In Scripture there are dreams. Hidden within the dreams of scripture are immediate prophecy, but much in scripture is hidden prophecy. In other words, the reader cannot see the far-future for the near-present! For Egypt, the Pharaoh’s dream was seven years of plenty followed be seven years of famine. That dream came true when Joseph, called Zaphnathpaaneah, was thirty years old.
The first thing that struck me is, Why the importance of Joseph’s age, and secondly, Why a new name? The name may mean, “He speaks; God lives”. His age matters because he was the age of Jesus, and perhaps the age of maturity of Adam, the former during His ministry, and the latter because of his creation as a man. A second thought for the name is “Revealer of Secrets”. Perhaps both names apply!
“The Word” in scripture is pre-incarnate Jesus. The Word became flesh; to wit: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Joseph’s new name revealed a theretofore secret; that the Word speaks, and God lives in the flesh. The Pharaoh saw Joseph as God in the Flesh who even had dominion over the weather and crops.
John beheld Jesus as the Word; he “beheld His Glory”!
In like manner, “And Pharaoh said unto his servants, ‘Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?’” (Gen 41:39) In other words, can we find a man with the Glory of God in him? He answered the question himself: “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, ‘Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art’” (Gen 41:40). Pharoah, the good one, found Glory in Joseph. Of course, that means that Joseph is an antitype of Jesus. It was him who saved the pagan Egyptians from perishing, and it was Jesus who saved pagan mankind from the same destruction!
Now this is my opinion based on scripture: That the seven prosperous years were the days of creation, and that the seven years of famine is the seven thousand years of existence. In the former, God planted the Garden — a “Garden” seeded with human seed: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen 2:8).
My guess is that you never thought of it that way… that God’s “garden was not only trees and vines that he seeded there, but the seeds of animals and adam (man). Of all the kinds (species), man had dominion over them all. He was the prime crop with which God took special care, Him personally breathing life unto him — Virtue and Spirit — that none of the others had.
The seven days of creation were the “seven good years” before the crop failed. But that is all the crop that was good. Tares grew among the crop, and those were the seed of the Wicked One fathered by Cain. Cain was born and subsequently “crop failure” occurred when Adam sinned. The time clock was then reset from “days” to “years” since God’s time is not our time. Jesus later said, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 4:7).
There it is: Jesus is the “Revealer of Secrets” that Pharaoh named Joseph, “Zaphnathpaaneah”. Who cares what Pharaoh named Joseph unless it was significant? Pharaoh saw Joseph as a type of Jesus who would save them from drought in the hellish place of Egypt. Not only that prophecy but the long-range purpose for Joseph; to save the seed that would grow Jesus. By that, I mean the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who planted a new smaller “garden” that would grow immensely.
The new “Garden” would grow to spread over all the Earth. The seven thousand years after the creation would be the “seven years” of famine. During those seven years, God would preserve mankind just as Zaphnathpaaneah did Pharaoh’s kind and with Jacob’s kind.
God would not be a respecter of persons [i] when it came to preserving the entire crop planted from Adam! All the Egyptians would be “Jews” inside, as Paul later explained: “He is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart” (Rom 2:29).
What made this Pharaoh a “Jew”? He blessed Joseph with distinction as the representative of God, and even made Joseph his son by law. Joseph found grace, both from God and from Pharaoh, and then Pharaoh became a “spiritual Jew”.
What about the end of the seven years of famine? “And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands” (Gen 41:57). “All the countries came to Joseph” to preserve themselves.
The seven “years” of the curse will end. What is the curse of mankind (adam-kind)?
And unto Adam he said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen 3:17-19)
The curse would last “seven years”, or seven millennia, and then it would end. The curse was a seven- thousand-year famine, commencing with the original sin of Adam. With that said, this year, 2021, is anno mundi (year of the world) 5782, and near the sixth day when the “famine” ends on the seventh. Based on original sin, before Adam began to perish, then the “famine” will end in about 218 years or so, or it could be eminent since there are two ways of calculating biblical time.
What happened at the end of the famine? The wholesale perishing ceased and there became a new day and year.
What happens when the famine ceases in the “seventh year”; AM 6000-7000, or the seventh “day”? Jesus comes to reign a thousand years! Did the good Pharaoh see times of good harvest in the end of those 14 years, or was he looking from the beginning to the ending; when Jesus reigns for the last day?
After the seven years of famine, a “day eight” began with Moses. The “eighth day” in spiritual terms is eternity. After Jesus reigns, eternity begins with a new heaven and a new earth. John saw that; perhaps Pharaoh did as well:
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: (Rev 22:1-3)
In the end, the curse of the famine in the countries of Egypt and all over the world ended. The “countries”, or nations, were healed, and the land again became plentiful and the crop prosperous. Joseph was a Jesus type; in typology, to Pharaoh, he was the Tree of Life. “He speaks; God lives” (Zaphnathpaaneah). Joseph was the living representative of God; He spoke and God lived in the hearts of men. The good Pharaoh got it right.
Jesus died. God spoke and Jesus lived. Egypt was resurrected from the famine, the world from sin, and Jesus from the dead.
Now you know the rest of the story of Zaphnathpaaneah.
(picture credit: Michigan Drought Mitigation Center; "The Dust Bowl")
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