Episode Details

Remember Who Remembered You

Genesis 41; Remsen Bible Fellowship; 06/07/2026

‏Intro:

God will remember you. But friends, will you remember God? That’s a crucial question in the Bible broadly, in our text specifically, and in your life today.

We’ve come to a crucial juncture in the Joseph story. We’ve wondered for weeks now if God will remember Joseph, if Joseph will see any reward for his faithfulness, if the injustices in his life will ever stop piling up. Genesis 41 starts to answer those questions, and therefore marks a major shift in the story.

Verses 1-13

1 After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, 2 and behold, there came up out of the Nile seven cows, attractive and plump, and they fed in the reed grass. 3 And behold, seven other cows, ugly and thin, came up out of the Nile after them, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. 4 And the ugly, thin cows ate up the seven attractive, plump cows. And Pharaoh awoke. 5 And he fell asleep and dreamed a second time. And behold, seven ears of grain, plump and good, were growing on one stalk. 6 And behold, after them sprouted seven ears, thin and blighted by the east wind. 7 And the thin ears swallowed up the seven plump, full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream. 8 So in the morning his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none who could interpret them to Pharaoh.

9 Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “I remember my offenses today. 10 When Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me and the chief baker in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, 11 we dreamed on the same night, he and I, each having a dream with its own interpretation. 12 A young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. When we told him, he interpreted our dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each man according to his dream. 13 And as he interpreted to us, so it came about. I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged.”

Here we see that God does remember Joseph. Though Joseph is not named in these first thirteen verses, his identity — the young dream-interpreting Hebrew — is remembered (finally!) by the chief cupbearer.

And the circumstances of his remembering are striking — now, for the third time in the Joseph story, we encounter a pair of dreams. But this time the recipient of the dreams is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And his dreams are pretty disturbing, especially the first one. He dreams that he is standing by the Nile. And in his first dream, seven fat cattle are feeding in the rich reed grass along the Nile river. Then seven more cows — so anemic that Pharaoh says in v19 that he’s never seen the like in Egypt — come out and swallow the healthy cows. This causes him to wake up — but then he falls asleep and dreams again. This time he saw a single stalk of grain with seven plump and healthy heads of grain — seven heads on a single stalk might strike our ears as strange, given that most grains produce a single head. And it may have been strange to Pharaoh as well, though there is a type of Poulard Wheat that produces as many as seven heads and was known in the Ancient Mediterranean region. In any case, this is an obviously healthy stalk of wheat—until seven heads, shriveled and dried up by the east wind, came and consumed those healthy heads. And then he woke up.

Not exactly what he was hoping for out of that night of sleep.

And here we find the beginnings of some parallel with a later Old Testament story, the story of Daniel. In Daniel chapter two a later king, king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, also had a terrifying dream. And here in Genesis 41:8 Pharaoh calls for his magicians and wise men, as later Nebuchadnezzar would call for his magicians