And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colours that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
Comment: Having been correctly directed to his brothers Joesph trudges off to an area called Dothan. The older brothers see the young man, who was easily recognized because of his very special coat, as he walked across the open field towards them. Their feelings towards him were very strong, and they were planning to kill him. They had a way worked out to call their murder an accident – an encounter with a pack of wolves or maybe a lion or a bear. The oldest, Reuben, convinced them that they should just leave him die, marooned in an old deep dry pit. No doubt he argued that they would not be murderers but he was planning, behind their backs, to come back and rescue him. Joseph arrived, was stripped (they were going to embellish their story of his death with some goat’s blood) and chucked Joseph, none too gently, into the pit.
Prayer: May the ‘brotherly love’ which I show to my fellow believers be the real thing, O my God.
As I read it! 