And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.
Ver. 1. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's.] See here a sweet providence, that Joseph should fall into such hands. Potiphar was provost-marshal, keeper of the king's prisoners. And what could Joseph have wished better than this, that, since he must be a prisoner, he should be put into that prison, where he might, by interpreting the butler's dream, come to so great preferment? Chrysostom, in his nineteenth Homily on the Ephesians, saith: We must not once doubt of the divine providence, though we presently perceive not the causes and reasons of many passages. And this he sweetly sets forth by apt similitudes drawn from the works of carpenters, painters, bees, ants, spiders, swallows, &c. Surely, as a man, by a chain made up of various links, some of gold, others of silver, some of brass, iron, or tin, may be drawn out of a pit: so the Lord by the concurrence of several subordinate things, which have no manner of dependence, or natural coincidency among themselves, hath oftentimes wrought and brought about the deliverance and exaltation of his children, that it might appear to be the work of his own hand. a
a See M. Reynold on Psalm cx. 5.