Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head: lift up your head is an idiom, and the same words are used in verses 19 and 20. The usual meaning of this idiom is to comfort or encourage someone who is depressed or discouraged. However, in the context of speaking to a prisoner, the expression means to pardon or release from jail. See, for example, 2 Kgs 25.27, where Revised Standard Version translates “King of Babylon … freed Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.” Many translations render the expression “take you out of the prison.”

Restore you to your office: this means “put you back in the job you were formerly doing” or “return you to your former position.”

You shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand: the wine servant will once again hand the king’s drinks to him as he used to do.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .