Theologische Nuggets IV (Genesis 34 - 44:26)

Genesis 40:18-19

 Josef antwortete und sprach: Das ist seine Deutung: Drei Körbe sind drei Tage.

Josef zögert auch hier nicht lange und antwortet ihm direkt mit einer Deutung, die wir auch erahnen konnten. Auch bei ihm wird sich in drei Tagen etwas ändern. 

Und nach drei Tagen wird der Pharao dein Haupt erheben und dich an den Galgen hängen, und die Vögel werden dein Fleisch von dir fressen.

Die Botschaft an den Obersten Bäcker ist klar und deutlich und ganz und gar nicht schön. Er wird an den Galgen hängen und wie die Vögel das Brot von seinem Haupt im Traum gegessen haben, werden sie seine Leiche essen. Es ist genau das Gegenteil von dem Traum des Obersten Mundschenk und er wird sicherlich nicht so fröhlich sein, wie er am Anfang war. 

Hier sehen wir, dass dieses Auf und Ab der Gefühle sich in dieser Geschichte weiterzieht. 

Die Frage, die sich hier stellt ist ob der Bäckermeister tatsächlich der Schuldige am Verbrechen war und hier sein Gerichtsurteil vorhergesagt wird während der Mundschenk begnadigt wird.

The interpretation begins predictably and even comfortingly by the reappearance of the exact phrase in the favorable interpretation of the vine: "Pharaoh will lift up your head" (vv. 13, 19). But a significant variance gives the interpretation a startling change in meaning. The addition "from upon you" (mēʿāleykā) indicates a decapitation of the baker: lit., "Pharaoh will lift up your head from upon you." The NIV incorporates this interpretation by its nuanced rendering: "Pharaoh will lift off your head" (italics mine). That the interpretation is negative is made obvious by the next phrase, "and hang you on a tree" (NIV, cf. NASB, REB; "gallows," NJB). The notion of "hanging" after a decapitation appears contradictory. Some commentators contend that "from upon you" must be a mistaken scribal addition, derived from the same phrase at the end of v. 19, lit., "and the birds will eat your flesh from upon you" ("eat away your flesh," NIV [italics mine]). ... The exegetical problem exists, however, only if a literal decapitation is meant. The phrase "from upon you" could be a rhetorical play on "lifting the head" in the former interpretation (v. 13) and is not to be pressed as a literal beheading.Another surprising twist in the second interpretation was the identity of the baked goods eaten by the birds. The birds were both symbolic and literal, as was the cup in the first dream, but the baked products represented the baker himself (v. 19). Since the king did not enjoy the baker's food, the birds that stole away the king's food will feast literally on the exposed body of the Egyptian officer.
K. A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, Bd. 1B of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), 750–751.

For the cryptic, ambiguous opening of this oracle of destiny, cf. 27:39, 40 and note: it seems to have been an accepted style. The apparent cruelty of the phrase, however, as it appears in cold print, raising hopes only to dash them, may be illusory. There was nothing to prevent the sadness of the news from being immediately apparent in the speaker's manner and tone.

Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Bd. 1 of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1967), 205.

The purport was that in three days his execution should be ordered. The language of Joseph describes minutely one form of capital punishment that prevailed in Egypt; namely, that the criminal was decapitated and then his headless body gibbeted on a tree by the highway till it was gradually devoured by the ravenous birds.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, und David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 41.

This would be especially horrible to an Egyptian. Egyptians at this point in history linked preservation of the body to their wellbeing in the afterlife.

John D. Barry u. a., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Gen 40,19.