Genesis 39:16
For a proof therefore of her fidelity, she kept the garment, and shewed it to her husband when he returned home:
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- In argumentum ergo fidei retentum pallium ostendit marito revertenti domum,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ καταλιμπάνει τὰ ἱμάτια παρ᾽ ἑαυτῇ ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κύριος εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתַּנַּ֥ח בִּגְד֖וֹ אֶצְלָ֑הּ עַד בּ֥וֹא אֲדֹנָ֖יו אֶל בֵּיתֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
A proof of her fidelity, or an argument to gain credit, argumentum fidei. (Challoner)
Love neglected, turns to fury. She wishes to take away Joseph's life, according to the laws of Egypt against adulterers. Diodorus says Sesostris burnt some women taken in the crime; and we must attribute it to divine Providence, that the enraged husband did not inflict instant death upon his slave. Perhaps he did not altogether believe him guilty. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XLIX on Acts xxiii. 6-8
Such are God’s ways of ordering: the very things by which we are hurt, by these same are we benefited. Thus it was with Joseph: his mistress sought to ruin him: and she seemed indeed to be contriving his ruin, but by her contriving she placed him in a state of safety: for the house where that wild beast (of a woman) was kept was a den in comparison with which the prison was gentle. ( Gen. xxxix. 1-20 .) For while he was there, although he was looked up to and courted, he was in constant fear, lest his mistress should set upon him, and worse than any prison was the fear that lay upon him: but after the accusation he was in security and peace, well rid of that beast, of her lewdness and her machinations for his destruction: for it was better for him to keep company with human creatures in miserable plight, than with a maddened mistress. …