After he was sold into Egypt when he was 17, Joseph became a servant for Potiphar who was an important member of the Pharaoh’s household. Potiphar came to trust Joseph completely and gave him very responsible work to do.
Joseph was a handsome young man, and Potiphar’s wife took a liking to him. One day, everyone else was gone and Joseph was alone with Potiphar’s wife, and she asked him to go to bed with her.
Joseph refused because it would be sinning against God, and he quickly ran away from her, but she managed to grab some of his clothing. Then when Potiphar came back, she made up a story about what Joseph had done and showed the clothing to prove it. She said “See what that Hebrew slave tried to do to me”, which was a complete lie. Potiphar believed his wife, and had Joseph thrown into prison, and there he stayed.
In prison, before long the man in charge of the prison put Joseph in charge of the other prisoners. God was with Joseph so that everything he did was good and right, and went well.
A while later, two of Pharaoh’s servants in the palace offended him. One was his butler, who gave him his drinks, and the other was his baker, who made his bread and other baked things. So he put them in prison too. One night they each had dreams, and when Joseph came to see them in the morning they were both concerned about what they had dreamed. Joseph said to them, “Why are you so sad?” But Joseph said that God would tell them the meanings of the dreams. The butler said that he dreamed that he saw a grape vine with three branches and fruit, and he pressed out the grape juice and gave it to Pharaoh the king. Joseph said that the dream meant that in three days he would go back to being Pharaoh’s butler.
When the baker heard that the meaning of the dream was good, he told his dream too, which was that he was walking along with three baskets on his head, and birds were eating the bread out of the top one. But Joseph said that in three days Pharaoh would take him out of prison and he would be killed.
And that is what happened to both of them; the baker was killed, and the butler went back to serving the king his drinks, but he forgot all about Joseph.
Another two years went by and Joseph was still in prison. Then one day, the Pharaoh himself had a dream. He dreamed that there were seven fat cows in the field, as well as seven very skinny ones, then the skinny ones ate up the fat ones but still stayed just as skinny. Then Pharaoh woke up.
When he went back to sleep, he had another dream. This time there were seven ears of corn with good seed on them, and seven thin diseased ears of corn; the thin ones ate up the good ones, but were no better.
Pharaoh was very concerned about these two dreams, and he called for all the wise men in Egypt to come and tell him what they meant, but no-one could tell him. Then the butler suddenly remembered Joseph and told Pharaoh what had happened to him and the baker when they were in prison. So immediately, Pharaoh sent a message to have Joseph brought to him. This was a big surprise for Joseph, so in a big hurry he shaved his face and changed out of his prison clothes.
When Pharaoh told Joseph the dreams, Joseph said that he himself couldn’t give the meaning of the dreams, but God would. God told him that the dreams meant that there would be seven years of very good crops and seven years of famine or severe drought, and that Pharaoh should appoint someone to collect all the excess food and store it for the years when there would be none.
So Pharaoh made Joseph the person in charge of all the storing of the crops, and made him second in charge of the whole kingdom of Egypt. That was a very big change for Joseph, from being in prison to being a very important person. Joseph collected so much extra food that they couldn’t count it all.
He had been in prison for about 4 or 5 years.
You can read this story for yourself in Genesis chapters 39 to 41.
See if you can answer these questions:
1. How old was Joseph when he was sold as a slave?
2. Is it right to tell lies?
3. What did the butler and the baker dream?
4. How did Joseph know the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams?
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