And it came to pass about this time,.... About a week, or a month, or rather a year, as Aben Ezra thinks, after she first began her solicitations to him. According to Josephus r, it was a public festival, at which women used to attend; but she excused herself, pretending illness; and so Jarchi takes it to be some noted day at the idol's temple, to which all used to go; but she pretended she was sick, and could not go, knowing that Joseph would not be there, but at home, and therefore judged this a fit opportunity to attack him once more: and so it was,
that [Joseph] went into the house to do his business: to inspect the accounts, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan paraphrase it, and settle them:
and [there was] none of the men of the house there within; being all gone to the public festival, or however there were none in that part of the house where Joseph was.
r Antiqu. l. 2. c. 4. sect. 3.