_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.
* * * * *
=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.
* * * * *
=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.
* * * * *
=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).
* * * * *
=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.
* * * * *
=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.
* * * * *