1And Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, courtier of Pharaoh, the high chamberlain, an Egyptian man, bought him from the hands of the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. 2And the LORD was with Joseph and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. 3And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and all that he did the LORD made succeed in his hand, 4and Joseph found favor in his eyes and he ministered to him, and he put him in charge of his house, and all that he had he placed in his hands. 5And it happened from the time he put him in charge of his house and of all he had, that the LORD had blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake and the LORD’s blessing was on all that he had in house and field. 6And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hands, and he gave no thought to anything with him there save the bread he ate. And Joseph was comely in features and comely to look at.
7And it happened after these things that his master’s wife raised her eyes to Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” 8And he refused. And he said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master has given no thought with me here to what is in the house, and all that he has he has placed in my hands. 9He is not greater in this house than I, and he has held back nothing from me except you, as you are his wife, and how could I do this great evil and give offense to God?” 10And so she spoke to Joseph day after day, and he would not listen to her, to lie by her, to be with her. 11And it happened, on one such day, that he came into the house to perform his task, and there was no man of the men of the house there in the house. 12And she seized him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” And he left his garment in her hand and he fled and went out. 13And so, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, 14she called out to the people of the house and said to them, saying, “See, he has brought us a Hebrew man to play with us. He came into me to lie with me and I called out in a loud voice, 15and so, when he heard me raise my voice and call out, he left his garment by me and fled and went out.” 16And she laid out his garment by her until his master returned to his house. 17And she spoke to him things of this sort, saying, “The Hebrew slave came into me, whom you brought us, to play with me. 18And so, when I raised my voice and called out, he left his garment by me and fled outside.” 19And it happened, when his master heard his wife’s words which she spoke to him, saying, “Things of this sort your slave has done to me,” he became incensed. 20And Joseph’s master took him and placed him in the prison-house, the place where the king’s prisoners were held.
21And he was there in the prison-house, and God was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison-house warden. 22And the prison-house warden placed in Joseph’s hands all the prisoners who were in the prison-house, and all that they were to do there, it was he who did it. 23The prison-house warden had to see to nothing that was in his hands, as the LORD was with him, and whatever he did, the LORD made succeed.
CHAPTER 39 NOTES
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This chapter is the most elegantly symmetrical episode in Genesis. It comprises an introductory narrative frame (verses 1–6), a closing frame (20–23) that elaborately echoes the introductory verses, and the central story of the failed seduction, which is intricately linked to the framing verses by a network of recurring thematic key words.
1. an Egyptian man. This slightly odd designation of the high chamberlain might perhaps be used here in order to be played off against the derogatory identification of Joseph as “a Hebrew man” in verse 14. The household staff are also referred to as “men” (see verse 11), although that plural form can include both sexes, which it probably does when the mistress calls in the “people of the house” in verse 14, as she will go on to stress their collective sexual vulnerability to the Hebrew intruder.
2–6. The thematic key words, emphatically repeated in phrase after phrase, are: “all,” “hand,” “house,” “blessing,” “succeed”—the last two terms being the manifestation of the reiterated “the LORD was with Joseph.”
2. master. Only in the introductory verse is Potiphar referred to by name. Afterward he is designated consistently as Joseph’s master. Although the source critics may be right in attributing this difference between verse 1 and the rest of the chapter to a difference in literary strands, the stylistic peculiarity of referring to Joseph’s lord only by role serves the thematic purpose of constantly highlighting the master-slave relationship and the concomitant issue of trust and stewardship.
6. And Joseph was comely in features and comely to look at. These are exactly the words used to describe Joseph’s mother in 29:17. They signal an unsettling of the perfect harmony of Joseph’s divinely favored stewardship—that comprehensive management of “all” that is in the “house”—as they provide the motivation for the sexual campaign of his mistress.
7. Lie with me. The extraordinary bluntness of this sexual imperative—two words in the Hebrew—makes it one of the most striking instances of revelatory initial dialogue in the Bible. Against her two words, the scandalized (and perhaps nervous) Joseph will issue a breathless response that runs to thirty-five words in the Hebrew. It is a remarkable deployment of the technique of contrastive dialogue repeatedly used by the biblical writers to define the differences between characters in verbal confrontation.
8. in the house . . . all that he has . . . placed in my hands. Joseph’s protestation invokes the key terms “house,” “all,” “hand” of the introductory frame, reminding us of the total trust given him as steward.
10. to lie by her. The narrator, by altering the preposition, somewhat softens the bluntness of the mistress’s sexual proposition. This led Abraham ibn Ezra to imagine that she adopted the stratagem of inviting Joseph merely to lie down in bed next to her.
12. she seized him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” The two-word sexual command, which is all she is ever reported saying to Joseph, is now translated from words into aggressive action. “Garment” (beged) is a generic term. It is certainly not an outside garment or “coat,” as E. A. Speiser has it, though the Revised English Bible’s “loincloth” probably goes too far in the opposite direction. In any case, Joseph would be naked, or nearly naked, when he runs off leaving the garment behind in her grasping hand.
13. The narrator repeats the terms of the preceding sentence both in order to build up momentary suspense—what will she do now?—and in order to review the crucial evidence and sequence of events, which she is about to change.
14. he has brought us a Hebrew man to play with us. Rather contemptuously, she refers to her husband neither by name nor title. The designation “Hebrew” is common when the group is referred to in contradistinction to other peoples, but it may well have had pejorative associations for Egyptians. “Play” can mean sexual dalliance or mockery, and probably means both here. “Us” suggests they all could have been game for this lascivious—or, mocking—barbarian from the north and is an obvious attempt on her part to enlist their sense of Egyptian solidarity. She is probably suggesting that the very supremacy of this foreigner in the household is an insult to them all.
He came into me. She plays shrewdly on a double meaning. Though all she is saying is that he came into the house, or chamber, where she was alone, the idiom in other contexts can mean to consummate sexual relations. (It is the expression that in sexual contexts is rendered in this translation as “come to bed with.”)
15. when he heard me raise my voice. We, of course, have been twice informed that the raising of the voice came after the flight, as a strategy for coping with it, and not before the flight as its cause.
he left his garment by me. She substitutes the innocent “by me” for the narrator’s “in her hand.” A verbal spotlight is focused on this central evidentiary fact that she alters because of the earlier “left all that he had in Joseph’s hands” (the Hebrew actually uses the singular “hand”), and we are repeatedly informed that trust was placed in his hand. Now we have a literal leaving of something in her hand, which she changes to by her side.
16. she laid out his garment by her. She carefully sets out the evidence for the frame-up. This is, of course, the second time that Joseph has been stripped of his garment, and the second time the garment is used as evidence for a lie.
17. The Hebrew slave came into me. Talking to her husband, she refers to Joseph as “slave,” not “man,” in order to stress the outrageous presumption of the slave’s alleged assault on his mistress. She avoided the term “slave” when addressing the household staff because they, too, are slaves. Again, she uses the ambiguous phrase that momentarily seems to say that Joseph consummated the sexual act.
whom you brought us, to play with me. The accusation of her husband in her words to the people of the house is modulated into a studied ambiguity. The syntax—there is of course no punctuation in the Hebrew—could be construed either with a clear pause after “brought us,” or as a rebuke, “you brought us to play with me.”
19. Things of this sort your slave has done to me. Rashi is no doubt fanciful in imagining that the first words here are to be explained by the fact that she is talking to her husband in the midst of lovemaking, but the comment does get into the spirit of her wifely manipulativeness.
20. the prison-house. The reiterated Hebrew term for prison, beyt sohar, occurs only here. It should be noted that the term includes a “house” component which helps establish a link with the opening frame and the tale of attempted seduction. Joseph, though cast down once more, is again in a “house” where he will take charge.
And he was there in the prison-house. The division of the text follows the proposal of the nineteenth-century Italian Hebrew scholar S. D. Luzatto in attaching these words to the concluding frame. In this way, the last part of verse 20 together with verse 21 becomes a perfect mirror image of verse 2.
21–23. The great rhythm of Joseph’s destiny of successful stewardship now reasserts itself as the language of the introductory frame is echoed here at the end: “God was with Joseph,” “granted him favor in the eyes of,” “placed in Joseph’s hands,” “all,” and, as the summarizing term at the very conclusion of the narrative unit, “succeed.”