What Does Genesis 40:9 Mean?
And the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;
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 the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the chief butler “the chief of the drink-givers,” so the vine in his dream already speaks the language of his office.
THE MEANING
A private image becomes available to another when it is spoken aloud. Before the drink-giver, a vine brings growth and the giving of drink into one field of attention.
THE ROOT
שַׂר הַמַּשְׁקִים
sar hamashqim
GROWS FROM
שקה
sh-q-h
Shaqah means to give drink, water, or cause to drink.
“cupbearer” in this verse is sar hamashqim. English gives him an office; Hebrew names him through the action of giving drink. The vine is not detached from that title: growth and drink belong to the same field of meaning.
ALSO GROWS
shaqah: to give drink; to water
שָׁקָה
In Genesis 2:6 this verb describes water reaching the ground; here the drink-giver dreams of a vine, bringing the act named by his office beside growing life.
mashqeh: a drink; a drink-giver or cupbearer
מַשְׁקֶה
This form shares the root of the title in the verse and makes its action audible: the chief butler is the chief among those who give drink.
THE PATTERN
What is held inward becomes available for another’s discernment when it is spoken.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him yet the more.I will open my mouth in a likeness, and pour out riddles of old.And they led out the things that had happened on the road, and how he was known by them in the breaking of the bread.THE THREAD
And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I placed the cup into Pharaoh's hand.The next verse shows the grapes pressed into Pharaoh’s cup and the cup placed in his hand. The dreamer’s title, the vine’s fruit, and the cup converge: the man named as a giver of drink sees the source of it.
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