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. 8 But he refused, 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; 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? 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.
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. 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.
Potiphar’s wife wants to have sex with Joseph. We use
different euphemisms in our language for sin such as this. We say she wants to
have an affair with him, or she wants
to seduce him or some other such
drivel to make wickedness seem sophisticated. As he is in an inferior position
socially and powerless this is all about lust, a type of attempted rape. It
used to be more common than it is now in our culture until sexual harassment
laws, although much abused, worked to prevent even the taint of it. But, in our
history, for instance, under the racial slavery that existed before the Civil
War, no slave had any power to resist the advances of their master or mistress
except to flee as Joseph will. It is a barbarous and uncivilized condition that
exists still in some countries today, usually afflicting women, where they have
no choice but to submit to the humiliation and physical danger or flee to an
uncertain fate.
Joseph tells Potiphar’s wife that everything Potiphar
has except for her has been put into his hands to care for and he is not about
to violate the trust he has been given. The woman continually pressed upon
Joseph her desire to do wrong with him daily and we might question why he didn’t
tell Potiphar this but then it is likely she would have called him a liar and
his situation would have been no better. Finally, she could stand his resistance
no further and at a time when he went into the house to work and there were no
witnesses, she grabbed his clothing and demanded that he have sex with her.
Joseph ran, leaving that clothing in her hand she held it so forcefully in her
lust.
His
business is not the idiom in English that some use when
referencing going to the bathroom. Here it is defined in the Bible as the work
that one does.
Nehemiah
13:30 Thus cleansed I them from all
strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business;
Proverbs
22:29 Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings; he shall not stand before mean men.
The word wotteth
is a form of wot, to know.
Genesis
21:26 And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing:
neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.
Exodus
32:23 For they said unto me, Make us
gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us
up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him.
Joseph displays a high level of character in holding
the trust he has been given in honor. Most men, if the lady of the house wasn’t
hideous looking, would have succumbed to her desires and used her favors as a
means to gain advantage. Joseph shows himself worthy of the trust he has been
given.
No comments:
Post a Comment