Joseph Sold into Slavery #28

Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery is the turning point of Genesis 37, where Jacob’s favorite son is thrown into a pit, sold to passing traders, and taken to Egypt. The betrayal begins the long story of Joseph’s rise, and it eventually brings the family of Jacob to Egypt.

Biblical Account

Joseph was seventeen when the account opens, tending sheep with his brothers. Jacob loved him more than his other sons because he was born in his old age, and he made him a long robe, often described as a coat of many colors, though the Hebrew phrase is uncertain (Genesis 37:2-3). Joseph’s brothers hated him. He then told them two dreams in which their sheaves bowed to his sheaf and the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed to him, and this increased their anger (Genesis 37:5-11).

Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers, who were pasturing the flocks near Shechem and then Dothan (Genesis 37:12-17). When they saw him coming they said, “Behold, this dreamer cometh,” and planned to kill him (Genesis 37:18-20). Reuben persuaded them not to shed blood but to throw Joseph into a pit, intending to rescue him later (Genesis 37:21-22). They stripped him of his robe and threw him in. While they sat down to eat, a caravan of Ishmaelites came by, and Judah suggested that they sell Joseph, saying that he was their brother, their own flesh (Genesis 37:25-27).

They sold him for twenty pieces of silver, and he was taken to Egypt (Genesis 37:28). The text names Ishmaelites and Midianites as the traders in the same scene, and readers have explained this either as two names for the same group or as a mixed caravan. The brothers dipped his robe in goat’s blood and brought it to Jacob, who concluded that a wild animal had killed his son and mourned for many days, refusing comfort (Genesis 37:31-35). In Egypt, Joseph was sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh (Genesis 37:36).

Theological Significance

The chapter is a study in envy and its consequences, and it exposes the damage that favoritism does inside a family. It also begins to show the theme that shapes the rest of the story, that God works through human wrongdoing without excusing it. Joseph later tells his brothers, “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

The New Testament recalls the episode briefly. Stephen says that the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, “but God was with him, And delivered him out of all his afflictions” (Acts 7:9-10). The story also sets up a contrast with the later account of Judah, who suggested selling Joseph and eventually offers himself in Benjamin’s place (Genesis 44:33), and it prepares the way for the reconciliation that closes the book of Genesis.