Joseph Is Made Governor of Egypt
(Genesis 41:37-56) Review
Activities for this Lesson
The king and his officials liked the plan Joseph gave them for
storing the grain during the good years. So the king said to them,
“No one could possibly handle this better than Joseph, since the
Spirit of God is with him.”
The king told Joseph, “God is the one who has shown you these
things. No one else is as wise as you are or knows as much as you
do. I’m putting you in charge of my palace, and everybody will have
to obey you. No one will be over you except me. You are now governor
of all Egypt!”
Then the king took off his royal ring and put it on Joseph’s finger.
He gave him fine clothes to wear and placed a gold chain around his
neck. He also let him ride in the chariot, next to his own, and
people shouted, “Make way for Joseph!” So Joseph was governor of
Egypt.
The king told Joseph, “Although I’m king, no one in Egypt is to do
anything without your permission.” Joseph was thirty when the king
made him governor, and he went everywhere for the king. For seven
years there were big harvests of grain. Joseph collected and stored
up the extra grain in the cities of Egypt near the fields where it
was harvested. In fact, there was so much grain that they stopped
keeping record, because it was like counting the grains of sand
along the beach.
Egypt’s seven years of plenty came to an end, and the seven years of
famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was not enough food in
other countries, but all over Egypt there was plenty. When the
famine finally struck Egypt, the people asked the king for food, but
he said, “Go to Joseph and do what he tells you to do.
”The famine became bad everywhere in Egypt, so Joseph opened the
storehouses and sold the grain to the Egyptians. People from all
over the world came to Egypt, because the famine was severe in their
countries.
Answer the following questions about the story of Joseph and his
brothers.
1. Why did the king choose Joseph to be governor over all Egypt?
2. What did the king give Joseph when he made him governor?
3. How many people in Egypt were more important than Joseph after
that?
4. How many years did the big harvests of grain last?
Credits
Text by Jerri Fusch, used here with the kind permission of the author. Users
are free to reproduce for use, but not for publication.