Genesis 39:20

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.