Puts that around his neck. He's got the ring of the king on his hand. Think anybody can question his authority now? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So there's that connection again to the beginning of all this to where he is now in a status symbol. He had him ride in the second chariot. Some of y'all's translation may read a little different on that. They call it out before him, bow the knee and set him over the land of Egypt. So there's a little bit difference rendering of that. His second chariot, chariot of his second in command. It just fits the idea of Joseph being second in command and riding with him. And it symbolizes also, As Joseph rides through these crowds, there's a herald, someone yelling out. Does any of y'all's translation say to prostrate yourself before him? It says bow down. Now, let's pause there for a second. What does that make us think about? Let's go back to the early part of Joseph's life again, and these dreams he had. What were the dreams Joseph had? What was going on? His brothers would bow down to him. And then the second dream was that basically everybody would bow down to him, father and mother included. Now we know that has a real life application whenever the brothers come to him, we ain't got there yet, it's a little further in Genesis. But even now, in this country, everybody in that country was to bow down to Joseph except for Pharaoh himself. Pretty cool, right? The connection all the way back to those dreams. And here it is coming to fruition. But more literally when his brothers come before him, upcoming well there's something connected to that with who he's given as a bride no no he didn't have a choice moreover Pharaoh said to Joseph though I am Pharaoh yet without your permission no one shall raise his foot his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt Pharaoh named Joseph, Zamathah, Taniah, gave him Asenath, the daughters of Potiphar. Again, interesting that connection to Potiphar and Potiphar. Priest of Aaron as a wife, and Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. After this ceremonial thing, and I picture maybe Pharaoh bringing him out before the people and presenting him, and that's the chariot scene and seeing everybody, everybody's bowing down before him. He's given a wife from this, that was connected to this worship thing there. I like that he says, I am Pharaoh. Listen to my word is kind of what he's saying there. I am Pharaoh, heed my word. Listen to what I have to say. The word, the language in the Hebrew, there's a Hebrew, in the Hebrew context of this, when it says no hand or foot, it's kind of a mannerism in Hebrew, and it literally means there will be no activity whatsoever in Egypt without Joseph's approval. Now we know that's, it's common when we say everybody was there, right? We don't know everybody was there, but it's kind of, it's like saying Joseph has the authority of everybody in this country that, as if they can even raise their hand or raise their foot if not for his approval. Again, we're, Now what about this wife? He gives him an Egyptian name, so that's showing favor again by Pharaoh to Joseph, right? He's kind of elevating from that and giving him a, in Pharaoh's eyes at least, it's symbolic of something. That too, that too, he did have the authority. What about that name? Does that name mean anything in Egyptian? Any of you guys speak Egyptian? I don't either. I'm a little rusty. Been a while. It means this. It means God speaks and he lives. Elohim lives. Elohim speaks and he lives. That's the name he gave Joseph. So, in this role, in this status, he'll speak for him and Egypt will survive. And also, We talked about this last week. In the eyes of the Egyptians, Pharaoh was not just merely a man, was he? He was a deity. He was a god. So Pharaoh speaks through Joseph. So he's saying, the authority I've given to Joseph, when Joseph speaks, it's as if Pharaoh speaks, who was, in their context, a deity and a god himself. Not literally, but that's the way that they anticipate it. The name of the wife is a common name in Egypt, and it literally means he whom re-gives, which was one of their deep pantheon of gods. So it's almost like we're giving you someone that is given by one of our Egyptian gods as your wife. Which to an Egyptian would be quite extraordinary. So anyway, let's go on. I do want to make a point again. I think I already mentioned it. Nowhere in here do we have any indication of Joseph flaunting his newfound authority or position. He gets to work. Did you catch how we closed that? Sure they did. They had a ton of power. He got put into a very prolific and prosperous family, married into it and given by the king to marry this person too. Yeah, I mean, his positions are just second only to Pharaoh. Yeah, don't touch the man. Don't touch the man. I like the last part of that verse though. All this stuff had been given to him. All this stuff going on was the last sentence of that verse say. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. Now probably to go observe all that he could, you know, to put his plan, because he was a thinking man. He was planning and God gave him that gift. And we don't know how much he directed him directly in that, but we know he gifted him in that way. As an administrator, he didn't have a chance to travel much because he's been in jail a lot over the past 25 years. Right. but to go out and see this new land and how what the agriculture actually looks like, what the people or what the city look like. Do they have grain bins already there for storage? Can we store everything we need or we gotta start building grain bins too? I mean, all this stuff would come into play. Verse 46, now Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and passed through all the land of Egypt. And during the seven years of plenty, the land brought forth abundantly. So he gathered all the food of these seven years, which happened in the land of Egypt, and placed the food in the cities. He placed in every city the food from its surrounding fields. Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance for the sand, like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it for it was beyond measure. A couple of things to point out in that text. A lot of this seems largely just narrative walking through this. Much of it is. We have this indication again of how old he is, and now we can draw that clear line, okay, he's 30, this is the, I mean, the day he was elevated, that day he goes out and starts putting his plan into action. It also kind of gives us a picture later on of how old he's gonna be at the end of all this, 14 years later. Travels through this, we already read that earlier in verse 45, he loses no time, he wastes no time, it looks like, to go out and start doing this. looking and planning. And in the seven years, as it tells, just as God had given him this direction and interpretation, the seven years of planning, the land brought forth abundantly. And it brought forth so much, all the food in those seven years that happened in Egypt, placed the food in the cities, he placed in every town the food from its own surrounding fields. Stop there for just a second. I don't want to get political. We could, but I don't want to. Not at least now, maybe after seven we can. The food that's developed and harvested in the city, where does it go? It stays in the city. For who? For those people. You see what I'm getting at here? He said, they're working, they're harvesting. What they store up, we're gonna save it here for them. We're going to see that start to play out fruition here in just a little bit, but what they've worked for, what they've strived for, what they've prepared for, we want to leave it here for them if we can. I think y'all know where I'm going with that. It's pretty simple. I mean, really. OK. Verse 49, thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea until he stopped measuring it for what was beyond measure. So he had a plan of how much to keep, remember we talked about that earlier, y'all remember how much it said that, what's that? One-fifth, keep one-fifth. Joseph, they had gotten over one-fifth because he stopped counting. Right, you reach the number you need and your storage, and they've got plenty, God had blessed him so much that he just stopped counting. There's no need to count anymore, because we've reached the goal, we've reached the target, whatever else we have is just great. Praise God for it. Now, verse 50. Now before the year of the famine came, so this would be what, year six? Right, we're following that timeline of seven years and seven and one year before. So again, that God is very specific, right? He's not a God of chaos. So this will help us later identify how old the boys are. Because we know how old Joseph is. He's 30 when it starts. One year before it ends, he'd be 36. The boys are born. Two sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, priest of On, bore to him. Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household. He named the second son Ephraim, for he said, God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. He didn't forget about that affliction, did he? He's not laboring on it, he's not staying on it. He's been taken from his family, but God has blessed him mightily. Now, why do those names seem important to us? Well, if you've still got your sheet of paper that talks about the 12 tribes of Israel, you will see when it breaks down to son number 11, who is Joseph, it expands into Manasseh and Ephraim, and they will play an important role in the future of the nation of Israel. So they're born in Egypt. They're born to an Egyptian daughter of a priest. His names are interesting. Before the famine hits, you think there's any reasoning why that is the time in which these boys were born? There were about to be struggles ahead, weren't there? Struggle enough with kids, there's even more struggles 3,500 years ago or so with kids. But in this time of struggle and worry and hardship, God Graciously gave them these boys the year before all that hit and all these other things that Joseph's gonna be busy with right because that's gonna It's gonna stretch him pretty thin once it finally starts happening. Yes Right It could have been any time before that year, I think. Before the famine struck. Yeah, and it puts us in that window though, that time frame. It was before the famine and there was a year before the famine hit when the Key Boys were born. They were already there. Yep. Yeah, the time of plenty and the time of not. Yeah, that's a good point too. The first one, God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household. Do you really think he forgot all of his father's household? He didn't. Why this name then? Yeah, he didn't expect to ever see him again. We could go down a rabbit hole here of now that he's Hand to the king, second in command. Would it have been possible, this is a very speculative question, so I can't have, you know, that's as far as it'll go. He was in a position now where he could go visit his family again, was he not? Probably. But he had a job to do too. Anyway, there's something to think about. Again, that's speculative talk to begin with. Yeah, he didn't totally forget him, but the connection of trouble and his father's household, he doesn't say his father, my father's household, but a couple of them brothers that were a little bit extra poking at him, but anyway. Then the second one, Ephraim, God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. So he hasn't forgot, to Mike's point earlier, and all the stuff that happened, we don't read about him complaining, but it's still there in his mind, right? Because he names his children based on some of the suffering he's gone through. But he's also understanding clearly because he mentions God in both of their namings, does he not? God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. God has made me forget in the midst of my trouble. Kind of like, you know, the 23rd Psalm of understanding God is with him through these hard times. He's been with him this whole time. No, you can't. Now, that's that old adage that we use sometimes, right, about forgive, but it's hard to forget. You can forgive somebody, but some things you just can't forget. We've all got probably some of those places in our lives, too. One commentator said this. He said, Ephraim definitely points to being fruitful. It has a dual ending, and it can mean twice fruitful. It points to his elation now that he's got two boys. There's real joy in his heart of having these two boys before him. And it says, it's in contrast with my suffering to say he's got a double joy in his life now. Both these boys, both these sons. It says Manasseh focused on the trouble in Canaan. The name deals with Joseph's oppression in Egypt. The term suffering is later the same word used about the Hebrews in Egypt in Exodus three when they're complaining about their sufferings. The exact same word and line of thinking. Yeah, those are Hebrew names. I think that's why it points out that he's the one that named him that too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point that they weren't given even though he'd been given this name Here's something else interesting before we go on we got a little bit of time to make this comment So I share oftentimes when we find something in Old Testament text especially as when you go all the way back to Genesis Exodus to those those times in the text and that, and when Malia and I were in Israel, how the gods tell us if you put a shovel in the ground in Israel, you could potentially turn over three, 4,000 years of history and not even realize it. Construction projects get stopped all the time because they find something and they're like, hold on, what is this? Let's find out. Period, time, all this kind of stuff. So Egyptian has a long documented history as well, right, in Egypt. And we've got stuff that goes back thousands and thousands of years with them also. So what about this famine? They had famines a lot in that area. They still do. Technology helps a little bit today, but there's still massive famines and droughts and stuff happen there. So, the phenomenon of a seven-year famine cycle is also known from Egyptian and other ancient Near Eastern locales. Of course, in Hebrew, the number seven reflects completion. Here it signifies the intense severity of a famine. It says there's examples of local officials distributing famine relief are also found in the literature of ancient Egypt too. Would have been taken from the understanding of how Joseph organized this. the first time. So how Joseph organized this is a way that Egyptians later on would try to direct some of this too about saving and preserving some for if his famine lasted longer or if his time of plenty lasted longer. They've even found it inscribed in the tombs of certain pharaohs that talk about this kind of preservation of certain things for future events. It's interesting. Again, we don't need validation from digging a hole in the ground somewhere that the Bible's true, but God keeps giving it to us anyway. So, verse 53? Yeah, verse 53. Then the seven years of plenty, which had been in the land of Egypt, came to an end. And the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. So there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt, there was bread. Then all the land of Egypt was famished and the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, go to Joseph, whatever he says to you, you shall do. Now the famine was over all the face of the land and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians. I know there's a difference of how that word's laid out and I don't really like the way it's laid out here. And the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Now all the earth also came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe in all the earth. Again, all the known earth, right? All the known world to them at that time. We need to understand that when we talk about the word all, that's one of these large words that sometimes you gotta look at it through the lens of the author and the reader initially. So, famished, famine, all these things, this cycle of good is over, the cycle of this, so this already, as we're reading through this, it starts to show us why God continued to bless them beyond the fifth that they were to take because there's more people that's about to come to him. This preservative work, guys, I hope you see there's typologies of Christ throughout scripture. This is one of those typologies here. The way he was treated and the way that he's to provide a way of salvation for them, to those people, and then it extends beyond those people. So here we have these people, the famine's hitting, they've got all this stuff. They start crying out about being hungry, being famished. They've been spared up to that point, it seems like, because they're in that fertile area of the Nile River, but eventually it gets to them too. And so now they're hungry and they're looking for relief. What does Pharaoh say? Go to Joseph. He's prepared us for it. This isn't just a command to go to Joseph because Pharaoh don't wanna deal with it, this is a command to say, Joseph's prepared us for this. He's gotten us through all this, he's stored everything up, we've been patient, go to him. Now, the text literally says in Hebrew, Joseph opened all that was in them. The Septuagint, that's the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Y'all gonna get some seminary words here even though I didn't go. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the Vulgate, which would be the Latin form of the Old Testament, both have a problem right here. They struggle with it. They render it as all the granaries to make some sense out of this passage. But the next sentence is difficult too in the original language and the translation from Hebrew to Greek and or Latin. The word grains there, it goes into all this stuff, but basically that's why we have these difficulties in translating it to English. But when you go back to the original Hebrew, what it's saying there is not so much about him selling to the Egyptians, Because that would be counterintuitive to what I said earlier about them storing it and keeping it in their own city, right? They've already worked for it. It's more about rationing. Joseph was the one that directed the people in charge of the storehouses. Listen, we're going to give the people what they need. It's theirs. We've been storing it and saving it. But in the way in which we're going to do it, we've got to be smart and ration it so we don't run out of what we have stored. Also, the rationing would help. preserve enough grain for the people that are going to be coming from outside of Egypt that need the help, too, for the brothers, for that family line. And we'll sell it to them. Yeah. In 57, it says that people went to buy grain. It didn't say nothing about a handout. Oh. They were prepared. I mean, they, yeah. Yeah. You trying to get political on me, too? Yeah. Thought you might. The verb literally means this, we have sold or rationed or whatever the first time that it's said. When I read it in whatever verse, when I read it, it literally means this, to break into parts, which today our concept of rationing. Joseph's frugal, he's determined, he needs to provide for Egypt First, and he knows there's seven years coming, right? That's another reason to be very careful about how I disperse this because Joseph knows this isn't a one-year famine. God has said seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Guess what? He was faithful in the seven years of plenty. Joseph wholeheartedly trusted there's seven years of famine coming too. Can't do it all the first year. He was smart and he trusted God, which being smart, you should trust God, right? A lot of smart people don't, but that's a different discussion too. So Joseph had risen to this position of authority and rank and prestige and honor, but he holds this virtuous power. What would typical man do in that situation? put in charge of all that, a lot of things, right? He could run roughshod, he could make sure that I'm hoarding everything and the people just, you know, tough. Make little money on the side. That's a good point too, brother. You hear what he said, make a little money on the side. How can I profit even more? Even though I've got everything except the kingship, I can get a little something out of this. He wasn't broke. He wasn't broke, but that doesn't stop a lot of people that aren't broke from stealing from everybody else. What's that? You could take it politically, or you could just say that's the world we live in. But yeah, both. No, you're right. It was a little bit of a political jab. But he has these children, all this stuff. He's diligent. He's disciplined. He worked hard. He didn't just accept it. He traveled the land. I mean, how easy it would have been for him to sit back on the throne somewhere and say, hey, James, Roy, you guys go do all this. Now, he did do that. I'm sure he delegated some. He couldn't have done all of it. But he wanted to go put his eyes on it first and see what the situation was, while at the same time trusting that God was gonna do exactly what God said he was gonna do. Guys, I don't know if y'all realize this or not, but next chapter, the brothers get reintroduced to us. They get reintroduced to us in the very next chapter. And it'll slow down then. We won't be jumping through 30 verses, I think, and through some of this stuff. There's some stuff that needs a little bit more. We might at times, but I don't think so. This is a long chapter, but we got through it in two weeks, so that's something. But we covered at least eight years, potentially 14. We covered a lot of years tonight. Y'all feel any older after covering all those years tonight? Any other thoughts on this text? Probably not a ton there that you haven't seen before or know about the story, but I think it helps, pardon the pun, but it helps ingrain this more into us of what was really going on and the power and authority Joseph had. Man, we see God at work. I think Brother Roy come up to me after church last week and he goes, it's just amazing to see God's providence. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but see God's providence and how all these events played out. And you, I believe you even added to that, There was a lot of people that caught some of the goodness out of this, but primarily it's to protect and preserve this specific chosen family too, in the midst of all of it. Any other thoughts? You got something? Yeah, Marty makes a good point the seven years of plenty played out exactly how Joseph's told Pharaoh was going to And he had to have the faith to I mean because as soon as the famine condition started coming about Again, I thought we taught made the point about Joseph trusting God in the seven years of plenty that that happened with seven years of famine There was a trust put in him too. And what does he say? He says, he's not totally taking his hands off the wheel here. He said, just go to Joseph. Joseph has the authority. Joseph has the power. Joseph has the responsibility. Joseph has planned for this. Trust him. Trust him. It does speak well of Pharaoh's decision. It does speak well of Pharaoh's decision. Any other thoughts? Father, we thank you again for your word, for your providence, for your grace, for your mercy. God, as we walk through this, we've said so many times, just seeing your hand at work and all these events is glorious. It should breathe some life into us, even more so considering all these events. God, we're just so grateful that you've called us into your glorious presence, that you've brought us in, adopted us, crafted us in, that we may be called children of God. God, let us rejoice in these things. Let us rejoice in you when we think about the hard times we're in. As we say, Joseph spent over 20 years in some unsavorable conditions and positions, and Lord, we don't need to be elevated to second in command of anything, but just that we would trust in you in the down times and in the up times. But we love you and we thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Well, again, thank you all for your contributions this evening. Prayer requests, praise reports. We completed a chapter in John.