“Who sold Joseph?” It seems like a simple question with an obvious answer. After all, doesn’t Joseph himself declare to his brothers, “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt” (Genesis 45:4)?
Yet, like many biblical narratives, a closer reading reveals layers of complexity that challenge our basic assumptions and teach us profound lessons about divine providence.
Picture the scene: A young Joseph, sent by his father to check on his brothers, walks alone through the fields. His brothers, harboring deep resentment over his dreams and their father’s favoritism, spot him from afar. Their initial murderous plot, tempered by Reuben’s intervention, leads to Joseph being thrown into a pit. But what happens next has puzzled biblical scholars for generations.
The text presents a perplexing sequence of events involving three different groups of merchants: Ishmaelites, Midianites, and Medanites. While the brothers initially plan to sell Joseph to an approaching caravan of Ishmaelites, the narrative takes an unexpected turn when it mentions Midianite traders passing by. The crucial verse describing Joseph being pulled from the pit and sold is deliberately vague – we can’t tell who actually did the pulling and selling. Adding to the confusion, the Bible appears to contradict itself: Genesis 37:36 tells us the Medanites sold Joseph to Potiphar, while Genesis 39:1 credits this final sale to the Ishmaelites.
Medieval commentators offer fascinating perspectives on this puzzle. Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105) suggests that Joseph was sold multiple times, changing hands between different merchant groups. According to his interpretation, the brothers pulled Joseph out and sold him to the Ishmaelites, who then sold him to the Midianites, who finally sold him to Egypt. His grandson, the Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, c. 1085-1158), presents a radically different interpretation: the brothers never actually sold Joseph at all! According to his reading, while the brothers were eating their meal, Midianite merchants discovered Joseph in the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites without the brothers’ knowledge.
This alternative reading adds a fascinating dimension to the story – following the opinion of the Rashbam, Rabbi Hezekiah ben Manoah, known as the Chizkuni (13th century), concludes that when the brothers discover Joseph is gone, they truly believe that a wild animal had devoured him. When they showed Jacob his bloodied coat and he reached this same conclusion, they weren’t crafting an elaborate lie; they genuinely thought their brother had met a violent end. This interpretation transforms our understanding of the brothers’ subsequent behavior: their shock upon finding Joseph in Egypt becomes even more profound, and their feelings of guilt stem not from selling their brother, but from the cruel act of abandoning him to what they assumed was his bloody death. Yet, as Joseph himself would later acknowledge, their actions set the events in motion, making them morally, if not technically, responsible for his fate.
So who sold Joseph? The brothers? The Midianites? As we untangle this complex narrative, we encounter a profound truth captured in the words of Ecclesiastes: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (19:21). Perhaps the ambiguity in the text itself carries a deeper message – the specific details of who sold Joseph become secondary to the divine plan unfolding through these events. Whether it was the brothers who sold him, or opportunistic merchants who discovered him in the pit, what matters most is that Joseph ended up exactly where he needed to be. His journey to Egypt, however it occurred, set in motion events that would shape the destiny of the Jewish people.
The story of Joseph’s sale reminds us that whether we act with intention or find ourselves caught in circumstances beyond our control, we are part of a greater design. The question of who physically drew Joseph from the pit pales in comparison to the remarkable journey that followed – a journey that transformed a sold servant into a saved nation. Perhaps that’s the most powerful message hidden within this ancient puzzle: while we may wrestle with the details of how we arrive at certain moments in our lives, we can trust that there is purpose in the journey.
The Hebrew Bible is a very big book – actually, 24 books, to be exact. Studying it can feel very overwhelming. Where do you start?
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