Genesis 37:28, commentary and pictures

The verse records Joseph being drawn and lifted out of the pit and sold to passing Midianite merchantmen called Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, then carried south into Egypt as a slave. At Judah's proposal his brothers agreed to sell him for gain rather than kill him with their own hands or leave him to die, to keep him from gaining authority over them and to place him where his dreams could no longer trouble them or be fulfilled. Though he pleaded for mercy and compassion and dreaded slavery as worse than death, they hardened their hearts and delivered him to the traders. God overruled the very course they pursued to bring about what they designed should never take place, giving Joseph dominion over them and making him by his sale a saviour to his father's family, yet his providential control for good does not lessen the heinous guilt of the deed. As Joseph was sold by his own brothers to foreigners, Christ was sold to his bitterest enemies by one of his own disciples, and as Joseph's sale led to his rise and saving work, so Christ's murder made him the Redeemer of the fallen race and ruler over the whole world.

The Brothers' Cruel Sale

Joseph was drawn and lifted out of the pit and sold to passing Midianite merchantmen, called Ishmaelites, for twenty pieces of silver, a small sum, and was taken south into Egypt as a slave. Judah proposed the sale to gain money and to remove Joseph from their way without leaving him to die or killing him with their own hands, and the brothers agreed to the plan. They acted heartlessly toward their own brother in handing him over to traveling traders bound for Egypt.

The brothers first purposed to kill Joseph but settled on selling him to keep him from becoming greater than they and gaining authority over them. They thought they had placed him where his dreams could no longer trouble them and could never be fulfilled. Joseph saw that slavery awaited him and pleaded for mercy and compassion, even for his father's sake, but they hardened their hearts and delivered him to the traders. To him slavery was more dreadful than death and filled him with deeper anguish than the thought of death, and though some felt pity, fear of ridicule kept them silent.

The act was a cruel and wrong deed, an act of unfilial conduct and cruelty and wickedness that God would by no means sanction. Reuben had no hand in the selling, though previous to that transaction he had grievously sinned by a corrupt course transgressing the law of God. Simeon and Levi were especially guilty in the selling of Joseph, and their later scattering in Israel is presented as a consequence of their cruelty and this act.

The sale began Joseph's exile from his childhood home in Canaan to bondage in Egypt as a helpless stranger, leaving father and home behind. On the terrible journey he looked for the last time on the hills that hid the tents of his kindred. His brothers' cruelty had been provoked by their father's partiality and indulgence, which had also encouraged faults in Joseph such as self-sufficiency and demandingness that his new hardships would correct. The wicked treatment caused Jacob many years of grief as he reflected upon Joseph's supposed dreadful death, yet Jacob forgave his children when they gathered about him to receive his blessing and hear his last words.

Providence Foreshadowing Christ

God turned the very plan the brothers followed to bring about what they were determined should never happen, giving Joseph dominion over them and making him by his sale into Egypt a saviour to his father's family. They had meant to keep him from becoming greater than they and to put him where his dreams could no longer trouble them or ever be fulfilled, but their course was overruled to establish the exaltation they sought to prevent. That providential control of events for His own glory and the good of man does not lessen guilt, and the crime of the brothers remains just as heinous. The fact that good was brought out of evil does not excuse the evildoers.

Though the injustice came through no wrongdoing of his own, Joseph did not give way to gloom or resentment. In the crisis of the terrible journey from his childhood home in Canaan to the bondage awaiting him in Egypt, looking for the last time on the hills that hid the tents of his kindred, he remembered his father's God and the lessons of his childhood, and his soul thrilled with resolve to prove himself true, ever to act as became a subject of the King of heaven. He remained steadfast amid the sights and sounds of vice and the allurements of heathen worship, surrounded with all the attractions of wealth and culture and the pomp of royalty, faithful in every station from the most lowly to the most exalted, with gentleness, fidelity, truthfulness, virtue and firm purpose training every power for highest service. His faith stayed fixed on God through slavery and imprisonment when hope seemed gone, until God brought him out of the dungeon to be a light to the world, giving him signal victories even while he was maligned, persecuted and treated as a criminal for doing right.

The brothers later remembered their cruelty when they were confined three days in Egypt as suspected spies, facing death or slavery if they could not clear themselves. With bitter sorrow they reflected on their past wrong course and especially on their cruelty to Joseph, fearing God designed to punish them for selling him by letting them become slaves themselves. Their sorrow and fear showed repentance that gave confidence they would in no case treat Benjamin as they had treated Joseph, even while their father and their families might be suffering for food.

As Joseph was sold by his own brothers to foreigners and enemies for a small sum of money, Christ was sold to His bitterest enemies by one of His own disciples. As the brothers sought to prevent Joseph from gaining authority, Christ's enemies sought to prevent Him from gaining authority, but as Joseph's sale led to his rise and saving work, Christ's murder and crucifixion made Him the Redeemer of mankind, the Saviour of the fallen race, and ruler over the whole world. As God's use of Joseph's sale for good did not lessen his brothers' guilt, God's use of Christ's death for good did not lessen the heinous crime of His enemies. The sale for twenty pieces of silver thus supplies the image of selling one's Lord and warns against betraying Christ for gain.