And Judah said to his brethren, What profit is it that we kill our brother and secrete his blood?
Joseph is in the pit. A caravan of traders comes into view, and Judah turns the moment into a business proposal.
Judah does not call the murder wrong. He calls it unprofitable.
The company of merchants on their way to Egypt at once suggests to Judah the chance of making a profit out of his brother. Why not sell Joseph and make a little money? If they are not going to satisfy their hatred by killing Joseph, why not satisfy their covetousness by selling Joseph? So they gave their brother up to the Gentiles, and gave themselves up to money-making… "Profit" is the word that governed the actions of Joseph's brothers. Judah asks the question of the covetous heart — not "Is it right?" or "Is it wrong?" but "What profit is it?"
Judah's plan looks merciful. It spares Joseph's life, appeals to blood ties, and spares them the trouble of hiding a body. But it draws one line and refuses the next.
A company of Ishmaelite traders appears, travelling towards Egypt. Judah is quick to see an ideal way to get rid of Joseph and make some money at the same time. So he points out to his brothers that killing Joseph and hiding it would gain them nothing. Selling him as a slave to the Ishmaelites would bring a profit — and leave them no dead body to get rid of. He also appeals to their sense of loyalty to their family relationship. Joseph was their brother. He seems to have a conscience against killing his brother, but no conscience against selling him as a slave!
Reuben saves Joseph from the sword; Judah proposes a sale instead of the pit. The differences are real, but they do not split the brothers into innocent and guilty.
There may be different degrees in the shared hatred; but in a deep moral sense they are all one generation. Reuben was Jacob's firstborn, and we may suppose he felt himself more answerable to the aged father for the boy than any of them. He saves Joseph from the sword, and Judah proposes selling him to the merchants instead of the pit. … The Judge of all the earth will surely do right. Sins will get their many stripes and their few stripes. But the world has cast out Jesus, and the world is the world. Here, all alike are the guilty brothers of Joseph.
Joseph's father sent him in love, and his brothers hand him over to strangers. One writer sees a greater Son behind that picture.
How evident that in Jehovah alone can one boast, and that the objects of His choice are in themselves nothing and worse than nothing! Yet heartlessness towards the guiltless sufferer, and towards the father who had sent him in love, is not all we see. In the middle of it rises a foreshadowing of Him who was to come, One infinitely greater than Joseph. He too was the Beloved of His Father, and sent as Son of Man in search of the lost.
The same writer notes which brother made the proposal — and what God later brought out of his line.
We may notice that it was not Reuben or any other of the tribal heads who proposed the sale of Joseph. It was Judah. In his own house he later showed the evil that brought curse after curse. In the end he had to admit that Tamar, whom he had sentenced to die by fire, was more righteous than himself. Yet through this guilty Judah, and through Tamar, came He who cleanses from all sin by His blood. He will reign over the universe to God's glory, far beyond all that Joseph pictured, for He went far lower in humiliation and suffering.
Judah's story does not end with this bargain. Years later he speaks up about another younger brother.
He had taken the lead in selling Joseph to the Midianites going to Egypt, speaking with much hardness of heart. Now he has to speak about Benjamin, and what a change is clear! Instead of hardness, great tenderness of feeling, especially for his old father, Jacob. Then it did not matter how Jacob would feel: now it mattered everything to him. Here we see the working of a repentance not to be repented of.
- Calculation — Judah does not ask whether the deed is right, only what it pays.
- Cover — Calling Joseph "our brother" and keeping their hands clean dressed a crime up as restraint.
- Company — Reuben holds back, Judah sells, the rest agree. The degrees differ; all share the guilt.
- Christ — A father sends his beloved son; the brothers hand him to strangers. Writers see the shadow of a greater rejection — and the Redeemer came through guilty Judah's line.
- Change — The hard man who sold one brother later pleads for another. Commentators call that repentance at work.
Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites; but let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened [to him].
Joseph is in the pit, his brothers are eating nearby, and a trading caravan appears on the road to Egypt. Judah's proposal sounds almost merciful: spare his life, keep our hands clean. Yet it ends with a boy sold for silver. What will a conscience allow when money is on the table?
Killing Joseph would have satisfied their hatred. Selling him satisfies something else:
If they are not going to satisfy their hatred by killing Joseph, why not satisfy their greed by selling him? So they handed their brother over to the Gentiles, and handed themselves over to making money. "Profit" is the word that governed the actions of Joseph's brothers. Judah asks the question of the covetous heart — not "Is it right?" or "Is it wrong?" but "What profit is it?"
Judah gives his brothers two reasons to sell rather than kill. One is money. The other is that Joseph is family:
A company of Ishmaelite traders appear, traveling toward Egypt. Judah is quick to see an ideal way of getting rid of Joseph and gaining some money at the same time… He also appeals to their sense of some loyalty to their family relationship. Joseph was their brother (v. 27). He seems to have a conscience against killing his brother, but no conscience against selling him as a slave!
The words Judah uses are the Bible's set phrase for blood kinship, and Genesis uses it elsewhere too:
The same kindred: "you are my bone and my flesh," Gen. 29:14; "he is our brother, our own flesh." Gen. 37:27.
Reuben holds back from murder. Judah swaps the pit for a sale. The rest agree. One writer puts them all inside a single verdict:
There may be different measures in the common hatred, but in a great moral sense they are all one generation. Reuben saves Joseph from the sword, and Judah proposes selling him to the merchants instead of the pit… The Judge of all the earth will surely do right, and sins will get their many stripes and their few stripes. But the world has cast out Jesus, and the world is the world. Here, all are the guilty brothers of Joseph; and, as the outcome of their plans and their shared hatred, he is sold to the merchants.
Commentators read Joseph's life as a picture of Christ. Even the name of the man who proposes the sale points forward:
Judah sells him for a few pieces of silver, just as Judas sold the One he pictured — the same name, and a descendant of the same man. They kill him ("in a figure"). He passes to the Gentiles, where he is tempted, slandered, and numbered with wrongdoers.
What the brothers take for him measures him against the price of any slave:
Twenty pieces of silver is the price they get for him. This was just two-thirds the price of an average adult slave (see Ex. 21:32). Judas asked the chief priests what they would give for Jesus. Thirty pieces of silver is their offer… "Every man has his price" is a common saying of the world, and it is often untrue. But every soul that Satan cheats out of Jesus has its price. Some accept gold, others position or power. With some it is cheap pleasure, or lust, or some favourite secret sin.
The brothers chose the sale to be rid of Joseph. One writer traces where that road led — through prison and the two men he met there:
Notice how Joseph's trial… meant to frustrate God's purpose, and looking completely against it — and his righteous suffering in Egypt — only bring about the very thing they seemed to prevent. It was the Egypt his brothers sold him to, and the prison Potiphar put him in, that led him to the butler and baker, and made him governor over all the land of Egypt. We cannot put God out of His way. It is better to trust Him.
- Profit. Judah asks about gain, not about right and wrong. That is the question a covetous heart asks.
- Price. Twenty pieces of silver was below the price of an average slave. That was their brother's value to them.
- Pretence. The words "our brother, our own flesh" claim kinship in the same breath that sells him. This conscience refuses blood but accepts money.
- Picture. Judah sells Joseph for silver into foreign hands. Commentators see here Christ, sold by Judas and passed to the Gentiles.
- Purpose. The sale meant to defeat God's purpose became the road to Egypt and to rule. God's plan runs straight through man's worst bargain.