He left his garment and fled
11 About this time, he went into the house to do his work, and there were none of the men of the house inside. 12 She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” He left his garment in her hand, and ran outside. 13 When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had run outside, 14 she called to the men of her house, and spoke to them, saying, “Behold, he has brought a Hebrew in to us to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice. 15 When he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside.” 16 She laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. 17 She spoke to him according to these words, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought to us, came in to me to mock me, 18 and as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside.” 19 When his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, “This is what your servant did to me,” his wrath was kindled. 20 Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody. 21 But Yahweh was with Joseph, and showed kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 The keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever they did there, he was responsible for it. 23 The keeper of the prison didn’t look after anything that was under his hand, because Yahweh was with him; and that which he did, Yahweh made it prosper.
Doing right costs him everything a second time, and a second garment is used as evidence against him.
The opportunity is engineered — there were none of the men of the house inside — and this time it is not a proposition but a physical seizure. She caught him by his garment, saying, "Lie with me!"
His response is not an argument. He left his garment in her hand, and ran outside. Having reasoned with her day after day and got nowhere, he abandons the conversation and the clothing and goes.
It is worth noticing what he does not do. He does not try to reason his way out of a grip, does not calculate what leaving a garment behind will look like, and does not stay to negotiate a version of events. He simply runs, at the cost of the evidence.
This is the second time a garment has been stripped from Joseph and used to tell a lie about him. His brothers took the coat, dipped it in goat's blood, and let their father draw a false conclusion; his master's wife keeps the cloak, lays it beside her, and produces it as proof. Both times the object is genuine and the story attached to it is false, and both times he is not present to answer.
Her accusation is a small masterpiece of malice and is aimed at two different audiences. To the servants she says he has brought a Hebrew in to us to mock us — a racial appeal, and the word us enlists them and blames her husband in the same breath. To Potiphar she adjusts it: The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought to us. The complaint to the household is that the master imported a foreigner; the complaint to the master is that his slave attacked his wife.
And she keeps the garment beside her until his master came home, which is a woman staging a scene.
Potiphar's anger is recorded and its object is not specified — the text says only that his wrath was kindled, and leaves who it was kindled against unstated. What is unmistakable is the sentence. The penalty for a slave assaulting his master's wife in that world was death, and Joseph goes to prison. Whatever Potiphar believed, he did not act as a man who believed the whole of it.
And so a young man who has done exactly the right thing, at real cost, alone, with no witness, is destroyed by it. He was thrown into a pit for being his father's favorite; he is thrown into a prison for refusing to sin. Nothing in the chapter suggests he deserved either, and nothing in it offers him an explanation.
What it does offer is a repetition. But Yahweh was with Joseph, and showed kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. The same sentence as the house, in the worse place. The keeper hands him the running of the prison exactly as Potiphar handed him the running of the estate, and for the same stated reason: because Yahweh was with him; and that which he did, Yahweh made it prosper.
He is a slave in a dungeon and he is prospering, and the writer will not let the reader read the circumstances as the verdict.
settled What this mark means