Reclaiming our Stories: Potiphar's Wife

By Jennifer Roberts 

Read more of Potiphar's Wife's story: Genesis 39

Prayer: Holy One, all creation bears the story of your love and grace. Forgive us when we do not stop to hear the stories of others, when we do not share space for your story to continue to be written. Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that are open to your image and your story in and through all of creation. In the name of Jesus Christ, who bore the story of forgiveness and grace in his very body for us. Amen. 

When I first told my spouse that I would be writing a devotional about Potiphar’s wife for a devotional series on Reclaiming the Stories of Women in the Bible, he was flabbergasted that Potiphar’s wife would be included among these other women. “How are you going to talk about a woman who tries to seduce another man?” he asked. Admittedly, I was not sure how this was going to go, but being stubborn I insisted that it could be done and that she was simply misunderstood. Secretly, however, I laid in bed that night begging the Spirit to figure something out and quick! 

Reading this story over and over again on a surface level, it seems very obvious that there is a person in the wrong and a person in the right. This story begins giving great detail about the relationship that Joseph has with God. And it’s not just favor with God that Joseph has, but favor with his Egyptian master, Potiphar. This story sets the reader up to see Joseph as a man who is a humble servant, while setting Potiphar’s wife up as a tricky woman who waits on her husband to leave before sneaking up on her prey. And while I am not suggesting that Joseph did anything wrong, I am suggesting that we have been given the gift of Joseph’s story; insight into a favor that has placed him on the right side, leaving the seat on the wrong side wide open for Potiphar’s wife. 

The gift of someone’s story is sacred. 

Yet, Potiphar’s wife doesn’t even have a name in this story, much less a space to be vulnerable and offer the gift of her own story. And the little space that she has been given is occupied by the imaginations of all those who will read this story on the surface level without stopping to ask questions about what she’s been through, how she sees the world, and where she will end up. Her story may contain truths that have left her neglected, longing for companionship and attention that has not been given to her by her absent husband. 

Additionally, it may be that in this story the character the author seeks to display is one that our own society has long burdened women with as they seek to have their voices heard, to have their stories believed, and who remain nameless, which creates just enough space that men who wish to excuse their behavior have called themselves Joseph and given Potiphar’s wife the name of their victim – wielding the power of their story against those who have long had to fight for their own.

Stories are not only sacred, but they hold power. God is calling each of us to hear the stories of those around us and to find the image of the Divine in them. And not only that, we have a baptismal call to be caretakers of these stories – listening carefully, looking for who has been given power and who has not, and offering the space to hear more, reserving judgment until we too have been willing to share our own. When the gifts of stories are exchanged we often find that we have more in common than we do different and that stories are not always as they seem until we are willing to be vulnerable with one another. 

Your story is sacred. 

Your story has power. 

May your story be known and believed in its fullness, because your story is part of God’s story!

Amen.