(Genesis 39:7-12)
'Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said “Lie with me”.’
| Here's something to do: Tell the story from the point of view of each character, one at a time. You'll see how rich, how complex the story is. |
For a while, nothing happened. But during this period the third person in the story, Potiphar's Egyptian wife, noticed Joseph, inadvertently assuming the role of Mrs Robinson in 'The Graduate' (1967). Since Joseph ran the household, Potiphar's wife was in constant contact with him.
She seems to have been a lonely, bored woman thrown into the company of an unusually handsome, attractive man, a Brad Pitt of the ancient world. She realized that what she'd wanted out of life, and what she'd got, were two quite different things. The result was a foregone conclusion.
In Israelite and Egyptian culture, a slave girl was automatically assumed to be sexually available to her master (see Exodus 21:9-11), as were boy slaves, though of course sex with boys was forbidden by the Israelite moral code. See Slavery in the Bible for information about slavery in the ancient world.
Potiphar's wife seems to have decided that what was good for the gander was good for the goose - a male slave should be available to her if she wished, as a female slave was available to her husband. But the biblical narrator does not share that idea: according to the Hebrew way of thinking, a woman was the exclusive sexual property of her husband.
| 'Potiphar had a beautiful wife, a woman used to getting her own way. She was lonely, bored and thrown into the company of an unusually handsome man, the Brad Pitt of the ancient world.' Bad Women of the Bible |
The Egyptian wife did not sees things like this. Neglected as she was by her husband, she lost her head. She made some kind of sexual approach to Joseph, which the text rather baldly sums up as 'Lie with me'.
As far as the narrator was concerned, this was a straightforward attempt by a woman to use her sexual and social power to dominate a man, and as such it was definitely A Bad Thing.
Joseph was in a delicate situation. He had to either offend the wife or betray her husband. He judged that the former was less dangerous, and repulsed the woman.
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| The linen kalasiris, a loose pleated skirt that was the main garment worn by Egyptian men |
The wife was now in the grip of uncontrollable infatuation. She again begged Joseph to respond to her desire with the urgent 'Lie with me", but he avoided all possible contact with her, as far as he was able. One day when they were alone in the house she again begged for his love. In the physical tussle that followed, she pulled off the linenkalasiris that was the normal clothing of an Egyptian male. Naked, Joseph ran out of the room and then out of the house altogether, leaving his clothing behind.
Read Genesis 39:7-12.
