NOTES for Быт 39:1-23

The story of a person's testing follows the same pattern as at the very beginning of Genesis, except that here it no longer takes place on the scale of all humanity, where Adam represents all humankind, but on the personal level. The parallel between the events is emphasized even by similar details: God places Joseph in paradisiacal conditions, puts everything his heart desires into his hands, and immediately there arises a temptation to reach for what does not belong to him (his justification before Potiphar's wife coincides with Eve's answer to the serpent's proposal: everything is permitted to him except her—how then could he sin against God and his master?). And a miracle occurs: the trial can be passed successfully precisely at the level of an individual person. Because of this victory, Joseph finds himself in the ambiguous position of someone who has done something unusual: he goes to prison, but even there God arranges his life in the best possible way. Sacred history continues to unfold within this adventure story, only now its course will proceed not from failure to failure, as in the first chapters of the Bible, but from victory to victory, and behind each victory stand God's design and a particular human decision.