Genesis 41:46-57

The notation of the birth of Joseph’s sons is, of course, very significant in view of God’s purposes concerning Abraham’s family (Genesis 41:50-52). Joseph acknowledged God’s goodness to him in naming both his sons. An allusion to the blessing aspect of the patriarchal promises occurs in Genesis 41:49.

"If the name of Joseph’s first son (Manasseh) focuses on a God who preserves, the name of Joseph’s second son (Ephraim) focuses on a God who blesses." [Note: Hamilton, The Book . . . Chapters 18-50, p. 512.]

Some readers of Genesis have wondered why Joseph did not inform Jacob of his welfare quickly since he must have realized that Jacob would have worried about his disappearance. In naming Manasseh, Joseph said God had enabled him to forget all (his troubles in) his father’s household (Genesis 41:51). Perhaps Joseph did not try to contact Jacob because he thought his father had set him up for what happened to him at Dothan. [Note: Marc Shapiro, "The Silence of Joseph," Journal of Reform Judaism 36:1 (Winter 1989):15-17.] This seems very unlikely to me since Jacob’s sorrow over Joseph’s apparent death seems genuine. Perhaps Joseph did not try to contact Jacob because, through the remarkable events by which God exalted him, he came to realize that God would fulfill the rest of His promises contained in his dreams. [Note: Delitzsch, 2:306; Waltke, Genesis, p. 535.] He may have concluded that his best course of action would be to continue to let God take the initiative as He had done so consistently in his life to that time. Joseph had evidently come to trust God in place of his father. In this sense he had forgotten his father’s household.

"’Forget’ does not mean here ’not remember’ but rather to have something no longer (cf. Job 39:17; Job 11:16. See, too, the Arabic proverb, ’Whoever drinks water from the Nile forgets his fatherland if he is a foreigner’). The phrase refers, therefore, more to an objective external fact than to a subjective, psychological process." [Note: von Rad, p. 379.]

One might say that for Joseph life in Canaan was a closed chapter of his life. [Note: Cf. Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 766.]

"Just as Adam is seen in the Creation account as dependent on God for his knowledge of ’good and evil,’ so Joseph also is portrayed here in the same terms . . . Just as Adam is made God’s ’vicegerent’ to rule over all the land, so similarly Joseph is portrayed here as the Pharaoh’s ’vicegerent’ over all his land (Genesis 41:40-43). As Adam was made in God’s image to rule over all the land, so the king here gave Joseph his ’signet ring’ and dressed him in royal garments (Genesis 41:42). The picture of Joseph resembles the psalmist’s understanding of Genesis 1 when, regarding that passage, he writes, ’[You have] crowned him with glory and honor./ You made him ruler over the works of your hands;/ you put everything under his feet’ (Psalms 8:5-7). Just as God provided a wife for Adam in the garden and gave man all the land for his enjoyment, so the king gave a wife to Joseph and put him over all the land (Genesis 41:45). . . .

"The picture of Joseph, then, looks back to Adam; but more, it looks forward to one who was yet to come. It anticipates the coming of the one from the house of Judah to whom the kingdom belongs (cf. Genesis 49:10). Thus in the final shape of the narrative, the tension between the house of Joseph and the house of Judah, which lies within many of these texts, is resolved by making the life of Joseph into a picture of the one who is to reign from the house of Judah." [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. 242. See also idem, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 215.]

God controls the fortunes of nations to protect and provide for His covenant people.