Genesis 40:13

Summary

Joseph tells the cupbearer that within three days Pharaoh will restore him to his former position. The verse uses a chain of verbs describing Pharaoh's action of "lifting up" his head, returning him to office, and the cupbearer's own subsequent action of placing the cup back in Pharaoh's hand.

Key words

• yisa ("he will lift up", H5375) — qal imperfect, describing Pharaoh's future action; paired with rosheka ("your head") this forms an idiom referring to restoring status or granting favor, distinct from a literal lifting.
• hashivekha ("he will restore you", H7725) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by yisa; the causative stem indicates Pharaoh actively causing the return, not the cupbearer returning himself.
• kanneka ("your office/place", H3653) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "your," specifying the position to which the cupbearer will be returned.
• natatta ("you will put", H5414) — qal sequential perfect, shifting the subject from Pharaoh to "you" (the cupbearer), marking the next link in the predicted sequence of events.
• kammishpat ("according to the custom", H4941 with H9004) — noun with prefixed preposition and article, introducing the manner clause that compares the future action to a prior established practice.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three sequential verbs sharing one temporal frame, be'od shelloshet yamim ("in three more days"): first yisa ("he will lift up") with Pharaoh as subject, then hashivekha ("he will restore you") also with Pharaoh as subject via the sequential perfect construction, and finally natatta ("you will put") which switches grammatical subject to the cupbearer himself. This shift in subject across the sequential perfects marks a change in agency: Pharaoh's actions (lifting the head, restoring to office) precede and cause the cupbearer's own resumed action (placing the cup in Pharaoh's hand).

The phrase yisa... et rosheka ("he will lift up your head") uses the direct object marker 'et (H0853) to mark rosh ("head") as the object of the lifting, an idiomatic construction in the source text tied to restoration of status rather than a physical lifting gesture. The final clause anchors the prediction in precedent: kammishpat harishon ("according to the former custom") and ka'asher hayita mashqehu ("as you were his cupbearer") both use comparative/relative constructions to tie the future restoration explicitly to a previously established pattern of service.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yisa... rosheka ("he will lift up your head") as mnēsthēsetai... tēs archēs sou ("he will remember your office"), replacing the head-lifting idiom with an explicit reference to remembering one's position. The Vulgate similarly renders it as recordabitur ministerii tui ("he will remember your service"), also substituting "remembering" for the Hebrew's "lifting the head" imagery found in the source text.