'And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the
prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound:
and he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with
Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him favour in
the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper
of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the
prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they
did there, he was the doer of it. The keeper of the
prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand;
because the Lord was with him, and that which he did,
the Lord made it to prosper.'--GENESIS xxxix. 20-23.
'And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of
Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt. And
Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the
butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward
in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place
where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph
with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward. And
they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night,
each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and
the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And
Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and,
behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with
him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly
to day? And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is
no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations
belong to God? tell me them, I pray you. And the chief butler told his
dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was
before me; And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it
budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought
forth ripe grapes: And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the
grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into
Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of
it: The three branches are three days: Yet within three days shall
Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou
shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when
thou wast his butler. But think on me when it shall be well with thee,
and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto
Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house: For indeed I was stolen away
out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that
they should put me into the dungeon.'--GENESIS xl. 1-15.
Potiphar was 'captain of the guard,' or, as the title literally runs,
chief of the executioners. In that capacity he had charge of the
prison, which was connected with his house (Gen. xl. 3). It is,
therefore, quite intelligible that he should have put Joseph in
confinement on his own authority, and the distinction drawn between
such a prisoner and the 'king's prisoners,' who were there by royal
warrant or due process of law, is natural. Such high-handed treatment
of a slave was a small matter, and it was merciful as well as arrogant,
for death would have been the punishment of the crime of which Joseph
was accused. Either Potiphar was singularly lenient, or, as is perhaps
more probable, he did not quite believe his wife's story, and thought
it best to hush up a scandal. The transfer of Joseph from the house to
the adjoining prison would be quietly managed, and then no more need be
said about an ugly business.
So now we see him at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, flung down in a
moment by a lie from the height to which he had slowly been climbing,
having lost the confidence of his master, and earned the unslumbering
hatred of a wicked woman. He had wrecked his career by his goodness.
'What a fool!' says the world. 'How badly managed things are in this
life,' say doubters, 'that virtue should not be paid by prosperity!'
But the end, even the nearer end in this life, will show whether he was
a fool, and whether things are so badly arranged; and the lesson
enforced by the picture of Joseph in his dungeon, and which young
beginners in life have special need to learn, is that, come what will
of it, right is right, and sin is sin, that consequences are never to
deter from duty, and that it is better to have a clean conscience and
be in prison than do wickedness and sit at a king's table. A very
threadbare lesson, but needing to be often repeated.
'But the Lord was with Joseph.' That is one of the eloquent 'buts' of
Scripture. The prison is light when God is there, and chains do not
chafe if He wraps His love round them. Many a prisoner for God since
Joseph's time has had his experience repeated, and received tenderer
tokens from Him in a dungeon than ever before. Paul the prisoner, John
in Patmos, Bunyan in Bedford jail, George Fox in Lancaster Castle,
Rutherford in Aberdeen, and many more, have found the Lord with them,
and showing them His kindness. We may all be sure that, if ever
faithfulness to conscience involves us in difficulties, the
faithfulness and the difficulties will combine to bring to us sweet and
strong tokens of God's approval and presence, the winning of which will
make a prison a palace and a gate of heaven.
Joseph's relations to jailer and fellow-prisoners are beautiful and
instructive. The former is called 'the keeper of the prison,' and is
evidently Potiphar's deputy, in more immediate charge of the prison. Of
course, the great man had an underling to do the work, and probably
that underling was not chosen for sweetness of temper or facile
leniency to his charges. But he fell under the charm of Joseph's
character--all the more readily, perhaps, because his occupation had
not brought many good men to his knowledge. This jewel would flash all
the more brightly for the dark background of criminals, and the jailer
would wonder at a type of character so unlike what he was accustomed
to. Eastern prisons to-day present a curious mixture of cruelty and
companionship. The jailers are on intimate terms with prisoners, and
yet are ready to torture them. There is no discipline, nor any rules,
nor inspection. The jailer does as he likes. So it seems to have been
in Egypt, and there would be nothing unnatural in making a prisoner
jailer of the rest, and leaving everything in his hands. The 'keeper of
the prison' was lazy, like most of us, and very glad to shift duties on
to any capable shoulders. Such a thing would, of course, be impossible
with us, but it is a bit of true local colouring here.
Joseph won hearts because God was with him, as the story is careful to
point out. Our religion should recommend us, and therefore itself, to
those who have to do with us. It is not enough that we should be
severely righteous, as Joseph had been, or ready to meet trouble with
stoical resignation, but we are to be gentle and lovable, gracious
towards men, because we receive grace from God. We owe it to our Lord
and to our fellows, and to ourselves, to be magnets to attract to
Jesus, by showing how fair He can make a life. Joseph in prison found
work to do, and he did not shirk it. He might have said to himself:
'This is poor work for me, who had all Potiphar's house to rule. Shall
such a man as I come down to such small tasks as this?' He might have
sulked or desponded in idleness, but he took the kind of work that
offered, and did his best by it. Many young people nowadays do nothing,
because they think themselves above the small humdrum duties that lie
near them. It would do some of us good to remember Joseph in the jail,
and his cheerful discharge of what his hands found to do there.
Of course, work done 'because the Lord was with him,' in the
consciousness of His presence, and in obedience to Him, went well. 'The
Lord made it to prosper,' as He always will make such work.
'When thou dost favour any action,
It runs, it flies.'
And even if, sometimes, work done in the fear of the Lord does not
outwardly prosper, it does so in deepest truth, if it work in us the
peaceable fruit of righteousness. We need to have a more Christian idea
of what constitutes prosperity, and then we shall understand that there
are no exceptions to the law that, if a man does his work by God and
with God and for God, 'that which he does, the Lord makes it to
prosper.'
The help that Joseph gave by interpreting the two high officials'
dreams cannot be considered here in detail, but we note that the names
of similar officers, evidently higher in rank than we should suppose,
with our notions of bakers and butlers, are found in Egyptian
documents, and that these two were 'king's prisoners,' and put in
charge of Potiphar, who alleviated their imprisonment by detailing
Joseph as their attendant, thus showing that his feeling to the young
Hebrew was friendly still. Dreams are the usual method of divine
communication in Genesis, and belong to a certain stage in the process
of revelation. The friend of God, who is in touch with Him, can
interpret these. 'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,'
and it is still true that they who live close by God have insight into
His purposes. Joseph showed sympathy with the two dreamers, and his
question, 'Why look ye so sadly?' unlocked their hearts. He was not so
swallowed up in his own trouble as to be blind to the signs of
another's sorrow, or slow to try to comfort. Grief is apt to make us
selfish, but it is meant to make us tender of heart and quick of hand
to help our fellows in calamity. We win comfort for our own sorrows by
trying to soothe those of others. Jesus stooped to suffer that He might
succour them that suffer, and we are to tread in His steps.