Commentary
Skeptic's Annotated Bible
39:1 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither.
Are Ishmaelites the same as Midianites?
39:2 And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.
He is a slave, but he is a prosperous man.
39:3 And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.
39:4 And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.
39:5 And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field.
If God was so much with Joseph, why'd he let him get sold in the first place?
39:6 And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favored.
39:7 And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.
Oh crap.
39:8 But he refused,
This may be the first smart thing Joseph has done.
and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand;
"Wotteth," 3d pers. sing. pres. of wit, to know. "My master knows not what is with me in the house..." I guess this means, "my master doesn't know you're with me in the house."
39:9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?
We clearly know that the right thing to do is to refuse her. And because Joseph is refusing her, we are to think more highly of him, that he is a more moral person. My point: the same reasoning that lets us conclude that Joseph is behaving correctly here lets us condemn the behavior of almost everyone else in almost every other chapter so far. If I'm supposed to conclude that Joseph is good here, then I should also be allowed to conclude that, for example, Simeon and Levi were wrong to murder all those men; Laban was wrong to deceive Jacob; Abraham was wrong for agreeing to murder Isaac; God was wrong for not punishing Cain for murder, or for punishing Canaan for the "crime" of Ham (or for viewing Ham's act as a crime in the first place); for the murder of Er and Onan; and on and on.
39:10 And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.
39:11 And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within.
39:12 And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.
39:13 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth,
39:14 That she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice:
The Egyptian's wife (who isn't important enough to merit a name) cries "rape!" I wonder if she's calling him Hebrew here because he took off his garment to flee, and she could see that he was circumcised?
39:15 And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and got him out.
39:16 And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home.
39:17 And she spake unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me:
39:18 And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled out.
39:19 And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled.
39:20 And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison.
39:21 But the LORD was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
Again, if God was with Joseph, how did Joseph find himself in this pickle in the first place? Being on God's good side doesn't seem to confer much benefit, now does it?
39:22 And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it.
39:23 The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand; because the LORD was with him, and that which he did, the LORD made it to prosper.
So Joseph is sold to an Egyptian, and because God is with him, he does such a good job that he's promoted to be in charge of the guy's household. Until the wife frames him for rape (I wonder if God punished her for this lie?), and he gets sent to prison. And there, because God is with him, he does such a good job (as a prisoner, somehow) that the keeper of the prison puts Joseph in charge of all of the prisoners. (I'm sure the other prisoners loved that.)
So, the moral of this little story: No matter what horrible things happen to you (getting sold into slavery by your brothers, getting framed for rape, losing your pretty, colorful coat), if God is with you, you'll excel at doing whatever you can in the situation you find yourself in.
It seems to me that the better lesson might have been: if you behave in a righteous way, these horrible things won't happen to you in the first place. Because these horrible things are happening, you have to conclude that God is allowing these horrible things to happen to you. Why? To test you? But if you're behaving in a righteous way, why be tested? This whole thing is becoming like a soap opera, with God meddling with the most mundane details of someone's life (and putting them through terrible situations) to cause some future situation that, one hopes, will have some larger purpose in the story.
The problem is that there is this tension introduced between what God wants and the free will of man. The standard religious argument is that God chooses to be powerless about the behavior of people, so they have the opportunity to either behave morally or not, and thus whether they are rewarded with salvation is up to them. Worship freely given must be sweeter than that given under duress (which totally contradicts the "fear of God" hypothesis, but oh well). But then, God does have things that he wants to occur; he does manipulate situations to his purposes. If God wanted Joseph in prison, then he could manipulate Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery, or the Egyptian's wife into framing him for rape. But then, these acts cannot be held against these people, as they were no longer acting under their own volition.
Maybe this is why, in the Bible, the family members of Abraham's family aren't punished for their horrible crimes: because they are acting as directed by God to fulfill some future purpose in the story. It's not Judah's fault he slept with his daughter-in-law and got her pregnant, because Pharez will have an important part to play later. In other words, prostitution, incest and adultery are okay in this situation because God needed Pharez. But this begs the question: why allow all this immorality for an outcome that could have been achieved with much less transgression? We know that God got Sarah pregnant (when she was 90 years old, no less) because God needed Isaac.
It really just sounds like God is bored and is playing with peoples lives to keep himself entertained, while working towards his eventual purposes. Incest was mildly amusing when Abraham and Sarah got married (and they repeatedly told the lie about Sarah not being his wife to squeeze the maximum juice out of that lemon). But then it got boring so we had to spice it up, by having Lot's daughters rape him. Let's see, how else can we make polygamy more sordid? I know, let's have Jacob's two wives be sisters! Ha! Adultery is too common to be fun, but what if the guy unknowingly has sex outside of marriage with his own daughter-in-law! Yeah! It's just a crazy, sex-centered soap opera (in the manner of the historical context in which it was written). Sordid stuff.
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