And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
The pressure on Joseph was not one moment of crisis. It came every day, and his answer never changed. The verse adds something easy to miss: he refused her company as well as the act she wanted.
A siege, not a single attack
Hamilton Smith reads the daily repetition here as strategy, and follows what the enemy does when it fails:
Hamilton SmithThe devil, however, is not content with isolated attacks upon the children of God. He will wage a continual warfare. It was so with Joseph. The temptation came "day after day" (v. 10), and the attacks grew more persistent until Joseph flees from it. That foils the devil. But having failed as the tempter, he now becomes the persecutor (vv. 13-18).
What held him
The chapter just before this one told how Judah fell. F. B. Hole sets the two men side by side and finds the thought that carried Joseph through a long trial:
F. B. HoleThen came a time of fierce and prolonged testing, and we see how great is the contrast with Judah's action in the previous chapter. There Judah sinned at once, and hardly saw it as sin. Here the testing met him day after day. Two things held him: his fear of God, and his sense of the great wickedness of the seduction put before him... If he had given in, he would have sinned against the woman, against Potiphar and against himself. But the thought that controlled and saved him was "against God."
Days counted before God
F. A. Hughes finds the point in that rhythm — Joseph lived by a standard God had not yet written down:
F. A. HughesThe wife of Potiphar spoke to Joseph day by day, seducing him. Evil comes to us day by day in this seductive way. That is why we must keep numbering our own days before God... Each day he lives, he is living before God. Joseph is numbering his days according to God. He lives out God's Commandments before they are given — "You shall not commit adultery" — and counts his days by that.
Distance, not debate
He would not even be in her company. One writer turns that refusal into a rule, and denies that walking away is cowardice:
Numerical Bible NotesHis way for us is always one that makes us feel our own weakness. Our prayer can never be, "Lead us into temptation," and therefore we are never to act as if this were our prayer. In all cases where escape is possible without disloyalty, we are to flee rather than face it. "So flee youthful passions." "Abstain (hold off) from the passions of the flesh." Flee, as Joseph fled — and there was, perhaps, no bolder man.
When the charm fails, the hatred starts
Refusing had a price. Commentators read Potiphar's wife in different ways. Smith sees the devil working through her; another writer sees her as more than one woman:
The Bible TreasuryThe adversary of souls then prepared a snare for him, and he had the integrity and dignity to flee from it. It only appealed to the depravity of his nature, and offered no relief to his condition as a slave. We may regard Potiphar's wife as a picture of the world; she stands for its attractions. She fails to win the prosperous servant of God, and so she becomes his fiercest and most unscrupulous foe.
The one it points to
Joseph came out of this clean, and suffering followed. William Kelly reads that pattern as a preview, and marks its limit:
William KellySo here we have the holy young man resisting the tempter, bearing grief, suffering though he had done no wrong. And this is grace in the day of trial... "But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps"... Joseph could be no real picture of the atonement. But of Christ suffering unjustly and in grace, he was a blessed foreshadow.
Summary
- Day by day — the pressure. The attack was not one hour of weakness but a campaign. The enemy keeps coming and grows more persistent, until you obey him or flee.
- Day by day — the guard. Joseph lived each day before God, keeping a commandment God had not yet given.
- Day by day — the answer. Judah sinned at once. One thought held Joseph: this would be sin against God — not just against the woman, Potiphar, or himself.
- Day by day — the distance. He refused her company, not just what she asked. Where escape is possible without disloyalty, flee; Joseph fled, and he was no coward.
- Day by day — the cost. The world that cannot seduce you will turn on you. Joseph kept a clear conscience and suffered for it, and in that he foreshadows Christ.