19 September 2022 draft-bible
9. he is not. Hebrew ʾYNNW, which according to Driver must be translated "he is not". According to Driver, the interpretation “There is not” or “No one is” (as in the WEB) is made as if the Hebrew word were simply ʾYN. Nevertheless, a number of translations seem to disagree with Driver (KJV, NIV, NLT, NASB, CSB, NET, NHEB). In agreement with Driver are the RV margin, ASV, JPS (1917), ESV, NAB, NRSV.
Where I said above that the WEB reads “No one is”, this is true, as of September 2022, of the WEB as it appears on ebible.org. The WEB which appears at biblehub.com, which I imagine must be an older draft, reads “He isn’t”.
14. see. Hebrew reʾu, a form of the ordinary verb “to see”. ASV “See”; WEB “Behold”. Perhaps Potiphar’s wife is inviting those she is addressing to literally see the garment she has kept.
17. slave. It is after Joseph has insisted on his high stature, implying a sort of equality between himself and his master, that Potiphar’s wife sees fit to remind her husband that Joseph was, indeed, bought with money and is not a free man. And indeed, in the ensuring story we see that Joseph is in fact treated as an equal by the Egyptian society he finds himself in – he is unceremoniously deposited in jail, with no mention of a trial, on the accusation of his master’s wife.
17. mock. The verb lᵉṣaḥeq in some contexts carries a sexual connotation: compare Genesis 26:8. Perhaps it also might carry the idea of disrespect unbecoming of a slave – Joseph is not the only slave in Genesis to be punished over an incident of “mocking” – compare the expulsion of Hagar after the incident of “mocking” described in Genesis 21:9. And perhaps it is no coincidence that, after Abraham has expelled an Egyptian slave over “mocking”, Abraham’s great-grandson now is now the slave of an Egyptian, and loses his position for “mocking”. A sense of turn-about will continue to characterize the relationship of Israel and Egypt – later in the story of Joseph, Joseph will enslave the Egyptians, but after his death the Egyptians will enslave his family.
20. prison. In both cases, the Hebrew term is beit sohar. For some reason – I am not sure why – in this verse the WEB translates the first instance of this term as “prison”, but the second instance as “custody”. However, in each of the next three verses, the WEB goes back to consistently reading “prison”. Unless I see a strong argument to the contrary, it seems to me that it would be better to read “prison” throughout.
22. whatever they did there was his doing. Literally, and whatever they were doing there, he was doing.
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