Genesis 37

What Will Become of His Dreams

Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, dreams that his family will bow to him. His brothers throw him in a pit, sell him to traders bound for Egypt, and send his bloodied coat to their father. In trying to see “what will become of his dreams,” they start them on the road to fulfillment.

Genesis chaptersChapter 37 of 50

Joseph is seventeen (verse 2) and lives with his father Jacob in the vale of Hebron (verse 14). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 36 closed the line of Esau. Chapter 37 turns to the family through whom the covenant goes on, and “These are the generations of Jacob” opens the last section of the book,…

Genesis 36 closed the line of Esau. Chapter 37 turns to the family through whom the covenant goes on, and “These are the generations of Jacob” opens the last section of the book, the one in which “Joseph’s role as a preserver of Israel is also given emphasis.”

The family is divided. Jacob has twelve sons by four women (Gen. 35:22–26). Rachel, Joseph’s mother, has died giving birth to Benjamin (Gen. 35:16–19), and Reuben, the firstborn, has lost standing by what he did with Bilhah (Gen. 35:22; Gen. 49:3–4). The scenes move between three places: Jacob’s home in the vale of Hebron, Shechem, some sixty miles north, and Dothan, some fifteen miles beyond that, on the road to Egypt. The next chapter turns aside to Judah (Gen. 38:1), and Joseph’s story picks up again in Egypt (Gen. 39:1).

Later scripture comes back to this chapter. A psalm says that God “sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant” (Ps. 105:17). Stephen retells the sale before the high priest (Acts 7:9–14). The Book of Mormon adds what became of Joseph’s coat (Alma 46:23–24).

The chapter has six parts: the favored son (verses 1–4), the dreams (5–11), the errand to Shechem (12–17), the plot and the pit (18–24), the sale (25–30), and the coat brought to Jacob (31–36).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 37 is the story of a plan to stop a prophecy. The brothers say so themselves: “we shall see what will become of his dreams” (verse 20).

Genesis 37 is the story of a plan to stop a prophecy. The brothers say so themselves: “we shall see what will become of his dreams” (verse 20). Everything they do afterward (the pit, the sale, the blood on the coat) puts Joseph on the road to Egypt, where the dreams come true. At the end of the story Joseph names what happened: “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). The chapter closes with the brothers sure they have won and Joseph in the house of an officer of Pharaoh (verse 36).

The coat holds the chapter together. A father makes it (verse 3), the brothers strip it off (23), they dip it in goat’s blood and send it home (31–32), and Jacob knows it at once and reads his son’s death in it (33). The Hebrew phrase for the garment, ketonet passim, “long-sleeved tunic,” appears in verses 3, 23, and 32, with the article (hapassim) in the last two. It is the same garment in each scene: given in love, stripped off in hatred, and brought back as proof of death.

Beneath both runs a word that fails. The brothers “could not speak peaceably” to Joseph (verse 4); Hebrew shalom, “peace,” is the thing they will not give him. Jacob then sends him to see how their shalom is (verse 14). The chapter ends with a father who “refused to be comforted” (verse 35) for a son who is alive in Egypt.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–4

The favored son

In plain words

Jacob settled in Canaan, where his father had lived as a foreigner. This is the story of Jacob’s family. Joseph, seventeen years old, was tending the flock with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, and he told his father the bad things they were doing. Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because Joseph was born when he was old, and he had a long robe made for him. His brothers saw that their father loved him most, and they hated him and could not say a friendly word to him.

1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

Language #

Why Joseph’s story is “the generations of Jacob”

“These are the generations of Jacob” opens the story of Jacob’s sons, and the heading is not a slip.

“These are the generations of Jacob” opens the story of Jacob’s sons, and the heading is not a slip. The Hebrew is toledot, which the lexicon defines as an “account of a man and his descendants.” The whole book is built on these headings: its structure “rests on several genealogies. Each new section begins ‘These are the generations,’ and there follows a genealogical list of certain portions of family history.”

The formula tells what came of a man through his children, not the story of the man himself. Esau’s line has just been given under it (Gen. 36:1), and the “generations of Isaac” (Gen. 25:19) turned out to be the story of Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau. So “the generations of Jacob” is the history of “the removal, through Joseph’s instrumentality, of the family of Jacob from Canaan into Egypt,” and it runs to the end of Genesis.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. “Genesis”, Bible Dictionary. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Language #

What was the evil report?

Genesis does not say what Joseph reported, only that he reported it. The word is dibbah, which the lexicon defines as “evil report, specifically a (true) report of evil doing,”…

Genesis does not say what Joseph reported, only that he reported it. The word is dibbah, which the lexicon defines as “evil report, specifically a (true) report of evil doing,” and this verse is the example it gives. By that reading Joseph is not slandering his brothers; he is telling his father about real wrongdoing. The narrator gives no details. Even so, the report “brought upon him the odium of tale-bearing.”

The report is the first of three causes of hatred in the chapter, followed by the father’s love (verses 3–4) and the dreams (verses 5–11).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

Language #

What was Joseph’s coat?

The Hebrew is ketonet passim, and it may not mean “many colours.” Ketonet is the ordinary tunic worn next to the body.

The Hebrew is ketonet passim, and it may not mean “many colours.” Ketonet is the ordinary tunic worn next to the body. Passim is a word found only in this phrase, and the lexicon gives its sense as a “tunic reaching to palms and soles,” that is, a long tunic with sleeves, longer than the everyday kind. “Many colours” comes from the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, which reads “a coat of many colours,” and from the Latin Vulgate that followed it, a rendering older commentaries call “certainly incorrect.”

The same two Hebrew words describe the garment of King David’s daughter Tamar, which the KJV renders “a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king’s daughters that were virgins apparelled” (2 Sam. 13:18). So the coat was a mark of rank as much as of beauty. It may also have marked the birthright: “It is possible that Joseph received this coat to represent his role as Jacob’s birthright son.” Joseph “obtained the birthright in Israel because he was worthy and because it was his natural right,” when Reuben lost it, and First Chronicles says the same: Reuben defiled his father’s bed, “his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph,” and “the birthright was Joseph’s” (1 Chr. 5:1–2). Genesis never says the coat meant this. If it did, it “would explain the intense hostility and jealousy the coat provoked,” for with Reuben set aside several of the older sons could have thought the birthright theirs: Simeon as the next of Leah’s sons, Judah because Simeon and Levi had disgraced themselves at Shechem, and Dan and Gad as the firstborn of the two handmaids.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. “Joseph”, Bible Dictionary. Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

Verses 5–11

The dreams

In plain words

Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers they hated him even more. “Listen to this dream,” he said. “We were tying up sheaves of grain in the field, and my sheaf stood up and the others gathered around and bowed down to it.” His brothers said, “Do you think you will be our king? Will you rule over us?” They hated him more for his dreams and for what he said. Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers: “The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” He told it to his father as well, and his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that? Are your mother and I and your brothers really going to bow down to the ground before you?” His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.

Related Scriptures #

Were Joseph’s dreams from God?

Genesis tells the dreams but does not say who sent them. When the Lord speaks to a patriarch in a dream, Genesis says so (Gen. 28:12–13); here no one speaks.

Genesis tells the dreams but does not say who sent them. When the Lord speaks to a patriarch in a dream, Genesis says so (Gen. 28:12–13); here no one speaks. Joseph Smith’s revision of Genesis 48 answers the question directly. Jacob tells Joseph there, “thy father’s house hath bowed down unto thee, even as it was shown unto thee, before thou wast sold into Egypt by the hands of thy brethren” (JST Gen. 48:10). The dreams were shown to Joseph.

Dreams are “one way that God reveals His will to men and women on earth,” though “not all dreams are revelations,” and the Lord told Aaron and Miriam that to a prophet He would “speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6). Joseph was “a visionary man, a dreamer and interpreter of dreams.”

Sources: Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 48, Joseph Smith Translation Appendix, Gospel Library. “Dream”, Guide to the Scriptures. “Joseph”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:

7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.

8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

Related Scriptures #

The brothers’ question names the fulfillment

The brothers’ scornful questions describe, almost word for word, what Joseph becomes.

The brothers’ scornful questions describe, almost word for word, what Joseph becomes. In Hebrew each verb is said twice: “Shalt thou indeed reign (malok timlok)? or shalt thou indeed have dominion (mashol timshol)?” When Joseph reveals himself in Egypt, he says that God “hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:8). The word for “ruler” there is moshel, from the same verb as “have dominion.”

The bowing in the dreams is fulfilled in the same way. “Made obeisance” and “bow down” both translate hishtachavah, the verb that appears when Joseph’s brothers arrive in Egypt: “bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth” (Gen. 42:6). Genesis makes the link itself: “Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them” (Gen. 42:9). When they bow again on the second journey, in the same words as the dreams (Gen. 43:28), “the Lord’s revelations were now fulfilled.”

Book of Mormon readers will hear the question again. Laman says that Nephi means to “make himself a king and a ruler over us” (1 Ne. 16:38), the same charge Joseph’s brothers made: that he “wanted to usurp their authority” and “was lying about being guided by God.” Laman, Lemuel, and others once bound Nephi to leave him “in the wilderness to be devoured by wild beasts” (1 Ne. 7:16), as Joseph’s brothers plan to say that “some evil beast hath devoured him” (verse 20).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Scripture Central, “How Was Nephi Similar to Joseph of Egypt?”, KnoWhy #416, Jan. 19, 2024. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

10 And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

Context #

Whose “mother” bows to Joseph?

Joseph’s mother Rachel is already dead. She died on the road to Ephrath when Benjamin was born (Gen. 35:16–19), so when Jacob asks, “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed…

Joseph’s mother Rachel is already dead. She died on the road to Ephrath when Benjamin was born (Gen. 35:16–19), so when Jacob asks, “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee,” the question has a puzzle in it. Readers take it in two ways. One treats the sun, moon, and stars as a general picture of the whole family, “not to be too literally interpreted,” and suggests that Bilhah “had done a mother’s part by Joseph after Rachel’s death.” The other reads the moon as Rachel herself; one scholarly view that divides the chapter among sources takes “thy mother” to imply that in this version of the story Rachel was still alive.

The text does not choose between them, and the meaning of the dream does not depend on the choice. The sun is Jacob and eleven stars are the eleven brothers, and the dream shows the whole house bowing. Jacob’s own reaction is also two-sided. He rebukes the dream, yet “his father observed the saying” in verse 11, literally “kept the word.” One reading traces Luke’s words about Mary to this phrase: she “kept all these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

Sources: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

Verses 12–17

The errand to Shechem

In plain words

His brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing the flock at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” “Here I am,” Joseph said. “Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and Joseph came to Shechem. A man found him wandering in the countryside and asked what he was looking for. “I am looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing?” The man said, “They have gone on from here. I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after them and found them at Dothan.

12 And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.

Context #

Why were the brothers at Shechem?

Shechem is the last place a careful reader expects to find Jacob’s sons grazing sheep.

Shechem is the last place a careful reader expects to find Jacob’s sons grazing sheep. It was the city that Simeon and Levi destroyed after Dinah’s wrong (Gen. 34:25–29), and Jacob feared the result: “they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house” (Gen. 34:30). Yet Genesis recorded that as the family left, “the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob” (Gen. 35:5).

The text does not say why the brothers returned. One reading is that Jacob’s sons “seem to have retained Shechem” by their “high-handed proceedings,” and that Jacob’s wealth was great enough to send flocks “so far away as to Shechem, a distance of sixty miles.” The errand sounds routine, but it takes Joseph to a place with a bloody history, to brothers who hate him.

Sources: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.

Language #

Sent by his father, sent by God

“Here am I” is hinneni, “behold, I.” It is the answer Abraham gave God, Isaac, and the angel in chapter 22 (Gen. 22:1; Gen. 22:7; Gen. 22:11).

“Here am I” is hinneni, “behold, I.” It is the answer Abraham gave God, Isaac, and the angel in chapter 22 (Gen. 22:1; Gen. 22:7; Gen. 22:11). Here it is Joseph’s answer to a father who says, “I will send thee unto them,” and then “he sent him out of the vale of Hebron” (verse 14). The verb for “send” is shalach.

The same verb carries the story’s later reading. Joseph tells his brothers, “ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life” (Gen. 45:5), and, more sharply, “it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Gen. 45:8). The psalm sums it up in one line: “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant” (Ps. 105:17). Jacob sends Joseph to Shechem, and God sends him to Egypt by the road the brothers’ hatred would open.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

14 And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

Language #

Joseph is sent to ask for their shalom

The errand is a question about peace. The Hebrew of Jacob’s command is “see the shalom of thy brothers, and the shalom of the flock.”

The errand is a question about peace. The Hebrew of Jacob’s command is “see the shalom of thy brothers, and the shalom of the flock.” Ten verses earlier shalom was what the brothers would not give Joseph: they “could not speak peaceably unto him” (verse 4), which on one reading means that they would not offer him the usual greeting, “Peace be with thee.” So the son who is unwelcome to his brothers is sent to ask how they are.

What he meets is a conspiracy (verse 18). The word comes back when the roles are reversed. Years later Joseph, ruler in Egypt, meets the same brothers and “asked them of their welfare” (leshalom, Gen. 43:27), and he asks whether their old father is well.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?

16 And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.

17 And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.

Verses 18–24

The plot and the pit

In plain words

They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer,” they said to one another. “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say a wild animal ate him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” Reuben heard this and rescued him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” He meant to rescue Joseph and take him back to his father. When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped off his long robe and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty, with no water in it.

18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.

19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.

20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

Related Scriptures #

Trying to see the dreams fail

The brothers’ plan ends in a test: venir’eh mah yihyu chalomotav, “and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

The brothers’ plan ends in a test: venir’eh mah yihyu chalomotav, “and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” They want to watch the dreams fail.

The rest of Genesis is the answer. Every step of their plan moves Joseph toward Egypt, where they bow to him (Gen. 42:6). At the end, Joseph says, “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). The Hebrew uses the same verb for both intentions: “you planned (chashavtem) evil against me; God planned (chashavah) it for good.” One reading goes further and sees in the sale the start of what the Lord told Abraham, that his seed would be “a stranger in a land that is not theirs” (Gen. 15:13): the sale was “to prepare the way, according to the wonderful counsel of God, for the fulfilment of the divine revelation to Abraham respecting the future history of his seed.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

21 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.

Context #

Reuben, the firstborn, tries to save Joseph

Reuben speaks for Joseph in the only way he can. The narrator names his motive: “that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again” (verse 22).

Reuben speaks for Joseph in the only way he can. The narrator names his motive: “that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again” (verse 22). His plan was to throw Joseph into a cistern and come back for him. The pit was “empty, there was no water in it” (verse 24), so Joseph would not drown. In one reading, Reuben as the eldest was “specially responsible for his younger brother,” and the plan worked on the others because Joseph would “inevitably perish even in that pit,” so their malice was “satisfied.”

Reuben was already a man who had lost ground. He had “lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine” (Gen. 35:22), and Jacob later says he is “unstable as water” (Gen. 49:4). The birthright “was given unto the sons of Joseph” (1 Chr. 5:1). So the son who forfeited the birthright pleads for the son to whom it would pass. But the sale was settled while Reuben was away, and when he found the pit empty he tore his clothes: “The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?” (verses 29–30). Years later he says to them in Egypt, “Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child? … therefore, behold, also his blood is required” (Gen. 42:22).

22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.

23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him;

24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

Verses 25–30

The sale

In plain words

Then they sat down to eat. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, on the way down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and hide his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him. He is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders came by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and the traders took him to Egypt. When Reuben went back to the pit and found Joseph gone, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! And I, where can I go?”

25 And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?

Context #

Judah’s proposal, and the man he becomes

Judah saves Joseph’s life by selling him, and his reasons are mixed. “What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?”

Judah saves Joseph’s life by selling him, and his reasons are mixed. “What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?” he asks, and then: “let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh.” In one reading his motive was “the feeling of horror… at incurring the guilt of fratricide,” while he would still like “to get rid of him, that his dreams might not come true.”

Judah is the one who later offers to become a slave himself in place of Benjamin: “let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord” (Gen. 44:33). By then “Judah’s change of heart was shown to be complete.” The story placed between the two scenes, in which Judah is himself deceived (Gen. 38), “might help explain the change that is occurring in Judah,” though the text does not say what changed him.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?”, KnoWhy #841, Mar. 3, 2026. Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.

28 Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Context #

Who sold Joseph, Ishmaelites or Midianites?

The chapter names the traders three ways and does not say who did what.

The chapter names the traders three ways and does not say who did what. They are “Ishmeelites” in verses 25, 27, and 28, “Midianites” in verse 28, and in verse 36 the Hebrew has Medanim, which the KJV also renders “Midianites.” The verbs in verse 28 (“they drew and lifted up… and sold”) have no stated subject, so it is unclear whether the brothers or the Midianites pulled Joseph out of the pit. Joseph later says both that his brothers sold him (Gen. 45:4) and that he “was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews” (Gen. 40:15).

Readers account for this in three ways. One is that “Ishmaelite” and “Midianite” were not strict tribal labels: both peoples descended from Abraham (Gen. 16:15; Gen. 25:2), and on this reading the two “were often confounded,” so traders could be called by either name. In Judges, the people Gideon defeats are “the kings of Midian,” yet “they were Ishmaelites” (Judg. 8:24, Judg. 8:26). A second is that the chapter joins two accounts: in one, Midianites pull Joseph from the pit and carry him off, which is why Reuben later finds the pit empty and why Joseph says he was “stolen away”; in the other, the brothers sell him to Ishmaelites on Judah’s advice. Moses “used several documentary sources from which he compiled the book of Genesis,” but how those sources divide this chapter is a scholarly proposal, not a Church teaching. A third reading holds that, whatever lies behind the text, the confusion “can be seen as reflecting Joseph’s own confusion as he is taken to Egypt against his will.” On any reading, Joseph’s own words hold the brothers responsible: “ye sold me hither” (Gen. 45:5).

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why do Parts of Old Testament Stories Seem to Contradict Themselves?”, KnoWhy #850, Apr. 28, 2026. “Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

The price of a slave

Twenty pieces of silver was an ordinary price. The Hebrew says only “for twenty of silver”; “pieces” is the translators’ word, and the interlinear supplies “shekels.”

Twenty pieces of silver was an ordinary price. The Hebrew says only “for twenty of silver”; “pieces” is the translators’ word, and the interlinear supplies “shekels.” The law of Moses sets the value of a male between five and twenty years old at “twenty shekels” (Lev. 27:5), and gives thirty shekels as the price of a servant gored by an ox (Ex. 21:32).

Ancient documents show prices rising across the centuries. On the figures reported, the price was about ten pieces of silver in Third-Dynasty Ur, about twenty in the Old Babylonian period (Hammurabi’s laws and the archives at Mari), and thirty by the fifteenth century BC at Nuzi. Joseph’s price matches the Old Babylonian one. So the price explains nothing: the brothers “did not sell Joseph cheaply,” as if only to be rid of him, nor dear, as if for gain, and the reader is “left to look for a stronger reason why that transaction occurred.” Joseph gives it later: “God did send me before you to preserve life” (Gen. 45:5).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Scripture Central, “Why Do the Details of the Joseph Story Matter?”, KnoWhy #842, Mar. 5, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

29 And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes.

30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?

Verses 31–36

The coat brought to Jacob

In plain words

They took Joseph’s robe, killed a goat, and dipped the robe in its blood. They sent the long robe to their father with the message, “We found this. See whether it is your son’s robe.” He recognized it. “It is my son’s robe,” he said. “A wild animal has eaten him. Joseph has been torn to pieces.” Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will go down to the grave mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officers, the captain of the guard.

31 And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;

32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.

Language #

“Please recognize”

The message that carries the coat to Jacob is the same Hebrew phrase that later exposes Judah.

The message that carries the coat to Jacob is the same Hebrew phrase that later exposes Judah. “Know now” is haker-na, “recognize, please.” In Genesis 38 Judah’s signet, cord, and staff are returned to him with the words “Discern, I pray thee, whose are these” (Gen. 38:25), and the Hebrew is the same two words. These are the only two places the phrase appears in the Hebrew Bible, “a good indication that these scenes are meant to be read together,” and ancient readers noticed it too. The KJV hides the link by translating it two ways. The son who helped deceive his father with a garment is later exposed by the same request.

Jacob’s answer in verse 33, “And he knew it,” uses the same verb: vayyakkirah, “and he recognized it.” The sons put the question as if they were unsure. The father recognizes the coat at once, and what he reads from it is wrong.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?”, KnoWhy #841, Mar. 3, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

Related Scriptures #

What the Book of Mormon adds about the coat

The brothers strip the coat and dip it in blood, but Genesis does not say they tore it.

The brothers strip the coat and dip it in blood, but Genesis does not say they tore it. The Book of Mormon adds that they did. Captain Moroni tells his army: “we are a remnant of the seed of Joseph, whose coat was rent by his brethren into many pieces.” He recalls “the words of Jacob, before his death,” who “saw that a part of the remnant of the coat of Joseph was preserved and had not decayed,” and said: “Even as this remnant of garment of my son hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of the seed of my son be preserved by the hand of God, and be taken unto himself” (Alma 46:23–24). Genesis does not record this prophecy, and Moroni passes it on as “the language of Jacob” (Alma 46:26). Moroni’s people were that remnant: “one portion of Joseph’s descendants came to America about 600 B.C. and established two great peoples.”

Moroni draws the warning in the same breath: “let us remember to keep the commandments of God, or our garments shall be rent by our brethren, and we be cast into prison, or be sold, or be slain” (Alma 46:23). The fates he names are the ones Joseph met or nearly met in Genesis: the coat rent, the plot to kill him (verse 20), the sale (verse 28), and later prison (Gen. 39:20).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joseph”, Bible Dictionary.

34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

Language #

“The grave” is Sheol, and Joseph is not in it

“The grave” here is sheol, “the abode of departed spirits (corresponding to the Greek Hades), translated in the KJV ‘grave,’ ‘pit,’ and ‘hell,’ depending on the context,” and this…

“The grave” here is sheol, “the abode of departed spirits (corresponding to the Greek Hades), translated in the KJV ‘grave,’ ‘pit,’ and ‘hell,’ depending on the context,” and this verse is one of the examples. It is not a burial. Jacob thinks Joseph was devoured by an animal and not buried, so he could not be buried with him; what he says is that he will go down among the dead, still mourning, to where he supposes his son is.

Two phrases from this scene return in Jeremiah. Reuben says of Joseph, “The child is not” (einennu, verse 30), and Jacob “refused to be comforted” (vayema’en lehitnachem, verse 35). In Jeremiah, Rachel, Joseph’s mother, “refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not” (Jer. 31:15); the Hebrew has the same verbs for “refuse” and “comfort,” and “they are not” (einennu) is the word Reuben used. Jeremiah does not say he is echoing Genesis; the shared words are the link.

Sources: “Sheol”, Bible Dictionary. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 37

“Joseph in many ways is a Christ figure,” and this chapter carries the first part of the likeness: a beloved son, rejected by some of his father’s other children, plotted against, stripped of his clothing, and sold for the price of a slave on the proposal of a man named Judah (“Judas” is the Greek form of the name). Joseph’s oldest brother “looked for him in an empty pit; Christ’s senior Apostle looked for him in an empty tomb.”

The likeness is in where the sale leads. Joseph, “as a type of Christ, entered Egypt in the lowly status of a slave in order to prepare a place for his family who would unwittingly follow him into Egypt.” In their very attempt to destroy him, “his brothers actually set up the conditions that would bring about their eventual temporal salvation,” as Jesus, “by His being given into the hands of the Gentiles, was crucified and completed the atoning sacrifice, becoming the Deliverer for all mankind.” What the brothers meant for evil God “meant… unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen. 50:20). Stephen’s retelling runs the same way: the patriarchs, “moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,” and “at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren” (Acts 7:9; Acts 7:13). Joseph “revealed himself to his brothers when they came the second time,” and “Jesus Christ will reveal Himself to the world at His Second Coming.”

Worth exploring next

Judah in the middle of Joseph’s story. Read Gen. 38 and then Gen. 44:18–34. KnoWhy #841, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?” (Scripture Central), follows the links.
The dreams come true. Gen. 42:6–9; Gen. 43:26–28; Gen. 50:18–21.
Joseph’s prophecies. Gen. 49:22–26; 2 Ne. 3:4–22; and Gen. 50:24–26 with its Joseph Smith Translation (JST Gen. 50:24–38).
A son sent to his brothers. Gen. 45:4–8; Ps. 105:16–22; Acts 7:9–16.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
“Genesis”, Bible Dictionary.
“Joseph”, Bible Dictionary.
“Sheol”, Bible Dictionary.
“Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary.
“Dream”, Guide to the Scriptures.
Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 48, Joseph Smith Translation Appendix, Gospel Library.
Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Paul Y. Hoskisson, “The Plan of Salvation in the First Six Books of the Old Testament”, In The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, ed. D. Kelly Ogden, Jared W. Ludlow, and Kerry Muhlestein, 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).
Scripture Central, “How Was Nephi Similar to Joseph of Egypt?”, KnoWhy #416, Jan. 19, 2024.
Scripture Central, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?”, KnoWhy #841, Mar. 3, 2026.
Scripture Central, “Why Do the Details of the Joseph Story Matter?”, KnoWhy #842, Mar. 5, 2026.
Scripture Central, “Why do Parts of Old Testament Stories Seem to Contradict Themselves?”, KnoWhy #850, Apr. 28, 2026.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.

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