Genesis 45:6
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
The famine that prompted these words had spread from Egypt into Canaan and pressed severely upon the place where Jacob lived, while Egypt still had grain that people could come to buy. Two years of that famine had already passed, and five years still remained in which there would be neither plowing, or planting, nor harvest. His presence and service in Egypt preserved life there through that dearth, already two years underway with five years yet to run without planting or harvest.
The words were spoken immediately after he had proved his brothers and seen in them true repentance for envying, threatening, and selling him. They stood before him troubled, condemned, and astonished, remembering their ill treatment of him and his despised dreams now fulfilled by their repeated obeisance. On that occasion of making himself known as their brother whom they sold into Egypt, his brothers humbly confessed their wrongs and entreated forgiveness, rejoiced greatly to find him alive, and after long remorse and distress of mind were relieved to know they were not guilty of his blood.
He sought to make the meeting easy for them without censure because they had suffered enough, comforting them and charging them not to be grieved nor angry with themselves for selling him. He explained that it was not they but God who had sent him before them to preserve life, to preserve them a posterity in the earth and to save their lives by a great deliverance. God had so exalted him as a father to Pharaoh and lord and ruler over all Egypt, and his presence and service there preserved life in Egypt.
Though his brothers sold him intending to prevent his rise, God overruled their act to make Joseph a savior to his father's family in the famine, and this providential good did not lessen their guilt. Because the famine would continue he charged them to hasten to his father, tell of his glory in Egypt, and bring him down to dwell in Goshen near him with children, flocks, herds, households and all he had. There Joseph would nourish them and provide for them lest they and their households come to poverty and death.
His becoming a savior to his family through being sold and rejected illustrates Christ, whose enemies sought to prevent His authority and by rejection and crucifixion killed Him. Yet through His death He became the Redeemer of the world, the Saviour of the fallen race, and ruler over the whole world. Their crime remains just as heinous as if God's hand had not overruled the evil for His own glory and the good of man.