Notes 51: What happened at Dothan (37:12-28)

SYNOPSIS: Joseph's older brothers have taken the flocks to pasture in Shechem, a good distance away. After some time has passed Jacob decides to send young Joseph on an errand to see how his brothers are getting along. In Shechem he finds out they have moved on to Dothan. His brothers catch sight of him on his way to them and conspire to do away with him. Initially they plan to kill him but end up throwing him into an empty pit and then selling him to passing traders on their way to Egypt.

• Text of the passage in Nawat

This is one of the key scenes in the Joseph story. The dreamy young teenager is sent far from home on an errand to his older step-brothers who are herding the family's flock in Dothan (dotan, north of Shechem). The brothers decide this is their chance to take revenge on the boy, whom they must have really hated. Some want to kill him while others, more circumspect, do not wish to have his blood on their hands and so suggest alternative ways of getting rid of him: put him in an empty pit and let nature do the dirty deed, they say. We come away with two ideas about the brothers: first, that there were differences among them and they were not all equally bad; second, that taken as a whole, they were nonetheless a pretty horrible bunch. That comes as a shock, I'm sure, to many readers, who must now ask themselves whether such undesirables are worthy of being the descendants of God's special covenant partners, and just as bad, how they feel about having them as our own ancestors. The shock is surely greatest for the less attentive readers, or those who are consuming the censored version, because if your read the whole of Genesis and are paying attention, we already had a foretaste of the vicious, bellicose character of these people in the story of Dinah in Shechem. There, they turned their swords on an entire town in vengeance for a single wrong; here, they are ready to murder their own young defenceless half-brother.

However, before we get excessively het up about all this, let us remind ourselves that this is above all a story, a yarn that is being spun out of ancient folktales or saga stories, and literature, and drama. And these are characterizations. A stereotypical situation is presented here, key to which is the tension between a special but perhaps naive and "too good" youngster and a bunch of horrible older step-siblings. Cinderella is only the best known out of a long catalogue of folk stories based on a similar premise that have been told and retold from time immemorial, certainly in Europe and probably everywhere, no doubt since long before the Joseph story was first told even, always with a standard plot line: Cinderella turns out to be better than her ugly sisters who believe themselves so superior, and marries the prince. And Joseph reveals his true self in the most difficult of circumstances, turns out to be highly talented and good-hearted, and Pharaoh takes him under his wing as a trusted minister with enormous power. 

If there is something for moralists here, perhaps it is just this: Joseph's "revenge" once he has attained the peak of his capacities consists of dealing with his former aggressors in the one way which demonstrates real moral superiority, by forgiving them. Which is no doubt very different from what they would have done if things had gone the other way. It is not only gods who can act in this way; it is something that ordinary humans are equipped to do (though they don't always use that equipment). In the perception of the morally awake, Joseph's act of forgiveness does infinitely more to elevate him to true greatness than all the concessions and honours poured on him by Pharaoh, who is merely an instrument in the development of this ultimately great story. 

Pharaoh serves a purpose; but the architect of Joseph's moral triumph is none other than Joseph himself, through the application of his talents and above all through his actions. We can all dig our own graves, or we can scale the heights, morally, by our own endeavour, regardless of our lot. We can all be Joseph, not perhaps in what we achieve but in how we act; or we may choose to be one of the murderous thugs, who are only still around thanks to the magnanimity of someone who behaves better towards them than they deserve.

So it is a fable, an allegory, an object lesson, an edifying tale. Of course the brothers were bad. And given that the themes of the story, and even the scenes, were already in circulation long before the whole story was given its present form, it must have already been largely familiar to audiences. What the author of this version of the story gave was this version packaged in this way and integrated into the whole fabric of the greater saga, and all this was done with art and craftsmanship, to produce the literary classic we know. 

According to many scholars, however, the process of synthesizing and shaping that well-known narrative left behind a trail of telltale signs, tailor's stitches, which are nowhere easier to read than in the telling of what happened at Dothan. Indeed, this has often been cited as a textbook example of "schizophrenia" in Genesis passages:

• Was it Reuben (v. 21) or Judah (v. 26) who urged the other brothers not to kill Joseph with their own hands?
• Were the passing traders on their way to Egypt who took Joseph there Ishmaelites (vv. 25, 27) or Midianites (v. 28)?

The first of these questions is not decisive, because it is not impossible that both Reuben and Judah might have urged the others not to kill Joseph at different moments in the story, so this doesn't prove much. On the other hand, the Ishmaelite-Midianite tangle is much harder to sort out. Both the Ishmaelites and the Midianites could not have taken Joseph to Egypt; this constitutes a blatant contradiction. There are others too.  According to v. 27, Judah suggests to his brothers that they should sell Joseph to the passing Ishmaelites and let them take him to be sold as a slave in Egypt, wayyishm'‛u exaw 'and his brothers listened' (which normally implies that they did as he said). In v. 28, however, a group of Midianite traders pass by; they take Joseph out of the pit and sell them to the Ishmaelites. 

Now this is already getting complicated. Sure it isn't impossible to have both a caravan of Ishmaelite traders and another one of Midianite traders passing through the small localilty of Dothan at the same time (I'm not sure if they were going in the right direction if they were heading for Egypt, but okay, maybe they were all coming from a business convention or something). But if this is a story, you really don't need two different merchant caravans for the purpose of getting Joseph to Egypt: one would do the job just fine! Alright, maybe it isn't only a story, it really happened and it just so happened there were two caravans. Alright but in that case who raised Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites: Joseph's brothers (v. 27) or the Midianites (v. 28)? The only way out we are given is to assume (though it doesn't say this) that the brothers must have just decided to do this when along came the Midianites, got there ahead of them and beat them to it. Again, maybe that's not impossible, it's just complicated if what the storyteller needs is to get Joseph to Egypt so the story can continue. 

However, perhaps the narrator was working from two variant sources and wanted to sew everything together without contradicting either of those sources, and one source spoke about the brothers selling Joseph to Ishmaelites (perhaps urged to do so by Judah), while the other source spoke about Midianites finding Joseph in the pit (where he had been put following Reuben's suggestion). Probably (see below!) this variant of the story simply had the Midianites take Joseph with them to Egypt (there are no Ishmaelites in this version). So what does the Genesis narrator do? Incorporate both Ishmaelites and Midianites into the story, and give roles to both Reuben and Judah, of course. Since the two caravans couldn't both have taken Joseph to Egypt, he fixes that cleverly by having the Midianites sell him to the Ishmaelites. 

As for who got Joseph out of the pit, the narrator's sleight of hand consists of having the brothers decide to do so but then along come the Midianites and do it first. And off they go (Midianites, Ishmaelites, the lot). Along comes Reuben who knows nothing about these transactions, hoping to set Joseph free and take him home, finds the pit empty, and is distraught (v. 29). Now the brothers take Joseph's coat (which they had taken from him before throwing him in the pit), rip it, dip it in blood and take it home to Jacob as evidence that Joseph has obviously been caught and eaten by a wild animal while out looking for his brothers (v. 31). The perfect alibi.

It's complicated, but it works... except that it doesn't. Remember, we are assuming that in one source, Ishmaelites take Joseph to Egypt; in the other, Midianites originally did though it says they sold him to the Ishmaelites in the composite version. Fast-forward to ch. 39, after the intervening passage about Judah's goings on with his daughter-in-law Tamar, to which we will come in due course, and now the Ishmaelites turn up in Egypt (39:1) w'yosef hurad mitzráyma wayyiqnéhu poTifar... miyyad hayyishm'‛elim asher horidúhu shámma 'when Joseph was taken to Egypt, Potiphar bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.' Okay. Only wait a minute. We've skipped something, so rewind, all the way back to the end of ch. 37 again. There, stop there! Replay. The brothers took Joseph's torn and bloodied coat to Jacob, who recognises it and concludes that Joseph is dead, and he grieves for his dead son (vv. 34-35). But in reality, says the text in v. 36, w'hamm'danim makh'ru oto el mitzráyma l'foTifar 'the Midianites had sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar.' The Midianites. Oops!

That's what happens when you mix stories. It is not that the narrator was so clumsy as to have made such a slip. He was a brilliant writer. It wasn't a slip, it was just that one of his sources, the one that says this, says Midianites: so what could he do? Besides, look, it's the last sentence before we get temporarily distracted, switching tracks as we turn to Tamar's story. Then, after that interlude, we go back to Egypt to pick up where we had left off and that's when we are "reminded" that Potiphar has just bought Joseph miyyad hayyishm'‛elim 'from the Ishmaelites.' It's easy enough to miss it.

What happened at Dothan? As summed up by Oesterley and Robinson (OR p. 29-30; my emphasis):

Again, two complete narratives can be disentangled. According to the one, Joseph arouses the jealousy of his brothers and the anger of his father by his dreams. One day he is sent to them and they decide to kill him. Reuben saves him by having him dropped alive into a pit, where he is found, in the absence of the brothers, by Midianites, who take him down to Egypt. Reuben, unable to find him when he returns to release him, is in despair, and Jacob mourns for his son. In the other story, Joseph is his father's favourite, and has a special coat given to him, implying that he is to be free from the labours which fall to the lot of his brothers. One day, as he approaches his brothers, they plot to kill him, but, after they have taken his coat off, Judah persuades them to sell him to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites. The coat is dipped in goat's blood, and is taken back to the old father, who recognizes that Joseph has been devoured by a wild animal.

And that, it seems, is what happened at Dothan.

37:12 bishkhem
"Being pastoral nomads, the brothers move from one area to another to secure pasturage for their livestock. The region around Shechem has rich soil and an adequate water supply" (EH).

37:13 hinnéni
'Here I am,' with a connotation of respectful obedience.

37:14 me‛émeq xevron
'From the Hebron valley.' EH points out that in point of fact Hebron is not located in a valley but on a hill!

wayyavo sh'khéma
'And he came to Shechem.' A distance of fifty miles.

37:17 dotáyna (and v. 18 dotan)
Eng. Dothan. "Modern Tell Dothan, about a day's journey north of Shechem" (EAS). "An ancient fortress town about 13 miles northwest of Shechem, lying in a valley known for its rich pasture land" (EH).

37:18 wayyitnakk'lu
The root n-k-l as a qal (simple) verb means 'act cleverly, cunningly, deceitfully'; as such it is a hapax legomenon with the one participial form nokhel. It also occurs as a piel (intensive), again as a hapax (nikk'lu, perfect) 'treat cunningly, deceitfully.' Lastly, it occurs twice as here, as a hitpael (reciprocal or iterative), hitnakkel and (here) wayyitnakk'lu, and is glossed 'behave cunningly, deceitfully (towards).' The idea here is that they schemed against him.

37:20 b'axad habborot
'In one of the pits.' The word bor, which in many translations is rendered 'pit', primarily means a large, deep hole for storing water.

37:21 wayyattziléhu
'Rescued him' from n-tz-l 'rescue, save'; others translate as 'tried to save him.' Cf. also l'hattzil in v. 22.

37:22 bammidbar
Trad. 'in the wilderness', but clearly that doesn't mean the desert, but "the abundant, uninhabited pasture land in the region of Dothan" (EH). The original meaning of midbar, in fact, appears to have probably been 'pasturage' (EK), but in many contexts it has an extended sense of 'uninhabited (hence "wild") area', not necessarily desert at all. In the Greek it is ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ and in Latin in solitudine.

37:28 b'‛esrim kásef
For twenty pieces of silver, apparently the going price for a male teenage slave.