48 BETRAYED

While running an errand for his father, Joseph approached his brothers. As he did, they plotted against him. So the story of Joseph includes a vicious betrayal by blood brothers. Those who sold Joseph into slavery were not his enemies or even strangers; they were his family. Later in the narrative the brothers reflected on their betrayal. They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us” (Genesis 42:21). Joseph’s character was about to be tested. He was a teenager when these developments occurred, and not until he was thirty years of age did he become prime minister of Egypt. With this incident, thirteen years of character development began for seventeen-year-old Joseph. When reverses occur, do not assume all is lost. God is at work—working on you, perhaps.

The bloody and malicious plot of his brothers against Joseph, who rendered good for evil, has many lessons for Christian leaders. The brothers were deliberate in their opposition to Joseph. “But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him” (18). The deed was not done in a heat, or on a sudden inspiration that they thought to slay him, but from a settled malice against him and in cold blood. The more the sin is premeditated or deliberated on, the greater the sin because there was greater opportunity to change one’s mind. If we hate someone one is a murderer because if he or she has the opportunity they will be one. 1 John 3:15 says, “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.”  A Christian leader may not actually want to kill someone, but hatred in our hearts can cause us to want to do lesser sins such as gossip, destroy a reputation, speak ill of or injure another in some other way.  Any of these is a partial murder because this supposedly minor sin takes away the value of the life of another. As we notice how scornfully they thought of and then treated Joseph we see the reason is because of his dreams.  “‘Here comes that dreamer!’  they said to each other. . . . ‘Come now, let’s kill him . . . . Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.’” This shows unquestionably what it was that bothered and enraged them. They could not endure to think of bowing to him; this was what they were plotting to prevent by murdering Joseph. People who are bothered and rage at God’s counsels are aiming and hoping to defeat them; but they imagine a vain thing. God’s counsels will stand. “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.’” (Psalm 2:1-3). Then, as often is the case, one sin leads to another and they must devise a lie to cover up their murder. They decide today that an evil beast has devoured him, but it seems that something worse than an evil beast did it. In consulting with each other how to devour him they proved themselves worse than the most evil beasts; for evil beasts do not attack those of their own kind, but Joseph’s brothers were tearing a piece of themselves.

Reuben has a plan to save Joseph recorded in verses 21 & 22. “When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. ‘Let’s not take his life,’ he said. ‘Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.’ Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.” God can raise up friends for his people, even among their enemies; for he has all hearts in his hands. Reuben, of all the brothers, had most reason to be jealous of Joseph, for he was the first-born, and might have been entitled to those special favors which Jacob gave to Joseph; yet Reuben proves to be Joseph’s best friend. Reuben’s temper seems to have been soft and gentle, which may have originally led him to the sin of making love with Bilhah; while the temper of the next two brothers, Simeon and Levi, was fierce, which led them to the sin of mass murder, a sin which Reuben abhorred. Our natural constitution should be guarded against those sins to which it is most likely to commit, and improved (as Reuben’s here) against those sins to which it is most opposed. Reuben made a proposal which they thought would effectually answer their intention of destroying Joseph. Meanwhile Reuben designed that his proposal would rescue Joseph out of their hands and restore him to his father. Maybe he hoped by it to recover his father’s favor, which he had recently lost. God, however, overruled it all to serve His own purpose of making Joseph an instrument to save many people alive. Joseph was here a type of Christ. Though he was the beloved Son of his Father, and hated by a wicked world, yet the Father sent him away to visit us in great humility and love. He came from heaven to earth, to seek and save us. Malicious plots were laid against Him. He came to his own, and His own not only did not receive him, but consulted against him: This is the heir, come let us kill him; Crucify him, crucify him. He submitted to this as He followed His father’s plan to redeem and save us.

The brothers follow through with their plot. They stripped him, each perhaps striving to seize the most recent and envied coat of many colors. Verse 23 says, “So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—.”  In this way, in imagination, they figuratively robbed him of the birthright, which perhaps this robe represented, grieving him, affronting their father, and making themselves merry with sport, while they insulted him. “Now, Joseph, where is the fine coat?” Jesus too was stripped of His seamless coat, and similarly His suffering saints have been mistreated, had their reputations and honors reduced and made to be the off-scouring of all things. The brothers then went about to starve him, throwing him into a dry pit, to perish there with hunger and cold, so cruel were their tender mercies. Their jealously colored their thinking. Where envy reigns pity is banished, and humanity itself is forgotten. Later in the story of Joseph we learn that Joseph pled with his brothers. Genesis 42:21 & 22 say, “‘We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.’ Reuben replied, ‘Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen!’” Joseph begged for his life, entreated, by all imaginable endearments, that they would be content with his coat and spare his life. He pleads innocence, relation, affection, submission; he weeps and makes supplication, but all in vain. They even “… sat down to eat their meal. . .” (25). They felt no remorse of conscience for the sin; if they had, it would have spoiled their appetite and enjoyment of their meat. They may have thought that they had turned the tables on Joseph, but in actuality they were being agents of God to put Joseph in the place he needed to be in order to fulfill his destiny—in Egypt. They were now pleased to think how they were freed from the fear of their brother’s dominion over them, and that, on the contrary, they had turned the wheel against him. Those that oppose God’s counsels may possibly prevail so far as to think they have gained their point, and yet be deceived.

Then they seized an opportunity and sold him. A caravan of merchants in a timely way passed by and Judah made the motion that they should sell Joseph to them, to be carried far enough off to Egypt, where, in all probability, he would be lost, and never heard of anymore. Judah proposed it in compassion to Joseph. “Judah said to his brothers, ‘What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?” (26) Maybe there is a lesson here. When we are tempted to sin, we should consider the unprofitableness of it. It is what there is. There is nothing to be obtained or gained by it. They accepted Judah’s proposal because they thought that if he were sold for a slave he would never be a lord, if sold into Egypt he would never be their lord; yet all this was working towards it. Joseph’s brethren were wonderfully restrained from murdering him, and their selling him was as wonderfully turned to God’s praise. As Joseph was sold by the suggestion of Judah for twenty pieces of silver, so was our Lord Jesus for thirty, and by one of the same name too, Judas. Reuben evidently had gone away from his brothers, when they sold Joseph, intending to come round some other way to the pit, and help Joseph out of it then return him safely to his father. This was a kind project, but, if it had taken effect, what had become of God’s purpose concerning Joseph’s important role to be played in Egypt? There are many devices in man’s heart, many projects of the enemies of God’s people to destroy them and of their friends to help them, which perhaps are both disappointed, as these were. It is, however, the counsel of the Lord, that will stand. Reuben thought himself destroyed and a failure, because the child was sold. “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?” He being the eldest, his father would expect from him an account of Joseph; but, as it proved, they would all have been destroyed and failures if he had not been sold.

Joseph would soon be missed and an investigation would be made for him. Therefore his brothers have a further design, to make the world believe that Joseph was torn in pieces by a wild beast. They did this to clear themselves, that they might not be suspected to have done him any wrong. From Adam’s time forward wrong-doers have usually tried to cover transgression as Job 31:33 says, “. . . if I have concealed my sin as people do, by hiding my guilt in my heart.” When the devil has taught men to commit one sin, he then teaches them to conceal it with another, theft and murder with lying, but whoever covers his or her sin will not prosper long. Joseph’s brothers kept their own and one another’s secret for some time, but their evil deed came to light at last, and it is recorded here then published to the world. Its memory and the lessons to be drawn from it have been transmitted to every age. I shudder in sorrow that these unkind brothers should also be unkind sons that they would intentionally try to grieve their good father. The bloody robe may have been designed by them on purpose to be revenged on Jacob for his distinguishing love of Joseph. Some believe it was contrived on purpose to create the utmost sorrow to their father who loved Joseph more than he loved them. They sent him Joseph’s coat of many colors, with one color more than it had had, a bloody color. Verse 32 says, “They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, ‘We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.’” They pretended they had found it in the fields, and Jacob himself must be scornfully asked, “Is this your son’s coat?’ So the badge of Joseph’s honor becomes the discovery of his fate. Jacob assumes the worst. Love is often apt to fear the worst concerning the person beloved; there is a love that casts out fear, but that is a perfect love. Now let those that know the heart of a parent suppose the agonies of poor Jacob, and put their minds into his soul’s place. How strongly does he represent to himself the grievous idea of Joseph’s misery! Sleeping or waking, he imagines he sees the wild beast attacking Joseph, thinks he hears his piteous shrieks when the lion roared against him, makes himself tremble and grow chill, many a time, when he fancies how the beast sucked his blood, tore him limb from limb, and left no remains of him, but the coat of many colors, to carry the bad news. And no doubt it added no little to the grief that he himself had exposed Joseph, by sending him, and sending him all alone, on this dangerous journey, which proved so fatal to him. This cuts him to the heart, and he is ready to look on himself as an accessory to the death of his son.

Efforts were used to comfort Jacob as his sons, perhaps even basely, mockingly, pretended to do it, but all of them were miserable hypocritical comforters. It was all to no avail. “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave” (35). Had Jacob’s sons really desired to comfort him, they might easily have done it, by telling him the truth, “Joseph is alive, he is in fact sold into Egypt, and it will be an easy thing to send there and bring him back.” This would have quickly loosened Jacob’s mourning clothes and clothed him with gladness. It is a wonder that their faces did not betray their guilt. How could they pretend to be trying to console Jacob when in their hearts they know Joseph was probably alive.

Jacob was mistaken to become an obstinate mourner, resolving to go down to the grave mourning. Great affection to any creature does not prepare anyone very well for the greater affliction, when the beloved is either removed or turned against us. Inordinate love commonly ends in immoderate grief; as much as the swinging of a pendulum moves one way, so much it will also throw itself the other way. We must not say, “We will go to our grave mourning,” because we do not know what joyful days God may yet have for us. We perplex ourselves with imaginary troubles. We fancy things worse than they are, and then afflict ourselves more than we need. Sometimes we need no more to comfort us than for something or someone to tell us the truth. It is good to hope the best.

The Ishmaelites and Midianites having bought Joseph only to sell him carry out their plan for profit and Joseph becomes Potiphar’s property. Jacob was lamenting the loss of Joseph’s life when he could have been lamenting his son’s loss of liberty. This may seem to be a strange lesson to pull from this story, but it seems to be the wisdom of parents or leaders of a team or staff to not bring up their children or staff members too delicately, in case they might not know the hardships and difficulties to which God’s good training program may reduce them. Jacob little thought that his beloved Joseph would ever be bought and sold like this for a servant and yet it was this very rigorous training that enabled God to use Joseph.