Genesis 41:9

_THEN SPAKE THE CHIEF BUTLER UNTO PHARAOH, SAYING, I DO REMEMBER MY FAULTS THIS DAY:_ Chief butler ... I do remember my faults. This public acknowledgment of the merits of the young Hebrew would, tardy though it was, have reflected credit on the butler, had it not been obviously made to ingratiate himself with his royal master. It is right to confess our faults against God, and against our fellow-men, when that confession is made in the spirit of godly sorrow and penitence. But this man was not much impressed with a sense of the fault he had committed against Joseph; he never thought of God, to whose goodness he was indebted for the prophetic announcement of his release; and in acknowledging his former fault against the king, he was practicing the courtly art of pleasing his master. ME HE RESTORED UNTO MINE OFFICE, AND HIM HE HANGED. A prophet or interpreter of dreams may be said to sav...

9._Then spake the chief butler_. Although the Lord took pity on Egypt, yet he did it not for the sake of the king, or of the country, but that Joseph might, at length, be brought out of prison; and further, that, in the time of famine, food might be supplied to the Church: for although the produce was stored with no design beyond that of providing for the kingdom of Egypt; yet God chiefly cared for his Church, which he esteemed more highly than ten worlds. Therefore the butler, who had resolved to be silent respecting Joseph, is constrained to speak for the liberation of the holy man. In saying, _I do remember my faults this day_, he is understood by some as confessing the fault of ingratitude, because he had not kept the promise he had given. But the meaning is different; for he could not speak concerning his imprisonment, without interposing a preface of this kind, through fear, lest s...

9-32 God's time for the enlargement of his people is the fittest time. If the chief butler had got Joseph to be released from prison, it is probable he would have gone back to the land of the Hebrews. Then he had neither been so blessed himself, nor such a blessing to his family, as afterwards he proved. Joseph, when introduced to Pharaoh, gives honour to God. Pharaoh had dreamed that he stood upon the bank of the river Nile, and saw the kine, both the fat ones, and the lean ones, come out of the river. Egypt has no rain, but the plenty of the year depends upon the overflowing of the river Nile. See how many ways Providence has of dispensing its gifts; yet our dependence is still the same upon the First Cause, who makes every creature what it is to us, be it rain or river. See to what changes the comforts of this life are subject. We cannot be sure that to-morrow shall be as this day, o...

Verse Genesis 41:9. _I DO REMEMBER MY FAULTS_] It is not possible he could have _forgotten_ the circumstance to which he here alludes; it was too intimately connected with all that was dear to him, to permit him ever to forget it. But it was not _convenient_ for him to remember this before; and probably he would not have remembered it now, had he not seen, that giving this information in such a case was likely to serve his own interest. We are justified in thinking evil of this man because of his scandalous neglect of a person who foretold the rescue of his life from imminent destruction, and who, being unjustly confined, prayed to have his case fairly represented to the king that justice might be done him; but this _courtier_, though then in the same circumstances himself, found it convenient to forget the _poor, friendless Hebrew_ _slave_!...

- Joseph Was Exalted 1. יאר _y__e__'or_, “river, canal,” mostly applied to the Nile. Some suppose the word to be Coptic. 2. אחוּ _'āchû_, “sedge, reed-grass, marsh-grass.” This word is probably Coptic. 8. חרטמים _charṭumı̂ym_, ἐξηγηταὶ _exēgētai_, ἱερογραμματεῖς _hierogrammateis_, “sacred scribes, hieroglyphs.” חרט _chereṭ_ “stylus,” a graving tool. 43. אברך _'abrēk_ “bend the knee.” In this sense it is put for הברך _habrēk_ imperative hiphil of...

EXPOSITION GENESIS 41:1 AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THE END OF TWO FULL YEARS (literally, _two years of _days, _i.e._ two complete years from the commencement of Joseph's incarceration, or more probably after the butler's liberation), THAT PHARAOH—on the import of the term _vide _Genesis 12:15. Under what particular monarch Joseph came to Egypt is a question of much perplexity, and has been variously resolved by modern Egyptologists in favor of— 1. Osirtasen I; the founder of the twelfth dynasty, a prosperous and successful sore-reign, whose name appears on a granite obelisk at Heliopolis. 2. Assa, or Assis, the fifth king of the fifteenth dynasty of Shepherd

THEN SPAKE THE CHIEF BUTLER UNTO PHARAOH,.... When the magicians and wise men could not interpret his dreams, he was in distress of mind on that account: SAYING, I DO REMEMBER MY FAULTS THIS DAY; which some interpret of his forgetfulness of Joseph and his afflictions, and of his ingratitude to him, and breach of promise in not making mention of him to Pharaoh before this time; but they seem rather to be faults he had committed against Pharaoh, and were the reason of his being wroth with him, as in Genesis 41:10; and these were either real faults, which the king had pardoned, or however such as he had been charged with, and cleared from; and which he now in a courtly manner takes to himself, and owns them, that the king's goodness and clemency to him might appear, and lest he should seem to charge the king with injustice in casting him into prison; which circ

CHAPTER 41 JOSEPH'S EXALTATION _ 1. Pharaoh's dreams (Genesis 41:1)_ 2. Joseph brought from the prison (Genesis 41:8) 3. Joseph's humility (Genesis 41:16) 4. The revealer of secrets (Genesis 41:17) 5. Joseph's wise counsel (Genesis 41:33) 6. Pharaoh's answer (Genesis 41:37) 7. Joseph's exaltation and marriage (Genesis 4

GENESIS 41. JOSEPH INTERPRETS PHARAOH'S DREAMS AND IS MADE VICEROY OF EGYPT. This is mainly from E, Genesis 41:1 apart from Genesis 41:15_ b_, and perhaps Genesis 41:9_ b_ entirely so. But J has been used as well in the later part. It is not worth while to attempt analysis since the two narratives must have been closely parallel. Genesis 41:46_ a_ belongs to P. The two dreams are modelled on the same lines, and mean the same thing (_cf. Genesis 37:5_ and Peter's triple vision,...

Joseph as Interpreter 8. _his spirit was troubled_ Compare the effect of the dreams in Genesis 40:6; Daniel 2:1-3. _all the magicians_ or, as R.V. marg., _sacred scribes_. The Heb. _ḥartummim_used in this chapter and Exodus 7-9 probably designates the priestly class, which was credited with the knowledge of all sacred mysteries, cf. Genesis 41:24; Exodus 7:11, &c. LXX renders by ἐξηγηταί = "interpreters," Lat. _conjectores_. The rendering "magicians" represents "possessors of occult knowledge or magic." The same Heb. word is used in...