Genesis 39

The Lord Was with Joseph

Sold into Egypt, Joseph is made steward of Potiphar’s house, refuses Potiphar’s wife, and is thrown into prison on her word. Through the house and the prison the narrator keeps saying one thing, that the LORD was with Joseph.

Genesis chaptersChapter 39 of 50

Joseph is seventeen when his brothers sell him (37:2) and thirty when he stands before Pharaoh (41:46), so Potiphar’s house and the prison together fill about thirteen years. The text gives no year and does not say how the thirteen divide. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Chapter 37 ended with Joseph sold into Egypt to Potiphar (Gen. 37:36).

Chapter 37 ended with Joseph sold into Egypt to Potiphar (Gen. 37:36). Chapter 38 turned aside to Judah, and chapter 39 picks up where chapter 37 stopped, repeating the sale in its first verse (for the traders, see Gen. 37:28). Joseph was seventeen when his brothers sold him (Gen. 37:2) and thirty when he stood before Pharaoh (Gen. 41:46). Genesis does not say how long each part of this chapter lasted, but altogether he spent “about 13 years in Potiphar’s house and in prison.” He was one of many slaves from the Levant in Egypt at the time: on one count, fifty-seven percent of the slaves in Egyptian lists of the period came from there.

Other scripture looks back on this chapter. A psalm says that in prison “the word of the Lord tried him” (Ps. 105:17–19), and Stephen says that when the patriarchs sold Joseph, “God was with him” (Acts 7:9–10). In the Book of Mormon Lehi calls himself “a descendant of Joseph who was carried captive into Egypt” (2 Ne. 3:4), and Nephi speaks of his father’s prophecies “concerning Joseph, who was carried into Egypt” (2 Ne. 4:1).

The chapter has five parts: Potiphar’s house (verses 1–6), the temptation (7–10), the garment and the accusation (11–18), the prison (19–20), and the LORD with Joseph in prison (21–23).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 39 is built on a sentence the narrator says four times: “the LORD was with Joseph” (verses 2, 3, 21, 23).

Genesis 39 is built on a sentence the narrator says four times: “the LORD was with Joseph” (verses 2, 3, 21, 23). It begins the chapter, when Joseph has been brought down to Egypt and sold, and it begins the last scene, when he has been put down again, into a prison. Both times the man over him puts what he is responsible for into Joseph’s hand (verses 4, 22), and both times what Joseph does prospers. Between the two scenes are fifteen verses (6–20) in which the narrator does not name the LORD at all: the temptation, the flight, the false charge. Joseph himself speaks of God once there, and he says Elohim, “God,” to an Egyptian woman (verse 9). The chapter never says that the LORD kept Joseph out of prison. It says that He was with him before the accusation and after it.

The Hebrew word yad, “hand,” carries the story along. Six times something is “in Joseph’s hand” (verses 3, 4, 6, 8, 22, 23). The verb that says Potiphar “left” all that he had in Joseph’s hand (verse 6) is the verb that says Joseph “left” his garment in the woman’s hand (verse 12). Joseph is trusted with everything but one thing, and he leaves a garment behind rather than take it. The garment is then the only physical evidence against him.

The chapter also answers the one before it. In Genesis 38 Judah goes in to a woman he takes for a prostitute and is exposed by the signet, bracelets, and staff he left with her. In Genesis 39 Joseph runs from a woman and is condemned by a garment she kept. Set together, they make “a contrast between Judah’s immorality and Joseph’s righteousness.”

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–6

In Potiphar’s house

In plain words

Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, where Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, living in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and made everything he did succeed. Joseph found favor with him and became his attendant, and Potiphar put him in charge of the household and everything he owned. From the time he put Joseph in charge, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s household for Joseph’s sake, and the Lord’s blessing was on everything he had, in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care and, with Joseph there, concerned himself with nothing but the food he ate. Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

1 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.

Context #

Who Potiphar was

Genesis names Potiphar by his titles, and the titles are less simple than the KJV makes them.

Genesis names Potiphar by his titles, and the titles are less simple than the KJV makes them. “Officer” is the Hebrew saris, a word that usually means “eunuch,” and the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, has it so: “Petephres the eunuch of Pharao.” But Potiphar has a wife (verse 7), which the lexicon marks at this verse with the one word “married”; the KJV’s “officer” takes the word as a court title. “Captain of the guard” is sar hattabbachim, which the lexicon renders “captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguard”; tabbach means “guardsman,” “originally royal slaughterers.”

Set beside Egyptian evidence, the rank looks middling, not exalted. The Egyptian title that “seems to be the equivalent” is “controller of guards,” which on one account “is not an elite position but probably the equivalent of upper middle class”; Potiphar “was wealthy enough to own a few slaves, including Joseph and some others whose presence is only mentioned.” Joseph’s own post, “overseer over his house” (verse 4), may match an Egyptian title translated “chamberlain” or “steward.” His office also seems to have included the king’s prison, where Joseph will be sent: “in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound” (Gen. 40:3).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

Related Scriptures #

The LORD was with Joseph

The narrator says four times that the LORD was with Joseph (verses 2, 3, 21, 23), which is what Genesis has already said of his fathers.

The narrator says four times that the LORD was with Joseph (verses 2, 3, 21, 23), which is what Genesis has already said of his fathers. The LORD had promised Isaac, “I will be with thee” (Gen. 26:3), and again, “I am with thee” (Gen. 26:24), and He promised Jacob, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest” (Gen. 28:15). Outsiders had seen it too: Abimelech and Phichol told Abraham, “God is with thee in all that thou doest” (Gen. 21:22), and when they came to Isaac they said, “We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee” (Gen. 26:28). Here Potiphar “saw that the LORD was with him” (verse 3).

Joseph hears no promise in this chapter, and no one in it speaks for the LORD; the narrator simply says it. The Book of Mormon says something the chapter does not: Joseph “obtained a promise of the Lord,” and “great were the covenants of the Lord which he made unto Joseph” (2 Ne. 3:4–5).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

4 And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.

5 And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field.

Related Scriptures #

A blessing on an Egyptian house

The LORD blessed an Egyptian’s household because Joseph was in it. “For Joseph’s sake” is the Hebrew biglal Yosef, “on account of Joseph,” the same phrase Laban used of Jacob:…

The LORD blessed an Egyptian’s household because Joseph was in it. “For Joseph’s sake” is the Hebrew biglal Yosef, “on account of Joseph,” the same phrase Laban used of Jacob: “the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake” (Gen. 30:27; see the note there). The verse says when it began, “from the time that he had made him overseer,” and how far it reached: “all that he had in the house, and in the field.” Genesis does not say that Potiphar worshiped the LORD or asked for the blessing; it came to his house on Joseph’s account.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured.

Language #

Nothing but the bread

Potiphar’s trust was so complete that he kept track of nothing but his dinner.

Potiphar’s trust was so complete that he kept track of nothing but his dinner. “Ought” is an old spelling of aught, “any thing,” and the Hebrew is literally “with him he knew not” anything (velo yada ito me’umah): with Joseph there, he did not concern himself with what he owned. Joseph says the same in verse 8, where the KJV has “my master wotteth not what is with me in the house.” Wot is an old verb, “to know; to be aware,” and the Hebrew uses the same construction as in verse 6.

Why “save the bread”? The plain reading is that Potiphar “did not trouble himself … about anything but his own eating.” A second possibility is that it “implies that food, owing to the strictness of Egyptian scruples,” could not be put in a foreigner’s care, since “the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews” (Gen. 43:32). Both readings are inferences; Genesis does not say.

Sources: Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 7–10

Day after day

In plain words

Some time later his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and propositioned him. He refused. “With me here,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself about anything in the house, and he has put everything he owns in my care. No one in this house is greater than I am. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a great evil and sin against God?” She spoke to Joseph day after day, but he would not give in to her or even stay near her.

7 And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.

Context #

An Egyptian story with the same plot

An Egyptian tale tells much the same story, so a reader may ask whether Genesis borrowed it.

An Egyptian tale tells much the same story, so a reader may ask whether Genesis borrowed it. The “Tale of Two Brothers” (Papyrus D’Orbiney, BM EA 10183) is dated “about two or three hundred years after Joseph lived.” Bata, a young man in his elder brother’s household, is propositioned by his brother’s wife; he refuses; she accuses him to her husband; the husband turns on him. Bata goes into exile instead of prison, and he “eventually rises to the top of the government in Egypt,” becoming pharaoh himself.

The likeness need not mean copying. Both stories may follow what are called “type scenes,” “a convention about how a story is told,” and the general likeness passes over “some significant differences in the stories.” In the Egyptian tale the woman holds out rewards; in Genesis “the reader is not meant to be titillated or enticed.” Both men answer at length and call the act a wrong, but Bata “becomes angry and fierce, like a wild animal,” and of the two answers “only Joseph’s invokes God” (verse 9). Bata faces the temptation “only once, while Joseph faces it repeatedly” (verse 10), and in a real case “the temptation is likely not to be an isolated affair that need only be resisted but once.” The Bata story is fictional, with a young man carrying about 670 pounds of grain, against “the sober, restrained, and commonplace nature of the Joseph story,” and the differences, on this reading, show which of the two is history. That is one scholar’s reading, and a plausible one.

Sources: John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46.

8 But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand;

9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

Related Scriptures #

Joseph’s three reasons

Joseph’s answer rests on three reasons, set in order: his master’s trust, the woman’s marriage, and God.

Joseph’s answer rests on three reasons, set in order: his master’s trust, the woman’s marriage, and God. His master has kept back nothing “but thee,” he says, and the reason is “because thou art his wife”; so the act would be “this great wickedness” and “sin against God.” President Hartman Rector Jr., then of the First Council of the Seventy, said in general conference in 1972 that the last reason “revealed the real strength of this choice young man”: “With this statement Joseph showed that he was determined to do the right thing, but do it for the right reason. That reason: because he loved the Lord.”

Genesis has spoken this way before, of the same act. When Abimelech, king of Gerar, took Sarah, God told him in a dream, “I also withheld thee from sinning against me,” in the Hebrew verb Joseph uses here, and Abimelech afterward called the act “a great sin” (Gen. 20:2; Gen. 20:6; Gen. 20:9). That was long before the commandment was given at Sinai (Ex. 20:14). David would say the same after his own sin, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13), and so does the psalm that its heading ties to that moment, though he had wronged other people too: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4).

Sources: Hartman Rector Jr., “Live above the Law to Be Free”, general conference, Oct. 1972. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Language #

“God,” not “the LORD”

Joseph says Elohim, “God,” where the narrator says YHWH, “the LORD.” The narrator uses the name Jehovah eight times in this chapter (verses 2, 3, 5, 21, 23).

Joseph says Elohim, “God,” where the narrator says YHWH, “the LORD.” The narrator uses the name Jehovah eight times in this chapter (verses 2, 3, 5, 21, 23). In chapters 40 through 50 the Hebrew text has it only once more, in Jacob’s cry, “I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD” (Gen. 49:18), and Joseph and Pharaoh say Elohim (for example Gen. 41:38; Gen. 45:5). In verse 9 Joseph is speaking to an Egyptian, and “Elohim, not Jehovah, is used of God in a passage where Joseph is speaking to a non-Israelite.”

Why the narrator says “the LORD” when the people in the story do not is less certain. One reading is that the writer, working from Joseph’s own records, “carefully shows that it was the covenant Jehovah who guarded and kept His innocent worshipper.” Scholars who divide Genesis among earlier documents assign this chapter to the one they call J, and note that even there Joseph, speaking to a non-Israelite, says “God”; that is one scholarly view. The Bible Dictionary allows that Moses “used several documentary sources from which he compiled the book of Genesis,” but does not assign verses to them.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. “Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

10 And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.

Verses 11–18

The garment

In plain words

One day Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the household was there. She grabbed him by his garment and propositioned him again. He left the garment in her hand and ran out of the house. When she saw that he had left it in her hand and run outside, she called to the men of her household. “Look,” she said, “he has brought us a Hebrew to make sport of us! He came in to me, and I screamed. When he heard me scream, he left his garment beside me and ran outside.” She kept his garment beside her until his master came home, and then told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave you brought us came in to make sport of me. But when I screamed, he left his garment beside me and ran outside.”

11 And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within.

12 And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.

Literary Structure #

What was left in whose hand

The words that describe Potiphar’s trust describe the garment too. Of Potiphar, verse 6 says that he “left all that he had in Joseph’s hand” (vaya‘azov kol asher lo beyad Yosef);…

The words that describe Potiphar’s trust describe the garment too. Of Potiphar, verse 6 says that he “left all that he had in Joseph’s hand” (vaya‘azov kol asher lo beyad Yosef); of Joseph, verse 12 says that he “left his garment in her hand” (vaya‘azov bigdo beyadah). Everything was in Joseph’s hand except what he refused to take, and what was left in hers was his garment.

She then changes how she tells it. In the narrator’s account the garment is “in her hand” (verses 12–13); in her own it is “beside me” (etsli, verses 15, 18), because, on one reading, “in my hand” “would have shown the true state of the case.” She keeps it “until his lord came home” (verse 16), so that it can be produced; it is “the only circumstantial piece of evidence for the charge.”

This is the second garment taken from Joseph. In chapter 37 his brothers strip off his coat and dip it in blood so that Jacob will think he is dead (Gen. 37:23; Gen. 37:31–33). That coat “represents a favored status given to him. The garment and the status are forcibly taken from him, and he wears a slave’s raiment. Even that is taken from him when he is falsely accused.” Between the two garments stands chapter 38, where the things Judah left with Tamar, his signet, bracelets, and staff, show that he is the father of her child (Gen. 38:18; Gen. 38:25–26). The “deliberate narrative juxtaposition” of the brothers’ infidelities with Joseph’s story “would have signaled Joseph’s chastity to Israelite readers.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Latter-day Prophets #

Joseph’s flight

Latter-day apostles point to how Joseph ended the temptation: he ran. He first answered with words (verses 8–9) and went on refusing “day by day” (verse 10), but when she seized…

Latter-day apostles point to how Joseph ended the temptation: he ran. He first answered with words (verses 8–9) and went on refusing “day by day” (verse 10), but when she seized him he did not argue; he “fled, and got him out.” Elder M. Russell Ballard told the young men of the Aaronic Priesthood, “You must be as Joseph who fled from the presence of Potiphar’s wife rather than sin against God.” Elder Robert D. Hales used Joseph as one of his examples of a wider principle: “standing strong sometimes means avoiding and even fleeing from the world,” and “Joseph of Egypt ran from the temptations of Potiphar’s wife.”

The Hebrew verb is nus, “flee,” and the chapter says it four times (verses 12, 13, 15, 18), twice in the woman’s own telling of what he did.

Sources: M. Russell Ballard, “Purity Precedes Power”, general conference, Oct. 1990. Robert D. Hales, “Stand Strong in Holy Places”, general conference, Apr. 2013. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.

13 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth,

14 That she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice:

Language #

“An Hebrew” and “to mock”

Her words are chosen to turn the household against Joseph, and two of them repay a closer look.

Her words are chosen to turn the household against Joseph, and two of them repay a closer look. “Hebrew” (‘ivri) is, in the lexicon’s words, a name “put into the mouth of foreigners (Egyptian and Philistine)” or “used to distinguish Israel from foreigners.” Apart from “Abram the Hebrew” (Gen. 14:13), Genesis uses it here (verses 14, 17), when Joseph speaks of “the land of the Hebrews” (Gen. 40:15), when the butler tells Pharaoh about “a young man, an Hebrew” (Gen. 41:12), and when it says the Egyptians would not eat with “the Hebrews” (Gen. 43:32). Here it is “an appeal to the racial prejudice against Asiatic strangers.” Her wording also changes between her two tellings. To the household he is “a Hebrew man” (ish ‘ivri); to her husband he is “the Hebrew slave” (ha‘eved ha‘ivri) “which thou hast brought unto us,” and in both she lays the fault on Potiphar, who “by buying a foreign slave” had exposed her to insult.

“To mock” is tsachaq, which the lexicon defines in these two verses as “make a toy of.” The same verb is used elsewhere for play or sport, including Isaac “sporting with Rebekah his wife” (Gen. 26:8). In her mouth it means a deliberate insult to the women of the house; on one reading, “wanton insult.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and got him out.

16 And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home.

17 And she spake unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me:

18 And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled out.

Verses 19–20

The prison

In plain words

When Joseph’s master heard his wife say, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned. He took Joseph and put him in the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were held, and Joseph stayed there.

19 And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled.

20 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.

Context #

Prison, not execution

Potiphar could have had Joseph killed, and the Church’s sources read it as the Lord’s doing that he did not.

Potiphar could have had Joseph killed, and the Church’s sources read it as the Lord’s doing that he did not. Elder Kelly R. Johnson of the Seventy wrote, “Even though her accusation was false, Joseph could easily have been executed. It is remarkable that, instead, he was only put into prison. The hand of the Lord preserved Joseph again.”

Readers also look for a reason on Potiphar’s side. Egyptian penalties for adultery ran from fines and beatings to death, though the “historical accounts indicate less severe punishments,” and “Joseph’s punishment for a crime he did not commit was comparatively mild.” It may also be that Potiphar, “knowing of Joseph’s character and his wife’s character, suspected the truth.” That is a guess, but Genesis 40 fits it: the prison was “in the house of the captain of the guard,” and the captain “charged Joseph” with the king’s butler and baker (Gen. 40:3–4).

The prison was not gentle at first: “Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron” (Ps. 105:18).

Sources: Kelly R. Johnson, “The Lord Was with Joseph”, Liahona, Mar. 2022, 44–47. Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 21–23

The Lord with Joseph in prison

In plain words

But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him kindness, and gave him favor with the keeper of the prison. The keeper put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners there, and whatever was done there, Joseph was the one who did it. The keeper paid no attention to anything in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph, and whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.

21 But the LORD was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

Language #

Kindness held out to a prisoner

The “mercy” the LORD showed Joseph in prison was kindness held out to him, not release.

The “mercy” the LORD showed Joseph in prison was kindness held out to him, not release. The Hebrew is vayet elav chesed, “and extended to him kindness.” The lexicon gives the verb natah, “hold out, extend unto,” with the LORD as subject and chesed as object, and cites this verse. Chesed is “goodness, kindness,” the word Abraham’s servant used when he asked the LORD to “shew kindness unto my master Abraham” (Gen. 24:12), and the lexicon lists this verse among those where God’s lovingkindness is shown “in redemption from enemies and troubles.”

In Joseph’s case the kindness took a practical form: the LORD “gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” The Hebrew for “favour” is chen, the word of verse 4, where Joseph “found grace in his sight.” In the house and in the prison alike, the LORD’s presence meant that Joseph was acceptable to the man over him; it did not mean that he was out of the place where he was bound.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

22 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.

23 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.

Literary Structure #

The same sentence on both sides of the accusation

The chapter ends with the sentence it began with. Verse 3 says that Potiphar “saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand”; verse…

The chapter ends with the sentence it began with. Verse 3 says that Potiphar “saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand”; verse 23 says that the keeper “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.” In Hebrew the clause is nearly the same: vekhol asher hu oseh YHWH matsliach beyado (verse 3) and va’asher hu oseh YHWH matsliach (verse 23). The house and the prison mirror each other: the LORD with Joseph, a charge placed in his hand, and a master who no longer needs to look (verses 6, 23).

The verb says whose success it is. Joseph is “a prosperous man” (ish matsliach, verse 2), and in verses 3 and 23 the same participle has the LORD as its subject (YHWH matsliach). The lexicon defines it there as “make prosperous, bring to successful issue,” as the LORD prospered the errand of Abraham’s servant (Gen. 24:40).

The shape is the message. The chapter does not explain the false accusation; it puts the same sentence on both sides of it. Joseph’s life, in Elder Kelly R. Johnson’s words, “was a journey from the highs to the lows and back to the highs of life. And we learn that the Lord was always with him, through both good and bad.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Kelly R. Johnson, “The Lord Was with Joseph”, Liahona, Mar. 2022, 44–47. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 39

The One who was with Joseph in the house and in the prison is Jehovah, “the premortal Jesus Christ.”

Joseph’s trial has features of His. Joseph and Jesus both “overcame great temptation” and were “falsely accused of wickedness.” In Egypt Joseph “suffered the temptations that are the common lot of mortals, yet he did not give in to temptation but maintained his purity and integrity”; Hebrews says of Christ that He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15), and a revelation in this dispensation, “He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them” (D&C 20:22). Joseph was accused by a woman whose one piece of physical evidence was a garment; the council that judged Jesus “sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death” (Matt. 26:59).

The Lord’s counsel to another Joseph in prison, Joseph Smith in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, runs the same way. “The Lord explained the same principle to a latter-day Joseph,” Elder Kelly R. Johnson wrote of the two: “accused with all manner of false accusations,” “dragged to prison,” and yet “all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” Then comes the line that points past any prisoner: “The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” (D&C 122:6–8).

Worth exploring next

The next scene. Joseph in the same prison: Gen. 40 and Gen. 41:1–14.
What Joseph says about these years. Gen. 41:51–52; Gen. 45:5–8; Gen. 50:19–20.
The psalm and the sermon. Ps. 105:16–22; Acts 7:9–16.
Judah beside Joseph. Gen. 38, read against verses 7–12 of this chapter.

For the garments and the Egyptian household behind this chapter, see the Religious Studies Center chapter “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph” (in From Creation to Sinai).

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Paul Y. Hoskisson, “The Plan of Salvation in the First Six Books of the Old Testament”, In The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, ed. D. Kelly Ogden, Jared W. Ludlow, and Kerry Muhlestein, 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).
John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46.
Kelly R. Johnson, “The Lord Was with Joseph”, Liahona, Mar. 2022, 44–47.
Hartman Rector Jr., “Live above the Law to Be Free”, general conference, Oct. 1972.
M. Russell Ballard, “Purity Precedes Power”, general conference, Oct. 1990.
Robert D. Hales, “Stand Strong in Holy Places”, general conference, Apr. 2013.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.

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