Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 37:23
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;
Verse 23. They stripped Joseph out of his coat] This probably was done that, if ever found, he might not be discerned to be a person of distinction, and consequently, no inquiry made concerning him.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
23. they stripped Joseph out of hiscoat . . . of many colorsImagine him advancing in all theunsuspecting openness of brotherly affection. How astonished andterrified must he have been at the cold reception, the ferociousaspect, the rough usage of his unnatural assailants! A vivid pictureof his state of agony and despair was afterwards drawn by themselves(compare Ge 42:21).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren,…. To the very place where they were, and had, in a kind and obliging manner, asked of their welfare, and related their father’s concern for them, who had sent him on this errand:
that they stripped, Joseph out of [his] coat; his coat of [many] colours, that [was] on him; according to Jarchi and Aben Ezra, this was not one and the same coat, but divers, and that the sense is, that with his coat of many colours, and besides that, they stripped him of his lower garment, which was next to his skin, his shirt; so that he was quite naked when they cast him into the pit, and this they did as soon as he came up to them, so cruel and hardhearted were they.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; 24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 25 And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. 28 Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt. 29 And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?
We have here the execution of their plot against Joseph. 1. They stripped him, each striving to seize the envied coat of many colours, v. 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, v. 24. Note, Where envy reigns pity is banished, and humanity itself is forgotten, Prov. xxvii. 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 (ch. xlii. 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, ch. xlii. 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 when 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, v. 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, ch. xlii. 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. xi. 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 (v. 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, Ps. lxxvi. 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? v. 30. He being the eldest, his father would expect from him an account of Joseph; but, as it proved, they would all have been undone if he had not been sold.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 23-28:
When Joseph approached his brothers, they seized him, stripped him of his coat of “many colors” (long sleeves), and cast him into a “pit” (dry cistern) nearby. Empty cisterns were at times used as temporary prisons (Jer 38:6). Their cold-blooded brutality is apparent in their disregard for his piteous cries (Ge 41:21). Their callous unconcern is evident in their sitting down to a meal. They were quite pleased with themselves that they were rid of this upstart younger brother who aspired to rule over them, and who had in their eyes usurped their rightful inheritance.
As they ate, the brothers observed a traveling caravan of Ishmaelite merchant men approaching. These were Arabs descended from Ishmael, nomad traders, occupying the area between Egypt and Assyria (Ge 25:18). The record implies they carried on trade with Egypt. Ishmael’s descendants had by this time developed into a trading nation. Ishmael likely married at about age 20, or about 160 years before the events of this text. This meant that four generations were born in this interval. Allowing five sons to each of Ishmael’s descendants (not including daughters) there could have been more than 15,000 persons in his progeny.
It is possible that the brothers by now were having second thoughts about killing Joseph Judah came up with the acceptable solution: sell Joseph as a slave to the merchants. In this way they would not have his blood on their hands, and they would make a small profit as well!
The Midianite caravan carried aromatic spices and perfumes to Egypt for sale. They would have no objections to adding a slave boy to their merchandise. Joseph was at this time about 17 or 18 years of age, and would bring a good price in the slave markets of Egypt. The brothers took Joseph from the pit, and sold him for twenty pieces (shekels) of silver, equivalent to less than $15.00. This was the price later fixed in the Law for a boy between five and twenty years of age (Le 27:5). The going price for a slave was thirty shekels (Exo 21:32). This would allow the Midianites to make a profit for themselves when they sold him in Egypt.
The caravan left Dothan for Egypt, with Joseph as a slave. The route took them in sight of Jacob’s tents near Hebron. But it would be many years before Joseph would again see his father.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
23. They stripped Joseph out of his coat (134) We see that these men are full of fictions and lies. They carelessly strip their brother; they feel no dread at casting him with their own hands into the pit, where hunger worse than ten swords might consume him; because they hope their crime will be concealed; and in taking home his clothes, no suspicion of his murder would be excited; because, truly, their father would believe that he had been torn by a wild beast. Thus Satan infatuates wicked minds, so that they entangle themselves by frivolous evasions. Conscience is indeed the fountain of modesty; but Satan so soothes by his allurements those whom he has entangled in his snares, that conscience itself, which ought to have cited them as guilty before the bar of God, only hardens them the more. For, having found out subterfuges, they break forth far more audaciously into sin, as if they might commit with impunity whatever escapes the eyes of men. Surely it is a reprobate sense, a spirit of frenzy and of stupor, which is withheld from any daring attempt, only by a fear of the shame of men; while the fear of divine judgment is trodden under foot. And although all are not carried thus far, yet the fault of paying more honor to men than to God, is too common. The repetition of the word coat in the sentence of Moses is emphatical, showing that this mark of the father’s love could not mollify their minds.
(134) The coat of many colors was supposed by some to be the garment belonging of right to the first-born; consequently, Reuben would be entitled to it, till he forfeited it by his misconduct. Jacob, therefore, is understood to have transferred this coat, together with the rank of primogeniture, from Reuben to the eldest son of Rachel, his most beloved wife. If this were so, it would make the conduct of Reuben, on this occasion, still more generous than it appears on the ordinary supposition. There is, however, this objection to such an interpretation, that Jacob is said to have made it for Joseph, (see Gen 37:3,) and not merely to have given it to him. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
23. Stripped Joseph He wore the garment which gave so much offence, (Gen 37:3,) and this, first of all, they tore savagely away from him .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And it happened when Joseph had come to his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colours that he was wearing, and took him and threw him into the cistern. And the cistern was empty. There was no water in it.’
The foul deed is done, although not as foul as it would have been without Reuben’s intervention. The stripping him of his coat was a sign of their intense jealousy, although later they would have a use for it. Fortunately for his well being it was the dry season and there was no water in the cistern.
Gen 37:25 a
‘And they sat down to eat food.’
To eat heartily after an evil act is always the sign of men who lack conscience. For a time their anger made them feel justified, but no doubt through the years their consciences would not remain so peaceful. In the end conscience makes us pay for what we do. It is interesting that Reuben is not there (Gen 37:29). Perhaps his conscience was stronger than his brothers and he could not eat. It may well be that he was sickened by his brothers’ attitudes and wanted to be on his own. Or it may be that he was watching the sheep.
Gen 37:25 b
‘And they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a travelling company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down into Egypt.’
The trade route went from Damascus, through Gilead, crossed the Jordan and joined the easy coastal route to Egypt. This then was directly in the line of the trade route along which caravans of traders constantly passed carrying goods between lands to the north and east and Egypt in the south.
“A travelling company of Ishmaelites.” They spot the gold earrings and recognise them as Ishmaelites. Later Joseph will realise that there are also Medanites among them, for it is they who arrange his sale. By this time Ishmaelites, Midianites and Medanites had become intermingled and could be seen as one. In the story of Gideon he fights ‘the Midianites’ and we learn that ‘they had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites’ (Jdg 8:24). Thus Ishmaelites are now seen as a grouping within the Midianite confederation, and regularly called Midianites. It seems that once Ishmael was dead Midian took over the pre-eminence in the confederate tribes linked with them. Midian and Medan are brothers, sons of Keturah by Abraham so that Medanites (Gen 37:36) are also within the confederation and are unknown in external sources for this very reason. They also are seen as Midianites.
Peoples like the family tribe of Jacob despised such people and the different terms may well have been intended to be disparaging.
The use of different terms for the same peoples in the same context is witnessed elsewhere in ancient literature, e.g. the stela of Sebek-khu (also called Djaa) in Manchester University Museum exemplifies the use of three names for one Palestinian populace: Mntyw-Stt (“Asiatic Bedouin”), Rntw hst (“vile Syrians”) and ‘mw (“Asiatics”). The ancients liked variation and were not so particular about exactness, especially when they despised people.
“Spicery and balm and myrrh.” ‘Spicery’ is probably tragacanth, a gum that exudes from the stem of the astragalus gummifer, a small prickly plant which grows on the arid slopes of Iran and Turkey and is a member of the pea family. ‘Balm’ is possibly gum mastic and ‘myrrh’ possibly ladanum obtained from rock roses. These were resinous products used for healing purposes (Jer 46:11).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
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, v. 24. and they took him, and cast him in to a pit; and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 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. v. 26. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 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. 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,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Reader! look at him, of whom Joseph was in this instance the type! Mat 27:28 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Gen 37:23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, [his] coat of [many] colours that [was] on him;
Ver. 23. They stripe Joseph out of his coat. ] For, (1) It an eyesore to them; (2.) There with they would colour their cruelty. And this while they were doing, Joseph used many entreaties for himself, but they would not hear him. Gen 42:21 Reuben also pleaded hard for the child, but all to no purpose. Gen 37:22 Their tender mercies were cruelties.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Genesis
MAN’S PASSIONS AND GOD’S PURPOSE
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.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
his coat. See on Gen 37:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
stript, Gen 37:3, Gen 37:31-33, Gen 42:21, Psa 22:18, Mat 27:28
colours: or, pieces, Gen 37:3
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Sold By His Brothers When Joseph reached them, they stripped himof the coat Jacob had given him and cast him into a pit. Then, they sat down to eat. While they were eating, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders were sighted by the brothers. They were going from Gilead to Egypt to sell spices, medicine and perfume. Judah suggested they not kill Joseph but make a profit by selling him to the traders.
The Ishmaelites gave them twenty shekels of silver, which was the redemption price for a boy up to twenty years of age ( Lev 27:5 ). All of the business with the traders must have been done while Reuben was away. When he returned to an empty pit, he tore his clothes. Then, Joseph’s brothers took his coat and dipped it in goat’s blood. The extent of their jealous anger can be seen in the question they asked their father. “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?” Notice, they would not even call Joseph their brother.
Jacob assumed just what they hoped he would. He knew it was Joseph’s coat and believed a wild animal had killed him. He tore his clothes and put on sackcloth. Then, he mourned for his lost son and would not be comforted. In fact, he said he would mourn until he died. Meanwhile, Joseph was sold by the Midianites to Potiphar, a captain of the guard serving Pharaoh ( Gen 37:23-36 ).