Genesis 40:5

Summary

Genesis 40:5 reports that both the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, imprisoned together, each had a dream on the same night, and each dream carried its own distinct meaning.

Key words

• va-yachalmu ("and they dreamed", H2492B) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine plural, continuing the story sequence with the standard "and then" narrative pattern.
• ish chalomo ("each his dream", H0376I + H2472 + H9023) — the noun ish ("each") paired with chalom ("dream") in construct plus the possessive suffix o ("his"), producing a distributive sense: each man his own dream.
• ke-fitron chalomo ("according to the interpretation of his dream", H9004 + H6623 + H2472 + H9023) — a prepositional phrase built on a construct chain, fitron ("interpretation") governing chalom ("dream") with the suffix "his," indicating that each dream corresponds to its own interpretation.
• ha-mashqeh ("the cupbearer", H4945A) — a hiphil participle used substantivally with the definite article, literally "the one causing to drink," functioning as a title.
• asurim ("imprisoned", H0631) — qal passive participle, masculine plural, describing the ongoing state of confinement of both men.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb va-yachalmu ("and they dreamed", H2492B), then immediately specifies the object with chalom ("a dream", H2472) followed by shenei-hem ("both of them", H8147 + H9028), a dual construct form marking that the dreaming applies jointly to two figures. The text then distributes the action individually through repetition of ish ("each", H0376I): first ish chalomo ("each his dream") establishes that each man's dream was his own and separate, and later ish ke-fitron chalomo ("each according to the interpretation of his dream") emphasizes that each dream had its own distinct meaning, using the construct noun fitron ("interpretation", H6623) bound to chalom with a possessive suffix. This double use of ish creates a grammatical parallelism in Hebrew that marks individuality within a shared event (one night, two dreamers) — a nuance that renderings using only "each" in English can convey but without the visible repetition of the construct pattern in the source.

The subjects are then identified in apposition: ha-mashqeh ("the cupbearer", H4945A), a hiphil participle nominalized with the article, and ha-ofeh ("the baker", H0644), both introduced by the relative asher ("who", H0834A) as belonging le-melekh Mitzrayim ("to the king of Egypt", H4428G + H4714G). A second asher clause adds that they were asurim ("imprisoned", H0631), a qal passive participle marking their ongoing confinement, located be-veit ha-sohar ("in the house of the prison", H1004B + H5470).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double ish ("each") construction with ἑκάτερος ("each of the two") and ὄεασις τοῦ ἐνυπνίου ("the vision of the dream"), collapsing the Hebrew's repeated distributive phrasing into a single descriptive clause. The Vulgate's juxta interpretationem congruam sibi ("according to the interpretation fitting to himself") renders ke-fitron chalomo with an added qualifier ("congruam," fitting) not explicit in the Hebrew fitron ("interpretation", H6623) alone.