Kejadian 39:20-23

39:20 Joseph’s master took him and threw him into the prison, ¹  the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. So he was there in the prison. ² 

39:21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him kindness. ³  He granted him favor in the sight of the prison warden. ⁴  39:22 The warden put all the prisoners under Joseph’s care. He was in charge of whatever they were doing. ⁵  39:23 The warden did not concern himself ⁶  with anything that was in Joseph’s ⁷  care because the Lord was with him and whatever he was doing the Lord was making successful.

Ester 6:1

The Turning Point: The King Honors Mordecai

6:1 Throughout that night the king was unable to sleep, ⁸  so he asked for the book containing the historical records ⁹  to be brought. As the records ¹⁰  were being read in the king’s presence,

[39:20]  ¹ tn Heb “the house of roundness,” suggesting that the prison might have been a fortress or citadel.

[39:20]  ² sn The story of Joseph is filled with cycles and repetition: He has two dreams (chap. 37), he interprets two dreams in prison (chap. 40) and the two dreams of Pharaoh (chap. 41), his brothers make two trips to see him (chaps. 42-43), and here, for the second time (see 37:24), he is imprisoned for no good reason, with only his coat being used as evidence. For further discussion see H. Jacobsen, “A Legal Note on Potiphar’s Wife,” HTR 69 (1976): 177.

[39:21]  ³ tn Heb “and he extended to him loyal love.”

[39:21]  ⁴ tn Or “the chief jailer” (also in the following verses).

[39:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “all which they were doing there, he was doing.” This probably means that Joseph was in charge of everything that went on in the prison.

[39:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “was not looking at anything.”

[39:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the sleep of the king fled.” In place of the rather innocuous comment of the Hebrew text, the LXX reads here, “And the Lord removed the sleep from the king.” The Greek text thus understands the statement in a more overtly theological way than does the Hebrew text, although even in the Hebrew text there may be a hint of God’s providence at work in this matter. After all, this event is crucial to the later reversal of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jewish people, and a sympathetic reader is likely to look beyond the apparent coincidence.

[6:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “the book of the remembrances of the accounts of the days”; NAB “the chronicle of notable events.”

[6:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the records) has been specified in the translation for clarity.