Read with Me
Genesis 40:16-23 (HCSB)
When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was positive, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream. Three baskets of white bread were on my head. In the top basket were all sorts of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
“This is its interpretation,” Joseph replied. “The three baskets are three days. In just three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from off you—and hang you on a tree. Then the birds will eat the flesh from your body.”
On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he gave a feast for all his servants. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his position as cupbearer, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. But Pharaoh hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had explained to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
Listen with Me
It was only natural that, hearing the very positive interpretation of the chief cupbearer’s dream, that the chief Baker would want to hear the interpretation of his own dream. This was especially true since both dreams had some of the same elements, such as the number 3, and the distinctive marks of each man’s own trade.
But there was a key difference. Whereas in the cupbearer’s dream he was placing the full cup of wine in the hand of Pharaoh, in the baker’s dream, the bread he had baked never got to the Pharaoh, because it was all eaten up by the birds along the way.
Joseph took no joy in delivering this interpretation. He used the same phrase in both interpretations, indicating that each man’s head would be “lifted up” in three days. But for the Baker, he added the phrase “from off you” indicating not a restoration to prominence, but decapitation! Then he was doomed to be impaled, and his body would be consumed by birds.
Joseph’s interpretation was proven to be accurate in every detail in the three days specified in the dreams. Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his position, but he beheaded the chief baker and impaled him.
One would think that such a precise fulfillment would cause the cup bearer to immediately tell Pharaoh about the remarkable young man in the prison who had given this precise interpretation, and who claimed to have been imprisoned on false charges. But he didn’t. Moses simply notes that “he forgot him”.
This was not the cup bearer’s fault. God still had preparations to make before the time came for Joseph to be released and elevated. Those preparations would take two additional years (Genesis 41:1). At that time, God would cause events that would result in the cup bearer remembering Joseph. But in the meantime, God was keeping him in Egypt, safely ensconced in the jail.
Pray with Me
Father, I’m afraid that in this “microwave generation”, with the ability to fly hundreds of miles an hour in our planes, and the ability to get any bit of information we want in a single second on our phones, we’ve lost much of our ability to wait patiently while You move people and events to the point that it is our time to participate. We want everything now (sooner, if possible). But You still work in the same way, patiently, deliberately, and, to our perceptions, slowly, to bring Your whole plan into effect. Help me, Lord, to be patient while You work, always ready and immediately responsive to every direction You give me. Amen.