John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: March 18

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: March 18

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The Round-House

Gen_39:20

The prison into which Joseph was cast, and which was undoubtedly within the premises of his master, is called in the text by a term which signifies the “house of roundness,”‘ or “the round-house.” It is a curious fact, that the temporary prisons of the constable or police, in which persons are detained until their cases can be investigated by the magistrates, were formerly called “round-houses” throughout our own country, now exchanged for the more recent name of “police-station.” It is difficult to see how this name became appropriated to such structures, unless from the originally round form of the prison. In the present case, the term very probably implies an edifice, or portion of the official mansion, mostly subterranean, of which the roof or vault, rising immediately from the surface of the ground, was round, or shaped like an inverted bowl. That it was of this nature, may be inferred from its being called in Gen_41:14, the “dungeon.” Such dungeons are still, under similar circumstances, used in the East, and they have usually an aperture at the top by which some light and air are admitted, and through which the prisoners were let down. These, or any other place of detention, are always upon the premises of the chief of the guard, or of the magistrate. In Persia, for instance, every magistrate invested with a charge of criminal judicature, engages generally the services of certain persons to act as guards or constables. He commonly prefers such as have been in the service of his predecessor, and have therefore experience in their business. He does not pay them. On the contrary, they render him a considerable annual rent, in consideration of the profit they manage to draw from their employment. To these persons, the officer or magistrate assigns a suite of apartments, consisting of three or four chambers in the outer part of his mansion. Here they detain such criminals as come into their custody. The doors of the chambers are kept shut; but, like other doors of the country, they have little strength, and might be burst open with the foot. Yet, from the construction of eastern buildings, little anxiety is felt about the escape of the prisoners, nor are any unusual precautions taken to prevent it; the porter, always at the gate of the house, being the only fixed jailer. Yet the custody is secure enough, and the prisoners are as uncomfortable as they could be in any public prison. They are not allowed to see any persons but those who have them in charge; and the chambers, besides being often crowded, are purposely left in a filthy and unwholesome condition, that the prisoners may be induced to purchase, at a high price, the enjoyment of the air, and the privilege of some addition to their comfort. If any one is detected in an attempt to escape, he is punished on the spot by a great number of blows with a stick, inflicted by the sole order of the jailer, or the chief of the men who have charge of the prison. To him, or to these men, the prisoners are entirely left by the magistrate, who troubles himself no farther about them, the person who has them in charge acting just as he likes towards them, his sole responsibility being to produce them when required. Hence, we see the importance to Joseph, that he gained the good-will of “the keeper of the prison,” whom, for want of a clear perception of the nature of a practice so different from our own, some have regarded as no other than Potiphar himself in whose house the prison was.

It is thus by no means an advantage to prisoners that there are no public prisons, which can only exist where imprisonment is a punishment, and not simply a means of detention. In Joseph’s case, through his being the slave of the officer who had the prison in his house, the detention was long enough to have the effect of a punishment; and he might probably have been kept in confinement any length of time his master had seen fit; had not the Lord prepared a way for his deliverance.

It would seem that he was at first harshly treated. The Psalmist says of him, “Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in irons,” Psa_105:18. This was probably under the first wrath of the master; and that, however painful while it lasted, it was not of long duration. It can scarcely be questioned, that the keeper of the prison was previously well acquainted with Joseph, who had long acted as sole manager of his master’s household. He was probably, also, sooner than Potiphar himself, convinced of Joseph’s innocence; for he was not subject to the same influence which led that person to credit the story his wife had told him; and previous intimations of the character and designs of this woman had probably come to his notice, which the husband himself would be the last to learn. Joseph, also, as a slave, possessing nothing but what depended on the favor of a master, who had become his enemy, was not of the class whose circumstances could offer to the governor of the prison any gainful inducements to harsh or extortionate conduct. Nothing was to be gained by using him ill; while a man of his tried abilities might be in many respects useful, even in a prison, if properly treated. It speaks well for Joseph, that in the position of command in which he had been placed, and which is one usually distinguished by the insolence of those who fill it, he had made, not enemies, but friends. Had it been otherwise—had an ill feeling been excited against him in his former office, there would have been little disposition in the prison to trust him, and to treat him with consideration. But we must not forget, that this was the Lord’s doing. It was He who “gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.”

The prison was, however, not that of an ordinary magistrate, it was that of the captain of the guard; and in it the court prisoners were confined. The office of keeper was, therefore, one of most serious responsibility. Yet, great as that responsibility was, the keeper, in the fulness of his reliance upon Joseph’s integrity and good conduct, soon committed the whole management of the affairs of the prison into his hands; “and, whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it;” or rather, perhaps, “he directed to be done.” With how many strange facts of courtly life he must then have become acquainted; for, doubtless, among those who abode for a time in this place, were many persons, high in rank and office, from whose complaints or statements, much high and strange matter might be learnt, calculated to be of much use to Joseph in the future career which the providence of God had marked out for him, and for which therefore this imprisonment was no bad training. By this means he must have eventually come to the court possessed with no imperfect knowledge of the state of parties—if there were such things as parties in those days; and of the standing and character of the leading persons in the king’s service. We know that the great personages, who found their way to this prison, did converse freely with Joseph; and as political reserve is a thing utterly unknown in the East, it is beyond doubt that he learned much from them, not only respecting themselves and their own affairs, but respecting many other high persons who never themselves came under the care of the keeper of the prison.

The chief butler and the chief baker (or rather cook) of the king of Egypt, were among those who were brought to the prison, while Joseph had the management of it. These were very high offices, especially the former. We had occasion two days ago to indicate the importance of the latter office. The former was not less important, and it has retained its distinction much later than the former, even in western courts. The noble family of Butler, in this country—which formerly held the now extinct dukedom of Ormond, owes its foundation to a person who exercised this office at court, and, we believe, held an hereditary claim to it. We have even a scriptural instance in the case of Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer to the Persian king, and was manifestly a person of high consequence, as indicated not only from his receiving the appointment of governor of Judea, but from the immense wealth which enabled him to sustain at his own cost, for several years, the charges of that expensive office. So also, Rabshakeh, one of the chief generals of the Assyrian host was, as his name imports, chief cup-bearer to his king.