Genesis 39:14-23

39:14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought ¹  in a Hebrew man ²  to us to humiliate us. ³  He tried to have sex with me, ⁴  but I screamed loudly. ⁵  39:15 When he heard me raise ⁶  my voice and scream, he left his outer garment beside me and ran outside.”

39:16 So she laid his outer garment beside her until his master came home. 39:17 This is what she said to him: ⁷  “That Hebrew slave ⁸  you brought to us tried to humiliate me, ⁹  39:18 but when I raised my voice and screamed, he left his outer garment and ran outside.”

39:19 When his master heard his wife say, ¹⁰  “This is the way ¹¹  your slave treated me,” ¹²  he became furious. ¹³  39:20 Joseph’s master took him and threw him into the prison, ¹⁴  the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. So he was there in the prison. ¹⁵ 

39:21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him kindness. ¹⁶  He granted him favor in the sight of the prison warden. ¹⁷  39:22 The warden put all the prisoners under Joseph’s care. He was in charge of whatever they were doing. ¹⁸  39:23 The warden did not concern himself ¹⁹  with anything that was in Joseph’s ²⁰  care because the Lord was with him and whatever he was doing the Lord was making successful.

[39:14]  ¹ tn The verb has no expressed subject, and so it could be treated as a passive (“a Hebrew man was brought in”; cf. NIV). But it is clear from the context that her husband brought Joseph into the household, so Potiphar is the apparent referent here. Thus the translation supplies “my husband” as the referent of the unspecified pronominal subject of the verb (cf. NEB, NRSV).

[39:14]  ² sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

[39:14]  ³ tn Heb “to make fun of us.” The verb translated “to humiliate us” here means to hold something up for ridicule, or to toy with something harmfully. Attempted rape would be such an activity, for it would hold the victim in contempt.

[39:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”

[39:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “that I raised.”

[39:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “and she spoke to him according to these words, saying.”

[39:17]  ⁸ sn That Hebrew slave. Now, when speaking to her husband, Potiphar’s wife refers to Joseph as a Hebrew slave, a very demeaning description.

[39:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “came to me to make fun of me.” The statement needs no explanation because of the connotations of “came to me” and “to make fun of me.” See the note on the expression “humiliate us” in v. 14.

[39:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him, saying.”

[39:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “according to these words.”

[39:19]  ¹² tn Heb “did to me.”

[39:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “his anger burned.”

[39:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the house of roundness,” suggesting that the prison might have been a fortress or citadel.

[39:20]  ¹⁵ sn The story of Joseph is filled with cycles and repetition: He has two dreams (chap. 37), he interprets two dreams in prison (chap. 40) and the two dreams of Pharaoh (chap. 41), his brothers make two trips to see him (chaps. 42-43), and here, for the second time (see 37:24), he is imprisoned for no good reason, with only his coat being used as evidence. For further discussion see H. Jacobsen, “A Legal Note on Potiphar’s Wife,” HTR 69 (1976): 177.

[39:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and he extended to him loyal love.”

[39:21]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the chief jailer” (also in the following verses).

[39:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “all which they were doing there, he was doing.” This probably means that Joseph was in charge of everything that went on in the prison.

[39:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “was not looking at anything.”

[39:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.