What Does Genesis 40:22 Mean in the King James?
But he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse collapses the distance between reading a dream and living its consequence: Joseph’s interpretation ends in the baker’s execution.
THE MEANING
Here, interpretation touches the body: the chief baker’s execution is the outcome Joseph names. The line holds the reading and its violent consequence together without turning the hanging into metaphor.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Interpretation is only symbolic and has no bodily consequence.
THE ROOT
פָּתַר
pāṯar
GROWS FROM
פתר
To interpret or resolve, especially a dream.
“interpreted” in this verse is pāṯar. The same word family names the interpreting and its disclosed meaning. Here that reading is inseparable from what happens to a body: Joseph’s interpretation reaches its consequence in the baker’s execution.
ALSO GROWS
poter: Interpreter.
פּוֹתֵר
The interpreter belongs to the same root family as the act of interpreting; Joseph’s reading is tied to what follows.
pitron: Interpretation or solution.
פִּתְרוֹן
This noun names the interpretation itself, bringing the dream’s meaning into view beside its fulfillment.
תָּלָה
tālāh
GROWS FROM
תלה
To hang or suspend.
“hanged” in this verse is tālāh. The root carries the physical image of suspension. In this verse the hanging is literal, keeping the execution visible rather than abstracting it into a symbol.
ALSO GROWS
talui: Hanging, suspended; also dependent.
תָּלוּי
The shared image of suspension keeps the verse’s bodily outcome in view.
teliya: Hanging; execution by hanging.
תְּלִיָּה
This branch names the act plainly, preserving the violence the verse states.
THE PATTERN
A word reaches its truth when what is spoken takes shape in lived events.
And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged.So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.THE THREAD
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.This is the sentence Joseph’s interpretation carries into the present verse: the hanging named in the dream’s interpretation becomes the baker’s fate. Both verses use תָּלָה (talah), “hang,” so the shared root connects the prediction directly to its violent fulfillment.
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