†. Gen 40:4b-8a . . After they had been in custody for some time,
each of the two men-- the cupbearer and the baker of the king of
Egypt, who were being held in prison --had a dream the same night,
and each dream had a meaning of its own.
. . .When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they
were dejected. So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody
with him in his master's house: Why are your faces so sad today? We
both had dreams; they answered, but there is no one to interpret
them. Then Joseph said to them: Do not interpretations belong to
God?
Actually, in the literal, Joseph said: Aren't interpretations with the gods?
Because the word for "God" is 'elohiym (el-o-heem') which isn't one of
Yhvh's proper names, but simply a plural noun indicating a divine being;
both the real and the artificial.
†. Gen 40:8b . . Please tell me.
Till now, Joseph had never interpreted a dream, not even his own. He
dreamed in the past (e.g. Gen 37:5-7, Gen 37:9) but at the time he didn't
know what his dreams meant; and in this particular instance, I seriously
doubt he believed himself able to interpret a dream. At this point, I think he
was just curious. Jail is boring; what else was there to talk about? So what's
going to happen next was probably just as big a surprise to him as it was to
them.
Incidentally, there's no record of God ever speaking one-on-one with
Joseph. He believed God was providentially active in his life, but was given
no apparitions of any kind whatsoever to justify his confidence. All Joseph
really had to go on was the fulfillment of his interpretations of people's
dreams; which aren't eo ipso evidence of God at work. (e.g. Acts 16:16)
People's dreams normally don't stick in their memories for very long; but
these two men's dreams seemed (to them anyway) to be of a mysteriously
symbolic significance, and are so disturbing that they can't get the details
out of their minds. In psychoanalysis, dreams are of interest because they're
often expressions of subconscious anxieties and inner conflicts rather than
portents and/or omens. Those kinds of dreams are both common and
normal, and surely no one should try to derive a message from God out of
them. But these men's dreams defied psychoanalysis because they were so
weird and unnatural.
Had they been at liberty, they no doubt would have contacted one of
Pharaoh's astrologers, or an occultist or a diviner, or a highly intuitive wiz
kid to tell them the meanings. But for now they're stuck with Joseph-- a nice
enough young fellow; but a total unknown in their world regarding matters
of paranormal precognition.
†. Gen 40:9-13 . .Then the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph.
He said to him: In my dream, there was a vine in front of me. On the
vine were three branches. It had barely budded, when out came its
blossoms and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh's cup was in
my hand, and I took the grapes, pressed them into Pharaoh's cup,
and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.
. . . Joseph said to him: This is its interpretation: The three branches
are three days. In three days Pharaoh will pardon you and restore
you to your post; you will place Pharaoh's cup in his hand, as was
your custom formerly when you were his cupbearer.
From whence Joseph got his interpretation isn't stated. Genesis doesn't say
he heard a voice, nor does it clearly say that God gave Joseph the
interpretation. For all Joseph knew, (and them too) he was just taking a wild
guess. It probably came right out of his head sort of like intuition or an
imaginative locution.
†. Gen 40:14 . . But remember me when all is well with you again,
and do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh, so as to free
me from this place.
Don't worry, he won't; nor did he promise to.
†. Gen 40:15 . . For in truth, I was kidnapped from the land of the
Hebrews; nor have I done anything here that they should have put
me in the dungeon.
Joseph is just beating his gums. He couldn't really expect a courtier to take
the word of a convicted slave. There's a comical incident in the movie
"Shawshank Redemption" where a prisoner is asked his crime. He answered:
I'm innocent; the lawyers did me in. Seems like everybody in jail is innocent,
at least in their own minds. Even that horrible Kenneth L. Lay, the chief
executive of ENRON, admitted no wrong-doing right to the day of his death.
†. Gen 40:16a . .When the chief baker saw how favorably he had
interpreted,
Apparently, for reasons unstated, the baker was somewhat reluctant to
share his dream with Joseph at first, but relented when the first dream came
out okay.
†. Gen 40:16b-17 . . he said to Joseph: In my dream, similarly, there
were three openwork baskets on my head. In the uppermost basket
were all kinds of food for Pharaoh that a baker prepares; and the
birds were eating it out of the basket above my head.
Birds are usually an ill omen in Scripture; sort of like the connotation borne
by serpents. So, now it comes out why the baker was reluctant to tell his
dream. If Pharaoh ever suspected that his food was being picked over by
birds, he would be very disappointed in the quality of the care that he had a
right to expect from his own personal team of cooks. Food left uncovered,
exposed and out in the open, is certainly not food fit for a king.
The baker's dream may have been his subconscious at work reminiscing the
error of his ways. Up till now, the baker had no doubt insisted upon his
innocence; which was nothing less than feigned since he knew very well with
whom the real fault lay between himself and the cupbearer. Apparently
Pharaoh had actually gotten some sort of food poisoning, and the
investigation underway by Potiphar sought to find the source; and likely to
determine if it was in any way evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate
Pharaoh.
†. Gen 40:18-19 . . Joseph answered: This is its interpretation: The
three baskets are three days. In three days Pharaoh will lift off your
head and gibbet you upon a pole; and the birds will pick off your
flesh.
It's lucky for the baker that he would be already dead before the gibbeting
because a common method of gibbeting in those days was impaling; which
was a grizzly spectacle. Wooden poles, about three to four inches in
diameter were sharpened to a pencil point and forcibly inserted into the
abdomen, up into the rib cage to catch on the spine in back of the throat;
and the pole was then set upright to suspend the victim above the ground
like human shish kabob.
I'm looking here at an impaling on an Assyrian stone relief-- in the
July/August 2006 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review --commissioned by
Sennacherib for his palace at Ninevah to celebrate the capture of Lachish.
The victims are three Israelites who still have their heads; strongly
suggesting that they were alive when the poles were run into their bellies
and up into their upper torsos.
Nobody could possibly survive an injury like that for more than a few
seconds. The pole would not only penetrate the stomach, but also the
diaphragm, the lungs, some large blood vessels, and the bronchial tubes;
resulting in almost instant death-- quite excruciating, and very bloody.
Public impaling was no doubt a very effective deterrent to insurrection; and
nobody in those days seemed overly concerned about executing criminals in
a "humane" manner. Cruel and unusual punishments were the norm; and
nobody dared stage an "Occupy Wall Street" protest about them lest their
days end in like fashion.
Cont.
/
each of the two men-- the cupbearer and the baker of the king of
Egypt, who were being held in prison --had a dream the same night,
and each dream had a meaning of its own.
. . .When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they
were dejected. So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody
with him in his master's house: Why are your faces so sad today? We
both had dreams; they answered, but there is no one to interpret
them. Then Joseph said to them: Do not interpretations belong to
God?
Actually, in the literal, Joseph said: Aren't interpretations with the gods?
Because the word for "God" is 'elohiym (el-o-heem') which isn't one of
Yhvh's proper names, but simply a plural noun indicating a divine being;
both the real and the artificial.
†. Gen 40:8b . . Please tell me.
Till now, Joseph had never interpreted a dream, not even his own. He
dreamed in the past (e.g. Gen 37:5-7, Gen 37:9) but at the time he didn't
know what his dreams meant; and in this particular instance, I seriously
doubt he believed himself able to interpret a dream. At this point, I think he
was just curious. Jail is boring; what else was there to talk about? So what's
going to happen next was probably just as big a surprise to him as it was to
them.
Incidentally, there's no record of God ever speaking one-on-one with
Joseph. He believed God was providentially active in his life, but was given
no apparitions of any kind whatsoever to justify his confidence. All Joseph
really had to go on was the fulfillment of his interpretations of people's
dreams; which aren't eo ipso evidence of God at work. (e.g. Acts 16:16)
People's dreams normally don't stick in their memories for very long; but
these two men's dreams seemed (to them anyway) to be of a mysteriously
symbolic significance, and are so disturbing that they can't get the details
out of their minds. In psychoanalysis, dreams are of interest because they're
often expressions of subconscious anxieties and inner conflicts rather than
portents and/or omens. Those kinds of dreams are both common and
normal, and surely no one should try to derive a message from God out of
them. But these men's dreams defied psychoanalysis because they were so
weird and unnatural.
Had they been at liberty, they no doubt would have contacted one of
Pharaoh's astrologers, or an occultist or a diviner, or a highly intuitive wiz
kid to tell them the meanings. But for now they're stuck with Joseph-- a nice
enough young fellow; but a total unknown in their world regarding matters
of paranormal precognition.
†. Gen 40:9-13 . .Then the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph.
He said to him: In my dream, there was a vine in front of me. On the
vine were three branches. It had barely budded, when out came its
blossoms and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh's cup was in
my hand, and I took the grapes, pressed them into Pharaoh's cup,
and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.
. . . Joseph said to him: This is its interpretation: The three branches
are three days. In three days Pharaoh will pardon you and restore
you to your post; you will place Pharaoh's cup in his hand, as was
your custom formerly when you were his cupbearer.
From whence Joseph got his interpretation isn't stated. Genesis doesn't say
he heard a voice, nor does it clearly say that God gave Joseph the
interpretation. For all Joseph knew, (and them too) he was just taking a wild
guess. It probably came right out of his head sort of like intuition or an
imaginative locution.
†. Gen 40:14 . . But remember me when all is well with you again,
and do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh, so as to free
me from this place.
Don't worry, he won't; nor did he promise to.
†. Gen 40:15 . . For in truth, I was kidnapped from the land of the
Hebrews; nor have I done anything here that they should have put
me in the dungeon.
Joseph is just beating his gums. He couldn't really expect a courtier to take
the word of a convicted slave. There's a comical incident in the movie
"Shawshank Redemption" where a prisoner is asked his crime. He answered:
I'm innocent; the lawyers did me in. Seems like everybody in jail is innocent,
at least in their own minds. Even that horrible Kenneth L. Lay, the chief
executive of ENRON, admitted no wrong-doing right to the day of his death.
†. Gen 40:16a . .When the chief baker saw how favorably he had
interpreted,
Apparently, for reasons unstated, the baker was somewhat reluctant to
share his dream with Joseph at first, but relented when the first dream came
out okay.
†. Gen 40:16b-17 . . he said to Joseph: In my dream, similarly, there
were three openwork baskets on my head. In the uppermost basket
were all kinds of food for Pharaoh that a baker prepares; and the
birds were eating it out of the basket above my head.
Birds are usually an ill omen in Scripture; sort of like the connotation borne
by serpents. So, now it comes out why the baker was reluctant to tell his
dream. If Pharaoh ever suspected that his food was being picked over by
birds, he would be very disappointed in the quality of the care that he had a
right to expect from his own personal team of cooks. Food left uncovered,
exposed and out in the open, is certainly not food fit for a king.
The baker's dream may have been his subconscious at work reminiscing the
error of his ways. Up till now, the baker had no doubt insisted upon his
innocence; which was nothing less than feigned since he knew very well with
whom the real fault lay between himself and the cupbearer. Apparently
Pharaoh had actually gotten some sort of food poisoning, and the
investigation underway by Potiphar sought to find the source; and likely to
determine if it was in any way evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate
Pharaoh.
†. Gen 40:18-19 . . Joseph answered: This is its interpretation: The
three baskets are three days. In three days Pharaoh will lift off your
head and gibbet you upon a pole; and the birds will pick off your
flesh.
It's lucky for the baker that he would be already dead before the gibbeting
because a common method of gibbeting in those days was impaling; which
was a grizzly spectacle. Wooden poles, about three to four inches in
diameter were sharpened to a pencil point and forcibly inserted into the
abdomen, up into the rib cage to catch on the spine in back of the throat;
and the pole was then set upright to suspend the victim above the ground
like human shish kabob.
I'm looking here at an impaling on an Assyrian stone relief-- in the
July/August 2006 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review --commissioned by
Sennacherib for his palace at Ninevah to celebrate the capture of Lachish.
The victims are three Israelites who still have their heads; strongly
suggesting that they were alive when the poles were run into their bellies
and up into their upper torsos.
Nobody could possibly survive an injury like that for more than a few
seconds. The pole would not only penetrate the stomach, but also the
diaphragm, the lungs, some large blood vessels, and the bronchial tubes;
resulting in almost instant death-- quite excruciating, and very bloody.
Public impaling was no doubt a very effective deterrent to insurrection; and
nobody in those days seemed overly concerned about executing criminals in
a "humane" manner. Cruel and unusual punishments were the norm; and
nobody dared stage an "Occupy Wall Street" protest about them lest their
days end in like fashion.
Cont.
/
