Joseph and Potiphar's Wife by Filippo Falciatore

José y la mujer de putifar de Antonio María Esquivel

Potiphar's wife is a figure in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

. She was the wife of

Potiphar Potiphar ( ; Egyptian origin: ''pꜣ-dj-pꜣ-rꜥ'' "he whom Ra gave") is a figure in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Potiphar is possibly the same name as Potiphera () from Late Egyptian ''pꜣ-dj-pꜣ-rꜥ'' "he whom Ra has given." Potiphar ...

, the captain of Pharaoh's guard in the time of

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

and his twelve sons. According to the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

, she falsely accused

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

of attempted rape after he rejected her sexual advances, resulting in his imprisonment. In Genesis she is given no name, but in later medieval Jewish sources and Islamic tradition, she is identified as Zuleikha ( ''zoo-LAY-kah''; ; ar, زُلَيْخَا, translit=zulayḵā). The story of

Yusuf and Zulaikha "Yusuf and Zulaikha" (the English transliteration of both names varies greatly) refers to a medieval Islamic version of the story of the prophet Yusuf and Potiphar's wife which has been for centuries in the Muslim world, and is found in many langu ...

is a popular one in Islamic literature.

In Genesis

The

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

Genesis 39:5-20
narrates her treatment of

, slave to her husband

In Quran

The

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

narrates the wife of Aziz’s treatment of

Yusuf Yusuf ( ar, يوسف ') is a male name of Arabic origin meaning "God increases" (in piety, power and influence).From the Hebrew יהוה להוסיף ''YHWH Lhosif'' meaning "YHWH will increase/add". It is the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew name ...

as follows:

Interpretation

In Jewish sources

Jewish commentators also see some good motives in her actions. A story about Zuleikha is told in Sefer haYashar, where she was mocked by other aristocratic Egyptian ladies, her circle of friends, for being infatuated with a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

slave boy. Inviting her friends to her home, Zuleikha gave them all oranges and knives to slice them with. While they engaged in this task, Zuleikha had

walk through the room. Distracted by his handsomeness, all the ladies accidentally cut themselves with the knives, drawing blood. Zuleikha then reminded her friends that she had to see Joseph every day. Following this incident, her contemporaries no longer mocked her.

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...

comments that the wife of Potiphar saw through astrology that she would have children through Joseph. The astrological calculations however were slightly off.

Asenath Asenath (, ; Koine Greek: Ἀσενέθ, ''Asenéth'') is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman. She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. There are two R ...

, her daughter (by adoption, in some accounts) became the wife of Joseph and therefore the wife of Potiphar begot grandchildren (not children) through Joseph.

In Islamic sources

Muslim scriptural commentators (Mufassirun) have regarded Zuleikha as a sinner and villainess with the exceptions of the great Muslim mystic poets Rumi, Hafiz and Jami. For Rumi, Zuleikha's obsession with Joseph is a symptom and manifestation of the soul's great deep longing for

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

. For this, he insists, it is true of any person's deep love for another.

Scholarly criticism

Scholars such as

Meir Sternberg Meir Sternberg is an Israeli literary critic and biblical scholar. He is Artzt Professor of Poetics and Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University. Along with Robert Alter and Adele Berlin, Sternberg is one of the most prominent practitioners ...

(1985) characterise the woman's repetitive behaviour towards Joseph as sexual assault. McKinlay (1995) noted that Potiphar's wife is treated as an object in his master's possession (Gen 39:8–9), and the reason Joseph refuses is not because he doesn't want to have sex with her, but because it would violate his master's trust and be a sin against the God

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he poss ...

. It could be argued that the woman is trying to assert herself as a person who makes her own choices instead of remaining an object owned by her husband, and invites Joseph to join her in this action which the narrative frames as a 'sin'. Simultaneously, however, she abuses her position of power as the slave master's wife to coerce Joseph into sex, and to punish him for refusal. Susan Tower Hollis (1989) demonstrated that the narrative of Potiphar's wife 'is in line with certain ancient folk-tales, where a 'woman makes vain overtures to a man and then accuses him of attempting to force her', with the man 'unjustly punished for his alleged attempt to seduce the woman.'

References

Ancient Egyptian women Book of Genesis people Joseph (Genesis) Women in the Hebrew Bible Unnamed people of the Bible False allegations of sex crimes Sexuality in the Bible Sexual harassment People of the Quran {{Islam-bio-stub