Genesis 37:24

Gen 37:24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit [was] empty, [there was] no water in it.

Ver. 24. They cast him into a pit.] Where they meant he should pine and perish with hunger, which is a more cruel death than to die by the sword. {Lam 4:9} Thus died Drusus by the command of Tiberius; food being denied him, he had eaten the stuffings of his bed. {a} I have heard of a certain bishop, saith Melancthon, who, having cast ten men into a dungeon for their religion’s sake, kept them there so long without all manner of food, that they devoured one another. {b}

{a} Druso adeo alimenta subducta, ut tomentum a culcitra tentaverit mandere. - Tacit.

{b} Joh. Manlii, loc. com., 124.

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.

Gen 37:24-25. They cast him into a pit — To perish there with hunger and cold; so cruel were their tender mercies. They sat down to eat bread — They felt no remorse of conscience, which, if they had, would have spoiled their stomachs to their meat. A great force put upon conscience commonly stupifies it, and for the time deprives it both of sense and speech. A company of Ishmaelites — In Gen 37:28; Gen 37:36, they are termed also Midianites, or, as it is in the Hebrew of Gen 37:36, Medanites. It seems these different tribes, which were descended from the sons of Abraham, Medan, and Midian, by Keturah, and of Ishmael, by Hagar, were joined in one caravan, or company of merchants, bringing spicery, balm, and myrrh upon their camels from Gilead, a place noted for these articles, and carrying them into Egypt.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Their hypocrisy appeareth in this that they feared man more than God: and thought it was not murder, if they shed not his blood: or else had an excuse to cover their fault.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

24. the pit was empty] Cf. the incident in the life of Jeremiah (Jer_38:6). Presumably this was the reason why Reuben proposes to “cast him into this pit” (Gen_37:22).

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.

And they sat down to eat bread,.... Not at all concerned at what they had done, nor in the least grieved for the affliction of Joseph, and without any pity and compassion for him in his distress, but joyful and glad they had got him into their hands, and like to get rid of him for ever:

and they lifted up their eyes, and looked, after they had eaten their food, or while they were eating it:

and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead; a place of merchandise for spices and balm, and such like things after mentioned. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan call them Arabians; and the Targum of Jerusalem, Saracens; these were the posterity of Ishmael, who came out of Arabia to Gilead, where they took up their merchandise, at least part of it, and were travelling to Egypt with it, and their way thither lay by Dothan; these travelled in companies, now called "caravans", partly on the account of robbers, and partly by reason of wild beasts, with both which they were sometimes beset in the deserts through which they travelled:

with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh; the first word is general according to our version, and others, and signifies various spices, a collection of them; and so Jarchi takes it; but Aquila translates it "storax"; and Bochart (w), by various arguments, seems to have proved, that this is particularly intended; though the Targum of Jonathan renders it "wax" (x); and so other versions: and "balm" is by some taken to be "rosin", since there was no balm or balsam in Gilead, on the other side Jordan, nor indeed any in Judea, until it was brought thither from Arabia Felix, in the times of Solomon; and what we render "myrrh", is in the Hebrew called "lot", and is by some thought to be the same with "laudanum": this their merchandise was carried on camels, very fit for their purpose every way, as they were strong creatures made to carry burdens, and could travel many days without water, which they were sometimes obliged to do in the deserts:

going to carry it down to Egypt; where these things grew not, and were much in use, at least some of them, both in medicines, and in embalming dead bodies, much practised in Egypt; an Arabic writer (y) makes this merchandise to consist of, nuts, turpentine, and oil.

(w) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 12. col. 532. (x) So in Bereshit Rabba & Targum Jerusalem in R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 20. 2. (y) Patricides, p. 21. apud Hottinger. Smegma Orient. p. 367, 368.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Vers. 24, 25. And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. Cisterns when empty, or only covered with mud at the bottom, were sometimes used as temporary prisons. (Jer_38:6 Jer_40:15) And leaving him, as they must have calculated, to perish by a painful death through starvation, with exquisite cold-bloodedness, paying no heed to his piteous outcries and appeals (Gen_41:21) they sat down (the callous composure of the act indicates deplorable brutality on the part of Joseph"s brethren) to eat bread (perhaps with a secret feeling of satisfaction, if not also exultation, that they had effectually disposed of the young man and his dreams): and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, Behold, a company or chath, from arach, to walk; a band of travelers, especially of merchantmen; a caravan; sunodia oJdoiporoi (LXX; of. (Job_6:19) of Ishmaelites Arabs descended from Ishmael, who occupied the district lying between Egypt and Assyria, (Gen_25:18) and, as appears from the record, carried on a trade with the former country. That Ishmael"s descendants should already have developed into a trading nation will not be surprising (Bohlen) if one reflects that Ishmael may have married in his eighteenth or twentieth year, i.e. about 162 years before the date of the present occurrence, that four generations may have been born in the interval, and that, if Ishmael"s sons had only five sons each, his posterity in the fifth generation (not reckoning females) may have amounted to 15, 000 persons (Murphy). But in point of fact the Ishmaelites spoken of are not described as nations simply as a company of merchants, without saying how numerous it was (Havernick, "Introd.,came (literally, coming) from Oilcad (vide Gen_31:21) with (literally, and) their camels bearing spicery takn, either an infinitive from ak; n; to break, to grind(?), and signifying a pounding, breaking in pieces, hence aromatic powder (Gesenius); or a contraction from twOak; n (Ewald), meaning that which is powdered or pulverized. Rendered qumiamata (LXX), aromata (Vulgate), sturax (Aquila), it was probably the gum tragacanth, many kinds of which appear in Syria (Furst, Gesenius, Rosenm Keil, Kalisch, Lange, Murphy), or storax, the resinous exudation of the styrax officinale, which abounds in Palestine and the East (Aquila, Bochart, Bush, "Speaker"s Commentary," Inglis)and balm yrix (in pause yrx, after van of union yrix), mentioned as one of the most precious fruits of Palestine, (Gen_43:11) rendered rJhtinh (LXX) and refina (Vulgate), and derived from hw; x; to flow, to run (hence, literally, an outflowing, or out-dropping). was unquestionably a balsam, but of what tree cannot now be ascertained, distilling from a tree or fruit growing in Gilead, and highly prized for its healing properties. (Jer_8:22 Jer_46:11) Vide Lexicons (Gesenius and Furst) sub voce; Michaelis, "Suppl." p. 2142; Kalisch in locoand myrrh, flo, stakth (LXX), stacte (Vulgate), pistacia (Chaldee, Syriac, Michaelis, "Suppl.," p. 1424), was more probably ladanum (Gesenius, Furst, Rosenm Keil, Kalisch, et alii), an odoriferous gum formed upon the leaves of the cactus-rose, a shrub growing in Arabia, Syria, and Palestine (vide-Herod., 3:112; Pliny, "N. H., 12:37; Celsius, "Hierob.," L 280-288)going the caravan route from Gilead crossed the Jordan in the neighborhood of Bersan, and, sweeping through Jenin and the plain of Dothan, joined another track leading southwards from Damascus by way of Ramleh and Gaza (vide Robinson, 3:27, and cf. Tristram, "Land of Israel," p. 132)to carry it down to Egypt. At that time the land of the Pharaohs was the chief emporium for the world"s merchandise.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They call him into a pit - To perish there with hunger and cold; so cruel were their tender mercies.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

והבור רק אין בו מים AND THE PIT WAS EMPTY, THERE WAS NO WATER IN IT — Since it states, “the pit was empty”, do I not know that “there was no water in it”? What then is the force of “there was no water in it”? Water, indeed it did not contain, but there were serpents and scorpions in it (Shabbat 22a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויקחהו, there is a letter ו missing in this word, making it appear as if only one brother took him. According to Bereshit Rabbah 84,16 this is an allusion to who the brother was who seized Joseph and threw him into the pit. It was Shimon, which was the reason why later on Joseph locked up Shimon as a hostage (42,24 ויקח מאתם את שמעון, he took Shimon from them.)

אין בו מים. If there had been water in the pit, Joseph would have drowned and throwing him into the pit would have been outright murder. The reason why the Torah mentions that there was no water in the pit, having already said that the pit was empty, והבור ריק, could be that there was sticky mud inside it, as for instance in Jeremiah 38,6 where the King’s servants threw the prophet into טיט, meaning a slime pit. That pit is also described as devoid of water, although Jeremiah is described as sinking into the mud. However, it did not cause his death. The allegorical explanation of the sequence of the words in our verse is well known, i.e. though water, one lethal ingredient, was not present in that pit, other potentially worse dangers such as scorpions, etc., were. If this explanation corresponds to the facts, throwing Joseph into such a pit was no better than killing him. The brothers had no way of knowing that G’d would save him by a miracle, i.e. that the scorpions and snakes would not attack him.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.