Genesis 39.1-Potiphar Buys Joseph From the Ishmaelites

Wednesday November 22, 2006

Genesis: Genesis 39:1-Potiphar Buys Joseph from the Ishmaelites

Lesson # 243

Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 39:1.

This evening we will begin a study of Genesis 39 by noting Genesis 39:1, which presents a “Janus” section that briefly summarizes Genesis 37:36, moving from “sold” to “bought” after the parenthetical chapter 38.

Genesis 39:1 records an Egyptian officer, named Pharaoh purchasing Joseph from the Ishmaelites.

Genesis 39:1, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there.”

Genesis 39:1 is called a “Janus” section, which is a term named after the Roman god of doorways with one head and two faces looking in opposite directions and is a term applied to a literary unit that looks back and forth to unite the units before and after.

Genesis 37:36, “Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's officer, the captain of the bodyguard.”

Therefore, Genesis 39:1 forms a transition from the account of Joseph being sold by the Midianites to Potiphar as recorded in Genesis 37:36 to the account of Joseph in Potiphar’s house as recorded in Genesis 39:1-20 and sets the stage for the first scene in this account.

Genesis 39:1 shifts the setting of the story of Jacob and his family from Canaan to Egypt and from Joseph’s brothers and the Midianites to Joseph and Potiphar.

Genesis 39:1, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there.”

The name “Joseph” ([s@w)y) (yoseph) literally means, “He adds,” which is a play on the verb yasaph ([s^y*), “to add” and is also a prayer for another child, foreshadowing the birth of Benjamin.

“Joseph” was the eleventh son of Jacob that was born in Paddan Aram and he was the first child that Rachel bore to Jacob according to Genesis 30:22-24.

Joseph’s life is divided into three segments: (1) Birth to Seventeen Years of Age (Genesis 30:24-37:2) (2) Seventeen to Thirty Years of Age (Genesis 37:2-41:46) (3) Thirty Years to Death (Genesis 41:46-50:26).

“Egypt” is the proper noun mitsrayim (<y!r^x+m!) (mits-ra-yim), which means, “double straits.”

Genesis 10:6 records that “Mizraim” was the second son of Ham and was the ancestor of the ancient Egyptians as indicated in that his name was the customary name for Egypt in the Bible.

Ancient Egypt was divided into three geographical sections: (1) Upper Egypt in the south (2) Middle Egypt in the center (3) Lower Egypt or Delta in the north.

Most scholars divide into two sections: (1) Upper (2) Lower.

Upper Egypt is very narrow and surrounded by mountains, which rarely take the form of peaks and the northern coast of Egypt is low and barren, and without good harbors.

The political history of Egypt traditionally begins with Menes, the Upper ruler who conquered Lower Egypt according to Egyptian tradition.

The history of dynastic Egypt can be divided into the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom (2100-1800 B.C.) and the New Kingdom (1550-1069 B.C.).

The pyramids were built during the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom coincides with the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph whereas the birth of Moses and Exodus of Israel took place during the New Kingdom.

Eugene H. Merrill provides us an insightful comment regarding the time that Joseph lived in Egypt in relation to the Pharaohs of Egypt, he writes the following:

“Joseph was born in 1916 B.C., entered Egypt in 1899 B.C., rose to power in 1886, and died in 1806 at the age of 110. His whole lifespan was contemporaneous with the magnificent Dynasty 12 of Middle Kingdom Egypt, a dynasty which commenced in 1991 and ended in 1786 B.C. Though the chronology of this period is notoriously difficult to reconstruct, the Cambridge Ancient History dates used here cannot be far off. By this system of reckoning Joseph was sold into Egypt in the closing years of the reign of Ammenemes II (1929-1895). His was a peaceful reign characterized by an improved agricultural and economic life and by the fostering of close relationships with western Asia. Joseph would have been welcomed on the basis of his ethnic background. His imprisonment would have occurred under Sesostris II (1897-1878), approximately a decade after his arrival in Egypt (1889). It was Sesostris II whose dreams Joseph interpreted and whom he served as prime minister. It is significant that Sesostris II was in power at the time the nomarch of Beni Hasan welcomed the Semitic chieftain Abisha to his city, an event celebrated in the famous murals of Beni Hasan. Sesostris also imported and employed great numbers of Asiatic slaves and mercenaries, a policy, which shows anything but an anti-Semitic bias. Most striking of all perhaps were the massive land-reclamation and flood-control projects undertaken under the administration of this enlightened monarch. A principal feature of these was a canal dug to connect the Fayyum basin with the Nile, a canal whose ruins to this very day bear the name Bahr Yusef, “the River of Joseph.” Can it be that this name survives as a testimony to the contribution of Joseph to the public works projects of Sesostris II?” (Kingdom of Priests, pages 49-50, Baker Book House).

Genesis 39:1, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there.”

“Potiphar” is the proper noun potiphar (ro^yf!w)O) (po-tee-far), which is the shortened form of the Egyptian name Potiphera, which means, “he whom Ra (the sun-god) has given.”

The occupation of “Potiphar” is identified in Genesis 37:36 as “Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard” and “an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard.”

“Pharaoh” is the proper noun par`oh (hu)r+P^) (Hebrew: par-o) (English: phay-row), which means, “great house” and was the title of the kings of Egypt until 323 B.C.

The term was originally used to describe the palace of the king but around 1500 B.C. this term was applied to the Egyptian kings and meant something like "his honor, his majesty."

“Officer” is the noun saris (syr!s*), which refers to either court officials or to literal eunuchs and is regarded as a loanword from Akkadian referring to a high-ranking court official, which in early biblical literature appears to be the meaning.

However, in later times, the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians adopted the practice of castrating those who served in the royal palace and the harems.

Consequently, the term came to mean “eunuch” meaning a castrated male, thus one who is sexually impotent.

Kings did not wish to risk a son of a servant being an heir to the throne.

Potiphar was an officer of Pharaoh, yet he had a wife, thus clearly indicating that he was not castrated and therefore, not a eunuch.

Therefore, the expressions “Pharaoh’s officer” (seris par`oh)” and “an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh” (seris par`oh sar hattabbachim `ish mitsri) refer to the fact that Potiphar was a “high ranking official” under Pharaoh of Egypt.

The expression “the captain of the bodyguard” defines Potiphar’s role as a high ranking official under Pharaoh of Egypt.

“Bodyguard” is the noun tabbach (jBf^) (tab-bawkh), which means, “butcher,” or “cook” and is derived from the verb tavach (jb^f) (taw-vakh), which means, “to slaughter.”

Basically, the connotation of the verbal root is to deliberately “butcher” or “slaughter” an animal for food.

However, this concept is also used metaphorically to indicate the killing of human beings.

When tabbach appears in the plural as it does in Genesis 37:36, it means, “bodyguards” or “executioners.”

The word appears 32 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and appears twice in 1 Samuel 9:23f with the meaning “cook” and 30 times and always in the plural with the meaning “bodyguards” (cf. Genesis 39:1; 2 Kings 25:8; Jeremiah 39:9ff).

This latter meaning is unique to the Hebrew Old Testament.

The history of this term tells us that the bodyguards had as one of their responsibilities the slaughtering and preparing of animals for food (Compare Genesis 40:2) and these men functioned also as executioners.

Therefore, the expression “the captain of the bodyguard” reveals that Potiphar was the leader of not only the royal bodyguards offering protection to Pharaoh and his family but also they were the royal executioners for Pharaoh who executed capital sentences ordered by Pharaoh.

Therefore, we can see that through the providence of God Joseph was taken to capital city, which during the 12th Dynasty was Memphis and sold to a high ranking official in Pharaoh’s cabinet, namely, Potiphar.

The providence of God is the divine outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory and expresses the fact that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or fate but by God.

Therefore, the fact that Joseph ended up in Egypt with Potiphar did not happen by chance or fate but because God ordained for it to take place in order to fulfill His plan for Jacob’s family and to bring glory to Him.

God has figured into the divine decree so as to fulfill His sovereign will and thus to bring glory to Himself not only the resentment of Joseph’s brothers towards him but also their selling him into slavery and Joseph ending up in Egypt.

God rendered certain to take place that Joseph would end up in Egypt and be sold to Pharaoh’s officer, and captain of the bodyguard, Potiphar and it was thus a part of God’s plan.

The fact that Joseph would end up in Egypt, was part of God’s plan for Jacob’s family from eternity past.

The fact that Joseph ended up with Potiphar, a high ranking official in Pharaoh’s government in Egypt was part of God’s chosen and adopted plan for not only Joseph but his entire family.

The fact that Joseph ended up in Egypt was part of God’s eternal purpose according to the counsels of His own will for His own glory.

The fact that Joseph ended up in Egypt was known by God in eternity past before anything was created and was sovereignly determined by God to take place at the time these events did.

It was God’s eternal and immutable will that Joseph would be purchased as a slave by Potiphar and end up in Egypt and God decreed that this would take place in time and the precise order of events leading up to these events and the manner in which these events would transpire.

The Lord looked down the corridors of time and decreed to take place that Joseph would end up in Egypt.

Genesis 39:1, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there.”

Genesis 39:1 records that Potiphar bought Joseph from the “Ishmaelites” whereas Genesis 37:36 records that he was sold to Potiphar by the “Midianites.”

The names “Ishmaelites” and “Midianites” in Genesis 37:25, 27, 28, 36 and Genesis 39:1 are synonymous terms, which is confirmed by Judges 8:24, which says of the Midianites “they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.”

The use of these two terms in Genesis 37 indicates that the term “Ishmaelite” was as a generic term or general designation for “nomadic traders” or “desert tribes” whereas “Midianite” indicates a specific ethnic affiliation.

Or in other words, the term “Midianites” in Genesis 37 refers to a specific ethnic affiliation among the league of desert tribes or nomadic traders known by the generic use of the term “Ishmaelites.”