There is an interesting little phrase there in verse 25. "And they sat down to eat." Why did God tell us something like this seemingly mundane occurrence? I think it is because He wanted us to feel the effects of how cruel and how far from any normal family sensitivity towards loving its own members that these men were. They were coldly plotting the death of their teenage brother while they calmly filled themselves, making sure that they lived with a sense of well being. "Oh, I feel good,"—while their brother was in terror, down in the pit.
Now their crime turned even darker because, at this opportune time, along came the caravan headed for Egypt. This sent a new tact buzzing through Judah's fertile brain. Why not sell Joseph to these people and make money on this? Hated darkening into murder is bad enough. But hatred that also has an eye toward business profit becomes even worse. Murder usually indicates a raging passion. You know, like something that can be done in a moment—in the blink of an eye—because one's temper flares up. And so, in some cases, we might even think that something like that would be understandable. So, if a person like that was hailed before the court, because of the pressing situation the state might give a verdict that such-and-such was manslaughter, or second-degree murder, or third-degree murder, or something like that—rather than an outright, cold-blooded murder. But what God is doing here is showing that making money in the bargain shows cold-blood calculation and selfish advantage. Judah prefers the paltry gain of selling Joseph, his brother, into slavery rather than the totally unprofitable luxury of murder.
In verse 27 it says, again, "Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him: for he is our brother and our flesh." Now, tell me something. Can you see the perverse working of human nature, with its weak conscience—something that, in the case of these men, was unschooled and unbelieving in the standards of God? God—who says that even to hate is murder. Were these brothers sensitive to that? Did they believe it? Were they schooled in it? There is a possibility of that, but they certainly did not believe it. But notice what human nature did. Notice what their conscience did.
Now, how could they say something like this as they jumped on their younger brother, stripped him of his ornamented tunic, and cast him into the pit? Joseph certainly would have protested. "What are you doing? Why are you doing this to me?" Notice the hypocrisy of the brothers and thinking of themselves as fairly decent guys. The comments of Judah are similar in this respect. Judah was probably the most disreputable character of this band of reprobates. There he was among those who hatched the plot to throw Joseph into the pit to die. But when he saw the Midianite merchants coming and realized that he could make money by selling Joseph to them as a slave, he announced his change of plan by the most disgusting speech in the whole story.
I wanted to read that so that you would understand that the Midianites and the Ishmaelites are the same people. They were all sons of Ishmael. They are sometimes called in the Bible Ishmaelites and sometimes called Midianites.
