The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene
College.

Chapter 39

Joseph set over Potiphar’s house, 1-4. His purity and imprisonment, 5-13. Imprisonment
of Pharaoh’s chief butler and chief baker whose dreams Joseph interprets, 14-18.
(Cf. Gen.xxxvii.2; xxxix.3-8, 12-15, 17-23; xl.1-5, 21-3; xli.1.)

And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s sojournings in the land of Canaan.
These are the generations of Jacob.

And Joseph was seventeen years old when they took him down into the land
of Egypt, and Potiphar, an eunuch of Pharaoh, the chief cook bought him.

And he set Joseph over all his house and the blessing of the Lord came upon
the house of the Egyptian on account of Joseph, and the Lord prospered him in
all that he did.

And the Egyptian committed everything into the hands of Joseph; for he saw
that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord prospered him in all that he did.

And Joseph’s appearance was comely (and very beautiful was his appearance),
and his master’s wife lifted up her eyes and saw Joseph, and she loved him and
besought him to lie with her.

But he did not surrender his soul, and he remembered the Lord and the words
which Jacob, his father, used to read from amongst the words of Abraham, that
no man should commit fornication with a woman who has a husband; that for him
the punishment of death has been ordained in the heavens before the Most High
God, and the sin will be recorded against him in the eternal books continually
before the Lord.

And Joseph remembered these words and refused to lie with her.

And she besought him for a year, but he refused and would not listen.

But she embraced him and held him fast in the house in order to force him
to lie with her, and closed the doors of the house and held him fast; but he
left his garment in her hands and broke through the door and fled without from
her presence.

And the woman saw that he would not lie with her, and she calumniated him
in the presence of his lord, saying ‘Thy Hebrew servant, whom thou lovest, sought
to force me so that he might lie with me; and it came to pass when I lifted
up my voice that he fled and left his garment in my hands when I held him, and
he brake through the door.’

And the Egyptian saw the garment of Joseph and the broken door, and heard
the words of his wife, and cast Joseph into prison into the place where the
prisoners were kept whom the king imprisoned.

And he was there in the prison; and the Lord gave Joseph favour in the sight
of the chief of the prison guards and compassion before him, for he saw that
the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper.

And he committed all things into his hands, and the chief of the prison
guards knew of nothing that was with him, for Joseph did every thing, and the
Lord perfected it.

And he remained there two years. And in those days Pharaoh, king of Egypt
was wroth against his two eunuchs, against the chief butler, and against the
chief baker, and he put them in ward in the house of the chief cook, in the
prison where Joseph was kept.

And the chief of the prison guards appointed Joseph to serve them; and he
served before them.

And they both dreamed a dream, the chief butler and the chief baker, and
they told it to Joseph.

And as he interpreted to them so it befell them, and Pharaoh restored the
chief butler to his office and the (chief) baker he slew, as Joseph had interpreted
to them.

But the chief butler forgot Joseph in the prison, although he had informed
him what would befall him, and did not remember to inform Pharaoh how Joseph
had told him, for he forgot.