to Rashbam, Ralbag, Rabbenu Bachya, Ramban, and Sforno, Reuben tricks the brothers into casting Joseph into a deep well (from which he hopes to rescue him). According to Rashbam, Malbim and Ralbag, he convinces the brothers that Joseph will die by himself if they merely cast him into a well; and in the desert, where the chance that people will pass by and rescue him is slight. According to Ralbag, Rabbenu Bachya, Ramban, and Sforno, he convinces them also not actually to spill blood.
According to Rashi, referencing Shabbat 72a, and commenting on the assertion in 37:25 that the well into which the brothers throw Joseph “was empty; there was no water in it,” the well does contain poisonous snakes and scorpions. Ramban disagrees; in his opinion, the seemingly unnecessary words “there was no water in it” simply underscore that the well is completely dry. The disagreement is material to the discussion of Reuben’s intent, because, if the well does contain poisonous snakes and scorpions, and Reuben knows it, he must realize that his proposal exposes Joseph to mortal danger, and therefore, it seems, his intention cannot be to rescue him from the brothers. Thus, it seems, Reuben must think that the well is empty. But according to Alshich, referencing The Zohar, Reuben sees the snakes and scorpions, and nonetheless advances his proposal, because he is certain that they will be awed intuitively by the saintliness of Joseph, and will not in consequence harm him. (The Zohar does not seem to share Alshich’s certainty, because it assigns to Reuben only the hope that the snakes and scorpions will not harm Joseph.) According to Ramban, even if the Talmud that Rashi references is correct, it must be that Reuben does not see the snakes and scorpions, because they live in cracks in the well, or because the well is very deep; because if he did see them, he would understand the mortal danger they pose to Joseph, and withdraw his proposal.
According to Rashi, Reuben rescues Joseph because he thinks that, because he is the eldest of the brothers, Jacob will blame only him for Joseph’s death. According to Meam Loez, either of two motives may prompt Reuben: he thinks that, if the other brothers do kill Joseph and later regret having done so, they will rebuke him for not having stopped them; or he is grateful that, though in 35:21 he apparently violated his stepmother Bilhah, Joseph still regards him as a brother, because in his second dream eleven brothers (including Reuben) bow down to him. According to Abarbanel and Daat Mikrah, Reuben saves Joseph as penance for the sin he committed against Bilhah.
Because when the Ishmaelites appear all of the brothers, including Judah, still seem resolved to kill Joseph—though not directly, by shedding his blood—it is not clear why Judah suddenly suggests he be sold instead, and why the other brothers agree. Neither matter seems to have prompted commentary. And a few commentaries that seem to hint at an impulse of conscience in Judah, and perhaps in the other brothers, are especially puzzling, because Judah’s assertion in 37:26 that they will gain nothing if “we kill our brother and cover his blood” in essence reiterates Reuben’s proposal—that the other brothers seem not to regard as a ploy, and that does not seem related in their minds to conscience—that they kill Joseph, though without actually bloodying their hands. Thus, for example, the assertion of Alshich that Judah decides Joseph should not die when he realizes he must be saintly, because the snakes and the scorpions in the well, he notices, do not injure him, and the assertions of Sforno and Meam Loez that Judah realizes conscience will torment him and his brothers if they kill Joseph—an assertion which the other brothers seem to take seriously, because they agree that Joseph be sold—is inconsistent with the unshaken resolve of all the brothers, including Judah, to kill Joseph.
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