NOTES for Gen 39:1-23

Joseph's life is remarkable in that several times he has to start everything from scratch, to begin again after another collapse in life. In Egypt, from the very beginning, in the language of an unbelieving person, he was lucky: he ended up in the household of a court dignitary, where he quickly became steward. Potiphar held one of the highest posts in the Egyptian court hierarchy: he was the chief of Pharaoh's palace guard. It was a responsible position, entrusted to especially trusted persons. The palace guard was both the security service for Pharaoh himself and something like a national guard.

Joseph proved to be a quick-witted man. He quickly understood how to make his master's estates produce the greatest income. Managing such estates was not easy: all of them worked for the market and had to generate revenue. It was the same as managing a large agricultural holding today. Joseph handled it; he managed his master's estates so well that his master concerned himself with nothing "except the food that he ate," as the sacred writer says. It was a career that someone from a nomadic Semitic tribe could not even have dreamed of. Legally, of course, Joseph remained a slave, but his actual position was higher than that of many free Egyptians. In antiquity this was not at all rare, whether in Egypt or in some other countries.

Potiphar probably also had under his command his own special service, something like a special counterintelligence unit, and a special prison where, on the one hand, especially dangerous state criminals were kept and, on the other, high-ranking prisoners. It was precisely in this prison that Joseph eventually found himself. The collapse came unexpectedly and not at all from the direction from which it could have been expected: the story with his master's wife ruined everything. Joseph ends up in prison, but even there he soon becomes a kind of supervisor, something like the senior man among the prisoners.

God, it seems, deliberately does not allow Joseph to settle firmly in the place where it would appear he could spend the rest of his life. He does not allow it because He has His own plan for Joseph.

Today's reading tells us about the trial that fell to Joseph in Egypt. It would seem that Joseph's being sold into slavery was already a trial; what could the Egyptian prison in which Joseph found himself add to that (vv. 19-20)? And yet, paradoxical as it may appear at first glance, it was precisely that prison that became Joseph's first truly serious trial, though his situation in confinement can hardly be called extremely harsh (vv. 21-23). For it was here, in Egypt, that Joseph first had to experience both a rise in life and a fall in life.

Having become the manager of his master's household (vv. 1-6), Joseph, while legally remaining a slave, in fact made a career and attained a place in society of which any of his tribesmen could only dream, and in a country where not only half-wild nomads but also inhabitants of many neighboring, fully civilized countries would have counted it happiness to live. To lose such a place, and to lose it as Joseph did, was a real collapse of life.

What was most frightening and destructive for Joseph's spiritual life was that what happened to him was not merely undeserved; it happened precisely because Joseph firmly followed the moral norms that, as far as one can judge, he considered absolutely binding for himself (vv. 7-18). Joseph, after arriving in Egypt, could hardly have forgotten the God of his fathers; and although the Decalogue had not yet been revealed by God to His people, some moral norms must have been known to Joseph, as to all his kin, and known specifically as given by God and therefore binding. And then it happened that by following these God-given norms, Joseph, instead of receiving a reward, ends up in an Egyptian prison. Such a turn of events could make anyone doubt not only the unshakable nature of moral norms, but even the very existence of God. In those days people were convinced that the favor of higher powers brought well-being and prosperity, while every misfortune was regarded as a sign of wrath from above.

Now Joseph faced a very serious spiritual crisis: he had either to revise completely these ideas traditional for his age, or to lose faith. On the other hand, having passed through the crisis and still kept trust in his God, Joseph entered a new level of relationship with Him, one that no longer depended on life's successes or failures. And judging by the fact that God does not abandon Joseph in prison (v. 21), Joseph did not lose faith as he passed through the crisis. Then, as usually happens in such cases, the next stage of his spiritual and life journey opened before him.