Genesis 40 Series, Part 3, Verses 1-4

Hello, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. This is study #3 of Genesis 40, and we will be reading Genesis 40:1-4:

And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward.

We are starting to get acquainted with these characters who were true historical figures that lived long ago. In case you are unaware, we do know the exact time for this because Joseph was born in 1916 B. C., and he was seventeen years old in 1899 B. C. when his brothers betrayed him and sold him as a slave. In turn the Ishmaelite slave traders sold him to Potiphar, and he became a slave in Potiphar’s house, probably for eleven years, according to the information we can gather. Then Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of forcing himself on her, and he was thrown into prison, and he was more than likely aged 28 when he was thrown into prison. It would have been the year 1888 B. C., and it was at that time these two servants of Pharaoh were thrown into prison. The chief butler and chief baker were more than likely put into prison in that year after what was probably an attempt on Pharaoh’s life through poisoning. The butler would have been the “cupbearer,” as the Hebrew word for “butler” is also translated as “cupbearer.” And of course the butler would have to do with the king’s food. 

So these two men had offended their lord, the king of Egypt, and he was wroth with them and threw these two men into prison. It was in the prison that they each had a dream, and their encounter with Joseph, and we will get into that. But this is the Bible, and the historical situation is not sufficient for the reader because God did not write the Bible to tell all the details of ancient history, but He used history to tell us about the Gospel. The Gospel can be defined as the truths of God in proper time and season. As God gives us accounts of events in biblical history, these events have spiritual meaning. 

The problem with most churches and theologians is that they will tell you as much as they can, but they are often incorrect when it comes to things like the dates I just gave you. They are unaware of the dates for the most part because they do not understand the calendar of history contained in the Bible. Normally they are more trustworthy with historical circumstances and things like that, but you even have to watch them on that. And they will tell recount the moral teachings like Joseph being faithful to his father, faithful to God, and so forth, and how despite those facts things went from bad to worse for him. And there are very nice moral principles in the Bible for all readers of the Bible, and we can learn that when we trust God He will work out all things for good for those that love Him.

And yet there is much more. As we talked about in our previous study, both the butler and the baker had offended their lord, and the word “offended” is a word translated as “sinned.” We also talked about how all have sinned, so these two men will be used in this chapter as representatives of the two types of people in the world, which are the saved and the unsaved. All have sinned, and we are all alike in our sins, but God had a salvation program to save certain ones. The butler will be delivered from prison and restored, and the baker will go from prison to his death.

By the way, speaking of “prison,” let us go to Exodus 20:2:

I am JEHOVAH thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

The Lord has designated Egypt as “the house of bondage,” and we can find that statement numerous times, and that is because the Israelites would end up becoming slaves in Egypt, just as Joseph was a slave, and then God will deliver all Israel out of the house of bondage. That is the spiritual picture. At the time of the exodus, God sent Moses to deliver Israel out of Egypt, and the Pharaoh at that time was a very evil Pharaoh, and he was a picture of Satan. It is another historical parable, and let us prove that before we get into this. Let us go to Psalm 49:1-4:

Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: Both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.

You see, God is letting us know this by telling all the inhabitants of the world to hear. And Christ would say, “He who hath ears to hear, let him hear,” and then He would speak a parable. Then in verse 4 He says, “I will incline mine ear to a parable.” What is this parable? If we go on to read, it does not sound much like a parable at all as it continues to say in Psalm 49:5-7:

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about? They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:

It is not so apparently parabolic. Let us look at another verse in the Psalms that is more in line with what we are looking at regarding Israel in Egypt. It says in Psalm 78:1-2:

Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:

So God is going to speak a parable. What is this parable? There is a lot, but let us look at Psalm 78:12-16:

Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and he made the waters to stand as an heap. In the daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.

He is recounting Israel’s experience in the wilderness for forty years after He brought them out of Egypt. God is telling us to incline our ear to this, and that does not just mean to pay extra close attention. That is how people are because people can “listen without really hearing” and we are not really tuned in. So they have to direct us to listen and pay attention, but that is not what God is saying when He says, “Incline your ears.” In order to incline your ears you have to be born again. You have to be raised from the dead spiritually because all men are dead in trespasses and sins. So let us ask the question: “Can the physically dead person hear?” That is the illustration. When someone is physically dead, they cannot hear. Their deadness means they can no longer hear you, and that is one of the very sorrowful things about death. Often when a loved one dies, a person will often say, “I should have told him that I love him once more,” and so forth. In order for you to hear me, for example, you must have physical life, and you can hear me physically. And it is the same idea in the spiritual realm. God is speaking throughout the Bible on a spiritual level. It says in Romans 7:14 that the law is spiritual. And in 1Corinthians 2 we learn that when we compare spiritual things with spiritual the Holy Ghost teaches. It also says in 1Corinthians 2:14:

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

You see, the natural man cannot know or “hear” spiritual things, but that is where the real truth is, and that is where the “meat” is, and all the true treasures of the Bible are on a spiritual level. That is why Proverbs tells us that we are to dig for the spiritual riches like for buried treasure. It is not on the surface. Only the fool’s gold is on the surface, and the churches are occupied with the fool’s gold. The true riches of the Bible are in the spiritual realm. In our Bible studies, we try to follow God’s direction and the leading of the Spirit by comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but for the sinner who remains dead in his sins, the spiritual meaning does him no good. It is possible for him to intellectually understand the idea that Christ spoke in parables and without a parable He did not speak, and he may comprehend to a limited degree, but he is not going to really understand it. Again, the natural man cannot discern it.

But the true elect are given “ears to hear.” They have been given a new heart and spirit, and they are born again spiritually, and they have “eyes to see.” And that means they have eyes of understanding and spiritual ears to hear, and now they are spiritually tuned in. For the ungodly, it is like tuning in a station on a radio signal that is not coming in powerfully, and they get static, and they really cannot discern it. But when the child of God tunes in, they hear it crystal clear.

And that is the idea when I talk about historical parables like what we read in Psalm 78 where God says He clave the rock in the wilderness after He tells us to incline our ear to a parable. Now compare that to what God says in 1Corinthians 10:1:

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant…

By the way, to be ignorant is to lack understanding. It is not seeing spiritually. Again, it says in 1Corinthians 10:1-4:

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

We read that they smote the rock and the water came out like a stream. We can also read about this in Numbers and the other books that Moses scribed, which are called the Pentateuch. It was delivered as pure history, and it was true history, and yet as God moved Paul to write these things in 1Corinthians, He called it spiritual drink and spiritual meat. The manna from heaven was a physical substance they ate to sustain their physical bodies. And it says that the “Rock was Christ.” Was it literally Christ? No, but it was spiritually Christ. And I will not take the time to do it, but I could lay out similar Scriptures for hours that has similar instructions on how to understand the whole Bible.

Do not listen to those pastors in the churches. They take the plain literal meaning, and they seek no other. That is a dull and dead hermeneutic that gives them a dead understanding of the Bible, and it empties the Bible of its glory and riches. It provides only a surface meaning of Scripture. It is paltry. It is what one would serve to a herd of swine. You would not feed that to the sheep. The sheep need the spiritual food that lies beneath. It takes effort and work through very careful Bible study, but the Spirit guides and leads us into all truth

So when we go back to Genesis 40, we find the setting is a prison. They seized the butler and the baker and put them in ward, which means prison. We can picture a dark dungeon that is not very pleasant. Historically, it probably was unpleasant, but Egypt itself is a picture of the world, Satan’s kingdom. Satan defeated Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he was given dominion over man and over the earth. And here these two men were put into prison. If you want to know the spiritual meaning of prisons, let us look at a few verses. It says in Proverbs 5:22:

His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

To be “holden” is to be a prisoner. A man’s sins imprisons him. If you do not think so, what is that thing that you are trying to quit doing, whether it be smoking, drinking, drugs, lying, or whatever bad habit you have done for so long? Whatever that sinful thing is, you find that if you are able to stop doing it, it is extremely difficult. Why is it so hard to stop? We seem to do bad things so easily, do we not? It is our nature. The heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, and inclined to evil. That is the bent that sin brings to us, but God has given us a new heart with an inclination toward righteousness and obeying the Bible. And yet we are still in fleshly bodies even after salvation, so there is a battle or struggle within between the new spirit and the old man of the flesh. So even a child of God has difficulty in turning from sin because sin has a definite hold upon us in many ways. It is only when we are set free by the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is only when God moves in us to will and to do of His good pleasure that we are able to give up this sin or that sin. But once we do, we may see another sin that we did not see before because we were so preoccupied with that certain sin.

In 2Timothy 2 the Lord gives instruction to His people in 2Timothy 2:25-26:

In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

The sinner is taken captive by the devil. Satan is the captor and the people of the world are his captives. That is why Pharaoh as a ruler over Egypt, the house of bondage, is such a good illustration of Satan. He ruled over the house of bondage. The Israelites, who typified God’s elect, were in Egypt in that house of bondage and captives of Pharaoh. It is just like how God says that the sinner is captive to sin and to Satan.

We are running out of time in this study, but let us look at another verse in Isaiah 61, which has to do with the Gospel, the work of God in the day of salvation. Jesus quoted from this verse when He stood in the synagogue, as we read in Luke 4. It says in Isaiah 61:1:

The Spirit of the Lord JEHOVAH is upon me; because JEHOVAH hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

You see, it is the opening of the prison. It is not a literal prison, is it? We are free, are we not? That is what people think. They think they are free agents. “I am free. I want nothing to do with God. That is my preference. I want to live my life free. I do not want the constraints of the Bible with its laws from God.” They are so blind. They are ignorant, meaning they lack understanding. And they are so deceived. It is the deceitful heart of man, which is deceitful above all things, according to the Bible. It deceives the sinner who is in bondage and captive to his own lust and his own sinful desires. He is servant to the captor, Satan himself. How deceitful sin is that it can make such a one think he is free. In his mind, it is the opposite: “Well, if I follow the Bible I have to stop drinking, cursing, and carousing around.” He thinks these are acts of freedom. He does not realize that it is as if he has a hook in his nose, and he is being led about. “It is Friday night and time to party. It is Saturday night and I have to party. I have got to do it. These are my friends!” Stop partying and see what happens to your friends. Do they really like you, or do they like company along their road to destruction? So stop drinking, if you are so free. Just stop it. After all, you get in trouble when you drink. You get a DUI, and you have trouble in your relationships, and you have hangovers, and maybe even trouble at work. Why put yourself through all that trouble? Just stop drinking for six months. It should be easy if you are so free. Or stop smoking. Drinking and smoking go together. Whatever your sin is, like sexual perversion or immorality, just stop it if you are so free. But you see, you are not free. When you try to stop it you feel its power and its force. It is only the child of God who is truly free, as Jesus said: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

We will pick this up when we get together in our next Bible study.