Dreams Interpreted and a Man Forgotten

“Butler” is mashqeh, the one who gives drink: the cupbearer, who tasted and served the king’s wine and so stood close to his ear every day. “Offended” is chata, to sin, the word Joseph used in refusing Potiphar’s wife (39:9). Here the sin is against a king, and the offence is never named.

“Officers” is sarisim, the court title already given to Potiphar (39:1). The Egyptian court had whole departments of cupbearers and bakers, and these two are the heads of them. “Wroth” is qatsaf, a word often used of a king’s fury.

“The house of the captain of the guard” is Potiphar’s house, by the title given him in 39:1. The prison was part of the estate, or under his authority, which leaves Joseph a prisoner under the man who put him there.

The captain of the guard himself puts Joseph in charge of these two, which suggests some trust survived the accusation, though Genesis draws no conclusion. “Served them” is sheret, the personal service Joseph gave Potiphar in 39:4. “A season” is literally “days”, an unmeasured stretch.

“According to the interpretation of his dream” means each dream fitted its own meaning. The noun for interpretation, pitron, and its verb occur in the Old Testament only in these Joseph chapters. Both men are described again as “bound in the prison”, the highest servants of the court in chains.

“Sad” is zo’afim, a word for a sullen, troubled look; it is used of Ahab going home “heavy and displeased” (1 Kings 20:43). Joseph sees it “in the morning”, the first thing in his rounds.

The Hebrew question is “Why are your faces evil today?” Centuries later a Persian king asks his cupbearer Nehemiah almost the same thing: “Why is thy countenance sad?” (Nehemiah 2:2). The verse spells out the men’s rank and the place, “the ward of his lord’s house”, to set a slave questioning two ministers of state.

Egypt had professional dream interpreters and written dream books; one surviving papyrus, the Chester Beatty dream book, lists dreams with their good or bad meanings. In prison the two men had no access to such experts. Joseph offers no technique, only a question and a request.

Egypt grew grapes and made wine, as the vineyard scenes in its tomb paintings show, so the vine is an ordinary part of a cupbearer’s world. “Before me” places the whole dream in front of him, within reach.

Budding, blossoming and ripening in one breath recall Aaron’s rod, which “brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds” (Numbers 17:8). The KJV’s “her blossoms” keeps the Hebrew gender: the vine, gefen, is feminine.

The butler’s dream is full of his own actions: I took, I pressed, I gave. Pharaoh’s name comes three times in one sentence, and the word “hand” twice. Grapes squeezed straight into the cup skip the long work of fermenting; the dream goes straight to service.

Joseph answers at once, without asking for time, ritual or a second telling. He fixes the three branches as three days. In chapter 41 the same kind of number will mean years, so the unit comes from the interpretation, not from the image.

“Lift up thine head” can mean to take a count, to review, or to restore. It is used when Evil-merodach of Babylon “did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison” (2 Kings 25:27). The interpretation ends with the cup in the king’s hand, the exact picture the butler saw.

“Shew kindness” is chesed, the word used in 39:21 when the LORD showed Joseph mercy. Now Joseph asks it of a man. “Think on me” is zakar, remember, the word on which the chapter ends. It is the first time Joseph has asked anyone for anything.

“Stolen away” doubles the verb, gunnov gunnavti, “stolen, stolen was I”. Joseph says nothing of his brothers, only that he was stolen. “The land of the Hebrews” is a bold phrase for a country where his family owned a burial cave and a field.

“White baskets” may be baskets of white bread, or wicker baskets with holes, since chori can mean either; the readings are contested. Herodotus noted that Egyptian men carried loads on their heads, a detail that fits the scene.

“Bakemeats” is the KJV’s word for baked goods; Egyptian records list dozens of kinds of bread and cake. The butler did everything in his dream; the baker does nothing in his. The birds eat and he does not drive them off.

The third day is a recurring interval in Genesis: Abraham sees Moriah on the third day (22:4), and Joseph will hold his own brothers in ward three days before speaking again (42:17–18). Here it is a deadline for both men at once.

“Hang thee on a tree” may mean impaling, or exposing the body after execution, which Deuteronomy 21:22–23 forbids beyond nightfall. For Egyptians, who went to great lengths to preserve the body for burial, birds eating the corpse was a second death.

This is the only birthday celebrated in the Old Testament. The only other in the Bible is Herod’s, which also ends with an execution (Mark 6:21–28). “Among his servants” means in front of the whole court, a public review of both cases.

The chief butler is back beside the king at every meal, the one post in the palace from which a word could be spoken to Pharaoh daily. The gesture of the dream is restored exactly: the cup goes into Pharaoh’s hand.

Genesis gives the baker’s end one clause and never names either man. A Jewish tradition supplied their offences, a fly in the king’s cup and a pebble in his bread, which is invention; the text does not say.

“Did not remember” and “forgat” say the same thing twice, the negative and the positive. The next chapter begins “at the end of two full years”. Since Joseph is thirty when he stands before Pharaoh (41:46), he spends about his twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth years forgotten.