GENESIS 40

Q: Why was the baker chosen to die and not the cup bearer?

Pharaoh seemed to act in a rather arbitrary manner when he threw these two servants in jail in the first place, just because he had a fit of anger. Thus (although the Bible gives us no clue as to Pharaoh's actual motivations), it is probable that his reason for sparing one of them and executing the other is just as arbitrary.

If the intent of the question is, “Why did God chose one of them to die?” then my answer is a bit different. Just because God knew in advance the fate of both servants (and revealed it to Joseph), that does not mean that He actively caused events to happen that way. This would be confusing the concepts of foreknowledge and predestination.

Although some strict Calvinists would probably disagree with me, it appears that foreknowledge and predestination are two different things. For example, in Romans 8:29, Paul states, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son...”