CHAPTER XXXIX.
_Joseph is cast into Prison_ (Yahwist).
Joseph is sold by the Ishmaelites (37²⁸ᐧ ³⁶) to an Egyptian householder, who finds him so capable and successful that ere long he entrusts him with the whole administration of his estate (¹⁻⁶). But his master’s wife conceives a guilty passion for him, and when her advances are repelled, falsely accuses him of attempted outrage, with the result that he is thrown into prison (⁷⁻²⁰). Here again he wins the favour of his superior, and is soon charged with the oversight of the prison (²¹⁻²³).
_Source._――With the exception of a harmonising gloss in ¹ᵇ{α}, and a sprinkling of Elohist variants (discussed in the notes), the whole passage is from Yahwist. It represents the chief divergence between the two recensions of the history of Joseph. In Yahwist, Joseph is first sold to a private Egyptian איש מצרי, verse ¹), then cast into the state prison in the way here narrated, where he gains the confidence of the (unnamed) governor, so that when the butler and baker are sent thither they naturally fall under his charge. In Elohist, Joseph is sold at once to Potiphar (37³⁶), the palace officer in whose house the butler and baker are afterwards confined (40³ᵃ); and Joseph, without being himself a prisoner, is told off to wait on these eminent persons (40⁴). The imprisonment, therefore, is indispensable in Yahwist, and at least embarrassing in Elohist.――This conclusion is partly confirmed by the literary phenomena: יהוה, ²ᐧ ³ᐧ ⁵; the Ishmaelites, ¹; הוריד, ¹; הצליח, ³ᐧ ²³; מצא חן, ⁴; בגלל, ⁵. It is somewhat disconcerting to find that none of these occur in the central section, ⁷⁻²⁰; and (Wellhausen, _Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 56) positively assigns ⁶⁻¹⁹ to Elohist, because of the phrases יפה תאר ויפה מראה, ⁶ᵇ (compare 29¹⁷); ויהי א׳ הדברים ה׳, ⁷ (compare 15¹ 22¹ᐧ ²⁰ 40¹ 48¹); ראו, ¹⁴; and לאלהים, ⁹. These are not decisive (see Dillmann, 403; Holzinger, 231), and on the whole the material argument must be held to outweigh the dubious linguistic evidence that can be adduced on the other side.――Procksch (42 f.) assigns ⁷⁻¹⁰ to Elohist and ¹¹⁻²³ to Yahwist; but nothing is gained by the division.
=1‒6. Joseph becomes the controller of an Egyptian estate.=――=1.= _But Joseph had been taken down, etc._] while his father was mourning over him as one dead (37³¹ ᶠᶠᐧ); the notice resumes 37²⁸ᵃ.――_a certain Egyptian_] who is nameless in Yahwist (_v.i._).――=2.= The secret of Joseph’s success: a combination of ability with personal charm which marked him out as a favourite of Yahwe (compare ³ᐧ ⁵ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²³).――_remained in the house, etc._] under his master’s observation, instead of being sent to work in the field.――=4a.= _served him_] _i.e._, ‘became his personal attendant.’――The phrase is a variant from Elohist (compare 40⁴).――=4b.= In Yahwist, Joseph’s position is far higher, that, namely, of _mer-per_ (_mer-pa, mer en peri-t, etc._), or superintendent of the household, frequently mentioned in the inscriptions (Ebers, _Ägypten und die Bücher Moses_ 303 ff.; Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, 187 f.).――=6a.= _knew not with him_] (_i.e._ with Joseph [verse ⁸]): ‘held no reckoning with him’;――a hyperbolical expression for absolute confidence.――=6b= is introductory to ⁷ ᶠᶠᐧ.
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=1.= The words פוטיפר――הטבחים are a repetition by Redactorᴶᵉʰᵒᵛⁱˢᵗ from 37³⁶ (Elohist), in order to harmonise the two sources. But the contradiction appears (1) in the meaningless איש מצרי after the specific designation (this is not to be got rid of by Ebers’s observation that under a Hyksos dynasty a high official was not necessarily a native Egyptian), and (2) the improbability of a eunuch being married (though cases of this kind are known [Ebers, 299]).――פוטיפר] LXX Πετεφρη[ς], an exact transcription of Egyptian _Pedephrē_ = ‘He whom the sun-god gives’ (see _A Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 665b; _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 3814); but the long _o_ of the Hebrew has not been explained. Compare Heyes, 105‒112.――סריס] means ‘eunuch’ in New Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, (as is shown by the denominative verbs = ‘be impotent’), and there is no case in Old Testament where the strict sense is inapplicable (Gesenius, _Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_ 973 b). That such a word should be extended to mean ‘courtier’ in general is more intelligible than the reverse process (so Heyes, 122), in spite of the opinion of several Assyriologists who derive it from _ša rêši_ = ‘he who is the head’ (Zimmern, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, liii. 116; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 649).――שר הטבחים] LXX ἀρχιμάγειρος, a title like שר המשקים and ש׳ האופים in chapter 40 (Elohist). Compare רב הט׳, 2 Kings 25⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ, Jeremiah 39⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ 40¹ ᶠᶠᐧ etc., Daniel 2¹⁴. The טבחים were apparently the royal cooks or butchers (1 Samuel 9²³ ᶠᐧ), who had come to be the bodyguard (Smith, _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_², 262¹).――=2.= איש מצליח] The intransitive Hiphil is thought by Dillmann, Gunkel, al. to be inconsistent with Yahwist’s usage (verses ³ᐧ ²³ 24²¹); therefore Elohist.――=4.= בעיניּו] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX, Vulgate בעיני אדניו.――וכל־יש־לו] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ inserts אשר as verse ⁵ ᵇⁱˢᐧ ⁸.――=4a= is wholly assigned to Elohist by Gunkel; but וימצא חן pleads strongly for Yahwist.
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=7‒20. Joseph tempted by his master’s wife.=――=7‒10.= The first temptation. The solicitation of a young man by a married woman is a frequent theme of warning in Proverbs 1‒9.――=9a.= אֵינֶנּוּ does not mean ‘there is none’ (which would require אֵין), but ‘he is not.’――=9b.= _sin against God_] The name Yahwe is naturally avoided in conversation with a foreigner. All the more striking is the consciousness of the divine presence which to the exiled Israelite is the ultimate sanction of morality.――=11, 12.= The final temptation.――On the freedom of social intercourse between the sexes, see Ebers, 306 f. But the difficulties raised about Joseph’s access to the harem do not really arise, when we remember that Yahwist is depicting the life of a simple Egyptian family, and not that of a high palace official (see Tuch).――=13‒20.= The woman’s revenge.――=14.= A covert appeal to the jealousy of the men-servants against the hated Hebrew, and to the fears of the women, whom she represents as unsafe from insult (_to mock us_). An additional touch of venom lurks in the contemptuous reference to her husband as ‘_he_.’――_Hebrew_ may be here a general designation of the Asiatic Bedouin (_Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 387); but see on 40¹⁵.――=19.= Her distorted account of the facts has the desired effect on her husband.――_his wrath was kindled_] against Joseph, of course. There is no hint that he suspected his wife, and was angry with her also (Delitzsch, Dillmann).――=20.= Imprisonment would certainly not be the usual punishment for such a crime as Joseph was believed to have committed; but the sequel demanded it, Joseph’s further career depending on his being lodged in the _place where the king’s prisoners were bound_. That he became a king’s slave (according to Ḥammurabi § 129) is not indicated (against Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 388). The term for _prison_ (_v.i._) is peculiar, and recurs only ²¹ᐧ ²²ᐧ ²³ 40³ᐧ ⁵.
To this episode in Joseph’s life there is an Egyptian parallel so close that we can hardly fail to recognise in it the original of the Hebrew story. It is the ‘Tale of the two brothers’ in the d’Orbiney Papyrus, assigned by Egyptologists to the 19th dynasty. Two brothers lived together, the older Anpu having a house and wife, and the younger Batu serving him in the field. One day Batu enters the house to fetch seed for the sowing, and is tempted by his brother’s wife, exactly as Joseph was by his mistress. Furiously indignant――“like a panther for rage”――he rejects her advances, out of loyalty to the brother who has been like a father to him, and expresses horror of the ‘great sin’ which she had suggested. Promising silence, he returns to his brother in the field. In the evening Anpu comes home to find his wife covered with self-inflicted wounds, and listens to a tale which is a perfect parallel to the false accusation against Joseph. Anpu seeks to murder his brother; but being at last convinced of his innocence, he slays his wife instead. Here the human interest of the story ceases, the remainder being fairy lore of the most fantastic description, containing at least a reminiscence of the Osiris myth. (See Ebers, 311 ff.; Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, 378 ff.; Petrie, _Egyptian Tales Translated from the Papyri_, ii. 36 ff.; Völter, _Aegypten und die Bibel_, 50 f. [who takes the story as a whole to be founded on the myth of Set and Osiris].) It is true that the theme is not exclusively Egyptian (see the numerous parallels in Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, ii. 303 ff.); but the fact that the scene of the biblical narrative is in Egypt, and the close resemblance to the Egyptian tale, make it extremely probable that there is a direct connexion between them.
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=8.= מה] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ מאומה (verse ²³).――בבית] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX, Peshiṭtå, Vulgate בביתו.――=10.= לשכב אצלה and להיות עמה look like variants; but one swallow does not make a summer, and it would be rash to infer an Elohistic recension.――=11.= כהיום הזה] A very obscure expression, see Brown-Driver-Briggs, 400 b. Of the other occurrences (Deuteronomy 6²⁴, Jeremiah 44²², Ezra 9⁷ᐧ ¹⁵, Nehemiah 9¹⁰†) all except the last are perfectly transparent: ‘as [it is] this day,’――a sense quite unsuitable here. One must suspect that the phrase, like the kindred כַּיּוֹם and כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה (compare especially 1 Samuel 22⁸ᐧ ¹³), had acquired some elusive idiomatic meaning which we cannot recover. Neither ‘on a certain day’ (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 126 _s_) nor ‘on this particular day’ (Brown-Driver-Briggs) can be easily justified.――=13.= וינס] MSS, _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX + ויצא (¹²ᐧ ¹⁵).――=14.= לצַֽחֶק בנו] see on 26⁸.――=15.= אצלי] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, Peshiṭtå, Vulgate (_pallium quod tenebam_) read בידי,――wrongly, since to have said this would have been to betray herself (Delitzsch, Dillmann).――=17= end] LXX + καὶ εἶπέν μοι Κοιμηθήσομαι μετὰ σοῦ [LXXᴬ Κοιμήθητι μετ’ ἐμοῦ].――=18.= ויהי כהרימי] LXX ὡς δὲ ἤκουσεν ὅτι ὕψωσα.――וינס] LXX, Peshiṭtå + ויצא.――=20.= בית הסהר] Only in ²⁰⁻²³ 40³ᐧ ⁵ (Yahwist). The name may be Egyptian (see Ebers, 317 ff.; Driver _A Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 768 a, _n._), but has not been satisfactorily explained.――מְקום אשר] Gesenius-Kautzsch § 130 _c_.――אסורי] so _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ (and also in verse ²²); but read with Qrê אסירי (²²).
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=21‒23.= =Joseph in prison.=――His good fortune and consequent promotion are described in terms nearly identical with those of verses ¹⁻⁶.――In Yahwist, the governor of the prison is anonymous, and Joseph is made superintendent of the other prisoners.
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=21.= ויתן חנו] (as Exodus 3²¹ 11³ 12³⁶†) genitive of object = ‘favour towards him.’――=22.= עֹשֵׁים] On omission of subject, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 116 _s_.――הוא היה עשה] LXXᴬᐧ ᵃˡᐧ omitted.――=23.= בידו] LXX πάντα γὰρ ἦν διὰ χειρὸς Ἰωσηφ.――מצליח] LXX + ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ.
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