Genesis 40

Joseph rightly says, "Do not interpretations belong to God?" in Genesis 40:8. It is natural that we try to think about and understand the meaning of many things, whether it's the meaning of what someone says or the meaning of dreams. If interpretations belong to God, then we ought to look to Him for guidance on meaning! The wisdom we seek should be from God rather than from ourselves or from other people. It is good advice that once again points us back to the infallible Scriptures. Many of our own thoughts are not true so wouldn't we want to turn to and trust the thing that we know to be true? We have plenty of Scriptures to point us in the right direction.

The Josh Howerton podcast I listened to yesterday had many examples of how the whole Bible points to Jesus. It mentioned that once you begin reading the Bible looking for Jesus, you will be able to see Him. So now today I read Genesis 40 and I see all of these parallels between Genesis and Jesus. I want to go through them.

The parallels to Jesus from Genesis 40:

Genesis 40:9-10 says, "So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, 'In my dream there was a vine before me, and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes.'"

Jesus is the vine and the way to life. In John 15:5, Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." The vine is representative of Jesus as the source of all life and fruit. A branch can only produce fruit when connected to the vine, we can only truly live connected to Jesus.

Genesis 40:11 says, "Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand."

Jesus says, take this cup from me. In Matthew 26:39, "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.'" The cup is representative of the full weight of God's wrath against sin. Jesus takes the cup which is our sin.

Genesis 40:12-13 says, "Then Joseph said to him, 'This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer.'"

Jesus dies and is lifted up again three days later. Jesus restores us through His resurrection.

These parallels are crazy to me! They point to the fact that Jesus is the one that gives life, that Jesus is the one who took the cup of our sin, who died, and who rose again three days later. Jesus is the chief cupbearer.

Seeing these things in Scripture is exciting and encouraging. It's not just a story about interpreting dreams, but it's a story that points to Jesus, and it further shows that no one could make up the Bible. It is so intricate that only God could have written it.