Genesis 41:11

These dreams of the butler and baker were "according to the interpretation," words which imply that they were of God. For dreams have two sources. Either God sends them, or they rise from a mind full of business (Joel 2:28, Ecclesiastes 5:3). In them God may reveal His mind. Or they may be only "various vanities," the fruit of our own passions or needs (Ecclesiastes 5:7, Isaiah 29:8).

Both men dreamed dreams that fitted each of them, and in one night. Joseph did not put that down to what men call chance. They were sad because no one was there to explain dreams they felt were of the deepest concern to them. Just as simply, Joseph reckoned that interpretations belong to God, the giver of every good gift and every perfect gift. So He is the answerer of faith's cry to Him, though unheard by any other ear.

The king was troubled. The world's resources failed. Egypt's magicians and its wise men came, and they were no help. All this touched the chief butler's conscience and brought back to his memory what he ought never to have forgotten. Years before, God had used a man who still lay in the dungeon, forgotten by everyone, to give the true meaning of his dream and his fellow prisoner's. The king's confusion reminded him how sad the two of them had been, before light from above came — light that brought him his own immense relief, and brought his comrade a shameful end.

What a test those two years must have been! No wonder Psalm 105:19 says of him, "until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him." His dreams carried the word of the Lord, and they pointed to his future glory. But how long he had to wait for it! A trying experience indeed!

God must carry out His plans in His own time, by His own instruments, and in His own way. Joseph probably looked forward to an immediate release when the butler went back to his position in Pharaoh's household. But two full years must pass before God's time came… God had already used the king's captain, the king's jailer, and the king's butler. Now He will use the king himself.

So you can see that Pharaoh's dreams came in their right order. The chief butler dreamed first, and Joseph gave him the meaning of it. If that had not come before Pharaoh's dreams, nothing would have happened. They would have been unrelated incidents, not affecting each other.

God's people may be poor, "I have no silver and gold," lonely, in prison, and forgotten there, like Joseph. But "God is with them." Their calling, and their praise now, is patience with self-denial and a holy keeping of their separation to God. But even in the humiliation, they have "treasures of wisdom and knowledge" in Christ. They can interpret the dreams that tell out God's purposes.