Go Time - Genesis 37:19-35

37:19-22 - After all these years and all the demonstrations of favoritism show to Jospeh, what is the final straw that angered the boys enough to want to kill him? In verse 19, it gives the answer, “and they said one to another, behold, this dreamer cometh.” It was Joseph’s dreams, or more likely his talking about the dreams that really pushed the anger over the edge. TB makes a note that their extreme reaction to Joseph’s dreams indicates that they most likely believed that they were real and that they would in fact one day be subservient to Joseph, but if they kill him, well, problem solved. The bright idea that they have is to “slay him, and cast him into some put, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

Interestingly, Reuben is the one who pumps the brakes here, suggesting that they don’t kill him, ‘but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him.” His suggestion is to throw him in a pit and then whatever happens, they aren’t responsible for, but when really, his intention was to “rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.” I always thought that Reuben’s desire to go back and save Joseph and take him home was a sign that he had matured and knew that murdering their younger brother was too much. I don’t know specifically if that isn’t the case anymore, but TB did note that Reuben had just raped/had sex with Bilhah and attempted a coup to take the family away from his father, that had failed, so he was in enough hot water as it was. Additionally, as the oldest, he was accountable for the trouble that his brothers got into while they were out as a group together with the flocks.

37:23-28 - The boys listened to Reuben and first stripped Jospeh of his fancy robe, then threw him in a pit that had no water in it and left him there to die or starvation, or dehydration, or of the elements or whatever happened to befall him. TB makes an interesting comment about the situation, saying, “a couple of chapters ago, we got a pretty good glimpse as to the hardened individuals that these brothers were; that had slain all the males of Shechem after the men had been duped into being circumcised and were weakened by its aftereffects. Then, they went of a rampage to loot the helpless city, even carry off some of its women and children to use to increase their own families. So it should be of little surprise that these same pitiless men would throw their teenage brother into an empty well to die, and then immediately sit down to have lunch as his pleas for mercy hung in the air.” I thought that this was a pretty accurate assessment of the situation and of the emotional and spiritual state of these bunch of brothers, with possible the exception of Reuben, but then again, maybe not.

As they sit down to eat lunch, they see a company of what Moses here calls “Ishmeelites” but who he later calls Midianites, which it is, I don’t know and I’m not sure that it matters. Ishmael was the son of Abraham through Hagar and Midian was the son of Abraham through Keturah, and knowing that this band of brothers descend from Abraham through Isaac whose mother was Sarah. These are all distant relatives, though I’m not sure how they viewed themselves to each other, if at all. Abraham had Isaac who had Jacob who had these boys, so all these groups are 4 generations removed from each other in the same area of land, so I would think that they would have at least recognized each other as such, but who knows.

Judah sees this caravan and has an idea, “What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 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.” Does Judah really care about not killing Joseph because he’s family? I really doubt it because slavery is worse, I think. I read somewhere that Judah seeing this situation as a money making opportunity is where the whole idea comes from that Jews are good with money, but that sounds too far fetched and made up by someone who wants to be a bigot with scriptural references. He was probably just motivated to enrich himself, just like every other person ever has been. TB also notes that Judah had the most to lose to Joseph being the heir apparent, because Reuben, Simeon, and Levi had all lost their birthright opportunities because of their horrible misdeeds, leaving Judah to be next in line, or so he thought. And indeed he was chosen to have the favored lineage to hold priesthood offices and have the Savior born in his line.

Anyway, everyone agrees to sell Joseph to the Midianites “for twenty pieces of silver,” which was the going rate for a male slave at the time. It’s interesting to point out here that the word “slave” is never used, only the implication that Joseph was sold. It’s possible that if these travelers had indeed viewed Joseph as family, they could have “bought” him and then taken him into their family, or set him free or whatever, but the selling and the price being right denotes that this is in fact slavery.

37:29-35 - I don’t know where Reuben went when all this was going down, but he circles back around to the pit to rescue Joseph, but finds he’s not there “and he rent his clothes.” He knows that he’s in big trouble, and asks “whither shall I go?” I don’t know if the implication here is that this is so serious that if Jacob finds out what happened, then Reuben is better off not going home at all. And in keeping with their nature, this group of enterprising men had not worked out the end game yet, and apparently was prompted by Reuben’s question to think “however shall we cover this up?”

They come up with the brilliant idea to put sheep’s blood on to Joseph’s coat and took it back to Jacob and asked, “this have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.” Technically they didn’t lie, they just asked if a blood soaked garment had belonged to Joseph, and left the rest up to the imagination. Jacob, of course, knew that it was Joseph’s coat and concluded that “an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.” Jacob tore his clothes and “mourned for his son many days.” I wonder how all the boys who were in on this plan felt watching all this. Guilty? Relieved? Apathetic?

As Jacob mourned for Joseph, his family tried to comfort him, “but he refused to be comforted; and he said For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” I think this means something like, “I may as well die with him,” because his grief was too much to bear. TB also made another note here that Jacob’s response was very telling about what the belief held by these ancient people about what happens after you die. He says that Jacob professes that he will go down into “the grave,” because of his mourning, he doesn’t say that he will die to be reunited with his son, he doesn’t say that he will die and go to heaven. TB suggests that at this point, all the people really believed in was in death there was only the end of existence, there was no concept of “going to heaven” or eternal rest or joy or anything like that.

The group of people that bought Joseph went to Egypt to sell all their stuff and “sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, and officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.” It’s not really clear what “captain of the guard” means, the footnotes suggest that it means “chief of the butchers, or the cooks; probably the chief steward,” so maybe like the head of Pharaoh’s household. TB suggests that Potiphar is associated with the military in some capacity, whether that was head of the entire Egyptian army, or the head of Pharaoh’s personal bodyguard, or something like that. But whatever his job was, it’s suggested that Potiphar was probably the second most powerful man in Egypt at that time.