One day, Pharaoh became displeased with his chief cupbearer
and chief baker and throws them in prison. It’s a good thing for them that he
didn’t have a rancor in a pit somewhere.
As luck would have it, the two men end up in Joseph’s prison, and the
captain of the guard tells Joseph to keep his eye on the new guys. After a little while, the chief cupbearer and
chief baker each dream a dream that uneases each of them, and they don’t have a
chief dream interpreter in prison this month. Joseph has had some experience
with dreams, however, and says to them, “Do not all interpretations belong to
God?” (40:8)
We start with the cupbearer. In his dream, there were three
branches on a grape vine that bloomed and ripened into grapes which the
cupbearer squeezed into Pharaoh’s cup and served him. Joseph interprets this
dream to mean that in three days, Pharaoh will come to his senses and restore
the chief cupbearer to his original position. Oh, and because I, Joseph, just
interpreted your dream so incredibly favorably, do tell the Pharaoh about me
since I was ripped from my homeland and am actually completely innocent. Seeing
that the cupbearer’s dream interpretation was so wonderful, the chief baker
offers up his dream too. In his dream, he had three cake baskets on his head,
but birds were eating the food in the top one that was meant for Pharaoh. Joseph, unfortunately, does not have good
news about this one. He tells the baker
that his dream foreshadows his execution and public display of his remains in
three days. Sucks for you, guy. So three days later, it’s Pharaoh’s birthday.
What an amazing coincidence! Joseph was dead on, too. The chief cupbearer gets
restored to his position, and the chief baker…well, Pharaoh had found a new
chief baker. And does the chief cupbearer remember to tell Pharaoh about Joseph
like he promised? Of course not!
So far, the bible is full of word play, puns, and little
jokes for the reader that range from insightful to delightful. Some of it I’ve
shared with you. Some of it I’ve left out. Really it depends on my mood and how
tickled I was by it. Joseph gets a
pretty good one in here saying that Pharaoh would “lift up your head” to each
of the men, and adds, “—from you!” to the baker. Oh snap. I do want to point out something in the same vein
that I don’t think I have yet: the sacredness of the name of God. Footnotes
have helped me out with this yet again, especially because I’m reading this in
English and not Hebrew. When the Israelites talk amongst themselves about God,
they tend to use “YHWH”, the name of God that gets translated into “the Lord”.
When they talk to anyone else, they use only ever use “God”. I know there are a
lot of people out there who would be outraged by the exclusionism of this. In
fact, a lot of them like to live on commenting sections on news articles or
YouTube videos. I like it, though. I think rituals and keeping things sacred is
important, no matter what it is you keep sacred. Sacredness, specialness, setting things
apart. Whether you go to church every week, walk daily, or watch A Muppet
Family Christmas every December, or keep the name of God sacred. It puts you in
a different mindset. You pay special attention to it. It can cause you to
re-evaluate. It can cause you to remember. It can cause you to grow. Truly
experience it every time, and live in that experience.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
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