The Cost of Treachery (Genesis 37:28)

How many pieces of silver was Joseph sold for? Twenty (Genesis 37:28)

Joseph’s receiving of his “coat of many colors” is a well-known story, one commonly told to children (Genesis 37:1-11). Before the chapter concludes, however, a dark shadow is cast on this bright story as Joseph is sold into slavery (Genesis 37:18-28). Having reached a breaking point with the pampered seventeen year old, Joseph’s ten older brothers resolved to eliminate him (Genesis 37:18). Seeing him approaching from a distance, they plot to throw him into a cistern and leave him for dead (Genesis 37:19-24).

Inspired by the sight of a caravan of Ishmaelites and reminding his brothers that Joseph “is our brother, our own flesh”, Judah convinces them that they would be better served to sell Joseph as a slave (Genesis 37:25-27 NASB).

John Goldingay (b. 1942) observes:

There is something mafia-like about the way the brothers throw Joseph into the empty cistern to die, then coolly settle down for dinner. It seems strange that Judah’s recognition that “he is our flesh and blood” does not extend to hesitation about selling him into slavery...And it seems strange that this recognition does not extend to hesitation over putting Jacob through his terrible grief, though perhaps the brothers were glad to get back at their father for making Joseph their favorite. The convenient coincidence is the fortuitous arrival of a camel caravan. (Goldingay, Genesis For Everyone, Part Two: Chapters 17-50, 132)

The brothers callously exchange their brother for silver (Genesis 37:28).

So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37:28 NASB)

The sale price is twenty “shekels” (ESV, NIV, NASB, NKJV) or “pieces” (ASV, CEV, HCSB, KJV, MSG, NLT, NRSV, RSV) of silver. There is actually no noun in the Hebrew text.

J.G. Vos (1903-1983) explains:

Note that the word “pieces” is in italics in the King James Version, indicating that it is not found in the Hebrew but was supplied by the translators. Coined money was not used at this period; the money was weighed. (Vos, Genesis, 457)

It has been suggested that the brothers charge an average slave price for the son that their father thought so exceptional. The Code of Hammurabi cites this same price (§§116, 214, 252).

Victor P. Hamilton (b. 1952) surveys:

Joseph is sold for twenty pieces of silver to these traders. This was the average price for a male slave in Old Babylonian times (early 2nd millennium B.C.). The price gradually goes higher. At Nuzi (mid-2nd millennium) it was thirty shekels (for both male and female). At Ugarit (mid- to late 2nd millennium) it was forty shekels. In Neo-Babylonian times (1st millennium) it was fifty shekels. In Persians times (late 1st millennium) the price was ninety to one hundred and twenty shekels. These are, of course, the generals standards from which there were many departures. Joseph’s sale for twenty shekels fits perfectly with the amount a man was to give to the sanctuary if he vows himself or one of his male relatives between the ages of five and twenty (Joseph is seventeen) to the Lord (Leviticus 27:5). (Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament), 422)

Donald B. Redford (b. 1934) counters:

The price of twenty shekels of silver paid for Joseph is simply the rate stipulated by Leviticus 27:5 for a minor above five years of age. It is unnecessary and misleading to adduce “average” slave prices from Mesopotamia (so K.A. Kitchen [b. 1932], Ancient Orient and the Old Testament, [London, 1966], 52f.). The locale of the story is Palestine, not the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Even so, it maybe pointed out that examples of the sale of sons of a family by other members of the same family in Neo-Babylonian times, range between sixteen and thirty shekels. (Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, Volume XX), 200)

In extrabiblical sources the fee for Joseph varies slightly. In the Qur’an, he is sold “for a reduced price - a few dirhams” (Qur’an 12:20). The noncanonical Testament of Gad reports that twenty is only the recorded sale price.

David A. deSilva (b. 1967) informs:

In Testament of Gad, Gad and Judah sell Joseph for thirty pieces of gold (Testament of Gad 5:6-11), whereas Joseph is sold for twenty silver coins in the original Hebrew text of Genesis 37:28. The change in value is not, however, the result of a Christian author’s or editor’s attempt to make of Joseph a precursor of Jesus, especially since Joseph is sold for thirty gold coins rather than thirty silver coins, as was Jesus. The change in currency from silver to gold coins is the result of the influence of the Septuagint version of Genesis 37:28, where Joseph was sold for twenty gold coins. The author of Testament of Gad increases this to thirty coins to allow for Judah and Gad’s embezzlement of ten coins before showing the twenty remaining coins (the official price in public knowledge, hence the Scriptural record, of the sale) to their brothers. (deSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 214)

Joseph’s opportunistic brothers manage to profit from their jealousy. W. Sibley Towner (b. 1933) evaluates:

If the twenty pieces of silver were shekels (Genesis 37:28), the brothers got a good average price for Joseph...By modern silver prices, this sale would have netted the brothers $130-$150—and who can say what purchasing power that amount of money had in the Late Bronze Age! The resale to the Egyptians no doubt was profitable to the traders. Egyptian documents of the second millennium B.C. reveal that at that time a brisk trade in slaves went on between Egypt and “Asia,” that is, Syria and Canaan. (Towner, Genesis (Westminster Bible Companion), 248)

Gordon Wenham (b. 1943) compares:

For shepherds who might expect to earn, if employed by others, about eight shekels a year (cf. Laws of Hammurabi 261), the sale of Joseph represented a handy bonus! (Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary), 356)

The syntax demonstrates that the Bible does not take this incident lightly as in the Hebrew text Joseph’s name appears three times in the one verse (Genesis 37:28).

Robert E. Longacre (b. 1922) advances:

Certainly three occurrences of the name are hardly needed for participant identification; the repetition has some further function. Here it marks an extremely important and providential event in the family of Jacob and the history of the embryonic nation. (Longacre, Joseph, A Story of Divine Providence: A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37, 29)

As horrific as slavery is, Judah’s cruel proposal beats the alternative: death. In retrospect, Joyce G. Baldwin (1921-1995) recognizes:

Though he could not know it, Joseph was going through an experience which was to become a major theme of the Bible. The godly Servant was despised and rejected, only to become the rescuer of those who abused him (Isaiah 53:3-6); the Lord’s shepherd was underrated (Zechariah 11:12-13), was struck down and his sheep scattered, but the ‘sheep’ found they were the Lord’s people (Zechariah 13:7-9); the way of the cross involved for Jesus betrayal by a friend, as well as agony and death, but it was the way to life for all believers. (Baldwin, The Message of Genesis 12-50 (Bible Speaks Today), 160)

At the end of the day, Joseph is still alive. And as such, there is hope.

What motivates the brothers to sell Joseph? Is this transaction primarily about money? Why is this particular currency (silver) employed? How much money would it take for you to sell a family member into slavery? What is a life worth? What do Joseph’s brothers do with the silver?

Though Joseph will eventually land in Egypt (Genesis 39:1), there is debate as to the chain of events that transports him there. The trouble arises as Genesis attributes the sale to both Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28, 39:1) and Midianites (Genesis 37:28, 36). Some scholars see this as clear evidence of the book’s multiple sources.

Tremper Longman III (b. 1952) asks:

To whom did the brothers sell Joseph, the Ishmaelites or the Midianites? At first the passage, if read closely, is quite jarring. Those who believe that the book of Genesis is the construction of originally separate sources take this alternating between names as evidence that there were at least two stories of Joseph’s sale, one with the Ishmaelites and another with Midianites. (Longman, How to Read Genesis, 48)

Others see no discrepancy, claiming that Genesis simply uses the terms “Ishmaelite” and “Midianite” interchangeably. Still others pose that the Bible subtly hints that Joseph’s brothers get rooked.

Paul Borgman (b. 1940) posits:

“And they raised their eyes,” the text moves on, “and [they] saw and, look, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead...on their way to take down [goods] to Egypt” (Genesis 37:25). But then “Midianite merchantmen passed by and pulled Joseph up out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver” (Genesis 37:27-28). If we accept the discordant mix of Midianite and Ishmaelite here, the outcome is a pointed irony: Judah’s plans for monetary gain are foiled by the Midianites, who manage to beat the avaricious brothers to the pit. (Borgman, Genesis: The Story We Haven’t Heard, 181-82)

Regardless of how the transactions played out, Joseph later attributes his sale to his brothers (Genesis 45:4). Jewish tradition asserts that the brothers receive and spend the money. Though Joseph’s brothers will later pay him for grain in Egypt (Genesis 42:5), this is not where tradition records that the silver is spent: They use the silver to buy shoes (Targum Yonatan to Genesis 37:28)!

David Stern (b. 1949) documents:

While Genesis 37:28 states merely that Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, the legend that the money was used to buy shoes is an ancient one, attested to both in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Palestinian Aramaic translation of the Bible, ad Genesis 37:28, and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Zebulun 4, in both apparently on the basis of a traditional association of Amos 2:6, and possibly Amos 8:6, with the Joseph story. (Stern and Mark J. Mirsky [b. 1939], Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, 161)

Regardless of what was gained from the silver involved in the sale of Joseph, the cost was far too high.

Judas regretted selling Jesus for silver (Matthew 27:3-5), do you think that Joseph’s brothers ever regretted pawning their baby sibling? What did selling Joseph cost the brothers? What has your sin cost you?

“Money often costs too much.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Conduct of Life, p. 107

The Cost of Alabaster (Matthew 26:7)

What kind of box (or jar) held the ointment which the woman poured on Jesus’ head? Alabaster (Matthew 26:7)

In Matthew’s gospel, the first event of Passion week occurs when a woman anoints Jesus’ head with expensive perfume while he dines in Bethany (Matthew 26:6-13). Similar incidents occur in all four gospels (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:1-9, Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8) but there are enough discrepancies between the accounts that scholars debate exactly how many times Jesus was actually anointed.

In the Synoptic gospels, the perfume is extracted from an alabastron (Matthew 26:7; Mark 14:3; Luke 7:37).

a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. (Matthew 26:7 NASB)

The word alabastron is used in the New Testament only in connection with Jesus’ anointing. The term encompasses both the type of material as well as the form of the container. Hence the word is rendered variously “alabaster jar” (HCSB, NIV, NLT, NRSV), “alabaster flask” (ESV, NKJV, RSV), “alabaster box” (KJV), “alabaster cruse” (ASV), “alabaster vial” (NASB) and more simply “bottle” (CEV, MSG).

Martha Jean Mugg Bailey (b. 1957) appraises that alabaster is “a firm, very fine-grained, variety of gypsum, used for statuary and as indoor decorative stone, especially for carved ornamental vases and figurines...The biblical terms translated alabaster...may also refer to marble, although alabaster probably entered Israel from Egypt much earlier than marble was imported from the Greek world (David Noel Freedman [1922-2008], Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, 39).”

Alabaster containers were ideal receptacles for perfume. W.D. Davies (1911-2001) and Dale C. Allison, Jr. (b. 1950) inform:

According to Pliny [23-79], Nautral History 13.3, ‘perfumes are best kept in alabaster vases’, and archaeology confirms that the stone, often imported from Egypt was frequently made into handleless perfume flasks. The necks were typically long and thin. (Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (International Critical Commentary) Volume III: XIX-XVIII, 444)

Though in modern English, “alabaster” is most commonly used in reference to skin as a synonym for pale, not all alabaster was white. John A. Broadus (1827-1895) chronicles:

Some kinds of alabaster are of delicate and richly varied hues, and are extremely beautiful and costly. The Jews, like all the other civilized ancient peoples, made much use of fragrant ointment, often rare and of great price; and the flasks which contained it were of great variety as to material and shape...It was, with its contents, a tasteful and costly object, such as a woman would delight in possessing (Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, 519)

While the container was consequential, its imported contents were equally prized. Craig S. Keener (b. 1960) notes that though anointing a dinner guest was not uncommon, the woman’s extravagance was.

Hosts of banquets customarily provided oil to anoint the heads of guests of notable social status ...but the outpouring of love here is more costly than the mere use of oil in customary acts of hospitality...They would seal the ointment to prevent evaporation, requiring the long neck of the jar to be broken and the ointment to be expended at once...Archaeologists have uncovered such long-necked flasks in first-century tombs near Jerusalem, suggesting the frequent once-for-all expenditure of this expensive perfume at the death of loved ones ...Nard was a costly ointment imported from India...or elsewhere in the east...and its expense might suggest an heirloom passed from one generation to the next. (Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 618)

Because of its monetary value, in three of the gospels, the woman faces criticism for the way she chose to allocate her resources (Matthew 26:8-9; Mark 14:4-5; John 12:4). It is posed that the perfume could have been better used by liquidating her liquid asset and dispersing the funds. In each account the woman’s action is personally affirmed by Jesus himself (Matthew 26:10-13; Mark 14:6-9; John 12:7-8). In Matthew and Mark, as many verses are devoted to Jesus’ praise of the woman as are spent on describing the action itself.

Why was anointing Jesus a better choice than taking the cash value of the alabaster jar and dispersing it amongst the poor? Why does the woman do as she does?

For the woman, the alabaster jar was likely a treasured possession and possibly an heirloom. Many have speculated that the woman was saving it for a very special occasion.

Jackie Kendall (b.1950) conjectures:

In the days of Jesus, when a young woman reached the age of availability for marriage, her family would purchase an alabaster box for her and fill it with precious ointment. The size of the box and the value of the ointment would parallel her family’s wealth. This alabaster box would be part of her dowry. When the young man came to ask for her in marriage, she would respond by taking the alabaster box and breaking it at his feet. The gesture of anointing his feet showed him honor. (Kendall, Say Goodbye to Shame: And 77 Other Stories of Hope and Encouragement, 156)

While Kendall’s writing is speculative, what is not supposition is the woman’s sacrifice. In Mark’s version of the anointing, the woman needed to shatter the jar like a piggy bank to use its contents (Mark 14:3). When the moment was over, she had nothing left of her treasure. The high cost of the woman’s sacrifice is set in stark contrast to the relatively cheap payment Jesus’ betrayer received for his complicity in the gospel’s next story (Matthew 26:15, 27:3, 9).

Does it matter how the woman acquired the perfume? What are you saving for just the proper occasion? What is the greatest sacrifice you have made for anyone? For God?

“You can sacrifice and not love. But you cannot love and not sacrifice.” - Kris Vallotton (b. 1955)