What Does Genesis 40:18 Mean?
And Joseph answered and said, This is its loosing. The three baskets are three days.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three days:THE KEY
Interpretation reveals that the three baskets were carrying a measure of time: three days.
THE MEANING
A visible image can hold meaning beyond its surface: here, three baskets resolve into three days. Interpretation makes that hidden measure legible now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sign means only what it visibly shows.
THE ROOT
פִּתְרֹנוֹ
pithrōnô
GROWS FROM
פ־ת־ר
p-t-r
To interpret or solve; to make a dream’s meaning intelligible.
“loosing” in this verse is pithrōnô. The verse uses pithron, “interpretation” or “solution,” from the same root used for “interpreter” and “interpretations” nearby. That shared root binds the one who interprets to the solution itself: both make a hidden sign intelligible.
ALSO GROWS
pōtēr: Interpreter; one who interprets a dream.
פֹּתֵר
Genesis 40:8 uses this form when the dreamers say there is no interpreter, linking the act of interpretation to the solution Joseph gives here.
pithrōnîm: Interpretations; solutions to dreams.
פִּתְרֹנִים
Also in Genesis 40:8, this plural form shares the root of the singular “interpretation” in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes hidden things legible by naming what an image signifies.
The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years. The dream is one.And wherever the children of humankind dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens he has given into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold.Here is the mind that holds wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.THE THREAD
And they said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one to loose it. And Joseph said to them, Do not loosings belong to God? Tell me them, I pray you.“Interpreter,” “interpretations,” and “interpretation” all come from the Hebrew root פ־ת־ר (p-t-r). This earlier verse frames the solution here as the making of a hidden sign intelligible.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us