brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably
unto him. 5¶ And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told
it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 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. 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? 11 And his brethren
envied him; but his father observed the saying.
And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in
Shechem. 13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy

:

garment worn by king's daughters. Another interpretation of ver. 3 is that whereas the ordinary garment for youth in the East is simply a body coat without sleeves reaching to the knees, this was with sleeves and reaching to the feet. So Josephus here.

5-11.] His brethren's hatred is increased, and his father's rebuke incurred, by his two ambitious dreams. 8.] his dreams—the fact of his having thus dreamt: his words-the fact of his having told them. Or does this last mean, his continued evil report of them to their father? 9, f. First he tells the second dream to his brethren with whom he was, and then to his father and his assembled (or, the rest of his) brethren at home. This second dream related not only, as the first, to his brethren, but to his father and mother also. 10.] In Jacob's rebuke, the words "I and thy mother" have been regarded as an inconsistency, considering that Rachel had been some time dead. Some of those who repudiate this have drawn from them an in

S

12

s See 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Job Xxxviii. 32.

ference that Jacob looked for a resurrection.
But both are wrong. The inconsistency
vanishes when we come to reflect that it was
as much in Joseph's dream, and Jacob merely
recites it in interpreting it: and as to the
other view, surely it was not in the other
world that the dream was to find its fulfilment.
It never was fulfilled for Leah, who only
could have been regarded as standing in
Rachel's place to Joseph, died before the
migration into Egypt: compare ch. xlvi. 8,
ff., with xlix. 31. Knobel connects the
11 stars, Joseph himself being the twelfth,
with the fact that the signs of the Zodiac
were not unknown to the Israelites (reff.).
The word for observed in the LXX. is very
nearly that used by St. Luke when he re-
lates that "His mother kept all these things,"
ch. ii. 19. 12-24.] His brethren plot
his death. Reuben dissuades it.
12.] In ch. xxxiii. 19 we hear of Jacob's
buying a field in Shechem. It would seem
that he had there a station for his flocks.

13.] It would appear that Joseph had

t ver. 22.

matter.

16

brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. 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. 15 And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 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. 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 lord of dreams 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. 21 And Reuben heard it, and he 'delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. 22 And Reuben said unto them,

left his brethren and was living at home (see still called "Tell Dothan," with a ruined ver. 4); but his father wishes him again to aqueduct and other remains of antiquity at consort with them. There is besides some its base. See Van de Velde's Memoir to actrace of anxiety in Jacob's mind for fear his company the map of Palestine, p. 308. Dr. sons may have been involved in some evil Thomson (Land and Book, p. 466) says, “The 14. The sending of a lad of neighbourhood affords the very best pasturseventeen, and one so beloved, all the way age: and at the base of the mound is a from Hebron to Shechem, is a noticeable fountain where the brethren of Joseph may feature in the narrative. He appears, from have watered their flocks." 18, f.] The ver. 15, to have gone alone. 17.] Do- Christian reader can hardly fail to be rethan is only mentioned in 2 Kings vi. 13-minded of the language of our Lord's parable, 19, as the scene of the miracle of Elisha's Matt. xxii. 38, nor to apply the parallel. servant's eyes being opened to see the heavenly hosts which guarded his master. It is apparently mentioned in the Book of Judith, iv. 6; vii. 3; viii. 3, as Dothaim. It seems from Judith iii. 9, where however the words in the original "near Dotæa," are printed in our English Bibles, without a shadow of authority, "near unto Judæa"(!) to be on the S. side of the plain of Jezreel, between Scythopolis and Geba. According to Eusebius and Jerome it lay 12 Roman miles N. of Samaria. And just in that place travellers have found a mound

19.] The expression, lord of dreamers, is used in bitter scorn. 20.] The name Dothaim, of which Dothan is, says Kalisch, a contracted form, signifies double cistern. "I am not aware," says Dr. Thomson, "that there still exist old cisterns about Dothaim, but there are very few ancient sites where they are not to be found." "The traditional pit,' at the N. extremity of the Sea of Gennesareth, is much too far Northward." Kalisch. 21.] We have seen on ch. xxxiv. 25 that Reuben, as the firstborn, had a peculiar responsibility. 22. lay no

u ch. xxii. 12. Exod. xxiv.

11. Deut. xiii. 9 (Acts xii. 1).

Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and "lay no hand upon him; that he might deliver him out of their hands, to bring him back to his father again. 23 ¶ And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph of his coat, the 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. 25 And they sat down to eat bread and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing tragacanth and balm and ladanum, Jer. viii. 22: 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? 27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, 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

hand upon him] i. e. put him not to death: see reff. It is a strange feature in the moral constitution of the brethren that they could be persuaded to satisfy their revenge and imagine that their guilt was less, by letting Joseph perish in the pit, rather than shed his blood. On this use of cisterns, see Jer. xxxviii. 6; Lam. iii. 53. 23.] See on ver. 3. According to Eastern habits, it would be his only garment. He entered Egypt naked, as was the custom with slaves and captives, Isa. xx. 4, in strange contrast to his subsequent array of pomp, ch. xli. 42. 25.] The highway from Gilead to Egypt still passes by the Tell Dothaim, to Ramleh, Gaza, and Egypt. The first mentioned of these articles of commerce is pronounced to be the gum of the Astragalus tragacantha, a thorny shrub found throughout the East, figured in Tristram's Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 394; the second, balm, is elsewhere connected with Gilead (reff.): it was a very precious gum obtained from the balsam tree, almost peculiar to Palestine. See Mr. Drake's art. in the Biblical Dict, and Tristram's Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 337, where the plant is figured. The third item, erroneously rendered in the A. V. (here and in ref.) myrrh, is the ladanum, or gum of the cistus creticus, said to have been

W

xlvi. 11, li. 8. wch. xliii. 11,

only.

originally combed from the beards of goats which browse upon the plant, but now beaten from the shrub by a kind of whip, from which it is afterwards scraped. See Biblical Dict. and Tristram, p. 458, where the plant is figured. 26.] Judah's speech

shews that during the meal, and in Reuben's absence, the purpose had been altered, and the first plan of slaying Joseph again adopted. On this view, which is Knobel's, conceal his blood means, escape detection for his murder. Kalisch takes another view, and thinks that during the meal their conscience troubled them, and Judah only gave expression to their thoughts that "blood concealed" was blood still; meaning by blood concealed, his obscure death in the pit.

28.] The notice contained in the first clause seems to belong to a different account from that which we have been as yet reading. The idea maintained by some commentators (even Keil here) that the same persons in the course of the same sentence could be Ishmaelites and Midianites, will hardly be entertained except by those who are determined to carry through a thing at all hazards. In ch. xxxix 1 it is the Ishmaelites who sold Joseph into Egypt; in ch. xl. 15 he describes himself as "stolen out of the land of the Hebrews." All such variations are not

x ch. xx. 16: xxxiii. 19; xlv. 22. Judg.

2 Kings v. 5,

al.

sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver : ixxvi. and they brought Joseph into Egypt. 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? 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. 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. 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. 36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt. Hab. unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, chief of the guard. XXXVIII. 1 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah

y Num. xvi. 30.

Deut. xxxii. 22. Job xi. 8;

xiv. 3. Prov.

XXX. 15. Isa.
v. 14.
ii. 5.

to be overridden, but to gather instruction
from. It is clear that there is nothing in
them which invalidates the consistency of the
narrative, or they would not have been
allowed to remain together in the text.
twenty pieces] Or shekels: the original has
no word; see reff.
29, 30.] Reuben
comes again to the cistern, in pursuance of
his plan of ver. 22, but finds not Joseph.
whither shall I go?] i. e. what will
become of me? 35.] This announce-
ment is startling after the deed which they
have done. But there is no limit to human
hypocrisy. the grave is Sheol, the
place of departed spirits. The A. V. some-
times renders it by hell, sometimes by the
pit.

36.] The word here is Medanim, whereas in ver. 28 it was Midianim: and from ch. xxv. 2, Medan and Midian were two different descendants of Abraham. Potiphar is the abbreviated form of Potipherah: see ch. xli. 50. The LXX. express both by Petiphres. The word rendered officer is literally eunuch; but this name appears to have been given to others among royal officers than those to whom it properly belonged. In ch. xl. 2 the same term is

applied to the butler and baker. Potiphar
was captain or chief of the executioners, for
so the expression literally means.
He ap-
pears, from ch. xxxix. 20, to have have had
the charge of the royal prison.

XXXVIII. The history of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. The object of this parenthetical chapter seems to be to shew how near the offspring of Jacob were to falling into the habits and loathsome sins of the Canaanitish peoples; and to pave the way for the history of their removal into the land of Egypt, which took place by means of Joseph's being sold and carried thither. At the same time it defines and accounts for the two main branches in the kingly line of Judah.

1.] Judah seems to have intended to break away from the house of his father, but by the hint given in ver. 26 to have been shocked by the enormity of the sins in which he thus became involved, and to have returned again. The time is marked, by the fact that Judah was still with his brethren at the sale of Joseph into Egypt, as being after that incident. He went down, because Hebron, where Jacob dwelt, is in

went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain
Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 And Judah saw
there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was
Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her. 3 And
she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er.
4 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called
his name Onan. 5 And she yet again conceived, and bare
a son; and called his name Shelah: and he was at Chezib,
when she bare him. 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his
firstborn, whose name
was Tamar. 7 And Er, Judah's
firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and
the LORD slew him. 8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go
in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up
seed to thy brother. 9 And Onan knew that the seed
should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in
unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground,
lest that he should give seed to his brother. 10 And the
thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he
slew him also. 11 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter
in law, Remain a widow at thy father's house, till Shelah
my son be grown: for he said, Lest peradventure he die

the mountain country of Judah (Josh. xv.
54), and Adullam (see Josh. xv. 35) in the
plain (or valley, ib. 33). This place (Josh.
xii. 15) was the seat of a Canaanitish king:
it was in its neighbourhood that David
sheltered in a cave from the pursuit of Saul
(1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2); it was from hence that
the three mighty men broke through the host
of the Philistines and fetched David the water
from the well at Bethlehem (2 Sam. xxiii.
13, ff.). Rehoboam built one of his forts there
(2 Chron. xi. 7), which was afterwards cele-
brated (Micah i. 15). After the captivity
it was still an inhabited town (Neh. xi. 30),
and is mentioned later still in 2 Macc. xii.
38. The site has never been satisfactorily
identified. Van de Velde believes it to be
Deir Duppân, about two hours N. of Beit
Jiboin (Eleutheropolis). The neighbourhood
consists of limestone hills, pierced with
many caves.
2.] Notice that Shuah is
the name, not of Judah's wife, but of her
father:
5.] Chezib is not
mentioned elsewhere, but is probably ident-
ical with Achzib (Josh. xv. 44; Micah i.
14), and Chozeba (1 Chron, iv. 22), in the

: see ver. 12.

low country of Judah. In the place in 1 Chron. the men of Chozeba are numbered among the sons of Shelah. They had, in the taking possession of the land of promise, gravitated to the birthplace of their ancestor, and its neighbourhood. In connexion with this circumstance the mention of that birthplace here is remarkable. 6.] The name Tamar in Hebrew signifies a palm-tree, but this is no token that she was of Semitic blood. The names of Melchizedek and Abimelech are parallel cases. 7.] There is no detailed explanation of the reason of the death of Er, but it would seem by what follows, ver. 10, to have been something connected with the peculiar sins which brought destruction on the Canaanitish races. 8.] On the law and practice of leviratic marriage (so called from the Latin levir, a brother-in-law) see note on Deut. xxv. 5, ff. and Matt. xxiii. ff. 11.] From Levit. xxii. 13 we learn that it was usual for a widow without children to return to her father's house. Judah had no intention to give Tamar to Shelah, although he professed it. He had the fear with which the story of Tobit has familiar