Genesis 37:36
Bought at the end of the road
One verse closes the sale. The brothers’ twenty pieces of silver end in the house of an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard.
People of the Bible
Potiphar
An Egyptian officer who could see exactly what he had, and threw it away on one accusation.
Potiphar is captain of Pharaoh’s guard, and he buys Joseph from the traders who brought him down from Canaan. He is a good judge of a man: he sees that everything Joseph touches prospers, and hands him the entire household until he does not even keep track of his own accounts. Then his wife makes an accusation, produces a garment as proof, and frames it as an insult to him for bringing a Hebrew into the house. He burns with anger and puts Joseph in the king’s prison, which is not where a slave who assaults his mistress would normally end up.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Potiphar
- 01
- 02
Genesis 39:1-6
Everything he had, in another man’s hands
He notices the blessing on Joseph and acts on it, giving over the house, the field and the accounts, and concerning himself with nothing but the food he ate.
- 03
Genesis 39:7-18
The garment left behind
His wife makes her demand daily and is refused daily. When she finally grabs the cloak and he runs, the thing he left in her hand becomes the evidence.
- 04
Genesis 39:19-20
Burning, and the king’s prison
He hears the charge and his anger is kindled, and then he chooses the prison where the king’s prisoners are kept rather than an execution.
Why it matters
Potiphar is the small hinge the whole Joseph account swings on. He is the reason Joseph is inside Egyptian administration rather than in a field, and he is the reason Joseph is in the particular prison where the royal cupbearer and baker are later held. Genesis does not tell us what he believed. It tells us what he did, and leaves the gap between the sentence and the crime visible.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
