Verses 4-8
"And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt."
As Skinner noted: "The profoundly religious conviction which recognizes the hand of God, not merely in miraculous interventions, but in the working out of divine ends through human agency and what we call secondary causes, is characteristic of the Joseph narrative."[9]
Yes indeed! And the conviction characterizes, not merely the Joseph narrative, but the entire Bible, especially the Book of Genesis. This we have already mentioned, attributing it to the inspiration of the genuine author, Moses. Only a man of the stature and understanding of Moses could have put together this unspeakably eloquent and convincing narrative.
"There are yet five years ..." This news that the famine was to last five more years had not been available to the brothers until Joseph mentioned it.
"To save you alive by a great deliverance ..." The word for deliverance here carries the meaning that "something supernatural"[10] would occur in their deliverance.
"Hath made me a father to Pharaoh ..." This was a long honored title designating the principal minister of the kingdom. Speiser tells us that, "This title was applied to Viziers as far back as the third millennium B.C.!"[11]
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