Joseph didn’t waste his slavery. He embraced it. We see it especially when he refused a chance to wage class warfare on Potiphar.
Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
Did you catch that bold proclamation that adultery is wrong? No. It was barely there. What Joseph emphasizes is how gracious Potiphar has been to him and how much he has trusted him. He also mentions that God is watching his behavior.
Joseph was criminally kidnapped yet he treats Potiphar as his legitimate owner. Only when he appeals to a higher civil authority does he mention the injustice of his circumstances (“Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.”). In every other case he serves as a faithful servant.
And then he rules the world and saves it by his bread and cup.
Related: more about Joseph and Wisdom
Course, Joseph had a privileged upper class (or close to it) upbringing.
“And then he rules the world and saves it by his bread and cup.”
Which just lit a light bulb — the baker and cupbearer have to tie in here somehow, but I can’t quite make it work. The actual content of their stories doesn’t seem to be very parallel to the “bread and cup” and yet it can’t just be an accident that they’re a baker and a “cupbearer!”
Pharaoh was growing restless. Wanted new bread and wine. You never know when our rulers might be open to wisdom from someone who has the Spirit of God.
Hmmmmm….but by that logic he kept the old wine.
I know it has to work out somehow, though.
Well, sure, Pharaoh doesn’t make the real change until he gets his vision two years later. And we don’t know that the cupbearer ever loses his office. What we do know is that Joseph ends up in charge of all the bread in Egypt and that, in the end, he has a special cup with reputedly occult powers (44.5).