Scary

Gen 37:28 "...so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver..."

What a scheming bunch of jerks! Joseph's brothers could not stand him. They hated him. They wanted to kill him but he was spared because of Reuben, his oldest brother. So what's the next best thing? Grab him, throw him in a pit, sell him to slave traders and fake his death. This got so bad that they made their Dad believe that Joseph had been killed and the weird thing is, "…all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him…". Unbelievable. These eleven sons all conspired together to let this lie get to the point where their father actually grieved over the death of his son and they watched his pain and did not crack. Talk about cold.

The thing that I find interesting is the price for Joseph's life…twenty pieces of silver. Apparently this was the average price of a slave back then. These guys took the money and ran. I wonder what they did with their blood money? Did they split it between them? Did they spend it on something frivolous? Did they enjoy what they got? Or was it a constant reminder of their deception? Every time they looked at their purchase, did they remember their sin? Did they remember their Dad's grief? Did they remember their guilt?

Fast-forward hundreds of years to another guy who sold Someone for twenty pieces of silver. Judas was just as much a jerk as these brothers…even more so. He knew that the price for Jesus was not going to result in slavery. Rather, it was going to result in death, but he did not care. At least, not at the point of his betrayal. All he cared about was himself. All he cared about was his agenda. All he cared about was how he thought he was duped into believing that this Guy was going to bring Israel back to its glory and out of their bondage to Rome…and then he realized it was not going to happen, and he felt that he had been let down. So why not? Why not give this Guy up? Why not sell Him for the price of a slave? It was only the right thing to do. I mean, he had invested three years of his life in this Man and now He was telling his followers that He was going to die? What a waste of time. He could have used these three years to make money, to build his own little kingdom, to rip other people off…so turn Him in for twenty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. The problem, though, was that these twenty pieces of silver did not satisfy. In fact, they were a reminder to him of his sin. Of his guilt. Of his betrayal. So he did all that he could to get rid of them. He threw them on the floor in front of the people who paid him. Still, the guilt was there, so he did the only thing he knew to do to get rid of the guilt…he killed himself.

Joseph's brothers sold their eventual savior for twenty pieces of silver. Judas sold the Savior of the world for twenty pieces of silver. Scary what we are all capable of doing.