Egyptian Women, Captivated by Joseph’s Beauty, Cut Their Hands Slicing Citrons

In Egypt, Joseph finds himself the most important of Potiphar’s servants, and soon his master’s wife turns her attention to him:

^{בראשית לט:ז} וַיְהִי אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וַתִּשָּׂא אֵשֶׁת אֲדֹנָיו אֶת עֵינֶיהָ אֶל יוֹסֵף וַתֹּאמֶר שִׁכְבָה עִמִּי.

^{Gen 39:7} After a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”

Joseph refuses, explaining that his master, her husband, has been good to him, so how could he repay his master with this kind of treachery?^[1] But Potiphar’s wife is undeterred:

^{בראשית לט:י} וַיְהִי כְּדַבְּרָהּ אֶל יוֹסֵף יוֹם יוֹם וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֵלֶיהָ לִשְׁכַּב אֶצְלָהּ לִהְיוֹת עִמָּהּ.

^{Gen 39:10} And much as she coaxed Joseph day after day, he did not yield to her request to lie beside her, to be with her.

Then one day, when the two of them are alone in the house, she tries to force him, and he ends up running away naked.^[2] This leaves her both vexed and in an awkward position of possibly, Afraid of a scandal, she calls out to her servants and claims that Joseph attempted to rape her and only ran out of the house when she screamed.^[3]

The biblical account has little sympathy for Potiphar’s wife and presents her obsession with Joseph as a dark secret. She whispers in his ear; she waits to strike when the house is empty. Even her accusation against Joseph can be interpreted as her desire to keep suspicion away from her.

All Egyptian Women Love Joseph: An Early Midrashic Motif

In “Joseph and Aseneth,” a Greek-Jewish text from Hellenistic Egypt (ca. 100 B.C.E. to 100 C.E.), all Egyptian women are obsessed with Joseph. When he is in the house of his future father-in-law Pentephres (=Potiphera), he notices the man’s daughter, Aseneth, peering at him through the window. Joseph’s reaction expresses his nervousness:

^{Joseph and Aseneth 7:3} For all the wives and daughters of the notable men and satraps of all the land of Egypt used to annoy him (desiring) to sleep with him, and when all the wives and daughters of Egyptian men looked at Joseph, they used to suffer horribly because of his beauty.

^7:4 But Joseph repeatedly scorned them and the envoys whom the wives regularly sent to him with gold, silver, and costly gifts. Joseph consistently sent them away with threats and insults because Joseph repeatedly said, “I will not sin before the LORD, the god of my father, Israel, nor before my father Jacob.”^[4]

As already noted by scholars of midrash and Second Temple literature,^[5] the claim that Egyptian women stared at Joseph comes from one possible translation of a verse in Jacob’s blessing of Joseph:

^{בראשית מט:כב} בֵּן פֹּרָת יוֹסֵף בֵּן פֹּרָת עֲלֵי עָיִן בָּנוֹת צָעֲדָה עֲלֵי שׁוּר.

^{Gen 49:22} A fruitful son is Joseph, a fruitful son to put an eye upon, the daughters step up to look.^[6]

Genesis Rabbah, (5^th cent.) glosses this phrase by explaining who the unnamed daughters are:

^{בראשית רבה (תיאודור-אלבק) ויחי [בוילנה: צח:יח]} "בנות צעדה עלי שור"—שהיו המצריות בנות מלכים מבקשות לראות את פני יוסף, ולא תלה את עיניו באחת מהן, וזכה לירש שני עולמים, שלא הירהר באחת מהן.

^{Gen Rab (Theodor-Albeck) Vayechi [98:18]} “The daughters step up to look”—for the Egyptian princesses wished to see Joseph’s face, but he did not turn his eyes onto any of them, and thus he inherited two worlds,^[7] since he did not fantasize about any of them.

The Fragmentary Jerusalem Targum has the women pegging him with their jewelry to get him to look up:

^{תרגום ירושלמי קטעים [כתב יד פריז] בראשית מט:כב} והוו בנתיהון דמלכיא ודשלטוניא מדקין עלך מן חרכיא ומסתכלין בך מן שוריא והוו מטלקן עלך שירין עזקין קטילין, ומעיינין מא דילמא תתלי אפייך ותסתכל בחדא מנהון.^[8]

^{Fragmentary Targum Gen 49:22} The daughters of kings and rulers would peer at you from the windows and gaze upon you from the walls, and they would throw bracelets, rings, and necklaces at you, and stare at you with the hope you would lift up your face and look upon one of them.

The theme of Joseph’s extreme attractiveness to Egyptian women was then developed into a kind of defense of Potiphar’s wife, in a new scene added to the story in Jewish and Muslim retellings.

The Knife Trick

Midrash Tanhuma (ca. 8^th century) depicts Potiphar’s wife as expressing her desire for Joseph in public, among her fellow Egyptian women who could sympathize:

^{מדרש תנחומה (ורשא) וישב ה} אָמְרוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ זִכְרוֹנָם לִבְרָכָה: פַּעַם אַחַת נִתְקַבְּצוּ הַמִּצְרִיּוֹת וּבָאוּ לִרְאוֹת יָפְיוֹ שֶׁל יוֹסֵף.

^{Midrash Tanchuma (Warsaw) Vayeshev §5} Our sages inform us that on one occasion the Egyptian women assembled, and came to see how very handsome Joseph was.

מֶה עָשְׂתָה אֵשֶׁת פּוֹטִיפַר, נָטְלָה אֶתְרוֹגִים וְנָתְנָה לְכָל אַחַת וְאַחַת מֵהֶן וְנָתְנָה סַכִּין לְכָל אַחַת וְאַחַת, וְקָרְאָה לְיוֹסֵף וְהֶעֱמִידַתּוּ לִפְנֵיהֶן. כֵּיוָן שֶׁהָיוּ מִסְתַּכְּלוֹת בְּיָפְיוֹ שֶׁל יוֹסֵף, הָיוּ חוֹתְכוֹן אֶת יְדֵיהֶן. אָמְרָה לָהֶן, וּמָה אַתֶּן בְּשָׁעָה אַחַת כָּךְ. אֲנִי שֶׁבְּכָל שָׁעָה רוֹאָה אוֹתוֹ, עַל אַחַת כַּמָּה וְכַמָּה.

What did Potiphar’s wife do? She gathered citrons and gave one to each woman, and she gave each of them a knife.^[9] Then she summoned Joseph and stood him before them. When they saw Joseph’s handsome countenance, they cut their hands. She said to them: “If this can happen to you, who see him only once, how much more so does it happen to me, who must look at him constantly.”

In this telling, Mrs. Potiphar’s obsession with Joseph is quite public. She wants her peers to understand her love sickness and thus throws a party to show off his beauty. Like the previous motif, this too derives from a midrash, this time on the phrasing of Mrs. Potiphar’s accusation against Joseph:

^{בראשית לט:יג} וַיְהִי כִּרְאוֹתָהּ כִּי עָזַב בִּגְדוֹ בְּיָדָהּ וַיָּנָס הַחוּצָה. ^לט:יד וַתִּקְרָא לְאַנְשֵׁי בֵיתָהּ וַתֹּאמֶר לָהֶם לֵאמֹר רְאוּ הֵבִיא לָנוּ אִישׁ עִבְרִי לְצַחֶק בָּנוּ בָּא אֵלַי לִשְׁכַּב עִמִּי וָאֶקְרָא בְּקוֹל גָּדוֹל...

^{Gen 39:13} When she saw that he had left it in her hand and had fled outside, ^39:14 she called out to her servants and said to them, “Look, he had to bring us a Hebrew to play with us! This one came to lie with me; but I screamed loud…”

The story of the women, the citrons, and the knives explains why Potiphar’s wife uses the word “us” and not “me,” even though, in the biblical text, she is accusing him of singling out her, not a group. In this midrashic scene, Potiphar’s wife is speaking to the group of ladies who well understand the pressure she is under, even if she has reversed the attacker and the victim.^[10]

As shown recently by Meir Bar-Ilan of Bar-Ilan university, this midrashic motif of the women cutting themselves when they Joseph’s beauty appears already in Aramaic poems found in the Genizah, dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, and which the author of this midrash has translated and presented as a prose narrative.^[11]

The Knife Story in the Quran

A very similar account also appears in the Quran (7^th cent. C.E.), in the sura about Yusuf:

^{Quran 12:30} Some women in the city said, ‘The wife of that mighty one has been trying to seduce her young man. He has affected her deeply (with) love. Surely we see (that) she is indeed clearly astray.’

^12:31 When she heard their cunning (gossip), she sent for them, and prepared a banquet for them, and gave each one of them a knife. Then she said (to Joseph), ‘Come forth to (wait on) them.’ When they saw him, they admired him, and cut their hands, and said, ‘God preserve (us)! This is no (mere) mortal. This is nothing but a splendid angel!’^[12]

Raʿil

The Quran version does not explain why the women had knives, but some of the traditional Muslim commentaries, such as the Persian author Abu Ishaq al-Thalabi (d. 1035), who calls her Raʿil, explains they were cutting citrons and other fruit:

“And cut their hands”—with the knives, thinking that they were cutting the citrons and the other fruits. Qatadah said, “They kept cutting their hands until they made them fall off, but they became aware only of the blood, yet experienced no pain (from cutting off their hands), because their minds were preoccupied with Joseph.”^[13]

Raʿil is also her name in the retelling of Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 923), where citrons are also emphasized.

Zuleikha

Alternatively, most Muslim sources, especially from later periods, call her Zuleikha. For example, Tafsir al-Qummi (d. 919) writes:

When Zuleikha learnt of their criticism, she invited them for a repast. She handed a knife and a tangerine to each of the women and told them to slice it…. The same moment she ordered Yusuf to enter the gathering. When they saw the handsome Yusuf, they could not discriminate between the fruit and their hands and instead of the tangerine they slashed their fingers.^[14]

This name Zuleikha also appears in Tales of the Prophets by al-Kisai (ca. 1100), who expands the tale to include the women sullying themselves in their excitement:

^{Al-Kisai, Tales of the Prophets} When they came and were seated in their places, she offered them trays of citrons and honey, for such was their custom before partaking of a meal. “And she gave to each of them a knife” (Quran 11:21).

Having previously adorned Joseph in a most exquisite manner, she had said to him, “When you go out among the ladies, laugh and be cheerful. Hold your head aloft so that they can see your beauty and magnificence.” Then she went to them and offered each a knife and a bowl of citron.

While they were busy slicing the citrons, Zuleikha sent for Joseph to come out among them. He entered, as she had ordered, smiling and showing his teeth, which were like strung pearls, and his face, which was like the full moon. When the women saw him, they lauded him and sullied themselves on the spot out of passion for him and cut their hands as they were slicing the citrons, saying “O Zuleikha! No one has ever seen the likes of this boy! He is a temptation to all who see him!”^[15]

The name Zuleikha, likely together with some of the Muslim retellings, eventually trickle back into Jewish interpretation in a late medieval midrash known as Sefer HaYashar, the Book of the Just.

A Brief Introduction to the Sefer HaYashar

The Sefer HaYashar “The Book of the Just” retells biblical history from Adam to the death of Joshua. Its title derives from a lost biblical scroll of the name (see postscript below), which the author is implying his work to be.^[16] The tales pile on narrative dramatic insights, gleaned from rabbinic and non-rabbinic aggadic sources. Rabbinic influences on Sefer HaYashar include the Babylonian Talmud, Midrash Genesis Rabbah, Midrash Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, the Zohar, and many other rabbinic sources. Non-rabbinic Jewish sources include Philo (probably via Christian sources), Jubilees, Josephus, and some Muslim influences.^[17]

The Hebrew is pure but artificial, clearly a product of the Middle Ages. Joseph Dan (1935–2022) of Hebrew University claims that the anonymous author lived in sixteenth century Italy and shaped his work in part by mimicking medieval romances such as the stories of King Arthur.

The “Miraculous” Find of the Scroll

In the introduction to the book, the “publisher” tells a (fictional) story about how this book ended up in his hands. When Titus destroyed the Temple, his generals went around Jerusalem pillaging. One of them entered a large house and noticed a false wall. After he had it knocked down, the general found a jar filled with scrolls of all sorts of books—including the Mishnah! An old man sitting there reading explained that he had collected these books, knowing the Temple was about to be destroyed.

The general allows the old man to leave the city and take his scrolls with him, and the man wanders through the empire and ends up in Seville. After the expulsion from Spain, the scroll ended up in Naples, where the author got a hold of it and decided to copy it and have it published. Not satisfied with this, the author offers another origin story, claiming that when King Ptolemy of Egypt requested a copy of the Torah be sent to Alexandria to be translated into Greek—as related in the Letter of Aristeas. The Judeans first tried to trick him by sending this book, which is so full of wisdom and interest, he almost accepted it.

Following this second introduction, the author lays out thirteen benefits of reading this book, most of them having to do with matters left unclear in the Torah but clarified in Sefer HaYashar. The detailed treatment of the Joseph story is the seventh benefit of the book:

^{ספר הישר הקדמה} השביעי מה שביאר לנו כל המקרים שאירע ליוסף במצרים עם פוטיפר ועם אשתו ועם מלך מצרים כי זה יעורר לבנו גם כן ביראת יי ולהרחיק עצמינו מכל חטא כדי שייטיב לנו באחרית.

^{Sefer HaYashar Introduction} The 7^th—it explains to us all the events that took place with Joseph in Egypt with Potiphar and his wife, and with the king of Egypt, for it awakens in our hearts the fear of God, and the impetus to distance ourselves from all sin, in order for things to be better for us in the end.^[18]

The Zuleikha Story in Sefer HaYashar

In its retelling of the etrog and knife story, Sefer HaYashar begins with embellishing how physically ill Zuleikha is because of her unfulfilled longing for Joseph:

ויבואו כל נשי מצרים לבקרה ויאמרו אליה, מדוע את ככה דלה ורזה ואת לא חסרת דבר. הלא אשת שר נכבד וגדול בעיני המלך את, החסרת דבר מכל אשר תאוה נפשך. ותען זליכה אתהן לאמור, היום יוודע לכן על מה היה לי הדבר הזה אשר ראיתם אותי בו.

All the women of Egypt came ‎to visit her, and they said to her: “Why are you so pale and emaciated? Surely you lack ‎nothing, for is not your husband an honored officer and very great in the eyes of the king, and ‎can it be that you lack the least thing that your heart may desire?” And Zuleikha answered ‎unto them: This day shall it be known unto you what hath reduced me to this sad condition, in ‎which you see me now.[19]

In this telling, the ladies visit because of her ill health, and Zuleikha promises to explain her malady by a demonstration:

ותצו את נערותיה וישימו לחם לכל הנשים, ויעשו כן ותעש להן משתה ויאכלו כל הנשים בבית זליכה. ותיתן בידם אתרוגים ותיתן להן סכינים לקלף האתרוגים לאכלם, ותצו וילבישו את יוסף בגדים יקרים ולהביאו לפניהם.

And Zuleikha ordered her maidens to set meat before all the women ‎and to prepare a great feast for them, and all the women ate in Zuleikha’s house, and she gave ‎them knives to peel their citrons and to eat them. And she commanded that Joseph be put ‎into costly garments and that he should appear before them.

ויבוא יוסף לפניהם ויביטו כל הנשים ביוסף, ויראו את יוסף ולא הפנו את עיניהם ממנו. ויחתכו כולם את ידיהים בסכינין אשר בידיהן, וימלאו כל האתרוגים אשר בידיהן בדמם. ולא ידעו את אשר עשו, אך הביטו לראות ביופי יוסף ולא הפנו ממנו את עפעפיהן.

And Joseph came before them, ‎and behold, when the women saw him they could not turn their eyes from him, and all of ‎them cut their hands with the knives and the citrons were full of blood. And they noticed not ‎what they had done, being so deeply absorbed in admiring Joseph’s beauty, and they could ‎not turn their eyelids from him.

This revision continues the trend begun in the rabbinic period of making Mrs. Potiphar a much more likeable character. The usual depiction, based on the Bible, is of a nameless shrew who tries to seduce Joseph and then, when that fails, not only blames him for the act but turns it into a general prejudice against a non-native. Look at what this Hebrew wants to do to all of us!

In the Sefer HaYashar’s version of the etrog and knife story, she not only proves that Joseph is irresistible, but is a named character, acting out of genuine emotional distress. The whole encounter between Zuleikha and Joseph is no longer clandestine but a public rendering of unrequited love (or at least lust). In this version, they hadn’t heard about the incident with Joseph before; she confesses her desire for Joseph as a social act of honesty in response for her friends concern about her welfare.

The citrons, the knives, and the blood highlight the emotional suffering that Zuleikha feels.^[20] Her act is not malicious in that she herself does not cut the women; their lust is responsible. This justifies Zuleikha’s feelings, if not her actions. She is not a wanton woman but overwhelmed with desire, just like any other woman in her position would be. Her reputation is not sterling, but she is not the monster portrayed in the Bible.

Why does a Jewish text go out of its way to rehabilitate Mrs. Potiphar? It is hard to say, especially since the tendency in rabbinic literature is to become blacker and whiter in its characterizations of others,^[21] but here we have a more flesh and blood rendering of a previously nameless woman.

Even though the audience was male, Sefer HaYashar’s treatment of Zuleikha can seem, for its time, somewhat feminist. She is a real person with faults but also feelings. She has friends. And she is a victim herself. If nothing else, her character is worth debating. The book appreciates the complexities of attraction. It is also a good story. This brings us to the thirteenth benefit of the book, which gives us a sense of who he thought would actually be reading it:

^{ספר הישר הקדמה} השלשה עשר שכל הסוחרים והולכי דרכים שאין להם פנאי לתורה יקראו בו ויקבלו שכרם. כי בו שכר הנפש ותענוג הגוף שישמע דברים מחודשים שלא נכתבו בכל ספר. ומזה יתבונן האדם לדעת השם יתברך ולדבקה בו.

^{Sefer HaYashar Introduction} The 13^th—that all merchants and travelers who do not have the free time to study Torah will read it and receive their reward. For in it is reward for the soul and pleasure for the body, which will hear new things that have not been written in any other book. From this, a person will receive insight to know about the blessed God and cling to Him.

When I was working on my doctoral thesis many years ago, which was a study of Sefer HaYasher, a teacher of midrash in Jerusalem, Melila Hellner Eshed, compared Sefer HaYasher to a Turkish movie. She meant the kind that you saw advertised at Israeli cinemas—something like the Mexican telenovelas we see in the States.

Although not a compliment, the analogy is apt in that Sefer HaYasher seeks to make the Bible more compelling to a certain audience. The book’s emphasis on violent wars and prurient desire probably didn’t hurt Sefer HaYashar’s reaching great popularity with its readers. Even though the book is not well known today, it has been printed in countless editions since its formation and was well known throughout the late medieval European Jewish world.

Sefer HaYasher loves to embellish the biblical tales. The genius of the work is the way it brings the biblical to life, in all its complexity and messiness. You may not always like it, but you cannot stop reading. It is no wonder why in its time it was a best-seller!

Postscript

The Sefer HaYashar Alleges to Be the Lost Book Referenced in the Bible

In 1952, the great Hollywood lyricist Arthur Freed conceived the idea of making a movie based on his hit song from 1929, “Singing in the Rain.” When he signed Gene Kelly, famous for is singing and dancing, to choreograph and star in the movie, people asked Kelly what the movie was going to be about. Kelly admitted that the details were sketchy but that there would be rain, and he would be singing in it. The point was, he knew that Freed’s popular songs would be a draw for audiences, and that was the core concept.

Freed and Kelly were hardly the first people to realize that making use of older, famous works as a cover for your new work often leads to its acceptance and popularity. Since the Second Temple period, some Jewish writers wrote in a genre known as rewritten Bible, in which the biblical stories or laws are recounted with the author’s new comments, perspectives, or revisions woven into the text.^[22] Similarly, some authors penned pseudepigraphal works, in which the authors write as if they were a famous ancient person, such as Solomon, Baruch, or the sons of Jacob.

A third sub-genre of rewritten Bible is when an author takes a lost ancient work and writes a new one under that name and publishes it as if it were the original. A notorious example of such a work is Aleph-Bet of Ben Sira, a book penned in the Middle Ages, filled with trivia and lewd stories written as if it were the Second Temple book of Wisdom penned by Jesus Ben Sira and preserved in Greek translation. Another example of such as work is the medieval Sefer HaYashar, the Book (or Scroll) of the Just, a work mentioned thrice in the Bible:

Joshua—After Joshua defeats the Canaanite kings of the south, he asks YHWH to stop the sun, so that the Israelite army could have enough time to finish the job:

^{יהושע י:יב} אָז יְדַבֵּר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ לַי־הוָה בְּיוֹם תֵּת יְ־הוָה אֶת הָאֱמֹרִי לִפְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר לְעֵינֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁמֶשׁ בְּגִבְעוֹן דּוֹם וְיָרֵחַ בְּעֵמֶק אַיָּלוֹן. ^י:יג וַיִּדֹּם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְיָרֵחַ עָמָד עַד יִקֹּם גּוֹי אֹיְבָיו הֲלֹא הִיא כְתוּבָה עַל סֵפֶר הַיָּשָׁר...

^{Josh 10:12} On that occasion, when YHWH routed the Amorites before the Israelites, Joshua addressed YHWH; he said in the presence of the Israelites: “Stand still, O sun, at Gibeon, O moon, in the Valley of Aijalon!” ^10:13 And the sun stood still And the moon halted, while a nation wreaked judgment on its foes”—as is written in the Scroll of the Just.

David—After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David composes a dirge in their honor:

^{שמואל ב א:יז} וַיְקֹנֵן דָּוִד אֶת הַקִּינָה הַזֹּאת עַל שָׁאוּל וְעַל יְהוֹנָתָן בְּנוֹ. ^א:יח וַיֹּאמֶר לְלַמֵּד בְּנֵי יְהוּדָה קָשֶׁת^[23] הִנֵּה כְתוּבָה עַל סֵפֶר הַיָּשָׁר. ^א:יט הַצְּבִי יִשְׂרָאֵל עַל בָּמוֹתֶיךָ חָלָל אֵיךְ נָפְלוּ גִבּוֹרִים.

^{2 Sam 1:17} And David intoned this dirge over Saul and his son Jonathan— ^1:18 He ordered the Judahites to be taught [The Song of the] Bow. It is recorded in the Scroll of the Just. ^1:19 Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights; how have the mighty fallen!

Solomon—In the chapter in which Solomon completes the Temple and offers a long prayer, he also speaks a short poem. In the Masoretic Text, this poem appears before the prayer and in the Greek LXX (Septuagint) text, it appears after. Here is the MT version:

^{מלכים א ח:יב [תה"ש נגa]} אָז אָמַר שְׁלֹמֹה יְ־הוָה אָמַר לִשְׁכֹּן בָּעֲרָפֶל. ^ח:יג בָּנֹה בָנִיתִי בֵּית זְבֻל לָךְ מָכוֹן לְשִׁבְתְּךָ עוֹלָמִים.

^{1 Kgs 8:12 [LXX 53a]} Then Solomon declared: “YHWH has chosen to abide in a thick cloud: ^8:13 I have now built for You a stately house, a place where You may dwell forever.”^[24]

In addition, the LXX version contains a reference to the poem’s source:

And behold, is this one not written in a Book of the Song?^[25]

The Book or Scroll of the Song translates an original Hebrew Sefer HaShir (ספר השיר), which is likely a metathesis for Sefer HaYashar (ספר הישר).

In all three quotes from this lost work point to it having been a collection of poems or songs. But this is not what the author of the medieval Sefer HaYashar chose when writing his work.