ASENATH’S FATHER, POTIPHERA (accent on the third syllable), is not to be confused with Potiphar (accent on the first syllable), captain of the guard, who, as you may remember, was incapable of having children. Potiphera was the high priest of Ra in Ōn (rhymes with stone), one of the most ancient cities in Egypt.
Joseph had no problem with becoming the son-in-law of a pagan priest. On the contrary, he was delighted that Pharaoh had wished him to marry into one of the old priestly families, the high aristocracy of the kingdom, because they—some of them—were the most educated and discerning of people. He had the greatest respect for Potiphera’s devotion to a god who, as giver of life, was in many ways the same generous presence that Joseph himself revered. And this was not just talk; his father- and mother-in-law were among the most decent, honest, charming, disinterested, charitable people he had ever met.
He greatly enjoyed the periodic visits he and Asenath made to his in-laws. Asenath’s mother was a witty, cultured lady, who had at first been resistant to welcoming a barbarian into her illustrious family, however powerful or honored he might be. But the more she came to know Joseph, the more her judgments softened, until by the third visit she was treating him with as much affection and respect as Asenath could have wished for.
Potiphera had had no such prejudices. He had immediately recognized the quality of Joseph’s mind, and their relationship had been warm and candid from the beginning. After dinner, when the ladies had retired to the drawing room, he and Joseph would sit together in two of the easy chairs that lined the colonnade, drinking the ancient Egyptian equivalent of vintage port and talking about the divine. Potiphera’s intellect was too subtle to identify Ra with the physical sun alone, much less with the slender falcon-headed man whom the masses worshipped. He shared with Joseph a trust in an all-embracing providence. But he had difficulty with Joseph’s reverence for what was unsayable and unknowable. He was, Joseph thought, too attached to the light to realize that it is also its opposite. In short, his concept of God was too narrow. But then, so was Joseph’s. So was any human mind’s.
In Joseph’s capacity as viceroy, he was obligated to participate in certain state-sponsored religious ceremonies, and while much of the ritual and mythology, as well as the constant references to an afterlife, seemed trivial and foolish to him, there were moments when he could give the words of the liturgy his wholehearted assent, especially in the Great Hymn to the Sun, chanted in the House of Atum by a choir of two hundred young men and women. “You appear on the horizon,” they sang, and Joseph would feel his flesh begin to tingle. He knew all the words that would follow, beautiful and true in themselves and tuned to a melody that curled its way up and down the Lydian scale in slow, willowy waves.
You appear on the horizon, glorious
sun, begetter of life.
When you rise in the eastern sky,
you fill the whole world with your beauty.
Though you are far away,
you send your light to the earth;
though you shine on men’s faces,
your pathways cannot be seen.
You appear to us, and the darkness
fades, and all beings rejoice,
and you shine out to the limits
of everything that you made.
Men wake and stand on their feet;
they wash and put on their clothing
and lift up their arms to thank you,
then go out to do their work.
Cattle browse in the pastures,
trees and grasses flourish,
geese flutter in the marshes
and stretch out their wings to the sky
in adoration of you,
sheep dance on their hooves,
birds fly into the air
and rejoice that you shine upon them,
fish in the river leap up
before you, and your rays plunge
into the Great Green Sea.
Creator of the seed in women,
you care for the unborn child,
you soothe him so he won’t cry,
you bring him into the air,
you open his mouth and give him
everything that he needs.
When the chick speaks through the eggshell,
you send him the breath of life
and bring his form to completion;
he pecks his way out and stands up
chirping with all his might.
How manifold is your creation,
O one and only God!
How beautiful is this world
created as your heart desired it
when you were all alone!
How beautiful is this world
with its billions of living creatures!—
whoever swims in the sea
or walks about on the earth
or flies through the heavens above it.