Genesis 40: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and chief baker offend him and are put in the prison where Joseph is held, and the captain of the guard puts them in Joseph's care. Both men dream on the same night, and Joseph, saying that interpretations belong to God, tells the cupbearer he will be restored in three days and the baker that he will be hanged in three days. He asks the cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh and get him out. Three days later, on Pharaoh's birthday, both things happen as Joseph said, but the cupbearer does not remember Joseph.

Claim by Claim

1. 40:1
   • After these events, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt offended his master, the king of Egypt.
   • The baker of the king of Egypt offended his master, the king of Egypt.
2. 40:2
   • Pharaoh was angry at two of his court officials.
   • One of the officials was the chief of the cupbearers.
   • The other official was the chief of the bakers.
3. 40:3
   • Pharaoh put the two officials in custody in the house of the captain of the guard.
   • The place of custody was the prison.
   • Joseph was imprisoned in that same place.
4. 40:4
   • The captain of the guard assigned Joseph to the two officials.
   • Joseph attended to the two officials.
   • The two officials remained in custody for a period of days.
5. 40:5
   • The cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt both dreamed a dream.
   • Each of them dreamed his own dream on the same night.
   • Each dream had its own interpretation.
   • The cupbearer and the baker were confined in the prison.
6. 40:6
   • Joseph came to the two men in the morning.
   • Joseph looked at them.
   • The two men were troubled in appearance.
7. 40:7
   • Joseph asked Pharaoh's officials a question.
   • The officials were with Joseph in custody in his master's house.
   • Joseph asked why their faces looked downcast that day.
8. 40:8
   • The two men told Joseph that they had dreamed a dream.
   • The two men said there was no one to interpret it.
   • Joseph asked them whether interpretations do not belong to God.
   • Joseph asked them to tell him their dreams.
9. 40:9
   • The chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph.
   • The chief cupbearer said that in his dream a vine was before him.
10. 40:10
    • The chief cupbearer said the vine had three branches.
    • The chief cupbearer said the vine was budding.
    • The chief cupbearer said its blossoms came up.
    • The chief cupbearer said its clusters ripened into grapes.
11. 40:11
    • The chief cupbearer said Pharaoh's cup was in his hand.
    • The chief cupbearer said he took the grapes.
    • The chief cupbearer said he squeezed the grapes into Pharaoh's cup.
    • The chief cupbearer said he placed the cup into Pharaoh's palm.
12. 40:12
    • Joseph told the chief cupbearer this was the dream's interpretation.
    • Joseph said the three branches are three days.
13. 40:13
    • Joseph said that within three days Pharaoh would lift up the cupbearer's head.
    • Joseph said Pharaoh would restore the cupbearer to his position.
    • Joseph said the cupbearer would put Pharaoh's cup into Pharaoh's hand.
    • Joseph said this would be as in the former practice when the cupbearer was Pharaoh's cupbearer.
14. 40:14
    • Joseph asked the cupbearer to remember him when it went well with the cupbearer.
    • Joseph asked the cupbearer to show him loyal kindness.
    • Joseph asked the cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh.
    • Joseph asked the cupbearer to bring him out of that house.
15. 40:15
    • Joseph said he had been stolen away from the land of the Hebrews.
    • Joseph said he had done nothing there in Egypt for which they should have put him in the pit.
16. 40:16
    • The chief baker saw that Joseph had interpreted well.
    • The chief baker told Joseph that he too had a dream.
    • The chief baker said there were three baskets of white bread on his head.
17. 40:17
    • The chief baker said the topmost basket held all kinds of food for Pharaoh, the work of a baker.
    • The chief baker said birds were eating the food out of the basket on his head.
18. 40:18
    • Joseph answered the chief baker that this was the dream's interpretation.
    • Joseph said the three baskets are three days.
19. 40:19
    • Joseph said that within three days Pharaoh would lift the baker's head off him.
    • Joseph said Pharaoh would hang the baker on a tree.
    • Joseph said birds would eat the baker's flesh off him.
20. 40:20
    • On the third day it was Pharaoh's birthday.
    • Pharaoh made a feast for all his servants.
    • Pharaoh lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer among his servants.
    • Pharaoh lifted up the head of the chief baker among his servants.
21. 40:21
    • Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his office as cupbearer.
    • The chief cupbearer put the cup into Pharaoh's palm.
22. 40:22
    • Pharaoh hanged the chief baker.
    • This happened just as Joseph had interpreted to them.
23. 40:23
    • The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph.
    • The chief cupbearer forgot Joseph.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

40:1

A cupbearer served the king his wine and tasted it first as a guard against poisoning. Because the job required absolute trust and daily access to the king in private, it was a high court post, not a servant's errand. The baker likewise headed the palace bakery. In Egyptian court records both offices ranked among the senior household officials.

40:2

"Officers" translates a Hebrew word (saris) used for royal officials generally; in some contexts it means a eunuch, but it is applied broadly to court servants of high rank. "Chief of the cupbearers" and "chief of the bakers" mean the heads of those palace departments, each with staff under him. "Pharaoh" is a title for the king of Egypt, not a personal name; the Hebrew word comes from an Egyptian phrase meaning "great house," that is, the palace.

40:3

The captain of the guard commanded the royal bodyguard and had a prison attached to his own household, so that detained officials were held under his personal supervision rather than in a public jail. This is the same official, Potiphar, whose house Joseph had served in.

40:4

Joseph is himself a prisoner and a slave, yet he is assigned as the personal attendant of two royal officials. "He served them" means he waited on them daily, which is why he is in the room early enough to notice their faces. "A season" here just means an unspecified stretch of time, not a season of the year.

40:5

People in Egypt believed dreams could carry messages about what was coming. Kings paid trained men to explain them. So two strange dreams in one night felt important, not ordinary.

40:6

"Behold" is an old word meaning "look" or "see this." The King James Version uses it to point at something surprising.

40:7

"Wherefore" means "why." So the question is simply, "Why do you look so sad today?"

40:8

In Egypt dream interpretation was a recognized professional skill. Trained specialists attached to the temples worked from written manuals that listed dream images and their standard meanings. The two men are not saying dreams are unreadable in principle; they are saying that in prison they have no access to anyone qualified to do the reading.

40:9

A vine is a long climbing plant. Grapes grow on it in bunches.

40:11

Squeezing fresh grapes straight into the cup is not how wine was actually made, which took weeks of fermentation. It is dream logic, compressing the whole process into a moment. The detail that matters to the dreamer is the last one: the cup passing from his hand into Pharaoh's, the exact gesture of his old job.

40:13

"Lift up your head" is an idiom with more than one sense. It can mean to raise someone from disgrace and restore him to favor, and it can also mean to take a count or review a list of people, as an official might call up a name. Joseph uses it here in the favorable sense, then twists the same phrase in verse 19 to mean the removal of the baker's head.

40:14

"This house" means the prison, which was part of the captain of the guard's residence (see verse 3).

40:15

"The land of the Hebrews" means Canaan, where Joseph's family lived. "Stolen away" is a strong word for kidnapping a person; Joseph does not say who did it, and avoids naming his brothers. The word translated "dungeon" is the ordinary Hebrew word for a pit or cistern, the same word used of the pit his brothers threw him into.

40:16

The Hebrew phrase behind "three white baskets" is uncertain. It may describe baskets of white bread, or baskets of wickerwork woven with openings, or baskets carried on the head in the manner shown in Egyptian tomb paintings, where servants are depicted balancing stacked bread baskets exactly this way.

40:17

"Bakemeats" in 1611 English means baked goods of any kind, food from an oven. It has nothing to do with meat. The word is a false friend now: what the baker is carrying is bread and pastries for the royal table.

40:19

"Hang you on a tree" refers to fixing the body on a pole or stake after execution, leaving it exposed rather than buried. It was a public display of disgrace, not a method of killing. Birds stripping the corpse made the shame worse, and in Egypt, where preserving the body was central to burial practice, the loss of the body was a particularly severe penalty.

40:20

Ancient kings commonly marked such occasions with amnesties and promotions, so a feast for the whole court was a natural setting for deciding the fate of detained officials. The narrator repeats the phrase "lifted up the head" for both men, holding together the two opposite meanings Joseph had given it in verses 13 and 19.

40:21

"Butlership" simply means his old job as the king's cupbearer.

40:23

The Hebrew says it twice, positively and negatively: the cupbearer did not remember Joseph, and he forgot him. The doubling is the point. This is not a lapse but a complete blank, and it is what leaves Joseph in prison for two more years, as the opening of the next chapter reports.