Joseph Tests His Brothers

More than twenty years have passed since the brothers sold Joseph. He was seventeen then (37:2). Now the famine has reached Canaan, and Jacob sends ten sons to Egypt to buy grain, “that we may live and not die” (42:2). He keeps Benjamin at home, “lest some calamity befall him” (42:4). A famine is a time when there is not enough food. The dreams come true. The brothers arrive and bow down before Joseph “with their faces to the earth” (42:6). Years before, Joseph had dreamed that their sheaves “bowed down to my sheaf” (37:7). They had hated him for it. Now they bow without knowing whom they are bowing to. And Genesis says, “Joseph remembered the dreams” (42:9). He knew them; they did not know him. Joseph was a teenager when they last saw him. Now he is a grown man, dressed as an Egyptian ruler and speaking through an interpreter (42:23). He “acted as a stranger to them and spoke roughly to them” (42:7). The test begins. “You are spies!” he says, and he puts them in prison for three days (42:17). Joseph's tests will bring out the one thing that matters most: whether these brothers are still the men who sold their brother. Joseph is firm with them, but he still loves them. God had not forgotten what He showed Joseph. He keeps His word, even when it takes many years.

In 42:1-17 the brothers come face to face with Joseph for the first time in over twenty years. Jacob's question. “Why do you look at one another?” (42:1). The brothers stood looking at each other while the family went hungry, and Jacob had to push them to go. He still kept Benjamin back (42:4). The ten who went are called “Joseph's brothers” (42:3). Even after what they had done, they were still his brothers. Recognition. 42:7 uses one Hebrew root twice. Joseph “recognized them” (vayyakirem, say: vai-yah-kee-REM) but “acted as a stranger” (vayyitnakker, say: vai-yit-nak-KER). The same root was used in 37:32-33, when the brothers handed Jacob the bloody tunic and asked, “Do you know whether it is your son's tunic or not?” Back then they hid the truth from their father. Now the brother they got rid of stands in front of them, and they do not know him. The dreams. “Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them” (42:9). When the brothers bowed in 42:6, the dream of 37:7 came true, and only Joseph knew it. God had kept His word more than twenty years later. The accusation. “You are spies! You have come to see the nakedness of the land!” (42:9). That phrase means a country's weak, unguarded places. The brothers answered, “we are honest men” (42:11). But these were the men who had let their father believe a lie for over twenty years. Even their own words told the family story: “one is no more” (42:13). Three days. Joseph put them all in prison for three days (42:17). Years before, they had thrown him into a pit (37:24). Now they were the ones locked up. Joseph's first test was simple: would they bring Benjamin to Egypt?

Many years have gone by since the brothers sold Joseph. Now there is a famine. That means there is no food. Joseph's ten brothers travel to Egypt for grain. And who is selling the grain? Joseph! They bow down low in front of him. Do you remember Joseph's dreams? His brothers' bundles of grain bowed to his bundle. Now it is really happening. God had shown Joseph this long ago. Joseph knows his brothers right away. But they do not know him. So he speaks roughly and calls them spies. He is about to test them. God keeps His word, even after many years.

The brothers bowed down low to Joseph. They did not know who he was! God had shown Joseph this would happen.

After three days Joseph changes the terms. Only one brother will stay in prison; the rest may take grain home to their hungry families, and must bring Benjamin back (42:18-20). He tells them why: “Do this and live, for I fear God” (42:18). Their consciences speak. Then the brothers say something they have never said out loud: “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear” (42:21). Joseph had begged them for mercy from the pit, and they had refused to listen. They had carried that memory for over twenty years. Reuben's words. “Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen?” (42:22). Reuben had tried to rescue Joseph (37:21-22), but he never told the truth to his father either. Joseph weeps. The brothers do not know he understands every word (42:23). He “turned himself away from them and wept” (42:24). Then he takes Simeon and binds him in front of them. “What is this that God has done to us?” On the road they find their money in their sacks (42:27-28). They are afraid, and for the first time they see God's hand in what is happening. At home Jacob cries, “All these things are against me” (42:36). In fact, as the end of Genesis shows, God was working for the whole family all along (50:20).

In 42:18-38 Joseph's test begins to wake up the brothers' consciences. “For I fear God” (42:18). The Egyptian ruler names God: et-ha'Elohim ani yare (say: et-hah-eh-loh-HEEM ah-NEE yah-RAY), “I fear God.” The brothers did not catch the clue that this man knew their God. Confession (42:21). Aval ashemim anachnu (say: ah-VAHL ah-sheh-MEEM ah-NAKH-noo), “We are truly guilty.” Asham (say: ah-SHAHM) means guilt that has to be paid for. Later, Leviticus uses the same word for the guilt offering. Then the brothers said what they remembered from the pit: Joseph “pleaded with us,” and they would not listen. They had carried that memory for over twenty years. Blood required (42:22). Reuben said, “his blood is now required of us.” That echoes Genesis 9:5: “From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man.” The brothers thought Joseph was dead, and they saw their trouble as justice catching up with them. Joseph's tears (42:24). This is the first of several times Joseph weeps in the story (43:30; 45:2; 46:29; 50:17). He turned away so they would not see him. Joseph was testing his brothers, but he was not doing it with a cold heart. Simeon. Joseph bound Simeon in front of them. Reuben, the oldest, had just reminded them that he had spoken up for Joseph (42:22), and Simeon was the next oldest (29:32-33). Money and fear (42:27-28, 35). “What is this that God has done to us?” Finding their money should have been good news, but to guilty men it felt like a threat. Jacob cried, “All these things are against me” (42:36). In fact, God was working for this family all along, as Joseph will say in 50:20.

Joseph keeps the brothers in prison for three days. Then he lets all but one go home. Simeon must stay behind. The brothers start talking to each other. They think Joseph cannot understand them. “We are guilty,” they say. “Our brother begged us for help, and we would not listen.” They had kept that secret for over twenty years. But they had never forgotten it. Joseph hears every word. He turns away and cries. On the way home, they find their money in their sacks. “What has God done to us?” they ask. Their hearts were starting to face their sin.

The brothers remembered what they did to Joseph. They said, “We were wrong.” Joseph heard them, and he cried.

The grain runs out, and Jacob tells his sons to go back. But Judah reminds him what “the man” said: “You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you” (43:3). Judah steps forward. Reuben had already offered his own two sons as a pledge, and Jacob had refused (42:37-38). Now Judah speaks: “I myself will be surety for him; from my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever” (43:9). A surety is someone who makes himself responsible for another person. If anything goes wrong, he pays. Remember who is speaking. Twenty years earlier, Judah was the brother who said, “Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites” (37:27). Now the same man offers to carry the full weight of his younger brother's safety. Jacob lets go. He sends gifts — balm, honey, spices, myrrh, pistachio nuts and almonds — and double money (43:11-12). Then he prays: “May God Almighty give you mercy before the man” (43:14). At Joseph's house. The brothers expect trouble about the money, but the steward says, “Peace be with you, do not be afraid” (43:23), and brings out Simeon. When Joseph sees Benjamin, his own mother's son, “his heart yearned for his brother,” and he goes to his room and weeps (43:30). At the meal Benjamin is given five times as much as the others (43:34). This time there was no jealousy over the favored brother. The brothers “were merry with him.”

Chapter 43 is about a promise and a meal. Two offers. Reuben's offer (42:37) was reckless — “Kill my two sons” — and Jacob refused it. Judah's offer (43:8-9) put no one at risk but himself: “I myself will be surety for him” (anochi e'ervennu, say: ah-noh-KHEE eh-er-VEN-noo). The verb arav (say: ah-RAHV) means to stand as guarantor. It is the legal word for a person who takes someone else's debt onto himself (compare Proverbs 6:1). Judah's history. Judah was the one who suggested selling Joseph (37:26-27). In Genesis 38 he fell into sin again, but he also admitted it in front of everyone: “She has been more righteous than I” (38:26). The man who speaks in 43:9 had already learned to admit he was wrong. Jacob lets go. “If I am bereaved, I am bereaved!” (43:14). The father who “refused to be comforted” (37:35) now trusted Benjamin to God Almighty and let him go. The steward's words (43:23). “Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks.” The frightened brothers had asked, “What is this that God has done to us?” (42:28). The Egyptian servant told them the truth: God had not harmed them. He had given them a gift. Joseph's compassion (43:30). Nichmeru rachamav (say: neekh-meh-ROO rah-khah-MAHV), “his heart yearned,” literally means his compassion grew warm. Benjamin was “his mother's son” (43:29), Joseph's only full brother. The seating and the portion (43:33-34). The brothers were seated in order of age, and they looked at one another “in astonishment.” Benjamin was served “five times as much” as anyone else. Years before, a father's special love for one son had filled these brothers with jealousy (37:3-4). This time they “were merry with him.”

The grain from Egypt runs out. Jacob says, “Go buy more food.” But the brothers cannot go without Benjamin. Reuben had already offered to help, but Jacob said no. Now Judah speaks up. Remember Judah? He was the one who said, “Let us sell Joseph.” His words are very different now. “I will keep Benjamin safe.” “If I do not bring him back, blame me forever.” Judah puts himself on the line for his brother. So Jacob lets Benjamin go. In Egypt, Joseph sees Benjamin and hurries away to cry. Judah is starting to change.

Judah made a big promise. “I will keep Benjamin safe.” He said he would take all the blame if he failed.

Joseph sets one last test. He has his silver cup hidden in Benjamin's sack and sends his steward after the brothers (44:1-6). The cup is found. The search goes from the oldest to the youngest, and “the cup was found in Benjamin's sack” (44:12). The steward has said only the guilty one will be a slave; “you shall be blameless” (44:10). The others are free to go home. This is the real test. Twenty years earlier, these brothers let a favored younger brother be taken off to Egypt as a slave. Now they have the same chance again, and this time no one would blame them. Instead, “they tore their clothes,” and every one of them went back to the city (44:13). “God has found out the iniquity of your servants” (44:16). Judah does not argue about the cup. He speaks about guilt before God, and he offers that all of them be slaves together. Iniquity means sin, wrongdoing. Judah's speech (44:18-34). It is one of the longest speeches in Genesis. Judah tells how much their father loves Benjamin. He even repeats his father's words, “my wife bore me two sons” (44:27) — the favoritism that once made them hate Joseph — and uses them to plead for the old man. Then he says, “please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers” (44:33). The brother who once sold a brother into slavery now offers to become a slave so that his brother can go free. Judah has changed.

Chapter 44 is the high point of Joseph's testing and of Judah's story. The cup (44:1-5). The steward called it the cup “with which he indeed practices divination” (44:5), and Joseph repeated the claim (44:15). That was part of Joseph's disguise as an Egyptian lord. Joseph had already told Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer” (41:16), and God's law would later forbid divination (Deuteronomy 18:10). Found (44:12, 16). The cup “was found” in Benjamin's sack, and Judah answered, “God has found out (matsa, say: mah-TSAH) the iniquity of your servants.” The brothers had not taken the cup, so Judah was talking about their old sin, the one they confessed in 42:21. The same choice again. Joseph said the guilty one would stay, “and as for you, go up in peace to your father” (44:17). It was just like chapter 37: Rachel's favored son could be lost, the others could go free, and their father would grieve. Now the brothers would show whether they had changed. Judah's speech (44:18-34). Judah told the whole story as a plea for his father. He even repeated Jacob's words about his favorite wife, “my wife bore me two sons” (44:27), without any bitterness. He said his father's life was “bound up in the lad's life” (44:30), and he reminded Joseph, “your servant became surety for the lad” (44:32). “Instead of the lad” (44:33). Tachat hanna'ar (say: TAH-khat hah-NAH-ar) means in place of the boy. The word tachat (say: TAH-khat) is the same word used in 22:13, where Abraham offered the ram “instead of his son.” Judah offered himself as the substitute. Judah and Jesus. Many Christians see in Judah a picture of Christ, who came from Judah's tribe (Hebrews 7:14) and is called “a surety of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22). But Jesus did far more. Judah only offered. Christ actually gave His life, and then He rose again.

Joseph sets one more test. He hides his silver cup in Benjamin's sack. Then he sends his servant after the brothers. The cup is found with Benjamin! Now the brothers could go home without him. Long ago, they let Joseph go to Egypt as a slave. Would they do the same to Benjamin? No! They all come back together. Then Judah steps up to Joseph. “Please let me stay here as your slave.” “Let the boy go home to our father.” Judah offers to take Benjamin's place. The brother who sold Joseph now gives himself for Benjamin.

Judah said, “Let me stay instead.” He wanted Benjamin to go home safe to their father. Judah had changed.