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The brothers carried out a plot against Joseph when he came to them in verse 23. Their plan included forcibly taking the special coat. The brothers stripped Joseph and threw him into a pit. Their initial plan was to kill Joseph, but Reuben thought it better to keep him hostage in a pit. The text reveals he wanted to take Joseph back to their father to restore himself to Jacob’s good graces (Gen. 37:21–22). Reuben had slept with Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine, and was on the periphery of his father’s graces (35:22). When Reuben slept with Bilhah, it was an affront to Jacob’s status as head of household. Interestingly, it also may be that Reuben had some sense of kinship with Joseph as he would have understood the boy’s ambition. The brothers thought following Reuben’s plan was the better of two (plus he was the oldest) and threw Joseph into a pit until they could figure out what to do with him. The aggressive way they stripped the coat off Joseph describes a violent act that infers the forceful removal of a garment. Meaning, they did it with extreme cruelty. The pit where they threw him, though it spared his life, only prolonged his agony, as he was left to rot. When the Midianite traders passed by. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. According to the original Hebrew, the way the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit was with the same aggressive contempt they had throwing him in the pit.

Joseph’s selling into slavery is a parallel for many African Americans, as it is understood we were sold to lands and people unknown for personal gain by those later considered our kinsmen and women. It is important to bear in mind a major difference. Even as it was Africans selling Africans, there was no such thing as an African identity. Smaller groups of people were ruled by kings, queens, and chieftains who did what they thought best for themselves, families, people, lands, and kingdoms. They sold their enemies, not kinsmen and women. Joseph’s story differs in that the brothers sold their kinsman who was their perceived enemy. Perhaps we can learn who our kinsmen and women are or, as Jesus put it, our neighbor.

The brothers sold Joesph for a mere twenty shekels of silver. According to extrabiblical material, this was the going rate for slaves in the second millennium B.C. According to Leviticus 27:2–7, it was the price for redeeming people/property for a young male of five to twenty years old. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, and because of his youth and vitality, there is little doubt the traders believed Joseph would fetch a greater price and profit in Egypt.

Joseph’s entrance to Egypt was an interesting turn of the plot. Israelite tension with Egyptian power is well-documented in the Old Testament. That tension was represented well by Joseph’s great-grandfather, Abraham. Abraham went to Egypt to escape a famine and while there failed to acknowledge Sarai as his wife. Sarai was then taken for the pharaoh’s wife. As a result, a plague came over Pharaoh’s household. Then pharaoh dismissed Abraham and Sarai upon learning she was his wife and sister, not just the latter (Gen. 12:10–20). This earlier story intersects with our current lesson in two important ways. First, Abraham was escaping famine in Egypt, which portends the brothers’ later descent to Egypt for the same reason. The famine eventually caused Joseph’s rise to power in this same Egypt. Second, the Abrahamic story seems to serve as a backdrop to the continued tension between Israelites and Egyptians. By the book of Exodus, the Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites and even after their emancipation were a looming political and military power in the region. This story demonstrates their relative geographic proximity and interconnectedness. Joseph was going to lands known and unknown, where Israelite safety was in question, as shown by Abraham’s fear and subsequent statement (Gen. 12:12–13). If the story were to end here, the reader would be left to wonder what happened to Joseph.