Genesis 40

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

Pharaoh imprisoned his chief cupbearer and chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard, where Joseph was confined, and Joseph attended to them. Both prisoners had separate dreams on the same night and appeared distraught the next morning because no one could interpret them. The cupbearer described a dream of a vine with three branches yielding grapes that he pressed into Pharaoh's cup, and Joseph interpreted it to mean that in three days Pharaoh would restore him to his position. Encouraged by this, the chief baker told of his dream involving three baskets of baked goods on his head that birds were eating, and Joseph stated that in three days Pharaoh would hang him on a tree. On Pharaoh's birthday three days later, the king restored the cupbearer and hanged the baker exactly as Joseph had predicted, but the cupbearer forgot about Joseph and did not mention him.

Summary automatically generated from the Bible text.

Words of Jesus in red

¹Some time later, the king’s cupbearer and baker offended their master, the king of Egypt. ²Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, ³and imprisoned them in the house of the captain of the guard, the same prison where Joseph was confined. ⁴The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he became their personal attendant. After they had been in custody for some time, ⁵both of these men—the Egyptian king’s cupbearer and baker, who were being held in the prison—had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning. ⁶When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were distraught. ⁷So he asked the officials of Pharaoh who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why are your faces so downcast today?” ⁸“We both had dreams,” they replied, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.” ⁹So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream: “In my dream there was a vine before me, ¹⁰and on the vine were three branches. As it budded, its blossoms opened and its clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into his cup, and placed the cup in his hand.” ¹²Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three branches are three days. ¹³Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore your position. You will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you did when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴But when it goes well for you, please remember me and show me kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh, that he might bring me out of this prison. ¹⁵For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing for which they should have put me in this dungeon.” ¹⁶When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: There were three baskets of white bread on my head. ¹⁷In the top basket were all sorts of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” ¹⁸Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three baskets are three days. ¹⁹Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and hang you on a tree. Then the birds will eat the flesh of your body.” ²⁰On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he held a feast for all his officials, and in their presence he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. ²¹Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. ²²But Pharaoh hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had described to them in his interpretation. ²³The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot all about him.

Test this chapter

Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.