വ്യാഖ്യാനം നിലവിൽ ഇംഗ്ലീഷിൽ മാത്രമേ ലഭ്യമാകൂ. മലയാള പരിഭാഷ പുരോഗമിക്കുകയാണ്.
Genesis 39 — How Can I Do This Great Wickedness?
Joseph is bought by Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh's guard. The Lord prospers everything he touches. Potiphar makes him overseer. Potiphar's wife persistently tempts him to lie with her; he refuses, fleeing her grasp and leaving his garment. She falsely accuses him. Joseph is thrown into prison — where the Lord is with him still.
“How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
— Genesis 39:9
- v.1-6 The Lord prospers Joseph; he is made overseer
- v.7-12 The temptation by Potiphar's wife; Joseph flees
- v.13-20 The false accusation; Joseph cast into prison
- v.21-23 The Lord is with Joseph in prison too
Joseph names three obstacles to the sin — the trust of his master, the marriage covenant, and most of all, sin against God. Notice the order. The deepest reason is the highest.
How can I sin against God? The same God Joseph could not see was the One whose presence he most reverenced. The presence Joseph could feel — the woman pulling at his garment — held no weight against the presence he could not see.
Day by day — the temptation was not once. It was persistent. Joseph had to refuse not once but many times. The character that resists today must also resist tomorrow.
Or to be with her — Joseph refused even her presence. Not just the act but the proximity that made the act possible. Modern advice: flee not just the sin but the situation that produces it.
Joseph fled. He did not negotiate, did not stay to argue, did not even retrieve his garment. He left what could be left and got him out.
Some temptations cannot be argued with. They can only be fled. The believer who lingers to disprove the seducer's logic usually falls. Run.
The reward of his righteousness in this life was prison. Doing right does not always produce immediate vindication. Sometimes it produces immediate consequences.
1 Peter 4:14-16 — if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye. The path to the throne sometimes runs through the prison. Joseph would prove it.
The chapter that began the Lord was with Joseph (verse 2) ends the Lord was with Joseph (verse 21). Slavery and prison did not change the fundamental fact.
Wherever Joseph went, the Lord went. The man who has God with him cannot be put anywhere God is not. The prison cell becomes a place of favor when the Lord is in it.
When temptation pulls at your garment, flee. Do not argue, do not bargain, do not stay to prove you are stronger than it. Leave the garment if you must. Most falls happen in the conversations that did not need to happen with the people who should have been left at a distance.
Joseph in prison, falsely accused, suffering for righteousness — the type of Christ continues. Like Joseph, Christ was the innocent one accused by those whose advances He refused. Like Joseph, He was cast down to come up. The garment left behind in the woman's hand foreshadows the garments stripped from Christ at the cross — innocence proved by the very evidence used against Him.
The first thing the chapter says. Before any details of Joseph's rise, the text states the foundation: the Lord was with Joseph. Everything else flows from that single fact.
A prosperous man... in the house of his master the Egyptian. Joseph was prospering inside slavery. Circumstances of bondage do not prevent God's blessing. Some of His most fruitful servants have served from constrained lives.