t12papocrypha
Testament of Zebulun 2
Zebulun witnesses the assault on Joseph by Simeon and Gad, records Joseph's plea for mercy in the name of their father Jacob, and names his own visceral grief — weeping with Joseph and physically failing under the weight of it. Reuben intervenes, redirecting the brothers toward the dry pit rather than slaughter. The chapter reads that pit as providentially prepared: Jehovah had withheld water from it precisely to preserve Joseph alive. The hidden hand governing the master type is already at work — Joseph moves toward imprisonment, not death, because a later appointed time requires him living.
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For Simeon and Gad came against Joseph to kill him. And Joseph fell upon his face, and said unto them, Pity me, my brethren, have compassion upon the bowels of Jacob our father: lay not upon me your hands to shed innocent blood, for I have not sinned against you; yea, if I have sinned, with chastening chastise me, but lay not upon me your hand, for the sake of Jacob our father. And as he spoke these words, I pitied him and began to weep, and my heart melted within me, and all the substance of my bowels was loosened within my soul. And Joseph also wept, and I too wept with him; and my heart throbbed fast, and the joints of my body trembled, and I was not able to stand. And when he saw me weeping with him, and them coming against him to slay him, he fled behind me, beseeching them. And Reuben rose and said, My brethren, let us not slay him, but let us cast him into one of these dry pits which our fathers digged and found no water. For for this cause the Lord forbade that water should rise up in them, in order that Joseph might be preserved; and the Lord appointed it so, until they sold him to the Ishmaelites.
