Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day:
Chief butler ... I do remember my faults. This public acknowledgment of the merits of the young Hebrew would, tardy though it was, have reflected credit on the butler, had it not been obviously made to ingratiate himself with his royal master. It is right to confess our faults against God, and against our fellow-men, when that confession is made in the spirit of godly sorrow and penitence. But this man was not much impressed with a sense of the fault he had committed against Joseph; he never thought of God, to whose goodness he was indebted for the prophetic announcement of his release; and in acknowledging his former fault against the king, he was practicing the courtly art of pleasing his master. Me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged. A prophet or interpreter of dreams may be said to save and to kill, when he predicts the safety or death of any, as Joseph did of the chief butler and baker.