Genesis 41:14

God's plans, however, must be carried out in God's time, by God's instruments, and in God's way. Joseph had probably expected an immediate release when the butler returned to his position in Pharaoh's household. But two full years must pass before God's time comes. Now that the due time has come, the last instrument in God's hand is ready to finish the work that lifts Joseph to honour. Already God had used the king's captain, the king's jailer, and the king's butler, now He will use the king himself.

Here as ever, man's extremity is God's opportunity. The chief butler forgot Joseph's service. It was rare, well-timed and unpaid. No money could have bought it, and God alone could have enabled that blackened but blameless prisoner to give it… But the patience of God is as instructive as His wisdom is reliable, and His love never fails… God still let Joseph endure hard things. He let the chief butler confess his faults, and the king be as troubled as the officials he had imprisoned. And He let Joseph come out in a brightness far greater than any repeating of his predictions in the dungeon could have given.

No wonder Pharaoh was so moved that he sent and called this long and deeply wronged prisoner from the dungeon into the royal presence. The officials lost not a moment in bringing him: the best possible witness had told the king such good things about him. Gates and guards, bars and bolts, must yield him up without delay. Yet he must come with proper care and respect for the customs of the court.

Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he came shaved and with a change of clothing. No one mentioned why he had been put in prison. So far as the record goes, no one ever cleared him of the false charge against him. He clearly left this in the hand of God, who knows how to care for His servant's reputation.

…Christ is found among the captive and afflicted. His presence and words must divide them into two groups, saved and lost — the butler and the baker split apart like the repentant and unrepentant thieves at the cross. When that work is done, Joseph shaves and changes his clothing. That is, he takes on a new order of things and changes his outward appearance. He rises from the dungeon to the throne, to open a new millennial era.

He was rejected and thrown into the pit. He passed, in figure, through the deep waters of death, and so reached the place of dignity and glory. He was raised from the dungeon to be ruler over the land of Egypt, and the preserver and sustainer of his brothers. The iron entered into his soul. He had to taste the bitterness of the place of death before he entered the sphere of glory. A striking type of Him who hung upon the cross, lay in the grave, and is now on the throne of the majesty of heaven.