The Targum preserves one of the great theological statements in Genesis. And Joseph answered Pharoh, saying, (It is) without me; it is not man who interprets dreams: but from before the Lord shall be an answer of peace unto Pharoh (Genesis 41:16).
Pseudo-Jonathan, redacted in the Land of Israel in the early common era, preserves the sharpness of Joseph's opening word: bil'adai, without me — literally, apart from me, this is not from me. In one breath, standing before the most powerful man in the ancient world, a Hebrew slave just pulled out of a dungeon and hurriedly shaved and reclothed (Genesis 41:14), denies that he himself is the source of what is about to happen in the room.
The Sages contrast this with what other interpreters might have done. A court magician, ushered into Pharaoh's presence, would have claimed the power. A politician would have inflated the moment. Joseph does the opposite. He empties himself at the door. Apart from me. Whatever good comes next, he says, does not originate here.
Answer of peace
The Targum translates the Hebrew ya'aneh et shalom par'oh as an answer of peace unto Pharoh. The phrase is already hopeful. Pharaoh's dreams were terrifying — lean cows devouring fat cows, withered grain swallowing full grain. Joseph is already signaling, before he says a word about the content, that the interpretation will be bearable. There will be an answer, and the answer will come in peace.
Bereshit Rabbah 89 hears in this the discipline of the true interpreter. Begin by telling the anxious person that the reading, whatever it is, will arrive as peace — not because the facts are pleasant but because the one giving the reading is in alignment with the one who sent the dream. Anxiety is what happens when a dream arrives and no one can hold it. Peace is what happens when a dream arrives and is held.
Why this answer changes everything
This single sentence is, in rabbinic reading, the reason Joseph gets the job. Not because his interpretation will be technically better than the magicians' — though it will be. Because the king, surrounded all his life by courtiers who claim every word as their own invention, hears for the first time a voice that does not. The contrast is instant. The magicians spoke as if they were the source. Joseph says he is not. Pharaoh's ear, exhausted by the first kind of voice, relaxes at the second.
The takeaway reaches far beyond Egypt. The readings we offer each other carry more authority when we carry less of them. The sentence this is not from me is not false humility; it is a small window through which something larger can be seen. Joseph stood at Pharaoh's court and said it. The tradition remembers it as the real beginning of his elevation.