Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened 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?
The question a covetous heart asks
Killing Joseph would have satisfied their hatred. Selling him satisfies something else:
Hamilton SmithIf 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?"
A conscience with a line in the wrong place
Judah gives his brothers two reasons to sell rather than kill. One is money. The other is that Joseph is family:
L. M. GrantA 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!
"Our brother, our own flesh"
The words Judah uses are the Bible's set phrase for blood kinship, and Genesis uses it elsewhere too:
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe same kindred: "you are my bone and my flesh," Gen. 29:14; "he is our brother, our own flesh." Gen. 37:27.
Different measures, one guilt
Reuben holds back from murder. Judah swaps the pit for a sale. The rest agree. One writer puts them all inside a single verdict:
J. G. BellettThere 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.
Judah's silver and Judas's
Commentators read Joseph's life as a picture of Christ. Even the name of the man who proposes the sale points forward:
The Bible TreasuryJudah 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:
C KnappTwenty 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 sale that carried God's purpose
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:
J. N. DarbyNotice 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.
Summary
- 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.