What Does Genesis 37:18 Mean?

But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. The formula "the Lord was with Joseph" is repeated in the prison as it was in Potiphar's house. The structural repetition is deliberate: whatever Joseph's external circumstances: honored slave, imprisoned slave: the constant is God's presence and favor. The keeper of the prison responds to Joseph the same way Potiphar did: he recognizes something in this man, puts everything under his management, and removes himself from detailed oversight. The pattern of elevation repeats in the confined space of a prison.

The "steadfast love" (Hebrew hesed) shown to Joseph is the covenant word: the word that describes God's loyal, unfailing commitment to those in covenant relationship with Him. Joseph is not in covenant with God in the formal Sinaitic sense; but he is a son of the covenant family, and the hesed that carried Abraham through Ur and Canaan, that carried Jacob through Paddan-Aram and the Jabbok, now carries the son of Jacob through a pit and a slave sale and a false accusation and a prison. The hesed does not protect Joseph from these sufferings; it accompanies him through them and ensures they do not become his end.

Chapter 37's arc begins with Joseph at home, loved and favored, and ends with Joseph in prison, falsely accused and seemingly abandoned. Between those two points: the dreams, the sale, the Potiphar household, the false accusation. The narrator's conclusion at the end of this arc is not "how terrible" but "the Lord was with Joseph." The chapter ends not on Joseph's misery but on God's presence in the misery. This is the interpretive key the reader is given before the prison chapters unfold: what looks like abandonment is not. What looks like calamity is the path.