Category Archives: Genesis

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Why Jacob will not let Benjamin go—Genesis 42:36-38

Recognizing that God is dealing with them (42:28), especially for what they did to Joseph years earlier (42:21), Joseph’s brothers return home anxious and afraid. Instead of viewing the money in their sacks as a divine gift (43:23), they fear that the already suspicious and hostile vizier of Egypt will find more reason to accuse them (42:35). They return to their father with such fears, without their brother Simeon, and with a demand that they bring with them their youngest brother, Joseph’s full brother Benjamin, when they return to Egypt (42:29-35). Not surprisingly, their father Jacob is not willing to entrust Benjamin into their care (42:38).

One can readily understand why Jacob would not send Benjamin with his brothers. On the emotional level, Benjamin was all that Jacob had left of his beloved wife Rachel and his favorite son Joseph (“he alone is left,” 42:38). Jacob’s tragedies have shaped him, and he keeps Benjamin at home because he fears that “harm” may befall him (42:4, 38; 44:29). Jacob’s pathetic overprotectiveness undoubtedly continually reinforces the remorse of his other sons, who know very well why their father lost Rachel’s first son. (Jacob’s fear of “harm on the way” in 42:38 might evoke Rachel dying “on the way to Ephrath,” 35:19, and even likelier Joseph disappearing on a journey to find his brothers. Jacob forgets that God had kept Jacob on his own journey in 28:20; 35:3.)

Not unlike Judah mistrusting his third son with Tamar after the loss of his first two sons (38:11), Jacob is not ready to entrust Benjamin to his brothers who “found” Joseph’s bloodied coat and who have now returned without Simeon (42:36). That the lord of Egypt specifically wants to see Benjamin—of whom Jacob thinks he need not have heard in the first place (43:6)—seems too suspicious and risks Jacob losing the one connection to his original love that he yet retains. And Jacob’s sons, who know far better than Jacob why Joseph really disappeared, know very well that they do not deserve his trust. (Whether Jacob suspected what happened is unclear, although Jacob heard about Reuben’s action in 35:22. That was probably originally meant to be a secret between fewer persons than the ten brothers who knew what became of Joseph, so rumors may have circulated about Joseph’s disappearance as well. At least by 50:17, Jacob’s sons apparently believe that their father knew about their guilt, though they might presume, rightly or wrongly, that Joseph told him.)

Although God had given Jacob various blessings, Jacob’s experience of tragedy shapes his perception about everything else. Unlike Esau, Jacob had pleased his parents by going to Paddan-Aram to get his wife, and the one wife he truly loved and desired there was Rachel. Although Jacob’s continued favoritism of Rachel’s children (probably even “my son” in 42:38) is undoubtedly not pleasant to his other sons, the narrative shows that they are no longer like they were years earlier when they sold Joseph. At this point they may have more pity for their father (and regret for their behavior) than jealousy.

When Jacob laments, “You have bereaved me!” (42:36; cf. his fear that they would kill him with grief in 42:38), he may speak the way one might speak to a bearer of bad news. Genesis’s hearers, however, understand that the brothers really are the reason that he does not have one of Rachel’s sons, and consequently the reason that one of Leah’s sons (Simeon) also is not with them.

Although not always on the surface, a tragic loss is never completely forgotten. Joseph always appears in the background even of discussion of the family (the one who, literally, “is not”; 42:13, 32, 36; “dead” in 42:38; 44:20), a loss that can never be fully forgotten. (That they speak of Joseph as dead may be more an inference than a lie, although it evades the question of their responsibility; after so many years lost in laborious slavery, Joseph might well be presumed deceased—but for God’s plan.) Whereas Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, appears as a man of great faith, Jacob at this point appears as one broken by his losses. Yet, perhaps unknown to Jacob, God was still with him (46:2-4).

Jacob’s struggle illustrates how tragedy wreaks havoc in our lives. His sons’ struggle, however, illustrates the ravages of guilt. A decision taken in haste that treats lightly another person can bear lifelong consequences, though in many of our lives on many occasions God’s grace has mitigated these.

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Money in their sacks—Genesis 42:25-35

What would you do if you found money in your wallet that you knew you hadn’t earned, especially if it looked like a mistake?

When Joseph sends his brothers home to Canaan, he sends them with an unexpected gift, still not having told them who he is. Joseph orders their vessels filled with grain (42:25), supplying the needs of their households, for whom Joseph had concern (cf. 42:19; 45:19). Yet Joseph also orders that their silver be returned to each of them clandestinely in their sacks, undoubtedly as part of testing them. He must know whether they are genuinely “honest” men as they claim (42:11, 19). They had sold Joseph for silver; now he needs to know if silver still matters more to them than integrity.

Joseph’s plan appears wise: surely, knowing that Simeon is in custody, they will return with Benjamin if he is well. If they return the silver, he will also need to see whether they will protect or relinquish Benjamin. What Joseph cannot know is the unwillingness of his father to part with Benjamin or the sheer terror the planting of money in their sacks will bring them. Thus for some time it may appear that they have both kept the silver and abandoned their brother Simeon.

Happily, God’s plan is even greater than Joseph’s; also happily, Jacob does not have a heart attack in parting with Benjamin, although the parting is delayed far longer than Joseph (or Simeon) would have hoped (cf. 43:10). (The delay may provoke Joseph’s special concern as to whether their father remains alive—43:27.)

The brothers had traveled alongside other travelers going down to Egypt for food (42:5), and undoubtedly the road was full of people traveling both directions. If the grain was to keep them very long, they would need much grain loaded on each of the donkeys (cf. 44:1), though they probably planned to make multiple trips (43:10). (Why workers and other animals are not mentioned is unclear, unless Genesis expects hearers to envision Jacob’s earlier camp as having disbanded, perhaps due to the famine; perhaps Genesis merely focuses on the activity of the immediate family—the way a scriptwriter today would—and deliberately leaves less relevant details untold. We learn of such spotlighting even in ancient biographies.)

I had often thought it risky for Joseph to have their money returned in the mouths of their sacks, where they would find it when opening the sacks. What if one opened a sack before leaving the area? But the risk of depositing the money deeper in the sack was greater, because some of their workers might be the ones to find the money when feeding animals and some of the money might disappear (perhaps along with some of the workers).

Joseph may ultimately plan for them to see the money as a gift from God in a kind way (43:23), but he may also want them thinking about their past greed (and may want to test them about their current greed). They recognize that God had returned the money to them (42:28), but they do not experience this recognition in a positive way. Their honesty was already in question with the vizier of Egypt, and now it might appear that they had not paid for the grain they took. Or worse yet, perhaps God was exposing the fruit of their past greed, when they sold a brother for money—a matter already on their minds (42:22). Their father allows that it may have been an oversight (43:12), but he is no less afraid (42:35). Such fear undoubtedly makes him more hesitant to send Benjamin (42:36, 38), the subject of the next installment on Genesis. In any case, we can be glad that even when our plans work less smoothly than we intend, God is still in charge to bring about his purposes.

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Joseph meets his brothers—Genesis 42

God has turned the tables on Joseph’s brothers. Because they once harmed him to prevent the fulfillment of his God-sent dreams (37:20), they will now bow down to him, fulfilling those very dreams.

Years earlier, Joseph had journeyed from Canaan as a slave; now Joseph’s brothers make the same journey because of hunger (42:1-5). For silver, they sold Joseph to merchants traveling toward Egypt; now they have come to Egypt to buy grain with silver. Those who plotted to kill him now are sent to buy food so they themselves “might not die” (42:3). In the process, they end up bowing before him (42:6), unwittingly fulfilling his dreams (37:7, 11; 42:9) that they once wished to silence (37:20)!

That Joseph’s brothers do not recognize him is not surprising; they could hardly expect the likely well-fed Egyptian overseer standing before them to be the seventeen-year-old they had sold into slavery. Nor would Joseph now have recognized Benjamin, a boy the last time he had seen him, apart from his brothers (43:29). By contrast, Joseph could well recognize his ten older brothers who had come from Canaan as a group.

But what can Joseph do? If he reveals himself to his brothers, their fear and shame will prevent them from informing his father or Benjamin. Moreover, Benjamin’s absence provokes questions: have his brothers harmed him the way they harmed Joseph? He cannot trust his older brothers; but he may well wish to get Benjamin to himself, where he will be safe and cared for. As we learn later, Joseph inquires specifically about their father and siblings (43:7). That they respond that one sibling is no longer alive—referring to Joseph (42:13)—probably does not increase his confidence in their trustworthiness (cf. 42:14).

Joseph accuses his brothers of coming to see (literally) the “nakedness” of the land of Egypt, which could apply figuratively to barren land. Throughout the Torah, however, the term especially refers to human nakedness, especially when it is shamefully exposed to others’ sight, especially close relatives’ sight. The term is used elsewhere in Genesis itself only for Ham seeing his father’s nakedness and his brothers covering that nakedness without seeing it (9:22-23).

Joseph’s accusation rests on these brothers’ past behavior; they were the sort of people who would come to see nakedness, for they had once stripped him of his special garment (37:23). This would explain why Joseph’s claim that they are spies (42:9, 12, 14) frames their informing him that there were originally twelve brothers, and one was no more (42:13). In contrast to his claim that they are spies—thus that they come under false pretext—they insist that they are “honest” men. Yet Joseph probably knows that his brothers had planned to lie to their father about his disappearance (cf. 37:20, 31-32). (Their claim that they are all brothers, sons of one man, in 42:11, might highlight again for Genesis’s first, family-oriented hearers the depravity of their treatment of their brother Joseph.)

It is not impossible that some of Joseph’s brothers had viewed him as a sort of spy as well, since he brought back a “bad report” about them to their father (37:2). This would also help explain Joseph’s choice of charge here (although he needs some charge that someone in his position could raise). Genesis’s early Israelite audiences might remember descendants of the twelve tribes who were sent as twelve spies into Canaan; most of them brought a “bad report,” however—a term the Pentateuch applies only to their report and to Joseph’s original bad report about his brothers (37:2; Num 13:32; 14:36-37). (The only two spies that returned a good report were a descendant of Joseph and a descendant of Judah.)

For proof that they are “honest,” Joseph demands to see their youngest brother, Benjamin; this matter is so central to their claim to be honest that the term “honest” appears repeatedly—and, in Genesis, exclusively—in this connection (42:11, 19, 31 33-34). In principle, genuine spies might have brought anyone and claimed that he was a brother; happily, Joseph’s brothers were now in fact more honest than that. Because Joseph knew them, he could have investigated and seen through their ruse had they attempted that, and the story could have gone very differently. But to know whether “truth” is with them, Joseph must see that Benjamin remains alive and well (42:16).

It is not difficult to see why the conversation turned in this direction. Although we first learn of the conversation later from the brothers, their report is undoubtedly correct, since it fits Joseph yet they would not have suspected it: Joseph specifically asks whether their father remains alive and if they still have another brother (43:7). This question is indeed certain since Judah later reminds Joseph himself about it (44:19). (Even after Joseph sees the brother, his first question after revealing himself to his brothers is to learn whether it is really true that their father remains alive—45:3. After all, Jacob is well over 100 by this point in the narrative—47:9.)

A further reason suggests that Joseph would have asked this question and designed this test. Benjamin is not with them, and knowing that these brothers have worded only delicately what really happened to Joseph, Joseph has reason to wonder how safe Benjamin is. He cannot know that his father kept Benjamin back to protect him, nor can his father know that his fear for Benjamin will set in motion the new demand for Benjamin to come. Joseph reasons that if he reveals himself to his brothers, they will never tell their father or Benjamin that he is in Egypt; unless his brothers have changed, the best he can do is get them to bring Benjamin, and reveal himself to Benjamin away from these brothers. Otherwise, to keep matters quiet, they might see to it that Benjamin could never return to tell their dark secret to their father.

They had cast Joseph into a pit (37:24); he now casts them into confinement. Because he fears God—probably the true reason, as he claims—he chooses to keep just one in custody, to guarantee the return of the others. He then allows the others to return with the needed food for their families (42:18-20). He binds Simeon “before their eyes” (42:24), just as they had “seen” Joseph’s distress years earlier (42:21). Because Simeon was one of the two brothers who led the slaughter of the Shechemites (34:25, 30), the narrator might invite us to imagine him as one of those who had proved harshest toward Joseph.

Joseph’s brothers reason that this “distress” (including the binding of one brother) has come on them because they ignored Joseph’s “distress” (the same Hebrew term) when he begged for their mercy (42:21). Joseph’s brothers think that their current predicament, including one of their brothers being imprisoned (42:19), is God repaying them for what they did to Joseph (42:21-22). And indeed, God’s rule, intended as a deterrent, was that those who shed other humans’ blood should have their own blood shed (9:6)! The brothers may not have shed Joseph’s blood directly (37:26), but they assumed that he had died and they were guilty for his blood (42:22). (In 42:22, Reuben calls their deed “sin”; this contrasts with Joseph’s refusal to “sin” in 39:9; sinning against God was deathworthy, as in 20:3, 6-7.) What they could not know was that on a higher level God actually was preparing for their deliverance from the coming famine. This short-term difficulty was a prelude to God’s long-term grace.

They had not listened to Joseph’s cries (42:21) or to Reuben’s warning (42:22), but unknown to them, Joseph was listening now to them (42:23; the same Hebrew word for “hear” in all three instances). Joseph’s weeping (42:24) is not likely from anger but from sorrow here (cf. 43:30; 45:2, 14-15). But as Joseph had said, they had to be tested (42:15); and at least Joseph could bring his brother Benjamin to safety. God has an even greater plan ahead.

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Interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams

Genesis 41

There were reasons why God had given Joseph practice in interpreting dreams. After some troubling dreams, Pharaoh sent and called Egypt’s wise men (41:8), but they could not interpret these dreams. As soon as he learned of the young Hebrew slave who interpreted precisely, however, he sent and called for him (41:14). People in antiquity highly valued precise knowledge of divine plans, but diviners rarely offered with many verifiable details. In Joseph’s case, as opposed to that of the other wise men, Pharaoh’s servants “hurried” him. The Hebrew term can mean something like “cause to run”; in any case, this would not be the first time in Genesis that running accompanies a sudden and divine turn of events (24:20, 28-29; 29:12-13).

Egyptians considered the Nile the source of life, and the dominance of lean cows and ears of grain are clearly negative signs. The details and solution, however, remained obscure. Why would a dream tantalize with only the barest elements of its meaning? Joseph’s father had important dreams (28:12; 31:10), but God spoke expressly in those dreams (28:13-15; 31:11-13), requiring little interpretation. Joseph, however, had had symbolic dreams, albeit with fairly transparent meanings (37:7, 9), and had been gifted to interpret even dreams with more complex symbolism (40:9-19), as the present one was.

Interpreting dreams for important officials of Pharaoh may have provided some practice for Joseph having to interpret dreams for Pharaoh, but the order of magnitude is now greater. This time Joseph is not offering interpretations (40:8) with nothing to lose; Pharaoh is requesting interpretations publicly, in front of his court (41:15).

This time, for Joseph and for the future of Egypt and the Levant, the stakes were very high. The cupbearer’s dream involved his action, and the baker’s dream involved himself, but Pharaoh is merely a spectator in his dream, which involves a scale of action beyond Pharaoh, one that would affect all of Egypt but was beyond Pharaoh’s control.

Joseph recognizes that dream interpretations come from God (40:8; 41:16). When God performs through us what only God can do, it is right to give credit where credit is due. Based on outcomes of various dreams, ancients compiled dream handbooks that provided interpretations for the various elements in dreams. Such handbooks could not offer the sort of precision and confidence of Joseph’s interpretations in 40:12-13 and 40:18-19, however. Individuals dream differently, and various dreams have different causes (cf. Eccl 2:23; 5:3, 7). But divinely-sent dreams were meant to reveal something (Gen 41:25)—yet needed divinely-given wisdom for interpretation. Even when we have past experience in doing something, we remain dependent on God for success. This was the God that Joseph trusted when he kept interpreting dreams (40:8), and the God he honored by refusing to lie with Potiphar’s wife (39:9).

Yet whereas Pharaoh’s advisors could not reveal or explain (magid) the dream (41:24), that was precisely what God wished to do (note hagid in 41:25). Sometimes we wonder why God allows bad things to happen on a large scale; but often warnings go unheeded or misunderstood because God’s agents are unheeded or unavailable. God is sovereign and yet wants to prepare people for the inevitable disasters in the world.

While some warnings invite us to pray that something may be averted (i.e., they are conditional prophecies), Joseph explains that God has established this matter and it is about to take place (41:32). Yet knowledge of this impending situation offers a solution as well. The dream does not specify the solution, but Joseph speaks here with God-given wisdom, as Pharaoh recognizes (41:38-39; note especially that the wisdom comes from God’s Spirit, as in Exod 28:3; 31:3; 35:31). Pharaoh’s “wise men” (41:8) could not resolve the dreams, but everyone is impressed with Joseph’s wisdom (41:39; cf. 41:33). God cares about people’s needs, and wisdom for public administration, famine relief, social ministry and the like comes from God (even among those who do not recognize this).

As the proverb says, one skilled in his work will stand before kings (Prov 22:29). Joseph had continued to trust God in his area of gifting. Now, at last, God was beginning to exalt him.

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Explaining dreams in jail—Genesis 40

During periods of suffering, some of us forget God’s calling or our earlier vision for setting matters right (or even forget God’s earlier blessings, 41:30-31). Moses acted in support of justice for his people (Exod 2:12-13), but the failure of his attempt (2:14-15) and years in the wilderness made him afraid to lead again (Exod 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10, 13). Joseph, by contrast, seems to have held on to his recognition that God was with him. In prison, he was still ready to interpret dreams (Gen 40:12-13, 18-19), presumably meaning that he still believed in some way the dreams that God had given him years before (37:7, 9).

The prophetic dreams in the Joseph narrative come in pairs; this provides confirmation that they are more than coincidence (cf. 41:11, 32). Joseph has paired dreams about his brothers acknowledging his rule (37:7, 9); Pharaoh has paired dreams about the coming prosperity and following famine (41:2-8). Here the paired dreams, however, belong to different officials of Pharaoh, and also have contrasting rather than identical outcomes. In three days, Pharaoh would lift up the heads of both the cupbearer and baker (40:20). He would lift the head of the cupbearer figuratively, restoring him to office (40:13), and would lift the baker’s head literally—from off his neck (40:19).

Joseph’s message to the baker is horrifying. Whereas the cupbearer would again squeeze fruit into Pharaoh’s cup (40:11), the provider of Pharaoh’s food would himself become food for birds (40:17, 19). Whereas the cupbearer would take fruit from a vine (which at least many people in antiquity classified as a form of tree), the baker would be hanged on a tree.

Joseph interprets accurately the dreams of Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and baker—and also has the courage to speak the hard truth to the baker as well as the favorable truth to the cupbearer (40:18-19). This succession of favorable and unfavorable interpretations prefigures his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams with both their favorable and unfavorable elements. Because the cupbearer saw both he can testify that Joseph will be able to tell the truth about Pharaoh’s dreams as well.

Joseph knows that Pharaoh could overrule a master’s decision concerning his slave and could free Joseph, so he asks the cupbearer to remember him with Pharaoh. Although it would be awkward for the cupbearer to raise an issue with Pharaoh, even one that didn’t remind Pharaoh of the cupbearer’s imprisonment (41:9), it was reasonable for Joseph to suppose that God had given him this connection for a reason.

Some apparent connections are simply tests, however, so we can never be sure in advance which ones will bear fruit. For example, as the king’s son-in-law, David might have seemed close to the fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy about David’s future—until that very relationship exposed him more directly to King Saul’s rage. Joseph may have expressed his innocence to others, though the cupbearer is probably the highest official to whom he can express it. He can only hope that this connection might bear fruit.

But the cupbearer forgot—for two years. Sometimes God will use something, but much later than we expect. Like the farmer who sows widely hoping for harvest (Eccl 11:6), we consider possible opportunities and offer our best but depend on God to make the right ones prosper. In this case, Joseph would end up not only free, but as vizier over Egypt—fulfilling his own earlier dream of rule, and even far more dramatically than he expected. It is only after Joseph’s exaltation that he too will forget something—his father’s household (41:51, though using a different term). Moses forgot his earlier passion during hardship; Joseph forgot God’s earlier revelation in prosperity. But even after we forget, God has his way of bringing us back face to face with his calling, his promise.

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Joseph goes to prison

Genesis 39:19-23

Bad things happen to good people. Granted, Judah suffered shame for his sexual sin in Gen 38:26; but Joseph now goes to prison because he refused to commit sexual sin (39:12, 19-20). Joseph’s imprisonment, however, does allow for his fortunes in this life to change in the future; given Joseph’s position as a slave, Potiphar might well have killed him.

Why did Potiphar choose to imprison him instead of kill him? Some suppose that he did not believe the charge against Joseph; yet Genesis speaks of his anger (39:19), and his only subsequent action mentioned is directed against Joseph (though Potiphar’s wife is no longer an issue in the story). Perhaps he preferred to see Joseph suffer longer. But perhaps—and I suspect this more likely—Potiphar did not want Joseph’s talents to go to waste, even while he wanted him punished and away from his wife; he may have expected him to serve some useful purpose in the prison as he would later.

Potiphar was apparently in charge of this prison, which was apparently on his own property (see discussion below), and he might continue to make profitable use of Joseph’s skills while keeping Joseph humble and far away from the home. Unknown to any of the people within the narrative, this turn of events will prove providential for Joseph’s ultimate calling.

Despite Joseph’s suffering, God remains with him. God had been with Joseph in Potiphar’s house, giving him favor with Potiphar, who did not need to pay attention to anything he owned, entrusting all of it into Joseph’s care and experiencing blessing because of him (39:2-5). This same blessing continues when Joseph is in prison (39:21-23). That God is with us matters more than our specific circumstances; God can raise us up and make us fruitful even within our most difficult circumstances, whereas even the best circumstances can be empty without him. Joseph had the best position within bad circumstances; meanwhile his administrative duties in less than ideal circumstances were training him to be vizier over Egypt.

Whether the overseer of the prison was the same person as Potiphar, or more likely someone under Potiphar, Potiphar was presumably involved (or, much less likely, Potiphar’s successor if he somehow lost his position). The beginning of the narrative concerning Potiphar emphasizes twice that he was sar hatabachim, often translated “captain of the guard” (Gen 37:36; 39:1); this might mean “chief executioner” (or possibly, were prison not involved, chief royal butcher). Yet this same official’s house is precisely where Joseph is imprisoned (40:3; 41:10), and this is the official who puts Joseph in charge of serving the chief cupbearer and chief baker (40:4). (That it is precisely these officials who are imprisoned probably suggests that Pharaoh had gotten sick to his stomach and suspected one of these officials of having poisoned him. Still, both are said to have somehow offended him—40:1; 41:9.) Joseph remains the slave of this official (41:12), another indication that Potiphar remains in view. Joseph thus retained some favor with Potiphar, though Potiphar didn’t want him having access to his wife. This indicates the extent to which God blessed Joseph’s work and the favor he had long had with Potiphar (39:2-6).

The setting, though, remains unpleasant; though it is in the official’s house, it is also described as a “pit” (40:15; 41:14), perhaps something like a makeshift dungeon (cf. humanly manufactured pits in Exod 21:33-34). Prisoners could indeed be kept in pits, not always counted worthy of the financial investment required for cells. This is not the only text that applies the term to a place of detention (Exod 12:29). It seems hardly a coincidence, however, that this Hebrew word for pit appears elsewhere in Genesis only with respect to, and repeatedly for, the place where Joseph’s brothers cast him (Gen 37:20, 22, 24, 28-29).

Joseph’s unjust suffering has continued, this time due to a false accusation. God, however, has greater plans for Joseph. In God, things aren’t over till they’re over: and in the end, whether in this life or the next, he vindicates those who serve him.

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The accusation of Potiphar’s wife—Genesis 39

Years ago it looked as if my life and ministry were over on account of some matters over which I had no control. I took comfort in the story of Joseph; he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, but eventually God exalted him in such a way that Potiphar’s wife was no longer even an issue. I could hope for ultimate vindication, on the day of judgment if not before. But if God was going to fulfill my calling, I hoped that somehow he would vindicate me, like Joseph, in this life as well as the one to come. Graciously, God has done so.

Why does Potiphar’s wife accuse Joseph to begin with? As noted in an earlier post, Potiphar’s wife seizes Joseph’s clothing just as his brothers had seized his robe. Some assume that her subsequent actions reflect a sudden change of heart, desiring vengeance because of Joseph’s rejection. That is possible, and Egyptians and others in antiquity even had stories about such false accusations. But her actions may simply reflect an interest in self-preservation. Once she sees Joseph’s garment in her hand, her options are limited; she cannot go out of the house and simply return it to him, and she would not dare to explain her possession of this garment by saying that she seized it while harassing Joseph.

Her only remaining option is to accuse Joseph of having tried to force himself on her, claiming that she successfully frightened him off with her screams (39:15; cf. Deut 22:24, 27); her hearers will then presume that he had left his cloak because he had removed it in front of her. So now, just as a non-Israelite man raped an Israelite girl several chapters earlier (34:2), here a non-Israelite woman falsely charges an Israelite young man of trying to rape her, even slanderously exploiting a stereotype about his ethnicity (39:14). She also implicitly blames her husband for bringing the slave there (39:14, 17; cf. Adam implicitly blaming God for giving him Eve, 3:12).

When Potiphar’s wife accuses Joseph of laughing at or mocking her (39:14, 17), the verb she uses is one that appears ten times in Genesis but only twice elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. It can apply to the laughter of Abraham and Sarah at the thought of having a child at their age, a silent laughter of disbelief (17:17; 18:12-15); to the supposed jesting of Lot over Sodom’s coming destruction (19:14); and to the laughter of delight in God’s fulfilled promise (21:6). But the term can also have sexual connotations, such as in Isaac playing maritally with his wife (26:8) and perhaps Israelites later “playing” sexually in Exod 32:6. What Ishmael does to Isaac in 21:9 is less clear—it might be mocking (cf. the noun cognate in Ezek 23:32)—but its arousal of Sarah’s ire (21:9-10) presumes something more hostile than friendly laughter. Here Potiphar’s wife may claim that Joseph came to toy with her, whether to abuse her sexually or to ridicule her as if she is inferior and an object subject to his exploitation.

Meanwhile, deception continues as a common theme, now at a more serious level than that of Jacob or Laban, and certainly far more than Abraham or Isaac about their related wives as their sisters. Joseph’s brothers lied to their father about Joseph’s fate; now Potiphar’s wife lies to Joseph’s master about Joseph’s behavior.

Overnight Joseph goes from being a high-class servant to being a prisoner in something like a dungeon; indeed, Joseph could have been killed. But God still had a plan for Joseph. And even in our most difficult times, when we face unfair accusations or other hardships, God still has a plan for us.

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Challenging sexual double standards: Judah vs. Joseph

Genesis 38-39

Judah’s voluntary sexual misbehavior contrasts starkly with Joseph’s refusal to sin sexually even under duress. Judah found himself doubly condemned for condemning Tamar for a sin that he had also committed (Gen 38:26); this challenges the conventional sexual double standard commonly observed in antiquity for men and women. The following contrast with Joseph drives home this point further.

Joseph was attractive (39:6); the text does not count relevant whether Potiphar’s wife was. It also does not inform us whether Potiphar had given Joseph a female partner, which might befit Joseph’s rank in the household. It may depend partly on whether most of the some thirteen years Joseph spent in Egypt before his exaltation (37:2; 41:46) was spent in Potiphar’s household or in prison; a mate was likelier in the former circumstance than in the latter. The narrator does not inform us whether Joseph struggled with temptation; it is simply clear that he refused to sin against God and against Potiphar.

If Potiphar was a literal eunuch (the Hebrew designation appears for Potiphar in both 37:36 and 39:1, as if emphatically), the struggle of Potiphar’s probably younger wife would not be surprising (albeit still a case of sexual harassment). The term might simply designate any officer, however (it appears also in 40:2, 7; cf. 1 Sam 8:15; Jer 29:2). In any case, Joseph recognizes that betraying the trust of Potiphar and sinning with his wife would be a sin against God himself (39:8-9). Joseph’s piety contrasts with Judah’s impiety; see further http://www.craigkeener.org/judahs-punishment-in-genesis-38/.