וימשכו ויעלו. מתחלה מכרוהו כשהיה בבור בעשרים כסף בלבד מפני שהוריקו פניו מפחד הנחשים ומיד וימשכו עד חצי הבור ומיד חזר לו תואר יפיו כשנצל מן הנחשים וכשראוהו אחיו יפה כבתחלה לא רצו לתתו בעשרים כסף ואמרו להחזירו לבור ונתנו להם הישמעאלים בפשרה מנעלים יותר וזה שאמר הכתוב על מכרם בכסף צדיק ואביון בעבור נעלים וגו'. ומיד ויעלו את יוסף מן הבור לגמרי: וימשכו ויעלו, “they pulled and raised;” first they struck a deal to sell him for twenty pieces of silver. Then in order to deliver him to the purchaser they had to haul him out of the pit. While Joseph had been in the pit, wondering how he would ever escape, he had lost his good looks and was not presentable to people who wished to buy a young and able bodied slave. As soon as he was hauled out of the pit he regained his former looks. The sellers were now not prepared to sell him for so little money and they were about to throw him back into the pit. In order to prevent this, the Ishmaelites added shoes of their own free will in order to satisfy the Midianite merchants. This is what the prophet Amos referred to (Amos 2,6) when he said: על מכרם בכסף צדיק ואביון בעבור נעלים, “because they have sold for silver those whose cause was just and the needy for a pair of sandals.” As soon as the Ishmaelites offered more than originally, the Midianites raised Joseph from the pit again.
וימכרו את יוסף לישמעאלים. פירש"י שאחיו מכרוהו לישמעאלים וישמעאלים למדינים והמדינים למצרים. ולפי זה יש לפרש הפרשה כן וישאו עיניהם ויראו והנה אורחת ישמעאלים באה ובתוך כך ויעברו אנשים וגו' ולפיכך הזכירם הכתוב כאן כדי שלא תתמה כשתגיע להפסוק והמדנים מכרו אותו אל מצרים מאין בא ליד המדנים ומי מכרו להם והודיעך כאן שכך היה המעש' שבתוך כך שאחיו דברו ביניהם למכרו לישמעאלים עברו אנשים מדינים וימשכו אחיו את יוסף מן הבור ומכרוהו לישמעאלים וכל זה ראו המדינים ואח"כ קנוהו המדנים מידם כי היו טוענין בשבילנו הוציאוהו מן הבור כדי למכרו לנו ולפיכך מכרוהו להם והם מכרוהו לפוטיפר. וא"ת למה נכתב כאן והמדנים מכרו היה לו לכתוב והמדינים. פי' רשב"ם בפי' חומש שלו מדנים ומדינים וישמעאלים אומה אחת אף כי מדן ומדין וישמעאלים אחים היו וקשיא דלעיל הביא רש"י וז"ל מדרש אגדה פסים על שם צרותיו שנמכר ארבעה פעמים. ולפי זה לא מצינו שהי' מכור רק שלשה פעמים. לכן נ"ל כן וישאו עיניהם ויראו והנה אורחת ישמעאלים וגו' והיו מדברים ביניהם לכו ונמכרנו לישמעאלים הבאים אצלנו וטרם באו הישמעאלים אליהם ויעברו אנשים מדינים סוחרים ומכרוהו אליהן בעודו בבור בעבור נעלים בספק אם חי אם מת ובעודם מושכים אותו מן הבור הישמעאלים באו אליהם וימשכו המדנים את יוסף מן הבור וימצאוהו חי וימכרו לישמעאלים וישמעאלים למדנים והמדנים למצרים הרי כאן ארבעה מכירות והא דכתיב לקמן ויקנהו פוטיפר מיד הישמעאלים. כך היה המעשה כי כאשר ראהו פוטיפר תמה אמר גרומני מוכר כושי ואין כושי מוכר גרומני פי' גרומני אדם יפה ולכן אמר ודאי אין זה עבד תנו לי ערב שלא גנבתם אותו ובאו הישמעאלים שמכרוהו להם וערבוהו ולזה כתיב מיד הישמעאלים לפי שהם ערבוהו: וימכרו את יוסף לישמעלים, “they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites. According to Rashi, the subject here are the brothers, who sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites, whereupon the latter sold him to the Midianites who in turn sold him to the Egyptians. If so, we must understand the whole paragraph as follows: They (the brothers who had sat down to eat but had not eaten yet) raised their eyes (verse 25) and they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites approaching, (from the east travelling south) while at the same time Midianite merchants arrived at the pit from a different direction who (eventually) hauled Joseph out of the pit. (verse 28) [Remember the brothers had sat down for lunch some distance from the pit so that they would not hear Joseph’s cries. Ed.] These Midianites sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. The reason why the Torah mentions this at this stage is that we should not wonder when the Torah in verse 36 reports that the Medanim had sold Joseph already some time previously to the Egyptians. The individual Egyptian who purchased Joseph was Potiphar. Most of this had taken place while the brothers had still argued among themselves if to sell him to the Ishmaelites. They had been pre-empted in the meantime by the Midianites. The Midianites in the meantime had become witnesses to the discussions among Joseph’s brothers and had bought Joseph subsequently from the Ishmaelites. They were certain that Joseph had been hauled up from the pit in order that he could be sold to them. There were two separate groups of people, some called Medanim, and the others Midianim. The Ishmaelites who were traveling in the direction of Egypt, were the ones who sold Joseph to Potiphar once they had arrived in Egypt. If you were to say why does the Torah write in verse 36 the Medanim had sold him to Egypt, so that eventually he was sold to Potiphar, etc.? We would have expected the subject in that verse to have been the Midianites! Rash’bam in his commentary on the Chumash claims that the three people mentioned in this story, i.e. the Ishmaelites, Midianites, and Medonites, were all members of the same people though not of the same tribe. Their founder fathers were all brothers from the same mother and father Avraham-Keturah (Hagar), as we know (assuming that Keturah was identical with Hagar) (Compare Genesis 25,2) The query mentioned above was already raised by Rashi, (verse 3) we quote him (the Midrash which he quotes) literally: the word פסים in the garment described as כתונת פסים, contains a hint of future problems, being sold four times, Joseph would endure. The letter פ refers to Potiphar to whom he had been sold. The letter ס refers to the סוחרים, the merchants (verse 28) the letter י to the Ishmaelites, and the letter ם to the Medonites. The problem with the Midrash is that only three sales have been reported in the Torah. In view of this difficulty I suggest the following: concerning the line (verse 25) ‘they raised their eyes and here there was approaching a caravan of Ishmaelites, etc.;” this happened while the brothers were discussing among themselves how to proceed from there. They hit on the idea of selling Joseph to the members of that caravan. Before the caravan of |shmaelites had even reached them, another group of Midianite merchants had passed the pit from the opposite direction and hearing his cries, sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites before even having raised him from the pit, for the measly amount of 20 pieces of silver. They then hauled Joseph from the pit alive. The Ishmaelites sold him to the Medonites, and these in turn sold him to Potiphar. So we do have four separate sales. When the Torah wrote in Genesis 39,1 that Potiphar acquired him from the Ishmaelites, this is quite correct as when Potiphar set eyes on him he looked very handsome, and he reasoned that “negroes do not sell whites, whereas whites sell negroes;” in other words, he considered it unlikely that the Medonites had come by Joseph legally, and he wanted reassurance that he did not buy someone who had been kidnapped. The |shmaelites who had sold him to the Medonites gave Potiphar a guarantee that everything was completely legal. (B’reshit Rabbah 86,3)
בעשרים כסף. וא"ת איך אדם יפה כיוסף לא נמכר כי אם במעט כזה. י"ל שנמכר בעשרים כסף לכל אחד ואחד מאחיו. ובפרקי ר' אליעזר פריך הכי ומשני שהוריקו פניו מאימת נחשים ועקרבים. וי"א בעשרים כסף זקוקים כסף שהרי חשבון אותיות כסף עולה ק"ס אסתרלינ"ש בזקוק שקורין מאר"ק כלומר שהם י"ג דינר' ופ' אסתרלינש: בעשרים כסף, “for twenty pieces of silver.” If you were to ask how it is possible that a young man as physically fit and handsome could have been sold for so little, [according to the Torah the going price for people such as Joseph was a minimum of 50 shekel, Ed] perhaps the Torah meant that each brother received 20 pieces of silver as his share of the sale. This question had been raised in Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 38. One of the answers given there is that he had become so upset as a result of his experiences that he had not only lost his good looks but had also become physically completely weakened; [my edition of Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer only quotes the verse from Amos 2,6, from which he derives that each brother bought himself a pair of sandals for the 2 pieces of silver he had received from that sale. Ed.]