8 But he would not, and said to her, You see that my master keeps no account of what I do in his house, and has put all his property in my control;
To take you out of the power of the strange woman, who says smooth words with her tongue; Who is false to the husband of her early years, and does not keep the agreement of her God in mind: For her house is on the way down to death; her footsteps go down to the shades: Those who go to her do not come back again; their feet do not keep in the ways of life:
For honey is dropping from the lips of the strange woman, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword; Her feet go down to death, and her steps to the underworld; She never keeps her mind on the road of life; her ways are uncertain, she has no knowledge. Give ear to me then, my sons, and do not put away my words from you. Go far away from her, do not come near the door of her house;
My son, keep the rule of your father, and have in memory the teaching of your mother: Keep them ever folded in your heart, and have them hanging round your neck. In your walking, it will be your guide; when you are sleeping, it will keep watch over you; when you are awake, it will have talk with you. For the rule is a light, and the teaching a shining light; and the guiding words of training are the way of life. They will keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the strange woman. Let not your heart's desire go after her fair body; let not her eyes take you prisoner.
He who takes another man's wife is without all sense: he who does it is the cause of destruction to his soul. Wounds will be his and loss of honour, and his shame may not be washed away.
Let not your heart be turned to her ways, do not go wandering in her footsteps. For those wounded and made low by her are great in number; and all those who have come to their death through her are a great army. Her house is the way to the underworld, going down to the rooms of death.
The foolish woman is full of noise; she has no sense at all. Seated at the door of her house, in the high places of the town, Crying out to those who go by, going straight on their way, she says: Whoever is simple, let him come in here: and to him who is without sense, she says: Drink taken without right is sweet, and food in secret is pleasing. But he does not see that the dead are there, that her guests are in the deep places of the underworld.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 39
Commentary on Genesis 39 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
In Potiphar's House. - Potiphar had bought him of the Ishmaelites, as is repeated in Genesis 39:1 for the purpose of resuming the thread of the narrative; and Jehovah was with him, so that the prospered in the house of his Egyptian master. מצליח אישׁ : a man who has prosperity, to whom God causes all that he undertakes and does to prosper. When Potiphar perceived this, Joseph found favour in his eyes, and became his servant, whom he placed over his house (made manager of his household affairs), and to whom he entrusted all his property ( כּל־ישׁ־לו Genesis 39:4 = ישׁ־לו כּל־אשׁר Genesis 39:5, Genesis 39:6). This confidence in Joseph increased, when he perceived how the blessing of Jehovah (Joseph's God) rested upon his property in the house and in the field; so that now “ he left to Joseph everything that he had, and did not trouble himself אתּו (with or near him) about anything but his own eating .”
Joseph was handsome in form and feature; and Potiphar's wife set her eyes upon the handsome young man, and tried to persuade him to lie with her. But Joseph resisted the adulterous proposal, referring to the unlimited confidence which his master had placed in him. He (Potiphar) was not greater in that house than he, and had given everything over to him except her, because she was his wife. “How could he so abuse this confidence, as to do this great wickedness and sin against God!”
But after she had repeated her enticements day after day without success, “ it came to pass at that time ( הזּה כּהיּום for the more usual הזּה כּיּום (Genesis 50:20), lit., about this day, i.e., the day in the writer's mind, on which the thing to be narrated occurred) that Joseph came into his house to attend to his duties, and there were none of the house-servants within .” And she laid hold of him by his garment and entreated him to lie with her; but he left his garment in her hand and fled from the house.
When this daring assault upon Joseph's chastity had failed, on account of his faithfulness and fear of God, the adulterous woman reversed the whole affair, and charged him with an attack upon her modesty, in order that she might have her revenge upon him and avert suspicion from herself. She called her house-servants and said, “ See, he (her husband, whom she does not think worth naming) has brought us a Hebrew man (“no epitheton ornans to Egyptian ears: Genesis 43:32”) to mock us ( צחק to show his wantonness; us , the wife and servants, especially the female portion): he came in unto me to lie with me; and I cried with a loud voice...and he left his garment by me .” She said אצלי “by my side,” not “in my hand,” as that would have shown the true state of the case. She then left the garment lying by her side till the return of Joseph's master, to whom she repeated her tale.
Joseph in Prison. - Potiphar was enraged at what he heard, and put Joseph into the prison where ( אשׁר for שׁם אשׁר , Genesis 40:3 like Genesis 35:13) the king's prisoners (state-prisoners) were confined. הסּהר בּית : lit., the house of enclosure, from סהר , to surround or enclose ( ὀχύρωμα , lxx); the state-prison surrounded by a wall. This was a very moderate punishment. For according to Diod. Sic . (i. 78) the laws of the Egyptians were πικροὶ περὶ τῶν γυναιῶν νόμοι . An attempt at adultery was to be punished with 1000 blows, and rape upon a free woman still more severely. It is possible that Potiphar was not fully convinced of his wife's chastity, and therefore did not place unlimited credence in what she said.
(Note: Credibile est aliquod fuisse indicium, quo Josephum innocentem esse Potiphari constiteret; neque enim servi vita tanti erat ut ei parceretur in tam gravi delicto. Sed licet innocuum, in carcere tamen detinebat, ut uxoris honori et suo consuleret ( Clericus ). The chastity of Egyptian women has been in bad repute from time immemorial ( Diod. Sic. i. 59; Herod. ii. 111). Even in the middle ages the Fatimite Hakim thought it necessary to adopt severe measures against their immorality ( Bar-Hebraei , chron. p. 217), and at the present day, according to Burckhardt (arab. Sprichwφrter, pp. 222, 227), chastity is “a great rarity” among women of every rank in Cairo.)
But even in that case it was the mercy of the faithful covenant God, which now as before (Genesis 37:20.) rescued Joseph's life.
In the prison itself Jehovah was with Joseph, procuring him favour in the eyes of the governor of the prison, so that he entrusted all the prisoners to his care, leaving everything that they had to do, to be done through him, and not troubling himself about anything that was in his hand, i.e., was committed to him, because Jehovah made all that he did to prosper. “ The keeper ” was the governor of the prison, or superintendent of the gaolers, and was under Potiphar, the captain of the trabantes and chief of the executioners (Genesis 37:36).