זוהר בראשית — דף קפה ע”ב

Reuben saw that the danger lay in his brothers’ hands, since they hated Joseph: it was better to cast him into a pit of snakes and scorpions than to hand him over to enemies; “out of their hand” means that if he was to die in the pit, he would die there. Knowing how harsh Simeon and Levi’s deed at Shechem had been, he wanted to return him whole to his father, and he said the boy was no more, even dead. Reuben was not present at the sale, for that day he was serving his father, and the Divine Presence was joined with the brothers: he knew nothing. Moses prayed “let Reuben live” because he had striven to save Joseph and had repented. Then, on the tunic of Joseph and the blood of the goat, the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting with the righteous: Jacob, who had deceived his father with a kid, was punished by another kid, echoing Isaac’s trembling.