God’s Favor under Fire

The key phrase that grounds the right view into Genesis 39 is this: ‘The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master’ (v. 2).1 It is also in the very last verse: ‘because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed’ (v. 29).

This “being with” Joseph and this causing of “success” is what I mean by favor, but divine favor is not a random comet that strikes down from heaven out of nowhere, nor is it caused by the man on earth.

The primary theological meaning of FAVOR is a kin to blessing and is rooted in grace. Sometimes definitions of grace will even use the word favor, as in “God’s unmerited favor.”2 But even if one has not been reading along in Genesis, there is a hint of God’s gracious favor in the order of verse 2—First the LORD was with Joseph, then comes the man and then comes the setting. The details of that order are not simply coincidental.

• God’s favor demonstrated in duties

• God’s favor tested in temptations

• God’s favor assaulted in accusations

• God’s favor enduring in exile

Doctrine. God’s favor makes Christian character in the world’s fires.

God’s favor demonstrated in duties.

Here is how the text says this: ‘His master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD caused all that he did to succeed in his hands’ (v. 3). The word used in verses 2 and 3—in both cases is the word מַצְלִ֑יחַ ‘made to prosper’,3 from the root verb צָלַח meaning “to succeed”—as Kidner comments, it “speaks of achievement rather than status.”4 In other words, the focus of the favor is of proven results that none could complain about as “favoritism” or “luck.” Such favor is evident even to unbelievers, since it says, “His master saw that the LORD was with him.”

Proven favor with God translates into favor with man. This does not mean universal favor—many will be jealous, and, of course, there is that general hatred of God’s people that we are promised (cf. Jn. 15:18, 19; 1 Jn. 3:13). However, with divinely targeted people in this world, God sets them up as the right man at the right time to be a channel in which this favor flows. Potiphar was such a man, at least for a moment.

So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate (vv. 4-6).

When the New Testament teaches us in various ways to be like Joseph, in this regard, notice the several motives God gives us. When we are valued for the way we perform our duties: 1. It reflects well upon God, or “adorns” our doctrine of God (Titus 2:10); 2. As the flip side of that, it prevents God’s name from being reviled (1 Tim. 6:1); 3. It communicates that we regard our superiors as worthy of honor (1 Tim. 6:1); and 4. It testifies that we really do believe that God will reward us with the greatest reward (Col. 3:24; Eph. 6:8). So God’s favor is demonstrated in duties.

God’s favor tested in temptations.

We read that, ‘Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me’ (vv. 6-7). He refuses and he gives the reasons.

But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (vv. 8-9).

He refuses with reasons. An intelligent resistance is a stronger resistance. That stands to reason, as one must know why he does anything in order to follow through with it.

Among those reasons are a sense of duty, a heart of gratitude, repulsion at dishonor to the man, but, above all, fear of the Lord. Calvin says of Joseph here:

“His fidelity and integrity appear in this, that he acknowledges himself to be the more strictly bound, the greater the power with which he is entrusted. Ingenious and courageous men have this property, that the more is confided to them, the less they can bear to deceive.”5

‘And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her’ (v. 10). The expression, “day after day,” paints the picture of in-your-face aggression, impossible to avoid or to misinterpret; as Delilah is said to have “wept before [Samson] the seven days that their feast lasted” (Judges 14:17), and then, again, “she pressed him hard with her words day after day” (16:16) to give her the secret to his strength. Where Samson gave in, Jospeh grew resistant. A temptation resisted over time is a temptation weakened in the mind; and this for a few reasons:

First, the soul develops virtue by habit and so becomes more of what it does.

Second, as even the best fruit in this world corrupts, by parading all of its angles, it exposes its rot—and, closely, associated with that,

Third, persons behind temptations show themselves to be needy and pathetic, devaluing themselves and losing their luster.

Fourth, we have God’s own promises to be personally involved: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (Jas. 4:8); and “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

For these reasons, A temptation resisted over time is a temptation weakened in the mind.

God’s favor assaulted in accusations.

That Joseph was framed was not an afterthought of this woman. She had everything staged and planned:

But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house (vv. 11-13).

Many Christians make a false inference from not imputing the worst in people, as a general rule, to never considering the level of motives and strategy when maintaining proper boundaries with people. When Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8), he, above all people, knew how Satan could work even through genuine Christians, as Jesus once said, in his direction, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mk. 8:33) How much more does Satan ordinary work—constantly prowl—in those who show, day after day, that they are framing us.

The passage relays to us two levels of her telling her story—first ‘to the men of her household’ (v. 14); then, ‘she told him [Potiphar] the same story’ (v. 17). The ‘garment’ (vv. 15, 16, 18) functioned as her “smoking gun” or “Exhibit A” in the case. And the accusations are specific to the external act of violence, but then also the intent to humiliate here, signified by ‘laugh at us’ (v. 14) or ‘laugh at me’ (v. 17). Evildoers who cannot recruit you to their cause will quickly frame you as oppressor and themselves as your victim.

Whatever we want to call this, psychologically—projection or transference, matters little. It is a sociopathic behavior that begins as a defense mechanism or perhaps damage control, when one feels that initial sting of having the hand caught in the cookie jar. The demeanor of Potiphar’s wife went from winks and smiles to pretended shock in an instant.

Note that the unbeliever is no more like the devil than when they accuse, as Satan is called “the accuser of our brothers” (Rev. 12:10). So here in the words, ‘he has brought among us a Hebrew’ (v. 14). Any chance for the world to say, “Look! Someone has let a Christian in among us! To spy out our freedom—Away with them!”

But note how far the accusation really goes—in other words: Who is it really against? I just heard the story of a minister whose wife worked at some retail store, and as he was in line to pay, some series of events sent him over the edge. The details don’t matter. What matters is that he cursed, he shoved others aside, and shouted that he would never shop there again. It didn’t matter that he lost it. His actions were inexcusable. The wife’s co-workers all witnessed it; or at least enough of them to tell everyone else. She had spent months witnessing to them. All up in smoke. All over a few products or a few pennies, or a few extra minutes, or whatever. Joseph had been invested, but the real product he was investing in was the glory of God. If these accusations stuck, it was God’s own favor toward him that would have been discredited.

God’s favor enduring in exile.

There is an exiling by God and an exiling by man. Athanasius was exiled five times by four different emperors. We can understand Julian the Apostate banishing the great Alexandrian theologian, but the other three were supposed to be Christian emperors: Constantine, Constantius II, and Valens. To be exiled by someone bearing the name of the true God can send one into a deeper prison than even physical exile. But Joseph was so in tune to God’s providence, that for this master who he took to be a gracious provision for him to now be wrathful toward him had to challenge Joseph’s faith.

And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison (v. 20)

A foreigner and a slave could only have expected the death penalty for this, but, as Kidner remarks, “His reprieve presumably owed much to the respect he had won, and Potiphar’s mingled wrath may reflect a faint misgiving about the full accuracy of the charge.”6

If that is true, prison may have been sufficient for him to save face. As Pontius Pilate declared “I find no guilt in this man” (Lk. 23:4), and yet also “decided that their demand should be granted” (Lk. 23:24), so the innocent type, Joseph, was known to be innocent and sentenced to be judged.

There is a key expression that describes what God was to Joseph at this moment: ‘But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison’ (v. 21). Not only is favor mentioned again, as if only in a practical sense, this Hebrew word that the ESV renders “steadfast love” (חֵסֵד), or else “kindness,” “mercy,” “love,” “loving-kindness,” or, what some will want to call “covenant love.” This signals that God drew even more near in his dark night of the soul.

Another reason that this detail is crucial is that we don’t argue from temporal blessings to God’s favor, but from that favor belonging to God’s special relationship to the confirmation of blessings: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps. 84:10). Think of it: Many reprobates might be permitted by God to rise from the pit to riches in life, but they have not a speck of divine favor. Therefore, the story of Joseph is not a license for Word of Faith showman and other charlatans to sell indiscriminately the lesson that anyone can pull themselves up from the lowest place to great success in this world. 

We are given this remarkable detail of God’s favor overflowing to where even this far away prison cell could not contain it:

And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed (vv. 22-23).

For the Christian to be ruined in this world by false accusations is never to be ruined with God. While the law of Moses gives strict orders to punish the original slanderer and any false witnesses by exacting from them all that the false accused would have lost (or did lose), in Deuteronomy 19:18-21, still God has not abandoned us in that state of exile, or as we often say, “liquidation.”

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. God’s favor makes Christian character because nothing so encourages God’s man under fire than the rock solid conviction that he is indeed God’s man—that God is with him: “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Ps. 118:6) The real question must always be: What is God doing with me? When this episode was recounted by the Psalmist, it says of Joseph, “the word of the LORD tested him” (Ps. 105:19). Is it the fires that test the metal of our character or is it God’s word? It is both. By the fire, our attachments to the world are lasered out, and this word is either God’s word of decree or else his informing word, and, in either case, a Joseph or a Christian can be increasingly sure of those words in the hymn,

the flame shall not hurt you; I only design

your dross to consume and your gold to refine.

In both the word and the fire itself, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (Jas. 1:2-3).

Use 2. Exhortation. Resisting temptation must prepare to go further than the temptation seeks to get nearer. Recall the expression ‘day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her’ (v. 10). See the extent-language. If you discover a cliff, you don’t just keep your balance. You get away from it.

“So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

“Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house” (Prov. 5:8).

Like the Proverbs themselves, there is an obvious sense in which the story of Joseph is written to the male perspective. This is particularly true of its implied exhortation. However, the principle of flight from sin’s outer edges in something that applies to all sinners in any season: “save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh” (Jude 23).

Use 3. Consolation. This type of Christ—Joseph—was both tempted repeatedly, and resisted that temptation, then was falsely accused anyway. So Jesus resisted temptation in the wilderness, but was falsely accused by those feigning outrage.

Likewise we are shown not a peep from Joseph in his own defense. So, about Jesus,

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth (Isa. 53:7).

To attempt premature defense would have been to resist the judgment appointed by God Himself. Where we have fallen to temptation, Christ stood. Where we have tried to vindicate ourselves, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23)

This is not just an example for us (as Peter says it was), but this is a Substitute for us — earning us all of God’s favor by taking all of God’s fire.

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1. Calvin shows that Moses relays that “Joseph was in the house of his master, to teach us that he was not at once elevated to an honorable condition.” Commentaries, I.2.292.

2. Charles Spurgeon, Grace: God’s Unmerited Favor (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1996).

3. In both verses it is a masculine singular participle in the hiphil form, so that only its syntactical place causes it to be rendered differently.

4. Kidner, Genesis, 201.

5. Calvin, Commentaries, I.2.296.

6. Kidner, Genesis, 202-03; cf. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 522; Hamilton, Genesis 18-50, 471.