JOSEPH: PRINCE OF EGYPT - THREE

Find posted below the third installment of my Joseph series. The first two chapters can be found in my articles. It is my prayer that those who read will find meaning, instruction, wisdom and revelation therein.

THREE

CONCUPISCENCE

As the next part of the narration reveals, it was not only Potiphar that favored Joseph in that household. While the favor of the master of the house had its locus in Joseph’s administrative skills, the mistress of the house was just as enamored, with his fair genetic qualities. Apparently, Joseph had inherited his mother’s good looks. He was by all accounts and by his mistress’ particular fancy, extremely physically attractive. As events would bear out, Joseph’s handsome features proved to be a burden and a disadvantage to him in this circumstance. The sheer irony of good looks was about to take a bite out of him. In spite of his notable accomplishments, he was a subject of sexual objectification. For all those who have experienced or who will experience this affliction, you have a kindred spirit in Joseph.

It was not enough that he had excelled in his work; he now had to fend off one of the few people with a better claim to his master’s affection than he. For the first time in his life, Joseph knew the pain of being a prey of one better placed in a household. This state of affairs is significant for a few reasons. The persecution Joseph endured at the hands of his master’s wife was a divinely orchestrated, deliberate and delicate object lesson for him, by subjecting him to the pain of disenfranchisement that his brothers endured as a result of Joseph’s successful monopolization of his father’s love and affection. Furthermore, it would have compelled Joseph to identify with the plight of his brothers, and perhaps made it easier for him to forgive them when the time came. In sum, Joseph could aver with accuracy and justification that his brothers had wronged him grievously, but he could not claim to be without fault in the matter.  

Think of it. Things were going well for Joseph. He had made astonishing progress from a vastly inferior position to a preeminent one. He had literally worked his way up, from the bottom. He had achieved the American Dream before there was an American Dream. He was successful, respected and favored. Potiphar looked at him and saw an excellent and trustworthy servant capable of administering his entire estate. His wife looked askance and saw a plaything. There is no accounting for taste as they say. Even at the zenith of his success, the apprehension of Joseph’s worth differed from husband to wife. Joseph’s master’s wife did not keep her thoughts to herself unfortunately. She was determined to play, come what may.

Mrs. Potiphar was not the shy or retiring type. She was full frontal and brazen. She wasn’t about suggestiveness, cues, coyness, coquettishness or artifice. She was explicit and forward. She took her pleasure at her whim. It was probably not her first time. Her boldness and persistence gives credence to the assumption that she had seen the likes of Joseph before and had developed a system for dominating them. This was not some unlikely love story featuring a slave and his mistress. There was nothing romantic about it. This was a femme fatale without the allure, a man-eater, a Venus flytrap. She did not give Joseph a choice. She gave him an ultimatum. In doing so, she set her own price for Joseph’s continued success and safety in her household. In her mind, her husband was entitled to Joseph’s excellent stewardship just as she was entitled to his acquiescence, sexually. Lest it be forgotten, Joseph was a slave.

So she propositioned Joseph. However, Joseph was a match for her. He was neither flattered nor intimidated. Joseph was equally explicit and categorical in his refusal. He respectfully but firmly told her that his love for God and his loyalty to his master, her dear husband, precluded him. In Joseph’s view, Mrs. Potiphar’s choice of sport was a ‘wicked thing’. A thousand sermons have been preached about Joseph’s righteous stand here. Suffice it to say, in addition, that Joseph knew where his loyalties lay. His fellowship with God inured him to the vanity and pleasure on offer and stiffened his spine to the intimidation and risk of incurring the wrath of the mistress of the house.

Joseph was dealt a bad hand here. There were no good or comfortable choices available to him. It was a Catch-22 situation after a fashion. Either way, the situation was fraught. Giving in to his mistress would imperil the righteous imperative that governed his life. It would be a betrayal of his master’s trust. It would also introduce into his life the duality and deceit of appearing to be loyal without actually being so. Rejecting her advances made his life instantaneously more difficult and earned him an implacable and vicious foe.

In turning her down, Joseph demonstrated that he preferred the fellowship of God to the comfort of success and preeminence however dearly won. This was no easy thing for someone with his particular history of dispossession and subsequent success. If Joseph’s faith were a matter of convenience or the restoration of what he had lost, he would have succumbed. 

Meanwhile, Joseph’s mistress was not to be deterred. She spoke to him day after day. She was persistent and insistent. Perhaps his refusal fueled her concupiscence and anger. She turned Joseph’s workplace into a hostile working environment. Joseph began to avoid ‘madam’. The success of that tactic was limited. In fact, it failed spectacularly. This was sexual harassment at its most insidious - a ‘me too’ moment of ancient vintage. The mistress of the house bid her time and chose her moment with predatory cunning. It was time for the physical assault.

It was a day when everyone else contrived to leave the house. None of the servants or slaves was inside. Joseph went about his normal business, perhaps too busy to notice the lack of human traffic. His mistress however, was all too aware of the opportunity. She ambushed Joseph and as he tried to retreat, she caught him by his cloak. Picture this déjà vu moment in which another piece of outer clothing features prominently in determining Joseph’s destiny. In the last episode, his coat of many colors was used as a prop to tell the story of his demise. This time, his cloak was to be the instrument with which to frame him.

When his mistress accosted him and grabbed his garment, Joseph left it in her hand and fled the house. When Mrs. Potiphar realized that the altercation was about to be public knowledge, she coolly and expeditiously concocted a cover story. She turned on a dime and transformed herself into a victim. A damsel in distress no less. She gave a preview performance to her household servants, hastily summoned from where they had been banished outdoors. Having primed that pump and seized the narrative, she awaited the return of her husband. That performance served to whip up latent xenophobic sentiments and put the house in an uproar ahead of Potiphar’s arrival. When Potiphar arrived, he was treated to the main show. She repeated word for word what she had told her servants in the dress rehearsal. This was no panicky cover up. It was the work of a practiced liar. Potiphar reacted typically, particularly when his wife implicated him in the matter, by referring to Joseph as his favored slave who had taken liberties with his master’s wife.

At this point, Joseph’s life was in the balance. The ultimate aim of his spurned mistress’ machinations was to have him killed. She was that vicious. That outcome would also serve the practical purpose of silencing Joseph permanently and preserve her version of events for the record. It was thus a miracle that Joseph escaped death and ended up with a prison sentence instead. The second time he was spared that fate.

#WRITTEN BY Ebere Nwankpa.