And Joseph's lord took him and put him into the tower-house, [the] place where the king's prisoners were confined; and he was there in the tower-house.
Joseph refuses to sin, and it costs him everything he built in Potiphar's house. Yet the verse names the cell he lands in — the one for the king's prisoners — and that address shapes all that follows.
Joseph never answers the charge. One writer weighs the master's dilemma: a slave he had always trusted, and a wife whose word was doubtful.
We can easily imagine the difficulty the wife's treachery created for Joseph's master. On one side stood the proven, unquestionable trustworthiness of his slave. On the other stood a wife who could make such an approach. She must long have shown her evil character in many ways, even if not in this one, so her word was doubtful. Still, she was his wife. Whatever her bold, shameless, and malicious fraud, we hear of no effort on Joseph's part to clear himself by exposing her wickedness. A simple denial of her charge would not stand against a husband's natural anger. He was unwilling to look closely into the terrible alternative.
Commentators differ on Potiphar's state of mind. One reads his anger as real. Another notes that the punishment was light for the crime alleged:
The wicked woman's husband clearly did not really believe his wife's foul lie. It was perhaps only to keep up appearances that he made a show of punishing Joseph. If he really believed her story, it is hard to see why he did not have this Hebrew slave put to death at once. He probably knew her character quite well. That seems to me the only way to explain his great leniency towards Joseph. Pilate was slow to consent to the crucifixion of "the Lord of glory" for the same reason. He knew the character of His accusers well, and did not really believe Him deserving of death.
Genesis says little about the conditions. A psalm fills them in, and the long wearing of prison becomes the real test:
That it was a terrible experience we learn from Psalm 105:18. Speaking of Joseph, it says, "His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron." The margin of the Bible says, "Hebrew: his soul came into iron." Do we not have a saying in English, "The iron entered his soul"? Nothing is more depressing than captivity like that, day after day, night after night, summer and winter, year in and year out. The weariness, discomfort, sameness and hopelessness of it is a great test. Under that test character will either collapse or show itself. Trials make or mar a person.
(An older translation reads, "he was laid in iron.")
The verse names which prison. That one detail is the hinge of all that follows:
Pending a decision in the matter, they were confined in the same prison as Joseph, and put in his charge. God ordered the chain of events. The first link was Joseph's placing where the king's prisoners were confined. The second was that these two men came there in due time.
These events have two sides. Behind Potiphar's wife stands an enemy. Behind the enemy stands God:
In Genesis 39 Satan uses Potiphar's wife, and in Genesis 40 he uses Pharaoh's chief butler. The first he used to put Joseph into the dungeon; the second he used to keep him there, through his ungrateful neglect. But it was all in vain. God was behind the scenes. His finger was guiding all the springs of the vast machine of circumstances. When the time was right, He brought out the man of His purpose and set his feet in a wide, open place.
The verse ends with Joseph simply there. His address changed; the one thing that mattered did not:
God was with Joseph and showed him mercy… Before this, in Potiphar's home, God made everything go well. Now, while Joseph was in the prison, God did the same. It is much better to live in a prison with God than to live in a king's house without Him.
One writer sees the same shape in Christ — blessing given, blessing refused, and the one who blessed condemned:
With Joseph in it, the house of the Egyptian is blessed by God. But with Christ ministering in it, how beyond words was the world blessed!… Yet it did not turn man's heart to God. False witness casts Joseph into Pharaoh's prison, where everything again comes under his hand. Under false accusation the Lord descends into a darker prison-house, and as a result He shows Himself Master of all there.
- Accused — a slave's word could not stand against his mistress's, so Joseph never tried to expose her.
- Spared — the sentence was prison, not death. Potiphar likely never believed the charge; he was keeping up appearances.
- Chained — Psalm 105 shows the cost was real: fetters, iron, and years of sameness that either make or break a person.
- Placed — the verse names the king's prison. That address is the first link in a chain that runs to the butler, to Pharaoh, and to the throne.
- Prospered — Satan put him in and kept him there, but God was behind the scenes. Better a prison with God than a palace without Him.
And Jehovah was with Joseph, and extended mercy to him, and gave him favour in the eyes of the chief of the tower-house.
Joseph has just been thrown into the king's prison on a false charge. The verse answers that injustice not with rescue but with a Person, and commentators ask why God's steadfast love reached Joseph inside the cell instead of lifting him out.
Earlier the same chapter said the LORD was with Joseph in Potiphar's house. It says it again here, after Joseph has lost everything he had. One writer shows what that repeat means.
Once again he comes into suffering. Once again he is misrepresented and slandered, though he deserves none of it, and thrown quickly into the dungeon. But Jehovah was with Joseph in the prison, just as much as in Potiphar's house. It mattered little where he was, since Jehovah was with him. What a difference it makes when God is with us — and God in that special relationship His people know, which the name "Jehovah" carries here as everywhere.
William Kelly (his translation reads "Jehovah" where the ESV has "the LORD")
The verse does not leave God's kindness as a feeling. It names the shape it took.
The Lord was with him as much in the time and place of his trouble as He had been in the days when he did well in Potiphar's house and estate. As a result He showed mercy to him. That mercy took the form of bringing him into the favour of the keeper of the prison, who clearly held absolute power within his own limited area.
Which prison it was mattered too.
He was put into that particular prison, "the place where the king's prisoners were confined." This proved to be a link in the chain of circumstances that connected him with ultimate triumph. Had it been another prison he would never have met the butler and baker who had offended the king.
God's favour did not cancel the suffering. Psalm 105 fills in what Genesis leaves unsaid about those years.
We learn how terrible this experience was from Psalm 105:18. Speaking of Joseph, it says, "his feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron." The margin of the Bible says, "his soul came into iron." Nothing is more depressing than captivity like that — day after day, night after night, summer and winter, year in and year out. The weariness, discomfort, sameness and hopelessness of it is a great test. Under it character either collapses or comes out.
Long injustice often makes a man bitter. Joseph stayed useful instead, and the jailer could see it.
How good it is that everyone who suffers for righteousness' sake will have the Lord's gracious sympathy. He will not give him up to self-pity and depression. The chief jailer of course saw that Joseph was an honorable man, not a common criminal. He soon trusted Joseph with unusual responsibilities for a prisoner. We are told again that the Lord was with Joseph and made whatever he did prosper. It may seem strange that this could be true of a prisoner, but it does show that Joseph was not a negative man, but positive and faithful.
Two people stood behind Joseph's imprisonment. Neither of them was in charge.
Satan uses Potiphar's wife, and later he uses Pharaoh's chief butler. The first he used to put Joseph into the dungeon; the second he used to keep him there, through his ungrateful forgetfulness. But it was all in vain. God was behind the scenes. His finger was guiding every spring of the vast machine of circumstances. When the right time came, He brought out the man He had purposed and set that man's feet in a large room.
Joseph had known a fine house without freedom, and now a cell with God in it.
Before this in Potiphar's home, God made everything go well. Now while Joseph was in the prison, God did the same. It is much better to live in a prison with God, than to live in a king's house without Him.
One writer sees more here than Joseph's own story.
Joseph had now tasted the bitterness of both the pit and the prison. Taken together they foreshadow Christ going down into death because of the hatred of men. But there the power of His hand was felt.
- Presence first. The same words cover the mansion and the dungeon. The LORD was with Joseph in both, so the place mattered little.
- Presence shows. God's mercy took a visible form. It gave Joseph favour with the keeper of the prison, who held total power in his own small world.
- Presence positions. He was in the one prison that held the king's offenders, the link that connected him with his later triumph.
- Presence preserves. Fetters and years of sameness test a man's character. The Lord's sympathy kept Joseph from self-pity and depression.
- Presence prevails. One woman put him in. One ungrateful man kept him there. Both failed, because God was behind the scenes and brought out His man at the right time.
And the chief of the tower-house committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the tower-house; and whatever they had to do there he did.
Joseph sits in the king's prison on a false charge, and yet the jailer hands him the keys. Why would a jailer trust a convicted slave, and what was God doing in a place that looked like the end of Joseph's story?
What happened in Potiphar's house happens again behind bars. Responsibility keeps landing in Joseph's hands.
Placed in servitude, he became the one who ran his master's house. Cast down into prison, once more all things fall into his hands. The prisoner in chains becomes the ruler of the prison. The official keeper of the prison found such a treasure in him that he gave him full powers. He "paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed."
Potiphar and the jailer reached the same verdict about Joseph. One writer traces both to the same cause.
That "God was with him" is what marks his condition, and he had plenty of evidence of it. A change of scene changes nothing here. As soon as he is in prison, we read the same record of him and see the same circumstances around him. The keeper of the prison puts the same confidence in him that Potiphar his master had. Under his hand in the prison all things prosper, as they had in the Egyptian's house. So Joseph had full witness from God that God was enough for him.
The man trusted with the prison carried no grudge. One writer draws out what is missing from Joseph's record.
Reading the story, we cannot miss one thing: he was a submissive man. His circumstances were hard and his position was trying. He was cut off from his relatives, a stranger in a foreign land. He had passed from the love of his father's home to slavery in the Egyptian's house, yet there is no complaining. He holds no bitter thoughts against his brothers. He makes no complaint about his hard lot, and not a single rebellious word against the ways of God.
Joseph does not treat prison as dead time. One writer turns this into a rule, with a warning about our hurry to be delivered.
The person who really leans on God improves the circumstances of trial he is in, whether they are temporary or permanent. No adverse circumstances can crush real living energy; they may limit and shape it... And Joseph is soon found to be as useful in prison as he was in the house of the captain of the guard... In every trial, however dark, there are gleams of light and relief. But full deliverance is often delayed by our anxiety to get it. God is to be the satisfaction of His servant, not the deliverance. So the deliverance is often postponed until we have no prospect or expectation of it.
Commentators read Joseph, falsely accused and yet master of his prison, as a picture of someone greater.
With Joseph in it, God blesses the house of the Egyptian. But with Christ serving in it, how beyond words the world was blessed!... Even this did not turn man's heart to God. False witness casts Joseph into Pharaoh's prison, where, however, all things come into his hand. Under a false accusation the Lord goes down into a darker prison-house, and there He shows Himself Master of all.
The prison his enemies chose for him became the place where God's purpose moved forward.
Notice the trial of Joseph and his righteous suffering in Egypt. They were meant to frustrate God's purpose and looked dead against it, yet they only brought about the very thing they seemed to prevent. His brothers sold him into Egypt, and Potiphar put him in prison. It was there that he met the cupbearer and the baker, and that meeting set him as governor over all the land of Egypt. We cannot push God out of His way. It is better to trust Him.
- Presence. Across Potiphar's house and the king's prison, one thing never changed: the Lord was with Joseph.
- Submission. No complaint, no bitterness toward his brothers, no rebellious word about God's ways. Others came to trust a man like that.
- Usefulness. A man leaning on God improves the circumstances he is stuck in. Joseph was as useful in prison as in Potiphar's house.
- Patience. God means to be the satisfaction of His servant, not just his rescuer. So rescue often waits until we stop expecting it.
- Purpose. The prison was not a detour but the road. The cell led to the cupbearer, and the cupbearer to the throne. Joseph points to the Lord, who entered a darker prison and came out its Master.
The chief of the tower-house looked not to anything under his hand, because Jehovah was with him; and what he did, Jehovah made it prosper.
Genesis 39 ends where it began — with a man who has lost everything and still has the one thing that matters. Joseph is a slave, then a convict on a false charge. Yet the chapter's closing line explains his whole life with one reason, and that reason is not his talent.
The verse does not say the jailer trusted Joseph because Joseph earned it. It gives a cause outside of Joseph altogether. The name used for God here matters too: "the LORD" in modern versions, "Jehovah" in older ones.
Here again he comes into suffering. Here again men wrongly misrepresent and slander him, and rush him into the dungeon. But Jehovah was with Joseph in the prison, just as much as in Potiphar's house. Verse 2 says, He was with Joseph. Verse 21 says again, He was with Joseph, "and showed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison." It mattered little where he was, since Jehovah was with him. What a difference it makes when God is with us — God in the special, known relationship that the name "Jehovah" implies here and everywhere.
Joseph's surroundings changed completely between chapter 39's opening and its close. The result did not change at all, and that repetition was itself a message to him.
As soon as he is in Potiphar's house, everything under his hand, committed to him by his master, prospers. And a change of scene works no change in this; for as soon as he is in prison, we read the same record of him, and see the same circumstances around him. The keeper of the prison puts the same confidence in him that his master Potiphar had; and under his hand in the prison all things prosper, as they had in the Egyptian's house. So Joseph had full witness from God that God was sufficient for him.
The keeper "paid no attention to anything" — a strange thing to say about a man in charge of the king's prisoners. The verse before explains why: he had handed everything over.
So we find everything in the prison "committed to Joseph's hand." The record makes the extraordinary statement that "whatever they did there, he was the doer of it." The young man thrown in as a prisoner becomes the super-efficient deputy of the jailer, and ends up controlling the whole place! We wonder whether any prison has seen anything close to this since that day. The keeper had no work and no worry left. He no doubt took the salary, and Joseph did the work.
Joseph was in that cell because he refused to sin. The Lord's care there reached his feelings, not only his work.
How good it is that everyone who suffers for righteousness' sake will have the gracious sympathy of the Lord! He will not give him up to self-pity and depression... It may seem strange that this could be true of a prisoner, but it does show that Joseph was not of a negative character, but positive and faithful.
Joseph suffered twice over, and men who shared none of his faith could see how he held up.
His brothers' cruelty was unnatural, and it ended in his slavery. Worse still was the new trial that came through a guilty woman. In both Joseph suffered, for love and for righteousness' sake. In both Jehovah stood by His wronged servant, and made His favour rest on him even while he suffered... Violence did not overcome him, and neither did corruption. He overcame evil with good. People who did not know God saw it, even if the evil state of his brothers blinded them for a while... Slaves and criminals do not, in themselves, win the approval of their guardians, as everyone knows.
The pit and the prison together cast a shadow forward. Joseph's hand in Potiphar's house and his hand in the dungeon point to two different things.
He had now tasted the bitterness of both pit and prison. Taken together they foreshadow Christ going down into death as a result of the malice of man. But there the power of His hand was felt. The skill of Joseph's hand in the house of Potiphar may remind us of the mighty hand of Christ in His matchless life. But in the closing verses of our chapter we see pictured the power of His mighty hand in the dark domain of death.
Put the chapter's two places side by side. The verse gives a plain rule for weighing any situation.
He did not look to anything that was under his hand, because God was with Joseph and made all that he did to go well. Before this, in Potiphar's home, God made everything go well. Now, while Joseph was in the prison, God did the same. It is much better to live in a prison with God than to live in a king's house without Him.
- Cause — The verse gives one explanation for Joseph's whole story, and it is not his ability: the Lord was with him.
- Constant — The same record follows Joseph into the great house and into the dungeon. A change of place changed nothing.
- Character — Suffering for doing right did not turn him bitter or passive. He overcame evil with good, and people who did not know God could see it.
- Charge — The prisoner ended up running the prison. The keeper checked nothing he had handed over.
- Christ — Pit and prison foreshadow the One who went down into death. His hand proved mighty even there.