אל תגזול דל כי דל הוא ואל תדכא עני בשער, כי ה' יריב ריבם וקבע את קובעיהם נפש, "Do not rob the poor for he is poor; do not oppress the poor in the gate, for the Lord will fight their battle, He will put in their place those who tried to put them in their place" (Proverbs 22,22-23)

In the two verses quoted above Solomon informed us of the penalty for stealing from the poor. It is well known that there are four categories of people concerning whom the Torah has expressed especial concern, asking people to be merciful towards them and not to inflict any harm upon them. They are: the poor, the orphans, the widows and the proselytes. Indeed we find that the Torah expresses a warning against discrimination against the aforesaid in one and the same verse in Deuteronomy 16,14 where we read: ושמחת בחגיך, אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך והלוי והגר והיתום והאלמנה אשר בשעריך. "You are to rejoice on your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant and your maid servant, the proselyte, the orphan and the widow in your cities.⁠"
Our sages as quoted by Rashi comment: "these four are Mine (God speaking). If you will give joy to those who are Mine, I will provide joy for those that are yours.⁠" Mention of the Levites is equivalent to mentioning the poor as the Levites have no source of income other than the generosity of the Jewish farmer. God Himself is their portion as we read in Numbers 18,20 אני חלקך ונחלתך, "I am your share and your inheritance.⁠" When the Torah legislated the treatment of the poor it did so both as a positive as well as a negative commandment. It is written (Deut. 15,10) נתון תתן, "you shall surely give (repeatedly),⁠" (15,8) "and you shall repeatedly open your hand for him (the poor).⁠" The negative counterpart of this commandment is found side by side (15,10), לא ירע לבבך בתתך לו, "your heart must not feel bad when you give him.⁠" We also find another basic aspect of this commandment in Deut. 15,7 לא תאמץ את לבבך ולא תקפוץ את ידך מאחיך האביון, "do not harden your heart or close your hand against your destitute brother.⁠"
Seeing that the Torah legislated against stealing altogether already in the Ten Commandments as well as in Leviticus 19, 19,13, there was no need to stress a prohibition against stealing from the poor. The instruction to give to the poor would have been sufficient to make it plain that it is forbidden to steal from the poor instead of giving to the poor. The fact that the Torah nonetheless writes words prohibiting this prompted Solomon to tell us that the penalty for stealing from the poor is far harsher than that for stealing from ordinary people. It was not Solomon's habit to repeat commandments which have been spelled out in the Torah already and to simply repeat them in his volume משלי, Proverbs. Whenever he does so, he does so only in order to reveal an additional dimension to such a commandment. After all, who is so great that he could arrogate to himself to add to the Torah something Moses had not already thought of or been told by God to write down? Solomon, in common with later sages, only added "fences" to the Torah, i.e. warned against conduct which might lead to infringing Biblical commandments. This is why he said: "do not steal from the poor because he is poor,⁠" i.e. stealing from him is so commonplace seeing that the poor is defenseless, that we must be warned not to exploit his weakness. The poor does not have protagonists such as the rich have. Everybody hates the poor and keeps his distance from him, even his relatives. This is why Solomon emphasizes that the temptation to steal from the poor is great precisely "because he is poor.⁠" Solomon therefore warns us not to think that because the poor do not have defenders of flesh and blood that they are without recourse. On the contrary, God Himself is their advocate and will see to it that they do not suffer because they are being exploited due to their poverty. He will go out of His way to administer punishment to anyone who steals from the poor. Contrary to the penalty for thieves who do not steal from the poor specifically, whose penalty the Torah expressed in terms of financial restitution and penal charges, someone who steals from the poor will endure chastisement of body and soul. This is the meaning of the words וקבע את קובעיהם נפש, "he will put in their places those who have tried to put the poor in their place.⁠"
The Torah warns us in many places not to disadvantage orphans and widows, i.e. כל אלמנה ויתום לא תענון, "do not oppress any orphan or widow" (Exodus 22,21). Our sages in the Mechilta comment on this verse: "even the widow of a king (presumably wealthy and influential) is included in this commandment.⁠" The same applies to children of a king left orphaned. The reason is that in spite of their financial resources, the state of mind of such widows and orphans is one of melancholy and they are apt to cry at the slightest provocation. It is unfortunately a fact of life that people do take advantage of orphans and widows. The Torah goes on to say: אם ענה תענה אותם.....והרגתי אתכם בחרב והיו נשיכם אלמנות ובניכם יתומים, "if indeed you will persecute them..then I will kill you and your wives will become widows and your children orphans.⁠" The Torah conditions this harsh punishment on the assumption that the victim cried out to God for vengeance. Generally speaking, people faced with unfair treatment put their faith in seeking recourse from a human tribunal. The orphan and widow have no other recourse than God Himself. This is why God listens specifically to their outcries and fights their battles for them.
Solomon also addresses the plight of orphans and widows in this chapter, and this is why he said (Proverbs 23,10-11) אל תסג גבול עולם, ובשדי יתומים אל תבא. כי גואלם חזק. הוא יריב את ריבם אתך. "Do not remove ancient boundary marks; do not encroach upon the field of orphans. For they have a powerful redeemer; he will fight their battles against you.⁠"
The Torah also takes up the plight of the proselytes (strangers, immigrants to the land of Israel) on many occasions For instance, we find in Exodus 22,20 וגר לא תונה ולא תלחצנו כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים. "And do not taunt or oppress a stranger (convert) for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.⁠" The Torah cites an additional reason for treating the proselyte fairly when it writes (Exodus 23,9) כי אתם ידעתם את נפש הגר, "for you are familiar with the mentality of the stranger.⁠" Significantly, the Torah did not speak of your "knowing the stranger,⁠" but of your being familiar with נפש הגר, the soul, the mentality of the stranger. You know that the mentality of strangers is one of feeling subdued, humbled, etc., so that his eyes are constantly turned towards God seeing he lacks in self-confidence.
The Talmud (Baba Metzia 58) speaks of the prohibition of reminding a proselyte or even his son of his former deeds or the deeds of his father. When such a proselyte comes to study Torah one is not to say to him: "how can the mouth which used to enjoy all manner of forbidden foods presume to qualify to study the holy Torah.⁠" The reminder of the Torah that when the Jewish people were still enslaved in Egypt their status was not superior to the recent proselyte is an example of the Rabbinic dictum מום שבך אל תאמר לחברך, "do not speak to your fellow man about a blemish as long as you yourself are afflicted with a similar blemish.⁠" (Baba Metzia 59). In fact we find that the righteous themselves are referred to as גרים, strangers, the expression גר being derived from גרגיר, something that has been separated from its origin. The righteous is in the habit of viewing himself as distinctive, a loner, in the sense that he is different from the majority. For instance, he does not view his residence on this earth as something other than temporary. This is what King David had in mind when he said (Psalms 119,19) "I am only a stranger on earth, do not hide Your commandments from me.⁠" He viewed himself as a tourist who has already been invited to commence a journey though he does not know the time of departure. Seeing that he does not know when he will depart, he must accumulate provisions for his journey to guard against a sudden and unprepared departure. What do these "provisions" consist of? The observance of God's commandments. This is what David meant when he asked God not to hide His commandments from him. We also note that all of the patriarchs have been referred to as גרים on different occasions. Avraham said of himself (Genesis 23,4) "I am a stranger or a resident stranger amongst you" when he prepared to buy a burial ground for Sarah. Yitzchak was commanded by God to remain in the land of Canaan during the famine, albeit as a stranger. The wording is גור בארץ הזאת, "sojourn in this land on a temporary basis" (Genesis 26,3). Yaakov is referred to as a stranger in our verse (first verse of our portion וישב) as well as in Genesis 47,4 and when he described his long stay at Lavan's as that of a stranger in Genesis 32,5.

וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו בארץ כנען, "Yaakov settled in the land in which his fathers had lived as sojourners, in the land of Canaan.⁠" The Torah uses the term וישב, i.e. permanent residence, instead of ויגר, "he sojourned (as a stranger)" in order to create a parallel with Esau who had been described as securely settled in the mountains of Seir in 36,8. Esau was so described as we were told about the kings, etc., which he established in his country starting at that time. His descendants remained on the same soil never to migrate again. The Torah had to contrast this with the fact that Yaakov took undisputed possession of a part of the (subsequent) land of Israel for the first time. Such possession is here described by the words וישב. His tenure is contrasted with that of either Avraham or Yitzchak, who a) lived there as nomads, b) as individuals, not having produced a clan of 70 people plus their in-laws as had Yaakov. At the same time the Torah also refers to the temporary status of the patriarchs in the land of Canaan by saying ארץ מגוריהם אשר גרו שם, (Exodus 6,4) where all of the patriarchs were referred to as only sojourning in that land. The fact is that whereas Avraham had been a first generation immigrant, both Yitzchak's mother and Yaakov's mother as well as the mothers of all of his children had been born outside the Holy Land thus making also their children "strangers,⁠" at least technically.

According to Midrash Tanchuma 1 on our portion, examination of the occurrence of the word וישב throughout the Torah will reveal that this term is always used when some unhappy event was associated with such "settlement.⁠" The following examples illustrate the point. Exodus 32,6 speaks of וישב העם לאכול ושתו ויקומו לצחק, "the people settled down to eat and to drink and they arose to make sport (worship the golden calf).⁠" On that day three thousand of the people were slain on account of this sin). Genesis 37,25 reports that after throwing Joseph into the pit, וישבו לאכול לחם וישאו עיניהם והנה אורחת ישמעלים באה.....וימכרו את יוסף לישמעלים, "when the brothers had settled down to eat their meal they raised their eyes and here a caravan of Ishmaelites arrived......and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites.⁠" In Kings I 5,5 we read וישב יהודה וישראל בטח...ויקם ה' שטן לישראל, "when Yehudah and Israel had settled safely... God made an adversary against Solomon" (11,14) [as a punishment for transgressing certain commands in the Torah, Ed.] In Numbers 25,1 we read וישב ישראל בשטים ויחל העם לזנות, "when the Israelites settled down at a place called Shittim, the people started debasing themselves by whoring" (with the Moabite women which resulted in God killing 24,000 of them). In our instance too Yaakov's "settling" in the land of Canaan had in its wake his traumatic experience of the loss of Joseph. God had said (according to the Midrash) "is Yaakov not satisfied with inheriting the world to come that he must now also inherit this terrestrial world. It is not appropriate for the righteous to enjoy the best of both worlds.⁠" According to Tanchuma when Yaakov became aware of the extent of the kings and chiefs listed in the Torah as descendents of from Esau he became worried about not having anything to counter such physical prowess of the Edomites. The matter may be explained in the form of a parable. A caravan of camels was heavily laden with straw. The onlookers could not imagine that there were storage facilities large enough to accommodate all this straw and they were worried that the owners would demand their own (the onlookers') facilities to accommodate all that excess straw. An old man amongst the onlookers told his compatriots not to worry seeing that it would require only a single match to set fire to the entire mass of straw carried by the camels. Similarly, God put Yaakov's mind at rest telling him that Esau would go up in flames just as straw would go up in flames. This is what the prophet Ovadiah 18 described when he compared the fate of the house of Esau and the fate of the house of Joseph in the future. The "match" in our instance would be Joseph, whose descendants would vanquish the descendants of Esau.

אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף, "These are the descendants of Yaakov, Joseph.⁠" It would have seemed appropriate to list all of Yaakov's sons. and daughters. According to the plain meaning of the text they are all subsumed under the name of Joseph seeing he combined all the good characteristics possessed by his brothers in his own person. He possessed the birthright which normally should have been Reuven's as we know from Chronicles I 5,1 "when he desecrated the couch of his father, his birthright was given to (the tribe of) Joseph.⁠" He possessed the prophetic qualities of Levi as mentioned by the Torah when he interpreted the dreams of the butler and the baker (Genesis 41,13). He also combined within himself the Royal Powers of Yehudah as the Torah testifies in Genesis 42,6 "Joseph was the one who ruled the land (earth?).⁠" He possessed the intelligence for which Issachar is famed, as we know from Genesis 41,40 "there is none as wise and full of insight such as you.⁠"

According to a Midrashic approach as found both in Tanchuma and Bereshit Rabbah, Joseph was selected as Yaakov's prime issue as he was so like his father. This is what the Torah meant when writing כי בן זקונים הוא לו, that his features resembled those of his father. He also resembled his father in that many experiences which Yaakov endured were more or less duplicated in the life of Joseph. Whereas Yaakov had been pursued by his brother Esau, Joseph was persecuted by his brothers. Just as Yaakov's mother had been barren for many years, so Joseph's mother had been barren for many years. Just as Yaakov was born without a foreskin, so Joseph was born without a foreskin. We derive this from the fact that Yaakov was described by the Torah as איש תם, a perfectly formed human being, i.e. one that did not need to be circumcised in order to make him whole. The term תם is only used in connection with circumcised people as God told Avraham that in order to become תמים, perfect, whole, he had to circumcise himself (Genesis 17,1). The reason the sages believe that Joseph too was born without a foreskin is because the Torah equates Yaakov and Joseph in writing יעקב יוסף, as if to say that what applied to Yaakov applied to Joseph also. These similarities also showed up in that just as Yaakov's mother experienced a difficult pregnancy and birth, so did Joseph's mother experience difficulty when giving birth to Binyamin. Just as Yaakov's mother gave birth to only two sons so did Joseph's mother give birth to only two sons. Yaakov and Joseph both married while outside the land of Canaan. The children of both Yaakov and Joseph were born outside the land of Canaan. Both Yaakov and Joseph experienced the company of angels protecting them. Rabbi Yannai (compare Bereshit Rabbah 84,14) claims that Joseph was met by three angels while he searched for his brothers. He bases himself on the word איש, "man,⁠" appearing three separate times in verses 15-16 in our chapter. Just as Yaakov emerged from a dream containing a vision spiritually uplifted, so Joseph emerged similarly uplifted after having certain dreams. Just as the environment of Yaakov (the house of Lavan, and, according to some sources the entire region) experienced God's blessing, as well as the famine coming to an end when he descended to Egypt, so Joseph's presence both in the house of Potiphar and in Egypt generally proved a blessing for all those around him. Just as Yaakov died in Egypt and his remains were embalmed there only to be buried in the land of Israel eventually, so Joseph died in Egypt, was embalmed there and eventually was reburied in the land of Israel.

A kabbalistic approach to the sequence יעקב יוסף in our verse adds that Yaakov was the "cherub" (part of God's entourage on earth) and so was Joseph. This is the mystical meaning of Sukkah 5, אפי רברבי ואפי זוטרי, that Yaakov was "the wing of a larger bird and Joseph the wing of a smaller bird, respectively.⁠" Both Yaakov and Joseph have been referred to as נער, "lad" on different occasions. We read of Israel: כי נער ישראל ואהבו, for Israel was a "lad,⁠" and He (God) loved him (Hoseah 11,1). Of Joseph we read in our verse that he was a נער.

ויבא יוסף, "Joseph conveyed, etc.⁠" Whenever we encounter the expression מביא דבה, "conveying information reflecting negatively on someone,⁠" the Bible speaks about factual information not about slander. It means that he who conveyed the information backed it up with proof. When the Bible uses the expression הוציא דבה, however, this indicates that the information conveyed was slanderous, was untrue. A classic example of this is found when the Torah speaks of the information conveyed by the spies whom Moses had sent to the land of Canaan (Numbers 13,32. The Torah writes ויוציאו דבת הארץ. "They brought forth an (evil) report of the land.⁠" We have a similar example in Proverbs 10,18 מוציא דבה הוא כסיל, "if someone spreads slander he is a fool.⁠" It is clear that Solomon means untruths. We also have a verse in Job 8,10 ומלבם יוציאו מילים, "and they invent words (of a character-assassinating nature) which originate only in their hearts.⁠"

את דבתם רעה, "evil reports of them.⁠" Although we know that the expression דבה by itself refers to something of a negative nature, the Torah added the word רעה, "evil,⁠" to underline the exaggerated nature of such evil. Rashi understands the word to teach that Joseph reported every single misdemeanour which he saw the sons of Leah commit. He reported that they were eating flesh from live animals, that they related to the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah with disdain as inferiors, and suspected them of possibly engaging in illicit sexual relations. As a result, he was punished in three ways. Nachmanides writes that if indeed Joseph had stood up for the rights of his half-brothers the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah we would have expected these four brothers to have tried to rescue Joseph from his attackers. Should you argue that they might have been afraid of the sons of Leah, this is hardly likely considering there were four of them and that Reuven would most likely side with them in any quarrel, and, so of course, would Joseph himself. So there would be six against six. Nachmanides therefore concludes that Joseph badmouthed the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah and that explains why they were hostile towards him. The hostility of the sons of Leah is described in the Torah as the result of the sons of Leah ("the brothers" in verse four) observing that their father loved Joseph the most. As a result of these two factors Joseph was thoroughly hated by all his brothers except Binyamin.
The sequence of the first four verses then is best understood as follows: "These are the descendants of Yaakov; Joseph was seventeen years of age at the time these events occurred and he was engaged in tending the sheep with his half-brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, wives of his father. He badmouthed them to their father. When the brothers (sons of Leah) noted that their father loved Joseph best, they hated him and could not speak peacefully about him.⁠" This explains why all the brothers present at the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites were in full agreement.