Succeeding in Egypt
Notes
Transcript
Succeeding in Egypt
Genesis 39:1-23
We left Joseph trudging brokenhearted down to Egypt, a slave, without support, without a glimmer of hope and with plenty of reasons to hate. Joseph had been stripped of his clothing by his own brothers and tossed in a pit to die even though he had begged them for mercy.
His execution was only prevented by the appearance of a caravan bound for Egypt and the exchange of a few shekels. Joseph had been a naive, godly boy with a bright future. But now, from all appearances, he had been abandoned by God and man. Joseph possessed every human reason for distrust, bitterness and revenge.
But Joseph made a different choice, a remarkable choice, because as he shuffled to Egypt, he chose to trust God with his life and ultimately to forgive.
There is not a trace of hatred, bitterness or vindictiveness no matter how close we look. Instead, we’re awestruck when, years later in the story, we witness that though Joseph had his brothers in the palm of his hand with every terror possible, he wept and then lavished them with gifts and privileges.
We have to close our eyes not to see hints of Jesus in the life of Joseph, because Jesus too was sold and delivered up by sinful men. Also, when suffering untold agonies, he forgave them, even as he forgives our sins today. And today he calls his own people “brothers” and “sisters” and “fellow heirs,” much like Joseph did with his own. Joseph was a man living thousands of years before Jesus, but so much like him.
The long journey completed, Joseph descended to the Nile valley and the pyramids.
Every morning the rising sun was greeted with chanting to awaken the gods from their slumber, after which the idols were ritually bathed, dressed and breakfasted with morning offerings.
Egypt’s many gods were everywhere. There was the sun god, the sky goddess, the three gods of the air. They had a god for everything. Pharoah was even considered a god.
All of this assaulted young Joseph his first day in Egypt as he stood alone in blinking wonder. And then, with the sound of an auctioneer’s hammer, Joseph was cast into the dark, pulsing heart of that world.
Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
Joseph was at the epicenter of the darkness, an aristocratic house where the rulers of the land came and went, a penthouse of Egyptian opulence and culture.
Here in Potiphar’s house, the world would come to ride on Joseph’s shoulders. He had sensed something of his responsibility in his dream, that his destiny would involve his family bowing down to him. But the immensity and scope of the burden was beyond him.
His dreams had no hint that he would become their savior two decades later.
Success in the Penthouse
Success in the Penthouse
Of course, we know that Joseph would succeed because we have heard the story referenced many times since we were children. But the question is, why would it happen? What would enable Joseph to succeed?
Fortunately, the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife leaves no doubt as to the answer because it is stated at both the beginning and the end of the story: Joseph was successful because the Lord was “with” him. Joseph’s success is bracketed with two declarations that the Lord was “with” him.
The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.
His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands.
Joseph’s success story is preceded by two parallel declarations that the Lord was “with” him. So, the centerpiece of the story is God, who was present and working on Joseph’s behalf.
But there are also things we might not notice at first glance. Most important, the God who was with Joseph was “the Lord” (Yahweh), the personal covenant name of God, and this name is used eight times in this account and then never again in the remaining eight chapters of Joseph’s story, except for Jacob’s use of it at the end on his deathbed.
And no one in the story uses the personal name of God, not even Joseph. Here in our chapter, the narrator uses God’s covenant name, Yahweh, eight times to tell the reader what is going on—and four of those eight times tell us that He was with Joseph.
So, we’re meant to understand that at the most uncertain time of Joseph’s life, when he could see nothing of God, the God of Israel was at work to fulfill his promises through Joseph. Alone in Potiphar’s house with pagan Egypt surrounding him, Joseph wasn’t alone. God was with him to bring about a mighty work for his people.
Joseph experienced spectacular, surprising success and elevation.
So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.
From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field.
So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.
Joseph’s work ethic didn’t go unnoticed.
So, he advanced to Potiphar’s personal attendant and then to overseer. And in promoting Joseph, Potiphar became the unwitting beneficiary of the covenant promise made to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you” and so the Egyptian’s favor to Joseph in turn brought blessing on everything he had.
The more favor he showed to Joseph, the better things got.
Joseph was such a super-slave that Potiphar realized that the best way to manage his affairs was to forget them and leave everything to Joseph. And he did, except for his food. This was likely because of ritual preparation at mealtimes.
Otherwise, everything was left in “Joseph’s charge,” meaning in was literally in Joseph’s hand. Potiphar was so confident that Joseph had his best interests at heart that even his wife was under Joseph’s care.
Likely, Potiphar’s chief slave was the envy of the Egyptian elite.
Joseph’s Temptation
Joseph’s Temptation
Joseph was at the pinnacle in Potiphar’s penthouse. There was no doubt that God was with him. And he was handsome, extraordinarily handsome, “Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.”
It was the genes. The same phrase is used of his mother Rachel. There are the only two people in Scripture to receive this double honor. The JPS translation renders this, “Joseph was well built and handsome.”
He was tanned, broad shouldered and muscular.
And it was here that the story turned, for with all his gifts, Joseph suffered from “one endowment too many” (Alter).
Here we find the prototype of all fatal attractions:
And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”
Mrs. Potiphar was in the habit of getting what she wanted. And after all, Joseph was a slave, hence her curt demands. Actually, though, it was the mistress of the house who was a slave.
What an insidious temptation.
Joseph was seventeen or eighteen years old and his hormones were at full force. The rationalizations were so easy and logical. No one would ever know. His family would certainly never find out. They were on the other side of the Sinai and beyond. Besides, Joseph was a slave. His life wasn’t his own. Sexual promiscuity was a daily part of all slaveholding households.
In addition, by giving in to Mrs. Potiphar’s wishes, he could enhance his career. This is a time-honored political strategy. What is so wrong with a little “strategic adultery” if it furthers the cause? And face it, old Potiphar was gone all the time and was not meeting his wife’s needs. She was entitled to a little affection. This would actually be the loving thing to do.
In today’s terms, the situation demanded this ethic. Even more, who could blame him? It was in his blood. Just look at his brothers Reuben and Judah! And again, no one would ever know.
Such powerful, reasonable rationalizations! And as Andrew Schmutzer explains:
Add to this the fact that Joseph knew the dysfunction of a father’s favoritism, the scorn of ten brothers’ hatred, the betrayal of being sold for profit by those responsible for him, the disdain of a slave’s life as chattel, and the dissolution of transplantation to foreign soil and culture.
With this as his bio, Joseph had every reason to be angry, bitter, resentful, cynical, fearful, self-serving, and self-pitying.… Joseph had every human reason to find fleeting solace in an illicit embrace—frankly, to “act out!”
Who could blame such a pitiful victim?
But Joseph didn’t go for it. And Mrs. Potiphar’s proposition was met with his passionate refusal.
But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.
He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
In short, Joseph refused to sin against:
· the trust given him,
· the woman’s husband,
· God himself
Joseph’s integrity was of one fabric. And because he was faithful in all relationships, he could resist being unfaithful in this instance. This story is not just about sexual fidelity, Joseph’s life was a web of moral accountability. He saw his moral life as a unified, integrated whole. His overall faithfulness had helped him reject this massive temptation.
We must understand that “little sins” pave the way to “big sins” and that Joseph was on no such path. It was this quality of his life as a whole that enabled him to resist the woman’s advances.
Of course, the greatest deterrent to falling was Joseph’s awareness that God was with him, not because of the narrator’s voice-over but because this is what God had repeatedly promised Joseph’s forefathers and had been his personal awareness all of his life.
The grand deterrent to Joseph’s sinning was the awareness that God sees all and that a sin that no one knows about, committed behind locked doors in a dark room, is actually done in the presence of a holy God. Joseph believed this. And that is possibly the greatest deterrent to sin.
David invoked it after the horror of his own sin ravaged his soul:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…
Well, Great speech, Joseph, but the lady wasn’t giving up.
And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
She tried every angle, but he paid no attention. And when she moderated her demands to “just lie beside me,” he gave her wide berth. He never let his hand get near the cookie jar.
Joseph is Framed
Joseph is Framed
Maybe Joseph should’ve seen this coming, but he had to be in the house to carry out his duties. In any event, Mrs. Potiphar’s ambush caught him unawares.
But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house,
she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.
There was surprise and violence here because the garment Joseph was wearing was like a long T-shirt. There was a struggle as he tried to free himself. And then, having removed himself, Joseph sprinted from her presence.
And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house,
Mrs. Potiphar was a skilled liar, in Robert Alter’s words, a “subtle mistress of syntactic equivocation.” She tailored her lies first to enlist the servants’ support and then changed them to incite her husband.
Earlier Potiphar had left all that he had in Joseph’s hand. Now Joseph’s garment was in Mrs. Potiphar’s hand.
· The first testified to Potiphar’s trust of Joseph.
· The second testified to Joseph’s faithfulness to Potiphar.
Joseph was a good man.
But never mind, the scorned woman assembled the men of her household and protested, falsely:
she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice.
And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.”
All her lies were laced with prejudicial subtleties to provoke their anger. For example, identifying Joseph as “a Hebrew” to evoke their national prejudice of foreigners.
And in preparation for her husband’s return:
Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home,
and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me.
But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”
The “Hebrew” is now a “Hebrew servant [slave].” To be attacked by a Hebrew was bad enough, but to be attacked by a Hebrew slave was worse. Mrs. Potiphar implied that Potiphar was partially to blame, saying of Joseph, “whom you have brought among us,” hoping that her husband’s shame would turn to rage. She also altered “laugh at us” to “laugh at me” to underscore her personal devastation.
No wonder Potiphar worked such long hours!
And her lies worked, to some extent.
As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled.
And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison.
Apparently, Potiphar was not completely convinced by his wife; otherwise, he would have ordered Joseph’s execution. Potiphar seems to have imprisoned Joseph out of necessity, leaving Joseph alive should more information come to light.
We’re left to wonder who he was really angry with.
Success in Prison
Success in Prison
What a turn of events!
Joseph had gone from a pit to the penthouse and now down to a prison.
But what a towering figure he had become. Never once, whether in prosperity or adversity, had Joseph doubted God. This is amazing. Ripped out of his house at seventeen years of age, hauled all the way down to Egypt, one thing after another happening to him, the emotional ups and downs, and yet he believed God was with him.
He had sensed and appropriated God’s presence in every circumstance. And never had Joseph been more of a success than now.
God was “with” Joseph.
Again, Joseph did not hear the narrator’s words that three times declare that the Lord was with him and that he was a success.
But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it.
The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
Here we find the ideas that opened the story repeated, but at a new level. Here again we see phenomenal, astonishing success. Everyone could see that God was with Joseph. And Joseph had never stopped seeing this reality. He saw it in the pit, he saw it in the penthouse, he saw it in Mrs. Potiphar’s lies, and he now saw it in the prison-house.
And that’s why he was and would be such an astonishing success.
How does Joseph’s story intersect the lives of us today? Powerfully and substantially. with the conception of the Messiah, the angel Gabriel explained to another Joseph:
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
…for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Jesus’s name is the combination of two words—Yahweh/Jehovah and salvation—so that his name means “Yahweh saves” or “Jehovah saves” or “the Lord saves.” In respect to the patriarch Joseph, Jesus is Yahweh, the one who was with Joseph and gave him great success in Egypt.
Later in Matthew:
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
Our Messiah, Jesus, is Yahweh and bears the name Immanuel, “God with us.” As believers, then, God is always with us, in all of life. In fact, when Jesus left this earth he said, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The key to our day-to-day success in this life is living in the reality that God is with us. The reality that we are called to embrace would have astonished Joseph. That God became one of us and now, ascended, remains “God with us” is the most awe-inspiring truth.