Lent 2025 Day 8: Thu 13 Mar
Genesis 39:1-20
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 favour in his eyes and became his attendant.
…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.
…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.
…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.
Joseph kept faith with God through the bad times. He may not have been aware that God had amazing plans for him. I wonder what his thoughts were as he was dragged along by a rope behind a camel. Did he harbour anger against his brothers, or against God for letting him down?
God ensured that Joseph would work for Potiphar. He soon became a highly trusted slave in a wealthy household. Little did he know that this was not where he would stay. Joseph may have accepted this life as a slave, hoping one day that he might be given his freedom, and that might be as far as it’d go for him.
He tended to his work with extreme diligence, and he honoured and respected the trust his master had placed in him. A quiet, comfortable life beckons. He knew that God had looked after him, but he was not yet aware of how high God would eventually place him. But first, he had to go in the opposite direction.
Potiphar’s wife wanted Joseph for her own sexual satisfaction. She was trouble, and the honourable Joseph became the subject of her lies and betrayal and was thrown into prison. Do not believe Tim Rice’s words in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat when Joseph sings: For I know I shall find my own peace of mind, for I have been promised a land of my own. Yes, he’d had dreams, but at this moment he was in a dark place, not knowing the outcome God had in mind for him.
Have things worked out for you the way you’d hoped for or expected?
Do you feel forsaken? Talk with someone about it.
Father God, as I look around me when I am in the depths of despair, sorrow, darkness, I see no release. As I look up to you I see hope, joy and light. Keep my eyes on You, I pray. Amen.
30:07 Ich will dir mein Herze schenken (Arie)
13. Aria S (Chorus I)
I will give you my heart;
sink within, my Saviour!
I will sink into you;
although the world is too small for you,
ah, you alone shall be for me
more than heaven and earth.
14. Evangelist And when they had spoken the benediction, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them:
Jesus Tonight you will all be angry at me. For it is written: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” When, however, I rise again, I shall go before you into Galilee.
Ends at 34:24
Paul