Joseph Sold by His Brothers and Christ Betrayed
Old Testament: Genesis 37:26-28
And when the Madianite merchants passed by, they drew him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ismaelites, for twenty pieces of silver: and they led him into Egypt.
New Testament: Matthew 26:15
... But they appointed him thirty pieces of silver.
The connection
Joseph, beloved of his father, sold by his own brothers for silver, later saves the very brothers who betrayed him and becomes their salvation from famine. Christ, betrayed for silver by one of His own, becomes the salvation of those who betrayed Him. Tertullian draws this parallel in the very same chapter where he reads Isaac's wood as a figure of the Cross: Joseph "suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt... just as Christ was sold by Israel... when He is betrayed by Judas" (An Answer to the Jews, ch. 10). Ambrose draws the same line independently and more starkly: "Joseph was sold, Jesus Christ was bought, the one to slavery, the Other to death" (On the Holy Spirit III.17, 123).
Moral sense
Become the means of your wrongdoers' salvation, not just their forgiver.
Anagogical sense
What was meant for evil, revealed as having been for good all along (Genesis 50:20).
The Fathers
Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews, ch. 10: "Joseph... suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt... just as Christ was sold by Israel... when He is betrayed by Judas." St Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit III.17, 123: "Joseph was sold, Jesus Christ was bought, the one to slavery, the Other to death." (Corrected from an earlier mis-citation of this passage as De Officiis.) In the same chapter, III.17, 125, Ambrose reads the two prices as type and fulfilment: "The sale is for twenty pieces in the Old Testament, for thirty in the New; for the Truth is of more value than the type."
Warrant
On the Catechism reference, which was audited and changed: CCC 600 is about predestination and names Herod and Pilate, never Joseph. 312 quotes him to his brothers, "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good", and then draws this entry's own parallel, that from the greatest moral evil ever committed, the murder of God's Son, God brought the greatest of goods.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 312.
The verses
Genesis 37:26 · Genesis 37:27 · Genesis 37:28 · Matthew 26:15
