The king made Joseph the governor of all of Egypt, to handle the problem of the famine

37 The king and his officials thought that this would be a good plan. 38 So the king said to them, “◄Can we find any other man like Joseph, a man to whom God has given his Spirit?/It is not likely that we will find another man like this man, one to whom God has given his Spirit!►” [RHQ]

39 Then the king said to Joseph, “Because God has revealed all this to you, it seems to me that there is no one who is as wise as you and who can decide wisely about things. 40 So I will put you in charge of everything in my palace. All the people here in Egypt must obey what you command. Only because I am king [MTY] will I have more authority than you.”

41 Then the king said to Joseph, “I am now putting you in charge of the whole country of Egypt.” 42 The king took from his finger the ring that had his seal on it, and he put it on Joseph’s finger. He put robes made of fine linen on him, and he put a gold chain around his neck. 43 Then he arranged for Joseph to ride around in the chariot that showed that he was the second-most important man in the country. When Joseph rode in the chariot, men shouted to the people who were on the road in front of him, “Get off the road!” So the king put Joseph in charge of everything in the country.

44 The king said to Joseph, “I am the king, but no one in the whole land of Egypt will do anything [IDM] if you do not permit them to do it.” 45 The king gave Joseph a new name, Zaphenath-Paneah. He also gave him Asenath to be his wife. She was the daughter of Potiphera, who was a priest in a temple in On city. Then Joseph became known (OR, traveled) through all the land of Egypt.

46 Joseph was 30 years old when he started to work for the king of Egypt. To do his work, he left the king’s palace and traveled throughout Egypt. 47 During the next seven years, the land produced abundant crops, so there was plenty of food. 48 As Joseph supervised them, his helpers collected one-fifth of all the grain that was produced during those years, and stored it in the cities. In each city, he had his helpers store up the grain that was grown in the fields that surrounded that city. 49 Joseph had them store up a huge amount of grain. It looked as plentiful as the sand on the seashore. There was so much grain that after a while they stopped keeping records of how much grain was stored, because there was more grain than they could measure.

50 Before the seven years of famine started, Joseph’s wife Asenath gave birth to two sons. 51 Joseph named the first one Manasseh, which sounds like the Hebrew word that means ‘forget’, because, he said, “God has caused me to forget all my troubles and all my father’s family.” 52 He named his second son Ephraim, which means ‘to have children’, because, he said, “God has given me children here in this land where I have suffered.”

53 Finally the seven years in which there was plenty of food ended. 54 Then the seven years of famine started, just as Joseph had predicted. There was also a famine in all the other nearby lands, but although the crops did not grow, there was food everywhere in Egypt, because of the grain they had stored up in the cities. 55 When all the people of [MTY] Egypt had eaten all of their own food and were still hungry, they begged the king for food. So the king told all the people of Egypt, “Go to Joseph, and do what he tells you to do.”

56 When the famine was very bad throughout the whole country, Joseph ordered his helpers to open the storehouses. Then they sold the grain in the storehouses to the people of Egypt, because the famine was very severe all over Egypt. 57 And people from many [HYP] nearby countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was very severe everywhere [HYP].