“Joseph Passes the Test”

Genesis 39:1-23

We are back to the story of Joseph. The narrator reminds us in verse 1 that Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, the Egyptian captain of the “butchers”  had purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had bought him from his brothers. 

We are then told that Yahweh was with Joseph. Out of the 12 brothers, Joseph became the chosen one. Yahweh’s presence allowed Joseph to prosper. Whatever prospering meant for a slave in Egypt, Potiphar, his master, noticed. We are told that Potiphar made Joseph his attendant, his personal assistant.                                                                Step up for Joseph.                                                              From the pit - to second in command of everything Potiphar owned or was in charge of. 

The result? 

The blessing Yahweh was giving Joseph, spilled over into Potiphar’s house and field. Joseph was so good at what he did that Potiphar left Joseph in charge of everything. He didn’t concern himself with anything -                           except what he would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Hyperlink back to Genesis 12,                                                the chosen one,                                                                        the seed of Abraham                                                                  was fulfilling his role and was a blessing to the nations. 

Things have certainly turned around for the good. 

The last time we read about someone eating food was when his brothers sat down to eat, while Joseph was in a pit. The brothers could have cared less about Joseph. 

Potiphar on the other hand could have cared less about the things around him because he had elevated Joseph up. 

 

The eating of bread frames how Joseph’s life has evolved. 

Next the narrator fills us in on Joseph’s looks. We are told he was well-built and handsome, in Hebrew the words are better translated “beautiful of form and beautiful to look at.” 

These words should ring a bell. They have certainly been used before. Most recently to describe Joseph’s mom, Rachel, in contrast to her sister Leah. 

Take note, directly following their comparison we read that their father, Laban, deceived Jacob and switched daughters on his wedding night. 

There was another woman who was called beautiful of form and sight, that was Sarah, in Genesis chapter 12. Again, directly following her description, Abraham created a deception because he was afraid that the Egyptians would see his beautiful wife, want her, and kill him. 

In fact, we can go back to Genesis 3, where Eve saw what was good in her own eyes. We all remember the deception that followed that description. 

This is an example of what an Israeli scholar, Seth Postell, calls this, “narrative analogies.” It is when we read something that takes us back to various other stories and the main character takes on different slots of the story. In this story, Joseph begins this chapter being the blessed one, who is set to rule and given authority over the house, because Yahweh was with him. This takes on the image from Genesis 1 and 2 where God installs the ruler. Only to become a new character in the analogy as “the tree” that ought not to have been grabbed, which we will discover, is exactly what Potiphar’s wife is going to try to do. 

 

 

The next verse tells us that after a while Potiphar’s wife noticed how good looking Joseph was and presents him with a proposition, she demands that he go to bed with her. 

His response? He refused. 

Wow! The spoiled brat teenager actually steps up to the plate!

Joseph attempts to explain his refusal to Potiphar’s wife. Maybe he hopes it will help her not to take the refusal personally? 

Joseph explains, verse 8 &9,

“With me in charge my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.  No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 

Notice, Joseph believes that if he were to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, that it would not only be doing wrong to Potiphar, it would be doing wrong to Elohim. 

Joseph begins his explanation talking about how his master has put his faith in him so the paragraph begins as if Joseph will end up saying, “This would be a sin against Potiphar.” Instead, there is a little twist at the end. It’s a reminder that to sin against a human is to sin against God. 

This story reminds us that the primary ways that we sin against God is by sinning against other humans. Joseph manages to maintain this frame of mind later on when he confronts his brothers with the evil they did to him with, “You did evil against me, but God was able to counter your evil by planning good.” 

The next verse tells us that Potiphar’s wife did not take no for an answer. She spoke to Joseph day after day. 

He continued to refuse her and eventually he chose to not even be with her. 

Notice,                                                                                         in this narrative we have a woman who wants to engage in illicit sex with somebody who is not her husband. 

In the previous story, of Tamar, we had a woman who initiated and engaged in illicit sex. 

However, Tamar did so to save life, whereas Potiphar’s wife does so out of indulgence and the destruction of life. 

These two stories are placed next to each other for us to meditate upon. 

The narrative continues… “One day….”

It just so happened that one day Joseph went to the house to attend to his duties and lo and behold, not one of the servants was inside. Potiphar’s wife caught Joseph by his cloak and again demanded he go to bed with her. 

Joseph’s response? 

He left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 

There you have it. 

Potiphar left everything in the hand of Joseph and now Joseph leaves his garment in Potiphar’s wife’s hand. 

Joseph’s hand has been usurped through her deception, and Joseph has fled in his undies. 

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Potiphar’s wife doesn’t miss a beat. She seizes the moment. She realizes she has been rejected and with Joseph’s cloak in her hand she calls for the household servants, verse 14 & 15,  

“Look, this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

She kept Joseph’s cloak next to her and when Potiphar came home, she repeated her deceptive story, this time blaming him.

Notice the design of this section. 

It began with Joseph’s two refusals and an honest speech of, “How could I sin against my master and against God?” 

In the middle we have an incident.

Then the incident itself gets recounted two times.

Joseph’s two refusals get matched by her two retellings, one to the household and one to Potiphar. The narrator is contrasting Joseph’s integrity with her deception. Both were repeated two times. Clearly we have a deception scene that can easily be hyperlinked back to Genesis 3. 

Joseph has managed to do what Adam should have done when Eve offered him the fruit. Adam failed , but Joseph has actually passed the test! 

We finally have an inverted Adam. 

However, what happens if you have an image of God, who is honoring God, and whose honorable actions cause suffering? 

What do you do when it’s their integrity that brings about death and suffering? 

This quickly hyperlinks us to Isaiah’s suffering servant. The one who suffers not for their own sins, but for the sins of or because of the sins of others. 

Which brings us to the last part of our story. We began the story with Joseph being exalted in the house. We end the story with Joseph being sent to prison, back down in the pit. 

Yet, even in prison, verse 21,

“ the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.”

Again, Joseph finds favor because of Yahweh and has success in whatever he did. 

We are following a pattern of God. 

When God blesses and gives someone a gift of blessing, it is a gift that comes with the need for responsibility. 

That test began in the Eden story. 

The test continued in the Abraham story,                           the Isaac story,                                                                        and the Jacob story.                                                                Within each of these stories the blessing created an opportunity of choosing to be wise or foolish,                    to do good or bad in one's own eyes and so on.              Joseph is the first character in the Genesis scroll who has passed the test. 

If you get a human who passes the test, who is willing to suffer rather than fail, they could save the world. 

Is that going to happen in this story?                                Spoiler alert, most of us know the ending.

Does that happen for all humanity?                              Spoiler alert, most of us know the answer to that question as well. 

In fact, we come together to celebrate                               that indeed,                                                                               there is a human who has passed the test                                and saved the entire world.                                                      His name is Jesus Christ. 

Lord’s Supper.