창세기 39:19의 주석

ויהי כשמע אדניו AND IT CAME TO PASS WHEN HIS LORD HEARD etc. — She said this when he was alone with her, caressing her. This is what she meant by כדברים האלה “things like these did thy servant do to me” — caresses such as these.

AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN THE MASTER HEARD. She told him about it at the time of conjugal intimacy. Matters such as these did your servant to me, i.e., matters of intimacy such as these. So says Rashi.
So also did they say in Bereshith Rabbah:²³⁹87:10. “Rabbi Abahu said, ‘She said it to him at the time of conjugal relations.’”
Now I wonder. Joseph’s master was a castrate,²⁴⁰Sotah 13b. who had married his wife during his youth, and the Rabbis expounded, “ ‘Sris’ (a captain of) Pharaoh²⁴¹Above, 37:36. — this teaches us that he bought Joseph for carnal purposes only, but the Holy One, blessed be He, caused Joseph’s master to become castrated.”²⁴²The Hebrew word for castrate is saris, the same word mentioned in the verse above. Moreover, how would she dare discredit herself and become loathsome in the eyes of her husband by telling him that she had committed adultery, whether by force or with acquiescence, which would have merited mortal punishment, for why did she not cry out at the outset, so that he should run away, as she did at the end? Now to the men of her house she said, He came unto me to lie with me,²⁴³Verse 14 here. but not that he lay with her, only that he came to do so, but she cried out and he fled. And surely she would hide the matter from her husband. And should you say that she told him so in order that his anger be kindled against him and that he should kill him, [it would have been sufficient for this purpose that she say that he attempted to violate her, for] any servant that attempts to violate his master’s wife deserves the death penalty!
It is possible that they intended to explain the expression, Matters such as these, as meaning matters of intimacy, meaning, exposing and caressing but not actual intimacy, as his master had become physically castrate, having been visited by a disease which resulted in a lack of desire for conjugal relations, as is the case with a shachuf.²⁴⁴One whose genitals are atrophied.
In line with the literal interpretation of Scripture there is no need for all this, for the Hebrew letter kaph, in the word kadvarim, is not for the purpose of expressing comparison to other matters. Instead its meaning is “these things.”²⁴⁵I.e., only to indicate approximation, and here meaning: “matters as these, more or less.” A similar usage [of the letter kaph is found in these verses]: And she told her mother’s house ‘kadvarim ha’eileh’ (according to these words);²⁴⁶Above, 24:28. And when he had spoken unto me ‘kadvarim ha’eileh’ (according to these words) I set my face toward the ground.²⁴⁷Daniel 10:15. There are many similar verses. It may be that the verse is saying that when his master heard his wife’s words which she told him — “Your servant did unto me such matters as these which I had immediately related to the men of the house” — then his anger was kindled.
It is possible that the kaph is here used for exaggeration, similar to its use in the verses: Why speaketh my lord ‘kadvarim ha’eileh’ (such words as these)?²⁴⁸Further 44:7. And there have befallen me such things as these (‘ka’eileh’)?²⁴⁹Leviticus 10:19.
Now due to his master’s love for Joseph he did not kill him, or it was a miracle of G-d, or knowing Joseph’s righteousness, he doubted her words. Similarly the Rabbis said in Bereshith Rabbah:²⁵⁰Bereshith Rabbah 87:10. “The master said to Joseph, ‘I know this charge against you is false, but lest a stigma fall on my children,²⁵¹Lest people say; “Just as she was free with you, so she was with others, and the children she had are not his.” [I will put you in prison].’”

כדברים האלה, “things like this;” according to Rashi, Potiphar’s wife showed him how Joseph had tried to arouse her while she was in bed with her husband. This appears difficult, as Rabbi Moshe, quoting the Talmud in tractate Sotah, folio 13 pointed out that the name Potiphar is spelled in the Torah once as פוטיפר, (39,1) without the letter ע at the end, and on another occasion with that letter ע missing (37,36) The Talmud concludes that once he had become a eunuch, as a close servant of Pharaoh, he could not indulge in sexual activity, so that Rashi’s commentary seems forced, to say the least. In fact, it is suggested that he bought Joseph in order to indulge in homosexual relations with him. Alternately, his castration had only been a partial one. Ibn Ezra explains that there are indeed two types of castration. One is called a hot castration, the other a cold castration. [The term occurs in the Talmud Yevamot repeatedly, but I have not found it mentioned here by Ibn Ezra. Ed.] Medically speaking, someone who underwent the “cold castration” requires a great deal of heat before he can ejaculate any semen. Potiphar, according to this opinion, was afflicted with that type of castration.

Undoubtedly, when Joseph’s master, appreciating that God was ever-present in his mind, did not believe what his wife was saying; for had he done so, he would have had to put him to death. However, he was still troubled by this episode, and accordingly put him in prison – had he not acted in this way, he would have become a laughing-stock, as his wife was (already) saying as much. By remaining silent, he would have provided her with a pretext for being unfaithful to him. This, then, is what Scripture intends to convey by the phrase, ‘And when his master heard the words of his wife’ (39:19): – for he was not unduly affected by the incident itself, since he lent it no credence; nor was he influenced by the robe found in her hand – as he undoubtedly questioned Joseph about it, and was told the truth. The Torah mentions this only briefly, as it is quite clear from the basic drift of the narrative. Hence it does not say (39:19): ‘And his fury was aroused against Joseph’, but simply, ‘his fury was aroused’. He was angered by what his wife had said, and his mind pre-occupied with what to do to appease her, given that she was insisting on her version of events. Accordingly, he resolved to incarcerate Joseph in the prison-house, which was under his control and located within the precincts of his own home, to remain there until (his wife’s) fury had subsided.