Genesis 40:1-23: Joseph in Prison
Bible Essentials: Set 3, Lesson 27
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Opening
Individuals: Take time to think back about your past week. Where have you seen God work in your life or answer prayer? Write down any prayer requests you have.
Group: Open the study by sharing life updates, reviewing highs and lows of your past week, or sharing prayer requests and praises.
Icebreaker: Have you ever gotten in trouble for something you didn’t do? What happened?
All: Begin the study with a word of prayer, asking God to open your heart for today’s study. You can also pray for any prayer requests now, or save that for the end.
Study
Read today’s passage: Genesis 40:1-23.
40 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.
After they had been in custody for some time, 5 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.
6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”
8 “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? Tell me your dreams.”
9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, 10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread. 17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”
20 Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
What is the context for this passage?
Let’s quickly review where we are in Joseph’s story. Joseph is the 11th of 12 sons born to Jacob, but he is also the firstborn of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. This means that Jacob loved Joseph more than his other brothers, and Joseph’s brothers were jealous and hated Joseph. Out of their hatred, they sold Joseph into slavery and told their father that he was dead.
Through Midianite traders, Joseph made his way to Egypt, where he became a slave in the house of Potiphar, one of the Pharaoh’s officials. After some time, Potiphar’s wife noticed her attraction to Joseph and tried to seduce him. When Joseph refused, she made up a story that he had tried to seduce her. This made Potiphar angry, and he had Joseph thrown in prison.
Through all of this, God was with Joseph and blessed all the work he did. Potiphar noticed God’s presence with Joseph and put him in charge of all he owned, until his wife deceived him and he had Joseph thrown in prison. While in prison, the prison warden also noticed God’s presence with Joseph and put him in charge of all the prisoners. So this is where we find Joseph in today’s story—in prison, overseeing the prisoners.
One thing of context that I got from reading this week’s passage that I hadn’t ever paid attention to before—the prison where Joseph was being kept was in Potiphar’s house. Genesis 39:1 tells us that Potiphar was captain of the guard. Genesis 40:3 says that Joseph was confined in the prison that was in the house of the captain of the guard. Later, in Genesis 40:7, it tells us that the two officials were in custody with Joseph in his master’s house. His master is Potiphar. So even though Joseph was in prison, Potiphar seemingly still had contact with him, and indeed still favored him, as he allowed Joseph to be in charge of the other prisoners. I guess I always imagined Joseph in a dark dungeon-like prison that was far away from Potiphar and his wife. But that appears to not be the case.
Read the passage again.
Explore a different version if you have one available. If you are online, here is Genesis 40 in NIV through Bible Gateway. You can change the version by using the dropdown menu at the top right of the page.
Try to summarize the passage in your own words.
Answer these three questions about the passage:
1. What does the passage say about God?
God provides interpretations for dreams. Joseph was no stranger to dreams, and he knew that God is able to interpret dreams. God provided Joseph the wisdom to understand the dreams of the cupbearer and baker and to give them correct interpretations.
2. What does the passage say about people?
People are easily offended. Just as Joseph ended up in prison over Potiphar’s misplaced anger, the cupbearer and baker end up in prison because they angered Pharaoh. We don’t know what they did, or whether Pharaoh’s anger was justified. But we know that any instance of Pharaoh’s anger can spell trouble for those who offended him.
People must suffer the consequences of their actions. Whatever the cupbearer and baker did, they had to suffer the consequences of their actions. They were thrown in prison for angering Pharaoh. Eventually, the cupbearer was restored and the baker was killed.
People have dreams, and these dreams sometimes have significant meaning. Dreaming is fairly common when people are sleeping. Sometimes, these dreams are more than just weird mixtures of ideas in someone’s head. Just as Joseph’s dreams had meaning when he told them to his brothers in Genesis 37, the dreams of the cupbearer and baker had meaning. Joseph was able to interpret those dreams through God’s wisdom.
People can read body language to discern emotions of others. Body language is a major part of communicating emotions. Joseph was observant and saw that the cupbearer and baker were dejected the morning after they had their dreams.
People can show care and compassion for others. When Joseph noticed that the cupbearer and baker were troubled about something, he showed care for them by asking why they were so sad. Then, when they shared with him, Joseph helped them understand their dreams.
People ask others to return favors that they have done. Joseph did a favor for the cupbearer and baker by interpreting their dreams. He asked for a favor in return—to mention Joseph to Pharaoh to get him out of prison.
People celebrate birthdays. The fulfillment of the cupbearer’s and baker’s dreams hinged on a special event—Pharaoh’s birthday. Even back in Bible times, people celebrated their birthdays.
People tend to forget their promises. As soon as the cupbearer was restored to his position, he promptly forgot about mentioning Joseph to Pharaoh. We all have a tendency to forget our promises, especially if it doesn’t seem to benefit us at all.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God’s plan was to plant seeds that would eventually gain Joseph the attention of Pharaoh. Once again, God is paving the way to get Joseph where he wants him—with Pharaoh. God doesn’t lay the path all at once. He uses a series of events to achieve his plan. In this passage, God ties the connection between Joseph and the cupbearer, who is with the Pharaoh every day, and gives the cupbearer a reason to remember Joseph when the time is right.
How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
In this week’s passage, we see that when God works in our lives, he may only give us one tiny step forward before we have a period of waiting again. In Joseph’s life, his first step on his path to Pharaoh was being sold into slavery. Once he was sold to Potiphar, there was a period of waiting before the next step—being thrown in prison. Once he was in prison, there was a period of waiting until he came in contact with the cupbearer and baker. Once they were in prison, there was a period of waiting until they had their dreams and Joseph interpreted them. Once the cupbearer was restored, there was another period of waiting because the cupbearer forgot about Joseph and didn’t mention him to Pharaoh. God only allows forward steps to happen in his timing, and often, that timing doesn’t make sense to us.
We see this also in Jesus’ life. There were many times when Jesus didn’t act the way his disciples or the crowds wanted him to act because “my time has not yet come” (see John 2:1-11, John 7:6-8). Only when the time as right did Jesus act. Only in John 17, at the cusp of his betrayal and crucifixion, did Jesus say, “the hour has come.” Each step that Jesus took was a deliberate act to get him to the cross, but there were also times when Jesus said, no, now is a time of waiting. He didn’t start doing miracles when he was a kid (at least that we know). He didn’t go out and try to persuade the crowds to rise up and make him king (at least, not an earthly king). He often told people he healed to not tell anyone (see Matthew 9:27-31). He knew that each step of his life needed to be in God’s timing, and he knew when the time was not yet right—and he knew when it was right.
In our lives, we can trust that God knows the right timing for each step that will get us to the destination he wants for us. If it feels like you are in a period of waiting, trust that God has given you that time to learn to trust in him. Along the way, take every opportunity presented to you to be kind and compassionate to others. You never know which connection will make the difference.
Discussion
Individual: Answer the following questions thoughtfully for yourself.
Group: Pose these questions for discussion.
All: If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts to these questions. Feel free to use the comment section to start a discussion about this passage.
What else strikes you about this passage?
How does the passage affect how you view God? How you view yourself?
How does this passage affect how you will live your life?
Additional Study
For additional study related to this topic, read Daniel 2.
Premium Resources
For Bible Essential studies, you can use my thoughts as your devotional, or you can download and use the journaling sheet to work through the passage on your own. If desired, you can then compare your thoughts to mine. Journal sheets can be downloaded and used now or later. They can be printed and filled in by hand or saved and filled out electronically. Journal sheets are available for individual or group use.
If you plan to lead a group study, a PowerPoint presentation is also available.
You can access these resources by clicking here: Genesis 40 Resources
Or you can download the journal sheets here*:
*Substack doesn’t support PowerPoint file downloads yet, so if you want to access the PowerPoint file for group study, you will need to download it from the resource page linked above.
I feel like Bruce and I are in a waiting period. Waitig to know what God wants us to do in this time of our lives.