Genesis 39:10-12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

She spake to Joseph from day to day Joseph was single, was in the vigour of youth, was a man of like passions with us, was solicited and importuned to gratify those passions, and that in a way that promised both present pleasure and profit, and by one on whom he was dependant, and whom it was dangerous to provoke; whose frown might be followed by great sufferings, and whose favour might advance and establish his prosperity: opportunity and privacy also were afforded. But Joseph feared God; Joseph believed in a judgment to come. He therefore denied himself, and would not, for the sake of those pleasures of sin which are but for a season, involve himself in the divine wrath, and in certain and lasting misery and ruin. Hence he hearkened not to her, so much as to be with her. Finding her dead to all sense of shame, and deaf to the calls of duty, honour, conscience, and the fear of God, and that she was not to be reclaimed, he avoided her company, being distrustful of himself. For those that would be kept from harm must keep out of harm's way. And when she laid hold on him, he left his garment in her hand He would not stay to parley with the temptation, but flew from it with the utmost abhorrence, as one escaping for his life.