What Does Genesis 40:5 Mean?

And one night they both dreamed: the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison: each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. The synchrony of their dreaming: both officials, in the same night, each dreaming a dream with its own significance: is a divine coordination presented without commentary. Genesis does not say "the LORD caused them to dream"; it simply states the fact of simultaneous dreaming with the additional note that each dream carried its own interpretation. The structure of the verse: "each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation": prepares for the divergence of the interpretations that Joseph will give in verses 12 to 19.

The same-night dreaming creates the narrative situation in which Joseph encounters both troubled men simultaneously. If they had dreamed on different nights, he might have met them separately, interpreted one dream, and the chapter's structure would be different. The simultaneous dreaming means they are both troubled at the same time, both encounter Joseph at the same moment, and both receive interpretation in the same conversation. The parallel structure of the dual interpretation: restoration for one, execution for the other: in the same encounter is the chapter's dramatic architecture, and that architecture depends on the simultaneous dreaming of verse 5.

Dreams in Genesis are significant precisely because they are divine communications that require interpretation. From the dreams of Abimelech (Genesis 20:3) and Jacob (Genesis 28:12; 31:24) to Joseph's own dreams (37:5-9), the dream is the medium through which God speaks about future realities. The note that "each dream with its own interpretation" establishes from the outset that these are not random night-visions but meaningful communications with specific and different applications. The interpretation is already built into the dream: it just requires someone who can read divine language. Joseph is that person, and his reading of it will begin with the disclaimer that gives all credit to God (verse 8).