Flax is a small shrub, and its fibers that must be soaked, beaten, and separated in a lengthly process that at last produces the fine fibers that are so valued. The plant must first be soaked in water, then beaten and stripped.
Joseph's brothers unwittingly prepared the vessel of their own future salvation by stripping, beating, and throwing Joseph into a well to die They stripped him of his special coat that his father had given him as his favorite. Naked and shamed, he was beaten and thrown into a well to die. But the changed their evil, treacherous, darkened minds (thank God!) and sold him to an Ishmaelite trader to take to Egypt, where he was sold again as a slave. Thus, Joseph was stripped not only of his clothes but his family, his father, his beloved brother Benjamin, his rank in the family, his future happiness, his physical well-being, and his personal wealth! All he retained was his life in the end, but it was a life worse than an animal's to be a slave in Egypt--ordinary. But God turned even this impossible circumstance to good! Just see what happened.