Joseph is Sold — TDW Kids

Jacob's family had the same problem his parents' family had: a favorite. The favorite son. “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age” (37:3). Joseph was Rachel's son, and Rachel had been Jacob's favorite wife. Now the favoritism passed down to the next generation. The tunic. “Also he made him a tunic of many colors.” The ICB calls it “a special robe with long sleeves.” Either way, it was not a work coat. It marked Joseph out as special every time his brothers saw him. Hate. “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him” (37:4). They could not even say “hello” kindly. A family pattern. Isaac loved Esau; Rebekah loved Jacob (25:28). Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (29:30). Now he loves Joseph more than his brothers. Each time, favoritism brought pain. Jacob's sin does not excuse the brothers' hatred, but it helps us understand how the trouble started.

In 37:3-4 we meet the family problem that runs all through Joseph's story (chapters 37-50). Preferential love. “Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age” (37:3). The covenant name Israel reminds us that this is the family of God's promise, and it is behaving badly. The phrase “son of his old age” recalls Isaac, the son born to Abraham in his old age (21:2, 7). The garment. Kethoneth passim is traditionally “a tunic of many colors” (following the Greek Septuagint), but passim may mean “extending to the palms and soles,” hence the ICB's “robe with long sleeves.” The only other use is 2 Samuel 13:18, of a royal princess's garment. Either way it signals status and freedom from hard work. Hatred. “They hated him and could not speak peaceably (leshalom) to him” (37:4). They could not even wish him shalom (say: shah-LOHM), the Hebrew word for peace and well-being, and that shows how badly the household had broken down. A family pattern. Isaac and Rebekah each had a favorite son (25:28), and Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (29:30). Now Jacob repeats both sins with his own children. God's Word is honest about these patterns, and it still holds each person responsible for his own sin. Context (37:2). Joseph, seventeen, “brought a bad report of them to his father.” We are not told whether he was faithfully reporting real wrongs or simply telling tales. Either way, the brothers' hatred was their own sin.

Jacob had a big family. But he loved Joseph more than all his other sons. Joseph was the son of Rachel, the wife Jacob loved most. Jacob gave Joseph a special robe with long sleeves. It had many colors. It showed everyone that Joseph was the favorite. The brothers saw it every day. They grew angrier and angrier. Soon they hated Joseph. They could not even say a kind word to him. Having a favorite hurt the whole family. Jacob's own parents had favorites too. It was a sad pattern in this family.

Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons. He gave him a special robe. Joseph's brothers were angry and unkind.

Joseph has two dreams, and he tells them both. The sheaves. “There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf” (37:7). His brothers understood it at once: “Shall you indeed reign over us?” (37:8). “So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.” The sun, moon and stars. In the second dream, “the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me” (37:9). This time Jacob rebuked him: “Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” (37:10). Were the dreams from God? Yes. Years later the brothers really do bow down to Joseph in Egypt (42:6), and Joseph remembers these dreams (42:9). God was showing ahead of time what He would do. Envy, and wondering. “His brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind” (37:11). The same dreams produced envy in the brothers and thoughtful wondering in Jacob. Joseph may not have been wise to tell his dreams so quickly, but that did not give his brothers the right to hate him. Envy turned God's dreams into a reason for hatred.

In 37:5-11 Joseph has the first of the dreams that run through his whole story (chapters 37, 40, 41). Paired dreams. Dreams in Joseph's story come in pairs (37:5-9; 40:5; 41:1-7). Joseph later tells Pharaoh, “the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God” (41:32). Joseph's two dreams carry the same certainty: God would surely do it. The images. The first dream, about sheaves of grain, points ahead to the grain that will one day bring the brothers to Egypt. The second dream, with the sun, moon and eleven stars, takes in the whole family. The numbers simply match the family members; they are not a secret code. The mother. Jacob's “your mother and I” (37:10) is a puzzle, since Rachel has died (35:19). Jacob may mean Leah, now the mother of the household, or he may simply be speaking of Joseph's parents in general. Joseph's telling. Joseph may have been young and proud, or he may simply have been honest about what God showed him. We are not told. What we are told is how his brothers responded: “they hated him even more” (37:5, 8) and “his brothers envied him” (37:11). Kept the matter in mind. Jacob's response (37:11) uses shamar, which means to keep or guard something. He held on to the dreams and wondered what God was doing. Mary did the same thing many centuries later: she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Then Joseph had a dream. He told his brothers all about it. In the dream they were tying up bundles of wheat. Joseph's bundle stood up tall. All the brothers' bundles bowed down to it! “Do you think you will be our king?” they said. They hated him even more. Then Joseph had another dream. The sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. This time even his father scolded him. But Jacob kept thinking about the dreams. Maybe God was saying something. Years later, the dreams really did come true.

Joseph had two dreams. In the dreams, his family bowed down to him. His brothers got even angrier.

Jacob sends Joseph on an errand that will change everything. “Here I am.” Jacob says, “Come, I will send you to them,” and Joseph answers, “Here I am” (37:13). He goes all the way from Hebron to Shechem, and then on to Dothan (37:14-17). The plot. “Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him” (37:18). They mock him: “Look, this dreamer is coming!” And they plan a lie: “We shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!” (37:19-20). Reuben. “But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands” (37:21). He suggests throwing Joseph into a pit instead, secretly planning “that he might deliver him out of their hands, and bring him back to his father” (37:22). Reuben is not brave enough to stand up to them openly, but he tries to save his brother. The pit. “They stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it” (37:23-24). Years later the brothers remembered “the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear” (42:21).

In 37:12-24 Joseph travels from Hebron to Dothan, and his brothers' hatred turns into a plan to murder him. The errand. Joseph answers his father with “Here I am” (37:13). In Hebrew it is one word, hinneni (say: hin-NAY-nee), the answer of someone ready to obey, and Abraham spoke it to God in 22:1, 11. The favored son is sent by his father to his brothers. Many Christians see this as a picture of the Father sending His Son, who was also rejected (compare Mark 12:6-8). The unnamed man (37:15-17). A stranger finds Joseph wandering and points him to Dothan. We are not told who he was, but God used this meeting to move Joseph toward His purpose. The conspiracy. Vayyitnakkelu, “they conspired” (37:18), suggests planned, deliberate malice. “This dreamer” (ba'al hachalomot, literally “master of dreams”) is sarcastic. The plan includes a cover story, which they will carry out with the goat's blood (37:31). Reuben's half-rescue. As firstborn, Reuben bears responsibility. His intervention (37:21-22) is sincere but secret; he does not confront his brothers, and his plan fails. The stripping and the pit. Removing the tunic (37:23) strips Joseph of the sign of his father's favor. The empty cistern (bor, 37:24) is the same word Joseph later uses for his prison (40:15). Years later the brothers admitted what happened at the pit (42:21): Joseph pleaded with them, and they would not listen.

Joseph's brothers were far away with the sheep. Jacob sent Joseph to check on them. Joseph said, “Here I am.” He walked a long, long way. When the brothers saw him coming, they made a terrible plan. “Here comes the dreamer! Let's kill him.” “We will say a wild animal ate him.” But Reuben, the oldest brother, said, “Let's not kill him.” “Just throw him into this empty well.” Reuben wanted to rescue Joseph later. So they pulled off Joseph's special robe. They threw him into the dry well. Joseph cried and begged them to stop. But they would not listen.

Jacob sent Joseph far away to find his brothers. The brothers made a bad plan. They threw Joseph into a dry well.

The brothers sit down to eat, as if nothing has happened (37:25). The traders. A caravan comes by: Ishmaelites from Gilead, carrying spices, balm and myrrh to Egypt (37:25). They are also called Midianite traders (37:28, 36). They are merchants on their way to market. Judah's idea. “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites… for he is our brother and our flesh” (37:26-27). Judah stops a murder, but he turns his brother into something to sell. They sell Joseph “for twenty shekels of silver” (37:28). Selling a person is a terrible wrong. Reuben's grief. Reuben comes back and finds the pit empty. He tears his clothes: “The lad is no more; and I, where shall I go?” (37:30). Another trick with a goat. The brothers kill a young goat, dip Joseph's tunic in the blood, and send it to their father (37:31-32). Long ago Jacob had used goat skins to trick his own father (27:16). Now his sons trick him with a goat. A broken father. “It is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him” (37:33). Jacob mourns and refuses to be comforted (37:35). But… Verse 36 tells us: “Now the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar” (37:36). Joseph is alive. Stephen later sums it up: “The patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him” (Acts 7:9).

In 37:25-36 the brothers sell Joseph and then hide what they have done. The meal. “And they sat down to eat a meal” (37:25). Their brother was crying out from the pit (42:21), and they sat down to eat. Hatred had made their hearts hard. Ishmaelites and Midianites. The traders are called Ishmaelites (37:25, 27, 28; 39:1) and Midianites (37:28, 36). Judges 8:24 calls Midianites “Ishmaelites” too, so the names may overlap as general words for desert caravan traders, or two groups may have been involved. Either way, the guilt belongs to the brothers, not the merchants. Judah's proposal. “What profit (betsa') is there…?” (37:26). Judah's argument is about gain, not about right and wrong. Selling his brother lets him avoid bloodguilt while still getting rid of him. Twenty shekels of silver was a price for a young male slave (compare Leviticus 27:5); the amount itself carries no hidden meaning. Later, in 44:18-34, we will see how much God changed Judah's heart. Deception returned. The goat (se'ir 'izzim, 37:31) and the garment echo Genesis 27, where Jacob deceived Isaac with goat skins and Esau's clothes (27:9, 15-16). Jacob the deceiver is now deceived the same way. The verb “recognize” (nakar, 37:32-33) comes up again in chapter 38 (38:25-26) and in 42:7-8. Mourning. Jacob “refused to be comforted” (37:35) and speaks of going down to She'ol, the grave. Providence. 37:36 tells us Joseph was sold to Potiphar in Egypt. Acts 7:9 and Psalm 105:17 (“He sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave”) show that God was at work in all of it. That does not make the brothers' sin any smaller. They meant evil, and God meant it for good (50:20).

The brothers sat down to eat. Then they saw traders with camels. The traders were going to Egypt. Judah said, “Let's sell Joseph to them.” So they sold their own brother for twenty pieces of silver. Selling a person is always very wrong. Reuben came back to the well, but Joseph was gone! Then the brothers dipped Joseph's robe in goat's blood. They showed it to Jacob. Jacob thought a wild animal had killed Joseph. He cried and cried. But Joseph was alive, and God was with him. God had a plan, even on this terrible day. Nobody could see it yet.

The brothers sold Joseph. They told their father a lie. Jacob was very sad, but God was with Joseph.