And as he interpreted to us, so it came about. I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged.”
The chief butler stands before a troubled king. His evidence is one plain fact: what the young Hebrew prisoner said would happen, happened. That short testimony opens the prison door and sets Joseph on the road to the throne.
A word proved by the event
The butler is not giving an opinion about Joseph. He is reporting a result. One writer traces that result past Joseph to God.
William KellyHe hides nothing of his shame or danger. He tells how the two of them had dreams on the same night, and repeated them to the young Hebrew, their fellow prisoner in the state prison. He interpreted them at once. Both came true, with a sharply different outcome for each — as surprising as they were distinct and immediate: "I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged." The same God who sent the dreams to the two Egyptian officials explained their prophetic meaning through Joseph, and carried them out by Pharaoh in His providence. No wonder Pharaoh was so deeply moved that he sent and called the long and deeply wronged prisoner out of the dungeon into the royal presence. Gates and guards, bars and bolts had to give him up without delay.
One interpreter, two opposite ends
The same man spoke to both prisoners on the same day, and the outcomes could not have been further apart.
William KellyIn both cases the time was short, as indicated by the dream and interpreted by Joseph. On the third day, the king's birthday, he lifted up the head of each of the two officials. But the chief cup-bearer rose to his office near Pharaoh, and the chief baker to the gallows.
Egypt's wisest men had nothing to say
Pharaoh had already asked his own experts before the butler spoke up, and they failed.
W. T. P. WolstonNo, my friends, the world can give you no real information about the ways of God, or His purposes. If you are to learn the thoughts of God, you must go to the people of God, and the Word of God.
A memory that took two years to wake
Two years separate that fulfilment from this moment. Joseph spent them in prison.
F. B. HoleIn this situation the chief butler's memory revived. He remembered Joseph, and told Pharaoh how remarkably accurate his interpretation had been — of his own dream and the chief baker's — two full years before. What a test those two years must have been! No wonder Psalm 105:19 says of him, "the word of the LORD tested him." The word of the Lord by his dreams had pointed to his future glory. But how long he had to wait for it! A trying experience indeed!
The delay was not an accident of a bad memory. Commentators see God working through the very man who failed Joseph.
C. H. MackintoshIn 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 neglect. But it was all in vain. God was behind the scenes.
Forgetting the one who helped you
Joseph had asked one thing: to be remembered. One writer turns the butler's forgetfulness into a question for every reader.
C. KnappJoseph tells the chief butler the good news of his deliverance, and then says, "remember me, when it is well with you." And has not our Joseph said the same to us about the Lord's Supper: "Do this in remembrance of me"? It was one of His last requests. Shame on us, then, if, like the chief butler, after hearing and believing the good news of our salvation, we forget Him.
The forgotten prisoner and the forgotten Christ
Commentators read Joseph's rise from prison as a picture of Christ.
Hamilton SmithJoseph is the picture; Christ is the glorious reality. With both, every downward step in the path of suffering was only a further stage on the way to glory. His service in the days of His flesh prepares for His rule as King of kings and Lord of lords. The false witnesses who rose up against Him will bow down before Him. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The day is not far off when the "poor wise Man" that no man remembered shall be "in everlasting remembrance."
Summary
- Forgotten — the butler said nothing for two years. God used that neglect to hold Joseph in prison until the right moment.
- Remembered — Pharaoh's trouble woke the butler's conscience. His report of Joseph is the hinge of the whole story.
- Proved — the restoring and the hanging showed this was no clever guess. The God who sent the dreams also brought them to pass.
- Tested — while Joseph waited, "the word of the LORD tested him." The promise of glory and the long wait belong to one plan.
- Raised — the pattern runs on to Christ. The wise man no one remembered will be in everlasting remembrance. Every downward step was a step toward glory.