Who Sold Yosef - and What was Reuven's Plan

     Yesterday, we discussed the Midrash's comment regarding Reuven's absence from the sale of Yosef.  Recall that Reuven dissuaded his brothers against actively killing Yosef, advising instead that they cast him into a pit and let him die naturally.  Reuven's intent, as the Torah explicitly testifies (37:22), was to later come and rescue Yosef from the pit.  Ultimately, of course, the brothers decide to instead sell Yosef into slavery.  The Torah tells (37:29) that Reuven returned to the pit – presumably to rescue Yosef – and, much to his horror, discovered that he was missing.  This indicates, of course, that Reuven was not present when the brothers lifted Yosef from the pit and sold him to passing merchants.  Yesterday, we cited the explanation offered by the Midrash, cited by Rashi, that Reuven left his brothers to engage in ongoing prayer and repentance to atone for his sin involving Bilha.

            The Rashbam (37:28), however, who very often offers interpretations that differ drastically from those that appear in the Midrashim, explains this entire incident much differently.  He addresses a discrepancy that troubled many commentators regarding the identity of the merchants to whom the brothers sold Yosef.  The Torah tells that as the brothers sat down to eat after casting Yosef into the pit, they saw Yishmaelites coming from the east and heading towards Egypt, and the brothers decided to sell Yosef to them (37:25-27).  But then the Torah writes, "Midyanite merchants passed by, and they pulled and brought Yosef out of the pit, and they sold Yosef to the Yishmaelites…" (35:28).  (I still recall my ninth grade Chumash teacher describing this verse as "one of the most confusing pesukim in the entire Torah.")  This verse mentions two groups – Midyanites and Yishmaelites.  Rashi explains that the brothers took Yosef from the pit and sold him to the Yishmaelites, in accordance with their plan, and the Yishmaelites then sold him to the Midyanites.  Others, including Seforno, claim that the term "Midyanites" is interchangeable with "Yishmaelites."  The Rashbam, however, proposes a much simpler solution to this problem, namely, that the brothers never sold Yosef.  The brothers, he claimed, sat at a distance from the pit, and before they returned to the pit to pull Yosef out and sell him to the Yishmaelites, a different group of merchants, from Midyan, passed by and noticed or heard Yosef in the pit.  It was they who – without the knowledge of Yosef's brothers – pulled Yosef from the pit and sold him to the Yishmaelites, who brought him to Egypt.

            In light of the Rashbam's approach to this event, we can more easily understand the verse that speaks of Reuven returning to the pit and discovering it empty.  According to the conventional understanding, that the brothers took Yosef from the pit and sold him, we must struggle to explain Reuven's absence.  According to the Rashbam, however, this verse is perfectly clear.  Upon hearing the brothers' plan to pull Yosef from the pit and sell him into slavery, Reuven realized that his plan to rescue Yosef was in jeopardy.  He immediately "excused himself" and hurried back to the pit to pull Yosef out before the brothers did.  Much to his surprise and horror, however, by the time he arrived the Midyanim had already pulled Yosef out and sold him to the Yishmaelites.  Reuven thus returned to his brothers and painfully informed them, "The boy is gone" (37:30).

            One interesting result of the Rashbam's approach is that the brothers never knew that Yosef had been sold as a slave and brought to Egypt.  They likely assumed that he had died in the pit, as a result of a snakebite or other natural occurrence.  This perhaps sheds light on their utter astonishment when Yosef reveals his identity to them as the Egyptian viceroy many years later.  Not only had they not expected him to rise to power in Egypt; they had presumed him to be dead for the last twenty years.

            (Rabbi Menachem Leibtag elaborates on the Rashbam's in much greater detail, at http://tanach.org/breishit/vayesh/vayesh1.htm.)