How Did Yosef Get to Egypt?

(43) Magdiel, and Iram. Those are the clans of Edom—that is, of Esau, father of the Edomites—by their settlements in the land which they hold.

(1) Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. (2) This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

(3) Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons—he was his “child of old age”; and he had made him an ornamented tunic. (4) And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him.

(5) Once Joseph had a dream which he told to his brothers; and they hated him even more. (6) He said to them, “Hear this dream which I have dreamed....

(12) One time, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, (13) Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “I am ready.” (14) And he said to him, “Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. When he reached Shechem, (15) a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?” (16) He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?” (17) The man said, “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan.

(18) They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. (19) They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer! (20) Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we can say, ‘A savage beast devoured him.’ We shall see what comes of his dreams!”

(21) But when Reuben heard it, he tried to save him from them. He said, “Let us not take his life.” (22) And Reuben went on, “Shed no blood! Cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves”—intending to save him from them and restore him to his father. (23) When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ornamented tunic that he was wearing, (24) and took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. (25) Then they sat down to a meal.

Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt.

(26) Then Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? (27) Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed.

(28) When Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit. They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who brought Joseph to Egypt.

(1) ויעברו אנשים מדינים AND THERE PASSED BY MIDIANITES — This was another caravan: Scripture indicates that he was sold several times.

(2) וימשכו AND THEY DREW UP — the sons of Jacob drew up את יוסף מן הבור JOSEPH FROM THE PIT, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites, and the Ishmaelites to the Midianites and the Midianites into Egypt (Midrash Tanchuma 1:9:13).

(4) Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt. (5) Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. (6) It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling. (7) God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.

(1) When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his prefect —a [type of] Egyptian official —bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

(1) ויעברו אנשים מדינים, while the brothers had been sitting down to consume their meal, having distanced themselves somewhat from the pit into which they had thrown Joseph in order not to be guilty of “eating while spilling blood,” they were waiting for the Ishmaelites whom they had seen in the distance, to arrive.

During this period the Midianites, coming from a different direction had passed there, saw Joseph in the pit, pulled him up, and proceeded to sell him to the Ishmaelites. One may assume that the brothers had no knowledge of this. Even though the Torah appears to attribute the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites to the brothers, (based on Joseph accusing them of having sold him to Egypt, 45,4) we would have to say that because of their having been instrumental in bringing about that sale they are considered as if having assisted in that sale. This appears to me the deeper meaning of the plain meaning of the text both here and in chapter 45. The line describing the Midianites passing that way is described as something totally coincidental, having nothing to do with what the brothers had planned to do with Joseph. Even if the Torah says:וימכרו (את) יוסף לישמעאלים, this sounds as if the brothers did the selling.

It is also possible that the brothers noting the Midianites suddenly materialising out of nowhere, instructed them to pull Joseph out of the pit after which they themselves sold him to the Ishmaelites.

(1) And they pulled and lifted Joseph from the pit, and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites. Most of the world believe that the brothers of Joseph sold him, but the Rashbam writes that this was not so, and the Chizkuni agrees with him. My friend and son of my uncle, my teacher and rabbi R. Shmuel Chaim b. David Lo-Li zt"l, delved deeply into the topic of this story, and he tended to the understanding of the Rashbam. He wrote about his opinions to be in a letter (28 Kislev 5589), and these are his words in explanation of this story:
When Joseph's brothers saw him in the distance, they plotted to kill him: "And they said... let us go and kill him..." But Reuven heard and saved him immediately, and advised them to cast him into the pit (in order to save him from their hand). They followed his advice and cast him into the pit. Afterwards, they returned to eat bread, and they distanced themselves from the pit, so as not to hear the cries of Joseph as he begged them, as the verse testifies, "Since we saw the aggrievement of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen to him." While they were eating, they lifted their eyes and they saw some Ishmaelites. Judah said, "Let us go and sell him, etc." His brothers listened to him, i.e., they all agreed that after they finished eating, they would return to the pit and lift Joseph from there, and bring him to the Ishmaelites to sell him to them. (Since no hint is found in the verses that the Ishmaelites needed to come close to Jacob's sons on their way.) Meanwhile, while they they were speaking amongst themselves, far from the pit—behold!—without any of them knowing, Midianite men, merchants, crossed over by the pit (by Divine Providence). The Midianites pulled and lifted Joseph from the pit and brought him to the Ishmaelites and sold him to them for twenty [pieces of] silver. They brought Joseph to Egypt.
Now, behold! after they ate, Reuven hurried by himself, separating from his brothers without them seeing, and returned quickly to the pit to lift Joseph out and return him to his father before his brothers could reach him to lift him out and sell him. However... as the melting of wax before the fire, so melted Reuven's heart and became water as he gazed into the pit, where Joseph was no longer. He tore his garments [in mourning], for he thought in his imagination that without a doubt, a bear or a lion hunted [Joseph] for its cubs, suffocating him to take him as its prey. It had carried him off alive, as he was, his head on his thighs and on his stomach, to some hole or to some den, to fill its hole with prey and its den with game. And that was why he didn't find any blood or bones!
Reuven returned, in grief and in panic, to his brothers, and he cried and said, "Hei! The boy is no longer, for he has been ravaged! My plan, like yours, has been ruined! Now where do I go? I am guiltier than you all, because it was by my advice that you threw him into the pit, and it is as if I were the cause of his death!" All his brothers believed him and were astonished about this, as if G-d answered them that their brother should die. However, they were not pained, but glad to know that the one they hated was dead, without them having to lay a hand on him. Hence, they did not respond.
After this, they discussed what to do to also save Reuven also from the accusations of their father. Accordingly, they dipped Joseph's coat in blood and sent it to their father, in order that he believe that Joseph was hunted down before he reached them.
Now, when Jacob's sons came to their father, and they saw how Jacob mourned so exceedingly for his son, they regretted immediately everything they had done. But, what was to be done? If Joseph was already ravaged and had become the food of beasts of the field, all that remained for them to do was to comfort him with words, and so they did.
Now, according to this [following], it will be clarified that the children of Jacob, the tribes of Y-ah, which He chose as His unique ones, were not wicked, guided by their evil inclinations; nor were their deaths such that it be said of them, "They will be torn forever. His wrath and His fury will keep eternally." Even if in a small moment they had sinned out of jealousy and hatred, since it is the way of people to be unjust, they could not, Heaven forbid, have remained in their rebellion. It would have abated quickly, they would have recognized their sin, and regretted everything they had done. They were exerting themselves with all their power to cleanse themselves of it, since when they all returned home, no man held back any of their courage and strength to console their father.
That none of them sought out Joseph was because all of them fully believed without any shadow of a doubt that he was hunted down, and there was no hope to bring him back alive. That Reuven was silent when he heard the Judah's suggestion to sell Joseph was with the intention to conceal his good thoughts concerting Joseph from his brothers, so that his brothers not monitor him carefully to see what he was doing when he went alone to the pit. This was especially so after he heard Judah's suggestion, and he knew, or at least it appeared to him, that his brothers did not oppose Judah, the master among the brothers, and none disagreed and all were silent in deference to his suggestion. If he were to reveal his mind to them, they doubtless would not allow him to go alone to the pit as he had planned, lest he prevent them to doing to their brother as they wished. It is also understood why none responded to Reuven when he said to them, "The boy isn't there!" They should have said, "We sold him," but instead, they did not respond, because they did not sell him, and they did not know what had happened to him any more than did Reuven.
It is also understood why Joseph said, "I was verily kidnapped." It was because he was talking about the Midianites who actually kidnapped him and took him away from the land of the Hebrews, since he did not suspect that his brothers sold him from the outset to the Midianites. Regarding what is written after this, "And the Midianites sold him to Egypt," by his understanding, these were the Ishmaelites mentioned above, since in his understanding, "Ishmaelites" is a general term including all the children of Abraham aside from Isaac, and possibly these were descendants of Medan the son of Abraham. Even though the Midianites who sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites were themselves descendants of Abraham, they were certainly different people who were not true Ishmaelites. We cannot say that the sellers and buyers were one and the same, so they were called by a borrowed name separate from the sellers. There is further proof that the Ishmaelites and the Midianites are one and the same, since Scripture says here, "And the Midianites sold him to Egypt to Potiphar," and after that it says, "And Potiphar bought him... from the hand of the Ishmaelites."
And, after these words and truth, it will no longer be difficult to explain one verse that was repeated twice, which appears as if in contradiction to this structure. This is the statement of Joseph to his brothers when he admitted to them, "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold to Egypt. Now, do not be distraught... that you sold me here," since the intention here is this: "You are the cause of my sale and coming to Egypt." This is similar to "and Solomon built the House. The Shadal [Samuel b. David Lo-Li] said that it is possible to add other, further examples, like, "And you will bring my hoariness down in grief to the grave" (below, Genesis 42:38), "You have killed the people of G‑d" (Numbers 17:6), "And this city shall burn with fire" (Jeremiah 38:23). Similarly, his brothers, in their hatred, were the reason Joseph was sold to Egypt. The proof of this, that in any case, they did not sell him to Egypt, is that it would have been sufficient [for Joseph] to say, "You sold me." Similarly, he says after this, "You did not send me here." It is understood that they did not send him, but were the cause that he be sent to Egypt.
If you wish to explain the verse, "I was verily kidnapped," according to all the commentators, that the intention was regarding his brothers who kidnapped and sold him, then you would also be able to say that Joseph, when he saw the Midianites who pulled and sold him like masters, did not know who the kidnappers were: Were they the brothers? or were they the Midianites?
Perhaps he thought in his imagination that his brothers sold him to the Midianites from the outset, and therefore said to them in his admission, "whom you sold." If you would argue that if the brothers did not sell him, they would not be silent when he said to them, "whom you sold," then the rebuttal is by your side. The brothers were not able to answer him [at all], not even the question, "Is my father still alive?" because they were confounded before him. How could they be so brazen as to bicker with him about their sin?
Until here are the words of the one dear to my soul, Samuel Chaim b. David Lo-Li zt"l. Even though I do not agree with him on all the details of the explanation, the main thing here is that his words and the words of the Rashbam are correct in my view: it appears to me that those who pulled Joseph out of the pit were the Midianites and they sold him to the Ishmaelites, and Jacob's children did not see or know about any of this at all. Joseph believed that they sold him to the Midianites and said to them, "Go pull him out of the pit." Joseph's brothers never said to him that they didn't sell him, since in speaking about it, it would be revealed that their intent was that he die in the pit. How could they say to him, "Don't think that we sold you. It was only in our heart that you die in the pit. When afterwards we agreed to Judah's suggestion to sell you, the Midianites got there first and sold you themselves!" The reason for "I was verily kidnapped" was regarding Joseph's brothers, who (in Joseph's belief) sold him, and kidnapped him from his father.