Chapter 40

Verse 1 – “the butler of the king of Egypt.” This isn’t a butler, this is the chief cup-bearer, the high nobleman who stands at the right hand of the Pharaoh.

“and his baker, had offended.” One of them had offended. There were two suspects, and both were put in prison until it was found who was innocent and who was guilty.

Verse 4 – the captain of the guard makes Joseph a servant to these two noblemen. This is a terrible thing he has done to Joseph, but it was impossible to hurt Joseph. Joseph could hurt himself by his mental attitude, by his bitterness. But he isn’t bitter and his mental attitude is wonderful.

“and he served them” – literally, he became their slave.

Verse 5 – “And they dreamed a dream.” In the Old Testament God spoke to people in four ways, through dreams, visions, direct conversation, and through the prophetic messages of those who had the gift of prophecy.

“on one night” – they dreamed the dream on the same night.

Verse 6 – “behold, they were sad.” This is not strong enough: “they were depressed.” The Word of God coming to the unbeliever often causes him depression. This is their reaction to divine revelation. They are depressed because they are not born again and therefore do not understand anything of the purpose of God.

Verse 8 – “Do not interpretations belong to God?” This is a great victory of Joseph’s own mental attitude. In other words, God speaks through a dream; God makes the dream clear.

The comparable answer and analogy to our day is that dream is analogous to the written Word as we have it. Do not interpretations belong to God? is saying, in effect, if there is something in the Bible there is an interpretation of it and you can understand it. Does not God who gave us the Word make the Word clear? Hasn’t He provided the means of doing so? And today the answer is yes, even as then. In our day God the Holy Spirit indwells every believer for many purposes, and one purpose is to make the Word of God clear. Also, God has provided people to interpret the Bible just as God provided for those two men. They couldn’t understand the Word, they were unbelievers. 1 Corinthians 2:14. There is the gift of pastor and teacher. The third factor: the one who has the gift of pastor and teacher must study in the original languages the Word of God so as to provide categorical information which can be assimilated by any believer and applied, so that the individual believer can become spiritually self-sustaining by reading and studying for himself. Just because a person is a believer it does not follow that he can automatically understand the Word, he must first of all have doctrine categorically placed in his soul. There must be proper doctrinal inculcation and once the Word of God has been perceived and understood categorically then the believer can read for himself as much as he wants and understand as much as he reads. That is the description of a mature believer. But you do not start that way, the believer who is a baby can understand practically none of the scripture except certain salvation passages, a few security passages and a few promises.

Joseph is available for interpretation but his mental attitude must be right before he can do it. Joseph is a man who is free from operation ego. Joseph can be concerned about others even though his life is at its lowest ebb. He is now under adversity, pressure. Every time Joseph thinks of Potiphar’s wife, that’s pressure. Every time he thinks of unfair Potiphar, that’s pressure. Every time he thinks of his brothers throwing him into the pit, that’s pressure. Every time he thinks of being made a servant, that’s pressure. So he has all of this pressure around him, he has adversity all around him. But what he has on the outside doesn’t really determine what Joseph is. What does he have on the inside? He has joy, inner happiness, contentment, peace, longsuffering. So that no matter what the external pressures he is not going to collapse because of inner resources. He is now 27 and for ten years nothing has shaken Joseph. God has made it possible for every one of us as believers in Jesus Christ to stand up and face every pressure in life and have inner peace and happiness and power, and nothing can ever cause us to go on the panic button, nothing can shake us, no pressure in life can cause us to become despondent or discouraged. The testimony of Paul is the same as Joseph’s—Philippians 4:11,12. Note: No one can draw on the inner resources of grace without knowledge of these resources. Joseph knew doctrine; Paul knew doctrine. Contentment is the operation of inner resources in time of difficulty.

When these men had answered that they had dreamed a dream Joseph knew immediately that God had spoken to these two men, and immediately Joseph said, “Do not interpretations of scripture [which is what this amounts to] belong to God.”

“Tell me” – Joseph is ready to help them. Joseph leaves it up to them. He will help them if they are willing to tell him. Their volition must cooperate before Joseph will help. This is the principle of helping people. You cannot help people unless they are willing to be helped.

Verse 9 – “And the chief butler” is the chief cup-bearer. His dream is good news to him because when Joseph interprets his dream the chief cup-bearer is going to be restored. The chief baker’s news is bad, but Joseph will tell it to him. It is very difficult to tell a man that in three days he will be dead, but Joseph does it, he sticks with the Word of God his criterion. He sticks with the Word no matter where the chips may fall. Joseph at this point is a very stable person. He is honest and he levels with both. People may ridicule and laugh at you for your stand for Christ but when the chips are down and things fall apart, then they come around. They come to the honest person who will level with them.

Verse 10 – the vine is the symbol of the chief cup-bearer, the man who tasted the wine before the king tasted it. The three branches are going to represent three days. The vine budded, which indicates that he will be restored.

Verses 16 & 17, three baskets represent three days. The chief baker will hang.

Verse 14 &15 – this is explained by a couple of other passages: Jeremiah 17:5, “Cursed [unhappy, miserable] be the man that depends on man…” The man who is miserable is the one who depends on someone else to do something special for him to promote him. What is he like? Verses 6ff. A believer in Jesus Christ who depends upon man instead of upon the Lord is a tumbling weed—unstable. Whenever the wind blows the tumbleweed moves. Just like a person who bounces all over the place, unstable. An unstable believer does not recognise the good things that God brings into his life. “…but shall inhabit the parched places”—dried up Christians. “…in a salt land”—when you have salt in the ground nothing will grow. This type of believer is non-productive. Psalm 118:8,9—“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes [VIPs, people of influence].”

Verse 14 – in three days the chief cup-bearer will be standing next to Pharaoh and therefore Joseph failed. Four words: “but think on me.” When Joseph said this to this man he was trusting in man.

Verse 15 – Joseph has been great, and then all of a sudden out of fellowship, and here we go: “I” and “me.” The believer can slip out of fellowship at any time and in one second can be thinking about “I” and “me.” It can happen to any of us, apart from the marvellous provision of the Lord. Joseph got his eyes on himself.

Verse 23 – “Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.” The chief butler’s main job was to remember names and make the presentations to Pharoah, yet he forgot Joseph. Here is God teaching Joseph a lesson. This “forgot” lesson went on long enough to teach Joseph a lesson before he could be Prime Minister of Egypt—two whole years. It’s just as though Joseph wrote on the black board for two years, “I will trust in the Lord, I will not put my trust in man.” When Joseph became Prime Minister on whom did he have to trust? He had to trust the Lord and not Pharaoh. Pharaoh will lean on Joseph but Joseph can only lean on the Lord. This is a lesson he had to learn and which every believer has to learn before he can become stabilised and using his inner resources, and before he can have genuine appreciation of the things that God provides.