Genesis 37:12 ¶
And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy
brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And
he said to him, Here am I. 14 And he
said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and
well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale
of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15
And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field:
and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 16 And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I
pray thee, where they feed their flocks. 17
And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us
go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.
18 And when they saw him afar off, even
before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19 And they said one to another, Behold, this
dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore,
and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil
beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
21 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered
him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. 22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but
cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him;
that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.
Here
goes Joseph on another reporting expedition for his father. No wonder his
brothers can’t stand him. Are they expecting another evil report?
Introduced
into the narrative is someone who enters the picture several times in the
Bible. He or she is a seemingly random person who accomplishes something
important or is used as an example. His or her existence makes one wonder about
the place of so-called “divine appointments” in our everyday lives denying our
very concepts of randomness, luck, and chance. I am referring to the references
to a certain man or a certain woman who do something
noteworthy but whose name isn’t given. As two examples;
Judges
9:53 And a certain woman cast a piece of
a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.
1Kings
22:34 And a certain man drew a bow at a
venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness:
wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me
out of the host; for I am wounded.
A certain man found
Joseph wandering, unsure of where to find his brothers. This anonymous
individual lets Joseph know where to find them and exits the narrative.
Their
hatred of Joseph is so great, their envy is so murderous, that they conspire
against him as they see him approaching them. Jesus’ own brethren would not
receive Him and conspired against Him.
John
1:11 He came unto his own, and his own
received him not.
He
spoke against the Jews’ practices of His time and they conspired against Him.
But, Joseph will yet save them all as we will see, as Christ came to save His
own people.
They
cynically and with blood in their hearts want to kill Joseph but Reuben, Jacob
and Leah’s firstborn, refuses them their wish to end Joseph’s life and blame it
on an animal. Here we see one of the definitions of evil as intending to do
violence.
Reuben’s
desire is to deliver Joseph, to return him to their father, Jacob. Reuben, who
had before this committed the grievous sin of having sex with his father’s
concubine, Bilhah, has a heart of mercy toward Joseph. This goes to show just
how complex and really normal these patriarchs were in that they were not two
dimensional but like us and all men were capable of evil and good. We do err
when we paint the Bible’s human characters as having only one side; when we
ignore Moses’ temper, Jeremiah’s doubts, or David’s sexual weakness. Only
Christ, who is God in the flesh, was without sin, and, pastors, that includes
Paul.
Genesis
37:23 ¶ And it came to pass, when Joseph
was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat
of many colours that was on him; 24 And
they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no
water in it. 25 And they sat down to eat
bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of
Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and
myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26
And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother,
and conceal his blood? 27 Come, and let
us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our
brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. 28 Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen;
and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the
Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
29 And Reuben returned unto the pit;
and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said,
The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?
Joseph
is now cast into a dry pit and they took off his coat of many colors much like
Jesus’ garment was removed in Matthew 27:35 and John 19:23 although the
similarity is limited to the removal only. Notice the difference in the
nastiness of the dungeon Jeremiah will be thrown into in Jeremiah 38:6. It is
then Judah, without Reuben present, who suggests they sell their brother to the
Ishmaelite traders who are traveling to Egypt. This is done as an act of mercy
as Judah says that it would be better to do this than to kill him. The brothers
consent. This passage seems to indicate that the Midianites were also
Ishmaelities; Midianites through Abraham’s wife, Keturah;
Genesis
25:1 ¶ Then again Abraham took a wife,
and her name was Keturah. 2 And she bare
him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.
…and
Ishmaelites through his concubine, Sarai’s handmaid, Hagar;
Genesis
16:15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and
Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.
So,
we see how quickly the genealogies of the Ancient Near East became muddled.
Joseph’s
life was worth twenty pieces of silver to the traders. Jesus was betrayed for
thirty. To Reuben’s dismay, when he returned from wherever he had gone not
knowing about or approving the sale of Joseph, his brother was gone. Tearing
one’s clothing was a sign of grief in the Ancient Near East as evident in many
places throughout the Bible.
What
was Reuben going to do now?
Genesis
37:31 ¶ And they took Joseph’s coat, and
killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and
they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether
it be thy son’s coat or no. 33 And he
knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph
is without doubt rent in pieces. 34 And
Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his
son many days. 35 And all his sons and
all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and
he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his
father wept for him. 36 And the
Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and
captain of the guard.
Joseph’s
coat of many colors is now used to present false evidence that Joseph was
killed by a wild animal. As explained previously an evil beast would refer to an animal intent on violence. It would
have nothing to do with a supposed moral condition. Evil in this context has to do with an intention of malice and
violence, not sin.
The
lie worked and Jacob is grieving and like Job, those close to him seek to
comfort him to no avail. He states that he will go to his grave mourning for
Joseph, who is sold by the traders to an Egyptian officer.
If
we create in our minds a spiritual comparison to what happens to Joseph and
what happened to Jesus, understanding that types rarely hold up on deep
examination, we might muse that the Midianite traders taking Joseph out of the
pit are like angels transporting the souls of the dead to their destination.
Luke
16:22 And it came to pass, that the
beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man
also died, and was buried; 23 And in
hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom.
And
we know that Jesus went to Hell, which Joseph’s destination, Egypt, is like in
type, not to suffer but to preach. (see Deuteronomy 4:20; 1Kings 8:51; and
Jeremiah 11:4 for Egypt as an iron
furnace.)
1Peter
3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by water.
Potiphar
is said to be captain of the guard. The
Hyksos were a group of Asiatic people who conquered Egypt in antiquity.[1] Some scholars call The
Hyksos the Shepherd Kings. I contend, as some scholars do, and we’ll have
Biblical evidence later in Exodus, that Joseph and his family came into Egypt
under their reign. The Hyksos are said to have ruled through Egyptian vassals
who would have worshipped the traditional gods of Egypt and, of course, longed
for an Egyptian revival, hating anyone who represented the shepherd economy of Canaan,
longing to reestablish authority over not only their own country but Canaan as
well. This will explain a couple of statements we will find later in the Bible
in other books.
Exodus
1:8 Now there arose up a new king over
Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
This
native Egyptian pharaoh of Exodus, like the rest of the Egyptians, would have
held the shepherds from the area of Canaan in great contempt and hatred. He, or
his dynasty, would have reestablished authority over Canaan and so, when the
Pharaoh and his army are destroyed in the Red Sea disaster Canaan’s cities
would have been without their protector. The Amarna Letters give us an
indication that the Canaanite cities were vassals of Egypt and were under great
threat around the time of the Exodus without Pharaoh’s army to protect them.[2]
Number
14:9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD,
neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their
defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
These
are just some ideas that will help you connect the dots, so to speak, in the
Bible. Apparently, God doesn’t regard them as all that important as He provides
no great explanation through Moses, but it is interesting to think about,
nonetheless.
Verse
35 shows us that either Dinah was not Jacob’s only daughter or daughters could
logically include daughters-in-law as in The
Ancient City De Coulanges talks about how ancient custom required a woman
to leave her family and join her husband’s family.
[1]
History World International, “The Hyksos,” http://history-world.org/hyksos.htm
(accessed 3.5.3017).
[2]
The History of Israel, “Amarna Letters,” http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/amarna-letters.html
(accessed 3.5.2017).
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