Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a
Chapter 37
His brothers who saw that their father loved him more than he loved them, hated him and could no longer speak to him in a friendly way.
His brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem.
And Israel said to Joseph: “Your brothers are pasturing the flock at Shechem; come along, I’ll send you to them.” Joseph replied: “Here I am.”
The man said: “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let’s go to Dothan!” So Joseph went off after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
They said to one another: “Here comes the specialist in dreams!
Now’s the time! Let’s kill him and throw him into a well. We’ll say a wild animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what his dreams were all about!”
But Reuben heard this and tried to save him from their hands
saying: “Let us not kill him; shed no blood! Throw him in this well in the wilderness, but do him no violence.” He said this to save him from them and take him back to his father.
Joseph Is Sold by His Brothers
So as soon as Joseph arrived, they stripped him of his long-sleeved coat, which he was wearing,
and then took him and threw him into the well. Now, the well was empty and without water.
They were sitting down for a meal when they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, which they were taking down to Egypt.
Judah then said to his brothers: “What do we gain by killing our brother and hiding his blood?
Come! We’ll sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother and our own flesh!”
So when the Midianite merchants came along, they pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the well. For twenty pieces of silver, they sold Joseph to the Midianites, who took him to Egypt.
Commentaries
Joseph’s Dreams.
It is not surprising that among so many sons of Jacob, differences and discrepancies arise. What is striking is that it is precisely one of the younger brothers who causes the intrafamilial conflict. Joseph manifests in his dreams a tendency and desire to dominate his brothers (7f) and even his parents (9f), which intensifies the envy and hatred of his brothers (8, 11), also fueled by his father’s special predilection (4). The reaction of his brothers is to eliminate him (20), but in the midst of it all, there is some respect for life, and that is ultimately what saves Joseph from death (21f.26).
Joseph Is Sold by His Brothers.
The diversity of traditions surrounding the story of Joseph is evident in the apparent contradiction regarding the brother who defends him from the others (21, 26). The same applies to his buyers: although the brothers are supposed to accept Judah’s proposal to sell him to some Ishmaelites (27), they ultimately sell him to some Midianites (28), even though the Ishmaelites are mentioned again. Reuben seems completely disconnected from the transaction to the point of tearing his clothes, because he believes that his brothers have murdered Joseph after failing to find him in the well (29).
The center of this section is occupied by the deceitful behavior of Jacob’s sons (31-33), which again reflects a form of retribution for Jacob. He, who went to the extreme of deceiving his father to rob his brother of the blessing, is now deceived by his sons. However, this deception is only temporary and ends happily—another way of highlighting God’s action even amid human deception.