7 And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” 8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. 9 There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” 10 So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her. ~ Genesis 39:7-10
Today, we continue our study of Genesis 39 where Joseph has been sold into slavery in Egypt and is now the overseer of the house of the Egyptian Potiphar. In our last study we ended with the idea that Joseph was quite attractive. This is why his walk with the Lord was so important as we will see. And, since Joseph was so diligent to maintain a consistent walk with the Lord, Potiphar grew in his trust in him, so much so that he trusted him with everything in his life including his gorgeous wife.
In v.7 of today's passage we read, "And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, 'Lie with me.'"
Potiphar’s wife “cast longing eyes on Joseph” before she made her proposition to him. Her eyes were like torches set aflame by the lust of her wicked heart. She didn’t care to guard her eyes from leading her into the den of wickedness because she loved her sin so. For those who have seen the light, we must feel for her because she was blind to the truth. Due to that, she didn’t understand that all of her earthly desires were mere echoes of that ultimate desire that we all have which finds its only fulfillment in an intimate relationship with our Creator. Couple this together with what we read in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. It then asks, “Who can know it?,” and we discover our desperate need to be delivered by and to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we avail ourselves to someone who is under the influence of someone other than the Lord, we run the risk of being cornered by them and defined wrongly. Satan always waits for the optimum time to tempt us. He waits until just the right moment and then he casts his lure in our direction. In Joseph’s case, the timing was perfect because Joseph was far away from home, he was a slave, and he was probably most lonely. In addition, he was experiencing great success. Somebody has wisely said, “The temptations that accompany prosperity are far greater than those that accompany adversity.” Satan strategically timed the temptation for the period of greatest impact.
In v.8 of today’s passage we read, “But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand.”
No doubt that Potiphar’s wife was very beautiful. This, I am sure, made it most difficult for Joseph to say “no” to her advances. But he did refuse. Joseph understood that the wife of a man belongs to that man. And he had no intention to violate the sanctity of the bond that was there between Potiphar and his wife despite her beauty or his position. Regardless of what had been entrusted to him in all of Potiphar’s house, without any record of it being spoken, Joseph knew that his authority didn’t reach to the wife, nor could it. In his response to Potiphar’s wife, Joseph elevated the authority that he enjoyed beyond himself, starting with his master and then demonstrating that she was responsible to him as well.
In v.9 of today’s passage we read, “There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife.”
Joseph understood that his sin against his master in this case was sin against God. It isn’t true that we can only sin against God, the Bible bears out that we can sin against one another. And not all sins against one another are sins against God, but more often than not the two overlap. This is one of those times. After impregnating Bathsheba and having Uriah killed to cover it up in Psalm 51:4 David wrote, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”
It was at least two hundred years before the giving of the law of Moses and yet it was an understood precept, not only to Joseph but also to Potiphar’s wife. And so Joseph invoked God as his defense against her advances. In this exchange, Joseph used the name Elohim for God instead of YHWH. Instead of the God of the covenant, of whom she was excluded, Joseph mentioned the God of creation to whom she was accountable. God had long instilled such knowledge in the heart of man and Joseph hoped that Potiphar’s wife would reflect on it hoping that she would repent.
In v.10 of today’s passage we read, “So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her.”
It’s one thing to have someone enticing you to do something you shouldn’t do when you can avoid them. It’s another thing to be near them without the ability to get away. For all of us, there is only one true refuge from it and that is to walk closely with God and to be defined by Him in the moment. It is in these moments that we must be careful to be guided by the conscience given to us by God, understanding that it is, in fact, from God. To ascribe a conscience to anything other than God will eventually lead to a violation of that conscience. For those who know that God holds us accountable, there is the continued source of strength to endure even the most belligerent foes.
Joseph was such a person. He had his conscience in tune with God and his eyes fixed on Him. Joseph understood that the answer was the Lord Himself. In Romans 13:14 we read, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” This is what Joseph did in order to resist the onslaught of the enemy who desired to wreck the incredible plans the Lord had in mind for His people. I can’t help but wonder, how many times have my poor decisions given the enemy the upper hand in a given situation.
