[And He Walks With Me] Genesis 40
2 The chief cupbearer and the chief baker were key officials in the king’s court. Because poison was a common method of assassination, it was imperative that these were among the king’s most trusted officials and able to thoroughly vet the people they hired to produce the wine and bread.[85]
3 The captain of the guards was Potiphar. It would seem that one part of Potiphar’s responsibilities was overseeing the prison that held the king’s special prisoners. See note on 39:20.
8 In the ANE, dreams were thought to tell the future. Thus, interpreting them became big business, and many royal courts included one or more professional dream interpreters.[86] Generally, these interpreters used “dream books” which recorded the meaning of symbols that commonly appeared in dreams, whether an element was good or bad, and sometimes rituals to overcome negative omens. Of course, Joseph had no access to these resources, but he recognized that God knew all things and could reveal if there was significance to the dreams.[87]
13 To lift up your head was to end the cupbearer’s shame and restore his honor. See note on 40:19.
19 Here, Joseph uses a play on words to illustrate the contrast between the futures of the cupbearer and chief baker. The cupbearer will have his head lifted up, while the pharaoh will lift up the chief baker’s head from off [him] as he is executed. See note on 40:13.
20 Although most English translations (e.g., CSB, NIV, NRSV, KJV, NKJV) will render Pharaoh’s birthday in the same way, there is no record of any birthday celebrations for the pharaoh until the first millennium BCE. Keener and Walton therefore suggest that this “birthday” commemorated some other occasion such as the king’s coronation.[88]
22 Hanging in the ANE was not typically the means of execution. It was not, therefore, equivalent to a more modern lynching, where a rope is placed around the victim’s neck, and death occurs when either the neck snaps or the person is asphyxiated. Rather, hanging was more about displaying the person’s dead body as a warning to others who would follow in the victim’s footsteps. Thus, the CSB footnote indicates the word rendered hanged may also be translated impaled because the most common method of displaying the corpse was to impale it on a pole and allow it to be consumed by birds, insects, and other scavenging creatures. This, however, was done posthumously because, according to the baker’s dream and Joseph’s interpretation, the baker would be executed by beheading.[89]
23 In the excitement of the moment, the cupbearer did not remember Joseph. This should not be surprising. When things are better, we often tend to forget those who were there for us when things were bad.
[85] Keener and Walton 2016, Genesis 40:2
[86] Sproul 2016, Genesis 40:8
[87] Sproul 2016, Genesis 40:8; Keener and Walton 2016, Genesis 40:5
[88] Keener and Walton 2016, Genesis 40:20
[89] Keener and Walton 2016, Genesis 40:22