Genesis 37:28

Gen 37:28 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.

Ver. 28. For twenty pieces of silver.] A goodly price! not all out the price of a slave. {Exo 21:32} Here "they sold the just one for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes." {Amo 2:6} The Hebrews tell us, that of these twenty shekels, every of the ten brethren had two, to buy shoes for their feet {a}

And they brought Joseph into Egypt.] Little knowing what a prize they had in their hand, even the jewel of the world, and him that should one day be lord of Egypt. The saints, for their worth, are called "princes in all lands"; {Psa 45:16} kings in righteousness, {b} though somewhat obscure ones, - as Melchisedec. {Heb 7:1-28} They are called "God’s portion"; {Deu 32:9} "the dearly beloved of his soul"; {Jer 12:7} "a royal diadem in the hands of Jehovah." {Isa 62:3} This the cock on the dunghill, the Midianitish muckworms take no notice of. They could see no comeliness in Christ, though the fairest of ten thousand; nothing more than a despicable man. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?." {Joh 6:52} God had hid him ("in whom all the treasures of" worth and "wisdom were hid," Col 2:3) under the carpenter’s son: this pearl was covered with a shellfish; so are all God’s precious people, for most part, abjects in the world’s eye; their glory is within; "their life is hid": they are great heirs, but as yet in their non-age; kings, but in a strange country; heads destinated to the diadem; but this "the world knows not." {1Jn 3:1} Let it suffice us that God, and all that can spiritually discern, know it; and so shall others: as Joseph’s brethren did him, in his bravery. For "when Christ, our life, appear, we shall appear with him in glory." {Col 3:4}

{a} Pirke R. Eliez, cap. 38.

{b} "Many righteous," are "many kings." Compare Mat 13:17 with Luk 10:24.

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.

This story seems a little involved, and the persons to whom he was sold doubtful. Here seem to be two, if not three, sorts of merchants mentioned,

Ishmeelites and

Midianites here, and Medanites, as it is in the Hebrew, Gen 37:36, which were a distinct people from the Midianites, as descended from Medan, when the Midianites descended from Midian, both Abraham’s sons, Gen 25:2. The business may be accommodated divers ways; either,

1. The same persons or people are promiscuously called both Ishmeelites and Midianites, as they also are Jdg 8:1,24,28; either because they were mixed together in their dwellings, and by marriages; or because they were here joined together, and made one caravan or company of merchants. And the text may be read thus, And the Midianite merchantmen (either the same who were called Ishmeelites, Gen 37:27, or others being in the same company with them) passed by, and they (i.e. not the merchantmen, but Joseph’s brethren, spoken of Gen 37:27; the relative being referred to the remoter antecedent, as it is frequently in the Scripture)

lift up Joseph, and sold him to the Ishmeelites or Midianites, &c. Or,

2. The persons may be distinguished, and the story may very well be conceived thus: The Ishmeelites are going to Egypt, and are discerned at some distance by Joseph’s brethren, while they were discoursing about their brother. In the time of their discourse, the Midianites, who seem to be coming from Egypt, coming by the pit, and hearing Joseph’s cries there, pull him out of the pit, and sell him to the Ishmeelites, who carry him with them into Egypt. There they sell him to the Medanites, though that, as many other historical passages, be omitted in the sacred story. And the Medanites, or Midianites, if you please, only supposing them to be other persons than those mentioned Gen 37:28, which is but a fair and reasonable supposition, sell him to Potiphar.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gen_37:28

Sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt

Joseph sold into Egypt

I.

A FAMILY FEUD THE FOUNDATION OF A NATIONAL CALAMITY. Bondage for four hundred years.

II. A DESPISED CLASS BECOMES THE INSTRUMENT OF GODS PROVIDENCES AND JUDGMENTS. Ishmaelites: the slave-traders of their day.

III. THE COMFORT OF DEATH FOR PERSONAL LOSS AND AWAKENED JUDGMENTS (Gen_37:35). (W. R. Campbell.)

Joseph sold into Egypt

1. The narrative shows one of the not uncommon ways which God takes to prepare men for usefulness and blessing. The pathway to any eminence in usefulness, virtue, or joy, is commonly rugged. Muscular strength comes of abundant toil, mental vigour of hard study, moral force of temptation and discipline. It is by fire that gold is separated from its dross, and iron hardened into steel. Even the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering. One cannot guess of how many noble lives the secret, if disclosed, would be found in some great trial. An Arab once bemoaned his fate thus: Alas, I fear that God doth not remember me. I have no trials, nothing but ease and enjoyment. You cannot make a great life out of sunshine alone. Nor need one lose heart if his whole earthly course seems to be under a cloud. As the discipline of youth may be for riper years, so that of ones whole earthly career is for the ages beyond.

2. Again, the narrative shows how responsible parents are for the conduct and welfare of their children. One of the gravest errors in family training is that favouritism of which Jacob was guilty. On the one hand it engenders weak and offensive pride; on the other, angry and bitter resentment. Dissension is inevitable.

3. Here, again, we are impressed with the danger of sin in thought and feeling. Apparently, the criminal deed of Josephs brethren was wholly unpremeditated. It was an unhappy moments impulse. It has been said that with one bound a soul sometimes overleaps all blessed restraints; we flee into crime as if the dogs of sinful desire were upon us. We rush to deeds of which at other moments we thought ourselves incapable. The petted feeling grows to be so completely master, that we obey it when obedience has ceased to be a pleasure. Some of the worlds greatest criminals were not only sweet in childhood, but apparently amiable in youth. Let us never forget the tendency of sin to grow, and that as imperceptibly as does the plant or tree. It is also to be remembered that the guilt centres in the disposition rather than in the act. God sees hearts as we do faces. The powder that is explosive and the powder that explodes do not differ. He that hateth his brother is a murderer.

4. Yet again, we here learn something of the unmixed wickedness of the particular sin of envy. It is the opposite of that charity out of a pure heart, which, while it rejoices over a brothers or sisters good fortune, is itself thereby enriched; of that spirit which makes all anothers gains its own, which is the richer for its neighbours riches, the gladder for its brothers gladness. As love is of heaven, envy is of hell.

5. Briefly, at least, we must notice the illustration we here have of the bitter outcome of sin.

(1) One part of this is a sort of necessity for more sin. No sooner is the heartless deed of Josephs brethren done than they begin to add other sins for its concealment.

(2) But the full outcome of sin in-eludes also much sorrrow. Witness the entreaties and tears of the lad Joseph; the distress of Reuben; the perplexity and fears of all. The comfortless, bereaved father is overwhelmed.

6. For Gods children, the culminating lesson of this fragment of history is one of patience and trust in lifes darkest hours. (H. M. Grout, D. D.)

Sold to the Ishmaelites

I. This narrative may remind us of THE UNCERTAINTIES THAT CHARACTERIZE OUR HUMAN EXISTENCE. It is the unexpected that happens. The lesson is, that we should be ever ready to respond to the call of God, and should take short views of things by living, as nearly as possible, a day at a time.

II. We may see from this narrative that THE BEGINNING OF SIN IS LIKE THE LETTING OUT OF WATER. What began in envy leads to murder, and that again gives birth to falsehood. Sin thus multiplies as rapidly as the Colorado beetle, and no matter what may be the first one, you may always call its name Gad, for you may surely say, a troop cometh. Therefore, if we would successfully resist it, we must withstand its beginnings. Especially is this true of envy, which is purely soul-sin--the hatred of a man for the good that is in him. Envy must be supplanted by the love of Christ.

III. We may learn that IN SEEKING TO DEFEAT GODS PURPOSES WE ARE ALL THE WHILE UNCONSCIOUSLY HELPING ON THEIR FULFILMENT. We cannot explain the law of it, but we clearly see the fact. Oh the marvellous wisdom of that providence of God which thus, without doing violence to the will of any human being, lays all their actions under tribute for the furtherance of its designs! And what is the use of a man trying to thwart Gods purposes when, whether he will or not, everything he does only helps them forward? Surely it is better far to acquiesce in them, and find our happiness in the doing of His will!

IV. I note from this narrative that WE NO NOT GET RID OF A RESPONSIBILITY BY PUTTING IT OUT OF SIGHT.

V. THERE IS A RETRIBUTIVE ELEMENT IN OUR TROUBLES. Jacob, who deceived his father Isaac, is now deceived by his own children. One of his chickens came home to roost, and very bitter was the experience. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Lesson analysis

I. JOSEPH ABUSED.

1. Stripped of his raiment (Gen_37:23).

2. Taken by force (Gen_37:24).

3. Cast into a pit (Gen_37:24).

(1) Separated from the presence of men.

(2) Protected by the presence of God.

II. JOSEPH SOLE.

1. The ready purchasers (Gen_37:25).

2. The mercenary plea (Gen_37:26-27).

3. The paltry price.

III. JOSEPH MOURNED.

1. Cruel deception (Gen_37:33).

2. Pitiable woe (Gen_37:34).

3. Inconsolable sorrow (Gen_37:35). (American Sunday School Times.)

Mans passions and Gods purpose

I. THE BROAD TEACHING OF THE WHOLE STORY IS, THAT GOD WORKS OUT HIS GREAT PURPOSES THROUGH EVEN THE CRIMES OF UNCONSCIOUS As. 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 evildoers are carrying on Gods plan, and sin is made to counterwork itself, and be the black channel through which the flashing water of life pours.

II. THE POISONOUS FRUIT OF BROTHERLY HATRED. The swift passage of the purely spiritual 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 Jonahs gourd, the smallest seed of hate needs bat 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. The mask generally tumbles off very soon after. The bait is useless when the hook is well in the fishs gills. Dont 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!

III. The ill-omened meal is interrupted by the sudden appearance, so picturesquely described, of THE CARAVAN OF ISHMAELITES WITH THEIR LOANED CAMELS. Dothan was on or near the great trade route to Egypt, where luxury, as well as the custom of embalming, opened a profitable market for spices. The traders would probably not be particular as to the sort of merchandize 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 Judahs brain, which brings out a new phase of the crime. Hatred darkening to murder is bad enough; but hatred which has also aa 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.

IV. Leaving Joseph to pursue his sad journey, our narrative introduces for the first time REUBEN, whose counsel, as the verses before our lesson 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 Gen_42:22). Well meant and kindly motived as his action was--and self-sacrificing too, if, as is probable, Joseph was his destined 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 politic 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.

V. THE CRUEL TRICK BY WHICH JACOB WAS DECEIVED is perhaps the most heartless bit of the whole heartless crime. It canto as near an insult as possible. It was maliciously meant. The snarl about the coat, the studied use of thy son as if they 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.

VI. AND WHAT OF THE POOR OLD FATHER? His grief is unworthy of Gods wrestler. It is not the part of a devout believer in Gods 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 Rachels 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. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Joseph sold into Egypt

I. A BEAUTIFUL IDEAL OF WHAT A YOUNG CHRISTIAN SHOULD BE.

1. Having no fellowship with that which is evil.

2. As loved of the good.

II. THE SAD EXPERIENCES THROUGH WHICH MANY A CONSISTENT YOUNG CHRISTIAN PASSES.

1. Joseph was hated of his brothers because their father loved him.

2. Joseph was cruelly treated by his brothers.

3. There are lighter and darker shades among the wicked.

III. THE SORROW WHICH CRUEL TREATMENT CAUSES,

IV. THE TENDER PROVIDENCE OF GOD IS SEEN IN THE DISPOSAL OF JOSEPH IN EGYPT.

1. His promotion in Potiphars house proves this.

2. That he reached the rulership of Egypt through his experiences in Potiphars house, proves it. Lessons: The permissions of God are full of mystery, but also full of grace.

2. The story of Joseph proves the possibility of youthful piety, and that Christian character may glow in adversity. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

Apparent disaster often real advancement

The chief peril which threatened Joseph was the foolish partiality of his father. Under this unwholesome influence he was likely enough to become vain, insolent, overbearing. So it was best that he should be removed from this mischievous hot-house of favouritism into a more bracing climate; where, under biting winds and nipping frosts, his virtues would be well rooted. Fortunes frowns serve our well-being, as much--perhaps more--than fortunes smiles. If friends of God, no harm can ever befall us.

I. WE SEE HERE INNOCENCE PROVOKING MALICE TO VILER DEEDS. Without question, the presence of a righteous man brings to light the baseness of the wicked. Just as the summer sun quickens the growth of noxious weeds, and makes the stench of a foetid sewer still more odious; so the influence of a saintly character exasperates base men to do their worst. The presence of the Son of God on earth provoked Satan to put out prodigious efforts of malice. To a vitiated palate even food will produce vomiting. The beneficent errand of Joseph obtained only opprobrium and ill.nature. Behold, said they, this dreamer cometh. Then this was the worst thing malice could lay to his charge. In this respect also Joseph was a type of Jesus Christ. The only accusation men could prefer against either was that he had aspired to be a king. Yet this was not merely a prophetic assertion; it was a divinely appointed office; it was a certain destiny. The righteous man must inevitably rule.

II. WE SEE HERE WICKEDNESS RAPIDLY MATURING ITS FRUITS.

1. Sin is a hardening and a blinding process. It treats its victims as the Philistines treated Samson--puts out their eyes. They saw not Joseph as a brother; they saw him only as a dreamer. They saw only the gain of twenty dollars--about a dollar a piece; they were blind to the tremendous loss.

2. Under favourable circumstances sin speedily develops. Hatred soon grew into murderous conspiracy, into rude violence, into lying, deceit, avarice, fraud; into base traffic of a brothers flesh--the sum of all villainies. In the fields of nature some plants will bear ten thousand seeds; but this plant of sin is yet more prolific in effects.

3. Yet sin is temporarily checked by a sense of responsibility. Reuben alone of the eleven sought the deliverance of Joseph.

4. Sin defeats its own ends. When the innocent lad was led away an abject slave, had they baffled his dreams? They had helped the business forward.

III. WE SEE HERE THAT HARD SERVICE IS THE WAY TO SOVEREIGNTY. There is great truth in the maxim that he would rule, must first learn to serve. Napoleon I. rose to sovereignty because he served well in the lowest ranks of the French army. Jesus Christ is enthroned in the hearts of myriads because He has served them so faithfully and so generously. It is a law in mechanics that in proportion as a free body is forced downward, will it rise upward when the force is withdrawn. Nature helps a rebound. (J. Dickerson Davies,M. A.)

Anything better than confinement in the dry pit

To be brought out of a pit wherein there is no water, is in Scripture represented as a great deliverance. Joseph would learn in this pit to bear those other sufferings that were allotted to him. He was sold to foreign merchants. He was carried into a strange land, to be again sold as a slave. He was cast into a prison, where he lay for several years. But the remembrance of the pit wherein was no water, and of his fruitless cries for relief, would make him think that his condition, under all these circumstances of distress, was not so bad as it might have been, and as it once actually was. (G. Lawson, D. D.)

Joseph betrayed and sold for twenty pieces of silver

Joseph, in his betrayal into the hands of the Ishmaelites, was a distinct type of the Redeemer betrayed into the hands of the Gentiles. The name of the betrayer was the same. In the case of Joseph it was a brother who lifted up his heel against him; in the case of Christ, it was His own familiar friend in whom He trusted, which did eat of His bread (Psa_41:9) that betrayed Him. In both eases it was covetousness which prompted the betrayer to the dark deed of treachery. In both cases the betrayer dissembled, and accomplished his wicked design under the mask of friendship. Do you observe how Judah speaks? How subtle is his argument, and yet how transparently hollow and treacherous and insincere! As hollow and as insincere as the kiss of Judas! Look at his speech. Come, said he, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. Oh what a contemptible vice is covetousness! The rest of his brethren readily consented to this proposal. The proposal itself, and their acquiescing in it, gives us a very painful view of the deceitfulness of the human heart. The proposal was a monstrous one; it was most cruel; and yet they ignorantly imagined that by adopting it they would be washing their hands of bloodguiltiness. They appear to have viewed it as an admirable contrivance, by which they would get rid of Joseph effectually, without loading their consciences with his death, just as though they would not be quite as responsible in the sight of God for the mischief done him by the Ishmaelites, as though their own hands bad wrought it. It is very melancholy to see the conscience of man thus deceiving him. And are there not other practices amongst us in which this same principle of drugging our consciences deceitfully can be traced? Is there no such thing as servants being employed to do what we would be ashamed to do ourselves? But perhaps we may discover something more than a practical lesson in this conduct of the patriarchs. May not their Let not our hand be upon Him remind us of the Jews? When Pilate said to them, Take ye Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him, what did they say? Oh no! let not our hand be upon Him; do you crucify Him; yes, crucify Him, by all means; but as for us, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death. There are two other points in the text in which Joseph was a type of Christ. He was sold as a slave; Jesus was born under the law--a slave to perform all the rigid requirements of a law without mercy. Not one jot, not one tittle of that rigid law was ever relaxed for Him. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver, Jesus was sold for thirty. At what price do you value the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He, in your estimation, the pearl of great price? (E. Dalton.)

Joseph sold to Arabs

The passage of an Arab caravan towards Egypt, and its purchase of Joseph, is equally true to early times, and to the unchanging Eastern life of to-day. Sir Samuel Bakers boy, Saat, had, in the same way as Joseph, been carried off while he was tending goats, by an Arab caravan; hidden in a gum sack, and finally taken to Cairo and sold as a slave. All the world may perish, so far as we care, said an Arab to Niebuhr, if only Egypt remains. And it was left to them even more in Josephs day than now, from the dislike of Egyptians to leave their country even for purposes of gain. The trade in spices was exceptionally great between the valley of the Nile and neighbouring countries; from the quantity used for embalming mummies, for burning as incense, or as disinfectants; for which they were in great repute. Even the names of the first and second of the three spices named--gum tragacanth, from Lebanon and Palestine generally, Armenia and Persia; balsam from the balsam-tree of Gilead; and lauda-num the gum collected still from the leaves of the cistus-rose--from Syria and Arabia, have been found in the list of two hundred drugs named in the temple-laboratory of Edfu; for each temple had its laboratory and apothecary. Even the twenty pieces of silver given for Joseph are exactly the price fixed under Moses as that of a male slave between five and twenty years of age (Lev_27:5); so nearly had human beings kept the same value for centuries. (C. Geikie, D. D.)

Sold into slavery

Mr. H. M. Stanley told an awful story of African slavery, in the Manchester Free Trade Hall. He said: A slave trade was a great blight, which clung to Africa like an aggravated pest, destroying men faster than children could be born. He overtook a party of Arab marauders on the Congo in November, 1883, over 1,200 miles from the sea. They had utterly desolated a number of villages, massacred all the adult males who had not at once fled, and carried off the women and children. He never saw such a sight before. In a small camp 300 fighting men kept in manacles and fetters, 2,300 naked women and children, their poor bodies entrusted with dirt, all emaciated and weary through much misery. Here was the net result of the burning of 118 villages, and the devastation of forty-three districts, to glut the avaricious soul of a man who had constituted himself chief of a district some 200 miles higher up. Though over seventy-five years old, here he was prosecuting his murderous business, having shed as much human blood in three months as, if collected into a tank, might have sufficed to drown him and all his thirty wives and concubines. Those 2,300 slaves would have to be transported over 200 miles in canoes, and such as could not be fed would die, and perhaps 800--perhaps 900--of all the number would ever reach their destination.

From the pit to slavery

In Josephs being lifted out of the pit only to pass into slavery, many a man of Josephs years has seen a picture of what has happened to himself. From a position in which they have been as if buried alive, young men not uncommonly emerge into a position preferable certainly to that out of which they have been brought, but in which they are compelled to work beyond their strength, and that for some superior in whom they have no special interest. Grinding toil, and often cruel insult, are their portion; and no necklace heavy with tokens of honour that afterwards may be allotted them can ever quite hide the scars made by the iron collar of the slave. One need not pity them over much, for they are young and have a whole life-time of energy and power of resistance in their spirit. And yet they will often call themselves slaves, and complain that all the fruit of their labour passes over to others and away from themselves, and all prospect of the fulfilment of their former dreams is quite cut off. That which haunts their heart by day and by night, that which they seem destined and fit for, they never get time nor liberty to work out and attain. They are never viewed as proprietors of themselves, who may possibly have interests of their own and hopes of their own. In Josephs case there were many aggravations of the soreness of such a condition. He had not one friend in the country. He had no knowledge of the language, no knowledge of any trade that could make him valuable in Egypt--nothing, in short, but his own manhood and his faith in God. His introduction to Egypt was of the most dispiriting kind. What could he expect from strangers, if his own brothers had found him so obnoxious? Now, when a man is thus galled and stung by injury, and has learned how little he can depend upon finding good faith and common justice in the world, his character will show itself in the attitude he assumes towards men and towards life generally. A weak nature, when it finds itself thus deceived and injured, will sullenly surrender all expectation of good, and will vent its spleen on the world by angry denunciations of the heartless and ungrateful ways of men. A proud nature will gather itself up from every blow, and determinedly work its way to an adequate revenge. A mean nature will accept its fate, anal while it indulges in cynical and spiteful observations on human life, will greedily accept the paltriest rewards it can secure. But the supreme healthiness of Josephs nature resists all the infectious influences that emanate from the world around him, and preserves him from every kind of morbid attitude towards the world and life. So easily did he throw off all vain regrets and stifle all vindictive and morbid feelings, so readily did he adjust himself to and so heartly enter into life as it presented itself to him, that he speedily rose to be overseer in the house of Potiphar. (M. Dods, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37:28 the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders (literally the Midianite traders): Ishmaelites were descendants of Abraham through Hagar (16:5), while Midianites were descendants of Abraham through Keturah (25:1-2). The term Ishmaelite may have described bedouin tribes generally. The Midianites might also have been traveling with a separate caravan of Ishmaelite traders (37:27). • Kidnapping (see 40:15) would become a capital offense (see Exod 21:16) in Jewish law.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Moses writing according to the opinion of them which took the Midianites and Ishmaelites to be both one, doth here confound their names: as also appeareth, verse 36 and Gen. 39:1, or else he was first offered to the Midianites, but sold to the Ishmaelites.

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

Verse 28. For twenty pieces of silver] In the Anglo-Saxon it is [Anglo-Saxon] thirty pence. This, I think, is the first instance on record of selling a man for a slave; but the practice certainly did not commence now, it had doubtless been in use long before. Instead of pieces, which our translators supply, the Persian has [Persian] miskal, which was probably intended to signify a shekel; and if shekels be intended, taking them at three shillings each, Joseph was sold for about three pounds sterling. I have known a whole cargo of slaves, amounting to eight hundred and thirteen, bought by a slave captain in Bonny river, in Africa, on an average, for six pounds each; and this payment was made in guns, gunpowder, and trinkets! As there were only nine of the brethren present, and they sold Joseph for twenty shekels, each had more than two shekels as his share in this most infamous transaction.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. Then there passed by Midianites. Some think that Joseph was twice sold in the same place. For it is certain, since Median was the son of Abraham and Keturah, that his sons were distinct from the sons of Ishmael: and Moses has not thoughtlessly put down these different names. But I thus interpret the passage: that Joseph was exposed for sale to any one who chose, and seeing the purchase of him was declined by the Midianites, he was sold to the Ishmaelites. Moreover, though they might justly suspect the sellers of having stolen him, yet the desire of gain prevents them from making inquiry. We may also add, what is probable, that, on the journey, they inquired who Joseph was. But they did not set such a value on their common origin as to prevent them from eagerly making gain. This passage, however, teaches us how far the sons of Abraham, after the flesh, were preferred to the elect offspring, in which, nevertheless, the hope of the future Church was included. We see that, of the two sons of Abraham, a posterity so great was propagated, that from both proceeded merchants in various places: while that part of his seed which the Lord had chosen to himself was yet small. But so the children of this world, like premature fruit, quickly arrive at the greatest wealth and at the summit of happiness; whereas the Church, slowly creeping through the greatest difficulties, scarcely attains, during a long period, to the condition of mediocrity.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(28) Twenty pieces of silver.—Twenty shekels of silver were computed, in Lev_27:5, as the average worth of a male slave under twenty. It would be about £2 10s. of our money, but silver was of far greater value then than it is now.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. Midianites] The first part of this verse resumes E’s narrative from Gen_37:25. According to E, “Midianites,” merchantmen, pass by, traders from the desert on the east of Jordan. The term is descriptive, and not genealogical: for Midian, like Ishmael, was a son of Abraham (Gen_25:2). The suggestion that “Midianites” is a name representing the North Arabian Minaeans seems to ignore the Heb. character of the story. The name is without the definite article; it cannot, therefore, refer to “the Ishmaelites” of Gen_37:27, whose description, though similar, is quite distinct. LXX οἱ Μαδιηναῖοι ἔμποροι. Lat. Madianitae negotiators.

they drew and lifted up] According to E, the Midianites did this, and carried off Joseph, while his brothers were engaged in their meal. According to this account, Joseph was kidnapped, or, as he himself says (Gen_40:15), “stolen away,” not sold.

28b. and sold] This is from J. Joseph’s brethren, by Judah’s advice, sell him to the Ishmaelites. This clause follows upon Gen_37:27.

twenty pieces of silver] i.e. shekels, as Gen_20:16. In Lev_27:5; Lev_27:20 shekels is the price for a slave between the ages of 5 and 20. 30 shekels is the price for a slave in Exo_21:32. On the value of a shekel, see Gen_23:15.

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 Reuben returned unto the pit,.... It is very probable he had pretended to go somewhere on business, with an intention to take a circuit, and come to the pit and deliver his brother, and go home with him to his father. The Jews say (b) he departed from his brethren, and sat down on a certain mountain, that he might descend in the night and take Joseph out of the pit, and accordingly he came down in the night, and found him not. So Josephus (c) says, it was in the night when Reuben came to the pit, who calling to Joseph, and he not answering, suspected he was killed:

and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; for neither by looking down into it could he see him, nor by calling be answered by him, which made it a clear case to him he was not there:

and he rent his clothes; as a token of distress and anguish of mind, of sorrow and mourning, as was usual in such cases; Jacob afterwards did the same, Gen 37:34.

(b) Pirke Eliezer, ut supra. (c. 38.) (c) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 3. sect. 3.

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

Of silver. Some have read, thirty pieces of gold or silver. (St. Ambrose, c. 3.) --- The price was trifling: twenty sicles would be about £2 5s. 7½d. English. The Madianites and Ismaelites jointly purchased Joseph. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

28. Sold Joseph… for twenty pieces of silver — “The future deliverer of Israel is sold as a slave. One of the great caravan routes from Damascus through the land of Gilead to Egypt, by the way of the maritime plain, Ramleh and Gaza, ran near the pasture ground, and a side route from the East, crossing the fords of the Jordan opposite Bethshan, passed through the valley of Jezreel, and turning southwest, crossed the pastures of Dothan, joining the main route south of the point where it descends from Carmel. Had the caravan been moving to Egypt by the easterly route, through Hebron, past Jacob’s tents, Joseph’s brethren would not have dared to sell him. The Ishmaelites, (descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar,) called Arabians in the Chaldee, and Midianites, (descendants of Midian, Abraham’s son by Keturah,) were mingled in the same caravan, the ‘east Abrahamic peoples,’ who now as then are sons of the desert, going down to Egypt with the spices and gums of Arabia and India. The caravan was laden with precious gums, for which there was always a market in Egypt, created to a great extent, probably, by the demand for such articles in embalming. The word rendered spicery (Gen_37:25) most probably is gum-tragacanth; balm is the precious aromatic balsam for which Gilead was famous, distilling from a shrub for which the plain of Jericho was once celebrated, and now found in the gardens of Tiberias, while the substance, incorrectly rendered in A.V. myrrh, is the odorous greenish resin ladanum, which exudes from the branches of the cistus, a shrub of the rock-rose family, with white or rose-coloured flowers. Judah, influenced by compassion, with which probably cupidity was mingled, proposes to sell Joseph as a slave, rather than take his life. This is the first historic instance of the sale of a man, though slavery is, probably, as ancient as war, being a substitute for the murder of captives. ‘And they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty (shekels of) silver,’ that is, about ten ounces of silver in weight, about twelve dollars and a half at the present valuation!” — Newhall.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; literally, and passed by the men, Midianites (by country), merchants (by profession). On the different appellations given to the traders vide infra, ver. 36 and they not the Midianites (Davidson), but Joseph"s brethrendrew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver literally, for twenty (sc. shekels) of silver the price afterwards fixed for a boy between five and twenty, (Lev_27:5) the average price of a slave being thirty shekels, (Eze_21:32) and Joseph only bringing twenty because he was a lad (Kurtz), because the Midianites desired to make money by the transaction (Keil), perhaps because-his brethren wished to avoid the reproach of having acted from love of gain (Gerlach), but most probably because Joseph"s brethren cared little what they had for him, if so be they were rid of him (Lawson). On the term keseph vide Gen_20:16. And they brought Joseph into Egypt where they in turn disposed of their purchase, doubtless at a profit (ver. 36).

HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS Ver. 28.

Drawn from the pit.

they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit." As a compromise Joseph had been thrown into a pit. His brothers at first intended to murder him. Their intention was almost as bad as a murder. The Scriptures tell us that "he that hateth his brother is a murderer." And one writer says, "Many a man who has not taken a brother"s life, by indulgence of malevolence, is in the sight of God a more sinful man than many who have expiated their guilt on a scaffold." Joseph only was the gainer in that life was spared. To the brothers deep guilt appertained. They threw him into a pit to perish, thinking possibly to lessen guilt by avoiding the actual shedding of blood.

I WE MUST EXPECT TO FIND PITFALLS IN LIFE. To Joseph the snare came suddenly. He was forced in. He had acted as he believed rightly in revealing the wicked deeds of his brethren, and he suffers for it. His brothers seize the first opportunity of bringing reprisals upon him for what they considered his officiousness. When alone they seized him. They were ten men to one stripling. Coward brothers! "In with him," they say. In the pit"s depth is security, in its dryness speedy death. The pitfalls into which many stumble or into which they are drawn are such as these: circumstances being altogether unfavorable in life; or severe and overpowering temptations to some special sin, as intemperance, passion, or lust; or greed, or ambition, or spiritual pride. Debt, loss of character, and despondency are also deep pitfalls. If we come to love evil for itself, that is a very deep pit, and it adjoins that state which is hopeless. Many are drawn into these pits by carelessness, indifference, and neglect, while others are so entangled by circumstances and conditions of birth that the wonder is that they ever escape.

II THERE IS OFTEN DELIVERANCE FROM THE DEEPEST PITFALLS. To Joseph it came at the right moment. It came in response to earnest desire. The brothers thought to make a profit by his deliverance, but God was saving him through their avarice and timidity. Joseph was helpless. His brothers had to lift him out. We must feel our helplessness, and then Christ is sure to deliver us from the pit of sin and despair. The brothers of Joseph had low and mercenary aims in lifting up their brother; Jesus is all love and self-sacrifice in the effort to save us. Nothing but the long line of his finished work and fervent love could reach souls. When brought up from the pit we shall not be inclined to praise ourselves. We shall ascribe all the glory to him who "brought us up out of the deep pit and fairy clay, and placed our feet upon a rock, and established our goings. H.

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

ויעברו אנשים מדינים AND THERE PASSED BY MIDIANITES — This was another caravan: Scripture indicates that he was sold several times.

וימשכו AND THEY DREW UP — the sons of Jacob drew up את יוסף מן הבור JOSEPH FROM THE PIT, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites, and the Ishmaelites to the Midianites and the Midianites into Egypt (Midrash Tanchuma 1:9:13).

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.

ויעברו אנשים מדינים, these were the Ishmaelites mentioned previously, seeing that both Midianites and Medanites are descendants of Keturah. [Keturah is understood to be Hagar who had her name changed after Sarah’s death when Avraham took her as a wife. Seeing that she gave birth to both Medan and to Midian, (25,2) this made both these sons full brothers to her earlier son Ishmael by the same father. Ed.] Even assuming that Keturah and Hagar were not identical, the three were at least sons of Avraham and therefore half brothers. Their respective families had intermarried so that they could be considered as brothers in the real sense of the word. The close relationship between their respective descendants comes to the fore in Judges 8,24 where after Gideon’s campaign against the Midianites they are described as Ishmaelites, the kind of jewelry they wore identifying them as members of that tribe.

וימשכו, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the pit prior to the sale to the Ishmaelites. All this occurred when Reuven was not present. Perhaps, in the interval he had returned to his father. [a distance of 120 km, hardly likely, as Reuven would have had to come back another 120 km. to retrieve Joseph who would have died from thirst in the interval if not from other causes. Ed.] It is more likely that Reuven had a flock of his own to look after in that general region.

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.