to Rabbenu Bachya, commenting on 37:11, though the usual cause of hatred is jealousy, and the brothers already hate Joseph at 37:4, because of the colorful coat, they do not become jealous in earnest until 34:11, when they begin to take seriously the possibility that his dreams are prophetic, and that in consequence he may end up dominating them. (Why they do hate him Rabbenu Bachya does not seem to say; not, it seems, because of the colorful coat, which, he says, rouses only glancing jealousy.) According to Radak, commenting on 37:3, the brothers begin to hate Joseph because they are jealous of the colorful coat, and enraged that Joseph has slandered them. According to Ramban, commenting on 37:4, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah hate Joseph because of their jealousy. According to Malbim, the brothers’ jealousy begins at 37:11, when they realize that Joseph’s dreams may be prophetic, and that therefore he may end up dominating them. According to Alshich, the brothers hate Joseph at 37:4 not because of jealousy, but because they fear that Jacob loves Joseph more than he loves them, and that therefore he will believe the slander about them that Joseph reports to him. According to Or Hachayim and Ralbag, commenting on 37:3, the brothers begin to hate Joseph in 37:4 because they cannot bear the combined pressure of two facts: that Joseph slanders them to Jacob, and that, through the colorful coat, Jacob in effect asserts publicly that he loves Joseph more than he loves them. And they are jealous of Joseph in 37:11 because they think God may have spoken to him in the dreams. According to Daat Mikrah, the sons of Leah begin to hate Joseph in 37:4 because of jealousy, and the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah begin to hate him because he slanders them to Jacob. According to Sforno, the brothers envy Joseph in 37:11 because Jacob loves him so deeply, he will listen to anything he recounts, even a seemingly arrogant dream. According to Abarbanel, the brothers begin to hate Joseph in 37:2, when they begin to suspect that he has slandered them to Jacob; and they stop hating him in 37:11, because they stop suspecting that he has slandered them, and begin to be jealous of him, because they begin to suspect that God may have spoken to him in the dreams. According to Meam Loez and Daat Mikrah, the brothers’ jealousy in 37:11 compounds their hatred.
Because, given the diversity of opinions above, it is not possible to establish why the brothers become jealous in 37:11, and because, as noted, the second of the two assertions in 37:11—“his father suspended judgment”—is cryptic or vague, the meaning of the verse is not clear. In Kaplan’s translation, it is not clear what matter Jacob is thinking about, and suspends judgment about, the brothers’ jealousy, or Joseph’s second dream (or both). In fact, it is not clear what “suspended judgment” means. And Kaplan’s translation is misleading, because the second assertion, translated literally, reads (as Kaplan notes), “his father kept the matter in mind.” But that translation is vague, because it does not specify what matter Jacob keeps in mind, or what his thoughts about the matter are. Traditionalists seem to agree that Jacob is thinking about Joseph’s dream. About what he is thinking, however, they differ. According to Rashi and Sforno, Jacob looks forward to the fulfillment of the prophesy in Joseph’s dream. According to Rashbam, when the brothers inform him, in 45:25, that Joseph is alive, and viceroy in Egypt, he believes them, because through the twenty-two years of Joseph’s absence he has kept in mind the prophesy in the dream. According to Or Hachayim, Jacob does not believe his own dismissive commentary on the dream that he hopes will placate the brothers: that because it is impossible that he and his dead wife will bow down to Joseph, the dream cannot be prophetic. According to Radak, Jacob keeps the dream in mind, but is not sure what it means. According to Ralbag, Jacob is immediately sure the dream is prophetic.
According to Abarbanel, the seeming wordiness of 37:12-14 underscores Jacob’s desire not to favor Joseph, and Joseph’s desire to obey his father. Jacob thinks it unfair that Joseph should sit comfortably at home while his brothers are shepherding at Shechem, and therefore suggests (but does not order) that Joseph join them. Joseph consents immediately, because he is humbly zealous to serve his father. According to Rashi, he consents though he knows his brothers hate him (and, presumably, may therefore try to harm him). According to Meam Loez, because Jacob knows that the brothers hate Joseph and are jealous of him, that to reach them he must cross dangerous open country, that Shechem itself is dangerous, and that a servant could easily make the trip, his recklessness in sending Joseph must demonstrate that God is using him to institute his descent, together with his progeny, into Egypt. Malbim agrees. According to Rashbam, Shechem is dangerous because its inhabitants must remember that in 34:25-27 two of the brothers plundered the city in retaliation for the rape of their sister Dina. According to Radak, Jacob does not think the journey will endanger Joseph; and Joseph is not afraid his brothers will try to harm him, because he is convinced that their hatred of him will be governed by their fear of their father. According to Daat Mikrah, Joseph humbly and eagerly obeys his father, though he knows his brothers hate him (and presumably, therefore, may try to harm him). According to Or Hachayim, Jacob believes that Joseph will be protected from the hatred of his brothers because he is honoring his father by obeying his order to visit them. According to Ralbag, Jacob sends Joseph to Shechem though he understands its inhabitants are furious that the two brothers plundered their city, and may therefore harm him. (Why Jacob would expose him to such harm Ralbag does not say.) According to Alshich, Jacob knows Joseph may be harmed by the inhabitants of Shechem, or by his brothers, and therefore does not order him to undertake the journey until he decides, on his own, to undertake it. According to Abarbanel, Jacob never suspects the brothers intend to harm Joseph.
According to Rashi, Abarbanel, and Or Hachayim, the man Joseph meets in the field is an angel; according to Rashi and Abarbanel, the angel Gabriel. According to Or Hachayim, Joseph does not realize the man is an angel. According to Alshich and Ramban, referencing Bereshit Rabbah 84:13, which notes that “a man” is repeated three times, Joseph meets three angels, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, each bearing a different message. According to Ibn Ezra, Joseph meets a man passing by.
According to Gur Aryeh, whose position is paraphrased in Siftei Chachomim, though the entire episode in the field seems unnecessary, it indicates that God, acting through an angel, is instituting the process by which Jacob and his progeny will be drawn down to Egypt; otherwise, having failed to locate his brothers in Shechem, Joseph would not have blundered about, but would have returned home. According to Ramban and Rashbam, the words “blundering about in the fields” bespeak many unspecified difficulties that prompt Joseph to return home that he disregards in order to honor his father’s order. According to Alshich, “blundering” indicates that, as the first angel tells Joseph, he has partially misinterpreted the first of his dreams.
According to Abarbanel, the hidden meaning in the man’s question to Joseph—“What are you looking for?”—is that the brothers will try to harm him; a meaning Joseph does not understand. According to Alshich, the man—in fact, the second angel—is asking Joseph whether he wants peace with his brothers, or strife. And his answer—“I’m looking for my brothers”—means that, whatever they want, he wants peace. According to Ralbag, the question, and the subsequent exchanges, seem to have only their apparent meanings. According to Rashi, beneath the plain meanings in the man’s last two assertions—that the brothers have already “left this area,” and that he has “heard them planning to go to Dothan”—are hidden meanings: respectively, that the brothers no longer feel related to Joseph, and that they are planning to kill him. According to Malbim, the closing assertion should have made Joseph suspicious; because Dothan is so far from Shechem, it should have occurred to him that the brothers want to lure him far from home, then to kill him. According to Alshich, the third angel tells Joseph that his brothers have gone to Dothan; that is, that they have distanced themselves completely from him.
As noted, Reuben and Judah are not among the would-be murderers. According to Daat Mikrah, Simon wants to put an arrow through Joseph at a distance. According to Meam Loez, who references Targum Yonatan, the chief conspirators are Simon and Levi. Abarbanel agrees, fixing on them by a process of elimination, and noting that the blood-thirst that prompted them to slaughter all the men in Shechem to avenge the rape of Dina prompts them to kill Joseph in Shechem. According to Ralbag, the brothers conspire equally.
Perhaps because the ease with which Reuben convinces the other brothers not to murder Joseph strains credibility, traditionalists assert that
