Genesis 40

Now, in chapter 37 we started a comparison between Joseph and the Lord Jesus. Now that we’re further along in the story, let’s pause to make some more comparisons:

Joseph was sent to his brethren.

The Lord Jesus Christ was sent to His brethren, the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Joseph was hated by his brethren without a cause, and this is what the Lord Jesus says about Himself, “They hated me without a cause.”

Joseph was sold by his own brothers, and the Lord Jesus was sold by one of His own brethren, Judas Iscariot.

Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver. The Lord Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver.

The brothers plotted to kill Joseph. The brethren plotted to kill the Lord Jesus. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him says John 1:11.

Joseph was put into the pit which was meant to be a place of death for him. The Lord Jesus was crucified.

Joseph was raised up out of that pit. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day.

Joseph obeyed his father. The Lord Jesus obeyed His Father so that He could say that He always did the things which pleased His Father we’re told in John 8:29.

Joseph’s father had sent him to seek his brethren. We’re told that the Lord Jesus Christ came to do the will of His Father when he came to seek His brethren, the lost sheep of Israel.

Joseph was mocked by his brethren. When they saw him coming, they said, “Look, this dreamer is coming!” The Lord Jesus was mocked by His brethren. When He was on the Cross, they said, “If He be the Christ, let Him come down now from the cross.”

The brothers refused to receive Joseph, and the brethren of the Lord Jesus, the Jews, refused to receive Him.

They took counsel to kill Joseph, and we’re told they took counsel to plot the death of the Lord Jesus.

Joseph’s coat dripping with blood was returned to his father. They took the coat of the Lord Jesus and gambled for it.

After Joseph was sold into Egypt, he was lost sight of for many years. Christ ascended up into heaven. He told His disciples that they should see Him no more until His return.

Joseph was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and he resisted. The Lord Jesus was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and He won the victory.

Joseph became the saviour of the world during this period, in the physical sense. He saved them from starvation. The Lord Jesus Christ in every sense is the Savior of the whole world.

Joseph was hated by his brothers, and they delivered him to the Gentiles. He couldn’t defend himself, and he was unjustly accused. The Lord Jesus was also delivered by His own to the religious rulers who in turn delivered Him to the Gentiles. He was innocent.

Governor Pilate didn’t believe the accusation which was brought against the Lord Jesus. He found Him innocent, yet he scourged Him. And Joseph had to suffer although Potiphar probably knew that he was innocent. Potiphar had to keep up a front before Pharaoh as Pilate had to keep up a front before Caesar.

Joseph found favour in the sight of the jailer. And in the case of Jesus, the Roman centurion said of Him, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”

Joseph was numbered with the transgressors. He was a blessing to the butler, and he was judgment for the baker. The Lord Jesus was crucified between two thieves. One was judged and the other was blessed.

In the chapter before us we’ll begin to see why it was the will of God that Joseph be in prison at this time.

 

We begin Genesis chapter 40:1-3,

It came to pass after these things that the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. 

And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. 

So, he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. 

 

That was no accident but what does this reveal to us?

Well, it certainly reveals just how much power and how much of a dictator he pharaohs of Egypt were.

They could just throw whoever they wanted into prison whenever they fancied.

 

We’re not told what the baker did. Maybe he simply over cooked the scones. But on some unknown whim, Pharaoh put him into prison.

What did the butler do? Maybe he spilled a glass of Pharaoh’s wine on the carpet.

It’s more probable that there was a plot to murder the Pharaoh (perhaps by poisoning), and these two were suspects.

We don’t know why both the baker and the butler of Pharaoh were in the prison, but the important thing is that they are put where Joseph was. They were really there because God wanted them to meet Joseph. The LORD was within this whole round of events.

 

Joseph occupies a good position, even here in the prison. Everywhere he went, his ability was recognised. Proverbs 18:16 says, A man’s gift makes room for him, And brings him before great men.

This was certainly true of Joseph and God’s moving in his life with a very definite purpose.

How vital it is for you and me to see past our circumstances and understand that God has us exactly where we’re supposed to be no matter what we think.

 

Verse 4,

And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them; so, they were in custody for a while. 

 

Joseph’s still a prisoner yet he’s put in charge of these two important men. So, we point out again that even here he prospered in his circumstances. The end of Genesis 39 shows the authority and responsibility Joseph had in the operations of the prison, even though he was still a prisoner.

Now let’s have a look at something very interesting here.

This verse says, “The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them”.

This favourable treatment of Joseph by the captain of the guard shows that Potiphar did not really believe the accusations his wife made against Joseph. How do we know that? Well, we know this because Potiphar himself was the captain of the guard were told in Genesis 39:1.

Notice also that although Joseph had a position of high authority in the prison, he didn’t use it to make others serve him. He used his high position to serve others.

 

Joseph’s acquaintance with these two is another crucial step in God’s plan but in the middle of it happening it would have been impossible for anyone to know this.

 

Now to verses 5 and 6,

Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream, both of them, each man’s dream in one night and each man’s dream with its own interpretation. 

And Joseph came in to them in the morning and looked at them, and saw that they were sad. 

 

Joseph obviously had an optimistic outlook. He always comes across as bright and sharp, and he finds these two chaps, who have very high positions with Pharaoh, sitting gloomily and dejectedly with very dark looks on their faces.

This shows us the heart of Joseph.

It shows us that despite all the horror of his circumstances he was not consumed with anger and bitterness. If he was he’d hardly have been concerned for the personal problems of others.

You’s think it would’ve been more likely for Joseph to think that because of all the wrong done against him, everything should center on his own feelings and hurts. Instead, he cared that the butler and the baker looked so sad.

Once again, Joseph shows us Jesus. An innocent Man came into our prison, the prison of humanity, and lived our hardships and temptations, suffering worse than any man, yet He never looks for our pity. He asks us, Why do you look so press in against us.

 

Verses 7 and 8 now,

So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in the custody of his lord’s house, saying, “Why do you look so sad today?” 

And they said to him, “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.” So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” 

 

Here again Joseph’s quick to communicate the reality of God and give Him glory.

Later on, we’ll find another young Hebrew in a foreign court who’ll do the same thing. Daniel also gave God the glory.

We Christians need to do this today. Anything you or I do for the Lord should be done to the praise of God. Make sure that God gets the glory for it.

Maybe one of the reasons many of us are not blessed as much as the Lord would like to bless us is because when we do receive something wonderful, we take it for granted and we don’t give God the glory for it. We need to give God the glory. Joseph doesn’t hesitate to give God the glory! He says, “Do not interpretations belong to God?”

 

Joseph saw these men were disturbed by their dreams, and he approached them from a genuine desire to help their troubled minds.

He did have some experience with dreams after all. His two dreams about his future greatness antagonised his family and alienated him from them as we saw in chapter 37:5-11, and he was mocked as the dreamer in verses 19-20 of chapter 37.

Joseph was confident that God knew what the dreams were about. He never tries to make out that he himself is the interpreter of dreams.

 

Genesis 40:9-13,

Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “Behold, in my dream a vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches; it was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. 

Then Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” 

And Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days. 

Now within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner, when you were his butler. 

 

Throughout the Bible we find many accounts of God leading people with dreams and not just His chosen people.

In light of this we may ask: Does God still speak through dreams today?

Well before the human race had the canon of Scripture, The Bible, God spoke in many ways. How else could he make himself and His purpose known to man?

Sometimes He spoke through an angel and sometimes through dreams just as he spoke to Joseph and Pharoah’s officers here.

Sometimes He spoke audibly to an individual. On the top of Mount Sinai God spoke audibly to Moses. Moses couldn’t see anyone because God is a spirit, as you know. In fact, Moses asked to see him! Now before anyone says that Moses saw God, he didn’t. What he saw was the glory of God. God manifested His glory. That glory, known as the Shekinah Glory, was visible in the tabernacle. Those were the only people that ever have had a visible presence of God.

God did speak in dreams in that day, and He used symbols that were meaningful to the ones He gave the dream to. A butler would understand about serving wine because that’s what he did for Pharaoh. Later on, we’ll find King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of an image and he was certainly acquainted with images and idols so that would be something he could understand very well.

 

The church today doesn’t have a visible presence of God. God revealed himself to humanity through his Son, Jesus Christ, who is “…the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person…” as we see in Hebrews 1:3.

Jesus IS the Word, and the Word was made flesh.

“The Word”, The Logos, that verse 1 of the Gospel of John is referring to IS Jesus. Jesus is the total Message, everything that God wants to communicate to man. The first chapter of John gives us a glimpse inside the Father/Son relationship before Jesus came to earth in human form. He pre-existed with the Father (verse 1), and through Him was the creation of everything (verse 3), and “In Him was life…” (verse 4). The Word (Jesus) is the full embodiment of all that is God we see in Colossians 1:19; 2:9 and John 14:9.

 

God the Father is Spirit. He’s invisible to the human eye. The message of love and redemption that God spoke through the prophets had gone unheeded for centuries, so we see in Ezekiel 22:26 and Matthew 23:37.

See, people found it easy to disregard the message of an invisible God and just continued in their sin and rebellion. So, the Message itself, The Word, became flesh, took on human form, and came to dwell among us so we see in Matthew 1:23; Romans 8:3 and Philippians 2:5–11. How did this happen? What were the mechanics? We don’t know and we can’t possibly know. How God did this is so far and away above our understanding, but God knows, and we simply trust Him.

 

When Jesus came in human form He laid aside His glory.

As a side bar to this, people sometimes talk about how the Lord Jesus emptied Himself when He took on humanity, but it wasn’t His deity that he emptied Himself of. He was always and ever God. It was His glory that he set aside. The glory wasn’t visible in him while He was on earth.

 

Today we have the complete word of God, which the Old Testament patriarchs did NOT have. Before the written Word, God spoke to man in various ways. One of them was to speak audibly as He did to Moses and another way was through dreams. Today God is speaking only through His Word, The Bible.

Even if God did choose to speak to one of us through a dream or through some other method it would be nothing else than what He’s already given to us in the written word.

We don’t need dreams today because we have a more sure word of prophecy, the scriptures, which countless people have given their lives to preserve for us. But in that day, there were no written scriptures, and in Joseph’s day it was even before the law was given to Moses and written down.

 

We should never look for messages from God anywhere else than the Bible – It alone is God’s voice. From time to time God may choose an unusual way to speak to us. He may reveal something to us through our normal daily routines for instance, but it’ll never be outside of the Bible or never even be equal to the Bible.

Would God suddenly decide that because a person is too busy, or too lazy to study His Word that He would just bypass the written scripture, which has been given to us at such an incredible cost, and drop wisdom and understanding onto them supernaturally? It’s unlikely.

The Bible warns that false prophets can use dreams to try and authenticate their messages. See Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and Jeremaiah 23:25-28.

We’re surrounded by people today who regard themselves as modern day prophets or people who God favours above the rest of us by giving them some special revelation. In this day of unparalleled influence through social media we find these so called prophets everywhere, telling their account of what’s going to happen in the world or it’s institutions. They often use fear to try and lift themselves into some form of specialness by pretending they know something that you and I don’t. They’re special, you see. Many of these people have zero knowledge of the Word of God and they’re not interested in trying to get that knowledge. They simply want you and I to see them as special, and different. This is no more evident than in the area of end time prophecy. The amount of hogwash surrounding this area of the Bible is astounding. Many of these people have no understanding of the Bible or, at best, base their understanding on a scripture here and a scripture there rather than the whole counsel of God.

These people have no problem at all in trying to convince us that they’ve heard directly from God.

As soon as we hear those words, “God told me such and such” or “This such and such is about to happen” we should be very wary. One thing’s for sure they do NOT have our welfare at heart, it’s all about self and pride and trying to make us believe they’re a specially selected messenger of God. UNLESS their words come directly from written Scripture and in the correct context they’re always wrong and always will be.

 

God gave Joseph the interpretation of the butlers dream which was that the butler would be restored to his position with Pharoah in three days.

 

Verse 14,

But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. 

 

He says to the butler, “Now you’ll be out of here in three days, but I’ll be here until I rot unless somebody speaks up for me. I’ve interpreted your dream so now please don’t forget me!”

 

Now in verse 15, he gives the butler something of his background,

For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews; and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon.” 

 

The record doesn’t tell us, but the butler more than likely promised that he would speak to Pharaoh on Joseph’s behalf.

 

Now we’re at verses 16 and 17,

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, “I also was in my dream, and there were three white baskets on my head. 

In the uppermost basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.”

 

The baker was encouraged that his companion had a good interpretation of his dream and hoped for the same regarding his own dream.

The dream of the baker is in the form of symbols meaningful to him. He can understand a basket filled with cakes, biscuits, and bread rolls.

 

Now to Genesis 40:18-19,

So Joseph answered and said, “This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. 

Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.” 

 

Joseph interprets his dream for him but warns that it’s not good news. In three days, he’s going to be taken out and hanged, and the birds will eat his flesh.

Joseph was just as faithful to deliver the message of judgment to the baker as he was to deliver the message of deliverance to the butler. This is the true mark of a godly messenger, one who doesn’t fail to bring the whole message of God.

Many are willing to preach the butler’s sermon but are unwilling to preach the baker’s.

 

Now to verses 20 to 23,

Now it came to pass on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. 

Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 

But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 

Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. 

 

Poor Joseph!

This all seems like he’s back in a hopeless predicament again.

Here he is, not only a slave, but he’s been falsely accused. Innocent as he may be, those prison bars are just as real as if he were guilty.

 

The poor boy is here, and it’s the purpose of Potiphar to forget him. That’s his way of covering up the scandal that was in his own home. Joseph has to pay for Potiphar’s cover–up.

Joseph’s one glimmer of light had been that the butler would remember him to Pharaoh. This seemed to be such a marvellous way of getting the ear of Pharaoh, but the butler is so elated with going back to his job and being in favour with Pharaoh again that he forgets all about poor Joseph.

However, God wants to leave him where he is for now for a purpose. Suppose the butler had said to Pharaoh, “There’s this prisoner down there who’s innocent. He shouldn’t be there because he’s been falsely accused. And he interpreted my dream for me. I sure would appreciate it, Pharaoh, if you would let him out.”

Now suppose Pharaoh had let him out, don’t you see what would have happened? He would have hightailed it for home in the land of Canaan right at the time he was most needed. He was needed to interpret Pharaoh’s dream which in turn would change the known world.

God wants to keep him nearby, and prison is a convenient place to keep him because it won’t be difficult for Pharaoh to find him when he needs him.

In spite of all this discouragement, Joseph still believes that God was moving in his life, and there were fruits of faith which could be easily seen.

He was faithful in every relationship of his life. He was faithful to Potiphar. In prison he was faithful to the keeper of the prison. He was faithful to God, always giving Him the glory. We’ll see later on that he’ll be faithful to Pharaoh, and he’ll be faithful to his own brothers.

You see, Joseph’s faith made him faithful. My friend, I believe that if you are truly a believer, you’ll be faithful.

We’re living in a day when one of the tragedies is that there are so few people we can depend on, even Christians.

In my many years as a Christian I’ve experienced many people whose word is meaningless and who just can’t be relied on. However, one of my greatest thrills in life is to meet up and talk with my oldest friend Geoff who’s always faithful and dependable. Just one relationship of that kind makes up for a great many undependable ones.

We see so few men in true faithfulness to their positions, but we thank God for those few who are.

I always thank the Lord for the faithfulness of my wife without who my life would be a mess. I tell you when we’re in the presence of people like this they’re a great encouragement.

Joseph was that kind of a man. His faith made him faithful. It also gave him his optimistic outlook on life, even under all his trials and temptations. And it was faith that gave him his sympathetic and kindly attitude toward everyone.

Notice how kind he was to the butler and the baker. And later on, we’ll see his kindness to his brothers.

Another thing that his faith did for him was to make him a very humble man.

 

Just like we’re told by the great apostle Paul in Romans 12:3,

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 

Joseph gave God the glory for all his achievements. What a wonderful person he was!

What made him like this? Well, he believed God. He believed God as his father Abraham had believed Him, and this was the fruit that faith produced in his life.

Here he is, forgotten in the prison. But Someone’s not forgotten him; God ‘s not forgotten him, and He’s at work in his life.

Friend, this has a message for you and me.

I don’t know what your circumstances are right now, but I do know, that many of us are in a difficult and confusing place.

Maybe you don’t see the way out, and you wonder if God really cares about little old you. Well, my friends, that’s the very reason that God’s given us this story of Joseph. He wants you and I to know that He cares and that He’s moving in our lives despite what we see or feel and despite what the picture of this world’s telling us.

There are times, in fact most of the time, where it’s simply impossible for us to see how God is with us and how He’s moving in our lives to bring about good.

Could any of the countless millions who have been murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and rejected because of their belief and their stand for the Lord see with their eyes how God was in the back of their circumstances?

If you’re His child, He’s permitting things to happen to you for your own good. His chastisements are always for our good. Friend, we can’t miss! God is so completely and utterly wonderful!