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.
Reuben returned to the pit, and saw that Joseph wasn’t in the pit; and he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, “The child is no more; and I, where will I go?”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 30 21. And Reuben heard it. It may be well…
21. And Reuben heard it. It may be well to observe, while others were hastening to shed his blood, by whose care Joseph was preserved. Reuben doubtless, in one affair, was the most wicked of them all, when he defiled his father’s couch; and that unbridled lust, involving other vices, was the sign of a depraved nature: now suddenly, he alone, having a regard to piety, and being mindful of fraternal duty, dissolves the impious conspiracy. It is uncertain whether he was now seeking the means of making some compensation, for the sake of which he might be restored to his father’s favor. Moses declares that it was his intention to restore the boy in safety to his father: whence the conjecture which I have stated is probable, that he thought the life of his brother would be a sufficient price by which he might reconcile his father’s mind to himself. However this may be, yet the humanity which he showed in attempting to liberate his brother, is a proof that he was not abandoned to every kind of wickedness. And perhaps God, by this testimony of his penitence, designed in some degree to lessen his former disgrace. Whence we are taught that the characters of men are not to be estimated by a single act, however atrocious, so as to cause us to despair of their salvation.
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 vv21, 24, 25, 28 Hebrew, let us not smite his life.
Hebrew, let us not smite his life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv21–30 Gen 37:21 And Reuben heard [it], and he delivered…
Gen 37:21 And Reuben heard [it], and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.
Ver. 21. And he delivered him out of their hands.] Josephus relates his arguments, whereby he prevailed with them: as (1.) That God would surely see them; (2.) Their father would extremely grieve at it; (3.) That Joseph was but a child, and their brother; (4.) That they would bring upon themselves the guilt of innocent blood, &c. It was happy they hearkened to him. God would have it so: and he will ever have one Reuben or another, to deliver his. It is not in vain for some one to stand for God and his people against many adverreties. When the Pharisees had destined our Saviour to death, {Joh 7:1} Nicodemus, though he had none in the council to second him, spoke in his behalf, {Joh 7:51} and for that time frustrated their bloody intention. See the like, Jer 26:24.
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 vv21, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30 delivered him, as to the violent and certain despatch…
He
delivered him, as to the violent and certain despatch of his life which was intended. Or the act is here put for the purpose and endeavour of doing it, in which sense Balak is said to fight against Israel, Jos 24:9, and Abraham to offer up Isaac, Heb 11:17. So here, he delivered him, i.e. used his utmost power to deliver him, that so he might recover his father’s favour lost by his incestuous action.
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 vv21–30 And Reuben said unto them, shed no blood,.... Innocent…
And Reuben said unto them, shed no blood,.... Innocent blood, as the Targum of Jonathan; the blood of a man, a brother's blood, one that had not done anything wherefore it should be shed, and which would involve in guilt, and bring vengeance on them: he seems to put them in mind of the original law in Gen 9:6,
but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him: which might seem to answer the same purpose, namely, by depriving him of his life in another way, by starving him; but this was not Reuben's intention, as appears by the next clause, and by his going to the pit afterwards, as it should seem, with a view to take him out of it privately; this advice he gave:
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that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again; safe and sound, in order, as it is thought by many interpreters, to reconcile his father to him, whose bed he had abused.
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 vv21, 24, 25, 26 And Reuben heard it - God can raise up…
And Reuben heard it - God can raise up friends for his people, even among their enemies. Reuben of all the brothers had most reason to be jealous of Joseph, for he was the first-born, and so entitled to those distinguishing favours which Jacob was conferring on Joseph, yet he proves his best friend. Reuben's temper seems to have been soft and effeminate, which had betrayed him to the sin of uncleanness, while the temper of the two next brothers, Simeon and Levi, was fierce, which betrayed them to the sin of murder, a sin which Reuben startled at the thought of. He made a proposal which they thought would effectually destroy Joseph, and yet which he designed should answer his intention of rescuing Joseph out of their hands, probably hoping thereby to recover his father's favour which he had lately lost; but God over-ruled all to serve his own purpose of making Joseph an instrument to save much people alive. Joseph was here a type of Christ. Though he was the beloved Son of his Father, and hated by a wicked world; yet the Father sent him out of his bosom to visit us; he came from heaven to earth to seek and save us; yet then malicious plots were laid against him; he came to his own, and his own not only received him not, but consulted, This is the heir, come let us kill him. This he submitted to, in pursuance of his design to save us.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv21, 23, 25, 28, 29, 30 Verse 21. Reuben heard it] Though Reuben appears to…
Verse 21. Reuben heard it] Though Reuben appears to have been a transgressor of no ordinary magnitude, if we take Ge 35:22 according to the letter, yet his bosom was not the habitation of cruelly. He determined, if possible, to save his brother from death, and deliver him safely to his father, with whose fondness for him he was sufficiently acquainted. Josephus, in his usual way, puts a long flourishing speech in the mouth of Reuben on the occasion, spoken in order to dissuade his brethren from their barbarous purpose; but as it is totally unfounded, it is worthy of no regard.
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 vv21, 24, 26 Gen 37:21. Reuben heard it — God can raise…
Gen 37:21. Reuben heard it — God can raise up friends for his people, even among their enemies. Reuben, of all the brothers, had most reason to be jealous of Joseph; for he was the firstborn, and so entitled to those distinguishing favours which Jacob was conferring on Joseph; yet he proves his best friend. Reuben’s temper seems to have been soft and effeminate, which had betrayed him into the sin of uncleanness; while the temper of the two next brothers, Simeon and Levi, was fierce, which betrayed them into the sin of murder, a sin which Reuben startled at the thought of. He made a proposal which they thought would effectually destroy Joseph, and yet which he designed should answer his intention of rescuing him out of their hands, probably hoping thereby to recover his father’s favour, which he had lately lost; but God overruled all to serve his own purpose of making Joseph an instrument to save much people alive. Joseph was here a type of Christ. Though he was the beloved Son of his Father, and hated by a wicked world, yet the Father sent him out of his bosom to visit us; he came from heaven to earth to seek and save us; yet then malicious plots were laid against him; he came to his own, and his own not only received him not, but consulted, This is the heir, come, let us kill him. This he submitted to, in pursuance of his design to save us.
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 vv22, 25, 28, 29, 30 His father. Ruben wished to regain his father’s favour,…
His father. Ruben wished to regain his father’s favour, chap. xxxv. 22.
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 vv23, 25, 26, 29 they stripped Joseph out of his coat . .…
they stripped Joseph out of his coat . . . of many colors--Imagine him advancing in all the unsuspecting openness of brotherly affection. How astonished and terrified must he have been at the cold reception, the ferocious aspect, the rough usage of his unnatural assailants! A vivid picture of his state of agony and despair was afterwards drawn by themselves (compare Gen 42:21).
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 vv21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 30 21. Reuben — He whom we might expect to…
21. Reuben — He whom we might expect to be most offended by the princely garment (Gen_37:3, note) is the readiest to show him favour.
Delivered him out of their hands — Prevented his being slain, and purposed, as the next verse shows, to deliver him to his father again.
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 vv21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 21. Reuben] Reuben’s name is probably here substituted by…
21. Reuben] Reuben’s name is probably here substituted by the Compiler (R) for that of Judah. Reuben speaks in Gen_37:22; and it is unlikely that two consecutive clauses would begin with Reuben speaking. Probably this verse comes from J, and is carried on in Gen_37:26-27, with Judah’s attempt to rescue Joseph.
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 vv22, 25, 28, 29 (22) Into this pit that is in the wilderness.—Reuben…
(22) Into this pit that is in the wilderness.—Reuben apparently pointed to some cistern in the desolate region which girds the little valley of Dothan around. We learn from Gen_42:21 that Joseph begged hard for mercy, and to be spared so painful a death, but that his brothers would not hear.
Though never represented in the Scriptures as a type of Christ, yet the whole of the Old Testament is so full of events and histories, which reappear in the Gospel narrative, that the Fathers have never hesitated in regarding Joseph, the innocent delivered to death, but raised thence to glory, as especially typifying to us our Lord. Pascal (Pensées, 2:9. 2) sums up the points of resemblance—in his father’s love for him, his being sent to see after the peace of his brethren, their conspiring against him, his being sold for twenty pieces of silver, his rising from his humiliation to be the lord and saviour of those who had wronged him; and with them the saviour also of the world. As too, he was in prison with two malefactors, so was our Lord crucified between two thieves and as one of these was saved and one left to his condemnation, so Joseph gave deliverance to the chief butler, but to the chief baker punishment. It would be easy to point out other resemblances, but, leaving these, it is important also to notice that Joseph’s history is likewise a vindication of God’s providential dealings with men. He is innocent, and pure in life, but wronged again and again; yet every wrong was but a step in the pathway of his exaltation. And like the histories of all great lives, Joseph’s adventures do not begin and end in himself. Upon him depended a great future. Noble minds care little for personal suffering, if from their pain springs amelioration for the world. Now Joseph’s descent into Egypt was: not only for the good and preservation of the people there, but was also an essential condition for the formation of the Jewish Church. In Egypt alone could Israel have multiplied into a nation fit to be the depositaries of God’s law, and to grow into a church of prophets.
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 vv21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29 Vers. 21, 22. And Reuben (the eldest son, and…
Vers. 21, 22. And Reuben (the eldest son, and therefore probably regarding himself as in some degree responsible for Joseph"s safety) heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him literally, Let us not destroy his life (nephesh). And Reuben said (further) unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness (i.e. into a dry pit that was near), and lay no hand upon him; that (the adverb indicates the purpose Reuben had in view) he might rid him (translated above deliver him) out of their hands, to deliver him (or, more correctly, to return him) to his father again.
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 vv25, 28, 29 A company of Ishmaelites
Gen_37:25
A company of Ishmaelites
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Lessons
1.
Providence can make eyes to see, and such objects to be presented, which may occasion diversion of evil plots against the saints.
2. God orders travellers, and trades, and journies, to serve His own ends to His servants.
3. Accidental events to men are settled providences unto the servants of God.
4. Trade from land to land, about proper fruits of the respective countries, hath been, of old, ordered by Providence, for common advantage God allows and commends it (Gen_49:13).
5. The same place may be aimed at by God and men, but upon several accounts (Gen_37:25).
6. Providence toucheth hearts as well as eyes of sinners to defeat cruel designs against His.
7. One spoiler may be wrought upon by God to cause others to desist from cruelty.
8. Thoughts of the unprofitableness of sin is a forcing means to avoid it.
9. Murder and concealment of blood bring no advantage to sinners (Gen_37:26.)
10. Hypocrites may judge there is no profit in one sin, but some in another.
11. Hypocrites may dissuade men from one sin, but incite them to others, Come, &c.
12. Malice of formalists to sincere Christians sticks not to sell them to bitter enemies of the Church.
13. God makes natural relation and motions to flesh sometimes to keep persons from cruelty.
14. God causeth the counsel of one conspirator to defeat the rest, and makes them concur to His ends (Gen_37:27).
15. Providence offers opportunity to sinners for doing their will, that His may be done.
16. Murderers are made deliverers by God at His pleasure and in His measure.
17. The most innocent souls may be sold for slaves when aimed by God to be lords.
18. A small price do wicked men put upon the best of Gods servants, nay on His Son.
19. Gracious souls, surprised by the wicked in their honest ways, may be carried whither they would not.
20. Ishmaelites may carry innocents to Egypt for their ends, but God orders them thither for His own. So God maketh use of sinners. They bring him to make gain of him, God sends him to save and gain others. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Caravan trade
From very early times, a lively caravan trade was entertained between Syria and the East Jordanic provinces on the one hand, and Egypt on the other; it brought the esteemed products of Arabia and the wares and merchandises of eastern Asia into the land of the Pharaohs; and in the course of time, the importation was conducted with all possible regularity, and on lines prudently chosen and marked out. We find, thai so early as the sixteenth dynasty, stations were formed, temples erected, and wells dug and protected, in the Arabian Desert, for the benefit of those who had occasion to pass through it in their commercial travels. Egypt had, at that period, already attained a great measure of the civilization of which it was capable; it enjoyed a strong government and well-organized public institutions; and the political and social relations were regulated on a firm basis. This sense of security favoured the development of comfort and luxury; the higher castes especially appreciated all that delights and embellishes life; their wants increased in an incredible degree; and they encouraged every undertaking which promised to gratify them. Among the articles in peculiar demand were all varieties of spicery and perfumes, required not only for the feasts and pleasures of the living, but for the embalming of the dead; the mummies generally emitted so delicious a fragrance that they were for generations kept in the houses of the relatives, arranged along the walls, and then only entombed; which practice, however, received, no doubt, its first impulse from the devoted love bestowed in Egypt on departed parents and relatives. The amount of spicery consumed for all these purposes was necessarily immense; and the caravan introduced in our narrative was exclusively laden with those costly commodities. The men who conducted it were Midianites (Gen_37:28; Gen_37:36), a tribe partly nomadic, but partly actively engaged in commerce. But as the Ishmaelites commanded by far the greatest part of the caravan trade, all those who carried on the same pursuits were designated by their name. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Circumstances favouring bad men
There are times when circumstances seem to favour bad men. Some of us are accustomed to teach that circumstances are the voice of Divine Providence. There is a sense--a profound sense--in which that is perfectly true. God speaks by combinations of events, by the complications of history, by unexpected occurrences. Most undoubtedly so. We have marked this. In many cases we have seen their moral meaning, and have been attracted to them as to the cloudy pillar in the day time and the fire by night. At the same time, there is another side to that doctrine. Here in the text we find circumstances evidently combining in favour of the bad men who had agreed to part with their brother. They sat down to eat bread--perfectly tranquil, social amongst themselves, a rough hospitality prevailing. Just as they sat down to enjoy themselves with their bread they lifted up their eyes, and at that very moment a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels. What could be more providential? They came in the very nick of time. The brethren hadnt to go up and down hawking their brother, knocking at door after door to ask if anybody could take him off their hands; but at the very moment when the discussion was pending and anxiety was at white heat, these circumstances so combined and converged as to point out the way of Providence and the path of right. Then we ought to look at circumstances with a critical eye. We ought first to look at moral principles and then at circumstances. If the morality is right, the eventuality may be taken as an element worthy of consideration in the debate and strife of the hour. But if the principles at the very base are wrong, we are not to see circumstances as Divine providences, but rather as casual ways to the realization of a nefarious intent. Let us be still more particular about this. I do not deny that these Ishmaelites came providentially at that identical moment. I believe that the Ishmaelites were sent by Almighty God at that very crisis, and that they were intended by Him to offer the solution of the difficult problem. But it is one thing for us to debase circumstances to our own use and convenience, and another to view them from Gods altitude and to accept them in Gods spirit. (J. Parker D. D.)
The uncertainties that characterize our human existence
How true it is that we know not what a day may bring forth! Joseph goes out on his fathers errand and never more returns to his fathers house--does not see his father again, in fact, for twenty-two years. Of course the crime of his brothers was of the cause of this long separation between him and his venerable parent. But how often similar things occur even among ourselves! Some years ago a little boy was stolen from his home in Philadelphia, and though every means that affection could suggest or professional skill could devise have been used for his discovery, the mystery has never been cleared up, so that to this hour his parents are in most horrible suspense. In our own city, too, scarcely a week elapses without the announcement that some one has disappeared from home and business, and very frequently nothing more is heard of him. But, apart from such occurrences, which may be traced to the cunning and malignity of wicked men, and which are a disgrace to our much boasted civilization, how often it happens, in the simple providence of God, and without blame to any one, that those who part in the morning with the hope of meeting again in a very short while never see each other more on earth! The street accident causes death; or the sudden outbreak of fire in the building in which their office hours are spent cuts off all possibility of escape, and they are burned to ashes; or a panic in a crowded place of amusement which they visited has caused a great loss of life, and they are numbered among the victims; or a railroad collision has smashed the train in which they were passengers, and they are reported among the dead; or, without any such catastrophe, they have simply yielded to a sudden paroxysm of illness and passed within the veil. Who knows not how frequently such things are occurring in the midst of us, so that, as we have lately had occasion again and again to say, the proverb is verified that it is the unexpected that happens. What then? Are we to have our hearts for ever darkened with the shadow of the possibility of such things coming to us? No; for that would be to make our lives continually miserable; but the lesson is that we should be ever ready to respond to the call of God, and should take short views of things by living, as nearly as possible, a day at a time. We need not borrow trouble on the strength of the uncertainty to which I have referred, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; but we ought to be taught by it to finish every days work in its own day, since its lesson is, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Judahs suggestion
The very brightest and luckiest idea of all. He touched human nature to the very quick when he said, What profit is it? And instantly they seemed to convict themselves of a kind of thickheadedness, and said one to another, Ah, to be sure, why no profit at all. Here is an opportunity of selling him, and that will turn to the account of us all. Sell is as short a word as slay. Sell! that will get clear of him. Let us sell. Sell! we shall have no blood upon our hands. Then we shall, perhaps, have a couple of shekels a-piece, and tossing them up in the air an inch or so, and catching them again, and hearing their pleasant chink. This is the plan, to be sure. This is the way out of the difficulty. We are sorry we ever thought of shedding blood; we shake ourselves from all such imputations. Let us sell the lad, and there will be an end of the difficulty. Selling does not always take a man out of difficulty. Bargain-making is not always satisfactory. There is a gain that is loss; there is a loss that is gain. There is a separation that takes the hated object from the eyes, yet that object is an element in society and in life--working, penetrating, developing--and it will come back again upon us some day greater than power, with intensified poignancy; and the man that was driven away from us a beggar and a slave may one day rise up in our path, terrible as an avenger, irresistible as a judgment of God. Well, his brethren were content. Men even say that they enjoy a great peace, and, therefore, that if circumstances are tolerably favourable, they say that on the whole they feel in a good state of mind. Therefore, they conclude that they have not been doing anything very wrong. Let us understand that vice may have a soporific effect upon the conscience and judgment; that we may work ourselves into such a state of mind as to place ourselves under circumstances that are fictitious, unsound in their moral bearing, however enjoyable may be their immediate influence upon the mind. I am struck by this circumstance, in reading the account which is before me, namely, how possible it is to fall from a rough kind of vice, such as, Let us slay our brother, into a milder form of iniquity, such as, Let us sell our brother, and to think that we have now actually come into a state of virtue. That is to say, selling as contrasted with slaying seems so moderate and amiable a thing, as actually to amount to a kind of virtue. Am I understood upon this point? We are not to compare one act with another and say, Comparatively speaking this act is good. Virtue is not a quantity to be compared. Virtue is a non-declinable quality. I know how easy it is, when some very startling proposition has been before the mind, to accept a modified form of the proposition, which in itself is morally corrupt; and yet to imagine, by the very descent from the other point, that we have come into a region of virtue. When men say, Let us slay our brother, there is a little shuddering in society. We dont want to slay our brother. Well, then, says an acute man, let us sell him. And, instantly, amiable Christian people say, Ay, ay, this is a very different thing; yes, let us sell him. Observe, the morality is not changed, only the point in the scale has been lowered. When God comes to judge lie will not say, Is this virtue and water? is this diluted vice? but, Is this right? is this wrong? The standard of judgment will be the holiness of God! (J. Parker, D. D.)
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 v29 Gen_37:35. The grave.] Heb. Sheol. The unseen world, or…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_37:35. The grave.] Heb. Sheol. The unseen world, or the place of departed spirits. The A.V. also renders this word in some places hell, in others the pit. Probably derived from Heb. verb sha-al, to ask or inquire. It is that condition in which we ask after the lost ones. Where are they? Others derive it from a word which means cavity or pit. It is ever craving, never satisfied, demanding the whole human race.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_37:29-36
JACOB’S GRIEF FOR HIS SON
I. It was deep and overwhelming. Jacob had felt many a sorrow before, had mourned over the loss of those who were dear, but this sorrow went the deepest to his heart. The other calamities which fell upon him seemed to be more directly from the hand of God. They were to be expected in the ordinary course of Providence. But this fatality which happened to his beloved son would raise in him painful and inevitable self-questionings, and a sad sense of self condemnation. He could impute the blame to no one but himself. Why did he let the boy go alone on such a journey? Why did he send him without protection into a country abounding in wild beasts? Of course our sympathy is relieved when we know that Jacob’s sorrows were founded upon no real ground of fact. But it was all real to him. This was the saddest sorrow of all.
II. It was inconsolable. “He refused to be comforted.” (Gen_37:35.) It seemed now as if his whole house had been given over to destruction, every prospect ruined! He speaks as one who had lost all hope in life. To allow grief to overwhelm the soul, and sink it into such depths of sorrow, betokens a want of confidence in God and in the power of His supporting grace. Eminent saints may have grievous afflictions, but even then they should not speak of them as insupportable. God had dispelled many dark clouds for Jacob before, and he should not have given way to despondency now.
III. It cast him upon the future. He ought to have sought God’s consolations in this world, though he looked to the future for full satisfaction and recompence. But he renounced the hope of seeing any more good in what remained to him of this present life. “I will go down,” he said, “into the grave unto my son mourning.” The word rendered “grave” is the Heb. Sheol, the place to which the souls of men depart after death, and where they await God. Jacob did not expect to go to his son in the grave, for (as he believed) Joseph had no grave. The Hebrews had a well-known word for “grave” (Gen_23:9), which would have been employed here had it been intended to convey the idea of the last resting-place of the body. Surely Jacob looked beyond the grave, where was assembled the congregation of the fathers who had resigned their souls to God. The form of the Heb. word has the idea of direction, Shoel-ward. Thus he speaks of his life as passing on to that unknown land. He does not contemplate a state of non-existence. Joseph was still his son. There was a tie still between them. Each had a personality undestroyed. His son had a being somehow and somewhere. Jacob had learned from the promises of the Covenant that God was his God, and surely he must have felt the conviction that this sacred relationship would not end at death, but last on for ever. “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living,” for all live unto Him.” (Luk_20:37-38.)
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_37:29-30. His intentions were good, and his plan seemed to be well concerted, but it was not successful. It was not by Reuben that Joseph was to be delivered; he must yet pass through a deep scene of affliction before he obtains that glory for which he was destined. God often blasts the designs that are formed for the good of His people, not because He frowns upon them, but because the whole work is not yet accomplished which He intends to accomplish by their afflictions.—(Bush.)
The day came when Joseph’s brethren were compelled to hear Reuben and to remember bitterly this time.—(Gen_42:22).
Gen_37:31-32. They could not deny themselves the brutal pleasure of thus insulting their father, even in the hour of his distress, for his former partiality.—(Fuller.)
Gen_37:33-34. Seldom does misfortune come alone. It is but a short time since Jacob was deprived of Rachel; now he has lost Joseph. In such a concealment of guilt they pass twenty-two years.—(Lange.)
It is no evil beast, but men more cruel than tigers that have done towards him what is done; but thus Jacob thought, and thus he mourned. We are ready to wonder how Reuben could keep his counsel; yet with all his grief he did so; perhaps he might be afraid of his own life.—(Fuller.)
Gen_37:35. Joseph’s brethren add sin to sin, and dare to cover all with the infamous hypocrisy of comforting their father, when they themselves were the cause of his grief.
Jacob renounced the hope of seeing any more good in this world when his choicest comfort in life was taken away. He had the prospect of no days of gladness when Joseph, the joy of his heart, was torn in pieces by wild beasts. But he did not know what joys were yet before him in the recovery of his long lost son. We know not what joys or what sorrows are before us. It is rash, therefore, to prejudge the allotments of Providence, to infer the permanence of what we now feel. At any rate, we have no reason to despond while God’s throne continues firm and stable in heaven.—(Bush.)
Gen_37:36. Little did the Egyptians dream that their future lord was come to be sold in their country; still less did they know the dignity and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ when He was brought into their country by another Joseph, and by Mary his wife. Time brings the real characters and dignity of some men to light.—(Bush.)
Little knew Joseph what God was in doing. Have patience, till He have brought both ends together.—(Trapp).
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 vv23, 29 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 vv21, 23, 25, 27, 29 heard it
heard it
"heard what they were saying"
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from their hand
The phrase "their hand" refers to the brothers' plan to kill him. AT: "from them" or "from their plans" (See: Metonymy)
Let us not take his life
The phrase "take his life" is a euphemism for killing someone. AT: "Let us not kill Joseph" (See: Euphemism)
Shed no blood
The negation can be placed on the verb. Also, "shedding blood" is a euphemism for killing someone. AT: "Do not spill any blood" or "Do not kill him" (See: Litotes and Euphemism)
lay no hand upon him
This means not to harm or injure him. AT: "do not harm him" (See: Idiom)
that he might rescue him
This can be translated as a new sentence: "Rueben said this so that he might rescue Joseph"
out of their hand
The phrase "their hand" refers to the brothers' plan to kill him. AT: "from them" or "from their plans" (See: Metonymy)
to bring him back
"and return him"
translationWords
Reuben
hand
blood
pit
desert
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 vv21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29 37:21-24 Reuben was perhaps trying to get back into…
37:21-24 Reuben was perhaps trying to get back into his father’s good graces (35:22) by exercising the leadership of the firstborn (cp. 42:22). Reuben succeeded in saving Joseph’s life, but he failed to earn his father’s favor (37:29-30).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.