And a man found him wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?”
Joseph reaches Shechem on his father's errand, but his brothers are not there. Instead a stranger finds him wandering in the open country and asks what he is looking for.
An errand interrupted
Joseph arrives where his father sent him and finds no one. One writer treats the setback as a test of the servant's heart.
The Bible TreasuryJoseph followed this path of service. He carried his father's message and expressed his father's interest. He came to Shechem, but his mission stalled when he found that his brothers were not there. Such checks often happen to test how real we are about whether the Father's will is entirely our desire. Joseph's heart was clearly set on completing it. Instead of turning back when he could not find them, he stayed at his post until he got news of them. Then he followed them to Dothan, unprepared for the murderous and spiteful welcome waiting for him.
A stranger in the open country
The word "wandering" pictures a young man with no home and no direction of his own. Commentators see in it a likeness to the Son of God.
C KnappHow like the blessed Son of God! He, too, "found in human form," was here, "Wandering as a homeless stranger."
Why the man's question mattered
The stranger asks, Joseph answers, and the answer is not about sheep but about people. His whole purpose was his brothers.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThen the father sent out his beloved Joseph to seek his brothers who were lost. Israel put Joseph into their hands. All this foreshadows God's unspeakable gift in sending His only Son into this world to seek what is lost.
The one who told him where they were
Joseph learns nothing from his brothers themselves; the news comes from a passer-by who happened to overhear them. The same writer sees the pattern of a lonely life in which only a few ever hear what the mission was.
C KnappJoseph wandering in the field, in complete loneliness, is only a shadow of Him who here on earth had "nowhere to lay His head." Though often in the middle of crowds, His life was one of loneliness and sorrow. He was like "a lonely sparrow on the housetop." Few could, or even cared to, share His thoughts. Sometimes, as with Joseph, "a man found" Him, and to such people He told His errand. To these, His disciples, He could pour out the intentions of His burdened heart; but the world did not know Him! But how He kept up His search for those "lost sheep of the house of Israel" to whom He was "sent." Nothing could turn Him back.
Dothan — the place he was sent on to
The stranger's information sends Joseph to a named place, and commentators differ on what the name means. One reads it as "their decree," and hears in it a people living by rules of their own making.
L. M. GrantJoseph did not find his brothers at Shechem, just as the Lord Jesus did not find Israel in the place of obedience to the law of God. Dothan means "their decree." Just as Joseph found his brothers at Dothan, so the Lord Jesus found Israel in a place of their own decrees and traditions, rather than in the place of submission to the law of God. He told the Pharisees and scribes, "So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God" (Matt. 15:6).
Another reads it as "cisterns," and hears an echo of a nation that dug its own wells and got no water.
C Knapp"Dothan" means "two wells," or, perhaps better, "cisterns." This at once recalls what God says of Israel in Jeremiah 2:13: "they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." This was Israel's exact condition when the One who had "the fountain of life" was among them.
What the search cost him
The wandering ends in a meeting, and the meeting ends in a pit. The search itself handed his brothers their chance.
William KellyJoseph was like the Lord in his measure. He was a vessel of divine wisdom in humiliation that deepened into the shadow of death. His brothers rejected and scorned him more than anyone else, and sold him to the Gentiles. The very errand of love on which his father sent him to them gave them the opportunity to pour out their hatred on his lowly and blameless head.
Summary
- Sent. Joseph is in the field only because his father sent him. Writers see in that sending a picture of God sending His Son to seek the lost.
- Checked. The brothers are gone from Shechem. A setback like this tests whether the servant wants what the sender wants.
- Seeking. His father sent him to look for his lost brothers, so the search was for people, not property.
- Persisting. He could have gone home with a good excuse. Instead he waited for news and followed on, like the One whom nothing could turn back.
- Costing. The errand of love gave his brothers their opening, and they poured out their hatred on a blameless head.