And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.
Ver. 7. After these things.] After he had been ten or eleven years in that house. So long he was safe: yet at length set upon. Learn we always to stand upon our guard; to do, as it is reported of the bird Onocrotalus, that she is so well practised to expect the hawk to grapple with her, that even, when she shutteth her eyes, she sleepeth with her beak exalted, as if she would contend with her adversary. a A man is to expect, if he live out his days, to be urged to all sins, to the breach of every branch of the ten commandments, and to be put to it in respect of every article of our creed.
His master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph.] She looked and lusted. b See Trapp on " Gen 34:2 "
And she said, Lie with me.] An impudent harlotry, that could so barely and basely solicit. Such a frontless propudium was that in the Proverbs 7:13; Proverbs 7:18. Such were those insatiate empresses, Messalina, wife to Claudius; and Barbara, wife to Sigismund, emperor of Germany, faemina immensae libidinis et procacitatis inverecundae, quae saepius viros peteret quam peteretur. Vitam omnem censuit inanem, quae non coitu, luxu, ac libidine contereretur. c And such were those brazen faced courtezans that Franciscus Junius, that learned man, met with; and for their sakes abhorred the company of all women ever after, as himself recordeth in his own life.
a The Divine Cosmographer, p. 94.
b Non dicit Moses, "Vidit"; "Aspexit," &c. Hic fuit aspectus impudicus. - Pareus.
c Pareus, in Medul. Hist. Profanae, p. 786. Haec stultas vocabat virgines pro Christi nomine passas, quod voluptatum gaudia non gustassent.