And Joseph (acting no doubt under a Divine impulse) said unto him, This is the interpretation of it (cf. Genesis 40:18; Genesis 41:12, Genesis 41:25; 7:14; Daniel 2:36; Daniel 4:19): The three branches (vide supra, Genesis 40:10) are three days:—literally, three days these (cf. Genesis 41:26)—yet within three days (literally, in yet three days, i.e. within three more days, before the third day is over) shall Pharaoh lift up thine head,—not μνησθήσεται τῆς ἀρχῆς σου (LXX.), recordabitur ministerii tui (Vulgate), a rendering which has the sanction of Onkelos, Samaritan, Jarchi, Rosenmüller, and others; but shall promote thee from the depths of thy humiliation (Gesenius, Furst, Keil, Kalisch, &c.), to which there is an assonance, and upon which there is an intentional play, in the opposite phrase employed to depict the fortunes of the baker (vide infra, Genesis 40:19) and restore thee unto thy place:—epexegetic of the preceding clause, the כֵּן (or pedestal, from כָּגַן, unused, to stand upright, or stand fast as a base) upon which the butler was to be set being his former dignity and office, as is next explained—and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. After which Joseph adds a request for himself. But think on me when it shall be well with thee (literally, but, or only, thou shalt remember me with thee, according as, or when, it goes well with thee), and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me (cf. Joshua 2:12; 1 Samuel 20:14, 1 Samuel 20:15; 2 Samuel 9:1; 1 Kings 2:7), and make mention of me unto Pharaoh,—literally, bring me to remembrance before Pharaoh (cf. 1 Kings 17:18; Jeremiah 4:16; Ezekiel 21:28)—and bring me out of this house: for indeed I was stolen (literally, for stolen I was stolen, i.e. I was furtively abducted, without my knowledge or consent, and did not voluntarily abscond in consequence of having perpetrated any crime) away out (literally, from) of the land of the Hebrews:—i.e. the land where the labrum live (Keil); an expression which Joseph never could have used, since the Hebrews were strangers and sojourners in the land, and had no settled possession in it, and therefore a certain index of the lateness of the composition of this portion of the narrative (Block, 'Introd.,' § 80); but if Abram, nearly two centuries earlier, was recognized as a Hebrew (Genesis 14:13), and if Potiphar's wife could, in speaking to her Egyptian husband and domestics, describe Joseph as an Hebrew (Genesis 39:14, Genesis 39:17), there does not appear sufficient reason why Joseph should not be able to characterize his country as the land of the Hebrews. The Hebrews had through Abraham become known at least to Pharaoh and his Court as belonging to the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:15-20); and it is not a violent supposition that in Joseph's time "the land of the Hebrews" was a phrase quite intelligible to an Egyptian, as signifying not perhaps the entire extent of Palestine, but the region round about Hebron and Mamre (Nachmanides, Clericus, Rosenmüller)—scarcely as suggesting that the Hebrews had possession of the land prior to the Canaanites (Murphy). And here also have I done nothing (i.e. committed no crime) that they should (literally, that they have) put me into the dungeon. The term בּוֹר is here used to describe Joseph's place of confinement, because pits or cisterns or cesspools, when empty, were frequently employed in primitive times for the incarceration of offenders (el. Jeremiah 38:6; Zechariah 9:11).
When (literally, and) the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he (literally, and he, encouraged by the good fortune predicted to his fellow-prisoner) said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three (literally, and behold three) white baskets—literally, baskets of white bread; LXX; κανᾶ χονδριτῶν; Vulgate, canistra farince; Aquila, κόφινοι γύρεως (Onkolos, Pererius, Gesenius, Furst, Keil, Kalisch, Murphy, et alii); though the rendering "baskets of holes," i.e. wicker baskets, is preferred by some (Symmachus Datbius, Rosenmüller, and others), and accords with the evidence of the monuments, which frequently exhibit baskets of wickerwork—on my head. According to Herodotus (2.35), Egyptian men commonly carried on their heads, and Egyptian women, like Hagar (Genesis 21:14), on their shoulders. And in the uppermost basket (whose contents alone are described, since it alone was exposed to the depredations of the birds) there was of all manner of bake-meats for Pharaoh—literally, all kinds of food for Pharaoh, the work of a baker. The monuments show that the variety of confectionery used in Egypt was exceedingly extensive. And the birds—literally, the bird; a collective, as in Genesis 1:21, Genesis 1:30 (cf. Genesis 1:19)—did eat them out of the basket upon my head.
And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof (the exposition was supplied by God, and, however willing or anxious Joseph might be to soften its meaning to his auditor, he could not deviate a hair's-breadth from what he knew to be the mind of God): The three baskets are three days: yet within three days—literally, in three days more (ut supra, Genesis 40:13)—shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee (i.e. deprive thee of life, the phrase containing a resemblance to that employed in Genesis 40:13, and finding its explanation in the words that follow), and shall hang thee on a tree—i.e. after decapitation (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22, Deuteronomy 21:23; Joshua 10:26; 2 Samuel 4:12), which was probably the mode of execution at that time practiced in Egypt (Michaelis, Clarke, Keil, Murphy, Alford, Inglis, Bush), though some regard the clause as a description of the way in which the baker's life was to be taken from him, viz; either by crucifixion (Onkelos, Rosenmüller, Ainsworth) or by hanging (Willst, Patrick, T. Lewis), and others view it as simply pointing to capital punishment, without indicating the instrument or method (Piscator, Lapide, Mercerus, 'Speaker's Commentary'). And the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. "The terror of approaching death would be aggravated to the poor man by the prospect of the indignity with which his body was to be treated" (Lawson).