What Really Happened To Joseph

Gen 37.1-36 begins to tell us the story of Joseph, and Jacob sends Joseph to find his brothers who are pasturing the sheep; the brothers conspire to kill Joseph, but Reuben has a plan to save him; Joseph is cast into a pit; then his jealous brothers plan to sell Joseph into slavery with Ishmaelite traders; but Midianite traders find Joseph in the pit and take him to Egypt; the brothers find he is gone and devise a lie to tell their father about what happened to Joseph; Jacob’s grief; Joseph ends up in the court of an Egyptian official. The family will not know what truly happened to Joseph until after Joseph reveals himself in Gen 45. This is a very eschatological chapter about the Messiah, with some very important information, so we are going to include the whole chapter from our Genesis commentary on this website to bring out what really happened to Joseph and how he ended up in Egypt.

v1…Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan (Hebron area-v 14; Hebron is an idiom for “heaven”).

v 2…These are the generations (the leading events in his life; the word for generations is“toldot” and it is missing a vav meaning diminished, defective) of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flocks with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives (Joseph was in charge of only the sons of the maids, not the sons of Leah). And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father (he was not a tail-bearer but had a duty to do so; the evil conduct of Yeshua’s “brothers” furnished material for a similar testimony to the Father).

v 3…Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons (with the exception of Benjamin who was about one year old here) because he was the son of his old age (as first fruits of Rachel; a wise son before his years to him), and he made him a coat of many colors (“ketonit passim” meaning is unclear, but probably not a “coat of many colors” but was a long-sleeved embroidered robe reaching from the wrist to ankles, like non-working kings and noblemen wore- see 2 Sam 13.18-19; see also the Keil and Delitzsch commentary on Gen 37.3-4; and the article called, “What Color Was Joseph’s ‘Coat of Many Colors’ at petergoeman.com, September 26, 2020. It was given because of what Reuben did, and this was a symbol of nobility showing Jacob’s intended plan for him after his death to have first-born status; Yeshua is considered the “first-born” in the household of his Father also).

v 4…And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms (they believed that this preference indicated that the right of the firstborn was going to be given to him; Hebrew “shalom” or a normal greeting; they couldn’t conceal their hate and envy, and this is one of the traits Jacob noticed in them).

v 5…Then Joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more (Joseph did not understand the gravity of the situation, and because they understood what it meant).

v 6…And he said to them, “Please listen to the dream which I have had;

v 7…for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheave rose up and stood erect (alluding to the resurrection of Yeshua), and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf (Isaac had tilled the soil in addition to grazing herds so Jacob had some land under cultivation-Gen 26.32); especially remembering this when he heard Joseph.”

v 8…Then the brothers said to him, “Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us (like Yeshua)?” So they hated him even more for his dreams (he had other dreams, or he was always dreaming that this would really happen) and for his words (the evil report; they knew that these dreams had a real potential for fulfillment; this dream is not about ruling over his brothers, but ruling over all of Egypt, as in Gen 45.26. This alludes to Yeshua ruling over not just the tribes of Israel, but the whole world).

v 9…Now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun (Jacob) and the moon (Rachel-Rev 12.1) and eleven stars (the brothers) were bowing down to me (in Egypt; and Israel will acknowledge Yeshua in the kingdom).”

v 10…And he related it to his father and to his brothers (he repeated it ot his father in their presence); and his father rebuked him (for arousing their hatred; trying to appease them; but Jacob understood the meaning and that it was not at all impossible).

v 11…And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying (waited for its fulfillment).

v 12…Then his brothers went to pasture the flock (the word “et” in Hebrew is right before “the flock” and when right before a noun it means that the noun was the subject of the preceding verb; however, in this verse the “et” has dots over the two letters, meaning that the word is not to be understood in its normal meaning; the sheep were not the subject of the pasturing, but they (the brothers) went to pasture themselves, preserving their freedom threatened by Joseph’s dreams-see “Bereshit” by Mesorah Publications, p.1628) in Shechem.

v 13…And Israel said to Joseph (when Jacob is referred to as Israel it is referring to some spiritual aspect), “Are not your brothers pasturing in Shechem (a fertile area)? Come, and I will send you to them (alluding to Yeshua leaving heaven and being sent to Israel).” And he said, “I will go” (Yeshua obeyed his father and went to check on his brothers-Matt 21.33-40, John 1.11).

v 14…Then he said to him, “Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock and bring word back to me (like Yeshua was sent to his people-John 1.10-1).” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron (an idiom for heaven), and he came to Shechem (shoulder, strength, security).

v 15…And a man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field and the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”

v 16…And he said, “I am looking for my brothers; please tell where they are pasturing (alluding to the fact that Israel has moved from feeding the flock in strength and security).”

v 17…Then the man said, “They have moved from here (they had moved from where the father had sent them; same thing spiritually since the first century, Israel had moved from the Torah to the oral law of rabbinical Judaism), for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan’”. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan (“Dothan” is a Persian loan word and means “laws or customs” as in Dan 7.25, and here it alludes to the oral laws that Israel had “moved to” instead of the Torah when Yeshua came, like the 18 Edicts of Beit Shammai).

v 18…When they saw him from a distance, and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death (like the chief priests in Matt 12.14, etc; their hatred had now moved to a crime).

v 19…And they said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer (mocking him)!

v 20…Now then, come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, ‘A wild beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams (the Jewish leaders would make the wild beast Rome responsible for Yeshua’s death).

v 21…But Reuben heard this and rescued him out of their hands (as the eldest son, he was responsible for his younger brother) and said, “Let us not take his life (like Joseph of Arimathea said before the Sanhedrin-Luke 23.50-51).”

v 22…Reuben further said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not lay hands on him (Psa 88.1-18; 1 Pet 3.18-20)”-that he might rescue out of their hands (later), to restore him to his father.

v 23…So it came about, when Joseph reached his brothers, that they stripped him of his tunic, the coat of many colors (the long-sleeved robe-see v 3 notes on “ketonit passim” meaning) that was on him (like they did with Yeshua-Matt 27.27-31);

v 24…and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, without any water in it.

v 25…Then they sat down to eat a meal (the Jewish leaders sat down to eat a Passover meal after Yeshua’s death). And as they raised their eyes and looked, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh, on their way to bring them down to Egypt (they were like cross-country truckers).

v 26…And Judah said to his brother, “What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood.

v 27…Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him (like another Judah in Matt 26.15); for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him.

v 28…Then (on the other hand) some Midianite traders (like local truckers) passed by (the pit Joseph was in), so they pulled him from the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites (the ones in v 25 before his brothers could go back and sell him themselves) for twenty (pieces) of silver (this would be the price of a slave in Lev 27.5). Thus, they brought Joseph into Egypt (this is a picture of Yeshua being sold into the hands of Rome by mediators).

v 29…Now Reuben returned to the pit (to rescue him no doubt, unaware that Joseph had been taken by Midianites and sold to the Ishmaelites going to Egypt a short time before), and behold, Joseph was not in the pit (a type of the resurrection), so he tore his garments (chief priests were just as dismayed when they heard that Yeshua was gone, and even the talmidim wondered what happened).

v 30…And he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there (the pit is empty, like Mary testified to the talmidim-Matt 28.6), as for me, where am I to go (they don’t know what happened, and as the eldest, he will bear the greatest responsibility for this to his father; they devise a lie to tell their father, just the Jewish rulers devised a lie to explain why Yeshua was missing and not in his tomb/pit).”

v 31…So they took Joseph’s tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood,

v 32…and they sent the coat of many colors (the “ketonit passim”-see v 3 notes) and brought it to their father and said, “We found this: please examine it to see whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”

v 33…Then he examined it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”

v 34…So Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

v 35…Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol (Abraham’s Bosom) in mourning to my son.” So his father wept for him.

v 36…Meanwhile, the Medanites (Hebrew “Medanim”; Midian and Medan were sons of Abraham through Keturah in Gen 25.2; there may have been another unrecorded transaction; but the KJV and the NASB have “Midianites” and that is because they were the ones that started the whole scenario to begin with) sold him in Egypt to Potiphar (belonging to the sun), Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard (literally the chief executioner or watch; the end of this chapter emphasizes that Joseph was sold several times to different people; this alludes to the fact that Yeshua’s arrest and death had many other people involved like the Romans, not just the Jewish leaders; and as far as the brothers, they have no earthly idea what happened to him at this point just like Yeshua’s brothers didn’t understand at first, but eventually they will as he reveals himself to them after the resurrection).