They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes. Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”
Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, “Let’s not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him; and they took him, and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.
They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to him. Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The merchants brought Joseph into Egypt.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28 18. And when they saw him afar off. Here…
18. And when they saw him afar off. Here again Moses, so far from sparing the fame of his own family by adulation, brands its chiefs with a mark of eternal infamy, and exposes them to the hatred and execration of all nations. If, at any time, among heathens, a brother murdered his brother, such impiety was treated with the utmost severity in tragedies, that it might not pass into an example for imitation. But in profane history no such thing is found, as that nine brethren should conspire together for the destruction of an innocent youth, and, like wild beasts, should pounce upon him with bloody hands. Therefore a horrible, and even diabolical fury, took possession of the sons of Jacob, when, having cast aside the sense of nature, they were thus prepared cruelly to rage against their own blood.
But, in addition to this wickedness, Moses condemns their impious contempt of God, Behold this master of dreams. For why do they insult the unhappy youth, except because he had been called by the celestial oracle to an unexpected dignity? Besides, in this manner, they themselves proclaim their own baseness more publicly than any one could do, who should purposely undertake severely to chastise them. They confess that the cause why they persecuted their brother was his having dreamed; as if truly this was an inexpiable offense; but if they are indignant at his dreams, why do they not rather wage war with God? For Joseph deemed it necessary to receive, as a precious deposit, what had been divinely revealed unto him. But because they did not dare directly to assail God, they wrap themselves in clouds, that, losing sight of God, they may vent their fury against their brother. If such blindness seized upon the patriarchs, what shall become of the reprobates, whom obstinate malice drives along, so that they do not hesitate to resist God even to the last? And we see that they willingly disturb and excite themselves, as often as they are offended with the threatenings and chastisements of God, and rise up against his ministers for the sake of taking vengeance. The same thing, indeed, would at times happen to us all, unless God should put on his bridle to render us submissive. With respect to Joseph, the special favor of God was manifested to him, and he was raised to the highest dignity; but only in a dream, which is ridiculed by the wicked scorn of his brethren. To this is also added a conspiracy, so that he narrowly escaped death. Thus the promise of God, which had exalted him to honor, almost plunges him into the grave. We, also, who have received the gratuitous adoption of God amidst many sorrows, experience the same thing. For, from the time that Christ gathers us into his flock, God permits us to be cast down in various ways, so that we seem nearer hell than heaven. Therefore, let the example of Joseph be fixed in our minds, that we be not disquieted when many crosses spring forth to us from the root of God’s favor. For I have before showed, and the thing itself clearly testifies, that in Joseph was adumbrated, what was afterwards more fully exhibited in Christ, the Head of the Church, in order that each member may form itself to the imitation of his example.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 28 The holy Ghost covereth not men’s faults, as do…
The holy Ghost covereth not men’s faults, as do vain writers, which make vice virtue.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv18–28 Gen 37:18 And when they saw him afar off,…
Gen 37:18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.
Ver. 18. They conspired against him.] So did the husbandmen against Christ: "This is the heir," say they, &c. {Luk 20:14} The word is by one rendered, They craftily conspired. The Greek hath it, malignantly: craft and cruelty go usually together in the Church’s adversaries. The devil lends them his seven heads to plot, and his ten horns to push poor Joseph, that dreads no danger.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28 This master of dreams, this crafty dreamer, that covers…
Heb.
This master of dreams, this crafty dreamer, that covers his own ambitious designs and desires with pretences or fictions of dreams.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v23 We have here the execution of their plot against…
We have here the execution of their plot against Joseph. 1. They stripped him, each striving to seize the envied coat of many colours, Gen 37:23. Thus, in imagination, they degraded him from the birthright, of which perhaps this was the badge, grieving him, affronting their father, and making themselves sport, while they insulted over him. "Now, Joseph, where is the fine coat?" Thus our Lord Jesus was stripped of his seamless coat, and thus his suffering saints have first been industriously divested of their privileges and honours, and then made the off-scouring of all things. 2. They went about to starve him, throwing him into a dry pit, to perish there with hunger and cold, so cruel were their tender mercies, Gen 37:24. Note, Where envy reigns pity is banished, and humanity itself is forgotten, Pro 27:4. So full of deadly poison is malice that the more barbarous any thing is the more grateful it is. Now Joseph begged for his life, in the anguish of his soul (Gen 42:21), entreated, by all imaginable endearments, that they would be content with his coat and spare his life. He pleads innocence, relation, affection, submission; he weeps and makes supplication, but all in vain. Reuben alone relents and intercedes for him, Gen 42:22. But he cannot prevail to save Joseph from the horrible pit, in which they resolve he shall die by degrees, and be buried alive. Is this he to whom his brethren must do homage? Note, God's providences often seem to contradict his purposes, even then they are serving them, and working at a distance towards the accomplishment of them. 3. They slighted him when he was in distress, and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph; for when he was pining away in the pit, bemoaning his own misery, and with a languishing cry calling to them for pity, they sat down to eat bread, Gen 37:25. (1.) They felt no remorse of conscience for the sin; if they had, it would have spoiled their appetite for their meat, and the relish of it. Note, A great force put upon conscience commonly stupefies it, and for the time deprives it both of sense and speech. Daring sinners are secure ones. But the consciences of Joseph's brethren, though asleep now, were roused long afterwards, Gen 42:21. (2.) They were now pleased to think how they were freed from the fear of their brother's dominion over them, and that, on the contrary, they had turned the wheel upon him. They made merry over him, as the persecutors over the two witnesses that had tormented them, Rev 11:10. Note, Those that oppose God's counsels may possibly prevail so far as to think they have gained their point, and yet be deceived. 4. They sold him. A caravan of merchants very opportunely passed by (Providence so ordering it), and Judah made the motion that they should sell Joseph to them, to be carried far enough off into Egypt, where, in all probability, he would be lost, and never heard of more. (1.) Judah proposed it in compassion to Joseph (Gen 37:26): "What profit is it if we slay our brother? it will be less guilt, and more gain, to sell him." Note, When we are tempted to sin, we should consider the unprofitableness of it. It is what there is nothing to be got by. (2.) They acquiesced in it, because they thought that if he were sold for a slave he would never be a lord, if sold into Egypt he would never be their lord; yet all this was working towards it. Note, The wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain, Psa 76:10. Joseph's brethren were wonderfully restrained from murdering him, and their selling him was as wonderfully turned to God's praise. As Joseph was sold by the contrivance of Judah for twenty pieces of silver, so was our Lord Jesus for thirty, and by one of the same name too, Judas. Reuben (it seems) had gone away from his brethren, when they sold Joseph, intending to come round some other way to the pit, and to help Joseph out of it, and return him safely to his father. This was a kind project, but, if it had taken effect, what had become of God's purpose concerning his preferment in Egypt? Note, There are many devices in man's heart, many devices of the enemies of God's people to destroy them and of their friends to help them, which perhaps are both disappointed, as these were; but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. Reuben thought himself undone, because the child was sold: I, whither shall I go? Gen 37:30. He being the eldest, his father would expect from him an accounts of Joseph; but, as it proved, they would all have been undone if he had not been sold.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv18–28 And they said one to another,.... According to the…
And they said one to another,.... According to the Targum of Jonathan, Simeon and Levi said what follows: nor is it unlikely, since they were hot, passionate, cruel, and bloody minded men, as appears by the affair of Shechem; and perhaps this may be the reason why Joseph afterwards, when governor of Egypt, took Simeon and bound him, Gen 42:24; which was but a just retaliation for his advice to cast him into a pit when slain:
behold, this dreamer cometh; or "master of dreams" (r); not of the interpretation of them, but of dreaming them; that had them at his command when he pleased, as they jeeringly flouted him; as if he was a framer and contriver of them, and only pretended to them when he had none, or else that he was frequently dreaming and telling his dreams; this they said in a sarcastic way, and, perhaps, as pleased, and rejoicing that such an opportunity offered to take their revenge on him: this shows that it was on the account of his dreams chiefly that they bore such a grudge against him, that this was uppermost on their minds, and was revived at first sight of him, and from whence their malice sprung.
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(r) "magister somniorum", Tigurine version, Montanus; "dominus somniorum", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv18, 21, 24, 25, 26 And when they saw him afar off they conspired…
And when they saw him afar off they conspired against him - It was not in a heat, or upon a sudden provocation, that they thought to slay him, but from malice propense, and in cold blood.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 28 Verse 19. Behold, this dreamer cometh.] בעל החלמות baal…
Verse 19. Behold, this dreamer cometh.] בעל החלמות baal hachalomoth, this master of dreams, this master dreamer. A form of speech which conveys great contempt.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv18, 21, 24, 26 Gen 37:18-19. When they saw him they conspired against…
Gen 37:18-19. When they saw him they conspired against him — It was not in a heat, or upon a sudden provocation, that they thought to slay him, but from malice prepense, and in cold blood. Behold this dreamer cometh — Hebrew, this master of dreams; that covers his own ambitious desires and designs, with pretences and fictions of dreams. See the progress of vice! From envy and malice they proceeded to conspire against the life of their brother, and then contrived a lie to impose upon their own father!
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22, 25, 28 The dreamer. Hebrew Bahal hachalomoth, "the lord of dreams,"…
The dreamer. Hebrew Bahal hachalomoth, "the lord of dreams," or the visionary lord (Calmet); or one who feigns dreams: so the Jews say of our Saviour, this seducer. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv18, 19, 23, 25, 26 when they saw him afar off--on the level grass…
when they saw him afar off--on the level grass field, where they were watching their cattle. They could perceive him approaching in the distance from the side of Shechem, or rather, Samaria.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28 19. This dreamer — Heb, this master (or lord)…
19. This dreamer — Heb, this master (or lord) of the dreams. We may suppose Joseph seeing them afar with joy, glad to find them after his long journey and searching. But they see him with malicious envy.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 18–36 (JE). Joseph is sold into Egypt
18–36 (JE). Joseph is sold into Egypt
The composite character of the narrative becomes at this point very evident. J (Gen_37:21; Gen_37:25-28 b, 31–35) relates that Judah restrains his brethren from murder, and persuades them to sell Joseph to passing Ishmaelites, who sell him as a slave to an Egyptian noble. E (Gen_37:22-25 (bread), 28a (pit), 28c–30, 36) relates that Reuben interposes, and saves Joseph from his brethren: by his advice Joseph is cast into a tank, where he is found by passing Midianite merchants, who draw him out, take him to Egypt, and sell him to Potiphar, “captain of the guard.” Reuben returning to the tank, after the interval for food, finds it empty.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22, 25, 28 (19) This dreamer.—Heb., this lord of dreams, a phrase…
(19) This dreamer.—Heb., this lord of dreams, a phrase expressive of contempt.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28 And when (literally, and) they saw him afar off,…
And when (literally, and) they saw him afar off, even (or, and) before he came near unto them, they (literally, and they) conspired against him (or, dealt with him fraudulently) to slay him
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv18, 20, 25, 28 They conspired against him to slay him
Gen_37:18-19
They conspired against him to slay him
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The conspiracy to murder Joseph
I.
AN EXAMPLE OF THE RAPIDLY DOWNWARD COURSE OF EVIL.
II. AN EXAMPLE. OF THE BOLD DARING OF SINNERS.
III. AN EXAMPLE OF GUILT INCURRED EVEN WHERE PURPOSE HAS NOT RIPENED INTO ACT.
IV. AN EXAMPLE OF DEGREES OF GUILTINESS EVEN AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE LENT THEMSELVES TO ONE DESIGN. (T. H. Leale)
Joseph with his brethren
I. MAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF JEALOUSY.
1. Jealousy leads a man to slander.
2. Jealousy leads to falsehood.
3. Jealousy hardens the heart.
4. Jealousy leads to crime.
II. MAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MERCY.
1. The merciful are in the minority.
2. The merciful lose sight of self.
3. The merciful are always ready to assist others. (Homilist)
Lessons
1. The sight of the righteous, whom the wicked hate, is an occasion of working mischief and evil to them.
2. The looks of the wicked is for the mischief of those good souls, who look and seek for their peace.
3. Subtlety and conspiracy for death is the wickeds practice against innocent gracious souls (Gen_37:18).
4. The wicked encourage each other in evil matters to committing them.
5. Vile persons jeer and scorn the revelations of God under terms of contempt. Dreamer (Gen_37:19).
6. Sinners persecute the saints for Gods revelations to them.
7. Providence suffers sinners to breathe death and destruction to saints, when they effect it not.
8. Murderers themselves are ashamed to own blood-guiltiness, therefore seek to hide it.
9. Brothers blood is not pitied with men of sin.
10. Evil men design to frustrate the counsels and revelation of God by their crafty and cruel practices (Gen_37:20). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Lessons
1. In evil counsels against the saints, God overpowers the heart of some to frustrate bloody designs of others.
2. God makes evil projected against His servants to come to the cognizance of those that shall defeat it.
3. Deliverance is effected sometimes for the saints by such as hate them enough.
4. Providence causeth the counsel of one evil man to prevail against others, for His saints good (Gen_37:21).
5. God puts an awe upon some to counsel others not to shed blood.
6. Pretence of a worse death providence ordereth to be made by men to save His from death wholly.
7. Fratricide is made horried to evil men by God for saving His own.
8. Respect to paternal honour may sway with men of bad resolutions, to abstain from evil and offering violence to a brother (Gen_37:21-22). (G. Hughes, B. D)
Lessons
1. Under Providence innocent souls come in their integrity into the hands of spoilers.
2. Simple, honest hearts, may think of coming to brethren when it is to cruel destroyers.
3. Unnatural treacherous dealers stick not to take a garment from a brother.
4. Garments of pleasure may expose men to envy and spoil by wicked hands (Gen_37:23).
5. Violent hands are soon layed even upon an innocent brother by envious and enraged spirits.
6. Brethren degenerate into spoilers, stick not at it to bury an innocent brother alive.
7. God emptieth the pits of water where He will not have His innocents perish.
8. Dry pits of trouble are in Gods Use, tokens of deliverance. Joseph shall come out (Gen_37:24). (G. Hughes, B. D)
Reubens attempt to save Joseph
He boarded the train which he could not arrest, but he boarded it with the purpose of ultimately controlling it and so preventing a catastrophe. The motive was good, but I am not quite so sure about the policy. It savours a little too much of worldly wisdom for me, and little good came out of it in the end. We have seen it tried here often enough in politics, and almost always with this result: that the well-meaning men who have gone into a questionable movement under the idea that they could thereby guide it into something that would be at least harmless, have been themselves outwitted and befooled. It would have been just about as easy for Reuben to have stood out against the persecution of Joseph altogether as it was for him to protest against the shedding of his blood, and it might have been equally efficacious. At any rate it would have exonerated him from the guilt which they all alike ultimately incurred. His plan was to deliver Joseph, but in a way that was itself deceptive, for he seemed to be doing one thing while he was really seeking another. His proposal was that they should put Joseph into a pit. That to them looked to be a refinement on their cruelty, for it left him to starve to death, while they had meant that he should be slain out of hand. As such, therefore, it commended itself to their acceptance. But his secret intention was to come back by himself when the others should be out of the way, and then take him out and return with him to his father. It was well meant, and not very badly planned either; but then it required that a very careful watch should be maintained, and just there the instability of Reubens character came in to mar it all; for, thinking that now the crisis was past, he wont away and took no further oversight of the matter, and in his absence it was all upset. For the moment, however, it looked as if he had succeeded, for the others accepted his suggestion, and after stripping Joseph of his hated coat, they put him into one of those cisterns which were so common in Palestine, and which, when dry, were sometimes, as in the case of Jeremiah, used as a prison. Lieutenant Anderson, of the Palestine Exploration Enterprise, thus writes regarding them: The numerous rock-hewn cisterns that are found everywhere would furnish a suitable pit in which they might have thrust him; and as these cisterns are shaped like a bottle, with a narrow mouth, it would be impossible for any one imprisoned within it to extricate himself without assistance. These cisterns are now all cracked and useless; they are, however, the most undoubted evidences that exist of handiwork of the inhabitants in ancient times. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Evil for good
Joseph put himself to so much trouble to find out his brethren that he might inform himself and his father of their welfare; but they took advantage from his love to wreak their hatred upon him, as if they had been devils in flesh and blood, rather than patriarchs in the Church. It is too common with discontented men to say that none were even so ill-used as themselves. But let us consider how Joseph was used, how David was used, how Christ Himself was used, by those men from whom they had most reason to expect kindness. (G. Lawson.)
Josephs brethren conspire against him
I. The Scriptures expressly prohibit envy (Pro_3:31; Pro_23:17). God prohibits envy, then, because it is rebellion against His just authority, an insult to His honour, and a denial of His attributes of wisdom and justice and truth. It is also a passion which is infinitely removed from His own pure nature. God prohibits it also because it cannot exist with peace and happiness. Where envy enters happiness departs. Like the buckets of a well, they cannot both descend into the depths of the human heart together. The absence of envy is spoken of in Scripture as a mark of a renewed mind, the characteristic of a soul born of God (Tit_3:3).
II. The Lord has, however, given us something more than precepts against envy in His word. To prohibit it ought to be enough, and it will be enough with the child of God to make him loathe and abhor a thing so detestable in the sight of his heavenly Father. The Lord has added to these precepts many most instructive illustrations of the pernicious effects of this base passion. He points us to the fugitive Cain, as he rushes from His presence, his brow stamped with the brand of infamy, and his hand steeped in the life-blood of his righteous brother, and He says, Behold the effects of envy. He points us to the distracted family of Jacob in their rival tents, Rachel envying Leah her children, and Leah envying Rachel the first place in their husbands affections, and He says, Behold the misery and torment produced by envy. To what a fiend does envy reduce the man! These unnatural children appear to have had no more compassion for their father than for Joseph; perhaps they even secretly enjoyed the thought of disappointing and grieving him by dashing to the ground all his hopes of his favorite sons advancement. Let us kill him, say they, and then he cannot rule over us. And is there nothing, in this conspiracy of his brethren against Joseph, to remind us of a similar conspiracy against Gods beloved Son? Joseph was here in the strictest sense a type of Christ. Envy endangered His life at its first commencement, and the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem may teach us how a man may become envious at the predicted royalties of an infant, as well as at the actual prosperity of those of riper years. His own brethren after the flesh in his after life conspired against Him, and why? Envy was at the root of all their conspiracies. They treated His claim to the Messiahship as a dream. And in their treatment of Jesus they discovered as strong a hatred of His Father, whom they also called their Father, as did Josephs brethren towards their father. So evident was this that Jesus Himself says of them, Now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father (Joh_15:24). There is one more point which makes the type perfect. The steps the brethren of Joseph took to prevent his exaltation over them, actually helped forward the very thing they wished to prevent; so inscrutable are the ways of God in His providence, He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him. The same was the ease with Jesus. God permitted His enemies to go just far enough to accomplish His purposes and to defeat their own. By crucifying Jesus the Jews effectually fulfilled His most ardent wishes, and promoted the benefit and advancement of believers which they meant to hinder. (E. Dalton.)
This dreamer
The worlds treatment of dreamers
To-day we do not like the dreamers who have seen visions which involve us more or less in decay and inferiority. It is not easy to forgive a man who has dreamed an unpleasant dream concerning us. We cannot easily forgive a man who has founded an obnoxious institution. If a man has written a book which is distasteful to us, it is no matter, though he should do ten thousand acts which ought to excite our admiration and confirm our confidence, we will go back and back upon the obnoxious publication, and whensoever that mans name is mentioned, that book will always come up in association with it. Is this right? Ought we to be confined in our view of human character to single points, and those points always of a kind to excite unpleasant, indignant, perhaps vindictive feelings? The worlds dreamers have never had an easy lot of it. Dont let us imagine that Joseph was called to a very easy and comfortable position when he was called to see the visions of Providence in the time of his slumber. God speaks to man by dream and by vision, by strange scene and unexpected sight; and we who are prosaic groundlings are apt to imagine that those men who live in transcendental regions, who are privileged occasionally to see the invisible, have all the good fortune of life, and we ourselves are but servants of dust and hirelings of an-ill-paid day. No; the poets have their own pains, and the dreamers have their own peculiar sorrows. Men of double sight often have double difficulties in life. Dont let us suppose that we are all true of inspiration. It is not because a man has had a dream that he is to be hearkened unto. It is because the dream is a parable of heaven that we ought to ask him to speak freely and fully to us concerning his wondrous vision, that we may see further into the truth and beauty of Gods way concerning man. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God in dreams
They insulted the Sovereign of the world, while they persecuted their poor brother. They intended to frustrate the Word of the Lord, and hoped they would bring to nothing the counsels of the Most High. Presumptuous creatures! did they think they were stronger than the Almighty? If they had cut Joseph into a thousand pieces, the Word of the Lord would have stood firm and sure. It would be far easier to arrest the sun in his course, than to hinder the performance of any promise that God has made to His people. His counsel shall stand for ever; the thoughts of His heart to all generations. They might, no doubt, imagine that they were fighting, not against God, but against a presumptuous boy, who fondly dreamed of rising into honours above his equals or superiors, and that Josephs arrogance well deserved to be humbled. They did not perhaps think that Josephs dreams were from God; but why, then, were they so much piqued with his dreams? Might they not have suffered them to pass from their memories like other vanities, which pass away the moment in which they make their appearance? Must a man be hunted day after day, till he is chased out of the world, for a silly dream? But if their spirits had not been blinded by envy, they might have either seen that there was something more than ordinary in Josephs dream, or at least have seen good reason to suspend their judgment. It was not a good excuse that they did not know the dreams to be from God. They ought to have known with certainty that they did not come from God, before they ventured to turn them into derision. (G. Lawson, D. D.)
A remarkable dream
In a sketch of my life-work, which appears in the Christmas number of the Methodist, Gee. Smith, of Coalville, says:--One night, in the summer of 1868, I had a remarkable dream, which, strange to say, was repeated three nights in succession. Thousands of poor little children clustered round me, with looks and cries which pierced my soul. I was toiling to drag them to the top of a mountain. Just as I was giving up the struggle, Mr. Gladstone joined in my effort, and just as we both were giving up, our good and noble Queen come to the rescue, and we landed them all at the top. A similar dream occurred during the early part of my canal crusade.
Dreams but not dreams
Carnal men hear of the beauty of holiness, of the excellency of Christ, of the preciousness of the covenant, of the rich treasures of grace, as if they were in a dream. They look upon such things as mere fancies, like to foolish dreams of golden mountains, or showers of pearls. This their way is their folly. When scientific men describe to us their curious experiments and their singular discoveries, we know them to be persons of credit, and therefore accept their testimony: why do not men of the world do us the like justice and believe what we tell them? We are as sane as they, and as observant of the law of truth: why, then, do they not believe us when we declare what the Lord has done for our souls? Why is our experience, in the spiritual world, to be treated as a fiction, any more than their discoveries in chemistry or geography? There is no justice in the treatment with which our witness is received. Yet the Christian man need not complain, for in the nature of things he may expect it to be so, and the fact that it is so is a confirmation of his own beliefs. In a world of blind men, an elect race to whom eyes had been given, would be sure to be regarded ae either mad or false. How could the sightless majority be expected to accept the witness of the seeing few? Would it not touch their dignity to admit that others possessed faculties of which they were destitute? And would it not be highly probable that the blind would conspire to regard the men of eyes as fanatical dreamers or deluded fools? Unrenewed men know not the things which are of the Spirit of God, and it is by no means a strange thing that they should deride what they cannot understand. It is sad that those who are dreamers, in the worst sense, should think others so, but it is by no means so extraordinary as to cause surprise. Oh, my Lord, whatever others may think of me, let me be more and more sensible of Thy presence, and of the glorious privileges and hopes which are created in the heart by Thy grace. If men should even say of me as of Joseph, behold this dreamer cometh, it will not grieve me so long as Thou art with me, and Thy favour makes me blest. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v18 Gen_37:18. Conspired.] Heb. “Cunningly plotted.”—
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_37:18. Conspired.] Heb. “Cunningly plotted.”—
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Gen_37:19. This dreamer.] Heb. “Lord, or master of dreams;” using the title in bitter scorn.—
Gen_37:23. They stript Joseph of his coat.] “According to Eastern habits, it would be his only garment. He entered Egypt naked, as was the custom with slaves and captives (Isa_20:4), in strange contrast to his subsequent array of pomp. (Gen_41:42.) (Alford.)—
Gen_37:25. Ishmaelites.] In Gen_37:28 and in Gen_39:1, they are called Midianites. The caravan consisted, probably, of both of these. The general meaning is. “Arabian Merchants.” Gilead. Celebrated for a precious balm. (Jer_8:22; Jer_46:11.) Spicery. This is a species of gum called tragacanth. Balm. It was a very precious gum obtained from the balsam tree, almost peculiar to Palestine. (Alford.)—Myrrh. Gum, laudanum.
Gen_37:28. Twenty pieces of silver.] The price of a lad under twenty years of age. (Lev_27:5.) The full price of a slave was thirty shekels. (Exo_21:32.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_37:18-28
THE CONSPIRACY TO MURDER JOSEPH
The brethren of Joseph conspired against him to slay him. (Gen_37:18.) This foul crime furnishes—
I. An example of the rapidly downward course of evil. Joseph’s brethren at first envied him, then envy passed into animosity, animosity into fixed hatred, and fixed hatred rapidly grew into a scheme of murder. So steep is the descent from the evil things within the heart of man to the lowest depths of crime.
II. An example of the bold daring of sinners. Joseph’s brethren are prepared to brave all the consequences. They are ready with a deceitful story to account to their father for the loss of his favourite son. (Gen_37:20.) They trust to artifice, falsehood, cunning, and deceit. They are daring enough to cover up their crime with a lie.
III. An example of guilt incurred even where purpose has not ripened into act. Joseph’s brethren were guilty of murder though they stopped short of the deed. Thought and act are the same in the sight of God. (Mat_5:28.) It was not for killing his brother (for that might have been accidental), but for killing him through hatred, that Cain was branded a murderer. (1Jn_3:15.) Murder is the goal or limit to which hatred tends when not repressed. But these men were prevented from carrying out their purpose, not by unforeseen circumstances, not by fear at a sudden realization of the magnitude of their crime, but by the love of gain,—stronger in them than even their hatred and purpose of murder. It was not the voice of conscience, or the effect of grace, but the power of another passion that comes in here to stay the hand of crime. It was the triumph of avarice over malice. (Gen_37:27-28.) One sin is sometimes cast out by another. Devils may be cast out by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.
IV. An example of degrees of guiltiness even among those who have lent themselves to one design. The brethren of Joseph were not all equally guilty. Simeon, Levi, and others wished to slay him, but Judah proposed his being sold into captivity. (Gen_37:26-27.) Reuben proposed to cast him into a pit, intending, probably, to fetch him out when the others were not by. He wanted to save Joseph, but secretly, for he had not courage enough to save him openly. All this shows that the brethren were not equally guilty, though the motive of the least culpable among them was not superior virtue, but some softness of character, or the influence of a stronger temptation.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_37:18. In an honest and obedient simplicity, Joseph comes to inquire of his brethren’s health, and now may not return to carry news of his own misery: whilst he thinks of their welfare, they are plotting his destruction. Who would have expected this cruelty in them, which should be the fathers of God’s church?—(Bp. Hall.)
Cain has left a name of infamy to all generations of mankind. But where shall we find nine men conspiring at once to kill a brother—a brother whose amiable qualities deserved their warmest love—who tenderly loved them, and was in the very act of showing his love to them at the time when their fury broke loose upon him. Joseph had too good reason, as David afterwards had to say in the person of Christ, “For my love they are mine adversaries.”—(Bush.)
Gen_37:19-20. Who will say that the workers of iniquity have no knowledge? They have all the cunning as well as the cruelty of the old serpent. But what do they mean by that sarcastic saying, we shall see what will become of his dreams? If they had considered them as feigned through ambition, they would not have felt half the resentment. They considered these dreams as the intimations of heaven, and their language included nothing less than a challenge to the Almighty. But is it possible that they could think of thwarting the Divine counsels? It is possible. Witness Pharaoh’s pursuit of Israel, after all that he had seen and felt of the Divine judgments; Saul’s attempts on David’s life; Herod’s murder of the children of Bethlehem; and the conspiracy of the Jews against Christ, who, as many of them knew had raised Lazarus from the dead, and done many miracles. Yes, we will kill him, say they, and then let God advance him to honour if He can! But they shall see what will become of his dreams. They shall see them accomplished by the very means they are concerting to overthrow them. Thus, though the kings of the earth take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them, the Lord shall have them in derision. Joseph’s brethren, like the sheaves in the dream, should make obeisance to him; and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.—(Fuller.)
Gen_37:21-22. Reuben, though he had been very wicked (Gen_35:22), shows now a tender heart.—(Jacobus.)
As the murderous scheme was prevented by Reuben’s plan of deliverance, and modified by Judah’s proposal, so, in the life of our Lord, the scheme of the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by arresting circumstances. Thus Providence turned the destructive plots to a beneficent end. It was the chief tendency of these schemes to promote the highest glory of the hated one, whose glory they aimed to destroy.—(Lange.)
He was not cruel, simply because he was guilty of a different class of sin. It is well for us, before we take credit to ourselves for being free from this or that sin, to inquire whether it be banished by grace or only by another sin. You are not censorious, but then pause and ask whether you are not too lax to be censorious. You are not a tale-bearer or a busybody, but are you certain that you have in you sufficient love for others to make you at all interested in these matters?—(Robertson.)
That weakness of character for which Reuben was remarkable, had also its good side. It rendered him incapable of committing some sins.
Gen_37:23-24. It was not enough to injure him, they must also insult him. Thus Jesus was stripped and degraded before He suffered. Now it was, as they afterwards confessed one to another in the Egyptian prison, that they saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought them, and they would not hear. (Gen_42:21.)—(Fuller.)
How dearly did he purchase this honour bestowed upon him by his father! They no doubt considered it as an insult to themselves that he came to them decked with this trophy of his superior standing in the patriarch’s regard. His robe, the evidence of Jacob’s tender regard, might have reminded them that to murder Joseph was in effect to murder their father. It would deprive him of the comfort of life and fill up all the rest of his days with bitterness and sorrow.—(Bush.)
The Lord delivers His people from the pit of their sins and sorrows.—(Zec_9:11.)
All the spite of his brethren cannot make Joseph cast off the livery of his father’s love. What need we care for the censures of men, if our hearts can tell us we are in favour with God?—(Bp. Hall.)
Gen_37:25. To weep for their wickedness, they should have sat down rather. But the devil had drawn a hard hoof over their hearts, that either they felt no remorse of what they had done, for the present; or else they sought to ease themselves of it by eating and merrymaking. “They drank wine in bowls, but no man was sorry for the affliction of Joseph.” (Amo_6:6).—(Trapp.)
Observe the calmness of these men after their crime. We often think respecting the tyrants of whom we read in history, that they must have been haunted by the furies. It is not so, there is a worse doom for sin than this; it is that it makes the heart callous and forgetful of its presence. If there were but the sting it would be well, for it would lead to reformation.—(Robertson.)
Egypt was their market. This agrees with the testimony of classic historians, as Homer and Herodotus, who tells us that Egypt was a storehouse for drugs, and a seat of physicians.—(Jacobus.)
Gen_37:26. It were to be wished, that whenever we are tempted to sin, we would ask ourselves this question, What profit is it?—(Trapp.)
Gen_37:27-28. Judah’s proposal contains words of mercy, but it was mercy mixed with covetousness. It is not unusual for covetous men to urge their objects under a show of generosity and kindness. But if he did, it was the “profit” that wrought upon the company. The love of money induced them to sell their brother for a slave. A goodly price at which they valued him! But let not Joseph complain, seeing a greater than he was sold by Judas Iscariot for but a little more.—(Fuller.)
Reuben and Judah remind us of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of the Sanhedrin; but they were less inclined to the right, and their, half measures remind us of Pilate’s attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the power in their hands; since being implicated by their former animosity towards Joseph, they could only weakly oppose their angry brethren.—(Lange.)
Little did the Ishmeelitish merchants know what a treasure they bought, carried, and sold; more precious than all their balms and myrrhs. Little did they think that they had in their hands the lord of Egypt, the jewel of the world. Why should we contemn any man’s meanness, when we know not his destiny?—(Bp. Hall.)
The saints of God are His princes, His portion, His heirs; but they are in a strange country; they are unknown in the world.
These merchantmen testify to the outward increase and spiritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They are witnesses to a heartrending scene, but coolly pay their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance, and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ, reckoned among the lost.—(Lange.)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v23 Gen 37:23 - Gen 37:36.
Genesis
MAN’S PASSIONS AND GOD’S PURPOSE
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Gen 37:23 - Gen 37:36.
We have left the serene and lofty atmosphere of communion and saintship far above us. This narrative takes us down into foul depths. It is a hideous story of vulgar hatred and cruelty. God’s name is never mentioned in it; and he is as far from the actors’ thoughts as from the writer’s words. The crime of the brothers is the subject, and the picture is painted in dark tones to teach large truths about sin.
1. The broad teaching of the whole story, which is ever being reiterated in Old Testament incidents, is that God works out His great purposes through even the crimes of unconscious men. There is an irony, if we may so say, in making the hatred of these men the very means of their brother’s advancement, and the occasion of blessing to themselves. As coral insects work, not knowing the plan of their reef, still less the fair vegetation and smiling homes which it will one day carry, but blindly building from the material supplied by the ocean a barrier against it; so even evil-doers are carrying on God’s plan, and sin is made to counterwork itself, and be the black channel through which the flashing water of life pours. Joseph’s words {Gen 50:20} give the point of view for the whole story: ‘Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good . . .to save much people alive.’ We can scarcely forget the still more wonderful example of the same thing, in the crime of crimes, when his brethren slew the Son of God-like Joseph, the victim of envy-and, by their crime, God’s counsel of mercy for them and for all was fulfilled.
2. Following the narrative, Gen 37:23 - Gen 37:25 show us the poisonous fruit of brotherly hatred. The family, not the nation, is the social unit in Genesis. From the beginning, we find the field on which sin works is the family relation. Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and now the other children of Jacob and Joseph, attest the power of sin when it enters there, and illustrate the principle that the corruption of the best is the worst. The children of Rachel could not but be hated by the children of other mothers. Jacob’s undisguised partiality for Joseph was a fault too, which wrought like yeast on the passions of his wild sons. The long-sleeved garment which he gave to the lad probably meant to indicate his purpose to bestow on him the right of the first-born forfeited by Reuben, and so the violent rage which it excited was not altogether baseless. The whole miserable household strife teaches the rottenness of the polygamous relation on which it rested, and the folly of paternal favouritism. So it carries teaching especially needed then, but not out of date now.
The swift passage of the purely inward sin of jealous envy into the murderous act, as soon as opportunity offered, teaches the short path which connects the inmost passions with the grossest outward deeds. Like Jonah’s gourd, the smallest seed of hate needs but an hour or two of favouring weather to become a great tree, with all obscene and blood-seeking birds croaking in its branches. ‘Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,’ Therefore the solemn need for guarding the heart from the beginnings of envy, and for walking in love.
The clumsy contrivance for murder without criminality, which Reuben suggested, is an instance of the shallow pretexts with which the sophistry of sin fools men before they have done the wrong thing. Sin’s mask is generally dropped very soon after. The bait is useless when the hook is well in the fish’s gills. ‘Don’t let us kill him. Let us put him into a cistern. He cannot climb up its bottle-shaped, smooth sides. But that is not our fault. Nobody will ever hear his muffled cries from its depths. But there will be no blood on our hands.’ It was not the first time, nor is it the last, that men have tried to blink their responsibility for the consequences which they hoped would come of their crimes. Such excuses seem sound when we are being tempted; but, as soon as the rush of passion is past, they are found to be worthless. Like some cheap castings, they are only meant to be seen in front, where they are rounded and burnished. Get behind them, and you find them hollow.
‘They sat down to eat bread,’ Thomas Fuller pithily says: ‘With what heart could they say grace, either before or after meat?’ What a grim meal! And what an indication of their rude natures, seared consciences, and deadened affections!
This picture of the moral condition of the fathers of the Jewish tribes is surely a strong argument for the historical accuracy of the narrative. It would be strange if the legends of a race, instead of glorifying, should blacken, the characters of its founders. No motive can be alleged which would explain such a picture; its only explanation is its truth. The ugly story, too, throws vivid light on that thought, which prophets ever reiterated, ‘not for your sakes, but for My name’s sake.’ The divine choice of Israel was grounded, not on merit, but on sovereign purpose. And the undisguised plainness of the narrative of their sins is but of a piece with the tone of Scripture throughout. It never palliates the faults even of its best men. It tells its story without comment. It never indulges in condemnation any more than in praise. It is a perfect mirror; its office is to record, not to criticise. Many misconceptions of Old Testament morality would have been avoided by keeping that simple fact in view.
3. The ill-omened meal is interrupted by the sudden appearance, so picturesquely described, of the caravan of Ishmaelites with their loaded camels. Dothan was on or near the great trade route to Egypt, where luxury, and especially the custom of embalming, opened a profitable market for spices. The traders would probably not be particular as to the sort of merchandise they picked up on their road, and such an ‘unconsidered trifle’ as a slave or two would be neither here nor there. This opportune advent of the caravan sets a thought buzzing in Judah’s brain, which brings out a new phase of the crime. Hatred darkening to murder is bad enough; but hatred which has also an eye to business, and makes a profit out of a brother, is a shade or two blacker, because it means cold-blooded calculation and selfish advantage instead of raging passion. Judah’s cynical question avows the real motive of his intervention. He prefers the paltry gain from selling Joseph to the unprofitable luxury of killing him. It brings in regard to brotherly ties at the end, as a kind of homage paid to propriety, as if the obligations they involved were not broken as really by his proposal as by murder. Certainly it is strange logic which can say in one breath, ‘Let us sell him; . . .for he is our brother,’ and finds the clause between buffer enough to keep these two contradictories from collision.
If any touch of conscience made the brothers prefer the less cruel alternative, one can only see here another illustration of the strange power which men have of limiting the working of conscience, and of the fact that when a greater sin has been resolved on, a smaller one gets to look almost like a virtue. Perhaps Judah and the rest actually thought themselves very kind and brotherly when they put their brother into strangers’ power, and so went back to their meal with renewed cheerfulness, both because they had gained their end without bloodshed, and because they had got the money. They did not think that every tear and pang which Joseph would shed and feel would be laid at their door.
We do not suppose that Joseph was meant to be, in the accurate sense of the word, a type of Christ. But the coincidence is not to be passed by, that these same powerful motives of envy and of greed were combined in His case too, and that there again a Judah {Judas} appears as the agent of the perfidy.
We may note that the appearance of the traders in the nick of time, suggesting the sale of Joseph, points the familiar lesson that the opportunity to do ill deeds often makes ill deeds done. The path for entering on evil is made fatally easy at first; that gate always stands wide. The Devil knows how to time his approaches. A weak nature, with an evil bias in it, finds everywhere occasions and suggestions to do wrong. But it is the evil nature which makes innocent things opportunities for evil. Therefore we have to be on our guard, as knowing that if we fall it is not circumstances, but ourselves, that made stumbling-blocks out of what might have been stepping-stones.
4. Leaving Joseph to pursue his sad journey, our narrative introduces for the first time Reuben, whose counsel, as the verses before the text tell us, it had been to cast the poor lad into the cistern. His motive had been altogether good; he wished to save life, and as soon as the others were out of the way, to bring Joseph up again and get him safely back to Jacob. In Gen 42:22, Reuben himself reminds his brothers of what had passed. There he says that he had besought them not to ‘sin against the child,’ which naturally implies that he had wished them to do nothing to him, and that they ‘would not hear.’ In the verses before the text he proposes the compromise of the pit, and the others ‘hear.’ So there seem to have been two efforts made by him-first, to shield Joseph from any harm, and then that half-and-half measure which was adopted. He is absent, while they carry out the plan, and from the cruel merriment of the feast-perhaps watching his opportunity to rescue, perhaps in sickness of heart and protest against the deed. Well meant and kindly motived as his action was-and self-sacrificing too, if, as is probable, Joseph was meant by Jacob as his successor in the forfeited birthright-his scheme breaks down, as attempts to mitigate evil by compliance and to make compromises with sinners usually do. The only one of the whole family who had some virtue in him, was too timid to take up a position of uncompromising condemnation. He thought it more polite to go part of the way, and to trust to being able to prevent the worst. That is always a dangerous experiment. It is often tried still; it never answers. Let a man stand to his guns, and speak out the condemnation that is in his heart; otherwise, he will be sure to go farther than he meant, he will lose all right of remonstrance, and will generally find that the more daring sinners have made his well-meant schemes to avert the mischief impossible.
5. The cruel trick by which Jacob was deceived is perhaps the most heartless bit of the whole heartless crime. It came as near an insult as possible. It was maliciously meant. The snarl about the coat, the studied use of ‘thy son’ as if the brothers disowned the brotherhood, the unfeeling harshness of choosing such a way of telling their lie-all were meant to give the maximum of pain, and betray their savage hatred of father and son, and its causes. Was Reuben’s mouth shut all this time? Evidently. From his language in Gen 42:22, ‘His blood is required,’ he seems to have believed until then that Joseph had been killed in his absence. But he dared not speak. Had he told what he did know, the brothers had but to add, ‘And he proposed it himself,’ and his protestations of his good intentions would have been unheeded. He believed his brother dead, and perhaps thought it better that Jacob should think him slain by wild beasts than by brothers’ hands, as Reuben supposed him to be. But his shut mouth teaches again how dangerous his policy had been, and how the only road, which it is safe, in view of the uncertainties of the future, to take, is the plain road of resistance to evil and non-fellowship with its doers.
6. And what of the poor old father? His grief is unworthy of God’s wrestler. It is not the part of a devout believer in God’s providence to refuse to be comforted. There was no religious submission in his passionate sorrow. How unlike the quiet resignation which should have marked the recognition that the God who had been his guide was working here too! No doubt the hypocritical condolences of his children were as vinegar upon nitre. No doubt the loss of Joseph had taken away the one gentle and true son on whom his loneliness rested since his Rachel’s death, while he found no solace in the wild, passionate men who called him ‘father’ and brought him no ‘honour.’ But still his grief is beyond the measure which a true faith in God would have warranted; and we cannot but see that the dark picture which we have just been looking at gets no lighter or brighter tints from the demeanour of Jacob.
There are few bitterer sorrows than for a parent to see the children of his own sin in the sins of his children. Jacob might have felt that bitterness, as he looked round on the lovelessness and dark, passionate selfishness of his children, and remembered his own early crimes against Esau. He might have seen that his unwise fondness for the son of his Rachel had led to the brothers’ hatred, though he did not know that that hatred had plunged the arrow into his soul. Whether he knew it or not, his own conduct had feathered the arrow. He was drinking as he had brewed; and the heart-broken grief which darkened his later years had sprung from seed of his own sowing. So it is always. ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’
It is a miserable story of ignoble jealousy and cruel hate; and yet, over all this foaming torrent, God’s steadfast bow of peace shines. These crimes and this ‘affliction of Joseph’ were the direct path to the fulfilment of His purposes. As blind instruments, even in their rebellion and sin, men work out His designs. The lesson of Joseph’s bondage will one day be the summing up of the world’s history. ‘Thou makest the wrath of man to praise Thee: and with the remainder thereof Thou girdest Thyself.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v23 Joseph Sold to the Ishmaelites
Joseph Sold to the Ishmaelites
v. 23. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him, the fine long-sleeved tunic which his father had procured for him;
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v. 24. and they took him, and cast him in to a pit; and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. So Reuben’s suggestion prevailed, and Joseph was thrown into the empty cistern, although his cries for mercy rang in the ears of his brothers for many long years afterward, Gen 41:21.
v. 25. And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. In the century and a half since Midian, the son of Keturah, and Ishmael had been dismissed from the house of Abraham, their descendants must have become a tribe of some number. The Midianites and the Ishmaelites were largely engaged in trading, the present caravan being loaded with gum-tragacanth of Syria, with terebinth-balm of Gilead, and with the fragrant gum of the cistus-rose found throughout Arabia. The merchants had crossed the Jordan near what was afterwards Beth-Shean and were following the caravan road through the plain of Tell-Dothan to Ramleh and then down to Egypt, where they hoped to dispose of their merchandise.
v. 26. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Judah also did not have the courage to oppose his brothers outright, although the idea of murdering his brother was abhorrent to him. His argument was that they would have no benefit out of it if they would simply put Joseph to death.
v. 27. Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. The daring plan of Judah appealed to them, now that the first flare of their hatred had died down. Their consciences would not be burdened with a murder, and they would, in addition, have the slave-money for their profit.
v. 28. Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt, passing within twenty miles of his father’s home to do so. Twenty pieces, or shekels, of silver was the price of a slave-boy, as fixed in the laws of Moses, Lev 27:5, well over ten dollars in American money. So the sons of Jacob, as they thought, had their revenge, and Judah thought he had salved his conscience. Such is the progress of sin.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv18, 21, 23, 25, 27 They saw him from a distance
They saw him from a distance
"Joseph's brothers saw him while he was far away"
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they plotted against him to kill him
"they made plans to kill him"
this dreamer is approaching
"here comes the one who has the dreams"
Come now, therefore
This wording shows that the brothers acted upon their plans. AT: "So now" (See: Idiom)
wild animal
"dangerous animal" or "ferocious animal"
devoured
to eagerly have eaten
We will see what will become of his dreams
His brothers planned to kill him, therefore it is ironic that they would speak of his dream coming true, since he would be dead. AT: "That way we will make sure his dreams do not come true" (See: Irony)
translationWords
dream
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv18, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28 37:18-20 When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they devised…
37:18-20 When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they devised a plot to kill . . . the dreamer and end his dreams. Earlier, they had unjustly killed the men of Shechem to avenge their sister (ch 34); in the region of Shechem, they now plotted to unjustly kill their own brother out of envy.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.