To LIFT UP THE HEAD — a court idiom for singling a man out of the crowd: to review him, reckon him, take notice of him, raise him up. It is also the hinge on which Genesis 40 turns. Joseph tells the cupbearer 'Pharaoh will LIFT UP YOUR HEAD and restore you' (40:13) — pardon and promotion. He tells the baker 'Pharaoh will LIFT UP YOUR HEAD — from off you — and hang you on a tree' (40:19): the same phrase, two words added, and it means decapitation. Then verse 20 uses it once, governing both men at once — Pharaoh 'lifted up the head' of the cupbearer AND the head of the baker at his birthday feast, one back to his cup and one off his shoulders. KJV and ASV keep it literal in all three places and so preserve the wordplay; versions that smooth it to 'summoned' or 'sent for' destroy the architecture of the chapter. Elsewhere the same idiom means taking a census (Exodus 30:12, 'when you lift up the head of the sons of Israel'). → first discussed at Gen 40:13