person
Potiphar
פּוֹטִיפַר
Potiphar, the Egyptian officer who purchased Joseph as a slave and later imprisoned him after false accusations by Potiphar's wife.
- verses
- 2
- first named
- Genesis 37:36
- last named
- Genesis 39:20
- period
- the Patriarchs
- tribe
- Egypt
Description
Who was Potiphar?
Potiphar was an Egyptian official who served as the captain of the guard in the court of Pharaoh. He is first mentioned in Gen.37.36, where he is identified as the man who purchased Joseph, the son of Israel (or 'Jacob'), from the Ishmaelite traders who had brought him to Egypt. Potiphar recognized Joseph's abilities and put him in charge of his household, entrusting him with all his possessions (Gen.39.1-6). However, Potiphar's wife attempted to seduce Joseph, and when he refused her advances, she falsely accused him of trying to assault her. Believing his wife's accusation, Potiphar had Joseph thrown into prison (Gen.39.7-20). Despite this unjust treatment, God was with Joseph and granted him favor, even in prison. The story of Joseph and Potiphar highlights the themes of integrity, faithfulness, and God's providence in the face of adversity.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Places
Where this happens
The places the claims about this person reach, drawn where the gazetteer locates them. A point is where a row puts them and never where tradition does; no line joins two points, because the rows state where and not in what order.
The pattern
Where Potiphar is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
2 verses across 1 of 66 books; 65 write the name nowhere. Named in Genesis (2).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 2, across 1 book.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources