Genesis 41:1 - Exposition

And it came to pass at the end of two full years (literally, two years of days, i.e. two complete years from the commencement of Joseph's incarceration, or more probably after the butler's liberation), that Pharaoh —on the import of the term vide Genesis 12:15 . Under what particular monarch Joseph came to Egypt is a question of much perplexity, and has been variously resolved by modern Egyptologists in favor of—

1. Osirtasen I ; the founder of the twelfth dynasty, a prosperous and successful sore-reign, whose name appears on a granite obelisk at Heliopolis.

2. Assa, or Assis, the fifth king of the fifteenth dynasty of Shepherd kings (Stuart Poole in Smith's 'Bible Dict.,' art. Egypt).

3. Apophis, a Shepherd king of the fifteenth dynasty, whom all the Greek authorities agree in mentioning as the patron of Joseph.

4. Thothmes III ; a monarch of the eighteenth dynasty.

5. Rameses III ; the king of Memphis, a ruler belonging to the twentieth dynasty. It may assist the student to arrive at a decision with respect to these contending aspirants for the throne of Pharaoh in the time of Joseph to know that Canon Cook, after an elaborate and careful as well as scholarly review of the entire question, regards it as at least "a very probable conjecture'' that the Pharaoh of Joseph was Amenemha III ; "who is represented on the lately-discovered table of Abydos as the last great king of all Egypt in the ancient empire (the last of the twelfth dynasty), and as such receiving divine honors from his descendant Rameses"— dreamed . "For the third time are dreams employed as the agencies of Joseph's history: they first foreshadow his illustrious future; they then manifest that the Spirit of God had not abandoned him even in the abject condition of a slave and a prisoner; and lastly they are made the immediate forerunners of his greatness" (Kalisch.). And, behold, he stood by the river — i.e. upon the banks of the Nile, the term יֵאֹר (an Egyptian word signifying great river or canal, in the Memphitic dialect yaro, in the Sahidic yero ) being used almost exclusively in Scripture for the Nile. This was the common name for the Nile among the Egyptians, the sacred being Hapi .