We have here the execution of their plot against Joseph. 1. They
stripped him, each striving to seize the envied coat of many colours,
v. 23. Thus, in imagination, they degraded him from the birthright, of
which perhaps this was the badge, grieving him, affronting their
father, and making themselves sport, while they insulted over him.
"Now, Joseph, where is the fine coat?" Thus our Lord Jesus was stripped
of his seamless coat, and thus his suffering saints have first been
industriously divested of their privileges and honours, and then made
the off-scouring of all things. 2. They went about to starve him,
throwing him into a dry pit, to perish there with hunger and cold, so
cruel were their tender mercies, v. 24. Note, Where envy reigns pity is
banished, and humanity itself is forgotten, Prov. xxvii. 4. So full of
deadly poison is malice that the more barbarous any thing is the more
grateful it is. Now Joseph begged for his life, in the anguish of his
soul (ch. xlii. 21), entreated, by all imaginable endearments, that
they would be content with his coat and spare his life. He pleads
innocence, relation, affection, submission; he weeps and makes
supplication, but all in vain. Reuben alone relents and intercedes for
him, ch. xlii. 22. But he cannot prevail to save Joseph from the
horrible pit, in which they resolve he shall die by degrees, and be
buried alive. Is this he to whom his brethren must do homage? Note,
God's providences often seem to contradict his purposes, even when they
are serving them, and working at a distance towards the accomplishment
of them. 3. They slighted him when he was in distress, and were not
grieved for the affliction of Joseph; for when he was pining away in
the pit, bemoaning his own misery, and with a languishing cry calling
to them for pity, they sat down to eat bread, v. 25. (1.) They felt no
remorse of conscience for the sin; if they had, it would have spoiled
their appetite for their meat, and the relish of it. Note, A great
force put upon conscience commonly stupefies it, and for the time
deprives it both of sense and speech. Daring sinners are secure ones.
But the consciences of Joseph's brethren, though asleep now, were
roused long afterwards, ch. xlii. 21. (2.) They were now pleased to
think how they were freed from the fear of their brother's dominion
over them, and that, on the contrary, they had turned the wheel upon
him. They made merry over him, as the persecutors over the two
witnesses that had tormented them, Rev. xi. 10. Note, Those that oppose
God's counsels may possibly prevail so far as to think they have gained
their point, and yet be deceived. 4. They sold him. A caravan of
merchants very opportunely passed by (Providence so ordering it), and
Judah made the motion that they should sell Joseph to them, to be
carried far enough off into Egypt, where, in all probability, he would
be lost, and never heard of more. (1.) Judah proposed it in compassion
to Joseph (v. 26): "What profit is it if we slay our brother? it will
be less guilt, and more gain, to sell him." Note, When we are tempted
to sin, we should consider the unprofitableness of it. It is what there
is nothing to be got by. (2.) They acquiesced in it, because they
thought that if he were sold for a slave he would never be a lord, if
sold into Egypt he would never be their lord; yet all this was working
towards it. Note, The wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder
of wrath he will restrain, Ps. lxxvi. 10. Joseph's brethren were
wonderfully restrained from murdering him, and their selling him was as
wonderfully turned to God's praise. As Joseph was sold by the
contrivance of Judah for twenty pieces of silver, so was our Lord Jesus
for thirty, and by one of the same name too, Judas. Reuben (it seems)
had gone away from his brethren, when they sold Joseph, intending to
come round some other way to the pit, and to help Joseph out of it, and
return him safely to his father. This was a kind project, but, if it
had taken effect, what had become of God's purpose concerning his
preferment in Egypt? Note, There are many devices in man's heart, many
devices of the enemies of God's people to destroy them and of their
friends to help them, which perhaps are both disappointed, as these
were; but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. Reuben thought
himself undone, because the child was sold: I, whither shall I go? v.
30. He being the eldest, his father would expect from him an account of
Joseph; but, as it proved, they would all have been undone if he had
not been sold.