Genesis 40:4

Two men are now placed in Joseph's care in the prison: the cupbearer and the baker of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. We are not told what offenses put them there. They had made Pharaoh angry, and that was enough. The captain of the bodyguard handed them over to Joseph. We may wonder whether this captain was Potiphar, who holds this position in Genesis 39:1, but there may well have been more than one captain.

While their case waited for a decision, they were held in the same prison as Joseph and put in his charge. The first link in this chain of events, ordered by God, was that Joseph should be in the place where the king's prisoners were held. The second was that at the right time these two men should be placed there too.

Joseph had served as a slave in Potiphar's house. Now he served as a criminal in the prison tower, falsely accused of what was in fact 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 set a high value on faithfulness. The captain put the king's officials in Joseph's care. As in his master's house before, so now in the governor's state prison, he became the man in charge: whatever needed doing there, he did it. The LORD was with him in each place of trial, and what he did, the LORD made it prosper.

The man who truly leans on God makes good use of the trial he is in, whether it is short or lasting. No hard circumstances can crush true living energy. They may limit it and shape it. The scene may change, but the spirit of it does not. … Before long Joseph is as useful in prison as he was in the house of the captain of the guard. … In every trial, however dark, there are gleams of light and relief. But full deliverance is often delayed by our own anxiety to get it. God means to be the satisfaction of His servant, not the deliverance.

Each of them had a dream fitted to his own case on the same night, yet they learned so little from it that the next morning both showed the same sadness to their kind and sympathetic attendant. He was in irons himself; but love rose above the evil, and flowed out freely.

With the remarkable good sense that marks his character, he had begged not to be forgotten. But he stayed in irons a little longer. The word of the LORD tested him. God would work in His own way. If the chief cupbearer forgot Joseph once life went well for him, God did not.

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, in all likelihood, were 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."