Context No. 730 of 4322 · Genesis
Context · Reflection
Genesis 40:8-15: in context
8They said to him, “We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it.” Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Please tell it to me.” 9The chief cup bearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream, behold, a vine was in front of me, 10and in the vine were three branches. It was as though it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters produced ripe grapes. 11Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.” 12Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head, and restore you to your office. You will give Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, the way you did when you were his cup bearer. 14But remember me when it is well with you. Please show kindness to me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house. 15For indeed, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”
Joseph is in an Egyptian prison, sold there by his brothers and then jailed on a false charge, and two of Pharaoh's officials land in the same cell, each troubled by a dream no one can read. Joseph's first words set the tone. Do not interpretations belong to God? he asks. He will not play the magician; whatever he says will be God's, not his own art. The cupbearer describes a vine with three branches that bud and ripen into grapes he presses into Pharaoh's cup, and Joseph gives him the meaning straight: three branches are three days, and in three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place.
And then Joseph does the most human thing in the chapter. He asks to be remembered. Only remember me when it goes well with you, he says; show me kindness, mention me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house; I was stolen from my land, and I have done nothing to deserve this pit. It is a reasonable request to a man about to walk free. The next verse is one of the quietest heartbreaks in Genesis: the cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Two more years pass in the dungeon. The hand Joseph reached for let go, and when deliverance finally comes, it comes by another door entirely, in God's own time.
Joseph did right, read the dream truly, and asked one freed man to remember him, and was forgotten for two years. Whose help did I count on that never came, and can I trust deliverance to arrive by a door I am not watching?
Sources
- Genesis 40:23: the cupbearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him, for two full years
- Genesis 41:9-14: the cupbearer finally remembering when Pharaoh dreams, deliverance by God's timing
- Genesis 50:20: Joseph's later verdict, that what others meant for evil, God meant for good