The wisdom of Joseph and his ability to understand God’s presence in his life and take advantage of that is outstanding. Pharaoh has a dream and the cupbearer finally remembers Joseph. As a result he is called in to see Pharaoh and he interprets the dream in such a way that Pharaoh makes him second in command, even to the point where people are bowing down to him and calling him king. Joseph has completely assimilated. He marries an Egyptian and has kids. We see that Joseph just wants to simply forget that Hebrew chapter in his life. It was time to move on. So he does move on, and his plan plays itself out perfectly. The years of plenty come and Egypt stores up more grain than they can count. The famine comes and it doesn’t just affect Egypt, but it spread across the world.
Let’s be clear what this means. We do not have a concept of a what a world famine could look like. But in this situation every known human was affected by the famine, and we read that the entire world came to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was spread throughout the world. This should be a harbinger of what is to come. If everyone is without food, that means that Jacob’s family is also without food. That means that eventually the brothers will need to make their way to Egypt and there just might be a reunion between Joseph and his brothers. Now, keep in mind that the brothers have no idea where Joseph ended up. They never would have imagined that his teenage dreams actually came true.