40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 50

Episode Date: June 2, 2016

Chad, Daniel and Brandon talk about Joseph getting hit on by his boss's wife, how he handled it and how sin turns us in on ourselves. No good deed goes unpunished in this episode. Check it out! 

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. I am Daniel Emery Price and I am joined by Chad Bird and Brandon Hanson. how are you guys this fine day hey we are good very good in fact i'm just excited to get started here hey we're all awake all had we've all had coffee we're all uh we're all wide-eyed pushy-tailed ready to go okay that's that's that's unusual for us it is it is it's because we we all woke up in great anticipation of what we're going to talk about today That's exactly right. Yeah.

I mean, I've been dreaming about this for two weeks, ready to get into this rather interesting story. Yeah. I love a good story about when you get screwed for doing the right thing. Yeah. No good deed goes unpunished. One of my favorite phrases. This is true. Well, all right.

Take us there. Okay. So we're in chapter 39 of Genesis. we are three chapters into the joseph story first chapter has him betrayed by his brothers and sold into egypt and then we take a detour we go back to judah and we have the whole uh uh crazy story of judah and his daughter-in-law tamar who dresses up as a prostitute ends up getting impregnated by judah and has twins one of whom is in the in the family tree of our messiah So that was chapter 38, quite a colorful detour, but now we're going to turn the car around and go back to Egypt, and we're going to pick up with Mr. Joseph and see what happens to him and this saga that is all about him for the next few chapters.

so uh starting out here at the beginning of 39 we have uh we kind of have the uh the narrative uh describe every kind of the setting is depicted for us as to what's what happens to joseph after he gets down into egypt and and at first it sounds like joseph i mean given his circumstances he is i mean he is a slave yeah he is in a foreign country but given how bad the circumstances could have been things have at least temporarily turned out fairly well for him it says uh he's taken down to egypt and potiphar who was an egyptian officer of pharaoh the captain of the bodyguard he bought him from the ishmaelite traders who had bought him from joseph's brothers so i and the the first thing to notice is that he is uh he's taken into a household that has uh

has some rank to it this isn't just a uh a nobody that purchased it joseph this is someone who has some power some prestige and no doubt some some wealth as well and then we're told and this is This is an important phrase in this chapter. It says, the Lord was with Joseph. We'll come back to that in a minute. But that phrase occurs multiple times in the chapter. It sets kind of an underlying theme for the narrative itself. And because the Lord was with Joseph, it says that he became a prosperous or a successful man.

And then he goes on to describe how he was prosperous or how he was successful. He was in the house of his master, this Egyptian, and the master saw that the Lord was with Joseph and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph is making a very, very good impression upon his master. You know, it's kind of the Midas touch. Everything Joseph touches turns to turns to gold. And the master realizes this. So, of course, he's going to trust Joseph. He's going to give responsibilities to him, and he's going to be grateful that he happened to purchase a servant who has brought so much success to his household. So it says Joseph finds grace or he finds favor in the sight of his master. He becomes his personal servant, and he keeps moving up these ranks.

So he's bought into the house of a man with power, prestige, and wealth. He impresses this guy so much, and he makes him his personal servant. And not only that, but finally, he's elevated so that he's overseer of his house. And everything that Potiphar owned, he put Joseph in charge of. And then it's like Moses as he tells this story. He goes overboard. I mean, he lays it on thick here. He talks about how, you know, God blessed the Egyptian's house on account of Joseph.

Thus, the Lord's blessings was upon all that he owned in the house and the field. He left everything he owned in Joseph's charge, just like Moses can't emphasize this enough. So it's kind of a narrative way of laying it on thick so that we get this very clear impression that things for Joseph, anyway as well as for his master were going very well and it almost it sets us up and kind of winks at us because almost every time that you have something like this described where everything is falling into place everything is going well you know what's coming next it's all going to fall apart and it's toward the end of this description that we have uh that we have the uh the hint that something is that something is coming it says that he uh he didn't concern

himself the master didn't concern himself with anything except the food which he ate and then we have this description it says now joseph was handsome in form and appearance Now, we talked before about how any time that the scriptures give us a description of someone's physical appearance, I guarantee you that is going to become an essential component of the story that follows every single time. Of course, today when people write novels, they're giving all sorts of sometimes very verbose descriptions of someone. I mean, by the time they're finished describing Joe or Mary or whoever, you can picture them in your mind. You know what color their hair is, what color their eyes are, whether they're short or tall, fat or skinny, all about their personality. But the scriptures don't don't proceed that way. They're very conservative in their descriptions of the physicality of a person.

So when we're told that Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, we know that's going to become part of the story that follows. And I might add, this is kind of interesting. Joseph, he's kind of the GQ man. He is the only one in the Old Testament, only one, only man in the Old Testament who is described this way. And it's the exact same description that's given of his mother. Same words in Hebrew to describe her as are used now to describe Joseph. So she produced a good looking kid, really good looking kid, handsome in form and appearance. David is described as what, like ruddy?

Yeah. Which is supposedly a good thing, right? Yeah, supposedly a good thing, except the only other person who's described that way is Esau. So it's almost like you wonder, so is David going to be another Esau, or is this something else? So it's a unique feature of David's appearance.

And the fact that he's the youngest son, right? He's the last one. So the last one that you would think would be chosen for the king. And we know he wasn't overly tall. So it wouldn't have been like form and fit. He wasn't like this. He wasn't Saul. I mean, Saul was a big guy.

If you look at a crowd of people, he was taller than everybody else. So he stood out physically. uh and you know probably when people saw Saul they thought wow yeah this guy you know he's there's a leader for you somebody you can literally look up to but David on the other hand somebody you look down on this is a huge diversion sorry but but uh I now that you said that uh I do think that there's this thing about David which is like there's nothing um about him that would that would make you think like oh yeah that's the guy I mean that's like this the whole thing with with samuel choosing david is like he probably wasn't like all like scarred up and like crazy

looking because then that would be different but he probably just like as average and normal as a dude can look which is part of the even like the the appearance sort of you know prefiguring christ right there's nothing about him that you would assume like oh this is the guy and then he's like you know what is largely considered at least to the jews like the greatest king ever yeah yeah I mean Isaiah 53 says there was nothing about him to attract us if you'd have walked

down the streets of Jerusalem and passed Jesus it's not like he would have turned your head there was nothing about his appearance that really would have made you think oh wow that guy he must be something else just look at him that's the way God works

he hides himself under that which seems ordinary or common or even not desirable in order that we might live by faith and by what he says in his word instead of by sight. Yeah, yeah, he digs that ordinary. Yeah. And even though David's that way, Joseph not that way. So Joseph's a stud, okay.

Joseph's a stud, yeah. I mean, he's buff. He's one of those guys, you know, you see these guys and you're like, that dude it's got to be a model you know he just has that that face that jawline that physical appearance you're like yeah that guy you know he's not gonna have any trouble with with the girls just look at him well that that's the kind of guy that that uh that joseph is he uh he's somebody that that the women would notice and the guys do they say man that's you know he's a good looking guy well uh yeah he was he was a good looking guy and it turns out the reason we're given this

description of joseph is because somebody definitely noticed him and that's the way that's like a uh the kind of a segue in the narrative here because the first six verses describe how awesome everything had gone for joseph despite the fact that he was in egypt as a slave and then we have this description of him and then immediately everything begins to fall apart so verse verse 7 tells us it came about after these events okay so it's been a while he's been you know he's gained the favor of apotiphar he's been elevated up through the ranks of the servants and now he's he's the he's the top guy he's the one in charge of everything he's the right hand man of his boss so it comes about after these things that his master's wife

so mrs potiphar whatever her name was we never told her name looked with desire at joseph and she said lie with me she just got tried to the chase doesn't she yeah she she's she's not she's not a woman who you know just kind of starts out with casual conversation, and then as time goes on, she adds, you know, a few compliments, and then before you know it, the compliments turn into more flirtatious, suggestive comments, and then finally, with a wink in her eye, she says, hey, why don't we go someplace alone? No, she's just pretty straightforward. She's brazen. Lie with me, she says. In fact, nowhere else in the whole Old testament is uh is a woman as just blunt and and brazen about a sexual advance as potiphar's

wife is here and we can speculate as to why you know it could very well be because she is in a powerful position she is the uh the mistress of the household and uh she probably expects to be obeyed by by her slaves by her servants whatever the reasoning is uh that's that is her her wish her command her invitation whatever you whatever you want to call it but it's brief so what is uh what's joseph gonna do well goes on to say but he refused and he said to his master's wife now this is kind of interesting because she says lie with me three words but joseph he delivers a speech in response to her he says look uh well in hebrew it's we usually translate it behold but behold sounds way too old-fashioned i like the word look because we

that's the way we talk in english right now look with me here what's that no this is look girl yeah right yeah look girl listen listen up i uh yeah it's hane or hanae in hebrew and it It really has this idea of, look, listen up, look here. Look, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house. He's put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I am. And he has withheld nothing from me except you because you're his wife. so how then could i do this great evil and sin against god yeah and potter's wife is like

challenge accepted that's exactly right challenge accepted you know i find joseph's response actually pretty intriguing because of course he could have said a lot of things he could have just turned around and walked away uh he could have said no and walked away uh he could have said a lot of things of course he's good he could have said yes uh don't have to we we don't need to forget that too he could have said yeah anytime anyplace right uh but he his response i think uh is is instructive because it kind of gets you into the mind of joseph as to why he refuses he's kind of looking at things in a broader perspective here

and I think it's also interesting because we are we are encountering a Joseph that is a little more mature than the Joseph that we encountered in the first chapter about him of course he's grown up he's had some very

tough life experiences now and he perhaps is growing a little bit wiser so first of all he you know he says uh basically i've been entrusted with with a whole lot of stuff a whole lot of responsibility i mean your your husband my master has put everything that he owns in in my charge uh and uh i you know i'm not only in charge of the house but also of other servants and he hasn't held anything back from me he trusts me the only thing he's held back from me is is you

that's it everything else uh he's put under under my charge and at my at my disposal and notice so far he hasn't said anything about this being a sin he's just talking about his responsibilities and the trust that's been given to him it's only at the end after he said all that that he uh actually invokes the name of name of god he says how then could i do this great evil and sin against god so it's it's almost like he is uh uh looking at things from the whole perspective the commandments you know the second table which is the commandments that have to do with our relationship with our neighbor as well as the first table which has to do with our relationship with with god so he's looking at it in the in the whole perspective so this is unique

too because what we've encountered so far in genesis you know if this had been a lot of the other people that we've looked at so far genesis they'd have been like oh yeah sounds great to me let's do it now right i mean that that that judah i don't think judah would have would have said look uh no this is this isn't right judah sees a prostitute and he's like uh you know how much you charge uh he's he's ready to go joseph on the other hand is a little different judah would have been like um okay but are you are you supposed to be getting a goat out of this or anything is this free yeah how many goats is this gonna take or is this free one for me right but uh like dan said her response was like almost

almost like she uh she relished the challenge right she's like challenge accepted well yeah yeah i think you have a dual thing going on here one a challenge accepted okay like now now you've become a conquest yes right okay so there's definitely that and then there's also like well this and this will play out more so i think at this i think this goes in like phases this is phase okay now it's like the thing that like said no so i've gotta i gotta conquer that right i'm not gonna accept that like now now you're my mission we will move from you are my mission to hell hath no fury like a woman scorned like that transition will will happen because once that conquest fails uh that's exactly what then then we're talking about pride and yeah all that

sort of stuff gets in it gets in there yeah this whole story is like a study in in psychology in many ways uh spiritual psychology biblical psychology if you want to think of it that way basically this is like a this narrative encapsulates the various ways in which sin morphs itself through a process of desiring and then eventually persecuting

the very object that it once desired. There's a thin line between love and hate, man. Flip sides of the same coin here. It's almost as if she starts out that servant he looks

good. I want to have sex with him. It just at least the story portrays it as nothing more than lust to begin with right it's just lust pure and simple but then once the lust is rebuffed

then it becomes more of a matter of pride because she she must have him because his rebuffing of her advances has

made it seem as if she's undesirable and she has to prove to him otherwise so what does she do well uh she just bugged him to death uh immediately after after his speech it doesn't say that she responded she didn't try you know some kind of theological argument with him to justify why they could do this it says uh came about after she spoke to after it came about after as she spoke to joseph uh day after day that he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her now there's a subtle difference here well first of all yeah this this becomes a daily temptation day after day she tries to get him to sleep with her but there's something else too it says at the very end of that verse, he didn't listen to her to lie beside her or be with her. I suspect that

what's going on here is that she's saying to herself, okay, this direct approach didn't work with Joseph. So instead, what I can do is just try and get him to spend some time with me, not to have sex with me, just to be with me, just to spend time with me, just to talk with me, thinking to herself that as she does this then gradually she'll be able in an indirect way to win him over to her to her proposal so if the direct approach doesn't work then try the indirect approach to it well there's different there's different kind of makeups and people here right so like if she's like we said if she's dealing with most of the people that we've dealt was in in genesis so far the direct approach probably gets the job done you just say like

here i am here you are let's do that and that probably works with like that like well in reality that probably works with most dudes yeah right that probably works however joseph he joseph is a uh i mean you can tell by this like big speech he gives and i mean i mean everything we know about joseph is like he's he's a little uh he's more pensive than that you know he's he's not um he's a dreamer man right so there's a joseph joseph's like a different kind of dude different kind of guy and uh and so it's like oh okay so like i gotta like worm my way into affections now like this it's like this i can't just appeal to like the uh the manly instinct i have to appeal him on like on another level first before i can like get in there yeah yeah so that's that's what

she's doing a big big fat game it has become a game to her yeah she's she's determined she's determined to win she's going to use everything in her at her disposal and uh and whatever whatever she has to do that's what she's willing willing to do but it wasn't working this this this biblical story is like so many biblical stories because we always wish that we were told a little bit more you know that we're always wanting a few more details here because this this this whole thing could easily be a novel and yet we have just 23 verses in this chapter that tells us what what went down so she tries and then she tries and and she tries still more, and he's not listening to her.

Nothing seems to work with Joseph. So it's almost as if she finally gets to the point where she is so frustrated that she kind of returns to her first approach, a very direct approach, because it says that one day that Joseph goes into the house to do his work, and uh just so happens that that time that he's in the house that all the other servants are outside so he alone is there and she comes up to him and she grabs him by his outer garment if they were like most uh most people back then they had a they had a kind of a two two layers of clothing that they wore so she grabs a hold of his outer garment and she says lie with me

same words as she used in the original temptation and joseph left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside so things have come to their climax now the first time he was able to get away from her with a mere speech no this is wrong here's why it's wrong we can't do this and she backed off i tried a different approach that approach didn't work and so finally she tries this one last attack and joseph has to basically uh run away from her in order to to get outside and it's here where things get very interesting because what what might she do well she could simply chalk it up to one more failed attempt and then you know try again some of the way to get him to accept her advances. Or she could go with option B, which is what she

ends up doing. She sees that he's left his garment in her hand and had fled outside. So she completely reverses things. She calls the men of her household and says to them, look, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make sport of us. He came in to me to lie with me and I screamed. And so it came about when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed that he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside. So what's up with her? I mean, why this sudden change? First she wants to sleep with him and now she is accusing him of rape, attempted rape. yeah well i think i well one there's the there's the scorn of of just of rejection which which no one likes that right and then there's got to be a little bit of self-preservation in here too right

because like i mean at some point does she not assume that joseph might just be like okay like now this got out of hand like this this was like and i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna go to potter for and be like bro i don't know how to say this but your wife is like all over me and like it's so awkward conversation but i don't know what to do and i just i'm just i just think you should know like you don't want that that that conversation happening and you might have like gone too far and you think like i probably pushed him to that to that conversation better if i come up with an accusation first like so it's better it's better so i'm already now but so my pride is hurt my ego is hurt because this guy didn't want me i was like really super

aggressive i probably took it to the point where like he's probably gonna go to my husband the second he can find him i'm just gonna start screaming that's what i would think is gaffney is that you say like i'm gonna accuse you of trying to rape me before you can accuse me of trying to seduce you yes right exactly exactly so she's she is taking control of the narrative right this is this is i know that joseph might be telling you this but let me tell you what really happened and i've got proof to back me up right but there's something else that she does too notice that she doesn't want to stand alone and so she tries to get the people around her on her side she's like playing the race card like big time you're like yeah that's dirty stuff like

so they now she's like well you gotta believe me he is a hebrew after all like and you know how you know how they are yeah and and there's a there's a not so subtle accusation against her husband too because it says look he has brought in a hebrew to us to make sport of us notice how she uses the the plural us like she's a servant she's not a servant but she's trying to make she's trying to build some camaraderie with those who are going to be her i guess her witnesses on her behalf and she accuses her husband at the same time i like my husband brought in this hebrew and he's making sport of us of us not of me but of us and to top it all off he just he just tried to rape me and the only way that i was spared was by by screaming so

that he ran away and i've got proof because look i've got his i've got his garment he left it here after i screamed so she's building the story that she can use against joseph to protect herself and also to uh uh to make her ego ego feel better because she's been she's been scorned i'll tell you what joseph's the one dude in the old testament whose garments constantly get him in trouble it's exactly right yeah that's a that's a great thing to point out his his clothing yeah is always getting him in trouble i'm like i'm like many colors yeah dude i'm like wondering like did you did you be like i need to you know what i liked that coat of many colors i'm gonna get another one of those rock that because to remember my dad you know i just need to remember

where i came from so i'm gonna rock this like super flamboyant thing and then she yanks it off him and he's like you know who this belongs to right everyone's like oh yeah it's that freaking dude that's wearing that thing yeah everybody knows this is joseph's garment yeah so uh hey joseph he's clueless i suppose about all of this she's not finished yet she's not finished i mean it does seem that she does this before he can get have a chance to even go talk to pot of her yeah yeah he's evidently yeah he's evidently gone at this point so she's taking advantage of his absence in order to do everything that she can to build her case so that when he gets back she's going to be able to say look this is what happened

you're gonna have to deal with this so that's that the that's what happens next so she she He leaves Joseph's shirt or coat or whatever it was beside her until his master came home. And now this is fascinating because any time that you have the repetition of a speech in the Bible, always pay close attention to whether it's an exact repetition or whether some words are changed in the process. because what you see here is that there are some changes in the speech that she gave to the servants and the speech that she then repeats to her husband so to her husband she says the hebrew slave whom you brought to us came in to me to make sport of me now notice she's changed things around now it's no longer to make sport of us but she's making it personal came into me to make sport of

me of course she's talking to her husband so she's arousing his jealousy and his anger and then she goes on and it happened as i raised my voice and screamed that he left his garment beside me and fled outside she leaves out a very important phrase that she used earlier because to the servant she said he came in to me to lie with me and i screamed but when she's talking to her husband she says that he came in to make sport of me and it happened as i raised my voice and screamed that i left his garment so she actually leaves out the part about him attempting to rape her whatever whatever reasoning whatever reasoning might be so she's brought the servants on her side she's now accused joseph directly to to her husband and it came about when his master heard

the words of his wife which he spoke to him this is what your slave did to me that his anger burned now what what i uh what i've wondered about this is who's the master angry at because it doesn't say that the master's anger burned against joseph although no doubt uh that was part of what was going on here but notice that as the story goes on joseph is not executed Which seems to me would have been the logical next step for the master to take. I mean, if the guy's a servant, he has absolutely no authority except that which his master has given to him. If he's just tried to rape the master's wife, why in the world would he just put him in prison? Maybe his wife has played the victim card one too many times.

Maybe she has. maybe he uh he doesn't quite buy the story that she gives and this anger that that burns within him is not it's not necessarily just against joseph but against his wife as well because of what she has what she has created the mess that she has that she has created you have to wonder like depending on how long this was that how long this from the first advance to this however long that was you have to wonder if he was like if he could tell that interested looking at joseph looking at joseph a little too long sometimes i mean like you don't know how much time is taking place here but like this stuff isn't like incredibly difficult to spot no no it's not i

mean most most husbands or wives are able to pick up on these things very quickly uh so i i suspect that potiphar was as well he could tell she was interested in joseph so when she comes up with this story and and of course it doesn't tell us this but i find it hard to believe that joseph did not defend himself right yeah surely and say hey what no let me tell you what really happened and obviously the the potiphar trust him i mean he's elevated him to this this superior rank so He knows that Joseph is a trustworthy person. So once he's heard both sides of the story, yeah, there had to have been some suspicion in his mind

as to the accuracy of his wife's claims. And maybe that's why he had to do something. I mean, he was accused of attempted rape, so he has to do something. And so instead of executing him, he puts him in prison in the stockade instead. But isn't it fascinating what sin will do when what we want, we are not given? This whole story brings home the fact that sin is being curved in upon oneself.

She never wanted Joseph for Joseph's sake. It's not as if she wanted to be with him so that she could do something for Joseph. This was all about her. And so when she didn't get what she wanted in this form, she went after what she wanted in another form. So her lust gave way to pride, which then gave way to anger and the desire for revenge. And all of this, from the lust to the revenge, all of it is nothing more than her self-serving actions, which is what sin does. It's there to gratify what we desire and not to act in love toward the neighbor. and the harsh reality i think of like this text is that she as far as we can tell gets away with it

and uh joseph ends up in jail yeah joseph ends up in jail like i said earlier no good deed goes unpunished uh the righteous are often persecuted for doing the right thing as as happens as as happens here but uh to you know to end on a positive note which is what the story actually does. It says Joseph's put in prison, but it says the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor inside of the chief jailer. And this is the scripture's way of reminding us that it doesn't matter how much sin seems to have its way with us or the sins of others seem to have their way with us, that the Lord remains with us. And even though Joseph doesn't realize it at the moment, and even though we often don't realize it at the moment, what God is doing is he is

assuring us of his continued presence with us, and he promises us that in one way or another, sooner or later, he is going to redeem this situation and to bring about that which he desires for us. Now, it probably will be bearing a cross for a while, as it was with Joseph, but this this whole story from beginning to end shows us uh what what is said at the very conclusion of it that people intend things for evil but god intends them for good so god is able to use the the worst most manipulative sinful situation in order to bring about good for for his children and uh that this is all kind of a part of that theology of the cross which which is exemplified most clearly in the cross of christ where this horrendous act is actually

the the greatest blessing of god for the salvation of all of us and joseph obviously as a type of christ there's obviously a lot of a lot of you know a lot of connections to be made there about being falsely accused and then punished and all this kind of thing because that's exactly what christ does yeah exactly what happens to him too yeah yeah the righteous one's suffering for the sake of the unrighteous but he's he's doing it all or god is doing it all through him in order to bring about good for the entire nation in the end because it's only if if this had not happened to joseph then he wouldn't have been in prison and he wouldn't have met pharaoh's servants and he wouldn't have interpreted the dreams and then eventually ended up at pharaoh's right hand

and save the entire nation from the famine so uh it's an amazing display of not only the providential nature of god's care of us but his gracious care of us and his ability then to to work his good and gracious will despite the sinful motives of those who often place us in situations which god is able to use later on yeah yeah and we are out of time that