Genesis 40
Butler1. And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker 2 offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against his two officers, 3 against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.
4. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he ministered unto them : and 5 they continued a season in ward. And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the 6 baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them 7 in the morning and saw them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh’s officers that were with him in ward in his master’s house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day? 8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell it me, I pray you. 9 And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine 10 was before me ; and in the vine were three branches : and it was as though it bedded, and its 11 blossoms shot forth ; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes : and Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand ; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the 12 cup into Pharaoh’s hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it : the 13 three branches are three days ; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thine office ; and thou shalt give Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the 14 former manner when thou wast his butler. But have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pha- 15 rooh, and bring me out of this house : for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews : and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. 16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in 17 my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white bread were on my head : and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh ; and the birds did eat them out of 18 the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof : 19 the three baskets are three days ; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off 20 thee, and shall hang thee on a tree ; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants : and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among 21 his servants. And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again ; and he gave the 22 cup into Pharaoh’s hand : but he hanged the chief baker : as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him.
View this interesting life as you may, study it at any point, and the truth uttered by David must appear to your mind : “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he de- lighteth in his way.” In no life could the hand of God be more visible, for it leads him through some of the most trying experiences that ever befell a mortal ; and yet every experience, how- ever bitter, seems only a rugged path to greater heights and grander associations. Nor was all this mere chance. Look at his life closely and you will see, from beginning to end, that it was one of conformity to the ways of God—that the rule of right was that by which it was governed. S. T. Graham.
There was nothing beyond the ordinary pro- cesses of nature, as far as human observation can extend, in the circumstances which led to the imprisonment of Joseph, and to that of Pharaoh’s butler and baker. And there is as little of the sensibly marvellous in the restora- tive process which took the butler and baker out of prison, as in the former process which carried them there—though it was a determin- ing Providence which fixed every footstep of both. There was nothing beyond the ordinary play of interests and passions in a court that any common observer could have discerned— in the birthday feast, or in the restoration of the butler, or in the execution of the baker, or badly, in the forgetful ingratitude of the butler. T. C.—At many critical points Joseph’s life touches the lives of others, and is thereby car- ried so much the further forward toward the attainment by him of the place which God was preparing for him. Yet Joseph, if he had chosen to act otherwise than he did, might have thrown away all the opportunities which these places of junction in his life afforded him. But he fell in with God’s plan. He could see the chance—speaking after the manner of men —when it came, and could use it to the highest advantage. And by all this he was steadily preparing himself for the place which God in his plan was preparing for him. Then Provi- dence is not fatalism, and if you would avail yourself of the opportunities which God fur- nishes at the critical turnings of your history, watch your character, and seek so to meet everything as from him, and so to serve him in everything, that when the important time ar- rives you can recognize its value, and improve it for his glory in your own advancement. The men that fail in life do not fail for want of such opportunities as Joseph had, but for want of the character to see these opportunities, and the ability to see them. Keep near to God, form your character according to his principles, and then you will find a way to serve him, and will feel that somehow you are on the road to your success, and in training for your sphere. W. M. T.
If the special intentions of Providence toward individuals were effected by the aid of super- natural interpositions, the power and presence of the Supreme Disposer might indeed be more strikingly displayed ; but his skill much less. And herein especially is manifested the perfec- tion of the Divine wisdom, that the most sur- prising conjunctions of events are brought about by the simplest means, and in a manner that is perfectly in harmony with the ordinary course of human affairs. This is in fact the great miracle of providence—that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes. Countless series of events are travelling on from remote quarters toward the same point ; and each series moves in the beaten track of ordinary occurrences ; but their intersection, at the very moment in which they meet, shall serve, perhaps, to give a new direction to the affairs of an empire. The materials of the machinery of providence are all of ordinary quality; but their combination displays nothing less than infinite skill. I. T.
1-4. We should not have had this story of Pharaoh’s butler and baker recorded in Scripture, if it had not been serviceable to Joseph’s preferment. The world stands for the sake of the church, and is governed for its good. H.
4. These high officers of state (for such they were, in accordance with Oriental usage; compare the case of Nehemiah, Neh. 2: 1-9) were treated with the consideration due to their rank, while the issue of their arrest was pending. The captain of the life-guard himself assigned Joseph as their personal attendant. T. J. C.—Joseph had now ample opportunity for acquiring information which afterward stood him in good stead for apprehending the character of Pharaoh, and for making himself acquainted with many details of his government, and with the general condition of the people. Officials in disgrace would be found much more accessible and much more communicative of important information than officials in court favor could have been to one in Joseph’s position. Dols.
5. It is easy to ascertain the point of connection for the dreams of these two captives. They knew that Pharaoh’s birthday was to be in three days, and from the analogy of former experiences, they would anticipate that their fate would then probably be decided. Falling asleep with such thoughts, wishes, hopes, and fears, their dreams were only a continuation of their waking thinking, when the power of anticipation, awakened while the external senses were asleep, descended into their thoughts. Conscience may also have had a part in giving its peculiar cast to each of the dreams. K.
8. Tell it me, I pray you.** Joseph was conscious of an extraordinary prophetic impulse upon his spirit, enabling him to act the part of an interpreter. Yet he required that the dreams should first be made known to him. God could easily have saved him the trouble of learning from the men what they had dreamed. The same Spirit that taught him to interpret could have made known to him the dreams, as we know was the case with Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. But in this instance the dreams had not been forgotten by the dreamers, and God does not impart that knowledge supernaturally which can be acquired by the ordinary methods. It was sufficient for Joseph to be enabled to show the meaning of the dreams when informed what they were. Bush.
Joseph in becoming the interpreter of the dreams of other men became the fulfiller of his own. Had he made light of the dreams of his fellow prisoners because he had already made light of his own, he would, for aught we can see, have died in the dungeon. And, indeed, what hope is left for a man, and what deliverance is possible, when he makes light of his own most sacred experience, and doubts whether after all there was any Divine voice in that part of his life which once he felt to be full of significance? We cannot but leave behind us many “childish things,” beliefs that we now recognize as mere superstitions, hopes and fears which do not move the maturer mind. But when a supposed advance in the knowledge of things spiritual robs us of all that sustains true spiritual life in us, and begets contempt of our own past experience; when it ministers not at all to the growth in us of what is tender and pure and loving and progressive, we cannot but question whether it is not a delusion rather than a truth that has taken possession of us. Dols.
9-17. When they heard his words of sympathy, the dreamers told him their visions. The dream of each rooted itself in and grew out of his former occupation, and they are illustrated in almost every particular by the representations found in these later years on the Egyptian monuments.
14,15. The dream of the cup-bearer was interpreted by Joseph to mean that within three days he would be restored to his office; and, showing the implicitness of his faith in the truth of the revelation, he accompanied his explanation with this pathetic statement and wistful request—“But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house; for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.” Ah! yes, captivity is still captivity, though the slave be set over other slaves; a prison is still a prison, though the prisoner be intrusted in it with the charge of others; and this plaintive appeal lets us see deep down in Joseph’s heart to the very quick of his distress. W. M. T.—He does not reflect upon his brethren that sold him, he only says, I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, that is, unjustly sent away thence, no matter where the fault was. Nor does he reflect on the wrong done him in this imprisonment by his mistress that was his prosecutrix, and his master that was his judge; but mildly avers his own innocence: Here have I done nothing, that they should put me into the dungeon. H.
In Psalm 105, ver. 17-19, we read: “He sent a man before them: Joseph was sold for a slave. They tormented his feet with fetters; his soul came into iron, until the time when his word came; the word of the Lord cleared him.” The road to the throne lay through the prison; and but for the hateful fetters which tormented Joseph, he would never have worn the signet from Pharaoh’s hand, nor the golden chain which Pharaoh flung round his neck. From ruling the state prison, he was called to rule the state. “The word of the Lord cleared him,” and all the bright dreams of his youth were outdone. He learned by happy experience, that the great Ruler of men is no austere capricious tyrant, but a most just and gracious Lord. With his good he overcame the evil that was in his brethren, turning their hatred to love and self-reproach. The night in which he sat ushered in a long and brilliant day. If his fetters tormented him, it was only that he might grow perfect through suffering: if the iron entered into his soul, it was only that it might make him strong.
It would seem, indeed, to be a law of the Divine government, that in proportion as men are great in capacities for service, they should have their capacities developed by bitter and long-sattained afflictions. “The poets learn in suffering what they teach in song.” It is almost impossible to recall a teacher or saint of ancient times whose earlier years were not familiar with sorrow and defeat, who was not hampered and obstructed on every side from the very moment in which he set himself to teach a new truth, or to enforce a purer morality. Patriarchs, prophets, podanists, apostles were all tormented with these fetters, and felt the iron of them in their very souls. It is a good thing to have iron in the soul, although to get it there involves so great a pain. Iron in the soul is as requisite as iron in the blood, as indispensable to spiritual strength as to physical health, if by “iron” we understand, as we may, the manly hardness which can endure the blows of adverse circumstance, the shocks of change. We can be patient and hopeful when once we are assured that all our defeats and disappointments, our failures and reverses and broken illusions, are parts of the discipline by which God is training us for the work we long to do, and are qualifying us to enjoy the freedom we crave. If only our character is being moulded and hardened, and its capacities brought out by suffering, then it is not unjust of God to inflict suffering upon us. It is not unjust, although we have not deserved the suffering, nor can ever deserve it: it is most tender and gracious, since He who is afflicted in all our afflictions will be very sure not to lay upon us more than we are able to bear, and is thus preparing us to be and do all that we most desire to do and be. If we can become perfect only through suffering, shall we not thank Him for the suffering which perfects us? If only as we learn to rule in the prison of deferred opportunities and defeated hopes, we can become fit to rule over the “many cities” of the heavenly kingdom, shall we shrink from the prison which leads to the throne? If the iron must enter our souls that we may be strong amid the flatteries and the adversities of fortune, shall even the fetters which torment us be unwelcome to us? If the world wants iron dukes and iron men, God wants iron saints, and therefore he suffers the iron to enter into their souls. Col.
Egyptian history is divided into three grand epochs. The old empire, from Menes till the invasion of the Shepherd kings; the middle empire, continuing while the Hyksos held possession of Lower Egypt; and the new empire, dating from the expulsion of the Shepherds, when all Egypt was reunited under the resplendent eighteenth dynasty of Thebes. Egypt, so long enveloped in a mystery as deep as that which surrounds the sphinx, has at length a history; and her stone-engraved monuments are the living chroniclers of her mighty Past. In Thebes are the yet fresh and legible monuments of a city that had stood for sixteen centuries, when Rome was founded; that for thirteen hundred years before David ascended the throne of Israel in Jerusalem, had furnished the major part of the sovereigns of one of the greatest empires of the world; that was at least eight centuries old when Cecrops founded Athens; that had existed full four hundred years when Abraham pitched his tent upon the mountain of Bethel. If not the oldest ruin in the world—for it disputes with Nineveh the palm of antiquity—it is the grandest and the best preserved memorial of ancient times. But Thebes is not merely a mighty run of the past. It is also a history, and from the hieroglyphics of its temples and the sculptured chambers of its royal sepulchres, it proclaims the great events of that dim antiquity concerning which we have no written record, but the fragmentary memorials of the book of Genesis. This rude history, carved in granite to commemorate the exploits of kings, and to transmit their names and deeds with the imperishable sarcophagi of their embalmed dust, now interpreted by the skill of learned men, brings incidental confirmation to the history of the Old Testament, and nowhere contradicts that history. Each temple, each palace, each obelisk, each tomb in Egypt, is not only a monument, but a history of an individual and his times, or of the nation at large. Deep in the face of the imperishable granite or of the firm sandstone that enters into the structure of nearly every building and monument, are graven the names or titles of kings, their own full-length portraits, and the leading events of their reigns, in battle scenes, coronation ceremonies, religious and civil processions,—a pictorial history of each monarch, with the manners and customs of the people. These sculptures, unimpaired by moisture or by the growth of lichens, in a climate of almost perpetual drought, and in some instances protected by the fine sand that has drifted in upon them from the desert, retain much of their original freshness, and are far more clean, legible, and sharply defined, than sculptures of a few hundred years ago upon the ruined abbeys, monasteries, and cathedrals of England and Scotland. The sculptures and pictures upon the walls of tombs hewn from limestone rock, and protected from dampness by the absence of rain and of vegetable growth, likewise retain in form and in coloring a distinctness that makes them the speaking witnesses of buried generations. From these records of stone must we learn the history of Egypt, unwritten in books. J. P. T.
The key to the ancient Egyptian language is the celebrated Rosetta stone, a slab of black marble, found by the French in 1799 near the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile, and now in the British Museum. It contains a decree, written in sacred, enchorial, and Greek characters, respecting the coronation of PROLEMY V. EPIPHANES. Dic. B.
About two hundred years after the time of Abraham, the history of Joseph brings Egypt under review, with a pictorial vividness which has its parallel in no other record for at least more than a thousand years. When we combine the scattered references in the later chapters of Genesis, they represent a remarkably compact organization. The light falls on no strictly primitive people, nor barbarous customs, but on a very highly civilized community, skilled in agriculture, social in habit, and accomplished in various branches of art. The monarchy which we noted in Abraham’s time continues, and the king still bears the title of
Pharaoh. He is absolute, or nearly so, committing men to prison, and releasing them; or, if he please, ordering their executions, appointing officers over the whole land, and taxing it apparently at his pleasure; raising a foreigner suddenly to the second position in the kingdom, and requiring all, without exception, to render him obedience. “At the same time, the king has counsellors, or ministers, elders of his house, and others whose advice he asks, and without whose sanction he does not seem to act in important matters.” He had a bodyguard under “a captain” a “chief confectioner,” a “chief cap-bearer.” He rides in a chariot, and all pay him homage. There are distinct classes of soldiers, priests, physicians, secret scribes, magicians, and herdsmen. As betokening the stage of civilization which had been reached, there is mention made of fine linen, golden chains, silver drinking-cups, wagons, chariots, embalming, and coffins. In addition to these glimpses, we have it stated that they carried burdens on the head; that they sat at meat, and did not recline, as was the common custom in the East; and that “every shepherd was an abomination unto the Egyptians.” All these peculiarities are fully represented in the monuments but especially is the last made prominent. Sir J. G. Wilkinson tells us that the artists delighted on all occasions in representing the shepherds as “dirty and unshaven;” and that, on the tombs near the Pyramids of Geezeh, they are “caricatured as a deformed and unseemly race.” W. Fraser.—It may be broadly stated that, in this entire description, there is not a single fraction which is not in harmony with what we know of the Egypt of this remote period from other sources. Nay, more, almost every point in it is confirmed, either by the classical writers, by the monuments, or by both. G. R.
All agree in considering that one great landmark in Egyptian history is the invasion and dominion of the Hykos or Shepherd kings, and that another is the overthrow and expulsion of these usurpers. The most eminent authorities designate the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties as those of the Shepherds. With the eighteenth a new epoch was inaugurated; and as the Pharaoh of the time of the Exodus is now by most identified with Menephtah, son of Runeses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, the Pharaoh of Joseph is supposed to be one of the kings of the seventeenth dynasty, whose date is in the later part of the Shepherd dominion. Joseph would thus be raised to his position as governor of Egypt by a king who, though himself a foreigner, and able to appreciate foreign merit, was one of those who had, as the result of the long sojourn of his people in the land, adopted Egyptian titles and usages, and the king, “who knew not Joseph,” may have belonged to the new dynasty by whom the Shepherds were expelled. W. M. T.
The Pharaoh of Joseph was a despotic monarch, ruling all Egypt, who followed Egyptian customs, but did not hesitate to set them aside when he thought fit; who seems to have desired to gain complete power over the Egyptians; and who favored strangers. These particulars support the idea that he was an Egyptianized foreigner rather than an Egyptian. If we turn to the old view that Joseph’s Pharaoh was one of the Shepherd kings, we are struck with the fitness of all the circumstances of the Biblical narrative. It is stated by Eusebius that the Pharaoh to whom Jacob came was the Shepherd Apophis. Apophis belonged to the fifteenth dynasty, which was certainly of Shepherds, and the most powerful foreign line. This dynasty, according to Mr. Poole’s view of Egyptian chronology, ruled for either 284 years (Africanus), or 259 years 10 months (Josephus), from about n.c. 2080. According to Hales’s chronology, which Mr. Poole would slightly modify, Joseph’s government fell under this dynasty, commencing about n.c. 1876, during the reign of the last but one or perhaps the last king of the dynasty, possibly in the time of Apophis, who ended the line according to Africanus. This dynasty is said to have been of Phoenicians. This king Mr. Poole regards as having reigned from Joseph’s appointment (or, perhaps, somewhat earlier) until Jacob’s death, at least twenty six years, from n.c. about 1876 to 1850, and as having been the fifth or sixth king of the fifteenth dynasty. Dic. B.
Apepi (Apophis) was the last monarch of the Hykos line (or Shepherds) probably Hittites. The best modern authorities think it in the highest degree probable that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew (Joseph) his prime minister, and who invited Jacob and his sons to settle in Egypt. . . . The Hykos monarchs fixed their residence in the Delta itself; they selected Tanis—an ancient Egyptian town of considerable importance—for the main seat of their court. While maintaining a great fortified camp at Avaris, on their eastern frontier, where they lived sometimes, they still more favored the quiet Egyptian city on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, where they could pass their time away from the sound of arms, amid ancient temples and sanctuaries dedicated to various Egyptian gods, which they allowed to stand, if they did not even use them for their own worship. The Delta had never previously been the residence of Egyptian kings, and it did not again become their residence until the time of the nineteenth dynasty, shortly before the Exodus. Another peculiarity of the Hykos period, belonging especially to its later portion, is to be found in the religious views professed, proclaimed, and enjoined upon subject princes. Apepi, according to the ms. known as “the First Sallier papyrus,” made a great movement in Lower Egypt in favor of monotheism. Whereas previously the shepherd kings had allowed among their subjects, if they had not even practised themselves, the worship of a multitude of gods, Apepi “took to himself” a single god “for lord, refusing to serve any other god in the whole land.” According to the Egyptian writer of the ms. the name under which he worshipped his god was “Sutech,” who among the Hittites seems to have been equivalent to Baal, and was certainly a sun-god, probably identified with the material sun itself, but viewed as having also a spiritual nature, and as the creator and sustainer of the universe. Apepi’s great temple of Sutech at Tanis was the natural outcome of his exclusive worship of this god, and showed forth in a tangible and conspicuous form the earnestness of his piety. G. R.