NOTES for Gen 39:1-23
Today's reading tells us about the trial that befell 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, however paradoxical this may appear at first glance, it was precisely the prison that became Joseph's first truly serious trial, although his position in confinement can hardly be called especially difficult (vv. 21-23). For it was here, in Egypt, that Joseph first had to experience a rise in life and a fall in life. Having become the manager in his master's house (vv. 1-6), Joseph, while legally remaining a slave, had in fact made a career and occupied a position in society of which any of his fellow tribesmen could only dream, and in a country where not only semi-wild nomads but also inhabitants of many neighboring and quite civilized countries would have considered it happiness to live. To lose such a place, and to lose it in the way Joseph lost it, was a genuine collapse of life. But that was not the most terrible thing. The most terrible and destructive thing for Joseph's spiritual life was that what happened to him was not merely undeserved, but happened precisely because Joseph firmly followed the moral norms that, evidently, he considered absolutely unshakable for himself (vv. 7-18). Joseph could hardly have forgotten the God of his fathers when he arrived in Egypt. And although the Decalogue had not yet been revealed by God to His people, Joseph, like all his relatives, must have known some moral norms, and known them precisely as given by God and therefore unshakable. And then it happened that by following these God-given norms, Joseph, instead of receiving a reward, ended up in an Egyptian prison. Such a turn of events could have made anyone doubt not only the unshakability of moral norms, but the very existence of God. In those days people were convinced that the favor of the higher powers brought well-being and prosperity, while any misfortune was regarded as a sign of wrath from above. Now Joseph faced a very serious spiritual crisis: he had either to completely reconsider these ideas traditional for his era, or to lose faith. On the other hand, by passing through the crisis and preserving his trust in his God, Joseph reached a new level of relationship with Him, one that no longer depended on success or failure in life. And judging by the fact that God does not abandon Joseph in confinement (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.