CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 37:18. Conspired.] Heb. “Cunningly plotted.”—
Genesis 37:19. This dreamer.] Heb. “Lord, or master of dreams;” using the title in bitter scorn.—
Genesis 37:23. They stript Joseph of his coat.] “According to Eastern habits, it would be his only garment. He entered Egypt naked, as was the custom with slaves and captives (Isaiah 20:4), in strange contrast to his subsequent array of pomp. (Genesis 41:42.) (Alford.)—
Genesis 37:25. Ishmaelites.] In Genesis 37:28 and in Genesis 39:1, they are called Midianites. The caravan consisted, probably, of both of these. The general meaning is. “Arabian Merchants.” Gilead. Celebrated for a precious balm. (Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 46:11.) Spicery. This is a species of gum called tragacanth. Balm. It was a very precious gum obtained from the balsam tree, almost peculiar to Palestine. (Alford.)—Myrrh. Gum, laudanum.
Genesis 37:28. Twenty pieces of silver.] The price of a lad under twenty years of age. (Leviticus 27:5.) The full price of a slave was thirty shekels. (Exodus 21:32.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 37:18-28
THE CONSPIRACY TO MURDER JOSEPH
The brethren of Joseph conspired against him to slay him. (Genesis 37:18.) This foul crime furnishes—
I. An example of the rapidly downward course of evil. Joseph’s brethren at first envied him, then envy passed into animosity, animosity into fixed hatred, and fixed hatred rapidly grew into a scheme of murder. So steep is the descent from the evil things within the heart of man to the lowest depths of crime.
II. An example of the bold daring of sinners. Joseph’s brethren are prepared to brave all the consequences. They are ready with a deceitful story to account to their father for the loss of his favourite son. (Genesis 37:20.) They trust to artifice, falsehood, cunning, and deceit. They are daring enough to cover up their crime with a lie.
III. An example of guilt incurred even where purpose has not ripened into act. Joseph’s brethren were guilty of murder though they stopped short of the deed. Thought and act are the same in the sight of God. (Matthew 5:28.) It was not for killing his brother (for that might have been accidental), but for killing him through hatred, that Cain was branded a murderer. (1 John 3:15.) Murder is the goal or limit to which hatred tends when not repressed. But these men were prevented from carrying out their purpose, not by unforeseen circumstances, not by fear at a sudden realization of the magnitude of their crime, but by the love of gain,—stronger in them than even their hatred and purpose of murder. It was not the voice of conscience, or the effect of grace, but the power of another passion that comes in here to stay the hand of crime. It was the triumph of avarice over malice. (Genesis 37:27-28.) One sin is sometimes cast out by another. Devils may be cast out by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.
IV. An example of degrees of guiltiness even among those who have lent themselves to one design. The brethren of Joseph were not all equally guilty. Simeon, Levi, and others wished to slay him, but Judah proposed his being sold into captivity. (Genesis 37:26-27.) Reuben proposed to cast him into a pit, intending, probably, to fetch him out when the others were not by. He wanted to save Joseph, but secretly, for he had not courage enough to save him openly. All this shows that the brethren were not equally guilty, though the motive of the least culpable among them was not superior virtue, but some softness of character, or the influence of a stronger temptation.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 37:18. In an honest and obedient simplicity, Joseph comes to inquire of his brethren’s health, and now may not return to carry news of his own misery: whilst he thinks of their welfare, they are plotting his destruction. Who would have expected this cruelty in them, which should be the fathers of God’s church?—(Bp. Hall.)
Cain has left a name of infamy to all generations of mankind. But where shall we find nine men conspiring at once to kill a brother—a brother whose amiable qualities deserved their warmest love—who tenderly loved them, and was in the very act of showing his love to them at the time when their fury broke loose upon him. Joseph had too good reason, as David afterwards had to say in the person of Christ, “For my love they are mine adversaries.”—(Bush.)
Genesis 37:19-20. Who will say that the workers of iniquity have no knowledge? They have all the cunning as well as the cruelty of the old serpent. But what do they mean by that sarcastic saying, we shall see what will become of his dreams? If they had considered them as feigned through ambition, they would not have felt half the resentment. They considered these dreams as the intimations of heaven, and their language included nothing less than a challenge to the Almighty. But is it possible that they could think of thwarting the Divine counsels? It is possible. Witness Pharaoh’s pursuit of Israel, after all that he had seen and felt of the Divine judgments; Saul’s attempts on David’s life; Herod’s murder of the children of Bethlehem; and the conspiracy of the Jews against Christ, who, as many of them knew had raised Lazarus from the dead, and done many miracles. Yes, we will kill him, say they, and then let God advance him to honour if He can! But they shall see what will become of his dreams. They shall see them accomplished by the very means they are concerting to overthrow them. Thus, though the kings of the earth take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them, the Lord shall have them in derision. Joseph’s brethren, like the sheaves in the dream, should make obeisance to him; and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.—(Fuller.)
Genesis 37:21-22. Reuben, though he had been very wicked (Genesis 35:22), shows now a tender heart.—(Jacobus.)
As the murderous scheme was prevented by Reuben’s plan of deliverance, and modified by Judah’s proposal, so, in the life of our Lord, the scheme of the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by arresting circumstances. Thus Providence turned the destructive plots to a beneficent end. It was the chief tendency of these schemes to promote the highest glory of the hated one, whose glory they aimed to destroy.—(Lange.)
He was not cruel, simply because he was guilty of a different class of sin. It is well for us, before we take credit to ourselves for being free from this or that sin, to inquire whether it be banished by grace or only by another sin. You are not censorious, but then pause and ask whether you are not too lax to be censorious. You are not a tale-bearer or a busybody, but are you certain that you have in you sufficient love for others to make you at all interested in these matters?—(Robertson.)
That weakness of character for which Reuben was remarkable, had also its good side. It rendered him incapable of committing some sins.
Genesis 37:23-24. It was not enough to injure him, they must also insult him. Thus Jesus was stripped and degraded before He suffered. Now it was, as they afterwards confessed one to another in the Egyptian prison, that they saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought them, and they would not hear. (Genesis 42:21.)—(Fuller.)
How dearly did he purchase this honour bestowed upon him by his father! They no doubt considered it as an insult to themselves that he came to them decked with this trophy of his superior standing in the patriarch’s regard. His robe, the evidence of Jacob’s tender regard, might have reminded them that to murder Joseph was in effect to murder their father. It would deprive him of the comfort of life and fill up all the rest of his days with bitterness and sorrow.—(Bush.)
The Lord delivers His people from the pit of their sins and sorrows.—(Zechariah 9:11.)
All the spite of his brethren cannot make Joseph cast off the livery of his father’s love. What need we care for the censures of men, if our hearts can tell us we are in favour with God?—(Bp. Hall.)
Genesis 37:25. To weep for their wickedness, they should have sat down rather. But the devil had drawn a hard hoof over their hearts, that either they felt no remorse of what they had done, for the present; or else they sought to ease themselves of it by eating and merrymaking. “They drank wine in bowls, but no man was sorry for the affliction of Joseph.” (Amos 6:6).—(Trapp.)
Observe the calmness of these men after their crime. We often think respecting the tyrants of whom we read in history, that they must have been haunted by the furies. It is not so, there is a worse doom for sin than this; it is that it makes the heart callous and forgetful of its presence. If there were but the sting it would be well, for it would lead to reformation.—(Robertson.)
Egypt was their market. This agrees with the testimony of classic historians, as Homer and Herodotus, who tells us that Egypt was a storehouse for drugs, and a seat of physicians.—(Jacobus.)
Genesis 37:26. It were to be wished, that whenever we are tempted to sin, we would ask ourselves this question, What profit is it?—(Trapp.)
Genesis 37:27-28. Judah’s proposal contains words of mercy, but it was mercy mixed with covetousness. It is not unusual for covetous men to urge their objects under a show of generosity and kindness. But if he did, it was the “profit” that wrought upon the company. The love of money induced them to sell their brother for a slave. A goodly price at which they valued him! But let not Joseph complain, seeing a greater than he was sold by Judas Iscariot for but a little more.—(Fuller.)
Reuben and Judah remind us of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of the Sanhedrin; but they were less inclined to the right, and their, half measures remind us of Pilate’s attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the power in their hands; since being implicated by their former animosity towards Joseph, they could only weakly oppose their angry brethren.—(Lange.)
Little did the Ishmeelitish merchants know what a treasure they bought, carried, and sold; more precious than all their balms and myrrhs. Little did they think that they had in their hands the lord of Egypt, the jewel of the world. Why should we contemn any man’s meanness, when we know not his destiny?—(Bp. Hall.)
The saints of God are His princes, His portion, His heirs; but they are in a strange country; they are unknown in the world.
These merchantmen testify to the outward increase and spiritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They are witnesses to a heartrending scene, but coolly pay their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance, and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ, reckoned among the lost.—(Lange.)