Genesis 40:3

Both the chief butler and the chief baker of Pharaoh had offended their lord. We are not told what their offence was. But Pharaoh was of a foreign race, and so he was likely to fear that someone would poison him. No wonder both the chief keepers of his drink and his food had fallen under suspicion. While the king decided what to do, he confined them in the same prison as Joseph and put them in his charge. In the chain of events God ordered, the first link was Joseph being put in the place where the king's prisoners were bound. The second link was that in due time these two men were placed there too.

Have we not a saying in English, "The iron entered his soul"? Nothing is more depressing than captivity like that — day after day, night after night, summer and winter, year in and year out. The utter weariness, discomfort, sameness and hopelessness of it is a great test. Under it a character either collapses or shows what it is. Trials make or mar a man. They prove what a man is made of.

In Genesis 39 Satan uses Potiphar's wife, and in Genesis 40 he uses Pharaoh's chief butler. The first he used to put Joseph into the dungeon; the second he used to keep him there, through his ungrateful forgetfulness — but all in vain. God was behind the scenes. His finger was guiding all the springs of the vast machine of circumstances. When the right time came, He brought out the man of His purpose and set his feet in a large room.

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 can see its effect on men who had no faith themselves, yet highly valued faithfulness. The captain put Joseph in charge of the king's officials. In his master's house, and now in the governor's state prison, he became the responsible man. Whatever needed doing there, he did it.

So in Joseph in prison we see the suffering Christ. 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, most likely, were receiving the "due reward of their deeds," like the two thieves crucified with Christ. Joseph was ruler in the dungeon. The verdict of his fellow prisoners' conscience must have been, "This man has done nothing wrong."

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