ವ್ಯಾಖ್ಯಾನ ಪ್ರಸ್ತುತ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ನಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾತ್ರ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಅನುವಾದ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯಲ್ಲಿದೆ.
Genesis 40 — Do Not Interpretations Belong to God?
Pharaoh's chief butler and chief baker are imprisoned with Joseph. Each has a dream. Joseph interprets — the butler restored in three days, the baker hanged in three days. Joseph asks the butler to remember him to Pharaoh. The butler forgets. Joseph waits.
“Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.”
— Genesis 40:8
- v.1-4 The butler and baker imprisoned; Joseph serves them
- v.5-8 Both dream; Joseph offers to interpret
- v.9-15 The butler's dream — restoration in three days
- v.16-19 The baker's dream — death in three days
- v.20-23 The fulfillment; the butler forgets Joseph
Joseph immediately attributes the gift of interpretation to God. He does not claim his own ability; he points beyond himself.
Every gift wielded by the believer should follow the same pattern. The healing belongs to the Lord; the wisdom belongs to the Lord; the door opened belongs to the Lord. Saying so out loud guards the heart from the slow theft of pride.
Joseph asks for human help — and there is no rebuke for it. He prays to God and asks man for help. Both are legitimate. The believer who prays must also act and ask.
The request shows Joseph believed deliverance would come — eventually. Faith does not exclude using means; it sanctifies them.
The cruelest verse in the chapter. The man Joseph had blessed promptly forgot him. Joseph would wait two more years in prison (41:1).
Human gratitude is a fragile thing. Do good for God's sake, not for the gratitude of men. The butler's forgetting did not change Joseph's rising; God remembered when the butler did not.
When you have done good and the recipient forgets, do not let it embitter you. Joseph waited two more years after his kindness was forgotten. God remembered. Your good deed is never lost in heaven, even when it is forgotten on earth.
Joseph in prison, blessing others while his own deliverance is delayed, prefigures Christ — who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death (Hebrews 5:7). The Greater Joseph also waited for the appointed hour of His vindication. It came on the third day.
Joseph notices their faces. The man whose own life is in shambles still pays attention to the moods of others. The mark of a tender heart in adversity is that it still sees other people's pain.
Many a believer in his own trial has no eyes for anyone else. Joseph passes a smaller test of compassion before he gets the larger test of leadership.