Genesis 41:46-52: a reflection

46Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 47In the seven plenteous years the earth produced abundantly. 48He gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities. He stored food in each city from the fields around that city. 49Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he stopped counting, for it was without number. 50To Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore to him. 51Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, “For”, he said, “God has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.” 52The name of the second, he called Ephraim: “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Joseph, now thirty and second only to Pharaoh, travels the land gathering grain during the seven years of plenty, storing up so much that he stops trying to count it. Amid this work, two sons are born to him, and the names he gives them tell the story of his heart. The first he calls Manasseh, saying, God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house. The second he calls Ephraim, saying, God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.

Those two names are a quiet testimony to what God had done in Joseph's suffering. He had been betrayed, enslaved, imprisoned, far from home, and yet he does not name his sons after his bitterness. Instead he names them after God's healing: God helped me forget the pain, and God made me fruitful in the very land of my affliction. Joseph does not pretend the suffering never happened; he names Egypt the land of his affliction. But he sees God's hand redeeming it.

There is a model here for how to remember a hard season. Joseph does not deny his pain, but neither does he let it define him. He names what God did in it: brought healing where there had been hurt, and fruitfulness in the very place of affliction. Ask God to do that work in your own hard memories, to help you, in time, to look back and name not only the pain but the ways he brought healing and fruit out of it. God specializes in fruitfulness in the land of affliction.

Lord, Joseph named his sons for your healing, that you helped him forget his pain and made him fruitful in the land of his affliction. Do that work in my own hard seasons. Without denying the pain, help me to see and name your redeeming hand, bringing healing where there was hurt and fruit in the very place of my suffering. You are the God of fruitfulness in affliction. Amen.