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.
Ver. 19. And shall hang thee on a tree, &c.] This was cold comfort to the baker: so shall the last judgment be to the ungodly; when the saints, as the butler, shall lift up their heads with joy. But what a sweet providence of God was this, that the butler should first relate his dream, and receive his interpretation, as good as he could wish! Had the baker begun, the butler would have been disheartened, and hindered, perhaps, from declaring his dream. And then, where had Joseph's hopes been of deliverance by the butler? How could he have had that opportunity of setting forth his innocency, and requesting the butler's favour, and good word to Pharaoh for his freedom? a See how all things work together for good to them that love God.
The birds shall eat thy flesh.] Those that were hanged among the Jews were taken down. Deu 21:23 Not so among the Gentiles. A sore judgment of God threatened, in a special manner, against those that despise parents b Pro 30:17 and fulfilled in Absalom. Abslon Marte furens, pensilis arbore obit. Gretser, the Jesuit, to show his wit, calls that tree, a cross; and makes it a manifest figure of the cross of Christ. Sed o mirum et delirum figurativae crueis fabrum! Our Lord indeed died upon the cross, and that with a curse. But that Absalom should, in that behalf, be a type of him, is a new Jesuitical invention. Some say, that in honour of Christ crucified, Constantine the Great abolished that kind of death throughout the empire.
a Piscator.
b Effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus. - Catull., De Cruce., lib. i. cap. 6.