Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Joseph explains the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker: the outcome proves the explanation.
Vulgate Text: Genesis 40:1-23
1. After these things, it came to pass that two eunuchs, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and the baker, offended their lord. 2. And Pharaoh being angry against them (for one was chief over the cupbearers, the other over the bakers), 3. he sent them into the prison of the captain of the soldiers, in which Joseph also was a prisoner. 4. But the keeper of the prison delivered them to Joseph, who also ministered to them. Some time had passed, and they were held in custody. 5. And they both dreamed a dream on a single night, according to an interpretation fitting to each: 6. and when Joseph came in to them in the morning, and saw them sad, 7. he asked them saying: Why is your countenance sadder today than usual? 8. They answered: We have dreamed a dream, and there is nobody to interpret it for us. And Joseph said to them: Does not interpretation belong to God? Tell me what you have seen. 9. The chief cupbearer first narrated his dream: I saw before me a vine, 10. on which were three branches, growing gradually into buds, and after the flowers, grapes ripening: 11. and the cup of Pharaoh was in my hand: so I took the grapes and pressed them into the cup which I held, and I gave the cup to Pharaoh. 12. Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: The three branches are three days yet to come, 13. after which Pharaoh will remember your service, and will restore you to your former position: and you will give him the cup according to your office, as you were accustomed to do before. 14. Only remember me when it shall be well with you, and show me kindness, that you suggest to Pharaoh to bring me out of this prison: 15. for I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here innocent I was cast into the dungeon. 16. The chief baker, seeing that he had wisely interpreted the dream, said: I also dreamed a dream, that I had three baskets of flour upon my head: 17. and in one basket which was uppermost, I was carrying all kinds of foods that are made by the baker's art, and the birds were eating out of it. 18. Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: The three baskets are three days yet to come; 19. after which Pharaoh will take away your head, and hang you on a cross, and the birds will tear your flesh. 20. The third day after this was Pharaoh's birthday; and making a great feast for his servants, he remembered at the banquet the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. 21. And he restored the one to his place, to hand him the cup: 22. the other he hanged on a gibbet, that the truth of the interpreter might be proved. 23. Yet when prosperity followed, the chief cupbearer forgot his interpreter.
Verse 1: Two Eunuchs
1. "Two eunuchs" -- that is, two royal ministers and officials, even if they were not actually eunuchs. See what was said at ch. 39, verse 4.
Verse 2: For the One
2. "For the one" -- that is to say: Pharaoh was angry with them, because the sin of these men, being officials, could be a scandal and a bad example to their subordinates. The Hebrew does not have the word "for."
Verse 3: Of the Captain of the Soldiers
3. "Of the captain of the soldiers" -- that is, Potiphar, who had been the master of Joseph, ch. 39, verse 20. "Bound" -- that is, captive: for he was already free from chains, as is clear from the preceding chapter, verse 22.
Verse 4: Some Time -- Joseph's Three-Year Imprisonment
4. "Some time" -- namely one year, for this is what the Hebrew in yamim, that is "days" in the plural, means, as Francisco Ribera well proves in Amos 4, no. 8. After this year of dreams, Joseph was still in prison for two more years, as is clear from the following chapter, verse 1; therefore he endured a three-year imprisonment. In this too Joseph was a type of Christ; for just as Joseph, after three years of prison, was raised to rulership, so Christ, after three days of suffering and death, rose gloriously. The same three days of Christ's resurrection are signified by the three days of the restoration of Pharaoh's cupbearer, verse 13. So from Isidore, according to Lipomanus.
Verse 8: Does Not Interpretation Belong to God?
8. "Does not interpretation belong to God?" -- that is to say: God through me will interpret your dream for you; therefore tell it to me: and when you see that it truly comes to pass just as I shall have interpreted it, then know that I am not a vain conjecturer, but a true interpreter of dreams by the gift of God, and consequently that I am a true worshipper and friend of the true God: for God does not reveal these mysteries of His to others.
Whether It Is Lawful to Divine from Dreams
One may ask: is it lawful to divine from dreams about the future? Note: Dreams are of three kinds: for some come from God; some from the devil; some from nature. Again, this third kind which arises from nature is twofold: for some arise from daytime thoughts, or from an ardent affection toward some thing. Hence, just as "the sailor speaks of winds, the ploughman of oxen," so also he dreams of the same things. For there are dreams from daytime thought, like certain last motions of a string that has ceased to be plucked, which result from the impulse and continue for some time after it has ceased, as Gregory of Nyssa says in his treatise On the Making of Man, chapter 40. But certain natural dreams arise from temperament and the predominant humor. For thus the bilious dream of slaughter, beatings, and fires; the phlegmatic dream of waters, abysses, suffocations, and slow flight from harmful things -- for sluggish phlegm produces these; the sanguine dream of music, banquets, meadows, birds, and flight; the melancholic dream of dark and sad things, of death, of tombs, of Ethiopians and demons.
I say first, from natural dreams it is lawful to divine naturally, that is, to conjecture about a person's temperament, health, affections, and impending diseases. Thus Hippocrates and Galen wrote books about prognostications to be drawn from dreams. And the reason is, because effects naturally indicate their cause: but these dreams are the effects of a certain temperament and a certain humor predominating in the body.
I say second, from dreams sent by God or by an angel, it is lawful to divine; but only for him who has received their meaning from God or an angel. Thus Joseph here and Daniel in chapters 4 and 5 divine from dreams.
I say third, the remaining dreams, and divinations drawn from them, are either diabolical, or superstitious, or vain, deceptive, and futile: whence divination from such dreams is prohibited, Deuteronomy 18:10.
Note: Because divine dreams are rare, and can scarcely be distinguished from demonic or vain ones, the safest course is to despise all dreams whatsoever, unless God reveals otherwise; and He is accustomed to reveal this partly by illuminating the dreamers themselves, so that they know that the dream has been sent to them by God, and by stirring them up to seek out and inquire after the interpretation of the dream, as He did with these eunuchs, likewise with Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 5, and with Pharaoh here in chapter 41; partly by suggesting the interpretation of dreams to His friends and holy men, as He here suggested it to Joseph, and to Daniel in chapters 4 and 5. See the Conimbricenses on the book of Aristotle On Divination through Dreams.
Verse 12: This Is the Interpretation of the Dream
12. "Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream." -- The cupbearer here saw symbolically in his dream that his own position, namely his office of cupbearer, was being restored to him, so that by this very thing God might signify that positions, dignities, and indeed life itself, and all human affairs, are merely a dream, and all the hopes of men are merely the dreams of those who are awake, as Plato used to say: this is what the interpreter Joseph teaches, that is, a wise and prudent man, says Philo -- and therefore he directs all his actions and all his affairs according to the prescription of virtue.
"Three branches" -- three shoots of the vine. "Three days yet to come" -- "are," that is, signify. For just as the being of an image is to represent, so the being of a dream, symbol, or prophetic vision is to foreshadow and signify things absent or future. So St. Augustine.
Verse 15: From the Land of the Hebrews
15. "From the land of the Hebrews" -- from the land of Canaan, in which Jacob and his sons, the Hebrews, dwelt.
Verse 16: That He Had Wisely Interpreted the Dream
16. "That he had wisely" (that is, fittingly, suitably, plausibly) "interpreted the dream" -- for the truth of the interpretation was not yet established, which was afterwards confirmed by the actual event at verse 21.
Verse 17: All Kinds of Foods Made by the Baker's Art
17. "All kinds of foods that are made by the baker's art" -- and consequently cakes, meat pies, and pastries of meats, to which the carnivorous birds flew and tore and devoured them. So Josephus. For these meats and birds portended that the flesh of the dreamer would likewise be torn and devoured by birds on the cross.
Verse 19: After Which -- He Will Take Away Your Head
19. "After which" -- that is, once begun: for on the third day itself the baker was hanged, and this is what the birds from the third basket portended, tearing and eating the flesh. So Josephus.
"He will take away your head" -- not by cutting off your head with a sword, as Philo holds, but by hanging you with a noose, and thus killing you and your head. Whence it follows: "And he will hang you;" for he who takes away a man's life also takes away his head, because in the head man chiefly lives and thrives, and this life and vigor is taken from both the head and the man by a noose and death, just as much as by a sword.
"And the birds will tear your flesh." -- From this it is clear that the bodies of those hanged, even then as now, were left on the gibbet, so that there they would either rot, or be dried and wasted by the sun and winds, or be torn by birds. Whence that saying: "I did not commit theft; you will not feed crows on the cross." But the Jews were commanded in Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, to take down and bury the hanged on the same day.
Tropologically, Prosper and Rupert say: these two eunuchs, of whom one was restored to his position and the other hanged, signify two orders of men, namely the elect by grace and the reprobate or those to be damned by justice. Again, Joseph between the two eunuchs is Christ crucified between the two thieves, promising heaven to one and leaving the other to hell. For Christ opened dreams and visions: both because He fulfilled the prophecies; and because He disclosed to men the secret counsels, judgments, and promises of God; and because He gave understanding to the Apostles so that they might understand the prophecies and the whole of sacred Scripture.
Verse 22: That the Truth of the Interpreter Might Be Proved
22. "That the truth of the interpreter might be proved." -- The little word "that" here signifies not the purpose intended by Pharaoh, as is clear, but the outcome or consequence, that is to say: And so it came to pass that Joseph's divination and interpretation of dreams was found to be true, and confirmed by the actual event itself.
A similar divination was that of St. Athanasius, who, entering Alexandria, when a crow was cawing while flying in the air, being asked by the pagans in jest what the crow was saying, answered: "It sounds 'cras' [tomorrow]; and it signifies that tomorrow, the feast you are celebrating, will be mournful for you." And so it happened, as Nicephorus testifies, book 9, chapter 35. Similarly, that Christian who was asked by Julian the Apostate with sarcasm: "What is your Galilean carpenter doing?" answered: "He is preparing a coffin for you" -- namely a bier -- and truly: for shortly afterwards Julian was slain by a weapon not of man, but of Christ. In like manner, Isaac the hermit predicted defeat and death for the Arian Emperor Valens as he marched against the Goths, as Nicephorus testifies, book 11, chapter 50.