Genesis 37:12-24
New Catholic Bible
12 Sold as a Slave.[a] His brothers went out to pasture the flocks of their father at Shechem. 13 Israel said to Joseph, “You know that your brothers have gone to pasture at Shechem. Come, I wish to send you to them.”
He answered, “Here I am.”
14 He said, “Go to see how things are going for your brothers and the animals, then return and tell me.” He had him leave from the Valley of Hebron and travel to Shechem.
15 As Joseph was wandering through the fields, he found a man who asked him, “For whom are you looking?”
16 He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me how to find where they are pasturing their flocks.”
17 That man said, “They pulled up their camp from here and I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ”
Joseph therefore went in search of his brothers, and he found them in Dothan. 18 They saw him from a distance, and, before he could draw close to them, they plotted to put him to death.
19 They said to one another, “Here comes the dreamer. 20 Come, let us kill him and throw him in some cistern. We will say, ‘A wild animal devoured him.’ Then we will see what becomes of his dreams.”
21 But Reuben heard this and wanted to save him from their hands. He said, “Let us not take his life.” 22 Then he said to them, “Do not spill his blood. Throw him into this cistern in the desert, but do not lay your hands upon him.” He intended to save him from their hands and restore him to their father.
23 When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped him of his tunic, the long tunic that he wore. 24 They took him and cast him into a dry cistern.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 37:12 Some textual obscurities have led many critics to see in this passage the fusion of two different versions. In the Yahwist version the cause of the hatred would be the father’s predilection; the Yahwist tradition, which had its center in Jerusalem and in the tribe of Judah, would be focusing on the doings of its own people. In the Elohist version, however, the hatred would be caused by the dreams. In narrating a complex event the storytellers may concentrate on one element rather than another, but this does not prevent both versions from being substantially true.
Joseph, who is hated and sold through no fault of his own, suffers the consequences of the error of his father, who is unable to control his own feelings, and of the baseness of his brothers who, like so many people, are hostile to the voice of a prophet.
Joseph will be a type of the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the sins of the world (1 Pet 2:24).
