Commentary for Genesis 40:2

AGAINST TWO ‘SARISAV’ (OF HIS EUNUCHS). These two lords were both castrates, for as they also acted as the chiefs of the butlers and bakers in the women’s quarters in the royal apartments, the kings would customarily castrate them. Onkelos’ opinion though is that sarisim means lords and chiefs. Thus he says of Potiphar, who is called sris par’oh,²⁴¹Above, 37:36. “the officer of Pharaoh,” and in the present verse he similarly translates, “against his two officers.” And so did the Targum Yonathan translate: And they shall be ‘sarisim’ in the palace of the king of Babylon.²⁵⁶II Kings 20:18. Yonathan translated this as: “And they shall be officers.”

ויקצף פרעה על שני סריסיו, because they had not supervised their underlings carefully, as was their task.

ויקצף, the Torah appears to have unnecessarily repeated the words על שר המשקים ועל שר האופים, seeing that they had both been mentioned already in the previous verse. What the Torah wanted us to know was that Pharaoh was not angry at the actual people who had committed a misdemeanour, but at their supervisors who had allowed such a thing to happen. Joseph attended to the needs of these supervisors as he had been assigned to attend to only the highest ranking prisoners.

על שני סריסיו. “at his two ministers.” The expression סריס implies: “holder of distinguished office.” This is why Onkelos translates it in this fashion. [the term is not used in that manner in modern Hebrew. Ed.] Some commentators understand the word here literally, i.e. “eunuchs.” The reason why these officials had to be castrated was that they performed their duties also in the palaces set aside for Pharaoh’s women.

ויקצוף פרעה על שני סריסיו, “Pharaoh was angry at his two courtiers.” G’d contrived to make Pharaoh angry at his servants in order to rescue the righteous Joseph from the dungeon. We see that history repeated itself in Shushan when G’d contrived to make Achashverosh angry at Haman in order to save Mordechai and the Jewish people (Bereshit Rabbah 88,2). [I suppose the point of the Midrash is the superfluous word שני, “two,” before the word סריסיו. Ed.]