Genesis 40:23
But the chief butler, when things prospered with him, forgot his interpreter.
Open Genesis 40:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et tamen succedentibus prosperis, præpositus pincernarum oblitus est interpretis sui.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὐκ ἐμνήσθη δὲ ὁ ἀρχιοινοχόος τοῦ Ἰωσήφ, ἀλλὰ ἐπελάθετο αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְלֹֽא זָכַ֧ר שַֽׂר הַמַּשְׁקִ֛ים אֶת יוֹסֵ֖ף וַיִּשְׁכָּחֵֽהוּ
Haydock's commentary
Forgot. A thing too common among those who enjoy prosperity! (Haydock)
God would not have his servants to trust in men. (Du Hamel)
The butler was a figure of the good thief, as the baker represented the impenitent one, between whom our Saviour hung on the cross. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XLIX on Acts xxiii. 6-8
Such are God’s ways of ordering: the very things by which we are hurt, by these same are we benefited. Thus it was with Joseph: his mistress sought to ruin him: and she seemed indeed to be contriving his ruin, but by her contriving she placed him in a state of safety: for the house where that wild beast (of a woman) was kept was a den in comparison with which the prison was gentle. ( Gen. xxxix. 1-20 .) For while he was there, although he was looked up to and courted, he was in constant fear, lest his mistress should set upon him, and worse than any prison was the fear that lay upon him: but after the accusation he was in security and peace, well rid of that beast, of her lewdness and her machinations for his destruction: for it was better for him to keep company with human creatures in miserable plight, than with a maddened mistress. …