What Does Genesis 37:28 Mean?

Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt. The sale is completed succinctly. Twenty shekels of silver: the standard price for a healthy young male slave in the Middle Bronze Age. The brothers treat Joseph as a commodity; the price is the market rate; the transaction is efficient. The boy who was stripped of his robe of many colors a few verses earlier is now stripped of his freedom. Joseph is lifted out of the pit not by rescue but by commerce.

The mention of Midianite traders alongside the Ishmaelites (and Midianites again in v.36) creates a slight ambiguity in the text that has occupied interpreters for centuries. The most natural reading is that "Ishmaelites" and "Midianites" are used interchangeably for the same traders: these are terms that could overlap in the ancient world, referring to semi-nomadic Arabian traders: and that the same caravan bought Joseph and carried him to Egypt. Whatever the precise mechanics of the transaction, the outcome is plain: Joseph is purchased from the pit, loaded onto the caravan, and taken to Egypt. The journey from Canaan to Egypt on that trade route took approximately two weeks.

The twenty pieces of silver for which Joseph is sold will appear again in the New Testament. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver: the more expensive price for a mature man. The typological connection between Judah who sells Joseph and Judas who sells Jesus is one of the New Testament's explicit echoes of the Genesis type. The carpenter from Nazareth who will be identified as "the Lion of Judah" is sold into the hands of his enemies by a member of his own intimate circle, as Joseph was sold into slavery by the members of his own family. The price differs; the pattern is exact.