Joseph didn’t like the tone of his fellow servant’s voice or the size of the biceps of the two men on either side of him.
“The master’s home already?” Joseph asked, eyebrows raised, heartbeat quickening. “It’s not even dark. And he wants to see me now?”
The servant nodded.
What had she told the master?
The image of her clutching the shirt he’d wriggled free from before fleeing Potiphar’s house earlier that afternoon appeared like a storm cloud over the horizon of his mind. He could not envision a positive outcome. He glanced over at the open window. He could try and run, but it wasn’t likely he’d be able to outrun the two soldiers now standing at his door yet alone get past them. And even if he could somehow manage an escape, it would only be a matter of time before Potiphar’s men found him. Then there’d only be questions as to why he ran—questions right before they killed him of course.
And if he stayed and answered Potiphar’s questions about what his shirt was doing in his wife’s possession? Was he really going to accuse the wife of Pharaoh’s captain of the guard of making sexual advances? How would Potiphar react to such accusations? Of course his wife would deny it. Then it would be her word against his, yet what other explanation was there as to why he’d left his shirt behind when he’d left Potiphar’s house that afternoon?
“Well?” the servant asked Joseph. The two men’s gaze met briefly before Joseph dropped his eyes to the floor.
“God of my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father…,” he mumbled, taking a step forward without lifting his head.
The two soldiers placed a firm grip on each of Joseph’s shoulders and escorted him outside of the servants’ quarters and in the direction of the main house of Potiphar’s compound.
One look at his master’s face melted Joseph’s youthful legs like wax beneath the hot Egyptian sun. Normally sympathetic when pointed in the direction of his chief servant, today Potiphar’s countenance loomed over him like the pyramids loomed over the capital city, unshakable, unbreakable, and with every intention to intimidate. He clutched Joseph’s shirt over white knuckles.
Joseph jerked free from the soldiers on either side of him and prostrated himself at his master’s feet.
“My good and gracious master.”
Joseph looked into Potiphar’s eyes, and for a moment, his fierce expression softened, only to harden once more.
“I assume you can explain this,” said Potiphar’s iron voice, lowering Joseph’s shirt to within a span of his nose.
Joseph glanced over at Potiphar’s wife, sitting on a couch near the chamber’s window.
“I—I—”
He was damned if he told the truth and damned if he didn’t.
Potiphar sighed.
“Please, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I swear by the God of my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father before me that I have done nothing wrong.”
“Would you add to your disgrace by calling my wife a liar?”
Then his worst fears were realized. She’d spun a web of lies from which there was no escape.
“You know how I’ve served you so faithfully over this past year, and you’ve seen how everything you’ve placed in my hand has prospered. Please, I beg you for mercy.”
“The only mercy you’ll receive from me is that I’ve decided I won’t put you to death this very night. You’ll spend the night in prison, and I’ll decide what to do with you tomorrow. Men?”
He motioned to the soldiers.
The two men yanked Joseph to his feet, securing both his arms in their iron grip. Their shackles bit hard into his wrists.
“Please, master,” Joseph pleaded, his voice breaking as they pulled him toward the door, his vision clouding with tears.
Where was the God of his fathers now? Did not God’s promises extend to all of Abraham’s descendants, and was not he privileged to be counted as one of them? Hadn’t his father Jacob told him the stories of a faithful God who keeps his covenant at all cost? Hadn’t he promised to bless those who blessed them and curse those who dishonored them?
His father’s steady voice reverberated in his mind’s ear: “He has never failed to keep his word, my son. He gave my grandfather Abraham a son when he was 100 and my grandmother Sarah was 90!”
Joseph’s memory produced the image of his father smiling and shaking his head, each time as if it were the first time he was recounting the story instead of the hundredth.
“There is not a covenant keeping god in all the earth like the God of my grandfather and father,” Jacob had said. “And he’s your God, too, my boy. He came to me when I had come up from Paddan-aram and blessed me. He gave me my new name and said that my descendants would become a great nation. That means you, Joseph. And as for the land promised to Abraham and Isaac, God promised it to me and to you, too. You can trust him, Joseph, to the very grave and beyond.”
The tears obscured his view, but Joseph heard the loud clang of the slamming iron bars of his new home. He’d survive that night. Potiphar was a man of his word he knew. As to how much longer, if at all, he’d survive, only the God of his fathers knew that.
“Oh, please, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” Joseph pleaded from the darkness of his cell, but he could not form any further words. Mere words could not capture the depth of his sorrow. In the darkness, Joseph lifted his bound hands heavenward. It was the only thing he could do. Might the God who came down to his fathers come down to him now?
“You can trust him,” echoed his father’s words.
“I tried to be faithful to you, God of my fathers!”
“You can trust him.”
“I sought only my master’s good and the good of his household. Aren’t we the family through whom all the families of the world are to be blessed? I was a faithful steward, God! I said no to that woman! And this is what it gets me?”
“You can trust him.”
“Was it not enough that my brothers sold me as a slave and told my father I was dead? Was that not low enough for you? And now this?”
“You can trust him.”
“Even now, great God?”
“You can trust him.”
A final sob escaped Joseph’s lips before the cell fell silent.
“Then I will trust him,” Joseph said, barely above a whisper. “Even now. Even if I die a prisoner in Pharaoh’s dungeon. I will trust you, God of my fathers.”
Joseph’s head fell into his hands, and he wept. The stillness of the darkness around him pressed in on him, and he finally lifted his head and looked around. Nothing at all had changed in his surroundings. The darkness was just as encroaching and the stench of death was just as penetrating, yet something was definitively different. It took him a moment to realize what it was. If he had to describe the feeling, he would have said it felt like there was solid ground beneath his sinking soul.
Joseph stretched out on the cold stone floor. Almost before his head touched the stone, he was asleep. And he slept the sleep known only to those held fast by the God of Abraham.