Genesis 40:1

Both the chief butler and the chief baker of Pharaoh had offended their lord. Nothing is stated about the nature of their offence. But Pharaoh was of a foreign race, and so likely to fear that someone would try to poison him. It is not surprising that the two men in charge of his drink and his food had both fallen under suspicion. While the matter awaited a decision, they stayed in the same prison as Joseph, and were put in his charge. The first link in the chain of events God ordered was that Joseph should be put in the place where the king's prisoners were held. The second was that in due time these two men should be placed there too.

The hand of God was in all this, however little it looked like it. In the king's prison house were two servants of Pharaoh, his chief baker and chief butler.

In this account of the imprisonment of Joseph and the butler and the baker, God was at work in grace behind the scenes. He worked both to bring Joseph out of prison and to lift him up in a way that would normally have been unthinkable for a Hebrew... Nothing was said about the reason he had been put in prison. As far as the record goes, he was never cleared of the charge falsely brought against him. He evidently left this in the hand of God, who knows how to guard His servant's reputation.

Joseph had served as a slave in Potiphar's house. Now he served as a criminal in the tower-house, falsely accused of what was true of his accuser. But his faith stayed simple, peaceful and bright. We notice its effect on those who had no faith themselves, yet valued faithfulness highly. The captain put Joseph in charge of the king's officers. In his master's house before, and now in the governor's state prison, he became the responsible man: whatever needed doing there, he did it. The Lord was with him in each place of trial; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.

Here were two men in the same place of confinement. Both stood condemned, and so far as we know both were equally guilty — or innocent. They looked exactly alike in every outward way. Christ (Joseph) comes among them and pronounces one saved and the other lost.

And we see two others suffering with him — Pharaoh's two officers, his chief butler and his chief baker. But they do not suffer as Joseph does. He suffered though he was innocent. They were most likely receiving the due reward of their deeds, like the two thieves crucified with Christ. Joseph was ruler in the dungeon, and the verdict of his fellow prisoners' conscience must have been, "This man has done nothing wrong."

The righteous Joseph is charged with the sin his accuser was guilty of. The Gentile authority treats him as a criminal. His feet are put in the stocks, and the iron enters his soul. He is handed over to the Gentiles, and by them symbolically put to death. There he is the interpreter of restoring blessing and of fatal judgment. Earlier, the Lord's plan spoke of Messiah's rise to the highest place among His own Jewish people, and of His exaltation in principle. Here rejection and death come in — and with them the Lord's mind in saving and condemning the guilty, according to His true purposes.