Joseph is said to have interpreted the dreams of the baker and the
cupbearer to refer to their immediate futures. He correcty predicted that
the royal baker would be iimpaled, and the royal cupbearer would be
restored
to his position.
But maybe he just guess, and the odds were fifty-fifty that one man
would live, and one man would die. On the other hand, why couldn't both
men
remain imprisoned (TT), or both men be freed (HH), or one man stay in
prison, and the other be released (H v T). As it happened, both were freed
from prison (HH), but one was executed, and one was restored (H v T). So
the odds of Joseph guessing everything correctly were, what? l/4 x l/2 x
1/2 = l/16? Difficult, but not impossible.(Not that I coulddo it, mind
you.)
But if he was just guessing, why did he pick the cupbearer to give his
petition for clemency to? Maybe it was a cadgy guess. The cupbearer would
be closer to Pharaoh, and have his ear, whereas the baker most likely
wouldn't. So why not predict the cupbearer would live?
But, wait. How could Joseph predict the release of the prisoners, and
the
execution of the baker, and therestoration, rather than the dismissal, of
the cupbearer?
Possibly they were thrown in the royal prison until Pharaoh could
arrive
at a correct judgment of guilt; perhaps one was innocent,and the other was
guilty,and Pharaoh was not sure which to blame. Meanwhile, Pharaoh kept
them
in prison for a year just to make sure that they both got some punishment.
The fact that Pharaoh got angry at both the cupbearer and the baker, and
threw them into prison, suggests either that he thought one was culpable,
but wasn't sure which, or he thought they were both responsible together
for
some sort of offense. The fact that Pharaoh resdtored the baker shows it
was
not a case of conspiracy against Pharaoh.
The usual punishment for anyone convicted of an offense against
Pharaoh
might have been excution by impaling; after all, one must set a public
example when it comes to poor etiquette in others. So Joseph would have
known that. He could have also known from the chief jailer that they would
be released in 3 days.
Now, Joseph may have misinterpreted both dreams. They weren't really
prophetic at all, but reflected the individuals dwelling on their crime.
The
crime of the baker had been, as we can infer, to let birds poop on
Pharaoh's
special birthday cake, covered with white frosting and bits of chocolate.
In
other words, he left the kitchen window open.
The crime of the cupbearer, as may be inferred from his dream, is that he
did not personally prepare the grape juice for the Pharaoh (who was
god/man,
and therefore a teetotle, or maybe an adolescent, and his mother did not
allow him to drink wine.), or else he did not personally hand the cup to
Pharaoh. I suspect that the cupbearer completed the first half of the
task,
but then he took the cup of grapejuice into the kitchen to personally
inspect the cake, but he had to go to the bathroom, and while he was gone
the birds pooped in Phraoh's cup.
After careful and prolonged thought, Pharaoh finally decided that it
was the baker's fault for letting the birds into the kitchen, and that the
cupbearer could not be blamed for going to the bathroom.
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