After the recent interruption by Judah and his long story of redemption, we're traveling back in time to resume our journey into exile with Joseph. Chapter 39 opens on the note that “Joseph had been brought down to Egypt” – probably by a pretty somber two-week journey1 – where he was “bought... from the hand of the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there” (Genesis 39:1). Joseph's first experience of Egypt and Egyptians is as a land and people who buy and sell human beings, a place of enslavement and domination.2 Joseph was just one of the untold number of Asiatic slaves imported for sale at the slave markets,3 during a time in history when “Egypt absorbed growing numbers of people from Canaan.”4
But of all the people who could have bought this one particular Asiatic slave, providentially it was “Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, chief of the butchers, an Egyptian man” (Genesis 39:1). He was one of the higher-placed people in Egypt, in contact with Pharaoh whom Egyptians revered as a living god; Potiphar's particular job title might suggest he's responsible for the palace's meat provisions, or that he's a military leader with responsibility for palace security, or that he's the head executioner in Egypt. Whatever the case, Joseph was thereafter “in the house of his Egyptian master” (Genesis 39:2) – it was common for home-grown Egyptian slaves to work in the fields, while Asiatic slaves were kept for domestic service and skilled labor.5
But no sooner does Joseph enter enslavement here than we read a surprising note: that “the LORD was with him, and he became a prosperous man” (Genesis 39:2). In fact, “all that he did, the LORD caused it to prosper in his hand” (Genesis 39:3). “Grace from on high... arranged all his affairs..., grace from on high preceded him everywhere,”6 even in his servile work, whether or not he understood that this prosperity came from God's favor more than from his own natural skill.7 But Potiphar took notice and understood: Joseph's “master saw that the LORD was with him” (Genesis 39:3). It would've made sense in his own Egyptian terms, since wisdom handed down from the sage Ptahhotep told Potiphar that “the god is the one who made his accomplishment, intervening on his behalf while he was asleep.”8 The prospect of divine favor was very familiar to Potiphar.
So, soon enough, “Joseph found grace in his eyes and was with him,” becoming Potiphar's personal attendant, while Potiphar became something like a surrogate father to replace the one from whom Joseph had been cruelly torn away. In time, Potiphar even “appointed him over his house, and all that he had he gave into his hand” (Genesis 39:4). Joseph has become the controller of Potiphar's entire estate,9 the “chief operating officer” of Potiphar Domestic Industries, Inc.10 In the end, Potiphar “abandoned all that he had into the hand of Joseph, and he did not know for himself about anything except the bread that he ate” (Joseph 39:6). “Potiphar trusts him implicitly,”11 and so Joseph has risen to serve as Potiphar's high steward,12 “second only to Potiphar.”13
But why was Potiphar moved to abandon all his cares into the hand of this one man, a foreign slave? Simply on these grounds: “From the time that [Potiphar] appointed him over his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the house of the Egyptian for the sake of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field” (Genesis 39:5). As Jacob in the house of Laban brought the LORD's blessing on an Aramean's affairs, so Joseph's service in the house of the Egyptian is now the LORD's conduit of blessing.14 Remember the words of God to Jacob that “in you and your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14) – we would have thought it would happen through freedom, leadership, power, but instead we see that it begins when the chosen one becomes a lowly servant in exile among other nations; then, then the blessing begins to reach this foreign house that recognizes the working of God and that accordingly honors the service of the elect.
Now comes the drama. Not only was Joseph successful due to divine blessing flowing through him, but he took after his late mother Rachel's good looks. As he finishes his teen years and enters his early twenties, “Joseph was handsome in form and handsome in appearance” (Genesis 39:6), a “fine, comely young man in the very prime of life.”15 So after the elevation of Joseph and the relative abdication of Potiphar from active oversight in his household affairs, “his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph” (Genesis 39:7), “seized by the beauty of his visage and conquered by the power of her passion.”16 She “fell in love with Joseph,”17 even fell “madly in love with him,”18 because the devil's envy schemed for Joseph “a terrible storm capable of causing him shipwreck.”19
And so Potiphar's wife “said, 'Lie with me'” (Genesis 39:7) – it's “coarse language” that “signals crass desire,” and also is spoken as a free woman's command to her household's slave.20 The Egyptians had an old story about a scenario rather like this, where Anubis's wife approached her youthful brother-in-law Bata and “spoke to him, saying, 'There is great strength in you; I see your vigor daily.... Come, let us spend an hour lying together.'”21
So how will Joseph react? He's been cut off from his people for several years now, lonely, forsaken in a foreign land; he's at the mercy of these Egyptians; he's also “young and ripe for... the goading sting of the passions,”22 “in the flower of his age, when the flame of natural desire rises most powerfully, when the storm of desire is great, when reason is at its weakest;”23 he otherwise has “no prospects of love” in his life.24 So “how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to [God's] word” (Psalm 119:9). The Law of Moses, had Joseph lived later, would thunder in his ears here, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) – for “if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor,” much less the wife of his master, “both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10). Or the Proverbs of Solomon would sit him down and remind him that “the lips of a strange woman drip honey..., but in the end she is bitter as wormwood.... Her feet go down to death..., she does not ponder the path of life” (Proverbs 5:3-6), so “do not desire her beauty in her heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.... Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife” (Proverbs 6:25-29).
Well, Joseph didn't have the books of law and wisdom, but he surely had “the words which Jacob his father used to” share with him, the word of God in his time, which would have carried similar warnings.25 Maybe Joseph's been mentally readying himself for this moment, having noticed how she's been starting to look at him.26 To her two-word proposition, he gives a thirty-five-word refusal,27 five sets of seven words “calculated to awaken her to a sense of shame” and to defy her command as gently and diplomatically as his convictions allow.28
First, Joseph remarks on his lofty and comfortable life, how “my master doesn't know with me what's in the house, and all that he has, he has given into my hand; no one is greater in this house than I am” (Genesis 39:8-9). It's an impression of his position that resonates with his old dreams of supreme status, making us wonder if Joseph, despite his humbling in enslavement, still struggles with an “inflated sense of self.”29 But, second, he points out that there's one natural limit on the jurisdiction Potiphar would've given him: “nor has he kept back anything from me except for you, because you are his wife” (Genesis 39:9). He who dreamt of himself on God's throne finally has wisdom enough to refuse to envision himself in Potiphar's bed.30
Third, Joseph implicitly protests against her proposal, not just on grounds that it would be unlawful, but on the grounds that it would be ungrateful. Given how gracious Potiphar has been to him and how much trust he has placed in Joseph, how could she expect him to even consider betraying him? “How, then, can I do this great evil?” (Genesis 39:9). Wouldn't it be foolish even on Egyptian terms? Hadn't Ptahhotep taught that “if you want to make a friendship last in a home to which you enter..., be mindful of getting near the women?” And had he not cautioned that Mrs. Potiphar's demand here for “a wretched liaison..., a short moment, the likeness of a dream,” would be a disaster, since “for him who fails by lusting for it, no plan can succeed with him?”31 All this prosperity, all this success from the LORD which had lifted all their boats on its rising tide, would plummit. So “what is this great wrong you said to me?”, Joseph asks like the propositioned brother in the Egyptian tale.32
Fourth, Joseph underscores that there's a religious factor she's neglecting to consider: “How, then, can I do this great evil and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). Even in Egyptian terms, shouldn't she expect her gods to one day weigh her heart against the feather of truth and justice?33 How could either of them confess before their judges in the afterlife that they hadn't committed adultery,34 if they abandon all scruples here and now? Doesn't she fear “a living god, punishing for his misdeed the one who does it?”35 Joseph does (cf. Hebrews 13:4), and sees that “to submit to her demand... would represent a failure both to love God and to love his neighbor.”36
What Joseph doesn't say, can't say, is a parallel he no doubt sees. Generations earlier in the narrative of Genesis, “the land of Egypt” was compared to “the garden of the LORD” (Genesis 13:10). In the Garden of the Lord, humanity was originally entrusted with an awesomely high stewardship of this earthly creation, and only one thing in the garden was held back: the fruit of a single tree, consumption of which would be a capital offense (Genesis 2:15-17). Joseph, as high steward of Potiphar, can see himself as standing in Adam's footprints: “each rules over the entire house,” yet “one thing remains outside their domain.”37 In the Garden, the Serpent tempted the woman to consider the desirability of the forbidden fruit, and once it had delighted her eyes, not only did she partake of it, she prevailed on the man to do so as well, in full knowledge that it wasn't lawfully theirs to claim (Genesis 3:6). Joseph now, as Adam then, is facing temptation at the hands of a woman already beguiled, a woman for whom Joseph's own body is the forbidden fruit she's determined to taste.38 So the question he faces is, will he to whom much has been given now arrogate to himself the one thing held back? Or will gratitude and reverence win the day, triumphing over the Tempter's power now as they didn't then? Joseph has resolved himself to chart a new course, to prove that the Garden could've gone differently; and so his answer to Potiphar's wife is, in essence, how Adam should've spoken to Eve, how Eve should've rebuffed the Serpent.
Implicitly, Joseph “besought [his master's wife] to govern her passions,”39 urging her “to remain steadfast in the love of her own husband.”40 And one would've hoped that that would've settled the matter. But of course it didn't – that'd be too simple. After hearing Joseph's calm, collected, gentle rebuff, Potiphar's wife is too smitten and too desirous to back down. To her Egyptian logic, it might've made sense: she would have thought of her love for Joseph as something that he had forced on her by being so obviously desirable.41 She was “on fire with the poison of lust,”42 “insolent, demanding, and wanton.”43 And so “she spoke with Joseph day after day,” for a whole year,44 maybe seven years,45 imploring him “to lie beside her, to be with her” (Genesis 39:10). She acts as “a shameless woman who kept prodding [Joseph] to transgress with her,”46 who aimed to “wear down his resistance” over time.47 This was “a daily temptation, not easily dismissed,”48 and today we'd surely consider it a clear case of “workplace sexual harassment.”49 She's hoping that “with much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him” (Proverbs 7:22).
Later readers envisioned the elaborate tactics she could've used: flattery of Joseph's virtues,50 embraces on the pretext of a motherly relationship,51 enticements with freedom or wealth or power,52 threats to kill Potiphar unless Joseph gave in,53 threats to kill herself unless Joseph gave in,54 threats to make his life miserable out of “vengeance and hatred” if he didn't give in,55 promises of conversion to his faith if he gave in,56 assurances he could cover his sin by charity to the poor,57 attempts to drug him with love potions or magic spells,58 and of course showing skin or dressing to the nines.59 One reader pictured her “wafting perfumes, presenting herself alluringly with painted eyes, seductive voice..., soft garments, bedecked with gold, and with a myriad of other such machinations to bewitch the young man.”60 So his struggle here isn't theoretical, isn't an abstract quandary of ethics; it's very practical, “emotional and quite physical,” this challenge she poses.61
But throughout daily temptations for a year or seven years, Joseph “did not yield” to her passionate wishes,62 but instead “continually restrained himself and strove against his desire.”63 He “would not hear her,” we read (Genesis 39:10), unlike Adam who “heard” Eve's invitation to sin and complied (Genesis 3:17).64 “Joseph... purified his mind from all promiscuity,” and “his soul's deliberation rejected evil desire” for his master's wife65 – a steady course of resistance perhaps reinforced by a regiment of prayer and fasting against her temptations.66
Onward ran this persistent cycle of temptations until, at last, Potiphar's wife's patience ran out, and she prepared to make her final move. She selected the occasion carefully, on “this day when he went into the house to do his work,” as a diligent high steward of the household, “and not a man of the men of the house was there in the house” at the time (Genesis 39:11). Then, in this rare and contrived privacy, Potiphar's wife “displayed only a more violent ardor” than ever before.67 “Satan entered into her,” it must have seemed, “and she rushed forward and grabbed him tightly,”68 falling on Joseph “like a wild animal grinding its teeth.”69 She “caught him by his garment, saying, 'Lie with me!'” (Genesis 39:12). She “embraced him and seized him... so that she might force him to lie with her,”70 “draw him by force to an unlawful bed,”71 to be the Shechem to his Dinah (cf. Genesis 34:2).72 She's gripping the forbidden fruit, and aims to shove it down her Adam's throat if need be.
The decisive moment has come, the last temptation with maximal pressure. What will Joseph do now? Has he been worn down over time? Are his hormones stealing the show? Is he simply frozen in shock? Her command carries the weight of life and death. But Joseph resolves, in this moment when it most counts, that he “preferred to die free of sin rather than to choose participation in guilty power,”73 that he is “unwilling to offend the eyes” of the God who ever watches deeds and weighs hearts.74 As fully as Potiphar had abandoned his estate into Joseph's hands, now Joseph “abandoned his garment into her hand” (Genesis 39:12), letting her unconsciously recreate “the scene of his brothers' betrayal” when they, too, stripped him of his special robe.75 For “he did not value the clothing of his body higher than the chastity of his soul,” which “kept the uncorrupted garments of virtue.”76 Freeing himself from her grasp, “he fled” – “fled naked, crying aloud [to God], 'Chastely I live for you!'”77 – and then “he walked outside,” sounding no alarm (Genesis 39:12).
When they succumbed to temptation, Adam and Eve then knew themselves as naked in their guilt, and so strove to clothe themselves (Genesis 3:7); but Joseph, to reject temptation, was willing to be stripped naked,78 “leaving him vulnerable and exposed.”79 But it was by embracing this vulnerability, submitting to this exposure, that Joseph could hold his head high as he exited the house beneath the unblinking sun above. Undeceived, uncowed, “unconquered by passion,”80 Joseph's chastity “overcame the Egyptian,”81 and thus he “escaped from her domination.”82 He's so unlike his brother Judah, whose moral weakness was all over the last chapter.83 And Joseph “succeeds where Adam fails, refusing to sin against God where the first man disobeyed God,” so that his “faithfulness and righteousness... amounts to a reversal,” at least at a literary level, “of the disobedience and unfaithfulness of Adam.”84 Joseph thereby proves himself “more beautiful in the light of his heart than in the skin of his body,” owing to “the inner beauty of chastity.”85
The word 'chastity' gets a bad rap, largely through being misunderstood. Chastity is “a virtue regulating contact with a sacred dimension of human life.”86 Chastity means seeking our human nature's “orientation, enacted through integral reconciliation, towards fullness of life,”87 towards living “attentively and reverently..., a way of being alive in the world,”88 and so governing our actions in the world in light of “the value of the person in every situation.”89 In that light, “it is the chaste person whose gaze can genuinely behold and affirm the dignity of the other,”90 including Joseph beholding and affirming the dignity of Potiphar's wife, “because chastity is a social virtue that has to do with human relationships truly founded on love over against selfish desire or vainglorious manipulation.”91 Chastity “realizes the order of reason in the province of sexuality,”92 “the conscious education of the sexual drive” toward “its maturing, with a view to flourishing and fruitfulness,”93 enabling “the person's sexual powers to be exercised intelligently and freely in accord with the goods of human nature.”94 Chastity aims to preserve “the elegance of a coherent whole”95 and to give us “tranquility of body and soul,”96 so that sights and thoughts of beauty can move us “to offer glory to God.”97 That's the virtue Joseph loved, embodied, and taught us about when he resisted temptation to the very end.
But Joseph's story isn't done. In the verses after his departure outdoors, we're left behind in the house, taken out of Joseph's sandals and put into those of Potiphar's wife. She's been decisively scorned by the one she thinks she loves – and you know what has no fury like a woman scorned, they say. Not only that, but “she saw that he had abandoned his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house” (Genesis 39:13). What might he tell the other slaves, and what if the fact that she had been spurned made her “a laughingstock in the eyes of her servants”?98 Worse, what might Joseph say to his master Potiphar? In spite and self-interest, she “assuaged her love with anger, linking passion to passion,”99 aiming to exculpate herself by throwing Joseph under the bus. It's the same tactic used by the wife in that old Egyptian story, who accused the object of her lust of having lusted after her instead, and who then faked being the victim in order to avoid being blamed.100
Just so, Potiphar's wife calls out to the house-servants who are out-of-doors, and cleverly tailors her speech to their ears as she “aims to win them over as feigned witnesses on her behalf.”101 “Look! He” – Potiphar, your master – “has brought among us a Hebrew man to mock us!” (Genesis 39:14). She's careful not to slur Joseph as a slave, but appeals to her solidarity with them as Egyptians over against this foreigner who threatens Egyptian values.102 And she ascribes to Potiphar himself the intent to mock and provoke them by appointing Joseph over them, thus playing on their “natural jealousy or resentment” of this Hebrew man's authority and privilege in their land.103 It's then that she tells her backwards version of events: that Joseph came on to her (no he didn't), that she cried out in distress (no she didn't), and that that's why he ran away (Genesis 39:14-15).104
That evening, when Potiphar gets home from his business in Pharaoh's service, she's waiting and ready to put on her act. She's been keeping Joseph's garment close this whole time, perhaps alternately stirred by bitterness and by continuing desire (Genesis 39:16).105 It's amusing and maybe significant that the word Genesis uses for his garment has the same spelling in Hebrew as 'treachery,' as 'betrayal.'106 When she sees Potiphar, “she spoke to him like these words, saying, 'The Hebrew slave whom you brought among us came in to mock me'” – or, maybe it could be translated, 'molest me' – “'but as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried out, he abandoned his garment with me and fled outside'” (Genesis 39:17-18). She emphasizes Joseph's status as an untrustworthy Asiatic slave to underscore the outrage of such impudent behavior as she claims he tried to pull.107 She keeps badgering Potiphar, falsely protesting that “like these things did your slave do unto me” (Genesis 39:19).108
It's like the Greek story of Bellerophon, the guest of King Proitos, whose queen, the tale goes, “yearned to lie with him secretly, yet could never overcome the high-minded refusals of steadfast Bellerophon, so she made up a false story that she told to King Proitos: 'Either die yourself, Proitos, or else kill Bellerophon, who attempted to lie with me in love against my will.'”109 But unlike the wife of Proitos, the wife of Potiphar has ostensible evidence: she's waving Joseph's garment before her husband's face, making this the second time in a row that Joseph's been lied about by someone who steals his clothes!110 Her threefold accusation almost reads like a parody of God's sentences of judgment on the serpent, woman, and man in the Garden (Genesis 3:14-19).
Hearing his wife's testimony, we aren't told that Potiphar heard Joseph's side of things. Maybe Joseph protested and the Bible just passed over it;111 maybe Potiphar cared not “to investigate the truth” and afforded him no chance to speak;112 or maybe Joseph “patiently bore the accusation of an adulterous mistress..., unwilling to answer in view of his clear conscience,”113 and so he “nobly kept silence and committed his cause to God.”114 We read that Potiphar's “anger was kindled,” but aren't actually told at whom Potiphar was angry (Genesis 39:19).115 Up to now, it seems like Joseph's been almost closer to Potiphar than his own wife has.116 And yet, with her evidence and (supposed) witnesses, and the situation public in his house, “Potiphar has no choice but to punish Joseph.”117 He believes he's doing justice, that he's purging immorality from his house, defending his family, punishing an evildoer; he has no idea that, deceived in his rage, he's embracing a would-be adulteress and her lies,118 and “condemning the guiltless one,” his truest friend.119
Now, we'd expect that the chief of butchers, especially if he was royal executioner, would resort swiftly to his trade and put Joseph to death; certainly he ought to, if he truly believes his wife's testimony. After all, like Reuben with Bilhah, Potiphar's wife's story suggests that Joseph, as high steward, might have been trying to seize power and claim Potiphar's very life for his own.120 In the Greek legend of Hippolytus, when his stepmother Phaedra tried to seduce him and he refused her for the sake of chastity, and she accused him of sexual assault, her husband Theseus, his own father, cursed him to die.121 But Potiphar doesn't curse Joseph. Neither does he, as Proitos does to Bellerophon, send Joseph off into an intended trap “to secure his death.”122 No, he sends Joseph to prison. Joseph is judged guilty and banished from the garden of Potiphar's favor, but – unlike Adam evicted from Eden (Genesis 3:24) – it's precisely because of Joseph's innocence that he's jailed.123
The Egyptian folktale didn't end this way. There, when the enraged husband went to kill his accused brother, “the youth rebuked” him and “let him know all that had happened between him and his wife,” with the result that, when the husband went home in distress, he “killed his wife, cast her to the dogs, and sat mourning.”124 In one of those Greek stories, when the husband finally learned of his wife's lies, he buried her alive.125 But Genesis isn't interested in seeing Potiphar's wife punished, though some later retellings at least show her confess and repent.126 Instead, we're left with Potiphar's wife carrying on up above while Joseph is stripped and in a pit, just where his brothers had put him years before.127 The clothes Potiphar had given him have been torn away, divesting him from his prosperity and disconnecting Joseph from his Egyptian foster household.128
But through it all, “the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy” (Genesis 39:21). That's why Joseph did not die. If “blameless Bellerophon” ended up “Bellerophon, hated by all the gods,”129 Joseph is anything but hated in the sight of God. Potiphar forsook his estate into Joseph's hand, Joseph forsook his garment into a tempter's hand, but the LORD is “with [Joseph],” “will not leave [him] or forsake [him]” (Deuteronomy 31:8). In fact, the LORD “gave him grace in the eyes of the chief of the house of roundness,” the prison – so much so that he “gave into Joseph's hand all the prisoners who were in the house of roundness; and all whatsoever they did there, it was his doing. The chief of the house of roundness didn't shepherd any of the things in his hand, because the LORD was with him, and whatever he did, the LORD made it to prosper” (Genesis 39:21-23). For “grace from on high reaches us in generous measure, when we, too, give evidence to great virtue.”130
We know that we're living today in an exceptionally unchaste culture, worse than ancient Egypt by far, where “sex seems to permeate our everyday lives.”131 Especially since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, “sex was endlessly and everywhere promoted as the most desirable thing on the planet;”132 rules and norms have been widely overturned, inverted, rewritten, and denied. Now, to quote one sociologist, “cheap sex has been mass-produced” because Americans feel like “sexual expression and how we experience it is close to the heart of being human.”133 Now as ever, “temptations to sin are sure to come” (Luke 17:1). In such a “culture of excess, the chaste person is the truly free person,”134 so the story of Joseph should mean more and more to us as we hear and read of outrageous scandals day in and day out, and as we reflect on our own behavior, our own hearts, our own way of looking at and thinking about others. Out of love for God and neighbor, Joseph clung to chastity even when he knew his refusal to give an inch would be costly – as it can cost today, too, in forms like ridicule, exclusion, and slander.135 “Let us... recall in every circumstance those words of Joseph, 'How could I do this wicked deed and commit sin in God's eyes?' So when some temptation disturbs us, let us turn these words over in our mind,” praying that “every unholy desire will immediately be put to flight.”136
Most of all, though, may Joseph point us to One greater than he. For “even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45), having “emptied himself by taking the form of a slave..., and, being found in human form, he humbled himself” (Philippians 2:7-8). “He undertook this on our behalf,” we who “once presented [our] members as slaves to impurity” (Romans 6:19), “so that he might drive away the slavery of the world, restore the liberty of paradise, and grant new grace.”137
Jesus Christ “in every respect has been tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). But he endured. He offered to his Father a life perfectly chaste in every way, in every moment, in every embrace, in every gaze he set upon others. But “many bore false witness against him” (Mark 14:56), despite the fact that “he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” – then, “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return..., but continued entrusting himself to the One who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:22-23). “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter..., so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), being “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25), “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).
Now the risen Christ “is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). May we so purify ourselves; may we live chastely, lovingly, virtuously, with integrity before the eyes of God and man; and may we, with the grace of our Lord, be made to prosper in every circumstance, high or low. Amen.
1 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 334.
2 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 540.
3 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 261.
4 Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 344.
5 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 271.
6 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.13-14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:204.
7 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 540-541.
8 Instructions of Ptahhotep, maxim 9 (lines 184-185), in James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 183.
9 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 272.
10 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 291.
11 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 396.
12 Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 349.
13 Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (Lexham Press, 2021), 91.
14 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 336.
15 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.24, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:467.
16 John Chrysostom, Letters to Olympia 10.11.E, in Popular Patristics Series 56:117.
17 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 35.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:185.
18 Theognostos, Treasury 5.7, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 16:55.
19 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.16, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:206.
20 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 326.
21 Tale of Two Brothers, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (University of California Press, 2006), 2:204-205.
22 4 Maccabees 2:3, in David A. deSilva, Septuagint Commentary on 4 Maccabees (Brill, 2006), 7.
23 John Chrysostom, Letters to Olympia 10.12.A, in Popular Patristics Series 56:118.
24 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2024), 15.
25 Jubilees 39:6, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:128.
26 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 292.
27 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 543.
28 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.17, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:206-207.
29 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 398.
30 Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (Yale University Press, 1993), 156.
31 Instructions of Ptahhotep, maxim 17 (lines 277-297), in James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 192.
32 Tale of Two Brothers, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (University of California Press, 2006), 2:205.
33 Jiลรญ Janรกk, “The Judgment,” in Rita Lucarelli and Martin Andreas Stadler, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Oxford University Press, 2023), 403-410.
34 Papyrus of Ani spell 125, in Raymond O. Faulkner, tr., The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day (Chronicle Books, 1994), 86.
35 Debate of a Man and His Soul, lines 142-143, in James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 356.
36 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 258.
37 Timothy J. Stone, “Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 66; cf. Brian O. Sigmon, “Between Eden and Egypt: Echoes of the Garden Narrative in the Story of Joseph and His Brothers” (Marquette University, PhD dissertation, 2013), 157.
38 Brian O. Sigmon, “Between Eden and Egypt: Echoes of the Garden Narrative in the Story of Joseph and His Brothers” (Marquette University, PhD dissertation, 2013), 153.
39 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.43, in Loeb Classical Library 242:187.
40 Peter Damian, Letters 153.61, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 7:50.
41 Uroลก Matiฤ, “Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: Pleasures, Desires, Norms, and Representations,” in Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kufler, eds., The Cambridge World History of Sexualities (Cambridge University Press, 2024), 2:23.
42 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 343.6, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/10:44.
43 Ambrose of Milan, On Joseph 5 §23, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:205.
44 Jubilees 39:8, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:129.
45 Testament of Joseph 3.4, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
46 Testament of Joseph 2.2, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:819.
47 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 273.
48 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 332.
49 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 337.
50 Testament of Joseph 4.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
51 Testament of Joseph 3.7-8, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
52 Testament of Joseph 3.2, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:819-820; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.48, in Loeb Classical Library 242:189; Syriac History of Joseph 15.6-7; 16.4-5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:101-102.
53 Testament of Joseph 5.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
54 Testament of Joseph 7.3, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:821.
55 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.48, in Loeb Classical Library 242:189.
56 Testament of Joseph 4.5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
57 Syriac History of Joseph 16.7, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:102.
58 Testament of Reuben 4.9, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:784; Testament of Joseph 6.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
59 Testament of Joseph 9.5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:821.
60 John Chrysostom, Letters to Olympia 10.12.A, in Popular Patristics Series 56:118; cf. Syriac History of Joseph 16.1-2, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:102.
61 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2024), 15.
62 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 4.46, in Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 222.
63 Syriac History of Joseph 16.9, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:102.
64 Timothy J. Stone, “Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 66.
65 Testament of Reuben 4.8-9, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:783-784.
66 Testament of Joseph 3.4-10, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:820.
67 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.53, in Loeb Classical Library 242:192.
68 Syriac History of Joseph 17.12, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:103.
69 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.19, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:207.
70 Jubilees 39:9, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:129.
71 Methodius of Olympus, Symposium 11.2.12, in Ancient Christian Writers 27:154.
72 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 396.
73 Ambrose of Milan, On Joseph 5 §23, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:204.
74 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 343.8, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/10:45.
75 Megan Warner, “'You Shall Not Do as They Do in the Land of Egypt': Joseph and the Perils of Uber-Assimilation as Response to Involuntary Migration,” Hebrew Studies 60 (2019): 48.
76 Ambrose of Milan, On Joseph 5 §25, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:205-206.
77 Methodius of Olympus, Symposium 11.2.12, in Ancient Christian Writers 27:154.
78 Timothy J. Stone, “Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 67.
79 Franziska Ede, “The Garment Motif in Gen. 37-39,” in Christoph Berner, Manuel Schรคfer, Martin Schott, Sarah Schulz, and Martina Weingรคrtner, eds., Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible (T&T Clark, 2019), 394.
80 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 6.3.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:301.
81 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.11 §68, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:252.
82 Aphrahat, Demonstrations 14.40, in Moran 'Eth'o 24:97.
83 Megan Warner, “'Are You Indeed to Reign Over Us?': The Politics of Genesis 37-50,” in Mark G. Brett and Rachelle Gilmour, eds., Political Theologies in the Hebrew Bible (Brill, 2023), 219.
84 Brian O. Sigmon, “Between Eden and Egypt: Echoes of the Garden Narrative in the Story of Joseph and His Brothers” (Marquette University, PhD dissertation, 2013), 150, 162.
85 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 343.6, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/10:44.
86 Alexander R. Pruss, “Sexuality as Secularly Sacred,” in Eric J. Silverman, ed., Sexual Ethics in a Secular Age: Is There Still a Virtue of Chastity? (Routledge, 2021), 32.
87 Erik Varden, Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2023), 28.
88 Erik Varden, Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2023), 157.
89 Karol Wojtyลa, Love and Responsibility, trans. Grzegorz Ignatik (Pauline Books and Media, 2013), 155.
90 Reinhard Hรผtter, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 365.
91 Dennis Okholm, Dangerous Passions, Deadly Sins: Learning from the Psychology of Ancient Monks (Brazos Press, 2014), 51.
92 Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1965), 155.
93 Erik Varden, Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2023), 17.
94 John S. Grabowski, Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics (Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 82.
95 Erik Varden, Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2023), 16.
96 Dennis Okholm, Dangerous Passions, Deadly Sins: Learning from the Psychology of Ancient Monks (Brazos Press, 2014), 60.
97 Evagrius Ponticus, On the Eight Thoughts 2.17, in Robert E. Sinkewicz, tr., Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford University Press, 2003), 77.
98 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 35.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:185.
99 John Chrysostom, Letters to Olympia 10.13.B, in Popular Patristics Series 56:121.
100 Tale of Two Brothers, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (University of California Press, 2006), 2:205.
101 Franziska Ede, “The Garment Motif in Gen. 37-39,” in Christoph Berner, Manuel Schรคfer, Martin Schott, Sarah Schulz, and Martina Weingรคrtner, eds., Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible (T&T Clark, 2019), 393.
102 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 274; Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 547.
103 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 333.
104 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 292-293.
105 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 293.
106 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 274.
107 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 548.
108 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 328.
109 Homer, Iliad 6.161-165, in Peter Green, tr., The Iliad: A New Translation (University of California Press, 2015), 123; cf. Apollodorus, Library 1.30, in R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, tr., Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), 24; Hyginus, Astronomy 2.18, in Robin Hard, tr., Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths (Oxford University Press, 2015), 51.
110 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 162; Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 338.
111 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 276.
112 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.58, in Loeb Classical Library 242:193.
113 Leander of Seville, The Training of Nuns and the Contempt of the World 8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 62:203.
114 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 4.46, in Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 222.
115 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 275; Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 548.
116 Tammi J. Schneider, Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis (Baker Academic, 2008), 212-213.
117 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 548.
118 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 163.
119 John Chrysostom, Letters to Olympia 10.13.B, in Popular Patristics Series 56:121.
120 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 396.
121 Sophocles, fragments 677-693a of Phaedra, in Loeb Classical Library 483:325-331; Euripides, Hippolytus Garlanded lines 40-79, in Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, eds., The Complete Euripides: Hippolytos and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 2010), 3:8-19; Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.492-529, in C. Luke Soucy, tr., Ovid's Metamorphoses: A New Translation (University of California Press, 2023), 387-388; Ovid, Heroides 4.1-176, in Paul Murgatroyd, Bridget Reeves, and Sarah Parker, Ovid's Heroides: A New Translation and Critical Essays (Routledge, 2017), 44-48; Apollodorus, Library, Epitome 1.17-19, in R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, tr., Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), 74; Seneca, Phaedra lines 640-732, 888-958, in Emily Wilson, tr., Seneca: Six Tragedies (Oxford University Press, 2010), 20-23, 27-29; Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.32.1-4, in Loeb Classical Library 93:423-425.
122 Homer, Iliad 6.170, in Peter Green, tr., The Iliad: A New Translation (University of California Press, 2015), 123.
123 Timothy J. Stone, “Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 67.
124 Tale of Two Brothers, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (University of California Press, 2006), 2:206-207.
125 Apollodorus, Library, Epitome 3.25, in R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, tr., Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), 80.
126 Syriac History of Joseph 24.8–25.9, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:106.
127 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 35.3.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:185.
128 Franziska Ede, “The Garment Motif in Gen. 37-39,” in Christoph Berner, Manuel Schรคfer, Martin Schott, Sarah Schulz, and Martina Weingรคrtner, eds., Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible (T&T Clark, 2019), 394.
129 Homer, Iliad 6.190, 200, in Peter Green, tr., The Iliad: A New Translation (University of California Press, 2015), 124.
130 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.22, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:209.
131 Jon E. Grant and Samuel R. Chamberlain, Impulse: The Science and Sex and Desire (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 1.
132 Dagmar Herzog and Yanara Schnacks, “The Sexual Revolution,” in Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, eds., The Cambridge World History of Sexualities (Cambridge University Press, 2024), 4:276.
133 Mark E. Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy (Oxford University Press, 2017), 193, 196.
134 Reinhard Hรผtter, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 366.
135 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 341.
136 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 62.24, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:211.
137 Ambrose of Milan, On Joseph 4 §19, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:201.
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