Genesis 39:19 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 39:19

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Naturally Joseph was given no opportunity to put his side of the story. Potiphar did not want to hear any other account of what took place, or else he had an unfaithful wife on his hands. Instantly the trust he has placed in Joseph is shattered. How quickly trust is damaged – even as in this case, by a lie – and how long it takes to build it in the first place. Once trust is damaged, it is harder still to build a second time. Joseph might have been accused of doing many other things wrong, but adultery could never be forgiven – ‘Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; ³¹ But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. ³² But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul’ (Proverbs 6:30-32). How much he suffered. Joseph who was so scrupulous to do absolutely nothing in the slightest degree dishonest, is now accused of a crime of the worst sort. ‘And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound.’ There was the prison, and then there was the inner prison where you were chained to the wall and treated like an animal. Actually, it is a great providence and a great mercy. There must have been conflict in the mind of Potiphar, because the normal Egyptian remedy – so the experts unanimously tell us – was for Joseph to have been immediately executed. Instead he gets a far better lot than that. He is chained to the wall in the inner dungeon. And Joseph surely sees the significance of that.So down goes Joseph again. He went from a place of honour to a place of extreme dishonour. He was put under the strictest regime, and assigned a place in prison reserved for the most serious of criminals. After all, this was about revenge, and how Potiphar’s wife would have gloated. ‘No one resists my advances and gets away with it!’ In all this Joseph was being trained; as the psalmist says, ‘He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: ¹⁸ Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron:¹⁹ Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him’ (Psalm 105:17-19). His conditions were harsh at first, but did not remain so for long. Now he must trust the oracle which came to him by dream, and wait patiently on the Lord.

Application

Joseph was in irons for some time, being tried by the Lord. Our outward blessings ebb and flow. We must never equate godliness with material gain, either in financial terms, or in some other respect. Sometimes Joseph was being strengthened, and others leaned on him, but at other times every prop seems to have been taken away. It is the same with our feelings. Sometimes we are lifted up, and that is good, but at other times God takes them away, and we must hold on by faith, and continue to love and trust the Lord.

So Joseph is falsely accused by the woman, just as Christ was falsely accused before Caiaphas and Pilate. In this, Joseph’s life continues to foreshadow that of Jesus Christ. No doubt Christ referred to this when he spoke to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. How amazing that all those years before, God had so perfectly planned the death of his Son. Has life grown more complex now, so that God is no longer able to know perfectly the end from the beginning? Certainly not.

Questions

The question is asked, why did Joseph not protest his innocence? There's no sign of a defence from Joseph. He says nothing. In this, he is a type of Christ who ‘opened not his mouth’, and who ‘as a sheep before her shearers is dumb’, and he went to his trials, and Pilate was frustrated with him. ‘Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?’ (John 19:10). Joseph is a type in every respect, so he offers no defence for the single solitary reason that the Lord overrules in it. He maintains an utterly dignified silence, which probably works in his favour, because instead of having Potiphar's wife called a liar by him, and all the fury that that may provoke, in due time Potiphar is willing to see him released to Pharaoh.

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Introduction

Genesis 39:19 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Genesis 39:19