John Calvin Commentary Genesis 37:22

"And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him: that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father." — Genesis 37:22 (ASV)

Cast him into this pit. The pious deception to which Reuben resorted clearly shows the vehemence with which his brothers' rage was burning. For he dared neither to oppose them openly nor to dissuade them from their crime, because he saw that no arguments would succeed in softening them.

Nor does it lessen their cruelty that they consented to his proposal, as if they were inclined to mercy. For if one course or the other were necessary, it would have been better for him to die immediately by their hands than to perish by slow hunger in the pit, which is the most cruel kind of punishment.

Their gross hypocrisy should rather be noted, because they thought that they would be free from crime if only they did not stain their hands with their brother’s blood. As if, indeed, it made any difference whether they ran their brother through with a sword or put him to death by suffocation.

For when the Lord, through Isaiah, accuses the Jews of having hands full of blood, He does not mean that they were assassins. Instead, He calls them bloody because they did not spare their suffering brothers.

Therefore, the sons of Jacob are no better in casting their brother alive underground, so that, like one buried, he might struggle with death in vain and perish after prolonged torments. They chose a pit in the desert from which no mortal could hear his dying cry, though his sighing would ascend even to heaven.

It was a barbarous thought that they should not touch his life if they did not stain their hands with his blood, since the death they wished to inflict by hunger was no less violent. Reuben, however, adapting his language to their brutal way of thinking, considered it sufficient to restrain their impulsiveness for the time being by any kind of stratagem.