Genesis 40:13

Joseph, in communion with the mind of God, had no difficulty in interpreting this dream. "The three branches are three days," he says (v. 12). Within three days Pharaoh would "lift up his head" — that is, bring him into public view — and restore him to his office of cupbearer.

The remarkable point God gave Joseph to seize is the precision of the three days marked by the three branches. No priestly interpreter in Egypt would have dared to say at once, as Joseph did, "In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office." A guess would more likely have said three months; but no. The secret of Jehovah is with those who fear Him... Interpretation of what God says or does belongs to God. He gives it as He will, and as a rule to those whom He loves, even in circumstances of the deepest humiliation. For in this Joseph was a fitting picture of what proved true in the Lord Jesus Himself here on earth.

There is striking spiritual significance in this dream. The three days remind us of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The juice of the grapes stands for the shedding of His blood. He endured the suffering pictured by the winepress. His blood was shed as the only means of forgiveness of sins. So the guilty sinner is set free from his guilt and bondage, and it all rests on the value of the blood of Christ. The cupbearer then pictures the sinner saved by the shedding of the blood of Christ.

The dream sets the butler before a vine with three branches, living and fruitful. Pharaoh's cup is in his hand, the symbol of God's judgment (Psalm 75:7-8). He takes the grapes, presses them into the cup, and gives the cup into Pharaoh's hands. That is, the man takes his place in the presence of Christ, the true Vine. Accepting God's judgment, he offers the blood of Christ, in the measure of that judgment. God accepts it, and the man is forgiven and exalted.

Here were two men in the same prison, both condemned, and, so far as we know, both guilty — or both innocent. From the outside they looked just alike. Christ (Joseph) comes among them and pronounces one saved and the other lost.

We see the gospel pictured in these dreams. The chief butler sees in his dream what speaks of the blood (the juice of the grape). And he was delivered. The chief baker, on the other hand, dreams of what at once reminds us of human righteousness, the white baskets. He saw only what he had laboured to produce, the baked goods. And he is hanged... Here we have "the only two religions" pictured. One makes everything depend on the blood of Jesus. The other ignores the blood and trusts human righteousness.

The event proved that God had given Joseph's interpretations. Pharaoh's birthday was on the third day, and he acted as the dreams had indicated. Yet the chief butler in his renewed prosperity forgot about Joseph, and has become a standing monument of human ingratitude. Still, as we believe, the hand of God was over even this. If the butler had remembered, thankful and perhaps respectful human arrangement would have freed Joseph from prison. God intended to take him out, reviving the butler's memory, in a far more striking way.