Genesis 40:5

That both should have dreamt characteristic dreams in one night he did not put down to what men call chance. They felt by instinct that the dreams were of the nearest interest to themselves, and no interpreter was there to explain them. If that made them sad, Joseph just as simply reckoned that interpretations belong to God, the giver of every good gift and of every perfect giving.

God visits the family circle of a pagan captain, and the household of a pagan king — yes, and his bedside. He makes the very visions of his head upon his bed serve the working out of His counsels. And it is not only people and their circumstances that God takes up and uses for His ends. He brings Egypt and all the surrounding countries into the scene too. In short, God's hand prepared the whole earth to be a stage on which to display the glory and greatness of the one "who was set apart from his brothers."

Dreams played a remarkably large part in his history. Before the climax, the record gives no less than five, and every one of them contained a prophecy. The finger of God produced each of them, touching the sleeper's unconscious mind. Each marked a divine intervention — indeed a revelation of secret things.

In the ages before Moses there was no written revelation of His will. God often took this way to communicate His mind, or to reveal coming events beforehand… Now we have His written revelation, the completed Bible. Only in very rare and exceptional cases can we recognise a dream as having come from God. "For a dream comes with much business" (Ecclesiastes 5:3) — that is, from purely natural causes, Scripture says.

God ordered a chain of events. The first link was that Joseph should be in the place where the king's prisoners were bound. The second was that in due time these two men should be placed there too. The third was that both men should have dreams in one night, unusual in kind yet marked by certain resemblances. Their effect on the two minds should be such as to make them look sad and attract Joseph's notice.

God had tried His dear child, and would try him longer. Yet this was an honour to Joseph, who was given not only to believe but to suffer for His sake. But God was forming the chain of links that would raise the suffering Israelite out of the dungeon. It would lift him to the highest position in Egypt, next to the throne. The dream of the chief cup-bearer was an important link in that chain.

Joseph's own dreams had disclosed much while he was a young free man in his father's house, and they drew out the envious spite of his brothers. Now grace gave him the opportunity of light from above on the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. Each had a fitting dream the same night, but they learned so little from it. The next morning their faces showed the same sadness to their gracious and sympathetic attendant. His own suffering had cut deep into him; but love rose above evil, and flowed out readily.

In all this Joseph pictured Christ, who shone to the eye of faith in His humiliation with a grace even beyond glory. He was clearly the wisdom of God. Human wisdom, next to Him, proved itself utterly weak, foolish and malicious.