In Gen. 40 we get the account of the two men, the king's butler and baker, incarcerated in the same prison with Joseph, and put under his care. Coming in to them one morning, his tender compassionate eye perceived that they were sad, and he asked them why it was. They told him they "have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it." Joseph asked if interpretations do not belong to God, and requested that they tell it to him. Then the chief butler told his dream, of a vine with three branches; it budded and shot forth blossoms, and the clusters brought forth ripe grapes. Pharaoh's cup was in his hand, and he took the grapes, and pressed them into it, and gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. Joseph's interpretation was that the butler would be, in three days, restored to his butlership, and added, "But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house."
The chief baker, seeing that the interpretation was favorable, also told his dream. Truth is often only valued in such a case; the sands of fiction, sentiment, or vaunted groundless hopes being resorted to, to blind the eyes to its pursuit, when it favors not. Vain man! the thirst of truth, for right and justice, is not satiated thus. Unfavorable or favorable, its issues known or unknown, seen or unseen, truth abides the same; and if run counter to, its pursuit will surely end in the disclosure of the folly of seeking to blind the eyes to its approaching claims. The baker said, "I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head: and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bake-meats [or the work of a baker—margin] for Pharaoh: and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head." Joseph's interpretation of this was that in three days the head of the baker would be taken off, and he hung on a tree, and the birds should eat his flesh.
The ripe fruit of the butler, and the work of the baker, remind us of Cain and Abel and their offerings. Like Abel's offering, there is no human effort; the grapes are brought forth from
the vine that budded, and ripe- ready for Pharaoh's cup. The "bake-meats," or "work of a baker," were the fruit of effort, like the produce of Cain's tillage. The baskets too were "white," or "full of holes" (margin).
Oh, how much toil and labor are expended, and only to be lost for lack of spirituality; how much sacrifice made and wasted, carrying with it untold disappointment and remorse, where if obedience had been substituted for it, which to God is so much better, what copious returns would it have yielded of richest blessings. But skill has been put in the place of faith; and the wages, dearly earned, have been put into bags with holes (Hag. 1:66Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. (Haggai 1:6)) and wasted.
The birds of the air devoured the work of the baker out of the basket with holes. By works of law shall no man living be justified; it is death to try it. Faith appropriates a "ripe" and accomplished work, yielding revenues of wine to cheer the heart.
The third day, being Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast, and he restored the butler to his butlership, and the baker he hanged, according to Joseph's interpretation.
"Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him." Well was it for Joseph that he did. Joseph was not to have his way; God's was far better, and exceeding abundantly more fraught with blessing than he could ever have asked or thought. "Two full years" Joseph waited in prison; and we do not read of his growing weary, or impatient, or fretting over his—humanly speaking, surely, to say the least -adverse circumstances.
He was in perfect innocence as to the charge which brought him there; perhaps there were only three for many a long year cognizant of the fact-the Lord, and Joseph, and the lying woman through whose guilt, though professing innocence and feigning rectitude, he suffered. But the Holy Ghost has revealed it now to us, and "the day" will disclose it to all.
"The LORD was with Joseph." Circumstances are no barrier to the Lord's presence with His people, be they poverty or riches, honor or shame, so long as there has been faithfulness to Him, and a good conscience retained; hence Joseph's composure and success. Paul tells us to be "satisfied with... present circumstances; for He has said, I will not leave thee" (N. Trans.), while at Philippi he provides an example of one rejoicing in apparently most adverse circumstances. They might put him in the inner prison, and make his feet fast in the stocks, but neither devil nor man could stop the flowing of that fountain of living water springing up within; and the Lord was with him. Peter too, in Acts 5, is seen rejoicing in suffering for the sake of His name, having been beaten for his faithfulness. Everything, as we said before, depends on how we get into the circumstances we are in, as to what we suffer or enjoy while in them. Thus two men may be in the same circumstances outwardly, yet the Lord, in this sense, only be with one of them.
The Lord was for Joseph, too, as well as with him-it could not be otherwise. And though the chief butler forgot him, He did not. What a comfort it is to know that we never are in any circumstance, whether we get there rightly or wrongly, through sin, or through piety, or through faithfulness, but God if needs be has ever got a right and a triumphant way out of it. It will call for self-judgment and confession, if it is through sin; much patience and waiting upon God in either case; but it is written for every trial, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1 Cor. 10:1313There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13). If we do thus wait for Him, He leads in triumph, and none can stay His hand.
Joseph waited-"two full years" he waited, and like the blessed One of Psalm 40, when the right moment came, he could say, "I waited patiently for the LORD, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit... Blessed is the man that maketh the LORD his trust."
Had Joseph got his way when he made the request of the butler, all very likely that he would have gained as the result of such intercession on his behalf, would have been restoration to the place that he had lost, and most probably not so much as that; but when God's time came, he was brought forth from prison to sit among princes.
Little do we know how much we often lose because of our natural activity and readiness to resort to some expedient of our own, when we miss the incomparable blessedness of being fed by the "integrity of His heart," and guided by the "skilfulness of His hand." Peter, with all his activity and zeal, could never have achieved anything nearly so wonderful as took place for him when he was absolutely powerless and unable to put in practice any plan of his ever-ready invention. But this condition of helplessness made him a fit subject for the benefits of a far more skilful hand; and a greater manifestation of power, as to his temporal need, was exercised at such a time and in such a state, than ever, I should say, before. It was God's opportunity; He could bring in His resources now that Peter had none.
For such opportunities, I believe, God often waits, and often waits in vain; we fill them up ourselves, and the desired result is very hardly, if at all, acquired, and certainly not with the heart and mouth full of worship, for it generally costs leanness and barrenness of soul, disqualifying for all worship.
See that man in Acts 3, absolutely powerless in his crippled state, and no human device could effect a cure for the disease that had withstood the efforts of forty years—man's full testing time—but now entering the temple, leaping and praising God—a real worshiper. All he possessed, he had received; his cup was full—grace, pure grace alone, had filled it. And he was made -what nothing else but grace can make—a worshiper!
Pharaoh dreamed; and the butler remembered his fault, in the forgetfulness of his benefactor two years before. No one having been found able to interpret the dreams, Joseph came to the chief butler's memory; and "Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon"; and he who had been Pharaoh's prisoner was almost immediately found Pharaoh's counselor, and exchanged the dungeon for the "second chariot," and the faithful rule of the prison, for government "over all the land of Egypt." "And they cried before him, Bow the knee."
Are we not often very foolish in the things for which we wish and sometimes make request? And do we not often seek, and sometimes even make, untimely escapes out of circumstances not quite pleasant, or what we deem hurtful, or profitless? Such ways only add to our troubles, and hinder Him whose eye is never unwatchful, or hand resourceless, and whose way with us is ever in blessing. May this knowledge inspire in each of us increased confidence and patience. Joseph's way might have led to deliverance from prison, and there ended; God's way led not only from suffering, but to greatest honor.
Pharaoh decked Joseph with his own ring, vesture of fine linen, and a gold chain about his neck, and gave him Asenath, daughter of Potipherah priest of On, to wife, to share his dignities and honors. The pit and prison were his lot alone -Asenath was not with him there. So it is said of Christ, "He was taken from prison.... He shall divide the spoil with the strong" (Isa. 53:8, 128He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (Isaiah 53:8)
12Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)). He suffered alone. The Church, and Israel by-and-by, will share with Him the spoil. In His shame, the mocking, buffeting, spitting, and nailing to that cross, He suffered all alone—we had no part in that—yea, He suffered thus to spare us from it, whose due it was. He was the only One who could pass under the judgment of God and come out of it having settled its every claim. There is escape for none who get there, and no avoidance of it but by the One who voluntarily took the place in substitution for those who accept Him thus.
The Lord give our hearts to worship more and more, in such boundless love as this, and to rejoice in the marvelous place that grace has set us in, and appropriate the untold advantages and blessings that are ours as we take our Asenath place beside our risen and triumphant Joseph. "All are yours"—"Ye are Christ's" (1 Cor. 3:22, 2322Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:22‑23)). The value too enhanced a thousandfold, as we remember all it cost Him to obtain it for us. And it was not mercy only—it was love! love that was strong as death, which led Him through it to obtain the objects of it, clearing them from every charge that could be brought against them, and enriching them and gracing them suitably to the place and dignity it was the purpose and affection of His heart to set them in.
It is precious to us, and surely gratifying to Christ, to entertain the consciousness in our hearts of what we are to Christ. What He is consciously to us, is no measure for this. In Eph. 5 we are told He "loved" and He "gave." What He gave is the measure of the love—justice claimed all—"Himself." Love yielded it; He "gave Himself." The same love occupies itself now on its precious objects which it nourishes and cherishes, till the day of the consummation of His ways with us, of infinite love and grace, arrives, and He fully gratifies His own heart's desires and affection by presenting to Himself the object He loved—died for—and ever since has occupied Himself about.