What Does Genesis 37:22 Mean?

Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him." The instruction is precise: no blood, no killing blow, but the pit is acceptable. Reuben is proposing a middle path between the brothers' murder plan and allowing Joseph to go free. He does not say "let him go" or "send him home." He says: throw him in the cistern without killing him. This plan serves Reuben's private intention: to come back later and pull Joseph out: while satisfying enough of the brothers' hatred that they accept it.

The phrase "shed no blood": al-tishpechu dam: carries the weight of the Noahic covenant from Genesis 9: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." Reuben is invoking, whether consciously or not, the deepest prohibition in the post-flood world. Throwing Joseph into the pit without killing him stops just short of that prohibition: technically. But the pit into which the brothers throw their brother is not meant by most of them to be temporary. They are not planning to rescue him; they are planning to let the problem resolve itself.

The narrator adds: "that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father." Reuben's stated reason to the brothers (no bloodshed) and his actual intention (rescue Joseph) are different. He is operating inside the group's plan while privately working against it. The gap between what he says and what he intends is honest in its goal: he is trying to save his brother: but it requires him to operate by the same kind of concealment and partial truth that will characterize the brothers' behavior for the next twenty-two years. Even the rescue attempt in Genesis 37 is bounded by deception.