Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #39 in Genesis 37.   We will read Genesis 37:27-28:

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. 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.

I will stop reading there.  These Midianites in company with the Ishmeelites have encountered the children of Israel, and the children of Israel have a prisoner, their own brother Joseph whom they had thrown into a pit.  And the Ishmeelites were merchantmen.  They dealt in commodities.  They were on their way to Egypt bearing spices, balm, and myrrh.  They were traveling to Egypt, a rich nation, and they would go to a large city to sell their merchandise. 

Now they were being offered another “item” they could sell in Egypt, and that was Joseph.  Joseph was going to be sold as a slave.  We really cannot say how terrible this act was, as this was truly a grievous thing on the part of the brothers of Joseph to do this to their brother.  They did not know his fate, and they did not care what happened to him.  All kinds of ugly things could have happened to a slave, and ugly things did happen to him later as he was falsely accused of adultery and cast into prison.  He was in a dark dungeon for many years.  Again, this action was very bad.  It was awful sin, and God’s Law does condemn this, as we read in Exodus 21:16:

And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

This particular sin is worthy of death.  It is a capital offense.  Also, it says in Deuteronomy 24:7:

If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.

I think this is very pertinent that God is saying that if any man steal any of his brethren and turn him into merchandise (sells him), then that thief shall die, and you shall put away that evil from among you.  Keep in mind that we are looking for the spiritual picture, and the first thing that comes to mind is the relationship to the Lord Jesus being “sold” when Judas betrayed Him, and I think this is partly what the Lord is pointing to here.  It says in Zechariah 11:12-13:

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And JEHOVAH said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of JEHOVAH.

This prophecy was fulfilled, as we read in Matthew 26:14-16:

Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Then in the next chapter, after Judas had betrayed Him, it says in Matthew 27:3-8:

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

There is a relationship to Joseph’s situation because Joseph is a type of Christ, and we have already discussed that Joseph coming to his brethren is a picture of the Lord entering into the human race into the nation of Israel.  And casting Joseph into the pit is pointing to Christ coming under the wrath of God.

They sold Joseph, but there are some differences.  In Zechariah 11, it refers to thirty pieces of silver, and in Genesis 37 it refers to twenty pieces of silver.  God can just be teaching a different emphasis with these monetary amounts.  The number “20” is “2 x 10,” pointing to the completion of the caretakers of the Word of God being involved in the treachery.  And the number “30” is “3 x 10,” pointing to God’s complete purpose that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, must go to the cross.  That is true, but it is also different in the sense that it was the children of Israel, or the leaders of Israel that paid Judas to betray the Lord, and he did betray the Lord, whereas in our account in Genesis 37, the Ishmeelites, or Midianites, paid the money to the brethren of Joseph.  Perhaps what we are to understand is the commonality of  “betrayal.”  That is, Joseph’s brethren betrayed him in a very similar way, and maybe even in a worse way than Judas betrayed the Lord.  Judas was not physically related to Christ.  He was one of the twelve (apostles), but he was not an actual blood brother.  Joseph’s brethren were his brothers.  They were half-brothers, but they were still brothers, and they betrayed him, and that is maybe the main point the Lord would have us to understand from this.

There are some other references  in the Old Testament  to Joseph being sold,  It says in Psalm 105:17-19:

He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: Until the time that his word came: the word of JEHOVAH tried him.

Notice the first part of verse 17.  The pronoun “He” is referring to God, and He sent a man before them.  This is in accord with what we have been saying about this being in God’s determinate counsel.  We previously read in Genesis 50:20: “…ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.”  So God actually sent Joseph before the children of Israel.  Joseph, who was betrayed by his own brethren, is the one God sent in advance to Egypt, and it would result in Joseph saving the children of Israel from the awful famine that would come over the land of Canaan.

Also, we read in Acts 7:9-10:

And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

Then the next verse tells us that there came a “dearth,” which was “great affliction,” or “great tribulation.”  And Acts 7:9 further supports what we saw earlier regarding the brethren being envious of Joseph because their father loved him the best and because of his dreams.

There is another passage that is interesting in Amos 2:6-8:

Thus saith JEHOVAH; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.

Again, it said in verse 6: “I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver…”  That is what happened in Genesis 37 when they sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver.  Joseph was a righteous young man, and of course he is typifying the “righteous One,” the Lord Jesus Christ.

It also mentions that they sold “the poor for a pair of shoes,” and I do not fully understand that, but what starts to come into view as far as another spiritual meaning is what I referred to earlier in Deuteronomy 24:7:

If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.

God calls “men stealing” theft, and that thief is to die.  The language of calling the nation of Israel “thieves” is used elsewhere in the Bible, and there are several verses we could go to that point out the false teachings of God’s Word, and it is akin to “theft,” or spiritual robbery.  For example, we see this in Jeremiah 7:8-11:

Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith JEHOVAH.

The house called by God’s name has become a “den of robbers.”  The language in Amos 2:6 says, “…because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes,” and there is a similar statement in Amos 8:4-5:

Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

“Making the ephah small and the shekel great” is deceitful, and it is actually thievery.  It is the act of stealing money from one you are engaged in trade with, and “falsifying the balances by deceit,” is to add some kind of weight on the scale.  Then it says in Amos 2:6:

That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

This context will go into God pronouncing judgment upon Israel when He says in Amos 2:10-11:

And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of JEHOVAH:

It is interesting that we will find in the Genesis account that a famine is coming, the dearth that Acts 7 told us about. Right after saying that they sold Joseph for envy, God speaks of the dearth and “great affliction,” or “great tribulation.”  And we know that was the grievous famine of hearing the Word of the Lord.  One can have a Bible, but faith comes by hearing, and if there is a “famine of hearing,” no one can become saved.

In the New Testament in Matthew 21 the Lord Jesus made the same statement concerning Israel.  It says in Matthew 21:12-13:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Christ is the Word, and they paid Judas thirty pieces of silver in order to kill Him, but there was much “buying and selling” going on in Israel throughout its history, and they were selling the righteous for silver.  They were falsifying the Gospel.  They were not faithful in their presentation, understanding, and teaching of the things of God, thereby dealing in false balances and false weights.  Spiritually speaking, that is stealing from the people the Word of God, and that is what God directly says in Jeremiah 23:30:

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith JEHOVAH, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.

I think that is part of the spiritual picture of selling the righteous, or of selling the poor, and it can apply to what was happening to Joseph in Genesis 37.