Learning to trust (vv. 14-15, 23). As far as the Genesis record is concerned, there are only two instances of Joseph displaying unbelief; this is the first one. (The second is in 48:8-20 when Joseph tried to tell Jacob how to bless the two grandsons.) Knowing that the cupbearer would be released and have access to Pharaoh, Joseph asked him to speak a good word for him and get him out of the prison. Joseph was putting his trust in what a man could do instead of depending on what God could do. He was getting impatient instead of waiting for God’s time.

Joseph didn’t mention his brothers or accuse them of evil. He only said he was “stolen” (kidnapped) from home and therefore was not a slave but a free man who deserved better treatment. His use of the word “dungeon” in 40:15 (see also 41:14) doesn’t necessarily mean that he and the other prisoners were in a terribly wretched place. They were confined in the jail for the king’s prisoners (39:20), which is called “the house of the captain of the guard” (40:3), so it was certainly not a dungeon. It may well have been house arrest. Joseph was speaking just as you and I would speak when we want people to sympathize with our plight: “This place is the pits!”

After his release and restoration, the cupbearer not only said nothing to Pharaoh about Joseph, but also he forgot Joseph completely! So much for turning to people for help instead of waiting on the Lord. “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.… Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them–the Lord, who remains faithful forever” (Ps. 146:3, 5-6 niv).