What Does Genesis 40:23 Mean in the King James?
Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.
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 Hebrew says Joseph is both not remembered and forgotten: the one whose name means “may he add” is, for now, erased from the cupbearer’s mind.
THE MEANING
This verse names the ache of helping someone and then disappearing from that person’s awareness. Joseph is not merely unmentioned: the wording doubles the forgetting. A person’s failure to remember you does not decide the worth or continuation of your story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being forgotten by someone who benefited from you means your story has ended.
THE ROOT
זָכַר
zakar
GROWS FROM
ז־כ־ר
zakar
Remember, recall, bring to mind.
The cupbearer’s failure is stated twice: he does not remember Joseph, and he forgets him. The doubled wording makes Joseph’s absence from his thoughts feel like more than a passing lapse.
ALSO GROWS
zikkaron: Remembrance, memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial keeps someone or something present in memory, the opposite of the cupbearer’s forgetting.
hizkir: Mention, bring to mind.
הִזְכִּיר
The word shows how remembering can make someone present in speech, while Joseph remains unmentioned.
שָׁכַח
shakhach
GROWS FROM
ש־כ־ח
sh-kh-ch
Forget, fail to keep in mind.
“forgot” in this verse is shakhach. The verse moves from no act of remembering to the explicit statement that the cupbearer forgets Joseph. The root also appears in a cry of abandonment: “How long wilt thou forget me?”
ALSO GROWS
shikhchah: Forgetfulness.
שִׁכְחָה
It names the state the verse leaves Joseph in: outside the cupbearer’s thoughts.
nishkach: Be forgotten.
נִשְׁכַּח
This passive form shifts attention to the person left behind, the one who is no longer held in another’s memory.
יוֹסֵף
Yosef
GROWS FROM
י־ס־ף
yasaf
Add, increase; in the name Yosef, “may he add.”
Joseph’s name comes from יסף (yasaf), “add,” echoing Rachel’s naming words, “The LORD shall add to me another son.” The name’s promise of addition gives a quiet counterpoint to his absence from the cupbearer’s memory, without softening the sting of being forgotten.
ALSO GROWS
yasaf: Add, increase.
יָסַף
This verb is the root behind Joseph’s name and its sense of addition.
hosif: Add, increase.
הוֹסִיף
This related form carries the same root idea of adding to what is already there.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats remembering as bringing a person or promise into present regard, while forgetting leaves that person outside attention.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.THE THREAD
Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day:The same cupbearer later says, “I do remember,” using זָכַר (zakar, remember), the same Hebrew root behind “remember” here. The doubled forgetting in this verse is a pause in Joseph’s story, not its final word.
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