Day 8 – Genesis 37:25-28
The Price of a Brother
Scripture Reading – Genesis 37:25-28
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.
Genesis 37:25 KJV
And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?
Genesis 37:26 KJV
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.
Genesis 37:27 KJV
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.
Genesis 37:28 KJV
Scripture Review
The brothers sit down to eat while Joseph is in the pit. That detail disturbs me. Their appetite continues beside another person’s suffering. When the merchant company appears, Judah asks what profit there is in killing Joseph and proposes selling him. Joseph is lifted out and sold for twenty pieces of silver, then carried toward Egypt.
Judah’s plan keeps blood off their hands without removing guilt from their hearts. They turn a brother into merchandise and call the decision an improvement. Sin often compares itself only with something worse: “At least we did not kill him.” But lesser cruelty is still cruelty. Years later Joseph says plainly that his brothers sold him into Egypt. God will change Judah, but Scripture first lets me hear the man who asks what he can gain from another person’s misery.
The brothers meant to remove Joseph and profit from his disappearance. Judah’s proposal spared Joseph’s life while treating him as something to be bought and sold.
God was moving Joseph alive toward Egypt, the place where He would prepare provision before the famine arrived.
What this asks of me
I cannot measure righteousness by asking whether my choice is less sinful than another option. I must ask whether it is right before God. I also need to guard against becoming so comfortable around another person’s pain that I can sit down and eat while he is in the pit. Mercy does not calculate profit from suffering.
Consider
- Have I excused a wrong choice because it was not the worst choice available?
- Whose pain have I learned to ignore because addressing it would inconvenience me?