Genesis 39:1-23: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife
Genesis 39:1-23: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife
Bible Essentials: Set 3, Lesson 26
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Opening
Individuals: Take time to think back about your past week. Where have you seen God work in your life or answer prayer? Write down any prayer requests you have.
Group: Open the study by sharing life updates, reviewing highs and lows of your past week, or sharing prayer requests and praises.
Icebreaker: What was a time in your life when you experienced peer pressure? Did you stand up against it? Or did you give in?
All: Begin the study with a word of prayer, asking God to open your heart for today’s study. You can also pray for any prayer requests now, or save that for the end.
Study
Read today’s passage: Genesis 39:1-23.
39 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
What is the context for this passage?
The story of Joseph starts in Genesis 37, where we see the animosity between Joseph and his brothers. Joseph gives bad reports about his brothers to their father, and he tells his brothers his dreams about them bowing down to him. This doesn’t sit well with the brothers, so they plan to kill him. Instead of following through on this, they decide to sell him into slavery so they can get a little money out of the deal. Then they take Joseph’s ornate, unique robe, spread blood on it from an animal, and report to their father that Joseph is dead.
In the meantime, Joseph is sold to a caravan of Midianite merchants headed to Egypt. There, he is sold to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials.
Read the passage again.
Explore a different version if you have one available. If you are online, here is Genesis 39 in NIV through Bible Gateway. You can change the version by using the dropdown menu at the top right of the page.
Try to summarize the passage in your own words.
Answer these three questions about the passage:
1. What does the passage say about God?
God was with Joseph. This passage says several times that God was with Joseph. Joseph may have felt abandoned when his brothers sold him into slavery, but God never left him. Joseph may have been far away from home and everything he knew, but the God he followed stayed with him no matter where he went.
God blesses people through the work of his followers. Just as God was with Joseph, God blessed everything that Joseph did. Much of this blessing didn’t help Joseph accumulate wealth for himself, but it did bless those around him. Potiphar’s household was blessed through Joseph’s work, and the warden in the jail was blessed as well.
God can be sinned against. Joseph recognized that to sleep with Potiphar’s wife would be a sin against God. God is holy and cannot tolerate sin. Any sin that we commit is a sin directly against God because of his holiness and righteousness.
God is kind. When Joseph was thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, he could have found himself in some very bad circumstances. Instead, God showed his kindness to Joseph by granting him favor in the eyes of the warden. It seems that Joseph wasn’t treated much like a prisoner even though he was. This is God’s kindness at work.
2. What does the passage say about people?
People recognize God’s work in someone’s life. Both Potiphar and the prison warden saw something different about Joseph. They recognized that God was with Joseph and was blessing him.
People trust those who are blessed by God. Because Potiphar and the prison warden recognized the blessing on Joseph’s life, and because Joseph proved to be faithful and honorable, they trusted him.
People give responsibility to those who are trustworthy. Both Potiphar and the prison warden saw that Joseph was blessed, and he was trustworthy. Because of this, they gave him responsibility to care for their possessions, their household, and their work. Potiphar put Joseph in charge of everything he owned, and the prison warden put Joseph in charge of the prisoners…even though Joseph was a prisoner himself.
Some people are unconcerned with marital faithfulness. Unlike Joseph, Potiphar’s wife was not faithful or trustworthy. She noticed Joseph’s attractiveness, and after a time, she could no longer control her desire to have sex with him. It didn’t matter that she was married to Potiphar. She was only concerned with her own desires.
People can either be trustworthy and upright or deceitful. Joseph and Potiphar’s wife are two opposites. Where Joseph was trustworthy and upright, Potiphar’s wife was deceitful and selfish. When Joseph refused to give in to her attention, Potiphar made up a story to get Joseph thrown into prison.
Wise people flee from temptation to sin. Joseph understood the importance of marital faithfulness, and he knew that sleeping with Potiphar’s wife would be sinful. So he fled from the temptation. He was more concerned with being obedient to God than giving in to any temptation.
People react harshly when they have been wronged. When Potiphar’s wife felt snubbed by Joseph, she made up a lie to get him in trouble. When Potiphar heard the lie and believed it, he immediately became angry at Joseph and had him thrown into prison. When you feel you have been wronged, take a moment to understand all sides of the story.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God’s plan was to make Joseph successful in all he did. No matter where Joseph went, God granted him success. Everything Joseph was put in charge of in Potiphar’s house prospered, including both the household and the fields. The same happened when Joseph was in prison. Joseph found success in working for the prison warden, which I’m sure made his time in prison a bit easier.
God’s plan was to make people look on Joseph with favor. Whether Joseph was in Potiphar’s house or in jail, Joseph’s trustworthiness and God’s blessing on his life made people look on Joseph with favor. Because of this, they gave him more and more responsibility, and everything he did was blessed by God.
How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
God had a plan for Joseph, and that plan didn’t end with Joseph staying in Potiphar’s house. Getting sent to prison was one step of many that God used to guide Joseph to a place in Pharaoh’s house. Once he was in Pharaoh’s house, God used Joseph to save his family and the whole land of Egypt from a famine. Each step along the way may not have made sense to Joseph, but he kept being faithful no matter what his circumstances were.
Think about Jesus in the last hours of his life. From the outside looking in, Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, torture, and crucifixion don’t make any sense. But looking back from the perspective of the resurrection, and knowing Jesus’ purpose on earth was to pay the penalty for our sin by becoming the perfect sacrifice, all of those steps make perfect sense. No matter what the circumstances, Jesus was faithful to his calling to be obedient.
Next time you have circumstances in life that just don’t make sense, remember Joseph and Jesus. Sometimes the steps to where you need to be in life don’t make sense to you. But you can trust that God is working in your life to get you to where he wants you to be. You just need to trust him and stay faithful to him no matter what your circumstances are. Someday, you will understand.
Discussion
Individual: Answer the following questions thoughtfully for yourself.
Group: Pose these questions for discussion.
All: If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts to these questions. Feel free to use the comment section to start a discussion about this passage.
What else strikes you about this passage?
How does the passage affect how you view God? How you view yourself?
How does this passage affect how you will live your life?
Additional Study
For additional study related to this topic, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-20.
Premium Resources
For Bible Essential studies, you can use my thoughts as your devotional, or you can download and use the journaling sheet to work through the passage on your own. If desired, you can then compare your thoughts to mine. Journal sheets can be downloaded and used now or later. They can be printed and filled in by hand or saved and filled out electronically. Journal sheets are available for individual or group use.
If you plan to lead a group study, a PowerPoint presentation is also available.
You can access these resources by clicking here: Genesis 39 Resources
Or you can download the journal sheets here*:
*Substack doesn’t support PowerPoint file downloads yet, so if you want to access the PowerPoint file for group study, you will need to download it from the resource page linked above.