They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said one to another, “Behold, this dreamer comes. Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”
⛓ Read Genesis 37 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
The tenants' deliberation, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and seize his inheritance' (21:38), closely echoes Joseph's brothers: 'Behold, this dreamer comes. Come now, let us kill him' — the heir/beloved son plotted against by his own.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
The tenants' deliberation 'Come, let us kill him' over the heir verbally mirrors the brothers' plot against Joseph ('Come now, let us kill him... and we shall see what becomes of his dreams'). The shared conspiratorial formula is suggestive but the wording is conventional and the connection is contested.
Low confidenceThe tenants' deliberation, 'Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours,' verbally mirrors Joseph's brothers' plot, 'Come, let us kill him... and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.' The conspiratorial cohortative 'Come, let us kill' is distinctive enough to register as a faint Joseph echo, reinforcing the motif of a beloved son betrayed by his own.
Low confidence