Reuven responded to them, saying, “Did I not speak to you saying, ‘Do not sin against the lad,’ but you would not listen? His blood as well is being avenged.”

His brothers had just voiced their regrets and contrition for failing to show compassion to Yosef when he cried out from the pit into which they had thrown him. They clearly admitted their guilt. Why was Reuven now intent on magnifying their crime? If this were a classic case of, “I told you so!” the Torah surely would not bother recording it.

Here is an explanation: When Shaul spared the life of Agag, king of Amalek, Shmuel was livid. However well-intentioned Shaul was, his actions contravened Hashem’s directive to utterly destroy Amalek. Shmuel ordered that Agag be brought to him, in chains. Agag exclaimed, “Thus has passed the bitterness of death!”^[2] He seems to be relieved that he will not have to die!^[3] Why would he think that way?

I believe he meant that a person who has to contemplate his own death has already experienced the torment of death. The anguish has to be unbearable. If anything, the condemned prisoner has died – and died again as he broods over the images in his head that refuse to go away, the most weighty foreboding possible.

When Agag met Shmuel and realized that the righteous figure standing before him would determine his fate, Agag was relieved. Surely, Shmuel would realize that he, Agag, had already suffered far in excess of what he would have suffered had he been cut down on the battlefield. There was no need for him to physically die.

Shmuel quickly dashed Agag’s hopes. “Just as your sword made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.”^[4] If it were only a matter of suitably punishing some misdeeds, Shmuel told him, you might be correct. You have already suffered, and paid your debt. But that is not the case. Your crimes include wanton killing. You cost people their lives. Justice demands that you pay with your own life. Nothing short of that will see justice done.

Reuven heard his brothers make a similar argument. They openly admit to committing a grievous crime when they turned deaf ears to Yosef’s plaintive cries from the pit into which they had cast him. Certainly, though, they had paid a price for this – with interest! From the time that they stood accused of espionage by the Egyptian potentate, each of them had to contend with the probability of his death. They had suffered long and hard. Surely, they had expiated their sin to G-d by now! Why was their agony still prolonged?

Reuven responded that they had mischaracterized their sin. They still did not regret their decision that Yosef was plotting to kill them all, and therefore an existential threat to them. They thought they were guilty only of cold-heartedness to their brother, when he cried out to them from the bottom of the pit. They still stood behind their condemning Yosef as a threat to their lives, as a rodef, who had to be stopped by any means necessary.

In fact, their original decision was flawed. Yosef had not been a megalomaniac, intent on seizing power at any price. He was guilty of nothing more than some youthful exuberance – certainly not a capital crime. They had caused his death; their suffering alone could not wipe the slate clean.

They would have to pay for his death with their own.

1. Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Shoel U-Meshiv ↑
2. Shmuel1 15:32 ↑
3. See there, Ralbag and Abarbanel, unlike other commentators. ↑
4. Shmuel1 15:33 ↑