Dothan

Dothan enters the narrative as the destination Joseph pursues after a passerby tells him that his brothers have moved their flock there. The place becomes the setting of his brothers’ plot against him and his sale to traders, the decisive break that carries him from Canaan to Egypt.

Setting and Arrival

Jacob sends Joseph from the vale of Hebron to check whether his brothers and their flock are well. Joseph reaches Shechem, learns from a man in the field that the brothers have gone to Dothan, and follows them there. The account gives Dothan its narrative importance through this movement: Joseph is searching for his family when he arrives, unaware of the danger awaiting him.

The Plot Against Joseph

The brothers see Joseph from a distance and conspire to kill him, referring to him as the dreamer whose dreams of their submission have already deepened their resentment. Reuben intervenes against killing him and proposes that they cast him into an empty pit in the wilderness, intending to rescue him and return him to Jacob. When Joseph arrives, they strip off his many-coloured coat and put him in the pit.

Sale and Separation

As the brothers sit down to eat, a caravan of Ishmaelites approaches on its way from Gilead to Egypt with camels carrying spices, balm, and ladanum. Judah argues that selling Joseph would spare them from killing their brother, and the brothers agree. Midianite merchants draw Joseph from the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver; he is taken to Egypt.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

Reuben returns to the pit, discovers Joseph is gone, and grieves over the loss, while the brothers conceal the sale from Jacob by dipping Joseph’s coat in the blood of a goat and presenting it as evidence that he has been killed by a wild animal. Jacob mourns and refuses consolation. Dothan thus marks the transition from the brothers’ conflict over Joseph to his life in Egypt, while the false report leaves his father believing him dead.