When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head:
I had three white baskets on my head. The meats were carried not in wooden trays, but in wicker-baskets, the materials for the manufacture of which were very abundant in Egypt, especially on the banks of the Nile. Reeds, rushes, the mid-rib of the palm-frond, were used for the purpose, and the basket-work was made in great varieties of form. Many were flat, shallow, and broad, as were those described here, and bread, as well as other articles of food, carried in them (Exodus 29:3; Exodus 29:23; Numbers 6:15).
White baskets, х caleey (H5536) choriy (H2751)]. Modern scholars, rejecting the translation given both in the text and in the margin of our English version, render the words, either 'baskets of white bread,' or, as some think the specification of colour to be unnecessary, all bread in the East being white, 'baskets of bread baked in holes.' A common form of oven in houses is a hole, about six inches deep and three or four in diameter, dug in the floor or ground along the sides of which flat stones are placed, to concentrate the heat produced by a fire of brushwood. The embers being cleaned out, the dough is placed in the hollow all night. By this process the baking is slow, and bread of an excellent quality produced. The Septuagint has: tria kana chondritoon, three baskets of spelt loaves.
On my head. This was a common practice of the Egyptians in the time of Herodotus, who says (B. 2:, ch.
35), 'the women carry burdens upon their shoulders, while the men carry them upon their heads.'