Genesis 40 Series, Part 29, Verses 11-13

Hello, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Today is study #29 in Genesis 40. I will read Genesis 40:11-13:

And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days: Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.

I ended our last study by mentioning that according to Jay Green’s Concordance, the word “butler” is Strong’s #8248, whereas the word “butlership” is Strong’s #4945. Englishman’s and Jay Green’s Interlinear both have “butler” as #8248, and only Strong’s Concordance lists “butler” as #4945, as well as the word “butlership.” So I am going with Englishman’s and the interlinear Bible because they are in agreement.

So when we look at #8248, we find that it is not only translated as “butler,” but it is translated a number of other ways. For instance, in Genesis 24 Abraham’s servant was sent to find a bride for Isaac, Abraham’s son, and he went to Haran. He prayed to God that something specific might happen in order that he would recognize the proper bride for Isaac, and it had to do with “giving drink.” The servant is recounting this incident in Genesis 24:42-46:

And I came this day unto the well, and said, O JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, if now thou do prosper my way which I go: Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink; And she say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman whom JEHOVAH hath appointed out for my master's son. And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the well, and drew water: and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray thee. And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

The word “drink” is this Hebrew word that is translated as “butler.” And the butler was the cupbearer that gave the cup to drink to Pharaoh. Here, it is not a cup but a pitcher, but the water would probably have been poured into some kind of a drinking vessel for the servant. She gave drink to the man and his camels. This was the servant of Abraham who is called Father Abraham, and he is a type and figure of God the Father. His son Isaac is a type and picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The servant of Abraham can represent Christ in the first instance, but it represents the elect in a secondary way. The servant was sent to find the bride, just as the people of God were sent with the Gospel, as the Bible says, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” And as they went with the Gospel, people became saved, and as they were saved they formed the body of Christ, the bride. You can read Revelation 19:7-8 where the bride has made herself ready, and she is dressed in fine white linen, the righteousness of saints.

So the servant was sent to find the bride, and then he brought the bride to Isaac, and they were married. There is the consummation of the marriage, the end of all things, and at this point in time God has already saved everyone He intended to save, and He has placed the “bride” in the safe chamber, as it were. It is like the five wise virgins in Matthew 25 who heard the cry, “The bridegroom cometh!” And that is Christ’s second coming, and for them the door was open, and then the door shut, indicating that Judgment Day had come. And over this course of the prolonged period of Judgment Day, the door to heaven is shut, and the elect are all safe and secure in the kingdom of God. That is what it indicates. It is not so much the consummation of the marriage, but as it says in Isaiah 26:20:

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

Then the next verse speaks of God punishing the inhabitants of the earth. We have been “hidden,” and in Colossians 3:3, we see the spiritual understanding of being hidden: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” We have our heavenly citizenship. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even though we are actually still here upon the earth, the majority of that great multitude.

So this is the idea in Genesis 24 as the servant finds the bride. By the way, the word “master” is repeated again, and again, in that chapter in reference to Abraham. If we count the number of times a word is repeated, it may have spiritual significance. In this case the word “master” is repeated 23 times, which points to judgment, or tribulation. And the Great Tribulation was when God completed His salvation program by saving everyone He intended to save, and the bride was brought to Christ. 

The giving of the water to the servant and the camels ties in with the Gospel water. God’s people are servants. We are “water bearers” in the day of salvation, which is now over. But we went willingly with the Gospel, and we joyously shared the Word unto salvation, and the evangelization of the earth involved bringing that Gospel water. 

But in Genesis 40 we will also see a relationship to the Great Tribulation period, especially when we look at the baker. It is unmistakable. What happened to both the butler and the baker happened simultaneously, as it were. They were both thrown into prison at the same time, and they were both brought forth for final judgment, and the butler was restored to his butlership, and the baker was hanged. And it happened in three days, and three days always has to do with judgment. The context determines the judgment. 

You know, nobody said the Bible is easy to understand. It can be very complex, especially when we have historical figures that truly lived. The butler and the baker were real men, and these things happened to them, but God reveals spiritual truth through their historical experience. They are historical parables. 

The butler can be a type of Christ, and he is restored to his butlership again. And Christ was at the right hand of the Father, and then Jesus emptied Himself of His glory to enter into the world. If you remember when we were talking about “prison,” a prison can point to the world. There are a number of verses that indicate that prison can represent the world, such as 1Peter 3:19: “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” What does it mean by “spirits in prison?” It meant they were sinners under the wrath of God, and “prison” is something that identifies with being under the wrath of God. That is why we read that Satan was thrown into the bottomless pit, the condition of hell, and when he was loosed we read in Revelation 20:7 that he was “loosed out of his prison.” So that is the idea. The butler came from prison, and he had been the chief of the water bringers and was restored to his butlership once again. And Jesus rose from the dead, and then the Gospel went forth over the course of the New Testament era. 

Then the Gospel was silenced when the church age ended in 1988, and then there was a grievous 2,300 evening mornings wherein virtually no one was being saved. But then there was the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a restoration, as it were. I am not sure exactly which of these things are in view. It may be that all of this is in view, but Christ was now performing the role of His butlership as chief of the butlers, and the elect body of Christ were also performing our butlership. And this word is translated as “cupbearers” in 1Kings 10:5:

And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of JEHOVAH; there was no more spirit in her.

This is speaking of Solomon, who is a type of Christ at times. So Solomon had several cupbearers, as no doubt Pharaoh had several cupbearers, so there was a need for a chief of the cupbearers. So the cupbearer returning to that role can identify with the elect, the two witnesses that were called the “two prophets” once they stood upon their feet, in Revelation 11, and the Gospel went forth once again to save the great multitude in the time of the Great Tribulation.

There is something else that is significant that I want to mention. When you look up the word translated as “butler,” #8248 in the Englishman’s concordance., you will find that there are a few scriptures like Genesis 24 regarding “giving drink,” but there are also verses like we find in Jeremiah 9:15:

Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

This is indicating the wrath of God upon Judah, historically. Spiritually it points to God’s wrath upon the churches and congregations.

We also find this word translated as “drink” in Jeremiah 25:15-20:

For thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Then took I the cup at JEHOVAH'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people;

This reminds us of the butler crushing the grapes, the drink for Pharaoh, in Genesis 40:11. God told Jeremiah to take the cup His fury and cause all the nations to drink it, and be moved. Interestingly, the word “moved” is translated as “shook” in Psalm 18:70 where it says the earth shook, which gives the idea of a spiritual earthquake.

Again, it said in Jeremiah 25:17:

Then took I the cup at JEHOVAH'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah…

Where did God begin His judgment? He commanded to make all the nations to drink, but where did He begin? It was with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, which represents the churches. The Bible tells us that judgment begins at the house of God. That is always the starting point. And we can see that in Jeremiah 25, especially in Jeremiah 25:28-29:

And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith JEHOVAH of hosts.

The Lord’s point is that He has already given the cup of His wrath to His people (the churches), so why would the nations of the world go unpunished? Obviously, they will not go unpunished. The world will drink of that cup. Given the fact that judgment begins at the corporate church had an intimate relationship with God over the church age, it is not a light matter, and without question it is a strong indicator that if He has judged those people called by His name, will he spare the wicked, ungodly of the world that were never called by His name and never had a relationship with Him?

There are people today (including some former Family Radio listeners) who want a “never-ending Tribulation,” or never-ending judgment on the churches. They refuse to accept the fact that May 21,2011 completed the judgment of the churches and transitioned to judgment on the world. The cup of wrath that began at the house of God was commanded to Jeremiah to then be given to all the nations. These people refuse that idea. Why? It is because they left the churches and went out into the nations, as it were, and they want to just keep the judgment there in the churches. So they want a never-ending Tribulation, or a never-ending judgment on the churches, and they think that keeps them safe and secure, but that is not true.

You know, when God’s elect come to the Bible, we do not interpret it in a personal way to protect ourselves and our loved ones. That would not be faithful. These same people proclaimed that May 21, 2011 was the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of judgment on the world. What has changed? Did they discover some biblical information to indicate that the Great Tribulation was not exactly 23 years, or 8,400 days, but that it should be longer? No – you do not hear them talking about that. You do not hear them saying that the Tribulation is going to be longer, like 40 years or 70 years. They do not say that, but they continue to insist we are still in the Great Tribulation and, therefore, it is still the day of salvation. That is what they want. But it really goes against what God told Jeremiah about the nations: “And should ye be utterly unpunished?” The nations must drink of the cup of the wrath of God that was first handed to the churches.

When we get together in our next study, we are going to see that the giving of the cup of the wrath of God, which is giving “drink,” is not always negative. It can be positive. I hope you will be able to join us for our next Bible study.