Jacob answered, “First sell me your birthright (the rights of a firstborn).”

Come, let us [instead] sell him to these Ishmaelites [and Midianites] and not lay our hands on him, because he is our brother and our flesh.” So his brothers listened to him and agreed.

Now Reuben [unaware of what had happened] returned to the pit, and [to his great alarm found that] Joseph was not in the pit; so he tore his clothes [in deep sorrow].

Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived on the amount which Pharaoh gave them, so they did not sell their land.

“O my soul, do not come into their secret council;
Let not my glory (honor) be united with their assembly [for I knew nothing of their plot];
Because in their anger they killed men [an honored man, Shechem, and the Shechemites],
And in their self-will they lamed oxen.