The Fugitive and the Femme Fatale Text: Genesis 39:6b-18
Introduction: The World's Two Battlefields
Every man lives his life on two battlefields simultaneously. The first is the external world of circumstances, of promotions and betrayals, of favor and affliction. The second is the internal world of the heart, the mind, the will. It is the battleground of temptation, integrity, and faith. The great error of our therapeutic age, and a great many Christians have been taken captive by it, is to believe that the external battle is the one that truly matters. If circumstances are good, then we are good. If we are afflicted, then we are victims. But the Bible teaches us the exact opposite. The internal battle is the decisive one. A man can be a slave in Egypt and be a free man. A man can be a king in Jerusalem and be the most pathetic slave in the world.
Joseph, in our text today, is a case study in this principle. Externally, his circumstances have improved dramatically from the pit his brothers threw him in. He has gone from betrayed brother to beloved slave, from the pit to Potiphar's penthouse. The Lord is with him, and everything he touches prospers. He is handsome, capable, and trusted. By every worldly metric, he is a success story. But it is precisely at the moment of his greatest external success that he faces his most severe internal test. It is one thing to trust God in the pit; it is another thing entirely to obey God in the palace when a soft and easy sin comes knocking.
The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife is not a quaint moral tale about "just saying no." It is a clash of kingdoms. It is the kingdom of God, represented by Joseph's covenant faithfulness, colliding with the kingdom of darkness, represented by the raw, undisciplined lust of this pagan woman. This is a story about true masculinity, which is not defined by sexual conquest, but by principled self-control and loyalty to God. It is a story about the nature of temptation, which is persistent, opportunistic, and utterly irrational. And it is a story about the cost of righteousness, which in this fallen world, is often misunderstanding, false accusation, and unjust suffering. But as we will see, a prison cell with God is infinitely better than a palace without Him.
The Text
Now Joseph was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance. And it happened after these events that his master’s wife set her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has given all that he owns into my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” So it happened that as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her. Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. Then she seized him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. Now it happened, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, that she called to the men of her household and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to laugh at us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. Now it happened that when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” And she placed his garment beside her until his master came home. Then she spoke to him with these words, saying, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to laugh at me; and as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”
(Genesis 39:6b-18 LSB)
The Setup and the Solicitation (vv. 6b-7)
The stage is set with a simple observation that becomes the pivot point for the entire conflict.
"Now Joseph was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance. And it happened after these events that his master’s wife set her eyes on Joseph and said, 'Lie with me.'" (Genesis 39:6b-7)
Joseph's good looks, a gift from God, become the occasion for the temptation. This is a critical point. Blessings can become snares. Success, beauty, talent, and favor can all become tripwires if our hearts are not anchored in the fear of the Lord. The problem was not Joseph's appearance, but the adulterous heart of Potiphar's wife. She "set her eyes" on him. This is not a passing glance; it is the language of covetous desire. She looked at him not as a person, but as an object to be consumed for her gratification.
Her proposition is blunt, crude, and imperious: "Lie with me." There is no romance here, no seduction in the soft sense. This is a command from a woman of power to a slave. She believes she has the right to use him. This is the native language of sin. It does not ask; it demands. It does not seek to serve; it seeks to devour. She represents the spirit of our age, which has reduced sexuality to a raw, animalistic appetite, detached from covenant, commitment, and consequence.
The Principled Refusal (vv. 8-9)
Joseph's response is immediate, reasoned, and rooted in a clear understanding of his loyalties. He does not hesitate.
"But he refused and said to his master’s wife, 'Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has given all that he owns into my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?'" (Genesis 39:8-9)
Notice the structure of his argument. It is a master class in resisting temptation. First, he appeals to his loyalty to his human master. "My master trusts me completely." Joseph understands the principle of stewardship. Everything he manages belongs to Potiphar. To sleep with Potiphar's wife would be the highest form of embezzlement. He is arguing from the basis of delegated authority and trust. He recognizes that this woman is not his to take; she belongs to another. This is the foundation of a civilized society: respecting boundaries, honoring trusts, and refusing to take what is not yours.
But he does not stop there. He goes deeper, to the ultimate foundation of all morality. He moves from the horizontal (sin against Potiphar) to the vertical (sin against God). "How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?" This is the knockout blow. Joseph understands that all sin, no matter who it harms on the human level, is ultimately an act of cosmic treason against the Creator. David would later say the same thing after his own catastrophic failure with Bathsheba: "Against You, You only, have I sinned" (Psalm 51:4). Joseph knows that Potiphar's marriage bed is not just Potiphar's property; it is an institution established and sanctified by God. To violate it is to spit in the face of the Lawgiver. This is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. Without this vertical dimension, all our ethics are just shifting human conventions, easily discarded when they become inconvenient.
The War of Attrition (v. 10)
Temptation, having failed in a frontal assault, now settles in for a siege.
"So it happened that as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her." (Genesis 39:10)
This is a crucial verse. The temptation was not a one-time event. It was a daily pressure, a constant campaign. The devil rarely gives up after one try. He is a grinder. He seeks to wear us down. The drip, drip, drip of a persistent temptation can erode the strongest resolve if we are not vigilant. Potiphar's wife is the voice of the world, the flesh, and the devil, whispering day after day: "It's no big deal. No one will know. You deserve it."
Joseph's defense here is twofold and profoundly wise. First, "he did not listen to her." He refused to entertain the argument. He did not debate the merits of her proposal. He did not sit around and "process" his feelings about it. To debate with temptation is to already be halfway to surrendering. You must starve it of oxygen. You must refuse to give it a hearing. Second, he refused "to lie beside her or be with her." He practiced what we might call strategic avoidance. He understood that you cannot fight a fire by standing in the middle of it. He did not put himself in situations where his resolve would be needlessly tested. This is not weakness; it is wisdom. The man who thinks he can play with temptation without getting burned is a fool who has already struck the match.
The Ambush and the Escape (vv. 11-12)
The daily siege gives way to a desperate ambush when an opportunity presents itself.
"Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. Then she seized him by his garment, saying, 'Lie with me!' And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside." (Genesis 39:11-12)
Sin is an opportunist. She waited for the moment when Joseph was alone and vulnerable. "None of the men of the household was there inside." This was a calculated trap. And her approach escalates from verbal solicitation to physical assault. "She seized him by his garment." The mask is off. This is not an invitation; it is an attempted rape.
Joseph's response is the only righteous response possible in such a situation. He fled. The Apostle Paul tells us to "flee from sexual immorality" (1 Corinthians 6:18). Some temptations you stand and fight; others, you turn and run from with all your might. Joseph did not stand there and reason with her. He did not try to gently disentangle himself. He abandoned his outer garment, a symbol of his status and authority in the house, and ran for his life, which is to say, for his soul. He understood that it is better to lose your coat than to lose your character. It is better to be shamed before men than to sin against God. This is true courage. It is the courage to be called a coward by the world in order to be called faithful by God.
The Accusation of a Scorned Woman (vv. 13-18)
Having been rejected, the woman's lust curdles instantly into hatred and vengeance. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
"See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to laugh at us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed... The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to laugh at me..." (Genesis 39:14, 17)
Her story is a masterpiece of malicious deceit. She takes the evidence of his innocence, the garment he left behind in his haste to escape, and twists it into the proof of his guilt. This is how the devil works. He is the great accuser, and he specializes in twisting the truth.
Notice how she frames her accusation. She immediately makes it about race and class. "This Hebrew," "The Hebrew slave." She is stirring up xenophobia and contempt for this outsider whom her husband promoted. She also implicates her husband: "he has brought in a Hebrew," "whom you brought to us." She is deflecting all blame from herself and subtly shaming her husband for his good judgment. She portrays herself as the victim and Joseph as the aggressor. She is a perfect picture of our victim-culture, where personal responsibility is dissolved in a sea of blame-shifting and accusation.
She holds up the garment as her exhibit A and waits for her husband to come home. Joseph, the man of integrity, is about to be condemned by the very thing he abandoned in his flight for purity. This is a profound picture of what it means to follow Christ in a fallen world. Your acts of righteousness will often be twisted and used as weapons against you. Doing the right thing does not guarantee a good outcome in the short term. In fact, it often guarantees the opposite. Joseph did everything right, and for his trouble, he is about to be thrown into a dungeon. But the story is not over. God is sovereign over the false accusations of wicked women, and He is sovereign over the dungeons of Egyptian pharaohs.
The Gospel According to Joseph
This entire narrative is a foreshadowing, a type, of a greater Joseph who was to come. Jesus Christ was the truly beautiful one, full of grace and truth. He came into the house of His own people, and He was tempted in every way, yet without sin. The world, like Potiphar's wife, constantly solicited Him, offering Him power and glory if He would only bow down and compromise, if He would only "lie with" the spirit of the age.
He refused every advance, His loyalty fixed entirely on His Father. "How could I do this great evil and sin against God?" was the constant cry of His heart. And because He would not compromise, because He would not sin, the world seized Him. They laid hold of Him in the garden. And in a sense, He too left His garment behind. He was stripped of His dignity, His honor, and His life. The world took the evidence of His perfect innocence and used it to accuse Him. They called His righteousness blasphemy. They called His goodness demonic. They falsely accused Him and condemned Him.
He was cast into the pit, into the prison of the grave, for a crime He did not commit. He suffered unjustly, the righteous for the unrighteous. But just as God was with Joseph in the prison, so the Father was with the Son in the tomb. And just as God raised Joseph from the prison to the right hand of Pharaoh to save the world, so God the Father raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand, giving Him all authority in heaven and on earth, to be the savior of all who call upon His name. Joseph's flight from sin led him to a prison, but ultimately to a throne. Our flight from sin, through faith in the greater Joseph, may lead us through suffering here, but it will ultimately lead us to a throne with Him forever.