The Fate of Potiphar's Wife

 Then Potiphar's wife approached Joseph every day that he would lie with her and Joseph refused.  Potiphar your husband has denied me nothing in his house except you. How can I do this evil?

One day, alone in the house with him, she approached him and grabbed his garment, and again sought that he would lie with her. Again he refused. And this time, he ran. But he left the garment behind.

She then took the garment and when Potiphar arrived, she confronted her husband and accused Joseph of having stalked her while he was away. 

Angry at having been what he thought was betrayed like this by his chief slave, Potiphar had Joseph imprisoned based on this calumny made up by his wife.

Joseph, miserable for being put in a prison for something that he had not done, but that he had refused to betray Potiphar, was nevertheless prospered here even in jail.

He was so good and as effective at doing his prison duties that the prison warden promoted Joseph to a full trustee. Then he put him in charge of all the other inmates of this ancient Egyptian prison hell hole.

Then one day, two officials from Pharoah's palace were cast into the prison. 

One of them was the wine steward who prepared the Pharoah's wine cup and served him.  The other was the Pharoah's baker.

One night each of them had a dream, but neither could make sense of it.

Both had heard of a certain spiritual connection between Joseph and Joseph's God.  They had been told of how this Hebrew slave and now prisoner had originally risen to the top of Potiphar's house, Potiphar being the Pharoah's chief steward. 

How he had landed in prison over an accusation of sexual assault on Potiphar's wife, which was basically unproven.  

They also heard of how Joseph had ascended to single-handedly running the prison for the prison warden.  How he kept his own spirit up and positive despite such a horrific fate.

They went to see Joseph and asked him if he could interpret their dreams.

Joseph stated that he was not empowered to do that but that his God, was. And would if he would pray for that.

He asked them to tell them the details they could remember from their dreams.

The wine steward said that he saw three clusters of grapes appear to him.

The baker said that he had three loaves of bread and that birds would eat those loaves, leaving him with nothing.

Joseph asked them to wait for a day and he would return with interpreting these upon praying to God.

The next day, Joseph returned to each with the answered interpretation.

The wine steward, he said, would be returned to his former position in three days and again be serving the Pharoah his cup of wine.

He, the baker, he said, in three days, would be hanged and birds would eat his head after his death.

It happened in that manner.  They reinstated the cupbearer or wine steward to his former position.  And they hung the chief baker. And it all happened as Joseph had prophesied.

But of Joseph, nothing happened. He had asked the cupbearer to give the Pharoah a word for him to see if they would release him.

For a few months, it appeared that nothing would change for Joseph.

A year longer passed. Then it happened.  Pharoah too had a dream, and the night later another one. Pharoah summoned his magicians and sorcerers and advisers that they would interpret his dreams and none could.

One day, the wine servant remembered Joseph and how he had interpreted his dream about being reinstated and how it turned out exactly that way. 

And how the chief baker had his own dream, which Joseph had also interpreted, and had fared badly.

Then he went and apologized to Pharoah for not having come forward sooner and told Pharoah of his dream.

Pharoah was at his wits' end and felt troubled, much distressed. None of his ministers, nor magicians, nor sorcerers, nor advisors were at all useful in interpreting his dreams to him.

Pharoah ordered Joseph to be taken from his prison and bathed, shaved, dressed, and to appear before him in the palace.

Joseph asked the Pharoah to tell him the dreams and that he would then fast and pray that they, the dreams, would be interpreted for him.

The Pharoah told him he had seen seven cows, full and fat, walking around in a field.  But later, seven emaciated, starving cows appeared and ate the fat cows. But rather than fattened at having eaten those cows, the famished cows remained famished and emaciated.

He told Joseph also of seven stalks or ears of wheat that were golden brown and full and thick.  

But that later seven emaciated, famished stalks or ears of wheat appeared and ate the seven fat, beautiful stalks of wheat. 

Despite having devoured those fat stalks, the emaciated ones remained in their original state. None fattened.

That night, Joseph prayed and fasted all night for the interpretation.

The next day, they brought again Joseph before the Pharoah.

He told the Pharoah that God had interpreted the dream for him.

He stated that both dreams were two versions of the same dream, that they were a warning of things to come.

He said that Egypt would go through a period of unparalleled prosperity and plenty.  But then disaster would strike the entire region and a horrendous famine would devour all the agriculture. 

That the period of plenty, which would last seven years, followed by a seven-year famine. This would erase all traces and memory of the period of plenty.

The Pharoah asked they could do about it so that Egypt would be prepared to face the bad times when they struck.

Joseph said that there was one solution.  He said that a percentage of all the grain and other produce reaped during the prosperous period should be tithed and warehoused and preserved, for when the famine struck, the economy would not be devastated.  

He advised the Pharoah to appoint an official to oversee the storage project.

The Pharoah looked at his ministers, all his officials at that moment.  He said, "You alone have interpreted this dream, you alone have proposed to be the only plausible solution to this matter.  Therefore, I appoint you to be governor of all Egypt. 

Only on my throne will maintain a level of authority over you.  He took off one of his rings of authority from his finger and put it on one of Joseph's fingers. He gave Joseph an Egyptian name. He gave Joseph as a wife, the daughter of one of the highest Egyptian priests.  

It was that Potiphar was still alive and actually now worked for Joseph.  His wife too, the woman who had falsely accused Joseph of having sexually assaulted her, was also still alive.

Through an intermediary, Potiphar sought an audience with Joseph.  He offered amends. He also pleaded with Joseph to spare his wife's life and not have her executed.

Joseph then spoke.  "Am I God that I should decide who is to live and who is to die, to seek vengeance and decree death?  No.  Your wife sought my destruction through deceit.  Her judgment will have to be decided by God; I am not God.  

Vengeance is not mine. If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to God alone.  Your wife's punishment shall be the memory that lives inside her of having resorted to evil to satisfy her pride. If she feels remorse, she should repent and ask for the forgiveness of God.  

What she meant for evil, God used it for good. So your wife's evildoing ended up doing some good. She shall not be harmed nor made to face the laws of the courts of men.

"You may go in peace, Potiphar. Yes, you put me in prison and believed the lies of your wife and not the truth of your servant. But God removed me from the prison not to condemn those who abused me but to save those who would hunger.  

I have no desire to avenge myself upon your nor upon your wife. You will have nothing to fear from me."

Joseph's measures saved the Egyptian economy and resulted in his father and his brothers coming to Egypt. A sizeable Hebrew colony grew in Egypt.  But their stay in Egypt would be a painful one for a very long time.

Yes, Potiphar's wife had lied and accused an innocent man of a vile evil.  Joseph had grown in status, in political power. 

He could order the deaths of both Potiphar and of her.  Joseph however was a holy man, a man who respected God and the possessions of God, including the right to take revenge. He stayed on the high road. 

 Potiphar's wife, had she lived in a unique environment, could have been executed.  Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union for close to two decades, had sent millions of Russians to the gulag, to starve and to die. 

Had this woman done that to Stalin, she likely would have faced a ruthless fate at the hands of Stalin. 

The Batista government had captured and imprisoned Fidel Castro after the assault on the Moncada barracks.  During his period in jail, he was allowed to see his mistress and have sexual relations.  He was also married and so he had cheated on his wife.  

The warden of the prison knew this and let out the secret of Castro's unfaithfulness to his wife.  This caused Castro's divorce.

Later in 1959, when Castro rose to power after the revolution, he sought the warden and had him shot.

It's dangerous to do harm to someone in a lowly position because Life has a way of taking incredible turns and taking a nobody and putting exceptional power into that nobody's hands.  

A movie made about Genghis Khan ended in a warning:  "Be careful of that tiger cub, you're kicking around. That tiger cub will be a powerful tiger one day."

Such a proverb could easily apply to the story of Potiphar's wife and Joseph.

Meek Vengeance

 I once wanted to be a gangster or at least a bully. I had been a nerd being picked on for quite a while, and I wanted payback.

I told my dad one morning as he was driving me to the school of my intentions of pushing my weight around, hoping to get some grudging respect. He said it was doable, but that my plan could backfire against me in a major way.

He told me a story to illustrate his point.

A certain old man was seated and chatted with some neighbors in an outdoor cafe while their clothes were in the laundromat being cleaned.

There was the old man, a young woman in her early to mid-thirties, and two or three middle-aged men from the neighborhood.  This old man now had recently moved to this neighborhood in Miami, Florida from his native Belgium, the Flemish part of the country. 

Now, the area was mostly inhabited with Cuban-Americans and the old gentleman was fluent in various languages, including Spanish, which was the language being used here.

About fifteen minutes passed. Then there appeared the neighborhood thug, a nineteen-year-old, handsome, muscular, and tall guy.  He took a look at the old man, and because he could, he pulled his hand out of his jeans pocket and smacked the old man hard in the cheek. He then stood there and stared to see how the old man would react.  All eyes were on the old guy, the old man who had just been struck.

The old guy calmly, silently looked at the tough guy. He didn't look at any of the others.  He sighed.  He touched his mouth. The corner of it had a little blood from the blow.  The old guy took the can of soft drink and gulped a bit of beverage.  But while doing this, he never took his gaze away from the tough who had just smacked him.

"Hey, old faggot! I just smacked you and I enjoyed it.  And I shit on your piece of the shit mother who brought you into this world.  Show me if you're a man. C'mon get up, do something manly, show me you're not a piece of a shit cocksucker!  Get up, I said. Hey, don't you hear me?  I said, get up motherfucker! C'mon! Show me who's boss here."

The old man remained silent.  He didn't even grimace at any of the insults hurled at him by the tough dude.  The tough guy was visibly upset at not being addressed.  He said, "Hey, you want me to smack you again, you piece of shit, cocksucking, old geezer?" 

At that moment, the old man. He pulled out his wallet and took out a fifty-dollar bill and extended it to the tough guy.  "What the fuck? What is the matter with you, old geezer, you dumb fuck,  you giving me money after I just smacked your cheek?  You're squatting down and letting me bareback you like that?  I don't believe this is happening.  You're more full of shit than I ever imagined.  Okay, okay. Gimme that dough.  I'm going to do Ramona. She gives mind-blowing blowjobs.  And then I'm going to fuck the hell out of her, and I'll give here these fifty bucks you just handed me. Yeah, I'm going to do that now.  Hey, bye sucker!"

The tough guy walked away.  Everybody looked at the old man with the most contempt for his servile response.  The old man had expected this reaction.  No one spoke to him now. They couldn't even look at him.  

The woman stared disgustedly at the old man. She still was in a state of disbelief over the overmeek response of the old man.

The old man looked at her and smiled broadly.  The woman looked away.

The conversation continued.  The old man now having no one to talk to since they wouldn't even look at him, grabbed a Spanish language newspaper lying on a nearby table and began reading.

A half hour more passed. Nothing was going on.

Then suddenly, there rang a loud gunshot.

People began screaming and running.  

A young man who lived in the neighborhood came running to the group.

"Somebody shot Pablo, the neighborhood tough!  He's dead.  He's lying face down in a pool of his own blood."

Gradually, all the people began looking at the old man very nervously, especially the woman.  The old man looked at each of them with a cruel, cynical smile.

A year or two more passed since that incident.  The old man finally died.

The Miami Herald published the obituary of the old man.  He had been a World War II hero, a tough and fearless Resistance fighter who had killed about twenty Nazi soldiers and three high ranking Nazi officers in Belgium.  The Gestapo had captured him, and he endured their torture without breaking.  After the war, he became a mercenary soldier and fought in the Congo savagely and without a minimum of fear. Finally, he tired of it all and retired and emigrated to live in Miami, Florida.

After telling me the story, my dad then asked me why did I think that the old man had given the tough guy that money after he'd been slapped? Did I think that the old man was a coward?

Even though I was a fifteen year old kid, I knew how to think.

"Dad, the old man gave the tough lad that money so that it would go to his head and do something so stupid out of pride and arrogance that he would get himself killed.  He murdered the tough guy by proxy. He messed with the bully's head and made that guy take on the wrong victim, one who would finally kill him."

"You're right, son. That's what he did and why he gave the bully that money.  Do you still want to be a bully yourself now?"

"Hell no, dad. I'd be taking my own life in my own hands if I did something that moronic."

"Well said, son.  You stick with your books, get yourself educated. And when you're done learning, you'll always have physically powerful men do your fighting for you and it will be their bodies that will suffer and you'll sit back in comfort."