Then Pharaoh sent and fetched Joseph out of prison, and gave him his liberty.
“I dreamed,” said the king, when Joseph stood before his throne, “that seven lean cows ate seven fat cows, and that seven empty husks ate seven full ears of corn. What is the interpretation of this dream?”
“God will give thee seven fruitful years, and then seven years of famine,” answered Joseph. “Therefore must thou gather together all the superfluity in the first seven years to sustain the starving people in the seven years of dearth.”[[421]]
The king was so well pleased with this interpretation, that he made Joseph his chief treasurer in Potiphar’s room. Joseph went through all the land, and purchased corn, which, on account of the good harvests, was at a very low price.
One day as he rode out of the town to view his magazines, he observed a beggar-woman whose whole appearance was most woe-begone, but bespoke her having seen better days. Joseph approached her with compassion, and held out to her a handful of gold. She hesitated about taking it, and said, sobbing, “Great prophet of God! I am not worthy to receive this at thy hand, though it was my love for thee which was the first step on the ladder on which thou mountedst to thy present exaltation.” And Joseph saw that the poor beggar-woman was Zuleika, wife of Potiphar.
He asked about her husband, and learned that shortly after he had been deposed from office, he had died of distress of mind and body. “Thou hast thought evil of me,” she said, “but I have great excuses, thou wast so beautiful; and moreover I was young, and only a wife in name, for I am as I left my mother’s womb, a maiden, with the seal of God upon me.”
Then Joseph was filled with joy. He extended his hands to her, and he brought her to the king’s palace, and she was treated there with care, as a sister, till she recovered her bloom and joy, and then Joseph took her to be his wife.[[422]] And by her he had two sons before the seven years of dearth began, during which the Egyptians gave first their gold, then their apparel, and all their moveable goods; then their land, then their slaves, and last of all themselves, their wives and children, as bondsmen, that they might have food.
But not only did Egypt suffer, the adjoining lands were also afflicted with scarcity. There was no corn in Canaan, and Jacob sent his ten sons into Egypt to buy corn, retaining Benjamin at home. He cautioned his sons not to create mistrust by their numbers, nor cause the evil eye to light on them, and advised them to enter the city of Pharaoh by different gates, for it had ten.
But Joseph expected that his brothers would be coming to Egypt, and therefore he bade the gatekeepers every day bring him the names of those who had entered the city. One day one porter gave him the name of Reuben, son of Jacob; and so on to the tenth, Asher, son of Jacob. Joseph at once gave orders for every storehouse to be closed with the exception of one, and gave the keepers of the open magazine the names of his brothers, and said to them, “When these people arrive take them prisoners, and bring them before me.”
And when they appeared before him, he charged them with being spies: “For,” said he, “if ye were true men, ye would have come in together; but ye entered by different gates, and that shows that ye are set upon evil.”[[423]]