SYNOPSIS: Still in Potiphar's jail, Joseph displays a talent for interpreting dreams. Pharaoh's cup-bearer and baker, who have both been sent to jail by an irate Pharaoh, have disconcerting dreams one night, and Joseph tells their meaning: the cup-bearer is going to get his job back, and the baker is going to be executed. Three days later, as Joseph predicted, these things happen. The cup-bearer promises he will put in a good word for Joseph with Pharaoh but he forgets, and Joseph continues to languish in prison.
- Text of the passage (in Nawat)
The important way this episode contributes to the development of the plot is that this is where we learn, and what is more, somone in Egypt learns, that Joseph can interpret dreams. This skill will be the key that gets him out of prison and into Pharaoh's presence when Pharaoh himself is troubled by his dreams and needs an interpreter. And once he has Pharaoh's attention, he manages to impress the ruler so much that instead of being sent back to prison to rot, he embarks on a great new career which will change not only his own life course but that of his entire family and even, it might be argued, world history. None of that would have happened if Joseph didn't know a lot about dreams, and that is why this episode is key to the plot of Joseph's story, because this is the place where his special talent surfaces.
Now for the episode's relevance to character development. When Joseph was sold into slavery he was still an immature youth; the episode with Potiphar and his wife showed him developing into a man and suffering a "growing pain"; here, on the other hand, after the passage of some time (we know not how much, possibly many years), we are observing him for the first time as a man. Once a dreamer, Joseph is now an interpreter of other people's dreams, though he has the custom of insisting that only God possesses that information, except when He wishes to share it with somebody, and that he himself has no wish to attribute to himself a divine power, but is simply God's mouthpiece.
So when the cup-bearer complains to Joseph that nobody has been able to tell him the meaning (pitron, from p-t-r 'to interpret or explain a dream') of his dream, Joseph prefaces his reply with the words (v. 8) halo lelohim pitronim 'Are not pitronim of God?', that is, surely you know that only God is in charge of the meanings of dreams; but having said this, he invites them to tell their dreams: sapp'ru na li 'Go ahead and tell me.' A little further on in the story, when Pharaoh has Joseph brought to him to tell him the meaning of his own dreams, he begins by telling Joseph much the same thing as the cup-bearer and the baker (41:15): xalom xalámti ufoter en oto 'I have had a dream and nobody knows its meaning', adding: wa'ani shamá‛ti ‛alékha lemor tishma‛ xalom liftor oto 'I have heard about you that as soon as you hear a dream you can tell its meaning', to which Joseph counters (41:16): bil‛aday elohim ya‛ane et sh'lom par‛o 'It has nothing to do with me! It is God who will respond for your (lit. Pharaoh's) well-being', and then he listens to Pharaoh's dreams and tells him what they mean. To a modern reader, this makes it look like Joseph is very resourceful but is careful not to take credit personally for his gift: if he knows the meaning of these dreams, it can only be because God wants him to.
While this makes Joseph seem a very devout man, it is a different kind of relationship with God that he seems to have than that of his father Jacob and great-grandfather Abraham, the patriarchs, who sometimes had quite lengthy chats with God (not Isaac). We are never told of any one-on-one communication between God and Joseph (or any of his brothers); we don't even see Joseph pray to God. All we see is that in his dealings with men, Joseph is careful not to take credit personally for all that he achieves: it is God doing it.
But coming back to the dreams, in this story it is evident that a lot more store was set by them in the cultures of the ancient world (and not only that of the patriarchs) than in our own culture today (where we have something called science instead), and therefore the ability to interpret the "meaning" of dreams was a revered skill which certain special people were believed to possess. Those who possessed such skills used mysterious methods to perform them which the Israelites refused to believe in, calling them hocus-pocus or magic, which they loathed. To them, such procedures were tantamount to idol worship, the worship of false gods. It was not that they didn't believe in the importance of dreams and the possibility that they carry meanings; but what they could not admit was that magic was any good at revealing the meaning, because there was no such thing as magic, only the one God who is the only source of such knowledge, and He will give that knowledge to whomever He sees fit, when and if He pleases. They would have argued that you can't force God to reveal the meaning of a dream, anymore than you can force Him to make it rain by doing a dance. A man like Joseph who understands this and relies on God to learn the meaning of people's dreams, then, is to them not a magician, he is merely a man who has wisdom. Genesis resists calling Joseph a pitron, calling him instead a xakham.
Some modern commentators conclude, because they believe the material in the present passage comes from a different source than that which tells of Joseph's imprisonment, that in the original version of the episode we are now reading Joseph was not a prisoner. Rather, he was Potiphar's slave whose job it was to look after the needs of the prisoners under Potiphar's responsibility. True, the passage contains a few allusions to Joseph's condition as prisoner; these, it is argued, could have been added later. Even if there is any truth in the theory, it refers to the sources of the material, not to the shape of the narrative as we find it in the extant book of Genesis.
40:1 wayhi axar hadd'varim ha'élle
Lit. 'After these things...', i.e. 'some time later', but this common opening phrase (cf. 15:1, 22:1, 22:20, 39:7) does not specify how much later and often, as here, leaves the exact chronology open. Thus we do not know how long it is since the business with Potiphar's wife happened, or how long Joseph had been in prison when the present episode took place.
xaT'u
'Gave offence', not 'sinned'. On the meaning of the verb x-T-' see my note on 20:6 here.
40:4 yamim
Another extremely unspecific indication of time; we have no idea how many days!
40:10-11
I quote CB:
In his dream the chief butler sees the whole process of wine-making pass before his eyes in a few seconds. The buds appear upon the vine branches, they unfold into blossoms, and ripen into grapes. He gathers them; presses them forthwith into Pharaoh's cup; they become wine; and, as the royal cup-bearer, he serves the wine to Pharaoh. The ordinary interpretation is that the king drank the fresh grape-juice; but as the butler sees the natural process of the growth of the grapes take place with dream-like swiftness, so probably it is taken for granted that the juice became wine in similar fashion.40:13 yissa far‛o et roshèkha
Lit. 'Pharaoh will raise your head.' This is an idiomatic expression; the meaning is: 'Pharaoh will pardon you', as is clear from what follows: wahashiv'kha ‛al kannèkha... 'and he will restore you to your post etc.'
40:15 ki gunnov gunnavti
Pual (i.e. piel passive) of g-n-b 'to steal' in the sense of 'kidnap' or something similar.
babbor
Curiously, here and in 41:14 the same word is used, bor, to refer to the prison where Joseph is being held as was used in ch. 37 to refer to the pit in which he was placed by his brothers at Dothan. Here Joseph uses the term and in the next chapter is is employed by the narrator.
40:16 sh'losha sale xori
The meaning of xori is uncertain and there are various conjectures: 'three baskets of white bread', 'three wicker baskets'...? I am doubtful of the 'white bread' idea, since in v. 17 we are told what the top basket (hassal ha‛elyon) contained. The implication seems to be that the other two baskets were empty, which would be much more practical if they are balanced on his head! But in that case, they are not "three baskets of white bread."
40:19 yissa far‛o et rosh'kha me‛alékha
Lit. 'Pharaoh will lift (or raise) your head off you.' A cruel word-play by the narrator, because cf. v. 13. In the present case the expression is meant literally, not as an idiom meaning to pardon: Pharaoh is actually going to cut of his head! Again, the following words disambiguate.
40:20 wayyissa et rosh sar hammashqim w'et rosh sar ha'ofim b'tokh ‛avadaw
This is yet a third use of the collocation n-s-' et rosh X lit 'to raise someone's head' (cf. vv. 13, 19), and with it the word play apparently continues. Either it is a way of reiterating the pun (Pharaoh did indeed raise both their heads - though in very different ways!), or else, as suggested in EAS, perhaps the author playfully uses it here in yet a third sense, 'to single out.'
END OF SECTION 9
So that's the end of Part I of Joseph's story. In it we have seen Joseph, the firstborn son of his doting father's most loved wife and a "child of his old age", grow up as a rather special child in more ways than one: disliked by his older brothers (the bullied schoolboy comes to mind), favourited by his father (the gift of the k'tónet passim), and a child who has unusual dreams (which signalled him as special according to the mentality of ancient times). At the tender age of seventeen his life "spins out of control" and thereafter moves from drama to spectacular drama: he is nearly murdered by his own brothers, is carried away to Egypt and becomes a slave there, becomes the most trusted man of an Egyptian nobleman, falls victim to his master's lusting wife, is thrown into jail, is put in charge of all the prisoners, interprets their dreams and his interpretations come true. Yet as the curtain falls Joseph is still a prisoner in Egypt. Even the cup-bearer whose return to grace Joseph correctly predicted forgets to help him out when he has the chance. But the biggest thrills are yet to come, after the break. Ice lolly?
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