Joseph in Potiphor’s prison
Genesis 40:1-23 .
The life of Joseph is one of the most remarkable stories found in the Bible. His life is a mixture of sadness and glory, or pain and of success. As a result, Joseph’s life contains many lessons from which we modern believers can learn from.
In these verses, we find Joseph at one of the lowest moments of his young life. We find him as a young man, having been sold into slavery into Egypt. There, he is purchased by a man named Potipher, and in Potipher’s house, Joseph quickly rises to a place of authority and prominence. The scriptures tell us … “ The LORD was with Joseph. He was successful and lived in the household of his Egyptian master.” Gen 39:2
However, Potipher’s wife has eyes for Joseph and attempts to get him to commit adultery with her. He refuses and actually has to run away from her, leaving his garment in her hand, Gen. 39:7-13. His coat had gotten him into trouble again - Gen. 39:14-18; Gen. 37:3-4. After she has been spurned by Joseph, Potipher’s wife accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her. Her husband, who is a high ranking Egyptian official, has Joseph thrown into the King’s prison.
It is in this Egyptian prison that Joseph learned some very valuable lessons. He learned some facts about the Lord that would serve him well in the years ahead.
Now, Joseph wasn’t alone in having to go through a prison experience. In fact, many of the great men of the Bible found themselves in one prison or another. For instance, there is Samson, Daniel, Jeremiah, Hosea, John the Baptist, John, Peter, Paul, and Silas. Many of the Lord’s greatest servants had to go through the prison from time to time. In each of these prisons, the Lord revealed His power and providence on behalf of His servants.
What does all this mean for us?
Well, we all find ourselves in some sort of prison from time to time. Often, the trials and troubles of life can be compared to a prison experience. These times can cause us great problems, but they can also be the means to great success from the Lord.
I just want you to know that the prisons of life do not have to defeat you! In fact, it is my conviction that God leads us into the prison experiences of life so that we might thrive in His work and to His glory.
God used the prison as Joseph’s proving ground. He learned all the lessons he needed to be able to flourish on the throne of Egypt!
As we pass through the prisons of life, God is merely training us. When we are found faithful in these valleys, we are allowed to experience greater levels of blessing. God uses the difficulties of life to help us mature so that He might use our lives in a more wonderful way than would otherwise be possible- Matt. 25:41; Luke 16:10. As we endure the prison experiences of life, we are trained for expanded usefulness b the Lord!
Therefore, we need to learn not to rebel against the prisons we find ourselves in. We must learn to yield to the Lord’s work in our lives and trust Him to have His way in us and through us. He knows where He wants us and He knows what He would have us do. Let us learn to trust Him and experience the best He has to offer us!
The problem in the text in this study I of chapter 40 is that it doesn’t appear as though God is present. In fact, we have seen Joseph treated very unfairly in two different settings now. First, by his brothers who stripped him, abused him, and tossed him into an empty cistern before selling him as a slave. Then by Potiphar ‘ s wife as she falsely accused him of assaulting her and Potiphar believed her and had him thrown in prison. But at least in chapter 39 we had a comforting refrain—God was with Joseph.
Chapter 40 doesn’t offer us that assurance—at least not on the surface. If you were to look at chapter 40 and say “show me” the evidence that God’s providence is working all things for good in Joseph’s life—that would be tough during a first read through. You could read this chapter and ask, ‘where is God’s faithfulness?’
There’s a theme in this story we have touched on at least a little bit every study so far and that is that God, not Joseph, is the main character of the story. And if we believe that, it makes God’s apparent absence in this chapter even more unsettling. The external circumstances of Joseph’s life change little from Genesis 40:1 to 40:23. At the beginning of the chapter, Joseph is alone and in prison. At the end of the chapter, Joseph is alone—now forgotten by someone who was supposed to help him—and in prison.
So what are we to think of this God—the main character, the driving force behind this story—and His treatment of Joseph so far? This is where “show me” isn’t enough. Because if we limit ourselves to a God we can see, our God is too small.
Genesis 40 is a story of the faithfulness of God in the midst of apparent silence. Of God’s hand of providence working even when He seems to be absent.
Genesis 37-50 tells us the story of Joseph’s life but what it’s really about is how God acts in the lives of people through His divine providence to secure His divine promises as He works to bless all the nations of the earth by rescuing a people from their sin for His glory.
God’s providence secures His promises. What do I mean by God’s providence? - God’s actions in creation to advance His purpose.
God’s providence is all over this story. But He works in ways that could be easy for us to miss and Joseph responds in such a way that I think we can see he trusted in God’s faithfulness even though he didn’t fully understand what God was doing.
One of the things that we must keep in mind as we examine Joseph’s life is that God is not as much interested in our circumstances as he is of our response to our circumstances.
To really understand chapter 40, what it sets up for the rest of Joseph’s story, and how these things matter for you and I today I want us to examine this text in light of three things: Joseph’s faithfulness to a God who seems absent, God’s faithfulness to Joseph, though He seems absent, and God’s faithfulness to the nations through His quiet movements in Joseph’s life.
We are reading from Genesis 40:1-23 .
The prison phase of Joseph’s life started off remarkably similarly to the period where he was a slave in Potiphar’s house. The end of chapter 39 tells us the warden put all the prisoners under Joseph’s authority and that he fully trusted Joseph. That chapter closed by telling us that God made everything that Joseph did successful.
However when chapter 40 opens Joseph is still in prison. This was not an easy period in Joseph’s life. Even though he was elevated to the position of trustee his circumstances in prison would not have been easy.
Yet, it’s clear that he remained faithful to the Lord and His promises. Remember back in chapter 37, God gave Joseph a pair of dreams in which he was lifted up and it seems—based on his conduct for the remainder of the story—that Joseph clung to those promises from God.
He would have had a myriad of reasons to abandon hope. When God falls silent, or His providence directs our lives in a way we don’t understand, it’s natural for us to ask “why”. “Why God did you allow this hurt into my life?” “Why, God did you allow this hard circumstance to happen?”
Think about the whys Joseph could have asked. “Why did you allow my brothers to hate me so much they wouldn’t even speak to me? Why did you allow my father to show favoritism that drove them to such a jealous hatred they wanted to kill me? Why did you allow them to beat me, strip me, and leave me for dead in an empty pit. Why did I get sold as a slave? Why did you send me into that household where I was tempted toward illicit sex? Why did you allow me to be falsely accused? Why am I rotting here in this Egyptian prison cell with no prospect for freedom?”
There are some really big ‘whys’ sitting in the prison with Joseph that day. And sometimes when you ask God your really big “why” questions, it seems that the only answer you’re hearing is silence. And that may actually be true , but I hope you’ll find by the end of this study that silence from God does not mean that God is not working and I know as we can also see from Joseph’s life that silence from God wasn’t an excuse to stop being faithful.
One of the two false beliefs this chapter lays bare is the idea that God’s goodness in our lives is based on our circumstances.
Joseph was faithful to God’s promises in his life even though he had dozens of excuses not to be. Joseph must have understood a hard truth that I hope this text causes us all to wrestle with today - God’s favor is not tied to life’s circumstances. If you have a flat tire, that doesn’t mean God is mad at you. Yet, so often we tend to view our circumstances as a commentary on God’s view of who we are as a person. Or we think that if we are good, God will improve our circumstances
We don’t have to read far into the text to see that Joseph’s character—how he related to God and the people around him everyday—was not destroyed by his circumstances. In the first eight verses we learn about Joseph’s faithfulness to God through his character and his speech.
In chapter 40 verses 1-5 two government officials run afoul of Pharaoh. The chief cupbearer and the chief baker. Now, I concede those may not sound like the highest of government offices. In fact, I think baker doesn’t sound like a very important office at all. But these would have been high ranking men with large staffs of underlings and their responsibility would be to ensure that the food and drink that came to Pharaoh was safe—untainted by a political, or family, or national rival. These would have been very important men. And based on the word used in verse 1 it seems their offense was legitimate. Unlike Joseph, they are not innocent.
And when they are thrown into prison—because they’re important officials—they’re assigned a personal attendant by the captain of the guards. We’ve already met a man who holds that very same title back in the last chapter. Back in verse 39:1 we learn Joseph and been sold to Potiphar, who was an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guards. We’re not specifically told that Potiphar still holds this office in chapter 40, but it is reasonable to think so.
It reveals a great deal about Joseph’s character and work ethics that Potiphar would choose Joseph to hold this important role after what they’d been through together. Joseph’s faithfulness to God is demonstrated in his moral character over and over again in this story. He’s held up as the opposite of all the morally corrupt people surrounding him—from his father who played favorites, to his homicidal brothers and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph is the photo negative to the corruption of the other characters in this narrative.
Now, what I don’t want us to do is to only look at Joseph’s actions in all these situations and reduce this to story about morals—because it is much, much more than that. If we reduce Scripture to tales of moral dos and don’ts, then we no longer have Scripture. This isn’t Aesop’s fables for Christians. We’re looking at God working something much bigger than a morality play here, not just in the life of Joseph but in all the nations of the earth.
But at the same time, we don’t want to miss that Joseph’s faithfulness to God is displayed in his moral character. Potiphar still saw in Joseph a character trait that was missing from those around him, causing Joseph to stand out from the rest of the people we’ve seen so far. The warden sees it as well, which is why Joseph has this position of authority in the prison to begin with. God’s people should be marked by a character traits—the way we treat God and His creation—that is vastly different from those around us.
And we see in Joseph’s life that his character put him in a situation where he had the opportunity to point those around him to his God. Look at verse 6:
6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they looked distraught. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”
8 “We had dreams,” they said to him, “but there is no one to interpret them.”
Joseph did something revolutionary here. He asked how someone was doing and actually waited for the answer. How many of us ask the question” How are you?” and then wait for the answer? I know it sounds insane, but I think we should give it a go.
In all seriousness, notice that as Joseph was going about his regular, daily routine he paused long enough to take a genuine interest in the people his job put him in relationship with. And then he’s going to steer the conversation toward his God.
These two men had some form of contact with one another and they both had a dream on the same night. In Egyptian culture dreams were a big deal because it was generally believed that dreams put you in contact with the afterlife. The interpretation of dreams was its own enterprise. There would be professional interpreters who kept books of dreams and their interpretations. But these two prisoners wouldn’t have had access to these professionals.
Then along comes Joseph. And he says – verse 8.
“Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
These two officials dreamed separate dreams that night which left them troubled in the morning and looking for help. The cupbearer received good news from Joseph. His dream involved three branches and the cupbearer pressing grapes into a cup that would go back into Pharaoh’s hands. The dream meant that in three days he’d be restored to his position. The baker received bad news, he had three baskets on his head in filled with various cakes In three days time the baker would be executed. Both of these dreams came to pass.
Joseph made a request though of the cupbearer:
“Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this prison.” (Genesis 40:14, ESV)
Yet, our passage ends with the haunting words “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.” (Genesis 40:23). A doubling in the passage… “he did not remember” and “forgot him”. As the Joseph story moves on we will see that God did not forget Joseph and God was working to bless him. Even though Joseph was forgotten, he would be in the right place (the royal prison), among the right people (those close to Pharaoh), with the right attitude (a willingness to serve in obscurity) and waiting for the right time (when Pharaoh would have dreams that needed to be interpreted).
Now as you see verses 9 through 15, you see Joseph interpreting the cupbearer's dream and making to him a plea based on his fulfillment. And here you learn that God's providence does not mean that we are not to act with responsibility. You know, so often people say, if you believe in God's providence, it's going to lead to passivity, to laziness, to indolence. If God's in control, why should we do anything? If God is sovereign, why pray? If God is sovereign, why witness? If God is sovereign, why do anything? And so you have this logical statement that states , “if God's ordained everything, then surely it means that we don't need to do anything”. This is never the logic, however, that enters into Joseph's mind.
The passage also indicates that God is furthering His own glory by delaying the answer to Joseph's desires to get out of this prison. If God had gotten Joseph out of prison through the cupbearer's initial pleas Joseph would have been tempted to think of the cupbearer as his rescuer. By delaying the answer to Joseph's prayers, God made it clear that He and He alone would come to Joseph's rescue.
How often in our own experience have we hoped for some instrument to be the means of our salvation, to be the means of our rescue from some circumstance that we're in, and that instrument looks plausible. “Boy, that looks like an answer to my problems. If only this would happen, then I would get out of this fix.” And it doesn't turn out. And the very delay teaches us that it's God Himself who comes to our rescue and aid, not the instruments that we think would fit into our plans.
And finally, in this very act of delaying the answer to Joseph's desires, God is establishing His plan for the salvation of Israel. You see, the salvation of Israel depends upon Joseph's exaltation to the right hand of Pharaoh. If Joseph is freed from prison through the mere appeal of the cupbearer at this point, he never gets the appointment in the house of Pharaoh. If he doesn't get the appointment in the house of Pharaoh, Israel is undone, even as Egypt is in its time of famine. No, God had a better plan and a better purpose and that plan meant waiting, and it meant being frustrated, and it meant being perplexed but it meant being patient. But whatever our God ordains is right. And Joseph is learning that just like we are. May God bless us to believe it in our own “wait” upon the Lord.
God allows bad things to happen to His children. We know this to be true because bad things have happened to us. The Scriptures teach us that God, who has the power to prevent these bad things, instead chooses to use these "bad things" in such a way to bring about a most blessed outcome. And this is precisely what we find in the life of Joseph.
In 50:20, we see that Joseph clearly understood God's providence when he says to his brothers, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive."
Here’s the second false belief this chapter helps us to combat. Some think that because God is sovereign—because He’s working in His providence to accomplish His purpose—we don’t need to do anything. What’s the point? God’s going to work it out anyway. Here’s a simple problem with that line of thinking:
God’s sovereignty does not render man’s responsibility null and void. Instead, over and over again Scripture shows us how God uses the obedience of His people to accomplish His purposes.
It doesn’t seem like chapter 40 accomplished anything! Joseph started out as a prisoner with no hope of pardon. It ends with Joseph, a prisoner with no hope of pardon who had been given false hope that he might be freed! Emotionally, he’s worse off in verse 23 than he was in verse 1. Joseph has proved his faithfulness by his character and by his words, but on the surface it seems as though he has been forgotten by not just the cupbearer, but by God Himself. The refrain of chapter 39—God was with Joseph—is absent in chapter 40. Does that mean God has taken his hand off Joseph?
Absolutely not.
God is often absent in the ways we most desire, but present in the way we most require.
While it may seem on the surface level that God is less present in chapter 40 than in chapter 39, that is no where near true. We’ve seen Joseph’s faithfulness to God in prison, let’s now see how God remains faithful to Joseph even though He seems silent.
God’s Faithfulness to Joseph in Ways Joseph Can’t See
There are many ways in this chapter we see God’s providence at work once we get to see the story in its entirety. That’s not a luxury we have for our own lives, but God is no less sovereign over our lives than he was over Joseph’s. I like to think of it this way: God can see both ends of the train. We never get that view of our own lives, but since we see that in Joseph’s life we can see that God was at work in the circumstances of this very chapter.
We see that the prison Joseph was sent to in Genesis 39 was the king’s prison. So when Pharaoh sends these two officials away in chapter 40 they end up in the very same location as Joseph. Had Joseph been sent to a different prison he would never ever crossed paths with the cupbearer. Coincidence or the plan of God?
We looked at it briefly as a component of Joseph’s faithfulness, but had Potiphar never purchased Joseph as a slave in the first place then Joseph would have never proven his worth as a servant in his household and he would not have been assigned to the cupbearer and the baker. God’s hand was guiding these seemingly random events of Joseph’s life for a much greater purpose.
God was active in the lives of these officials. Remember, the human side of this whole epic was set in motion by sin. The sin of favoritism on the part of Jacob, and the hatred of his brothers and the sin of Potiphor’s wife. Just as God worked around those sins, a fact Joseph grows to understand because he will later say to his brothers in Genesis 50:20 20 “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result-the survival of many people”. Just as God redeemed the sin of Joseph’s brothers for good, whatever evil plot landed the baker and the cupbearer in prison was used by God for His good purpose. Remember the promise of Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.
“God’s providence caused Joseph to be forgotten. This one is tougher for us to come to grips with, but the cupbearer forgetting Joseph was an act of God’s providence. And though it would have caused Joseph great heartache and distress it won’t be long until we can clearly see in the text why God would have Joseph wait. He will eventually be released directly by Pharaoh himself and made an high-ranking official in Pharaoh’s government. Had the cupbearer released him, Joseph would have probably starved to death in the famine that was to come.
One of the most difficult commands God will ever give His children is a single word: “wait”. But it’s always for our good and His glory. I can’t even imagine how hard this waiting would have been for Joseph
The providence of God is something that governs all the actions of men, even their thoughts. Acts 17:18 says, "In him we live and move and have our being." Dt 30:20 says, "For the Lord is your life." Job 12:10 says, "In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." Dan 5:23 says, "God...holds in his hand your life and all your ways." Do you learn to see the God of providence in the details of your daily lives, especially when you confront disappointments?
Always, providence works with God's sovereignty. Also, God's sovereignty is expressed through His providence. Sometimes, it falls in all the right places. Very often we would like this course, but sometimes it seems to fall in all the wrong places, as it did with Joseph. How we deal with providence and sovereignty will greatly impact our lives. We know this truth: when bad things happen to us, we will get better if we do not become bitter. Yet, for some, bitterness may be harder to resist than adultery.
The story of Joseph could exemplify the God who seems to be "hidden," “quiet” and “silent” in instances of life when we are in unbearable agony. From Gen 37:1-40:23 this "hidden" God seems to be silent as Joseph's life gets progressively worse and worse:
What seems to be especially tough is that Joseph was doing all the right things and then wrong things resulted. He did what was good and bad things happened. He carried out his father's errand to go find his brothers, and he was ruthlessly stripped, thrown into a pit and sold into slavery (Gen 37:23-24,28). When Potiphar's wife repeatedly demanded to have sex with Joseph (Gen 39:7,10,12), he resisted her because it was wicked and a sin against God (Gen 39:9). He did what was good, godly and God glorifying. Yet he was falsely accused and thrown into prison (Gen 39:17-20). In today's passage, Joseph interpreted the cupbearer's dream correctly, thus expecting to be released from prison, and the cupbearer conveniently forgot about him (Gen 40:23). Sometimes we ask the question “Where is God when it hurts? “ Very often it is easy to answer this question but it is very difficult to answer the question :“ where is God when it continues to hurt.” This is tough question to answer. Where is God when we need him more than ever?
(1) The offenses of the cup bearer and the baker were committed in the ordinary course of life. But ultimately the Scriptures say they were used by God for the welfare of Joseph. It was by this that ultimately Joseph came to the attention of Pharaoh. It was by this that he was ultimately made second in the land, right behind Pharaoh (Gen 41:41-44). It was by this that all of the Egyptians were made to bow before Joseph, and that Joseph might be the deliverer of the chosen family when they came down from Egypt from the famine. So God works in the small things of life as well as in the great things. Prov 21:1 says, "In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him.”
(2) From the king's cup bearer and the baker, who were regarded as important high ranking servants of the king's court, Joseph surely learned the way of the palace and the intrigues of Pharaoh's court. Through these life experiences, God was "hidden" and behind the scenes in training, disciplining, sustaining, and preparing Joseph for what was to come. Joseph likely never thought, "God is training me through this hardship." But that was what the "hidden" God was doing. If asked in the future, Joseph would likely say that he learned more about life from being in prison than from being favored and loved by his father at home.
In the lowest moment of his life, God was with Joseph to give him wisdom, insight and inspiration to interpret dreams. Though Joseph was helpless in all ways possible, the most important resource was at his disposal.
This should cause followers of Jesus to contemplate where their hope is and who they are serving. Do we work or put forth effort to just some end goal or do we faithfully serve as God has called us and as He has served us (John 13:14, Philippians 2:7). God’s steadfast love for Joseph empowered him to serve in this way and to bless those around him.
This is providence. The will of Joseph's brothers was working concurrently with the will of God. God did not forxce Joseph's brothers into hating him and into selling him as a slave, that came naturally to them.
The brothers' plan was to sell Joseph with the intention of doing harm to him and thereby to destroy his dreams , but God's intentions were quite different. God used the sale of Joseph to Egypt knowing that He would use that to save Israel from perishing.
If we trace God's providence in the life of Joseph we can clearly see God's wisdom in allowing all of these things to happen to Joseph.
First of all, if there was no fancy coat, perhaps there would have been no jealousy among Joseph's brothers. No jealousy, no selling Joseph to Midianite traders. And if the Midianite traders had been traveling in a different direction, Joseph would never have gone to Egypt. No Egypt, no selling to Potiphar. If someone else bought Joseph, there would have been no encounter with Poitiphar's wife. No Potiphar's wife, no prison. No prison, no meeting the baker and the butler. No meeting with the butler, no meeting with Pharaoh to interpret his dream. No meeting with Pharaoh, no promotion to prime minister. No promotion to prime minister, no way of feeding his family during seven years of famine. No food for seven years, Joseph's family dies. No family, no Israel. No Israel, no Jesus. No Jesus, no cross. No cross, no salvation.
Well isn't it “lucky “ that Joseph owned a fancy coat?! No! God leaves nothing to chance, luck, or fate. God knows what He is doing. God knows what He is doing even when He allows us to suffer. We may not see this at the time and so we must trust the promise He gives us in His Word--the promise that "God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God"(Rom.8:28).
You may find yourself in a terrible situation at the moment. I want you to be encouraged by the fact that God is with you and He is not a helpless bystander, but He is the all-powerful, all-wise, God of the universe. And knowing this to be true, we are comforted by the promise that--in our life--God is working all things for our good and His glory. Thanks be to God! Amen.
