Pot´iphar (contraction of Potipherah), an officer of Pharaoh, probably the chief of his bodyguard (). Of the Midianitish merchants he purchased Joseph, whose treatment by him is described under that head. The keeper of the prison into which the son of Jacob was eventually cast treated him with kindness, and confided to him the management of the prison; and this confidence was afterwards sanctioned by the 'captain of the guard' himself, as the officer responsible for the safe custody of prisoners of state. It is sometimes denied, but more usually maintained, that this 'captain of the guard' was the same with the Potiphar who is before designated by the same title. We believe that this 'captain of the guard' and Joseph's master were the same person. It would be in accordance with Oriental usage that offenders against the court, and the officers of the court, should be in custody of the captain of the guard; and that Potiphar should have treated Joseph well after having cast him into prison, is not irreconcilable with the facts of the case. After having imprisoned Joseph in the first transport of his choler, he might possibly discover circumstances which led him to doubt his guilt, if not to be convinced of his innocence. The mantle left in the hands of his mistress, and so triumphantly produced against him, would, when calmly considered, seem a stronger proof of guilt against her than against him: yet still, to avoid bringing dishonor upon his wife, and exposing her to new temptation, he may have deemed it more prudent to bestow upon his slave the command of the state prison, than to restore him to his former employment.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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