Bible Strands
Genesis 40:19
Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and hang you on a tree. Then the birds will eat the flesh of your body.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Joseph speaks to the chief baker, interpreting the baker’s dream of three baskets of baked goods. He declares that Pharaoh will execute the baker within three days.
The words — יִשָּׂא (yi.sa') translates literally as “he will lift up,” and מֵעָלֶי/ךָ (me./'a.lei./kha) means “from/on you.” Together they form the phrase “lift off your head” in the BSB rendering.
The thread — The idiom “lift up the head” appears in Genesis 40:13 for the cupbearer’s reinstatement and in Genesis 40:20 when Pharaoh lifts up the heads of both officials. Genesis 40:22 records the baker’s hanging as the fulfillment of this prediction.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that spoken prophecy will be executed exactly as stated. It requires the reader to trust the interpreter’s words over present circumstances.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.
Cross-references
- Genesis 40:13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore your position. You will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you did when you were his cupbearer.
- Genesis 40:22 But Pharaoh hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had described to them in his interpretation.
- Genesis 40:17 In the top basket were all sorts of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
- Genesis 41:13 And it happened to us just as he had interpreted: I was restored to my position, and the other man was hanged.”
- Deuteronomy 21:22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is executed, and you hang his body on a tree,
- Joshua 8:29 He hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take down the body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And over it they raised a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day.
- Joshua 10:26 After this, Joshua struck down and killed the kings, and he hung their bodies on five trees and left them there until evening.
- 1 Samuel 17:44 “Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
- 1 Samuel 17:46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.
- 2 Samuel 21:6 let seven of his male descendants be delivered to us so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” “I will give them to you,” said the king.