As this story begins, Joseph is still in Egypt, still in prison. Pharaoh dreams some nightmarish dreams - 7 fat cows being consumed by 7 sick, starving ones, and then 7 fat ears of corn being consumed by 7 blasted, meager ones. Troubled, he seeks their interpretation. Pharaoh's butler remembers Joseph, who was able to interpret his dream when they were in prison together. He finds Joseph, and brings him to Pharaoh. Joseph, by means of his trust in the Lord, is able to interpret the dreams, and Pharaoh rewards him with great honors and great responsibilities.

What's going on in the internal sense of this story? Egypt represents factual knowledge - important, rational, scientific - but fairly external, or natural. It's not spiritual knowledge, but it does form a potential foundation for spiritual knowledge.

Joseph represents the "celestial of the spiritual" man. What's that? It's the readiness to receive, and the receiving, of Divine wisdom as it flows into our minds. This raises our minds above the natural, external level, to a more interior one, where we're receptive of good loves and true spiritual ideas, which can then be translated into action by our natural mind and body.

Pharaoh's awakening is a symbol of spiritual enlightenment, where the natural level gives responsibility to the spiritual, and more deeply to the celestial of the spiritual, which is 'Joseph'.

The seven years of plenty, in the dream, signify the factual knowledge that good from the celestial of the spiritual can attach to. The seven years of famine are subsequent states when no good is present within factual knowledge, except for the good that is coming from the storehouses of the Divine celestial of the spiritual.

Without Joseph, Egypt would have perished. Without divine wisdom flowing into our minds, no amount of factual knowledge that we have will see us through our famine times. This is a really key story; as human beings, we NEED to become receptive to influx from God, or we will starve. We need to get to a Joseph state of mind.

How do we do that? You can drill down into the details of this story, starting in Arcana Coelestia 5192, and read bit by bit through the details of the story.