Génesis 41:10 Comentario: Da'at Zekenim, Rashbam, Radak & Tur HaArokh

ויתן אותי במשמר....ואת שר האופים, “and he placed me in jail, together with chief of the bakers.” Why did the chief of the cup-bearers repeat the word: אותי, “me,” in this verse? I have heard from Rabbi Yehudah the priest, that he said so to Pharaoh in order that he should not think that in his foolishness he had believed that he deserved to be reinstated in his position anymore than did the chief of the bakers who had been hanged. He and the chief of the bakers had always been good friends, they had been together, and he did not feel superior or more deserving. He realised that only due to Pharaoh’s magnanimity had his life been spared at the time.

פרעה קצף על עבדיו, the word Pharaoh in Egyptian means “king.” All the Egyptian kings are known as “Pharaoh,” whereas the kings of the Philistines are known as “Avimelech” even as late as the time of King David when the latter pretended to be mentally disturbed (Psalms 34,1) The city of Jerusalem used to be known as “Tzedek,” as we know from Genesis 14,18 as well as Joshua 10,1) During the reign of David, compare Psalms 110,4, G’d refers to Jerusalem as such, seeing that Malki Tzedek is described as “King of Jerusalem. The kings of the nation Amalek were known as “Agag,” [not only the one mentioned in the Book of Samuel. Ed.] (Numbers 24,7, Samuel I 15,8) In our verse here Pharaoh is not the name of an individual but that of the title accorded the Egyptian head of state. The proof for this is simple. Who would dare to address the King by his first name or even by his family name instead of by his title? Certainly not a cup bearer or a recently released prisoner such as Joseph at the time! This is also why Joseph was renamed אברך, meaning אב למלך, “father of the king,” provider. The author of the book לקח טוב has also written in this vein.

אותי ואת שר האופים, even though he already mentioned אותי, I, etc., he repeated this again in the next verse when he spoke about אני והוא, “I and He.” The reason was because of the words he had spoken in the interval. We find a parallel example in Judges 9.19 ואם באמת ובתמים, where these words have been repeated even though the same speaker had used the identical words already in verse 16 in the same speech, on account of what he had been saying in the interval between then and now. Yet another parallel example to the syntax in our verse is found in Nechemyah 4,17 ואין אני ואחי ונערי, “neither I, my brothers, or servants, etc.,” and is repeated verbatim by the same speaker in chapter 5 verse 10 on account of all that he had said in the interval, though it was all part of the same assembly.