God is the main “character” in the Bible’s story of salvation. He orchestrates His plan, working through and around the evil and pride of kings and lesser men to accomplish His ultimate goal. Thousands of years after Adam and Eve decided to play God and plunged us into the bondage of sin, God has not forgotten His promise to provide a savior. I say this to remind us that when things look darkest, God is working and will win the battle against evil. No king, no power, or Satan himself will defeat Him.
If you have been following my recent blogs about Joseph, you realize things are not going well for him. He has been sold as a slave to an Egyptian official named Potiphar. When you put this in the larger context of God’s plan to use Abraham and his family to provide His solution to our sin problem, the things that are happening paint a bleak picture for us. We’ve already seen how God provided a miracle son for Abraham and Sarah and worked through the dishonesty of Jacob and his mother to position Jacob to receive the promise.
When Joseph is sold to Potiphar, the promise is challenged by a force outside the chosen family. Potiphar and his boss, Pharaoh, have no knowledge or interest in this God and couldn’t care less about His plans to save the world. They worship a different god, and their interest is to stay in power and get on with running their kingdom. But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is interested in them and their roles in His plan to bring a savior into the world. Who are these men who are brought into God’s plan by the evil act of Joseph’s brothers?
We first learn of Potiphar in Genesis 37:36, that the merchants “sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar; one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.”
We know very little about Potiphar, except that he was an important official of the pharaoh. He had access to the most powerful person in Egypt. Some scholars think he may have been the executioner for the king, meaning he would have had the power of life and death at his disposal. This would have a significant bearing on Joseph’s life, considering what happens later between Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
We are not told how much Potiphar paid for Joseph, but he must have seen promise and purpose in this well-built, handsome young man. Potiphar was observant, approving Joseph’s work and selecting him to be the steward of his household. He realized how he benefitted from how God blessed Joseph’s work and placed complete trust in him. I believe his respect and trust for Joseph were so strong that he decided against killing him when his wife accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. He opted to put him in prison to pacify his wife. We see no other connection or interaction between Joseph and Potiphar, and Joseph will remain imprisoned until the Pharaoh has dreams none of his wise men can interpret. We will get into more of this in the next blog. This is the little we know about Potiphar, and some of what I have said is conjecture on my part.
Who is the pharaoh? If you decide to research this, you will be confronted with many possible identities. Some conjecture that he was a king, not a pharaoh of the Egyptian dynasty. I read several possibilities and saw names I could neither understand nor pronounce. I came from my research without a solid idea of who this person was. Who was the pharaoh when Potiphar bought Joseph? I don’t know, but I do know that he was powerful, ruling a vast empire and an important economy. He was likely a religious man, worshipping the gods of his culture. He does not know Joseph’s God but is a “dreamer” without anyone to interpret. We will discover him as wise, selecting Joseph as second-in-command in Egypt.
Are you seeing the big picture? Where do you see the hand of God orchestrating and directing this drama? Why was Joseph sold to Potiphar and not someone outside the pharaoh’s court? Why was this particular man chosen to purchase Joseph? What about his personality placed him where he was when Joseph was brought to Egypt?
How was God working in the pharaoh’s life to connect him with Joseph? And how is this pharaoh somehow unknowingly involved in God’s plan to bring the offer of salvation to you and me?
How great and wonderful is our God!!
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