Genesis 40:20-23

"And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand; but he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him."

Such events demonstrated conclusively the standing that Joseph had in the eyes of God. The events here related could hardly have been unknown to others in the prison. And later, when the butler "remembered," there is no evidence that he was in any kind of private audience with the king, rather being in a public, or semi-public situation, where there would have been the most widespread publication of all the essentials of this event. What a new endowment of respect and appreciation must have accrued to Joseph as a result!

"But forgat him ..." This must have been a sore disappointment for Joseph. He would have to wait further upon the arm of Providence to deliver him. The butler's conduct was probably deliberate. His fortuitous remembrance of Joseph came at a time when the butler might have thought to profit by it, indicating that his previous "forgetfulness" was probably due to the same self-seeking attitude. And what a sin it was against Joseph!

Now comes another injury (to Joseph), less malicious but hardly less disillusioning than the others. Here is a man he had befriended and helped. The chief butler did not set out to do him any harm; he simply did nothing at all. He just went off casually, and forgot. But to Joseph in prison, that was as hurtful as if it had been a deliberate wrong.[18]

This must have been the period in Joseph's life, "When the iron entered into his soul." Such a statement is an alternate reading of Psalms 105:18, but it is a very expressive comment on Joseph's experience. The full bitterness of life's unjust and vicious blows made its full impact upon the heart of this noble man; but his faith did not fail. We feel somewhat apologetic for such frequent mention in this chapter of the false criticism current in today's Biblical literature, but the doing so has been founded upon the conviction that to understand those criticisms is to destroy them. Leupold said that our attention to such criticisms affords a wonderful illustration of the "presumption, not the scholarship, of the critics."[19]