Vayeshev: Wandering Toward Brother/Enemies

One time, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “I am ready.” And he said to him, “Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. When he reached Shechem, a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?” He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?” The man said, “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him.

הלא אחיך רועים בשכם?, Yaakov implied that it was not very far from their home to Shechem. [this seems a bit strange as it is about 100km by air, surely quite a distance for an unaccompanied young man of 17 to travel all by himself. Ed.]

This is as it is written there: “Thus said the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house” (II Samuel 12:11), and this prophecy was fulfilled through Absalom. Similarly, you can say about Joseph, who was sent by his father to inquire as to the well-being of his brothers, where the verse states: “And he sent him from the valley [emek] of Hebron” (Genesis 37:14). Rabbi Ḥanina bar Pappa says: From the deep [amukka] counsel of that righteous individual who is interred in Hebron, i.e., Abraham, as it is written: “And He said unto Abram: Know that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13). The journey Joseph took to his brothers set in motion the descent of the Jewish people to Egypt.

מעמק חברון FROM THE VALE OF HEBRON — But was not Hebron situated on a hill, as it is said (Numbers 13:22) “And they went up into the South and they came unto Hebron” why then does it state that Jacob sent him from the עמק, (the vale, the deep part) of Hebron? But the meaning is that Jacob sent him in consequence of the necessity of bringing into operation the profound (עמוקה) thought of the righteous man who was buried in Hebron (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 22) — in order that there might be fulfilled that which was spoken to Abraham when the Covenant was made ‘between the parts” (cf. 15:13), “thy seed shall be a stranger etc.”

וימצאהו איש AND A MAN FOUND HIM — This was the angel Gabriel (Genesis Rabbah 84:14) as it is said, (Daniel 9:21) and the man (והאיש) Gabriel” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 22).

THEY HAVE JOURNEYED HENCE. “They have departed from any feeling of brotherhood. ‘Let us go to Dothan, that is, let us go to seek pretexts of dathoth (laws) with which to put you to death.’ According to the literal sense, however, Dothan is the name of a place, and Scripture never sheds its literal sense.” This is Rabbi Shlomo’s [Rashi’s] language.Now it was not the intent of our Rabbis to say that the man expressly told him, “They have departed hence from any feeling of brotherhood, and they have gone to stir up charges and pretexts against you,” for if so, he would have avoided going there and would not have endangered himself. Instead, their intent is to say that “the man” — Gabriel — who told it to him told the truth, but he spoke words having a double meaning, both of them true. Joseph, however, did not grasp the hidden meaning therein, and he followed the obvious. He thus followed his brothers and found them in Dothan, as he had told him. The Rabbis expounded this on the basis of the fact that the “man” referred to was an angel, and if so, he knew where the brothers were. Why then did he not say, “They are in Dothan,” instead of speaking as if he was in doubt, i.e., that he heard from them that they were going to Dothan but he does not know where they are at present. It is for this reason that they expounded the above Midrash concerning his words.