Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 42:1
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
1 5. The Descent into Egypt
1. look one upon another ] In silence, as if desperate. Jacob’s words indicate the energy and resourcefulness of the old man, as compared with the helpless despondency of the sons.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– Joseph and Ten of His Brethren
1. sheber, fragment, crumb, hence, grain. bar pure, winnowed, hence, corn (grain).
6. shallyt, ruler, governor, hence, Sultan. Not elsewhere found in the Pentateuch.
25. kely, vessel, here any portable article in which grain may be conveyed. saq, sack, the very word which remains in our language to this day. ‘amtachath bag.
Twenty years, the period of Josephs long and anxious waiting, have come to an end. The dreams of his boyhood are now at length to be fulfilled. The famine has reached the chosen family, and they look at one another perplexed and irresolute, not knowing what to do.
Gen 42:1-5
The aged Jacob is the only man of counsel. Behold, I have heard there is grain in Mizraim: go down and buy. The ten brothers are sent, and Benjamin, the youngest, is retained, not merely because of his youth, for he was now twenty-four years of age, but because he was the son of his fathers old age, the only son of Rachel now with him, and the only full brother of the lost Joseph. Lest mischief befall him, and so no child of Rachel would be left. Among those that went. The dearth was widespread in the land of Kenaan.
Gen 42:6-17
The ten brothers meet with a rough reception from the lord of the land. The governor – the sultan. This, we see, is a title of great antiquity in Egypt or Arabia. Joseph presided over the cornmarket of the kingdom. Bowed down to him with their faces to the earth. Well might Joseph think of those never-to-be-forgotten dreams in which the sheaves and stars bowed down to him. And knew them. How could he fail to remember the ten full-grown men of his early days, when they came before him with all their peculiarities of feature, attitude, and mother tongue. And he made himself strange unto them. All that we know of Josephs character heretofore, and throughout this whole affair, goes to prove that his object in all his seemingly harsh treatment was to get at their hearts, to test their affection toward Benjamin, and to bring them to repent of their unkindness to himself.
They knew not him. Twenty years make a great change in a youth of seventeen. And besides, with his beard and head shaven, his Egyptian attire, his foreign tongue, and his exalted position, who could have recognized the stripling whom, twenty years ago, they had sold as a slave? Spies are ye. This was to put a color of justice on their detention. To see the nakedness of the land, not its unfortified frontier, which is a more recent idea, but its present impoverishment from the famine. Sons of one man are we. It was not likely that ten sons of one man would be sent on the hazardous duty of spies. And behold the youngest is with our father this day. It is intensely interesting to Joseph to hear that his father and full brother are still living. And one is not. Time has assuaged all their bitter feelings, both of exasperation against Joseph and of remorse for their unbrotherly conduct. This little sentence, however, cannot be uttered by them, or heard by Joseph, without emotion. By the life of Pharaoh. Joseph speaks in character, and uses an Egyptian asseveration. Send one of you. This proposal is enough to strike terror into their hearts. The return of one would be a heavy, perhaps a fatal blow to their father. And how can one brave the perils of the way? They cannot bring themselves to concur in this plan. Sooner will they all go to prison, as accordingly they do. Joseph is not without a strong conviction of incumbent duty in all this. He knows he has been put in the position of lord over his brethren in the foreordination of God, and he feels bound to make this authority a reality for their moral good.
Gen 42:18-25
After three days, Joseph reverses the numbers, allowing nine to return home, and retaining one. This do and live. Joseph, notwithstanding the arbitrary power which his office enabled him to exercise, proves himself to be free from caprice and unnecessary severity. He affords them a fair opportunity of proving their words true, before putting them to death on suspicion of espionage. The God do I fear. A singular sentence from the lord paramount of Egypt! It implies that the true God was not yet unknown in Egypt. We have heard the confession of this great truth already from the lips of Pharaoh Gen 41:38-39. But it intimates to the brothers the astonishing and hopeful fact that the grand vizier serves the same great Being whom they and their fathers have known and worshipped; and gives them a plain hint that they will be dealt with according to the just law of heaven.
Carry grain for your houses. The governor then is touched with some feeling for their famishing households. The brothers, though honoring their aged father as the patriarch of their race, had now their separate establishments. Twelve households had to be supplied with bread. The journey to Egypt was not to be undertaken more than once a year if possible, as the distance from Hebron was upwards of two hundred miles. Hence, the ten brothers had with them all their available beasts of burden, with the needful retinue of servants. We need not be surprised that these are not especially enumerated, as it is the manner of Scripture to leave the secondary matters to the intelligence and experience of the reader, unless, as in the case of Abrahams three hundred and eighteen trained servants, they happen to be of essential moment in the process of events. Your youngest brother. Joseph longs to see his full brother alive, whom he left at home a child of four summers. Verily guilty are we concerning our brother.
Their affliction is beginning to bear the fruit of repentance. Because we saw the distress of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. How vividly is the scene of Josephs sale here brought before us. It now appears that he besought them to spare him, and they would not hear! This distress. Retribution has come at last. His blood is required. Reuben justly upbraids them with their hardness of heart. Their brothers blood is required; for murder was intended, and when he was sold his death was pretended. The interpreter was betwixt them. The dragoman was employed in holding conversation with them. But Joseph heard the spontaneous expressions of remorse, coming unprompted from their lips. The fountain of affection is deeply stirred. He cannot repress the rising tear. He has to retire for a time to recover his composure. He now takes, not Reuben, who was not to blame, but Simon, the next oldest, and binds him before them: a speaking act. He then gives orders to supply them with corn (grain), deposit their money in their sacks without their knowledge, and furnish them with provision for the way. Joseph feels, perhaps, that he cannot take money from his father. He will pay for the corn out of his own funds. But he cannot openly return the money to his brothers without more explanation than he wishes at present to give.
Gen 42:26-34
The nine brothers return home and record their wonderful adventure. In the inn; the lodge or place where they stopped for the night. This place was not yet perhaps provided with even the shelter of a roof. It was merely the usual place of halting. They would probably occupy six or seven days on the journey. Apparently at the first stage one opened his sack to give provender to his ass. The discovery of the silver in its mouth strikes them with terror. In a strange land and with an uneasy conscience they are easily alarmed. It was not convenient or necessary to open all the bags on the way, and so they make no further discovery.
Gen 42:35-38
Upon emptying the other sacks all the silver turns up, to their great amazement and consternation. Jacob laments the loss of his son. Reuben offers two of his sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, to be slain if he did not bring him back in safety. The sorrowing parent cannot yet bring himself to consent to Benjamins departure on this hazardous journey. And ye shall bring down. Jacob either speaks here in the querulous tone of afflicted old age, or he had come to know or suspect that his brothers had some hand in the disappearance of Joseph.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 42:1-2
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt.
The famine in the house of Jacob
I. CONSIDERED IN ITS REARING UPON THE DIVINE PURPOSES CONCERNING THE CHOSEN PEOPLE.
II. CONSIDERED IN ITS EFFECT UPON JACOBS SONS. Why do ye look one upon another? This sad question reavealed–
1. The utmost distress.
2. Great perplexity.
3. Forebodings of conscience. (T. H. Leale.)
The famine; or, good out of evil
I. THE WIDESPREAD CALAMITY.
II. THE ERRAND TO EGYPT.
III. THE DOUBTFUL RECEPTION. Learn:
1. When distresses and trials come, we should be ready to trust that God means to do good by them in some way, though we may not know how.
2. When difficulties occur, we should still hope on.
3. When disappointments are our lot, we should remember that they come not without Gods knowledge and permission.
4. Humility and faith will always lead to renewed hope. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Corn in Egypt
We have here a picture of mans lost estate, he is in a sore soul-devouring famine. We discover here mans hope. His hope lies in that Joseph whom he knows not, who has gone before him and provided all things necessary, that his wants may be supplied. And we have here practical advice, which was pre-eminently wise on the part of Jacob to his sons in his case, and which, being interpreted, is also the wisest advice to you and to me. Seeing that there is mercy for sinners, and that Jesus our brother has gone before us to provide for us an all-sufficient redemption, Why sit we here and look one upon another? There is mercy in the breast of God, there is salvation in Christ; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
I. A PITIFUL PLIGHT. These sons of Jacob were overtaken by a famine. They were cast into a waste, howling wilderness of famine, with but one oasis, and that oasis they did not hear of till just at the time to which our text refers, when they learned to their joy that there was corn in Egypt. Permit me now to illustrate the condition of the sinner by the position of these sons of Jacob.
1. The sons of Jacob had a very great need of bread. But what is this compared with the sinners needs! His necessities are such that only Infinity can supply them; he has a demand before which the demands of sixty-six mouths are as nothing.
2. Mark, again: what these people wanted was an essential thing. They did not lack clothes, that were a want, but nothing like the lack of bread; for a man might exist with but scanty covering. Oh that men should cry for bread–the absolute necessary for the sustenance of the body! But what is the sinners want? Is it not exactly this? he wants that without which the soul must perish.
3. Yet again: the necessity of the sons of Jacob was a total one. They had no bread; there was none to be procured. Such is the sinners case. It is not that he has a little grace and lacks more; but he has none at all. Of himself he has no grace. It is not that he has a little goodness, and needs to be made better; but he has no goodness at all, no merits, no righteousness–nothing to bring to God, nothing to offer for his acceptance; he is penniless, poverty-stricken; everything is gone whereon his soul might feed.
4. But yet worse: with the exception of Egypt, the sons of Jacob were convinced that there was no food anywhere. In speechless silence they resigned themselves to the woe which threatened to overwhelm them. Such is the sinners condition, when first he begins to feel a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, he looks to others. There is no hope for us; we have all been condemned, we have all been guilty, we can do nothing to appease the Most High; what a wretched world were ours, if we were equally convinced of sin, and equally convinced that there was no hope of mercy! This, then, was the condition of Jacobs sons temporally, and it is our condition by nature spiritually.
II. Now we come, in the second place, to the GOOD NEWS. Jacob had faith, and the ears of faith are always quiet; faith can hear the tread of mercy, though the footfall be as light as that of the angel among the flowers. Jacob had the ears of faith. He had been at prayer, I doubt not, asking God to deliver his family in the time of famine; and by and by he hears, first of his household, that there is corn in Egypt. Jacob heard the good news, and communicated it as speedily as possible to his descendants. Now, we also have heard the good news. Good news has been sent to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is corn in Egypt. We need not die. Now, we have better news than even Jacob had; although the news is similar, understanding it in a spiritual sense.
1. We are told to-day, by sure and certain witnesses, that there is corn in Egypt, there is mercy in God. Jacobs messenger might have deceived him–idle tales are told everywhere, and in days of famine men are very apt totell a falsehood, thinking that to be true which they wish were so. The hungry man is apt to hope that there may be corn somewhere; and then he thinks there is; and then he says there is; and then, what begins with a wish comes to be a rumour and a report. But this day, my friends, it is no idle talk; no dream, no rumour of a deceiver. There is mercy with God, there is salvation with Him that He may be feared.
2. There is another thing in which we have the start of Jacob. Jacob knew there was corn in Egypt, but did not know who had the keeping of it. If he had known that, he would have said, My sons, go down at once to Egypt, do not be at all afraid, your brother is lord of Egypt, and all the corn belongs to him. Nay, more, I can readily imagine that he would have gone himself, forthwith. Sinner, the mercies of God are under no lock and key except those over which Christ has the power. The granaries of heavens mercy have no steward to keep them save Christ. He is exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins.
3. There is yet another thing which the sons of Jacob knew nothing of. When they went to Egypt, they went on hap-hazard: If they knew there was corn, they were not sure they would get it. But when you and I go to Christ, we are invited guests.
4. But one other remark, and I will have done with this second point. The sons of Jacob were in one respect better off than you are apparently, for they had money with which to buy. Jacob was not a poor man in respect of wealth, although he had now become exceedingly poor from lack of bread. His sons had money to take with them. Glittering bars of gold they thought must surely attract the notice of the ruler of Egypt. You have no money, nothing to bring to Christ, nothing to offer Him. You offered Him something once, but He rejected all you offered Him as being spurious coins, imitations, counterfeits, and good for nothing. And now utterly stripped, hopeless, penniless, you say you are afraid to go to Christ because you have nothing of your own. Let me assure you that you are never in so fit a condition to go to Christ as when you have nowhere else to go to, and have nothing of your own.
III. Thus I have noticed the good news as well as the pitiful plight. I come now to the third part, which is GOOD ADVICE. Jacob says, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. This is very practical advice. I wish people would act the same with religion as they do in temporal affairs. Jacobs sons did not say: Well, that is very good news; I believe it, and then sit still and die. No, they went straightway to the place of which the good news told them corn was to be had. So should it be in matters of religion. We should not be content merely to hear the tidings, but we should never be satisfied until by Divine grace we have availed ourselves of them, and have found mercy in Christ. Lastly, let me put this question: Why do ye look one upon another? Why do ye sit still? Fly to Christ, and find mercy. Oh, says one, I cannot get what I expect to have. But what do you expect? I believe some of our hearers expect to feel an electric shock, or something of that kind, before they are saved. The gospel says simply, Believe. That they will not understand. They think there is to be something so mysterious about it. They cant make out what it is; but they are going to wait for it and then believe. Well, you will wait till doomsday; for if you do not believe this simple gospel, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God will not work signs and wonders to please your foolish desires. Your position is this–you are a sinner, lost, ruined; you cannot help yourself. Scripture says, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Your immediate business, your instantaneous duty is to cast yourself on that simple promise, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that as He came into the world to save sinners, He has therefore come to save you. What you have to do with, is that simple command–Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. In conclusion, I make this last remark: Did you notice the argument Joseph used why the sons should go to Egypt? It was this–That we may live, and not die. Sinner, this is my argument with thee this morning. My dear hearers, the gospel of Christ is a matter of life and death with you. It is not a matter of little importance, but of all importance. There is an alternative before you; you will either be eternally damned, or everlastingly saved. Despise Christ, and neglect His great salvation, and you will be lost, as sure as you live. Believe in Christ; put your trust alone in Him, and everlasting life is yours. What argument can be more potent than this to men that love themselves? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The famine in Canaan
I. FAMINE.
1. A dire calamity. Perhaps none greater. One which human wisdom cannot foresee. Affects all classes. Animal life depends on vegetable life, vegetable life on seasons, light, heat, rain, temperature, &c. These under the control of God. The lawmaker may suspend the operation of natural laws, moderate their influence, or affect their course.
2. Usually unexpected. In this case there was a warning given, and preparations made. Men cannot foresee the suspension or deviation of natural laws. Hopes for the future built on productiveness of the past.
3. Often over-ruled for good. In this case conspicuously so. Promotes human sympathy (thus the Irish famine, 1846-7, besides evoking much individual benevolence, was responded to by Parliamentary grants of, in the whole, 10,000,000. Ill. Indian famine, 1861). Provokes scientific inquiry into supply and demand. of food. Leads to emigration and breaking up of new ground.
4. Always possible and near. World at any time only a harvest off starvation.
5. Generally local (Gen 8:22). All countries (Gen 41:57), those adjacent to Egypt. Kindness of Providence in this. Nations in their turn dependent on each other. Each offers something for the general use.
II. PLENTY.
1. Where? In Egypt. A storehouse of plenty for hungry nations. Always food in some place, and will be while the earth lasts. He who feeds the ravens knows what man has need of.
2. Why? Does it seem strange that the promised land should suffer, rather than be the favoured spot?
(1) It was a small country.
(2) Had other nations gone thither they would have conquered it.
(3) Chiefly: it was part of the Divine plan that Israel should go down into Egypt, and the famine necessitated this.
3. How? By the extraordinary productiveness of seven preceding years, and the storing of the surplus corn. This effected by the instrumentality of Joseph. His mind supernaturally illuminated. Favour given him in the sight of the king of Egypt. Him appointment to office, including the absolute control of the produce of the land.
III. BUYING FOOD.
1. Want in the house of Jacob.
2. The ten sent out to buy corn in Egypt.
3. They arrive in Egypt, and visit the royal granaries.
4. Joseph recognizes them, and they bow before him, and thus fulfil the dream.
5. To disarm suspicion, and to discover the temper of their minds, and the history of their family, they are charged with being spies, and cast into prison.
6. After three days they are liberated, and a hostage required for their return with the younger brother of whom they have spoken, and of whose existence Joseph affects to doubt.
7. Mutual recriminations respecting Joseph.
8. Joseph is affected by what he hears.
9. Simeon bound and left in prison, while they betake themselves away to Canaan. Learn: However great the dearth of the bread that perisheth, there is always sufficient of the bread of life, and it is always accessible. (J. C. Gray.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XLII
Jacob sends his ten sons to Egypt to buy corn, 1-3;
but refuses to permit Benjamin to go, 4.
They arrive in Egypt, and bow themselves before Joseph, 5, 6.
He treats them roughly and calls them spies, 7-10.
They defend themselves and give an account of their family, 11-13.
He appears unmoved, and puts them all in prison for three
days, 14-17.
On the third day he releases them on condition of their
bringing Benjamin, 18-20.
Being convicted by their consciences, they reproach themselves
with their cruelty to their brother Joseph, and consider
themselves under the displeasure of God, 21-23.
Joseph is greatly affected, detains Simeon as a pledge for
Benjamin, orders their sacks to be filled with corn, and the
purchase money to be put in each man’s sack, 24, 25.
When one of them is going to give his ass provender he discovers
his money in the mouth of his sack, at which they are greatly
alarmed, 26-28.
They come to their father in Canaan, and relate what happened
to them in their journey, 29-34.
On emptying their sacks, each man’s money is found in his sack’s
mouth, which causes alarm both to them and their father, 35.
Jacob deplores the loss of Joseph and Simeon, and refuses to let
Benjamin go, though Reuben offers his two sons as pledges for his
safety, 36-38.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLII
Verse 1. Jacob saw that there was corn] That is, Jacob heard from the report of others that there was plenty in Egypt. The operations of one sense, in Hebrew, are often put for those of another. Before agriculture was properly known and practised, famines were frequent; Canaan seems to have been peculiarly vexed by them. There was one in this land in the time of Abraham, Ge 12:10; another in the days of Isaac, Ge 26:1; and now a third in the time of Jacob. To this St. Stephen alludes, Ac 7:11: there was great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When Jacob saw, i.e. heard, as the word is used, Exo 20:18; as seeing is put for smelling, Exo 5:21; and for tasting, Psa 34:8; and for touching, Joh 20:29.
Why do ye look one upon another; like lazy, careless, and helpless persons, each one expecting relief from the other, but none offering either counsel or help for all our subsistence?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Now when Jacob saw that there wascorn in Egyptlearned from common rumor. It is evident fromJacob’s language that his own and his sons’ families had sufferedgreatly from the scarcity; and through the increasing severity of thescourge, those men, who had formerly shown both activity and spirit,were sinking into despondency. God would not interpose miraculouslywhen natural means of preservation were within reach.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt,…. That is, to be sold there, or otherwise it being there, unless it could be bought, would have been of no avail to foreigners; wherefore the Septuagint version is, that there was a sale w there, a sale of corn; the word has the signification of “breaking” x in it, because that bread corn is broke in the mill, or is broken from the heap when sold or distributed, or because when eaten it breaks the fast. Now Jacob had either seen persons passing by with corn, of whom he inquired from whence they had it, who replied, from Egypt; or he understood by the report of others that corn was to be bought there; though some of the Jewish writers would have it, as Jarchi observes, that he saw it by the revelation of the Holy Spirit:
Jacob said unto, his sons, why do ye look one upon another? like persons in surprise, distress and despair, at their wits’ end, not knowing what to do, what course to take, and which way to turn themselves, and scarce able to speak to one another, and consult with each other what was proper to be done; for it seems not so agreeable that they should be charged as idle persons, careless and unconcerned, indifferent and inactive; but rather, if the other sense is not acceptable, the meaning may be, “why do ye look?” y here and there, in the land of Canaan, where it is to no purpose to look for corn; look where it is to be had.
w Sept. “frumentum venale”, Schmidt; so Ainsworth, and the Targum of Jonathan. x “Fractio”, Montanus, Munster, Piscator. y “ut quid circumspicitis”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
With the words “ Why do ye look at one another! ” viz., in such a helpless and undecided manner. Jacob exhorted his sons to fetch corn from Egypt, to preserve his family from starvation. Joseph’s ten brothers went, as their aged father would not allow his youngest son Benjamin to go with them, for fear that some calamity might befall him ( = , Gen 44:29 as in Gen 42:38 and Gen 49:1); and they came “ in the midst of the comers, ” i.e., among others who came from the same necessity, and bowed down before Joseph with their faces to the earth. For he was “the ruler over the land,” and had the supreme control of the sale of the corn, so that they were obliged to apply to him. seems to have been the standing title which the Shemites gave to Joseph as ruler in Egypt; and from this the later legend of the first king of the Hyksos arose (Josephus c. Ap. i. 14). The only other passages in which the word occurs in the Old Testament are in writings of the captivity or a still later date, and there it is taken from the Chaldee; it belongs, however, not merely to the Aramaean thesaurus, but to the Arabic also, from which it was introduced into the passage before us.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jacob Sends to Egypt to Buy Corn. | B. C. 1706. |
1 Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? 2 And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. 3 And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. 4 But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befal him. 5 And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. 6 And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.
Though Jacob’s sons were all married, and had families of their own, yet, it should seem, they were still incorporated in one society, under the conduct and presidency of their father Jacob. We have here,
I. The orders he gave them to go and buy corn in Egypt, Gen 42:1; Gen 42:2. Observe, 1. The famine was grievous in the land of Canaan. It is observable that all the three patriarchs, to whom Canaan was the land of promise, met with famine in that land, which was not only to try their faith, whether they could trust God though he should slay them, though he should starve them, but to teach them to seek the better country, that is, the heavenly, Heb. xi. 14-16. We have need of something to wean us from this world, and make us long for a better. 2. Still, when there was famine in Canaan, there was corn in Egypt. Thus Providence orders it, that one place should be a succour and supply to another; for we are all brethren. The Egyptians, the seed of accursed Ham, have plenty, when God’s blessed Israel want: thus God, in dispensing common favours, often crosses hands. Yet observe, The plenty Egypt now had was owing, under God, to Joseph’s prudence and care: if his brethren had not sold him into Egypt, but respected him according to his merits, who knows but he might have done the same thing for Jacob’s family which now he had done for Pharaoh, and the Egyptians might then have come to them to buy corn? but those who drive away from among them wise and good men know not what they do. 3. Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt; he saw the corn that his neighbours had bought there and brought home. It is a spur to exertion to see where supplies are to be had, and to see others supplied. Shall others get food for their souls, and shall we starve while it is to be had? 4. He reproved his sons for delaying to provide corn for their families. Why do you look one upon another? Note, When we are in trouble and want, it is folly for us to stand looking upon one another, that is, to stand desponding and despairing, as if there were no hope, no help,–to stand disputing either which shall have the honour of going first or which shall have the safety of coming last,–to stand deliberating and debating what we shall do, and doing nothing,–to stand dreaming under a spirit of slumber, as if we had nothing to do, and to stand delaying, as if we had time at command. Let it never be said, “We left that to be done to-morrow which we could as well have done to-day.” 5. He quickened them to go to Egypt: Get you down thither. Masters of families must not only pray for daily bread for their families, and food convenient, but must lay out themselves with care and industry to provide it.
II. Their obedience to these orders, v. 3. They went down to buy corn; they did not send their servants, but very prudently went themselves, to lay out their own money. Let none think themselves too great nor too good to take pains. Masters of families should see with their own eyes, and take heed of leaving too much to servants. Only Benjamin went not with them, for he was his father’s darling. To Egypt they came, among others, and, having a considerable cargo of corn to buy, they were brought before Joseph himself, who probably expected they would come; and, according to the laws of courtesy, they bowed down themselves before him, v. 6. Now their empty sheaves did obeisance to his full one. Compare this with Isa 60:14; Rev 3:9.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
GENESIS – CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Verses 1-5:
The seven years of plenty passed. The first year of famine had come and gone and the second was underway. The same conditions that had caused the Nile to dry up also affected the other counties in that part of the world. The pinch of the famine had begun to be felt in the regions adjoining Egypt, including Palestine where Jacob lived with his eleven sons and their families.
News came to Jacob that there was grain for sale in Egypt. This word, coupled with the increasing famine in the area, spurred him to take action. His sons were confused and despondent, and looked helplessly to one another with no solutions to the problem. Jacob took the initiative, and ordered them to go to Egypt to buy grain.
Ten sons set out on the trade mission. Benjamin remained at home with Jacob. By modern standards, Benjamin was a man, being upwards of twenty years of age at this time. Jacob did not permit him to accompany his ten sons, partly because he feared some “mischief,” ason, or personal injury befall him; and it is possible that Jacob did not fully trust the intentions of his other sons.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Now when Jacob saw. Moses begins, in this chapter, to treat of the occasion which drew Jacob with his whole family into Egypt; and thus leaves it to us to consider by what hidden and unexpected methods God may perform whatever he has decreed. Though, therefore, the providence of God is in itself a labyrinth; yet when we connect the issue of things with their beginnings, that admirable method of operation shines clearly in our view, which is not generally acknowledged, only because it is far removed from our observation. Also our own indolence hinders us from perceiving God, with the eyes of faith, as holding the government of the world; because we either imagine fortune to be the mistress of events, or else, adhering to near and natural causes, we weave them together, and spread them as veils before our eyes. Whereas, therefore, scarcely any more illustrious representation of Divine Providence is to be found than this history furnishes; let pious readers carefully exercise themselves in meditation upon it, in order that they may acknowledge those things which, in appearance, are fortuitous, to be directed by the hand of God.
Why do ye look one upon another? Why do ye Men are said to look one upon another, when each is waiting for the other, and, for want of counsel, no one dares to attempt anything. Jacob, therefore, censures this inactivity of his sons, because none of them endeavors to provide for the present necessity. Moses also says that they went into Egypt at the command of their father, and even without Benjamin; by which he intimates that filial reverence at that time was great; because envy of their brother did not prevent them from leaving their wives and children, and undertaking a long journey. He also adds, that they came in the midst of a great crowd of people; which enhances the fame of Joseph; who, while supplying food for all Egypt, and dispensing it by measure, till the end of the drought, could also afford assistance to neighboring nations.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
JOSEPH. GODS FAVORITE
Gen 36:1 to Gen 50:26
IF we began our study with the 36th chapter of Genesis we should have to do with the generations of Esau, who is Edom. It is a chapter filled with hard names of men, many of whom wore the title Duke, but like many of the lords and dukes of the present day, did nothing worthy the pen of inspiration. The men whose history God passes over with the mere statement of birth, name, title and death, we may be excused for skipping in our search for the more important characters and the more impressive lessons of the sacred Word.
The 37th chapter introduces us to such a character in Joseph, and launches us upon a study which has engaged the most serious thought of Scripture students for thousands of years. According to the reckoning of John Lord, in his essay on Joseph, this great-grandson of Abraham was born at Haran about 3701 years ago. The most distinguishing feature of his early life was his peculiar and prophetic dreams or visions. He comes before us in the blush of seventeen summers, nicknamed by those who knew him best, this Dreamer. Already in the visions of the night, God had vouchsafed to him the earnest of his coming supremacy and power. The eleven sheaves of his brethren had made obeisance, while Josephs sheaf had stood upright and received their homage. The sun and moon and eleven stars had gathered at his feet. And, when the dreams were known, his father gently reproved, but his brothers resolved and agreed to watch for a chance to act. The favorite of the household was to be put out of the way. The beauty of face that had made him a subject of parental partiality was to be despoiled. The jealousy-breeding coat was to become all crimson; the tattling tongue was to be silenced, and this business of first dreaming and then interpreting to his own profit was to be brought to a deserved end!
Such were the resolutions; and their chance came. Joseph is at last within their grasp, and with a shout of triumph they cry, as they lift their eyes to his sweet though envied face,
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreamt (Gen 37:19-20).
The remainder of the story is familiar to every one of you, and I do not propose to give time to a rehearsal of its incidents, but rather to a consideration of its fundamental lessons.
DIVINE FAVORS DO NOT INSURE AGAINST HUMAN HATRED.
Joseph had, indeed, almost a monopoly of the favors to be coveted in this life. Through his veins there pulsed no common or unclean blood. Four of his brethren were of the meaner extraction of slave mothers, while six others were born to the tender-eyed Leah. It was Josephs good fortune, and doubtless his pride, to be the elder son of the beautiful Rachel, the only lawful wife of Jacob, because the woman of his selection, and the only one to whom he was bound by love. It may be a sin in the child to love his father and mother less because they are those in whom he can take no special pride, but I am sure that his joy is as commendable as natural who loves and delights in them the more, because they are virtuous, honorable and superior in every way. Such a pride was Josephs possession. Who of us are as grateful as we should be for godly and noble parentage?
Again, providence had favored this child in his own person. Joseph was a goodly person and well favored (Gen 29:6). Doubtless that fact accounts for some of Jacobs inexcusable partiality. He saw in the beautiful boy those princely features which called for a royal tunic as a natural complement. Beauty of person is one of Gods better gifts, and it has played its part in the role of human history. It was that charm and that alone that saved the child, Moses, and opened to him the princess nursery and put him in the splendid Egyptian school from which he graduated unto the great work of saving his people and serving his God. It was beauty of face and grace of form that brought Esther to the throne at the very time when the interests of Israel were trembling in the balance, and Gods people were waiting for just such a friend. The prominent role that Cleopatra played in the world is assigned almost entirely to the solitary circumstance of her personal charms. I have often wondered why the great artists have not made more of Joseph as a subject fit for the choicest marble, and worthy the best skilled brush.
In his spirit also, Joseph was divinely favored. So far as the record of his life goes, it would be dangerous to affirm that the splendid child, or the saintly man, Samuel, was ever possessed of sweeter temper than that which Joseph discovered in all the changing and trying experiences of his life. Not a single indictment against his conduct can be successfully sustained. If it be said that his brothers hated him on account of his intolerable pride, let it be remembered Eliab hurled at David this sentence, I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart. In each instance the bigger brother was voicing the naughtiness of his own heart instead. If he be charged with tattling because he brought unto his father the evil report of his brethren, let us answer with a question, Is silence at the sight of sin a virtue? If a report is to be made, to whom other than the father, the rightful authority? His behavior toward the woman whose unholy love his beauty had excited discovers at once a righteousness of personal character, a keen sense of others interests, and a splendid sensitiveness to sin against God that all right thinking people must admire. His dealing with the butler whose freedom he secured, to be rewarded by base neglect for two long years, proved his patience with forgetfulness and ingratitude. Toward his fratricidal brothers, whose lives eventually fell to his disposal, he discovered only the bosom of love, treating with all tenderness those who had attempted his destruction. Blood may be a good thing, and beauty a joy forever, but that magnanimity of soul which can forget a wrong, be patient with a weakness, and treat with affection those who have subjected you to contemptthat is divine! To do that is to prove ones kinship with the Son of God.
Finally Joseph was favored with dreams of a wider and nobler life. The most promising youth is the one who enjoys such visions of the night. Guizot once wrote to his son who was contesting for a university prize, You are ambitious, my boy; you have a right to be. A man at forty may be too ambitious, but at 20, never.
Now and then the world is astonished by the sudden awakening of some sleeping Samson who discovers unsuspected powers at the attack of the Philistines of opposition; but the rule is that Longfellows, while still beardless, dream of being laureates and write to their mothers asking, Do you not think I may one day write books that will be read all over the land? I think that Dr. Hillis has called attention to an important truth when, in his book A Mans Value To Society, he emphasizes the imagination as the architect of manhood.
But let no man conclude that such Divine favors will insure against human hatred. Jealousy is the blindest of passions, and envy never sees anything save through the green glasses which convert all virtue into vice, and all merit into excuses for murder. We have already seen that Josephs conduct toward his brethren was commendable and in every instance meant for their good. But as the belligerent Israelites resented Moses plea for peace between brethren, so these sons of Leah and the concubines interpreted Josephs just report of their behavior as bad tattling. How many a noble Christian man has been insulted and cruelly criticised because, forsooth, he tried to get people to live right and when they would not, reported their sins to the church!
The modern martyr is that noble Joseph who keeps out of fights himself and says to his brethren, You must behave or I shall be compelled to report you to our spiritual mother. Yes, it is one of the most significant suggestions of the sham of modern profession that it will brook no correction from the brother of tenderest love, yea, even from the officials of the church of God elected for the very purpose of counsel and, when needful, of correction.
Again, how many, Joseph-like, are hated because they have had some dream of position, influence and real worth? You have heard it said, There is one black sheep in every flock. Yes, and the converse is equally true, In a black flock one white sheep appears. In most families there is one child that early comes into possession of that broader view of character, conduct and life. How often his first utterance of the hope for the future, that has grown big within his breast, is met with some expression of contempt for such pretensions, or scorn for such pride of heart! Josephs experience and Davids has been known to the bleeding heart of many a precocious boy. An education has been resolved upon, and he begins the long climb of attainments ladder alone. It would seem enough that he should struggle single-handed, and without assistance or sympathy, but how often he must make his way upward, carrying in memory the bitter reproaches and keen sarcasm of his brothers who see nothing in his dream save concentrated egotism and vain conceit!
If any reader has suffered at one or more of these points, I come to say, Be not discouraged! Retrace your steps in nothing! Be slow to conclude you are wrong, or that it is of no use to labor against such opposition. Christ experienced it all boiled down to its last bitterness and yet, when it did its final work of lifting Him to the cross, it only hastened His crown. Josephs brethren can sell him, but if he is always right the Lord will be with him, and the sale into slavery is only an additional push toward the waiting throne.
Now for our second suggestion,
And Josephs master took him and put him into prison. But the Lord was with Joseph (Gen 39:20-21).
INNOCENCE CANNOT BE EFFECTUALLY DISHONORED.
People sometimes make the mistake of affirming that an innocent man cannot be injured. On the contrary, history is rife with illustrations of the fact that no character is so easily sullied as that of the purest and best of men and women. The principle is easy of explanation. The whiter the sheet of paper the easier it is for dirty fingers to leave their track. Some people have the impression that after all preachers and other religious people are about as capable of immoralities as are the members of any other circle. Alas! for the poisoning power of a sensational and truthless press! Many a Joseph has been silenced, and even banished for a while by such confessed lovers of the profession. They know the ease with which that lord, Public Opinion is excited to jealousy and cruel judgment. They know, too, the inability of the best man to defend himself when accused of the meanest crimes, and so they clap their hands and seek on the spotted hounds of slander. Let us ever be slow in believing charges that are calculated to humble the best reputations to the dust, and wrong the most innocent by robbing them of their good name, and opening for them the door into some dungeon of shame!
Joseph may submit to the inevitable, and under the ban of the law, languish in silence, but God has a reckoning to make, and then the Hamans will swing on the gallows, and the Mordecais ride in the royal chariot and dictate to the throne.
Innocent men, however, can best afford to be lied about and wronged, since truth has wonderful powers of coming abroad. So far as the record of Scripture goes, Joseph complains in never a word. Who doubts that by faith he saw his final triumph; and said in his heart of that prison what the three Hebrew children, of a later time, said of the fiery furnace, Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us. The innocent and righteous man, and he alone, can employ such words and give to them their weight. I come more and more to think that no enemy can effectually injure him who walks uprightly, loves the truth and obeys God.
Dr. Talmage tells how, some years ago, two professed temperance lecturers speaking in Ohio, and taking the unusual course for that class of men, maligned Christians and preachers. Among other things they claimed to be well acquainted with Dr. Talmage and declared that their former drunkenness began with drinking wine from that clergymans table. Talmage, indignant over such a charge, went to Patrick Campbell, then chief of the Brooklyn police, and requested his company to Ohio to effect the arrest of the libelous orators. Campbell only smiled and said, Do not waste your time by chasing these men. Go home and do your work, and they can do you no harm. The advice was taken, and the falsehood died of weakness, if indeed it was not stillborn. There is not a scandal in the power of the tongue strong enough to blight the life that loves innocence and clings to God. Joseph may be imprisoned and never entertain the thought of breaking jail, and yet there are not doors enough in all the dungeons of Egypt to keep him in the narrow cell. Butlers will need his help, the king will require his wisdom and God will bring him forth. This brings us to a third lesson.
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Thou shalt he over my house and according unto thy mind shall all my people be ruled, Only in the throne shall I he greater than thou (Gen 41:39-40).
PRISONS WILL NOT HOLD THE MAN FIT TO BE PREMIER.
I know of few things that will so certainly effect recognition as merit. You cant sell into slavery the man who has it. You may set a price on him and be paid it, but you cant enslave him. There was an old colored man who trotted me on his knees the year the Civil War began. He never was a slave. He was always free! He would have been free on the southern plantations where masters rode with revolver in pocket and whip in hand. You cant enslave the man who makes himself needful to you at every turn. You can put him in prison but an hour later you will need him and bring him out again. Darius once had Daniel put into a lions den. But Daniel was still freer than the king. He curled himself up in a corner of that cage and slept, while Gods angel watched with his hand at the hungry mouths. But the king went to his palace and passed the night in fasting, and his sleep went from him, and very early in the morning he made haste to see if the Hebrew was yet alive, without whom the kingdom could not run; and so Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of
Cyrus the Persian. The city authorities at Philippi tried imprisoning Paul and Silas, but next day they came and let them forth and gave them full permission to depart in freedom. You may bind the body of Zedekiah with fetters of brass, and carrying him away to Babylon, imprison him for life; but he, in whom the spirit of Joseph is, must yet rule in the throne.
Moreover he called for a famine upon the land; he brake the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant; whose feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at his pleasure and teach his senators wisdom (Psa 105:16-22).
Men are slow at times to discern merit, but even jailbirds will feel its power and witness to its presence. The incidental remarks in Acts, which say of the midnight song of Silas and Paul and the prisoners heard them, is not more significant than the sentence which informs us of Joseph that he was in favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Let no man flatter himself that he has great virtues but the world is ignorant of them. Goodness is power and will be felt, and the worlds wise men will be discovered, though a very prison seek to both hide and silence them. God knows the nooks of the universe and when there is need of a man he will find the fittest one in some corner and bring him forth.
When Saul has uncrowned himself, there is a shepherd youth known to God upon whom the mantle will fall. When Eli is old and his family are an offense to heaven, there is a boy in the temple trained, though the great outside world has never heard his name. When famine threatens Egypt and the king is unequal to the task of averting it, Joseph is lying in wait, ready to take the place by Divine appointment.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 42:1-2
THE FAMINE IN THE HOUSE OF JACOB
I. Considered in its bearing upon the Divine purposes concerning the chosen people. It had been long ago predicted that the covenant people should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years. God used ordinary means to bring this about. The family of Jacob must be driven to Egypt, and there increase to a nation, and by affliction and oppression be trained for entry into the Promised Land. It is remarkable that, not only Jacob, but his fathers Abraham and Isaac, had experienced a famine in Canaan and by reason of it were driven into Egypt. This must have sorely tried their faith; for the land which was promised to them seemed to be a land which ate up its inhabitants. But these afflictions wrought good for their souls, and trained them to lose sight of all selfish aims in religion and to be concerned only for the glory of God. They learned to submit to whatever means God might be pleased to use to bring about His purposes.
II. Considered in its effect upon Jacobs sons. Why do ye look one upon another? This sad question revealed
1. The utmost distress. They were as men who were stunned by a sudden blow.
2. Great perplexity. They could do nothing else but thus look one upon another. They seemed utterly helpless.
3. Forebodings of conscience. It was not altogether the great calamity of famine that made them so helpless and afraid. Conscience was now awake and filled them with other fears. Why must they wait for Jacob to tell them that there was corn in Egypt, and to suggest the obvious course of going down thither to buy? They surely must have heard this, and have known that in their very neighbourhood a caravan of travellers was already making preparation for that journey. (Gen. 42:5.) The news that there was plenty of food in Egypt would naturally spread rapidly all over the country. Distress has a quick ear. Why, then, are Jacobs sons of all others the last to bestir themselves to seek help! Alas! to their guilty conscience, Egypt is a dreaded name, a threatening calamity, a foreboding evil. To them the road to Egypt is haunted by the memory of an awful crime.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 42:1. Jacobs words resemble those of the four lepers: Why sit we here until we die? It is a dictate of nature not to despair while there is a door of hope; and the principle will hold good in things of everlasting moment. Why sit we here, poring over our guilt and misery, when we have heard that with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him there is plenteous redemption? How long shall we take counsel in our soul, having sorrow in our hearts daily? Let us trust in His mercy, and our hearts shall rejoice in His salvation.(Fuller.)
Gen. 42:2. Here the Divine decree of Israels sojourning and suffering in Egypt begins to be fulfilled, by a wonderful providence. The fulness of Josephs barns invites Jacob first to send, and then to go thither himself for relief. Shall not the fulness that is in Christ (Joh. 1:16) incite and entice us to come to Him, as bees to a meadow full of flowers; as merchants to the Indies, full of spices and other riches; as the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, full of wisdom; as Jacobs sons to Egypt, full of corn, in that extreme famine; that we may return with treasures full fraught with treasures of truth and grace?(Trapp.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
3. Joseph as Prime Minister of Egypt (Gen. 41:46 to Gen. 47:31)
46 And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 47 And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. 48 And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. 49 And Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left off numbering; for it was without number. 50 And unto Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came, whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On, bare unto him. 51 And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh; For, said he, God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my fathers house. 52 And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. 53 And the seven years of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came to an end. 54 And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said: and there was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. 55 And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. 56 And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt. 57 And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was sore in all the earth.
42 Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? 2 And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. 3 And Josephs ten brethren went down to buy grain from Egypt. 4 But Benjamin, Josephs brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure harm befall him. 5 And the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. 6 And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Josephs brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. 7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly with them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. 8 And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. 9 And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 10 And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. 11 We are all one mans sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies. 12 And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 13 And they said, We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. 14 And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, We are spies: 15 hereby ye shall be proved: by the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. 16 Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be bound, that your words may be proved, whether there be truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies. 17 And he put them all together into ward three days.
18 And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God: 19 if ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison-house; but go ye, carry grain for the famine of your houses: 20 and bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. 21 And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. 22 And Reuben answered them saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore also, behold, his blood is required. 23 And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them. 24 And he turned himself about from them and wept; and he returned to them, and spake to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes. 25 Then Joseph commanded to fill their vessels with grain, and to restore every mans money into his sack, and to give them provisions for the way; and thus was it done unto them.
26 And they laded their asses with their grain, and departed thence. 27 And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging-place, he espied his money; and, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. 28 And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they turned trembling one to another saying, What is this that God hath done unto us? 29 And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen them, saying, 30 The man, the lord of the land, spake roughly with us, and took us for spies of the country. 31 And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies: 32 we are twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. 33 And the man, the lord of the land, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men: leave one of your brethren with me, and take grain for the famine of your houses, and go your way; 34 and bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land.
35 And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that behold, every mans bundle of money was in his sack: and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. 36 And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. 37 And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. 38 And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: if harm befall him by the way in which ye go, then will ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
43 And the famine was sore in the land. 2 And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the grain which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food. 3 And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. 4 If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food: 5 but if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down; for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. 6 And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? 7 And they said, The man asked straightly concerning ourselves, and concerning our kindred, saying, Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother? and we told him according to the tenor of these words: could we in any wise know that he would say, Bring your brother down? 8 And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the land with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. 9 I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever: 10 for except we had lingered, surely we had now returned a second time. 11 And their father Israel said unto them, If it be so now, do this: take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and myrrh, nuts, and almonds; 12 and take double money in your hand; and the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight: 13 take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man: 14 and God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release unto you your other brother and Benjamin. And if I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. 15 And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
16 And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, Bring the men into the house, and slay, and make ready; for the men shall dine with me at noon. 17 And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men to Josephs house. 18 And the men were afraid, because they were brought to Josephs house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. 19 And they came near to the steward of Josephs house, and they spake unto him at the door of the house, 20 and said, Oh, my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food: 21 and it came to pass, when we came to the lodging-place, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every mans money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight: and we have brought it again in our hand. 22 And other money have we brought down in our hand to buy food: we know not who put our money in our sacks. 23 And he said, Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: 1 had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. 24 And the man brought the men into Josephs house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. 25 And they made ready the present against Josephs coming at noon: for they heard that they should eat bread there.
26 And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed down themselves to him to the earth. 27 And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive? And they said, Thy servant our father is well he is yet alive. And they bowed the head, and made obeisance. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his brother, his mothers son, and said, Is this your youngest brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son. 30 And Joseph made haste; for his heart yearned over his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. 31 And he washed his face, and came out; and he refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. 32 And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, that did eat with him, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. 33 And they sat before him, the first-born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one with another. 34 And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamins mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him.
44 And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the mens sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every mans money in his sacks mouth. 2 And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sacks mouth of the youngest, and his grain money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. 3 As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. 4 And when they were gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? 5 Is not this that in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth? ye have done evil in so doing. 6 And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these words. 7 And they said unto him, Wherefore speaketh my lord such words as these? Far be it from thy servants that they should do such a thing. 8 Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks mouth, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lords house silver or gold? 9 With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, let him die, and we also will be my lords bondsmen. 10 And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words: he with whom it is found shall be my bondman; and ye shall be blameless. 11 Then they hasted, and took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. 12 And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left off at the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamins sack. 13 Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city.
14 And Judah and his brethren came to Josephs house; and he was yet there: and they fell before him on the ground. 15 And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that ye have done? know ye not that such a man as I can indeed divine? 16 And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold we are my lords bondmen, both we and he also in whose hand the cup is found. 17 And he said, Far be it from me that I should do so: the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my bondman; but as for you, get you up in peace unto your father.
18 Then Judah came near unto him, and said, Oh, my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lords ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant; for thou art even as Pharaoh. 19 My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? 20 And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loveth him. 21 And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. 22 And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die. 23 And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. 24 And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. 25 And our father said, Go again, buy us a little food. 26 And we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down; for we may not see the mans face, except our youngest brother be with us. 27 And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: 28 and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since: 29 and if ye take this one also from me, and harm befall him, ye will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol. 30 Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad is not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lands life; 31 it will come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants will bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. 32 For thy servant became surety for the land unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father for ever. 33 Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. 34 For how shall I go up to my father, if the lad be not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father.
45 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. 2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. 3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. 4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. 5 And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. 6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. 8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not; 10 and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy childrens children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: 11 and there will I nourish thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast. 12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. 13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen: and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. 14 And he fell upon his brother Benjamins neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.
16 And the report thereof was heard in Pharaohs house, saying, Josephs brethren are come; and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. 17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye: lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; 18 and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. 19 Now thou art commanded, this do ye: take your wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. 20 Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.
21 And the sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. 22 To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. 23 And to his father he sent after this manner: ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with grain and bread and provision for his father by the way. 24 So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way. 25 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. 26 And they told him, saying Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. 27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: 28 and Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.
46 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob, And he said, Here am I. 3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: 4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. 5 And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him: 7 his sons, and his sons sons with him, his daughters, and his sons daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.
8 And these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacobs first-born. 9 And the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, and Pallu, and Hezron, and Carmi. 10 And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohab, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman. 11 And the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 And the sons of Judah: Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 And the sons of Issachar: Tola, and Puvah, and lob, and Shimron. 14 And the sons of Zebulun: Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These are the sons of Leah, whom she bare unto Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three. 16 And the sons of Gad: Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. 17 And the sons of Asher: Imnah, and Ishvah, and lshvi, and Beriah, and Serah their sister; and the sons of Beriah: Heber, and Malchiel. 18 These are the sons of Zilpah whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter; and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. 19 The sons of Rachel Jacobs wife: Joseph and Benjamin. 20 And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On, bare unto him. 21 And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard. 22 These are the sons of Rachel who were born to Jacob; all the souls were fourteen. 23 And the sons of Dan: Hushim. 24 And the sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, and Guni, and Nezer, and Shillem. 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob: all the souls were seven. 26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, that came out of his loins, besides Jacobs sons wives, all the souls were threescore and six; 27 and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.
28 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to show the way before him unto Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen; and he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 30 And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet alive. 31 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his fathers house, I will go up, and tell Pharaoh, and will say unto him, My brethren, and my fathers house, who were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me; 32 and the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. 33 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, what is your occupation? 34 that ye shall say, Thy servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.
47 Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen. 2 And from among his brethren he took five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. 3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers. 4 And they said unto Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we come; for there is no pasture for thy servants flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan: now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. 5 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee; 6 the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any able men among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. 7 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How many are the days of the years of thy life? 9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. 10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. 11 And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12 And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his fathers household, with bread, according to their families.
13 And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaohs house. 15 And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for our money faileth. 16 And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. 17 And they brought their cattle unto Joseph; and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year. 18 And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide from my lord, now that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lords; there is nought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: 19 wherefore should we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.
20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them: and the land became Pharaohs. 21 And as for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof. 22 Only the land of the priests bought he not: for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them; wherefore they sold not their land. 23 Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. 24 And it shall come to pass at the ingatherings, that ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food of your little ones. 25 And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaohs servants. 26 And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priests alone became not Pharaohs.
27 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they gat them possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years. 29 And the time drew near that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found favor in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me: bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt; 30 but when I sleep with my fathers, thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. 31 And he said, Swear unto me: and he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the beds head.
(1) Josephs Administration (Gen. 41:46-57). For the first seven years of his administration Joseph went throughout Egypt and gathered up the produce of the land that was needed to preserve the nation in the period of famine that was to follow. All the food of the land, Gen. 41:48, a general expression that must be viewed as limited to the proportion of one-fifth of the crop (Gen. 41:34). It gives a striking idea of the exuberant fertility of this land, that, from the superabundance of the seven plenteous years, corn [grain] enough was laid up for the subsistence, not only of its home population, but of the neighboring countries, during the seven years of dearth (Jamieson). The Oriental hyperbole here must be understood as actualized in the form of a royal impost: the ordinary royal impost appears to have been a land tax of one-tenth; hence this was a double tithe. (It must be noted that Joseph was thirty years of age when he entered upon the office of Vizier of Egypt. Note Gen. 41:38, in which the Pharaoh spoke of Joseph as a man in whom the spirit of God is. that is, the spirit of supernatural insight and wisdom. Evidently Joseph had been in Egypt thirteen years as a slave, and at least had spent at least three years in prison, after ten years in Potiphars house. This promotion of Joseph, from the position of a Hebrew slave pining in prison to the highest post of honor in the Egyptian kingdom, is perfectly conceivable, on the one hand, from the great importance attached in ancient times to the interpretation of dreams and to all occult sciences, especially among the Egyptians, and on the other hand, from the despotic form of government in the East; but the miraculous power of God is to be seen in the fact, that God endowed Joseph with the gift of infallible interpretation, and so ordered the circumstances that this gift paved the way for him to occupy that position in which he became the preserver, not of Egypt alone, but of his own family. And the same hand of God, by which he had been so highly exalted after deep degradation, preserved him in his lofty post of honor from sinking into the heathenism of Egypt; although, by his alliance with the daughter of a priest of the sun, the most distinguished caste in the land, he had fully entered into the national associations and customs of the land (K-D, 352). How gloriously does God compensate to go with them, lest some calamity befall him as he believed had occurred to Joseph. Imagine Josephs surprise when, in receiving the various delegations, he discovered his own brothers bowing down to him with their faces to the earth. At least twenty years had passed before Josephs boyhood dreams were fulfilled. He first dreamed when seventeen years of age (Gen. 37:2). He appeared before Pharaoh thirteen years later (Gen. 41:46). The seven years of plenty followed. Then came the years of famine. This meant that his brothers had not seen him for at least twenty years. He knew them, but they were unable to recognize him in his new role of splendor and authority (HSB, 67). Joseph received them harshly, first accusing them of being spies, that is, of hunting out the unfortified parts of the kingdom that would be easily accessible to a foe. When they explained who they were, protesting they were not spies but servants, Joseph put them into custody for three days. Relenting, however, at the end of this time, he released them, demanding that one of the group remain in prison, but allowing the other nine to return home with grain for their families. He retained Simeon in custody, as a pledge that they should return with their younger brother, a procedure which he demanded in order that it might be proved that they were not spies. (We can hardly think that this charge of spying was completely out of line with the facts in the case. What evidence did Joseph have as yet that these brothers had abandoned any of their disposition to deceive?) He had Simeon bound before their eyes, to be detained as a hostage (not Reubenfor he had overheard Reuben reminding them of his attempt to dissuade them from killing him, a disclosure which must have opened Josephs eyes and fairly melted his heartbut Simeon the next in age). He then ordered his men to fill their sacks with corn, to give each one back his money putting it in his sack, and providing them with food for the journey, Gen. 41:26-38; Thus they started home with their asses laden with the corn, When they reached their first halting-place for the night, one of them opened his sack to feed his beast and found his money in it, The brothers looked on this as incomprehensible except as a divine punishment, and neglected in their alarm to look into the rest of the sacks. On their arrival at home, they told their father Jacob all that had happened. But when they emptied their sacks, and to their own and their fathers terror, found their bundles of money in their separate sacks, Jacob burst out with recriminations, You are making me childless! Joseph is gone, and Simeon is gone, and ye will take Benjamin! All this falls on me! Reuben then offered his own two sons as pledges for Benjamins safe return, if Jacob would entrust him to his care: Jacob might slay them, if he did not bring Benjamin backabout the costliest offer a son could make to a father. But Jacob refused to let Benjamin go.
(3) Second Visit of Josephs Brothers (Gen. 43:1 to Gen. 45:28). Famine at last compelled Jacob to yield and to send Benjamin with his older brothers to Egypt to buy corn; however, the old man strictly charged his sons to propitiate the Egyptian ruler by presents and to take double money, lest that which they had discovered in their sacks should have been placed there inadvertently. On their arrival in Egypt, Joseph ordered his steward to take them to his house and make ready the noonday meal. The brothers were now frightened, and on reaching the house they explained to the steward the restoration of their money, but he replied that he had received it, and must have been their God who restored it; he further reassured them by bringing out Simeon. Joseph soon followed his brethren and the meal was served, but Joseph sat at one table, his brethren at another, and the Egyptians at a third, as shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians. The brothers were entertained liberally, but were surprised at finding themselves placed at their table exactly in the order of their ages, and that Joseph sent a fivefold portion to Benjamin. The next morning they left the city, but Joseph had first commanded his steward to restore the money as before, and to place his silver cup in Benjamins sack. They had not, therefore, proceeded far before the steward overtook them and charged them with robbery. They immediately protested their innocence, challenged investigation, and invoked death on the man who would be found guilty. But the cup was found with Benjamin, and the distressed brothers were compelled to return to Joseph. Judah now made to the supposed Egyptian ruler a touching relation of the disappearance of Joseph, and of Jacobs special affection for Benjamin; and then, after stating that the death of their aged father would certainly follow the detention of his beloved young son, he offered to abide himself as bondman if the lad were permitted to return. Joseph now understood so many things he had not understood before, e.g., how is was that, as he thought, his father had forgotten him, how that the brothers had paid for their deception, what Reuben had done to try to save him, what Judah had done later to save him from being killed, etc. Everything began to fall into a mosaic of Divine Providence. Joseph could refrain no longer from disclosing his identity. He told the brothers that the one whom they had sold for a slave had become the Vizier of Egypt, and that he now realized that God had used these means of bringing him into this position in order that he might save his household from famine. He assured them of his hearty forgiveness, and invited both them and their father to settle in Egypt during the remaining years of famine. The invitation was seconded by the Pharaoh, and wagons, and changes of raiment, and asses laden with provisions were sent by the king and Joseph for the accommodation of the children of Israel. (The story of Josephs reconciliation with his brothers is another of those human interest stones the like of which is found only in the Bible). Thus the stage was set for the period of bondage, the glorious deliverance under Moses, and the final occupancy of the Land of Promise, just as all this had been foretold to Abraham long before (Gen. 15:12-16). Josephs realization came at last that his humiliation and exaltation had been the work of Providence looking toward the saving of Israel (as a people) for their great mission, that of preserving belief in the living and true God, that of preparing the world for Messiah, and that of presenting Messiah to the world (Gen. 45:5-8).
(4) The Israelites Migrate to Egypt (Gen. 46:1 to Gen. 47:12). When the brothers returned from Egypt the second time, the venerable father Jacob could hardly believe their report. But when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to move him and his house, he cried: It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive: I will go and see him before I die. Accordingly he set out on the journey. The brothers doubtless had told him of their treatment of Joseph, but Jacob could readily forgive them now that he knew Joseph was alive. Jacobs early life had been one of deceit; he had, in turn been deceived himself; now, however, he could look forward to seeing his beloved Joseph once more. At Beersheba, he offered sacrifices. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night telling him to go on down into Egypt, promising to make of him a great nation, promising to go down with him and bring him out again (that is, He would surely recover his body for interment in Canaan, should he die in Egypt, and his descendants for settlement in the land of their inheritance); and promising that Joseph should put his hand upon his [fathers] eyes (that is, perform the last offices of affection by closing his eyes in death, a service upon which the human heart in all ages has set the highest value (cf. PCG, 501). So Jacob and his retinue arrived in Egypt, with his sixty-four sons and grandsons, one daughter, Dinah, and one granddaughter, Sarah, numbering in all sixty-six persons (Gen. 46:26). These, with Jacob himself, and Joseph and Josephs two sons, made seventy persons (Gen. 41:27); while the sixty-six persons, with his nine sons wives, made the seventy-five persons mentioned in Act. 7:14. The following table will make this clear (from OTH, 122123):
The children of Leah, 32, viz.,
1.
Reuben and four sons
5
2.
Simeon and six sons
7
3.
Levi and three sons
4
4.
Judah and five sons (of whom two
were dead) and two grandsons
6
5.
Issachar and four sons
5
6.
Zebulun and three sons
4
Dinah
1
The children of Zilpah, considered as Leahs, 16, viz.,
7.
Gad and seven sons
8
8.
Asher: four sons, one daughter, and two grandsons
8
The children of Rachel, 14, viz.,
9.
Joseph (see below)
10.
Benjamin and ten sons
11
The children of Bilhah, considered as Rachels, 7, viz.,
11.
Dan and one son
2
12.
Naphtali and four sons
5
Total of those who came with Jacob into Egypt
66
To these must be added Jacob, Joseph, and his two sons
4
Total of Israels house
70
Benjamins sons are evidently added to complete the second generation, for Benjamin was only 25 years old, and the tone of the whole narrative is scarcely consistent with his yet having a family.
Upon their arrival in Egypt, Joseph, after a most affecting reunion with his father, presented five of his brothers to the Pharaoh; and the king, on being informed that they were shepherds, a class held in abomination by the Egyptians, we are told, gave them for their separate abode the land of Goshen or Rameses (Gen. 47:6; Gen. 47:11), which was the best pasture land in Egypt, and intrusted to them his own flocks, while Joseph supplied them with bread during the remaining five years of famine. That they were tillers of the land as well as shepherds is clear from their being employed in all manner of service in the field (Exo. 1:14), and from the allusion of Moses to Egypt, where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it (Deu. 11:10).
(5) Economic Policies of Joseph During the Famine (Gen. 47:13-27). In contrast to the happy condition of Josephs father and brothers in the land of Goshen, the Biblical record next depicts the state of privation in Egypt. In need of food, the Egyptians presented themselves to Joseph to explain their plight. On the first such occasion, Joseph purchased their cattle, allowing them bread in exchange for horses, flocks, herds, and asses. When the Egyptians presented themselves a second time, they had nothing to exchange for food except their lands. Thereupon Joseph secured the lands of the Egyptian people for Pharaoh, because they received an allotment of food at Pharaohs expense. This introduced the feudal system into Egypt: the system of land tenure. Seed was allotted to the Egyptians on condition that one-fifth of the produce land would revert to Pharaoh. Although this act of Joseph involved a measure of humiliation, including the surrender of lands to the state, it made possible a strong central government which could take measures to prevent famines. The life of Egypt depends upon the Nile, and all the inhabitants of the Nile Valley must cooperate if the the water is to be used efficiently. The government was in a position to regulate the use of Nile water and also to begin a system of artificial irrigation by means of canals which could carry the waters of the river to otherwise inaccessible areas. Josephs economic policy is described with no hint as to either approval or censure. Some have thought that Joseph drove a hard bargain and took advantage of the conditions to enhance the power of the throne. That the emergency resulted in a centralization of authority is clear. There is no hint that Joseph, personally, profited from the situation, however. On the contrary, the people said to Joseph, Thou bast saved our lives (Gen. 47:25). Many, doubtless, resented the necessity of being moved, but in famine conditions it was necessary to bring the population to the store-cities where food was available. Convenience must be forgotten in a life-and-death situation such as Egypt faced. Joseph thus destroyed the free proprietors and made the king the lord-paramount of the soil, while the people became the hereditary tenants of their sovereign, and paid a fifth of their annual produce as rent for the soil they occupied. The priests alone retained their estates through this trying period (Pfeiffer, The Book of Genesis, 9899). The tax of a fifth of the produce of the fields was not excessive according to ancient standards, we are told. In the time of the Maccabees the Jews paid the Syrian government one-third of the seed (1Ma. 10:30). Egyptologists inform us that large landed estates were owned by the nobility and the governors of the nomes (states) during the Old Empire period (c. 30001900 B.C.). By the New Kingdom (after 1550 B.C.) power was centralized in the person of the Pharaoh. It would appear that Joseph, as Prime Minister, was instrumental in hastening this development. There is no doubt that Egypt was, during the most of the last two millenia of her existence, essentially a feudal state in which the nobility flourished and slaves did all the work. At the end of two years (see Gen. 45:6) all the money of the Egyptians and Canaanites had passed into the Pharaohs territory (Gen. 47:14), At this crisis we do not see how Joseph can be acquitted of raising the despotic authority of his master on the broken fortunes of the people; but yet he made a moderate settlement of the power thus acquired. First the cattle and then the land of the Egyptians became the property of the Pharaoh, and the people were removed from the country to the cities. They were still permitted, however, to cultivate their lands as tenants under the crown, paying a rent of one-fifth of the produce, and this became the permanent law of the tenure of land in Egypt; but the land of the priests was left in their own possession (Gen. 47:15-26) (OTH, 121). It is a well-known fact also that in those ancient times Jewish men were sought as mercenary soldiers by the nations which were vying for hegemony in the area of the Fertile Crescent. This fact does not make the career of Joseph in Egypt an anomaly at all.
The Land of Goshen, or simply Goshen, was evidently known also as the land of Rameses (Gen. 47:11), unless, of course, this latter may have been the name of a district in Goshen. Goshen was between Josephs residence at the time and the frontier of Palestine. Apparently it was the extreme province toward the frontier (Gen. 46:29). The reading of Gen. 46:33-34, indicates that Goshen was hardly regarded as a part of Egypt proper and that it was not peopled by Egyptianscharacteristics that would indicate a frontier region. The next mention of Goshen confirms the previous inference that it lay between Canaan and the Delta (Gen. 47:1; Gen. 47:5-6; Gen. 47:11). It was evidently a pastoral country, where some of the Pharaohs cattle were kept, The clearest indications of the exact location of Goshen are found in the story of the Exodus. The Israelites set out from the town of Raamses (or Rameses) in the land of Goshen, made two days journey to the edge of the wilderness, and in one additional day reached the Red Sea. This was a very fertile section of Egypt, excellent for grazing and certain types of agriculture, but apparently not particularly inviting to the pharaohs because of its distance from the Nile irrigation canals. It extends thirty or forty miles in length centering in Wadi Lumilat and reaches from Lake Timsa to the Nile. It was connected with the name of Rameses because Rameses II. (c. 12901224 B.C.) built extensively in this location at Pithom (Tell er Retabeh) and Rameses (or Raamses) (Zoan-Avaris-Tanis). Tanis was called the House of Rameses (c. 13001100 B.C.) (See Exo. 1:11; Exo. 12:37; cf. UBD, s.v., p. 420).
FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING
Divine Providence: Joseph
A sermon delivered August 20, 1893, by J. W. McGarvey. Originally published by the Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, in McGarveys Sermons, here reprinted verbatim.
I will read verses four to eight in the forty-fifth chapter of Genesis:
I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and yet there are five years in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God.
The story of Joseph is one of those undying narratives which have been of deepest interest to all readers for more than three thousand years, and will be to the end of time. It is interesting to children, to simple-minded people who understand it the least; and it is still more interesting to profound scholars, who understand it the best. (1) It occupies a larger space in the Old Testament than any other personal narrative, except that of Abraham; and have you never wondered why this simple story was allowed so much space? (2) Whether there was any design in it beyond that of entertaining and interesting the reader, as a novel or a fine poem entertains and interests us? (3) And have you never, in studying the story, wondered why Joseph, after he became governor over Egypt and had command of his own time, spent the whole seven years of plenty and two years of famine without going to see his father, who lived only two hundred miles away over a smooth road? And finally, has not the question occurred to you, Why did God select to be the heads of ten of the twelve tribes of His own people, ten men who were so cruel, so inhuman as to take their seventeen year old brother and sell him into bondage in a foreign land? The task that I have undertaken in the discourse this morning, will be to give, as well as I can, an answer to these three questions, and in doing so, to point out a striking example of the providence of God.
In regard to the design of allowing this story to occupy so much space, I think I may safely say that there is nothing recorded in this Holy Book, which has no higher purpose than to entertain and interest the reader. There is always in the divine mind something beyond and higher than that. If you will read a little further back in the book of Genesis, you will find that on a certain occasion, God, after having promised Abraham again and again that he should have offspring who would inherit the land of Canaan as their possession, commanded him one day to slaughter some animals and lay them in two rows. He did so, and seeing that the birds of prey were gathering to devour them, he stood guard and drove them away until night came, and they went to roost. Then he also fell asleep, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him. I suppose it was a terrible nightmare. He then heard the, voice of God saying to him, Thy seed shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they shall be afflicted four hundred years. After that, I will judge the nation by whom they shall be afflicted, and bring them out, and bring them into this land, and give it to them as an inheritance. [Gen. 15:12-16]. From these solemn words, Abraham now knows that it is to be four hundred years, and more, before his people will inherit this promised land, and that they shall pass, in the meantime, through four hundred years of bondage and fearful affliction; but that then the good word of the Lord will be fulfilled. It gave him a totally different view of those promises, from that which he had entertained before.
We learn by the subsequent history, that Abraham never did learn that the foreign land in which his people were to be bondmen was Egypt; and that a removal of his posterity to that land was necessary to the fulfillment of Jehovahs words. He lived and died, however, in Canaan. His son Isaac lived one hundred and eighty years, and died and left his children, his servants and his flocks and herds, still in Canaan. Jacob, although he had spent forty years in Paddan-Aram, still lived in Canaan with his twelve sons and his flocks and herds; and up to the very hour when his sons came back from Egypt the second time, and said, Joseph is alive, and is governor over all Egypt, and he saw a long line of wagons coming up and bringing the warm invitation of Pharaoh and Joseph to hasten down and make their home in Egyptup to that hour he had never entertained the idea of migrating to Egypt. He as little thought of it as we do of migrating to the moon. What then was it that brought about, after so many years, that migration of the descendants of Abraham into Egypt, and led to the four hundred years of bondage? You are ready to answer, that the immediate cause of it was the fact that Joseph, the son of Jacob, was now governor over all Egypt, and wanted his father and his brothers to be with him. That is true. But, how had Joseph happened to be governor over all the land of Egypt? You say, the immediate cause of it was, that when he predicted the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine, he proposed to the king that a man be selected to go out and gather up grain during the years of plenty, to save the people from starving in the years of famine; and that Pharaoh had the good sense to accept the proposal, and to appoint Joseph governor. But then, how is it that Joseph predicted that famine? You say it was the interpretation of Pharaohs dream and so it was. But how did he happen to interpret that dream? You say, because all the magicians of Egypt had been called on to interpret it, and haid failed. They not only could not see the real meaning of it, but they did not venture a supposition as to what it meant. A dream in which a man saw fat cows coming up out of a river! The idea of cows coming up out of a river! And then, other cows, lean cows, coming up out of the same river, and devouring these fat cows, and looking just as lean and thin as they were before! Why, that went outside all the rules for interpreting dreams that the dream interpreters of that age had invented; and they could not give the remotest suggestion as to what it meant. The failure of the magicians then, was one necessary cause of Josephs being called on to interpret the dream. And then, how did Joseph happen to be called on? If that butler had not forgotten his promise to Joseph, made two years before. to speak to the king and have Joseph released out of an imprisonment which was unjust, Joseph would have been released most likely, and might have been anywhere else by this time than in the land of Egypt. The forgetfulness of the butler, who forgot his friend when it was well with himself, was a necessary link in the chain. He says, when all the magicians had failed, I remember now my fault; and he told the king about a young Hebrew whom he met in prison, who interpreted his dream and the bakers, and both came to pass; Me he restored to my office, and the chief baker he hanged. The king immediately sent for Joseph. But how did he happen to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker? That depended upon their having the dreams, and upon their having those dreams in the prison, and upon Joseph being the man who had charge of the prisoners, and who, coming in and finding the two great officers of the king looking very sad, asked what was the matter. But how did Joseph happen to have the control of the prisoners, so as to have access to these officers? Why, that depended upon the fact that he had behaved himself so well in prison as to win the confidence of the keeper of the jail, and had been promoted, until the management of the whole prison was placed in his hands. Well, how did Joseph happen to be in prison? Why, you will say that the wife of Potiphar made a false accusation against him. But have you not wondered why Potiphar did not kill him? An average Kentuckian would have done it instanter. I think it depended upon the fact that Potiphar knew his wife well and knew Joseph well, and had about as much confidence in Josephs denial as in her accusation. And how did it happen that she had a chance to bring such accusations against Joseph? Because Joseph had won the confidence of his master as a young slave, till he had made him supreme director of everything inside of his house. He had access to every apartment, and provided for his masters table, so that the text tells us there was nothing inside his house that Potiphar knew of, except the food on his table. It was this that gave the opportunity to the bad woman. But then I ask further, How did Joseph happen to be there a house-boy in the house of Potiphar? Well, he bought him. He wanted a house-boy, and went down to the slave market, and found him there and bought him. How did Joseph happen to be in the slave market? Because his brothers sold him. But suppose he had never been sold into Egypt! Would he ever have interpreted dreams? Would he ever have been governor of Egypt? Would he ever have sent for his father and brothers to come down there? But how did he happen to be sold as a slave? If those traders had been fifteen minutes later passing along, Reuben would have taken the boy up and let him loose, and he would have gone back to his father. Everything depended on that. But how did he happen to be in that pit from which Reuben was going to deliver him? You say, they saw him coming from home to the place where they were grazing their flocks, and they remembered those dreams. They said, Behold, the dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, let us slay him and cast him into one of the pits. Then they would see what would become of his dreams. Dissuaded by Reuben from killing him outright, they put him in a pit to die. It was their jealousy that caused them to put him into the pit. But then, how is it that those dreams had excited their jealousy to such a pitch? I do not suppose that they would, if they had not already been jealous because of the coat of many colors. Now we have traced these causes back from one to the other, back, back, back, till we have reached the source of all in the partiality of the old father in giving the coat of many colors. And brethren, let me say here by way of digression, that the history of many a family trouble, with its trials and alienations and distresses, running sometimes through generations, is traceable to jealousy springing from parental partiality. But now, every one of these causes that I have mentioned stands like a link in the long chain by which God, having determined that these Hebrews should dwell in Egypt for four hundred years, after predicting it two hundred years before, draws them down where He wants them to be.
And what are the links in this chain? Some of them are desperately wicked deeds; some of them are good deeds. The fidelity of Joseph; sold to be a slave, but evidently saying within himself, As I have to be the slave of this man, I will be the best slave he has. I will be the most faithful one. I will win his confidence. I will do my duty like a man. And thus he rises. And then the same kind of fidelity when he is cast into prison. As I have to be in prison, I will be the best prisoner in this jail. I will do what I ought to do here in the fear of my God. Thus he rises to the top again; illustrating the fact, and I wish I had young men in abundance to speak this tothat a young man who has true character, unfaltering fidelity, and some degree of energy and ability, can not be kept down in this world. You may put him down, but he will rise again. You may put him down again and again; but he will come up. A young man like that, is like a cork; you may press it under the water, but it will soon pop up again. Oh that the young men of our country had such integrity, such power to resist temptation, such resolution and perseverance, as this Jewish youth had.
So then, this long story is told as an illustration of the providence of God, by which He can bring about His purposes without the intervention of miraculous power except here and there; for in all this long chain of causes God touched the links only twice, directly: once, when He gave power to Joseph to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker, and once when He gave him power to interpret the dream of Pharaoh. Just those two instances in which the finger of God touched the chain; all the rest were the most natural things in the world, and they brought about Gods design just as effectively as though He had wrought one great miracle to translate Jacob and his children through the air, and plant them on the soil of Egypt. The man who studies the story of Joseph and does not see this in it, has failed to see one of its great purposes. And what is true in bringing about this result in the family of Jacob, may be trueI venture to say, it is truein regard to every family of any importance in this world; and it extends down to the modes by which God overrules our own acts, both good and bad, and those of our friends, and brings us out at the end of our lives shaped and molded as he desires we shall be.
Now let us look for a moment at the second question. Why did Joseph not go and see his father and his brothers during the nine years in which he could have gone almost any day? I think that when we reach the answer we will see another and perhaps a more valuable illustration of the providence of God. In order to understand the motives which actuate men under given circumstances, we must put ourselves in their places and judge of them by the way that we would ourselves feel and act; for human nature is the same the wide world over, and in all the different nations of men. Suppose then, that you were a boy of seventeen. Your brothers have all been away from home, sixty or seventy miles, with the flocks, until your father has become anxious about them, and sends you up to see how they do. You go, as Joseph did, but you fail to find them. While you search you meet a stranger who tells you they are gone to Dothan, fourteen or fifteen miles farther away. With this news Joseph continued his journey, and how his heart leaped at last to see his brothers again! How glad a welcome he expected from them and inquiries about home, and father, and all. But when he came up, he saw a scowl upon every face. Instead of welcoming, they seized him, and with rough hands stripped the coat from his back, dragged him to the mouth of a dry cistern, and let him down in it. Now we will see what will become of his dreams.
How did the boy then feel? I have thought that perhaps he said to himself, My brothers are only trying to scare me. They are just playing a cruel joke on me, and dont mean to leave me here to perish. But perhaps he had begun to think they were in earnest, when he heard footsteps above, and voices. He sees one of their faces looking down, and a rope let down to draw him up, and he thinks the cruel joke is over. But when he is drawn up and sees those strangers there, and hears words about the sale of the boy, and his hands are tied behind him, and he is delivered into their hands, and they start off with him, what would you have thought or felt then? If the thought had come into his mind that it was another joke, he might have watched as the merchants passed down the road, on every rising piece of ground he might have looked back to see if his brothers were coming to buy him back again, and to get through with this terrible joke; but when the whole days journey was passed, and they went into camp at night, and the same the next day, no brothers have overtaken him, what must have been his feelings? When he thought, I am a slave, and I am being carried away into a foreign land to spend the rest of my life as a slave, never to see father and home again, who can imagine his feelings? So he was brought down into Egypt and sold.
But it seems to me that Joseph must have had one thought to bear him up, at least for a time. My father loves me. He loves me more than he does all my brothers. He is a rich man. When he hears that I have been sold into Egypt, he will send one hundred men, if need be, to hunt me up; he will load them with money to buy me back. I trust in my father for deliverance yet. But he is sold into the house of Pharaoh, and years pass by. He is cruelly cast into prison, and years pass by, until thirteen long years of darkness and gloom and sorrow and pain have gone, and he has never heard of his father sending for him. He could have done it. It would have been easy to do, And now, how does he feel toward his brothers and toward his father? Would you have wanted to see those brothers again? And when he found his father had never sent for him, knowing, perhaps, how penurious and avaricious his father had been in his younger days, may he not have said, The old avaricious spirit of my father has come back on him in his declining years, and he loves his money more than he loves his boy? And when that feeling took possession of him, did he want to see his father anymore? Or any of them? Could he bear the thought of ever seeing those brothers again? And could he at last bear the thought of seeing that father who had allowed him to perish, as it were, without stretching out a hand to help him? The way he did feel is seen in one little circumstance. When he was married and his first-born son was placed before him, he named him Manasseh, forgetfulness, Because, he says, God has enabled me to forget my fathers house. The remembrance of home and brothers and father had been a source of constant pain to him; he never could think of them without agony of heart; but now, Thank God, I have forgotten them. Oh, brethren, what a terrible experience a boy must have before he feels a sense of relief and gladness that he has been enabled to forget all about his father and his brothers in his early home! That is the way Joseph felt when Manasseh was born. And would not you have felt so, too?
Everything was going on more pleasantly than he thought it ever could, with himriches, honor, wife, children: everything that could delight the heart of a wise and good manwhen suddenly, one day his steward comes in and tells him that there are ten foreigners who desire to buy some grain. He had a rule that all foreigners must be brought before him before they were allowed to buy grain. Bring them in. They were brought in, and behold, there are his brothers! There are his brothers! And as they approach, they bow down before him. Of course, they could not recognize him, dressed in the Egyptian stylegovernor of Egypt. Even if he had looked like Joseph, it would only have been a strange thing with them to say, He resembles our brother Joseph. There they are. It was a surprising sight to him and a painful one. He instantly determines to treat them in such a way that they will never come back to Egypt again. He says, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. No, they say, we are come to buy food; we are all the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. We are twelve brothers. The youngest is with our father, and one is not.
That remark about the youngest awakened a new thought in Joseph. Oh how it brought back the sad hour when his own mother, dying on the way that they were journeying, left that little Benjamin, his only full brother, in the hands of the weeping father! And how it reminded him, that when he was sold, Benjamin was a little lad at home. He is my own mothers child. Instantly he resolves that Benjamin shall be here with him in Egypt, and that these others shall be scared away, so that they will never come back again; so he says, Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, that your words may be proved, or else by the life of Pharaoh ye are spies. He cast them all into prison; but on the third day he went to them and said: I fear God; if ye be true men let one of you be bound in prison, and let the others go and carry food for your houses; and bring your youngest brother to me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. When he said that, they began to confess to one another their belief about the providential cause of this distress, when Reuben made a speech that brought a revelation to Joseph, He said to his brethren, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear. Therefore, behold his blood is required. Joseph learns for the first time that Reuben had befriended him, and this so touched his heart that he turned aside to weep. He passes by Reuben and takes the next to the oldest for the prisoner.
He now gave the directions to his steward to sell them the grain; and why did he order the money to be tied up in the mouth of every mans sack? They were once so mean and avaricious that they sold me for fifteen petty pieces of silver. I will put their silver in the mouths of their sacks, and I will see if they are as dishonest as they were then. If they are, I will never hear of that money again. Not many merchants in these days, if you go in and buy ten dollars worth of goods, will wrap the ten dollars in the bundle to see if it will come back. I will see, thought Joseph, if they are honest.
Time went ona good deal more than Joseph expected, on account of the unwillingness of Jacob to let Benjamin make the journey. But finally the news is brought that these ten Canaanites have returned. They are brought once more into his presence, and there is Benjamin. They still call him the little one and the lad; just as I have had mothers to introduce me to the baby, and the baby would be a strapping fellow six feet high. There he is. Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke? He waits not for an answer, but exclaims, God be gracious unto thee, my son. He slips away into another room to weep. How near he is now to carrying out his planto having that dear brother, who had never harmed him, to enjoy his honors and riches and glory, and get rid of the others. He has them to dine in his house. That scared them. To dine with the governor! They could not conceive what it meant. Joseph knew. He had his plan formed. He wanted them there to give them a chance to steal something out of the dining-room. They enjoyed the dinner. They had never seen before so rich a table. He says to the steward, Fill the mens sacks with food; put every mans money in his sacks mouth, and put my silver cup in the sacks mouth of the youngest. It was done, and at daylight next morning they were on their journey home. They were not far on the way when the steward overtook them, with the demand, Why have ye rewarded evil for good? Is it not this in which my Lord drinketh, and wherewith he divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing. They answered, God forbid that thy servants should do such a thing. Search, and if it be found with any one of us, let him die, and the rest of us will be your bondmen. No, says the steward, he with whom it is found shall be my bondman, and ye shall be blameless. He begins his search with Reubens sack. It is not there. Then one by one he takes down the sacks of the others, until he reaches Benjamins. There is the cup! They all rend their clothes; and when the steward starts back with Benjamin, they follow him. They are frightened almost to death, but the steward can not get rid of them. Joseph was on the lookout for the steward and Benjamin. Yonder they come, but behind them are all the ten. What shall now be done? They come in and fall down before him once more, and say, We are thy bondmen. God has found out our iniquity. No, he says, the man in whose hand the cup is found shall be my bondman; but as for you, get you up in peace to your father.
Joseph thought that his plan was a success. They will be glad to go in peace. I will soon have it all right with Benjamin. They will hereafter send somebody else to buy their grain. But Judah arose, drew near, and begged the privilege of speaking a word. He recites the incidents of their first visit, and speaks of the difficulty with which they had induced their father to let Benjamin come. He quotes from his father these words: Ye know that my wife bore me two sons; one of them went out from me, and I said surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since, If ye take this one also from me and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. He closes with the proposal, Let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren. Here was a revelation to Josephtwo of them. First, I have been blaming my old father for these twenty-two years because he did not send down into Egypt and hunt me up, and buy me out, and take me home; and now I see I have been blaming him unjustly, for he thought I was deadthat some wild beast had torn me in pieces. O what self-reproach, and what a revival of love for his old father! And here, again, I have been trying to drive these brothers away from me, as unworthy of any countenance on my part, or even an acquaintance with them; but what a change has come over them! The very men that once sold me for fifteen paltry pieces of silver, are now willing to be slaves themselves, rather than see their youngest brother made a slave, even when he appears to be guilty of stealing. What a change! Immediately all of his old affection for them takes possession of him, and with these two revelations flashing upon him, it is not surprising that he broke out into loud weeping. He weeps, and falls upon his brothers necks, He says, I am Joseph. A thought flashes through his mind, never conceived before, and he says, Be not grieved, or angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither. He sees now Gods hand all through this strange, sad experience, and using a Hebraism, he says, It was not you that sent me hither, but God; God did send me before to preserve life. When he was a prisoner there in the prison, he did not see Gods hand. I suppose he thought that it was all of the devil; but now that he has gotten to the end of the vista and looks back, he sees it is God who has done it. He sees in part what we saw in the first part of this discourse. O, my friends, many times when you shall have passed through deep waters that almost overwhelm you, and shall have felt alienated from all the friends you had on earth, thinking that they had deserted you, wait a little longer, and you will look up and say it was God; it was the working of grand, glorious, and blessed purposes that He had in his mind concerning you.
The last question we can dispose of now very quickly, because it has been almost entirely anticipated. Why did God select ten men to be the heads of ten tribes of his chosen people, who were so base as to sell their brother? O, my brethren, it was not the ten who sold their brother that God selected, but the ten who were willing to be slaves instead of their brother. These are the ten that he chose. If you and I shall get to heaven, why will God admit us there? Not because of what we once were, but because of what He shall have made out of us by His dealings with us. He had his mind on the outcome, and not on the beginning. If you and I had to be judged by what we were at one time, there would be no hope for us. I am glad to know that my chances for the approval of the Almighty are based on what I hope to be, and not on what I am. Thank God for that!
And they were worthy. How many men who, when the youngest brother of the family was clearly guilty of stealing, and was about to be made a slave, would say, Let me be the slave, and let him go home to his father? Not many. And what had brought about the wondrous change which they had undergone? Ah, here we have the other illustration of Gods providential government to which I have alluded. When these men held up the bloody coat before their father, knowing that Joseph was not dead, as he supposed, but not able to tell him so because the truth would be still more distressing than the fiction, What father would not rather a thousand times over that one of his sons should be dead, than that one of them should be kidnapped and sold into foreign bondage by the others? If their fathers grief was inconsolable, their own remorse was intolerable. For twenty-two long years they writhed under it, and there is no wonder that then they should prefer foreign bondage themselves rather than to witness a renewal of their fathers anguish. The same chain of providence which brought them unexpectedly into Egypt, had fitted them for the high honors which were yet to crown their names.
Is there a poor sinner here today, whom God has disciplined, whether less or more severely than He did those men, and brought to repentance? If so, the kind Redeemer whom you rejected, and sold, as it were, to strangers, stands ready to forgive you more completely and perfectly than Joseph forgave his brethren. He has found out your iniquity; he knows it all; but he died that he might be able to forgive you. Come in his appointed way; come guilty and trembling, as Josephs brothers came, and you will find His everlasting arms around you.
REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FORTY-SIX
1.
What is the over-all motif of the Joseph-Story?
2.
Where was Joseph dwelling with his parental household at the time he now appears in the Biblical narrative? How old was he at this time?
3.
Were Josephs brothers justified in their hatred of him?
4.
What was it that made his good qualities offensive? Can we sympathize with them at all? Could we be justified in accepting what they did to him?
5.
How did the brothers get the opportunity to dispose of Joseph?
6.
What special gift did Jacob give to Joseph?
7.
Who were the brothers of whom he brought back to his father an evil report?
8.
What were the two dreams which Joseph experienced and what did they mean?
9.
What were the three things that incensed the brothers against Joseph? To what extent did envy enter into their attitude, and why?
10.
To what place did Jacob send Joseph to find the brothers? Where did he find them?
11.
Which of the brothers kept the others from killing Joseph? Why did he do this?
12.
Which one suggested that Joseph be sold? What was probably his real motive for doing this?
13.
To what people was Joseph sold? What was the price involved?
14.
What was done with Josephs coat? How did the brothers account for Josephs disappearance?
15.
What was Jacobs reaction when he saw the coat?
16.
Explain what Sheol was in Old Testament thought? How did the O.T. concept of Sheol correspond to the N.T. doctrine of Hades? Explain the distinction between Hades and Gehenna in New Testament teaching.
17.
To whom was Joseph sold in Egypt? What office did his owner hold?
18.
How did Joseph get along in his masters house? To what extent did his owner trust him?
19.
What temptation was thrust upon Joseph in his owners house? Against whom did Joseph declare that this sin would be?
20.
How did he escape the woman? What was the lie she told? What did the owner do with him as a consequence?
21.
What special prisoners were kept in the place where Joseph was imprisoned?
22.
How did Joseph get along in prison? What two royal officials were cast into the prison?
23.
What were the dreams which these two prisoners experienced? What interpretations did Joseph give of these dreams?
24.
What special request did Joseph make of the chief butler?
25.
How were the dreams fulfilled?
26.
Who was it that forgot Joseph and for how long?
27.
What were the two dreams which the Pharaoh experienced? What did the word Pharaoh signify?
28.
Who among the Egyptians could not interpret the Pharaohs dreams?
29.
Who told the Pharaoh of Joseph? What confession did he make?
30.
What preparations did Joseph make to present himself before the king? What did these signify especially?
31.
To whom did Joseph give credit for the dreams which the king had experienced and for what purpose were they granted the king?
32.
What was Josephs interpretation of the Pharaohs dreams? Why was his dream doubled? What advice did Joseph give him?
33.
With what office did the Pharaoh invest Joseph? What special rank did he give him?
34.
Who was given to Joseph as his wife? What was her fathers name and position?
35.
Explain the significance of the names, Asenath, Potiphera, and On.
36.
What was Josephs age at the time he was made Prime Minister?
37.
What general policy did Joseph advise the Pharaoh to adopt in view of the impending crisis?
38.
What was the general character of the various dreams which Joseph interpreted?
39.
What is the popular opinion as a rule with regard to the significance of dreams?
40.
What is the over-all psychoanalytic theory of dreams?
41.
In what sense were the dreams interpreted by Joseph premonitions?
42.
Who were the professional interpreters of dreams in the pagan world?
43.
What are the two general categories of dreams reported in Scripture?
44.
What two functions do dreams serve which in Scripture are divinely inspired?
45.
How is the power of interpretation varied in relation to the functions served by dreams?
46.
How closely related are dreams to visions? How are waking visions to be distinguished from dreams? How is the dream related to prophecy in Scripture?
47.
How old was Joseph when he became Prime Minister of Egypt?
48.
How did God compensate him for his former unhappiness?
49.
How much grain did Joseph gather? Where did he store this grain?
50.
What were the names of Josephs two sons and what did each name mean?
51.
What area did the famine cover?
52.
What caused Jacobs sons to go into Egypt the first time?
53.
Which son of Jacob was left at home, and why?
54.
Whom did the brothers face in Egypt? How did their visit fulfil a dream?
55.
Of what did Joseph accuse the brothers? What was their reply?
56.
How long did Joseph keep them in jail?
57.
What tests did Joseph impose on them and for what purpose?
58.
Whom were they ordered to bring back to Egypt and why?
59.
What did the brothers think had caused them to suffer this penalty?
60.
Which brother was detained in Egypt?
61.
What facts were little by little revealed to Joseph about the brothers and the father with respect to what had happened to him in Canaan?
62.
What did Joseph cause to be placed in the brothers sacks? Which brother was detained in Egypt?
63.
How did the brothers react when they discovered the contents of their sacks?
64.
What accusation did Jacob bring against the brothers on their return home?
65.
Why did the brothers return to Egypt a second time?
66.
What security did Reuben offer Jacob as proof he would care for Benjamin?
67.
Who told Jacob that Benjamin must be taken into Egypt? What was Jacobs reaction?
68.
What caused the father finally to relent? What did he tell the brothers to take back into Egypt?
69.
What hospitality did Joseph show them when they returned to Egypt?
70.
What did Joseph say when the brothers tried to return their money?
71.
What did the brothers offer Joseph?
72.
How did Joseph react when he saw Benjamin?
73.
Why did Joseph not sit at the table with his brothers?
74.
How were the brothers arranged at their table? Who got the most food and how much more did he get?
75.
What was placed in the brothers sacks and in Benjamins sack?
76.
What did Joseph have the steward, on catching up with the brothers as they started for home, accuse them of stealing?
77.
What did the brothers say should be done to them as a punishment if they were guilty?
78.
How did they react when the cup was found?
79.
How did Joseph declare that Benjamin should be punished?
80.
Who interceded for Benjamin, offering to serve as hostage, and why?
81.
Why did Joseph send everyone out of the room but the brothers?
82.
Whom did Joseph ask about first after disclosing his identity?
83.
How did the brothers react to this revelation?
84.
In what statement did Joseph declare his conviction that this entire happening was providential? How was it providential?
85.
Trace the hand of God in the story of Joseph as this story was unfolded by His providence?
86.
How many years of famine had passed by this time?
87.
What arrangements were made for transporting Jacobs household to Egypt?
88.
What part of the country was given them for a dwelling, and why?
89.
How did Jacob react to the news about Joseph?
90.
What arrangements for transporting Jacobs family to Egypt did the Pharaoh make?
91.
How old was Jacob when he came down to Egypt? What did he say to Pharaoh at their meeting?
92.
What three things did Joseph obtain from the people for Pharaoh?
93.
What did God promise Jacob that he would do for him in Egypt?
94.
What economic policies did Joseph institute with reference to land ownership? What over-all changes did this make in the economics and politics of Egypt? Was it good or bad? Explain your answer?
95.
What class of people retained their land? What part of the land production was collected for Pharaoh?
96.
How many souls of the house of Jacob came into Egypt?
97.
How reconcile this figure with that which is given in Act. 7:14?
98.
What are the analogies between the life of Joseph and the life of Christ?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XLII.
FIRST VISIT OF JOSEPHS BRETHREN TO EGYPT.
(1) When Jacob saw.That is, learned, understood, that there was corn in Egypt. As we have seen (Gen. 37:25), there was a large caravan trade between Palestine and Egypt, and the report would gradually get abroad that food might be purchased there.
Why do ye look . . . In the second rainless season not only would the flocks and herds begin to languish, but the numerous retainers of Jacob and his sons would also become enfeebled from insufficient nourishment, and begin to die of low fever and those other diseases which follow in the train of famine. Jacobs words, therefore, mean, Why are you irresolute, and uncertain what to do? And then he encourages them to take this journey as a possible means of providing for the wants of their households.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JOSEPH’S FIRST MEETING WITH HIS BRETHREN, Gen 42:1-38.
1. Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt He, perhaps, saw caravans returning from Egypt with grain, and he also heard (Gen 42:2) that grain could there be had .
Why do you look one upon another The mention of Egypt and the thought of going thither probably filled the sons of Jacob with strange fears, and the aged father noticed their peculiar looks whenever the matter was alluded to . They seemed to shrink from going thither, as if they feared some retributive judgment in the land whither they had sold their brother.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The First Visit of the Brothers to Egypt to Buy Corn ( Gen 42:1-38 ).
Gen 42:1-4
‘Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look one on another?” And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get yourselves down there and buy for us from there, that we might live and not die.” And Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy corn from Egypt, but Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he said “In case mischief befalls him.” ’
At this stage, of course, they did not know that there were years of famine to come. But things were clearly bad. The rain had not come and their stores of corn were getting low and there was little prospect of renewing it locally, for everyone was suffering in the same way. But then came the news that Egypt had a sufficiency of corn and was willing to sell it to foreigners.
Through the centuries Egypt, with its usually unfailing water source in the Nile, was famed for its agricultural prosperity, and would regularly welcome Canaanites who would come in times of famine, and they would provide for them in return for reward. They were regularly welcomed into the areas across the borders, where they were allowed to stay until the situation improved and they could return to their own place. On one ancient grave relief ‘Asiatics who did not know from what they would live’ are depicted as bowing before the general Haremhab (c1330 BC).
So he had no hesitation in sending his sons to buy corn there. But he refused to let Benjamin go because he still remembered what had (in his own mind) happened to Joseph.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Gen 42:9 Scripture References Note:
Gen 37:6, “And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.”
Gen 42:15 “By the life of Pharaoh” – Comments – Oaths in the Old Testament were made by the name of someone of high authority or power.
Gen 42:21 Comments – Joseph seems to be dealing with them this way because of the way they treated him years ago.
Gen 42:22 Scripture References Note:
Gen 37:21, “And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.”
Gen 42:24 Comments – Why did Joseph choose Simeon?
Gen 42:27 Comments – Inns were in existence long before Jesus’ time.
Gen 42:28 And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us?
Gen 42:28
Gen 42:35, “And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.”
Gen 42:36 “all these things are against me” Comments – The circumstances appeared to be against Jacob, but they were if fact working on his side to bring him to a better place. Very often in life, our situations may seem difficult, but if we are endeavouring to follow the Lord, He is guiding us to a better place in this life and we are to persevere despite hardships.
Gen 42:37 And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again.
Gen 42:38 Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.
The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.
The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.
In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.
It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.
We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.
In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26
a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25
b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24
c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26
2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8
3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29
4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9
5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26
6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43
10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.
Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.
The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.
The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.
Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.
The Genealogy of Jacob The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.
Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26 gives the account of the genealogy of Jacob, Isaac’s son. Heb 11:21-22 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when Jacob and Joseph gave redemptive prophecies, saying, “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” As Abraham’s genealogy begins with a divine commission when God told him to leave Ur and to go Canaan (Gen 12:1), and Isaac’s genealogy begin with a divine commission predicting him as the father of two nations (Gen 25:23), so does Jacob’s genealogy begin with a divine encounter in the form of his son Joseph’s two dreams. These dreams make it clear that Jacob’s divine commission was to bring his clan of seventy souls into Egypt through Joseph for four hundred years while the people multiply into the nation of Israel. This genealogy closes with the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “prince of God,” because his destiny was to father a multitude of godly seed. He fathered the twelve sons, or “princes,” who multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. His ability to father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as a prince of God, as a man who ruled over a multitude of godly seed. The Scriptures testify to Jacob’s faith in God’s promise that Joseph would rule over his brethren by the fact that he followed his son into Egypt (Gen 49:22-26), and he blessed the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh (Heb 11:21-22). The fact that Jacob died in a ripe old age testifies that he fulfilled his destiny as did his fathers, Abraham and Isaac.
The Story of Joseph The last story in the origin of the nation of Israel that is recorded in the book of Genesis is the story of Joseph. Perhaps there is no other Old Testament story so moving as when he reveals himself to his brothers. There are many truths that are taught to us in this great Bible story. We learn that if we will serve the Lord amidst persecutions, God will always bring someone into our lives to bless us. Joseph had the favour and blessings of his father as a young man in the midst of his brothers’ persecutions. He then had the blessings of Potipher as a young man in Egypt. He found the favour of Pharaoh as an adult.
God gave Jeremiah some friends who stood by him and blessed him during the most difficult times in his ministry. God gave Daniel three friends in his Babylonian captivity. God gave to Paul men like Timothy and Luke to stand by him during times of persecution and even imprisonment. But for Joseph, he often stood alone, totally trusting in God.
The Chronology of the Life of Joseph – Jacob was one hundred thirty (130) years old when he went to Egypt.
Gen 47:9, “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
Jacob died at the age of 147.
Gen 47:28, “And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.”
Joseph became ruler in Egypt at the age of 30.
Gen 41:46, “And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt.”
Joseph had two sons by the age of 37.
Gen 41:50, “And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him.”
Joseph was 39 when his family comes to Egypt.
Gen 45:11, “And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.”
Therefore, Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born.
Also, Joseph died at the age of 110 (Gen 50:22; Gen 50:26)
Gen 50:22, “And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.”
Gen 50:26, “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Joseph as a Type and Figure of Christ Jesus In many ways we can see Joseph as a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. Note some comparisons:
1. Joseph was Jacob’s beloved son, just as Jesus was the Heavenly Father’s beloved son.
Mat 3:17, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
2. Joseph was given a coat of many colours, which was similar to the seamless robe worn by Jesus Christ, of which the Roman soldiers cast lots (Joh 19:23-24).
Joh 19:23-24, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”
3. Joseph took bread to his brothers, just like Jesus was sent as the bread of life to His people.
Mat 15:24-26, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.”
4. Joseph was rejected by his brothers like Jesus was rejected by His people, the Jews.
5. Joseph was thrown in the pit in Gen 37:24. This is like Jesus’ death on the cross (Psa 16:10)
Gen 37:24, “And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.”
Psa 16:10, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”
6. When Joseph was betrayed by his brethren and sold as a servant. Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot for thirty pieces of sliver.
7. Joseph became a servant in the house of Potiphar, just like Jesus Christ took form of a servant (Php 2:7) and (Psa 105:17).
Gen 37:36, “And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.”
Gen 39:1, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.”
Psa 105:17, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:”
Php 2:7, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:”
8. Joseph was sent to Egypt to deliver the house of Jacob (Israel) (Gen 45:7-8) like Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to deliver them.
Gen 45:7-8, “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
Mat 15:24, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
9. Joseph was lifted up by Potiphar, then brought down into prison, then raised up by Pharaoh at his right hand. This is like Jesus being brought down to the grave, and then being raised to the right hand of the Father.
10. Joseph was exalted as ruler under Pharaoh, like Christians at the right hand of the Father in heaven today.
11. Some scholars suggest that Joseph’s marriage to the Egyptian is a type of Christ’s marriage to the church (especially to the Gentile church). He had two sons, which symbolizes the salvation of the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
12. Joseph’s brothers bowed down to Joseph during the famine (Gen 42:6) like Israel will bow down to Jesus one day (Rom 11:26). Israel shall be saved through the Deliverer.
Gen 42:6, “And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.”
Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”
13. Joseph revealed himself to his brothers on their third trip to Egypt. The ten brothers finally coming to Joseph and recognising him and receiving an inheritance is like Israel turning to and recognising Jesus and all being saved.
Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”
Jesus will reveal Himself to the Jews after the Church is raptured at His Second Return, thus, a third return.
14. All nations came and bowed down to Joseph, as all nations will someday come and bow down at the throne of the Lord Jesus.
15. Joseph was ruler over Egypt and the whole world, just as Jesus will reign in Zion as king of kings over the earth.
The Arrival in Egypt
v. 1. Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, v. 2. And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt, v. 3. And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt, v. 4. But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, v. 5. And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came; for the famine was in the land of Canaan. v. 6. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land. v. 7. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them, EXPOSITION
Gen 42:1
Now when Jacob sawliterally, and Jacob saw, i.e. perceived by the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt (Lange), but more probably learnt by the report which others brought from. Egypt (Gen 42:2)that there was corn, either that which is broken, e.g. ground as in a mill, from , to break in pieces, to shiver (Gesenius), or that which breaks forth, hence sprouts or geminates, from an unused root, , to press out, to break forth (Furst), is here employed to denote not simply grain, but a supply of it, frumenti cumulus, for sale and purchase. The LXX. render by , and the Vulgate by quod alimenta venderenturin Egypt (vide Gen 41:54), Jacob (literally, and Jacob) said unto his sons,using verba non, ut multi volunt, increpantis, sed excitantis (Rosenmller)Why do ye look one upon another?i.e. in such a helpless and undecided manner (Keil), which, however, there is no need to regard as springing from a consciousness of guilt (Lange), the language fittingly depicting the aspect and attitude of those who are simply consiii inopes (Rosenmller).
Gen 42:2
And he said, Behold, I have heard (this does not imply that the rumor had not also reached Jacob’s sons, but only that the proposal to visit Egypt did not originate with them) that there is corn ut supra, ( LXX.), triticum (Vulgate)in Egypt: get you down thither. That Jacob did not, like Abraham (Gen 12:10)and Isaac (Gen 26:2), propose to remove his family to Egypt, may be explained either by the length of the journey, which was too great for so large a household, or by the circumstance that the famine prevailed in Egypt as well as Canaan (Gerlach). That he entrusted his sons, and not his servants, with the mission, though perhaps dictated by a sense of its importance (Lawson), was clearly of Divine arrangement for the further accomplishment of the Divine plan concerning Joseph and his brethren. And buy (i.e. buy corn, the verb being a denominative from , corn) for us from thence. From this it is apparent that the hitherto abundant flocks and herds of the patriarchal family had been greatly reduced by the long-continued and severe drought, thus requiring them to obtain food from Egypt, if either any portion of their flocks were to be saved, or themselves to escape starvation, as the patriarch explained to his sons. That we may (literally, and we shall) live, and not die.
Gen 42:3
And Joseph’s ten brethren went downeither it was for safety that all the ten went, or because, the corn being sold to individuals, the quantity received would depend on their numbers (Lange)to buy cornthe word for corn, , if not a primitive, like the Latin far (Furst), may be derived from , to separate, sever, choose out, hence purify (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Gesenius), and may describe grain as that which has been cleaned from chaff, as in Jer 4:11in (literally, from, i.e. corn to be brought from) Egypt.
Gen 42:4
But (literally, and) Benjamin, Joseph’s brother (vide Gen 35:18), Jacob sent not with his brethren. Not because of his youth (Patrick, Lange), since he was now upwards of twenty years of age, but because he was Joseph’s brother, and had taken Joseph’s place in his father’s affections (Lawson, Lange, Murphy, &c.), causing the old man to cherish him with tender solicitude. For he said (to, or within, himself, perhaps recalling the fate of Joseph), Lest peradventure mischief befall him. , from , to hurt (Gesenius, Furst), and occurring only elsewhere in Gen 42:38, Gen 44:29, and Exo 21:22, Exo 21:23, denotes any sort of personal injury in general, and in particular here such mischance as might happen to a traveler.
Gen 42:5
And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that cameliterally, in the midst of the comers; not as being desirous to lose themselves in the multitudes, as if troubled by an alarming presentiment (Lange), which is forced and unnatural; but either as forming a part of a caravan of Canaanites (Lawson), or simply as arriving among ethers who came from the same necessity (Keil). For the famine was in the land of Canaan. The statements in this verse concerning the descent of Joseph’s brethren to Egypt, and the prevalence of the famine in the land of Canaan, both of which have already been sufficiently announced (vide Gen 42:3; Gen 41:57; Gen 42:2), are neither useless repetitions nor proofs of different authorship, but simply the customary recapitulations which mark the commencement of a new paragraph or section of the history, viz; that in which Joseph’s first interview with his brethren is described.
Gen 42:6
And Joseph was the governor over the land. The word from , to rule, describes one invested with despotic authority, or a sultan (Gesenius), in which character the early Shemites appear to have regarded Joseph (Keil). It is probably the same idea which recurs in the name Salatis, which, according to Manetho, belonged to the first of the shepherd kings (Josephus, ‘Contra Apionem,’ 1.14). Occurring nowhere else in the Pentateuch, it reappears in the later writings of Ecclesiastes (Ecc 7:10; Ecc 10:5), Ezra (Ezr 4:20; Ezr 7:24), Daniel (Dan 2:15; Dan 5:29), which, however, need not suggest an exilian or post-exilian authorship, but may be explained by the fact that the root is found equally in the Arabic and Aramaean dialects (Keil). And he it was that sold to all the people of the land. Not conducted the retail corn trade (Tuch, Oort, Kuenen), which was assigned to subordinates (verse 25; Gen 44:1), but presided over the general market of the kingdom (Murphy), probably fixing the price at which the grain should be sold, determining the quantities to be allowed to purchasers, and examining the companies of foreigners who came to buy (Rosenmller, Havernick, Lange, Gerlach). And Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And so fulfilled his early dream in Shechem (Gen 37:7, Gen 37:8).
Gen 42:7
And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but (literally, and) made himself strange unto them. The root , to be marked, signed, by indentation, hence to be foreign (Furst), or simply to be strange (Gesenius), in the Hiphil signifies to press strongly into a thing (Furst), to look at a thing as strange (Gesenius), or to recognize, and in the Hithpael has the sense of representing one’s self as strange, i.e. of feigning one’s self to be a foreigner. And spake roughly unto themliterally, spake hard things unto them; not from a feeling of revenge which still struggled in his breast with his brotherly affection (Kurtz), or in a spirit of duplicity (Kaliseh), but in order to get at their hearts, and discover the exact state of mind in which they then were with regard to himself and Benjamin, whose absence it is apparent had arrested his attention, and perhaps roused his suspicions (Keil, Murphy, Wordsworth, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’ And he said unto them,speaking through an interpreter (Gen 42:23)Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan (adding, as if they feared Joseph’s suspicions, and wished to deprecate his anger) to buy food (i.e. corn for food).
Gen 42:8
And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. The lapse of time since the tragedy of Dothan, twenty years before, the high position occupied by Joseph, the Egyptian manners he had by this time assumed, and the strange tongue m which he conversed with them, all conspired to prevent Jacob’s sons from recognizing their younger brother; while the facts that Joseph’s brethren were all grown men when he had last looked upon them, that he was quite familiar with their appearances, and that he perfectly understood their speech, would account for his almost instantaneous detection of them.
Gen 42:9
And Joseph remembered (i.e. the sight of his brethren prostrating themselves before him recalled to his mind) the dreams which he dreamed (or had dreamed) of them (vide Gen 37:5) and said unto them, Ye are spies (literally, ye are spying, or going about, so as to find out, the verb signifying to move the feet); to see the nakedness of the landnot its present impoverishment from the famine (Murphy), but is unprotected and unfortified state (Keil). Cf. urbs nuda praesidio (Cic; ‘Att.,’ 7.13); taurus nudatus defensoribus (Caes; ‘Bell. Gall.,’ 2.6); (Homer, ‘Iliad,’ 12:399)ye are come. The Egyptians were characteristically distrustful of strangers,AEgyptii prae aliis gentibus diffi-dere solebant peregrinis (Rosenmller),whom they prevented, when possible, from penetrating into the interior of their country. In particular Joseph’s suspicion of his Canaanitish brethren was perfectly natural, since Egypt was peculiarly open to attacks from Palestine (Herodotus, 3.5).
Gen 42:10-12
And they said unto him. Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. “They were not filled with resentment at the imputation” cast upon them by Joseph; “or, ff they were angry, their pride was swallowed up by fear” (Lawson). We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, i.e. upright, honest, viri bonae fidei (Rosenmller), rather than (LXX.), pacifici (Vulgate)thy servants are no spies. It was altogether improbable that one man should send ten sons at the same time and to the same place on the perilous business of a spy, hence the simple mention of the fact that they were ten brethren was sufficient to establish their sincerity. Yet Joseph affected still to doubt them. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are comeassuming a harsh and almost violent demeanor hot out of heartless cruelty (Kalisch), but in order to hide the growing weakness of his heart (Candlish).
Gen 42:13
And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngestliterally, the little one (cf. Gen 9:24)is this day with our father, and oneliterally, the one, i.e. the other one, (LXX.)is noti.e. is dead (cf. Gen 5:24; Gen 37:30)in which statement have been seen a sufficient proof that Joseph’s brethren had not yet truly repented of their cruelty towards him (Keil); an evidence that time had assuaged all their bitter feelings, both of exasperation against Joseph and of remorse for their unbrotherly conduct (Murphy); a suppression of the truth (Words. worth), if not a direct falsehood (Lawson), since they wished it to be understood that their younger brother was dead, while of that they had no evidence beyond their own cunningly-invented lie (Gen 37:20) and their own probable surmisings. But in point of fact the inference was natural and reasonable that Joseph was no more, since twenty years had elapsed without any tidings of his welfare, and there was no absolute necessity requiring them to explain to the Egyptian governor all the particulars of their early life. Yet the circumstance that their assertion regarding himself was incorrect may have tended to awaken his suspicions concerning Benjamin.
Gen 42:14-16
And Joseph said unto them (betraying his excitement in his language), That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies. But Joseph knew by this time that they were not spies. Hence his persistent accusation of them, which to the brothers must have seemed despotic and tyrannical, and which cannot be referred to malevolence or revenge, must be explained by a desire on the part of Joseph to bring his brothers to a right state of mind. Hereby (or in this) ye shall be proved: By the life of Pharaohliterally, life of Pharaoh An Egyptian oath (LXX; Gesenius, Rosenmller, Kalisch, Lange), in using which Joseph was not without blame, aliquid esse fateor quod merito culpetur (Calvin) though by some (Ainsworth, Wordsworth, Murphy, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’) the expression is regarded simply as a strong asseveration (cf. 1Sa 1:26; 1Sa 17:55)ye shall not go forth hence except your youngest brother come hither. The condition, which must have appeared extremely frivolous to Joseph’s brethren, was clearly designed to ascertain the truth about Benjamin. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye (i.e. the rest of you) shall be kept in prison (literally, shall be put in bonds), that your words may be proved (literally, and your words shall be proved), whether there be any truth in you; or else (literally, and if not) by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spiesliterally (sc. I swear), that ye are spies.
Gen 42:17
And he put them all together into ward (literally, and he assembled them into prison) three days. Ostensibly in consequence of their unwillingness to agree to his proposal, but in reality to give them an experience of the suffering which they had inflicted on him, their brother, and so to awaken in their hearts a feeling of repentance. Yet the clemency of Joseph appears in this, that whereas he had lain three long years in prison as the result of their inhumanity towards him, he only inflicts on them a confinement of three days.
Gen 42:18-20
And Joseph (whose bowels of mercy were already yearning towards them) said unto them the third day, This do, and live;i.e. this do that ye may livefor I fear Godliterally, the Elohim I fear; the term Elohim being employed, since to have said Jehovah would have been to divulge, if not his Hebrew origin, at least his acquaintance with the Hebrew faith (Hengstenberg). At the same time its use would arrest them more than the preceding adjuration, By the life of Pharaoh! and, whether or not it implied that the true God was not yet unknown in Egypt (Murphy), was clearly designed to show that he was a religious and conscientious person, who would on no account condemn them on mere suspicion (Lange). If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Joseph’s first proposal, that one should go for Benjamin while nine remained as hostages for their good faith, is now reversed, and only one is required to be detained while the other nine return. If the severity of the first proposal filled them with consternation, the singular clemency of the second could not fail to impress them. Not only were the nine to be released, but their original demand for grain to carry home to Palestine was to be complied with, the grand vizier adding, to their undoubted amazement, As for the rest of you, go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses. “How differently had they acted towards their brother, whom they had intended to leave in the pit to starve” (Keil). The Egyptian governor feels compassion for their famishing households, only he will not abandon his proposition that they must return with Benjamin. But bring your youngest brother unto meor, more emphatically, and your brother, the little one, ye shall cause to come to me. That Joseph should have insisted on this stipulation, which he must have known would cause his aged father much anxiety and deep distress, is not to be explained as “almost designed” by Joseph as a chastisement on Jacob for his undue predilection in favor of Benjamin (Kalisch), but must be ascribed either to the intensity of his longing to see his brother (Murphy), or to a desire on his part to ascertain how his brethren were affected towards Benjamin (Lawson), or to a secret belief that the best mode of persuading his father to go down to him in Egypt was to bring Benjamin thither (‘Speaker’s Commentary’), or to an inward conviction that the temporary concern which Benjamin’s absence might inflict on Jacob would be more than compensated for by the ultimate good which would thereby be secured to the whole family (Kurtz), or to the fact that God, under whose guidance throughout he acted, was unconsciously leading him in such a way as to secure the fulfillment of his dreams, which required the presence of both Benjamin and Jacob in Egypt (Wordsworth, ‘ Speaker’s Commentary). The reason which Joseph himself gave to his brethren was that Benjamin’s presence was indispensable as a corroboration of their veracity. So (literally, and) shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die (the death due to spies): And they did soi.e. they consented to Joseph’s proposal.
Gen 42:21
And they said one to another (Joseph’s treatment of them beginning by this time to produce its appropriate and designed result by recalling them to a sense of their former guilt), We are verily guilty“this is the only acknowledgment of sin in the Book of Genesis” (Inglis)concerning our brother. They had been guilty of many sins, but the special iniquity of which their reception by the Egyptian governor had reminded them was that which some twenty years before they had perpetrated against their own brother. Indeed the accusation preferred against them that they were spies, the apparent unwillingness of the viceroy to listen to their request for food, and their subsequent incarceration, though innocent of any offence, were all calculated to recall to their recollection successive steps in their inhuman treatment of Joseph. In that (or because) we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us (literally, in his beseeching of us, an incident which the narrator omits to mention; but which the guilty consciences of the brethren remember), and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. The retributive character of their sufferings, which they cannot fail to perceive, they endeavor to express by employing the same word, , to describe Joseph’s anguish and their distress.
Gen 42:22
And Reubenwho had not consented to, but had been altogether unable to prevent, the wickedness of his brethren (Gen 37:22, Gen 37:29)answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child (or lad); and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is requiredliterally, and also his blood, behold it is required. This was in accordance with the Noachic law against bloodshed (Gen 9:5), with which it is apparent that Jacob’s sons were acquainted.
Gen 42:23
And they knew not (while they talked in what they imagined to be a foreign dialect to the Egyptian viceroy) that Joseph understood them;literally, heard (so as to understand what was said)for he spake unto them by an interpreterliterally, for the interpreter. (, the hiph. part; with the art; of , to speak barbarously, in the hiph. to act as an interpreter), i.e. the official Court interpreter, (LXX.), was between them.
Gen 42:24
And he turned himself about from them (in order to hide his emotion), and wept (as he reflected on the wonderful leadings of Divine providence, and beheld the pitiful distress of his brethren); and returned to them again (having previously withdrawn from them a space), and communed with them (probably about the one of them that should remain behind), and took from themby a rough act of authority, since they either could not or would not settle among themselves who should be the prisoner (Candlish)Simeon,passing by Reuben not because he was the firstborn (Tuch, Lengerke), but because he was comparatively guiltless (Keil, Kalisch, Lange, Candlish, and expositors generally), and selecting Simeon either as the eldest of the guilty ones (Aben Ezra, Keil, Lange, Murphy, Wordsworth, Alford, and others), or as the chief instigator of the sale of Joseph (Philo, Rosenmller, Furst, Kalisch, Gerlach, Lawson, et alii)and bound him before their eyesthus forcibly recalling to their minds what they had done to him (Wordsworth), and perhaps hoping to incite them, through pity for Simeon, to return the more speedily with Benjamin (Lawson).
Gen 42:25
Then (literally, and) Joseph commanded to fillliterally, commanded, and they (i.e. Joseph’s men) filledtheir sacks (rather, vessels or receptacles, ) with corn, and to restore every man’s money (literally, their pieces of silver, each) into his sack,, saccus, , , sack (vide Gen 37:34). Joseph “feels it impossible to bargain, with his father and his brethren for bread” (Baumgarten)and to give them prevision for the way: and thus did he (literally, it was done) unto them.
Gen 42:26
And they laded their asses with the corn (literally, put their grain upon their asses), and departed (or went) thence.
Gen 42:27
And as one of them opened his sackliterally, and the one opened his sack, i.e. they did not all open their sacks on the homeward journey, although afterwards, in reporting the circumstance to Joseph, they represent themselves as having done so (Gen 43:21); but only one at the wayside inn, and the rest on reaching home (Gen 42:35; vide infra, Gen 43:21)to give his ass provender in the inn (the , from morf , an inn to pass the night, was not in the modern sense of the term, but simply a halting-place or camping station where travelers were wont to lodge, without finding for themselves or animals any other food than they carried with them), he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sack’s mouthliterally, in the opening, of his amtachath, , from , to spread out, an old word for a sack (Gen 43:18, Gen 43:21, Gen 43:22), here used synonymously with , from which it would seem that the travelers carried two sorts of bags, one for the corn (Gen 42:25), and another for the called asses’ provender called . It was in the latter that the money had been placed.
Gen 42:28
And he (i.e. the one who had opened his sack) said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack (amtachath): and their heart failed them (literally, went forth; as it were, leapt into their mouths through sudden apprehension), and they were afraid, saying one to another (literally, they trembled each one to his brother, a constructio pregnans for they turned trembling towards one another, saying), What is this that God hath done unto us? Elohim is used, and not Jehovah, because the speakers simply desire to characterize the circumstance as supernatural.
Gen 42:29-34
And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto them (literally, all the things happening to them, the participle being construed with the accusative); saying, The man, who is the lord of the land, spake roughly to us (literally, spake the man, lord of the country, with us harsh things, the order and arrangement of the words indicating the strong feeling which their treatment in Egypt had excited), and took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies: we be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan (vide Gen 42:11, Gen 42:13). And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of Our brethren here with me, and take food r the famine of your households, and be gone. It is observable that they do not mention Joseph’s first proposal, probably because of Joseph’s subsequent kindness; neither do they intimate the fact that Simeon was bound, perhaps through a desire to soften the blow as much as possible for their venerable parent. And bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land (cf. Gen 34:10).
Gen 42:35
And it came to pass as they emptied (literally, they emptying) their sacks, that (literally, and), behold, every man’s bundle of money (or silver) was in his sack: and when (literally, and) both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they (literally, and they) were afraid.
Gen 42:36
And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved (or are ye bereaving) of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not (Jacob appears to suspect that in some way or another his sons had been responsible for Joseph’s disappearance as well as Simeon’s), and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against meliterally, upon me, as an heavy burden, which I must bear alone.
Gen 42:37
And Reuben spake unto his father, saying (Reuben was probably actuated by an ardent brotherly affection, which prompted him to endeavor to recover Simeon, as formerly he had sought to deliver Joseph), Slay my two sonsas Reuben had four sons (Gen 46:9), he first be understood as meaning two of my sons (Ainsworth, Murphy), either the two then present (Junius) or the two oldest (Mercerus)if I bring him (i.e. Benjamin) not to thee. Reuben’s proposal, though in one sense “the greatest and dearest offer that a son could make to a father” (Keil), was either only a sample of strong rhetoric (like Joseph’s “By the life of Pharaoh!”) designed to assure his father of the impossibility of failure (Lawson, Candlish, Inglis), and of the fact that neither he nor his brethren entertained any injurious designs against Benjamin (Calvin); or, if seriously made, was not only inconsiderate and rash, spoken in the heat of the moment (Kurtz), but sinful and unnatural (Ainsworth), plusquam barbarura (Calvin), and absolutely worthless besides, as what consolation would it be to Jacob to add to the loss of a son the murder of his grandchildren? (Calvin, Willet). Deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. Reuben might have learned to avoid strong asseverations on this point. “It was his wish to bring Joseph home to his father, and yet he could not persuade his brethren to comply with his intentions. It was his desire to bring Simeon safe to his father, and yet he was compelled to leave him in Egypt” (Lawson).
Gen 42:38
And he (i.e. Jacob) said, My son shall not go down with you;not because he could not trust Reuben after the sin described in Gen 35:22 (Wordsworth), or because he could not assent to Reuben’s proposal (Ainsworth), but because of what is next statedfor his brother (i.e. by the same mother, viz; Joseph) is dead (cf. Gen 35:13; Gen 37:33; Gen 44:28), and he is left alone:i.e. he alone (of Rachel’s children) is left as a survivorif mischief befall him (literally, and mischief shall befall him) by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye (literally, and ye shall) bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the graveSheol (cf. Gen 37:35).
HOMILETICS
Gen 42:1-38
The first visit of Joseph’s brethren to Egypt.
I. THE JOURNEY TO EGYPT (Gen 42:1-5).
1. The famishing household. Although Canaan was the land of promise, and the family of Jacob the Church of God, yet neither was the one nor the other exempted from the pressure of that heavy famine which had fallen on all surrounding lands and peoples. It is not God’s intention that his people should escape participating in the ills of life. Besides enabling them, collectively and individually, to sympathize with their fellow-men, it is a means under God of advancing their own sanctification, and oftentimes as well of furthering the purposes of God concerning both the world and the Church.
2. The perplexed brethren. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, and the rest of them were manifestly at their wits’ end what to do to keep themselves from starving. If the thought of Egypt had anything to do with their listlessness and inactivity, it may remind us how dangerous it is to sin, the memory of past transgressions having an uncomfortable habit of springing up at unexpected moments, like grim and shaggy lions in the path; if their spiritless dejection was in no way connected with the Dothan tragedy, it shows that saints are not necessarily a whit more talented or fertile in expedient than their ungodly neighbors, and are frequently as helpless as the rest of them in the face of sudden and overwhelming calamities. Grace, though it gives goodness, does not guarantee greatness.
3. The parental exhortation. Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, and forthwith proposed that his sons should undertake a journey thither to fetch a supply for their necessities, at the same time prefacing his sound advice with a word of brisk reproof at their want of push in the face of news so full of comfort and hope as that grain might be had for the purchase. Jacob clearly discerned that, while it was right in them to look to God for help in their distress, it was also expected of them by God that they should help themselves. Although God promises to give his people bread, he does not undertake to relieve them of all trouble in the matter. If he provides corn in Egypt, he expects men to go for it; and it is a mark of sound sense, if it is not a sign of grace, when men are able to detect in Egypt providential supplies for their necessities.
4. The important mission. Concerning which may be noticed
(1) The number of the travelers: Joseph’s ten brethren. Whether it was for safety to themselves, or for the advantage of the household to enable them to return with larger supplies, it was clearly a wise providential arrangement that the ten brethren who had sinned against the son of Rachel should go down to Egypt.
(2) The destination of the travelers: Egypt. In all probability Egypt was the last place that they would ever have thought of going to. It is scarcely likely that they had quite forgotten Joseph. Whether or not they suspected that Joseph might yet be alive, they knew that he had gone to Egypt as a slave. And now they were themselves upon the way to the scene of Joseph’s captivity. If Joseph’s brethren were thoughtful men at all, they must have had their reflections by the way.
(3) The object of the travelers: to buy corn. This at least was a lawful and an honorable purpose, which is more than could be said of some of their previous adventures. But God’s people, whether they abide in Canaan or go to Egypt, should follow peace with, and provide things honest in the sight of, all men.
5. The paternal reservation. “But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren.” If Jacob’s reason for detaining Benjamin was anxiety for himself, who was now an old man, and afraid to lose the lad who served him as the son of his old age, it may remind us of the feebleness and helplessness of age, and of the duty of the young, to comfort and assist the old. If it was anxiety for Benjamin, whom he feared to expose to the fate of Joseph, it is a beautiful example of the tenderness and strength of a father’s love, and may well suggest the duty of rewarding that love with true filial affection. If it was anxiety for his ten sons, lest in the case of Benjamin they should repeat the crime which they had perpetrated against Joseph, it shows how difficult it is to remove from the minds of others, even of those who have the most disposition to judge us with charity, unfavorable impressions concerning ourselves when once they have been formed. There is good reason for believing that a change had passed upon the characters of Joseph’s brethren since the dark deed at Dothan. Yet the old man was afraid to trust them. If once by our wickedness we forfeit the confidence of our fellow-men, these are not to be blamed if in future they fail to trust our integrity and honor.
II. THE INTERVIEW WITH THE GOVERNOR (Gen 42:6-25).
1. Humble homage to the governor. Arriving in Egypt, the sons of Jacob were conducted to the presence of the viceroy, and they “bowed down before him with their faces.” Such respectful behavior was due to the majesty of him in whose presence they stood (Rom 13:7), and was admirably fitted to the character in which they came. They who have a suit to press, at an earthly or a heavenly throne, should be “clothed with humility.”
2. Non-recognition of the governor. The moment Joseph looked upon the Hebrew strangers he knew them to-be his brethren. But they entirely failed to discern him; because
(1) he spoke like a foreigner”an interpreter was between them;”
(2) he dressed like an Egyptianhe wore a garment-of byssus, like art Egyptian priest (Gen 41:42);
(3) he swore like a courtier”By the life of Pharaoh,” which certainly his brethren knew was not the language of Canaan. Yet, if they had been as anxious to see their lost brother as he had been to see them, not even these disguises would have concealed his identity.
3. Harsh treatment by the governor.
(1) The nature of it. He spoke to them roughly, he questioned them straitly, he accused them directly, he proved them severely, he imprisoned them closely.
(2) The reason of it. Scarcely revenge; ostensibly to test their sincerity; but really to conceal his own identity, in order to secure time for thought how to act, and, if possible, to penetrate into their characters.
(3) The mitigation of it. At the end of three days he somewhat relaxed his proposition, asking them to leave only one of their brethren instead of nine, viz; Simeon, whom he took and bound before their eyes.
4. Bitter grief before the governor.
(1) The remembrance of their sin. As a result of their rough handling by the Egyptian vizier, they began to think of Joseph and their early sin against him, which almost every step in their present experience vividly recalled. It is good when affliction brings sin to mind.
(2) The confession of their guilt. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother.” It is better when tribulation leads to an acknowledgment of ill desert.
(3) The recognition of their punishment. They saw the hand of God pursuing them for their wickedness, and requiting them, as they imagined, for Joseph’s blood. It is best when God’s retributive dispensations make the soul sensitive and humble.
5. Unexpected kindness from the governor. Though he did not depart from his original demand that they should bring down Benjamin, and though he insisted on retaining Simeon as a hostage for their obedience, he yet granted their request for corn, and, unknown to them as yet, caused their money to be restored to their sacks. So Christ often deals with penitents; first blows and buffetings, then benefits and blessings.
III. THE RETURN TO CANAAN (Gen 42:26-38).
1. The startling discovery. Resting for the night at a wayside khan, or lodging-place, one of the brethren, having had occasion to give his beast a little provender, opened out his sack, and lo! the silver money he had paid for his corn was in its mouth. The same discovery was made by the rest on reaching Hebron. The instruction which Joseph gave his steward had not been heard by them, and they had penetration to see how the circumstance might be turned to their disadvantage. They were innocent of any crime in this matter; but how were they to explain it to the austere and impenetrable man who sat upon the throne of Egypt? “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.” The best that can be said of them in this connection is that they had piety enough to see the hand of God in the untoward affair.
2. The faithful report. On arriving at Hebron, they related to their father Jacob all that had befallen them in Egypt” beginning with the rough reception they had gotten from the governor, and ending with the startling discovery they had just made; in all which there was at least a symptom of improvement in the characters of those ten brethren. Here was none of the concealment and lying that marked them at an earlier stage in their history, as when they palmed off upon their aged parent the clever story of the wild beast and the bloody coat to account for Joseph’s disappearance. They presented themselves as before without their brother, but this time they told the truth: Simeon was a hostage in Egypt for the bringing down of Benjamin.
3. The parental sorrow. In the anguish of the moment Jacob committed three mistakes.
(1) About his sons who had returned from Egypt, whom he was manifestly blaming for the loss both of Simeon and Joseph,”Me ye are bereaving,”which should lead us to beware of passing hasty judgments upon the characters of others, of those even whom we may think we know best.
(2) About the two who were detained in Egypt, Joseph and Simeon, the first of whom he thought he knew was already dead, and the second of whom he feared had shared the same fate; whereas Joseph was in honor in Egypt, and Simeon was only languishing in temporary confinement.
(3) About himself. and Benjamin, that their separation would but be the beginning of sorrow for them both, whereas it was to be the means of leading both to happiness and honor. So God’s providences are often misinterpreted by his saints. Contrast with Jacob’s exclamation that of Paul in Rom 8:28.
4. The filial security. Reuben offers to undertake the charge of Benjamin, and to he responsible for his safe-conduct to Egypt and back again, and in so far the act of Reuben was generous and kindly towards both Jacob and Benjamin; but his proposal that Jacob should slay two of his sons if he failed to deliver Benjamin was rash, unnatural, and sinful, and accordingly was at once rejected by the patriarch.
See in this interesting narrative
1. The fact of an overruling providence, exemplified in God’s bringing Joseph’s brethren to Egypt.
2. The strength of human affection, illustrated by Joseph’s emotion in presence of his brethren, and Jacob’s pathetic fondness for Benjamin.
3. The power of a guilty conscience, exhibited m the mutual recriminations of the brethren with reference to the sale of Joseph.
4. The beneficial influence of the discipline of life, as portrayed in the good effects produced by Joseph’s rough handling of his brethren.
5. The short-sightedness of sense and reason, as seen in Jacob’s lamentation, “All these things are against me,” while, on the contrary, all things were working together for his good.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 42:1-38
God’s trials of his people.
The trial of Joseph is over. Now comes the trial of his brethren and of Jacob. The Spirit of God is at work in all their hearts. True men they were and yet sinful men. Before they can be made partakers of the blessing of Joseph they must pass through the fire. He who is appointed minister of grace to them is the instrument of their trials. Notice
I. The trial is one of CONSCIENCE. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother. “His blood is required.” Face to face with one whom they supposed to be a heathen man, they are reproved. They have to tell facts which smite them with inward reproach.
II. The trial is one of HEART. To leave Simeon behind, to be afraid both for him and for themselves and for Benjamin. To be keenly perplexed and agonized for their old father. To be deeply wounded in the remembrance of their brother Joseph’s anguish of soul and helpless cries for pity.
III. The trial is one of FAITH. “What is thin that God hath done unto us?” In the midst of all the roughness, and the fear, and the trouble there is still the feeling that they are being dealt with in some mysterious way by God himself, and there is a mingling of faith with their fear. Reuben again represents the better element in their character, and as they follow him they are led into peace. Joseph’s smile is the smile of the loving heart which sometimes dissembles that it may reveal itself the more fully when the opportunity comes. He wept behind their backs. He was hiding the intensest love and the most abundant forgiveness and pitifulness, while he appeared to be a rough enemy. Still there were signs mingled with the harsh treatment that it was not all harsh. The sacks were filled with corn, and the money was returned. A deeper faith would have penetrated the secret. But those that have to be led from the feeble faith to the strong, have to be tried with appearances that seem, as Jacob said, “all against“ them. How often the believer says, “All these things are against me,” when he is already close upon that very stream of events which will carry him out of his distress into the midst of plenty, peace, and the joy of a healed heart in its recovered blessedness. Jacob poured out his natural fears and complaints, yet how little they were founded on truth. The son for whom he mourned yet lived and closed his eyes, and his gray hairs went to the grave in peace.R.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 42:1, Gen 42:2
Man’s want and God’s provision.
The famine was part of God’s plan to carry out his promise to Abraham (Gen 15:13, Gen 15:14). But it is not merely a fact in the historical preparation for what he was bringing to pass; a link in the chain of events leading on to Christ. We must look upon it as part of a series of types foreshadowing gospel truths. The famine was a step towards the promised possession, and has its counterpart in the work of the Holy Spirit. It represents the spiritual want of man; conviction of sin (Joh 16:8; cf. Rom 7:9), leading to know the power of Christ’s work (Mat 18:11).
I. The first step is CONSCIOUSNESS OF FAMINE; that a man’s life is more than meat; more than a supply of bodily wants. It is realizing that he has wants beyond the present life; that in living for time he has been following a shadow. This knowledge is not natural to us. Bodily hunger soon makes itself felt, bat the soul’s need does not; and until it is known, the man may be “poor and blind and naked,” and yet suppose that he is “rich and increased with goods.”
II. WE CANNOT OF OURSELVES SUPPLY THAT WANT. Gradually we learn how great it is. We want to still the accusing voice of conscience; to find a plea that shall avail in judgment; to see clearly the way of life that we may not err therein. In vain we look one on another, seeking comfort in the good opinion of men, in their testimony to our upright life. In vain we try to satisfy ourselves, by promises to do better, or by offerings of our substance or of our work. In vain is it to seek rest in unbelief, or in the persuasion that in some way all will be right. The soul cannot thus find peace. There is a voice which at times will make itself heard”all have sinned”thou hast sinned.
III. GOD HAS PROVIDED BREAD. “I have heard that there is corn in Egypt” (cf. Rom 10:18), answers to the gospel telling of the bread of life. As to this we mark
1. It was provided before the want arose (1Pe 1:20; Rev 13:8). The gospel tells us of what has already been done, not of a gift to come into existence on certain conditions. The ransom of our souls has been paid. We have to believe and take (Rev 22:17).
2. How faith works. They must go for that food which was ready for them. To take the bread of life must be a real earnest act, not a listless assent. The manna which was to be gathered, the brazen serpent to which the sick were to look, the command to the impotent “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” all show that it is not enough merely to wish, there must be the effort of faith (cf. 1Th 1:3). This is a law of the spiritual kingdom. As natural laws regulate results within their, domain, so spiritual results must be sought in accordance with spiritual laws.
3. It is our Brother who has made provision for us. This is our confidence. He waits to reveal himself when in humility and emptiness we come to him, and to give us plenty (1Co 3:21, 1Co 3:22).M.
Gen 42:1. When Jacob saw That is, was informed, had heard, as it is in the second verse. See Act 7:12. He said, why do ye look one upon another? a phrase expressing great distress, and ignorance of the means of relief.
SIXTH SECTION
Retributive Discipline. The Famine and the First Journey to Egypt. Josephs struggles with himself. The repentance of the Brethren. Joseph and Simeon.
Gen 42:1-38.
1Now when Jacob saw there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? 2And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. 3And Josephs ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. 4But Benjamin, Josephs brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief1 befall him. 5And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came; 6for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land; and Josephs brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. 7And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them, and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan, to buy food. 8And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. 9And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 10And they said unto them, 11Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one mans sons; we are, true men; thy servants are no spies. 12And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 13And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. 14And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies; 15Hereby ye shall be proved; By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. 16Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh 17surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. 18And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God: 19If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison; go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses; 20But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. 21And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. 22And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required, 23And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter. 24And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. 25Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every mans money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way; and thus did he unto them. 26And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence. 27And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sacks mouth. 28And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored, and, lo, it is even in my sack; and their heart failed them,2 and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? 29And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto them, saying. 30The man, who is the Lord of the land, spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. 31And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies; 32We be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. 33And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone; 34And bring your youngest brother unto me; then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men; so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land. 35And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every mans bundle of money was in his sack; and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. 36And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me. 37And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee; deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. 38And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone; if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
PRELIMINARY REMAKES
1. It appears uncertain to Knobel which narrator (the Elohist or the Jehovist) tells the story here. Many expressions, says he, favor the original Scripture, but some seem to testify for the Jehovist, e. g., land of Goshen (Gen 45:10), thy servant instead of I (Gen 42:10). Very singular examples truly! Yet the language, it is then said, is rich in peculiarities. This part the Jehovist is said to have made up from his first record. A very peculiar presentation this, of the of different authors, as obtained by such a combination. The (words or expressions occurring but once) are always forth-coming from behind the scene. Such is the dead representation of that spiritless book-making, or rather that book-mangling criticism, now so much in vogue with those who make synopses of the New Testament.
2. The history of Josephs reconciliation to his brethren extends through four chapters, from Genesis 41-45 It contains: 1) The history of the chastisement of the brothers, which, at the same time is a history of Josephs struggles; 2) of the repentance of his brothers, marked by the antithesis Joseph and Simeon (Genesis 42); 3) the trial of the brothers, in which appears their repentance and Josephs reconciliation, marked by the antithesis of Joseph and Benjamin (Gen 43:1; Gen 44:17); 4) the story of the reconciliation and recognition, under the antithesis of Judah and Joseph (Gen 44:18; Gen 45:16); 5) the account of the glad tidings to Jacob (Gen 42:7-28).
1. The contents of the present section: 1) The journey to Egypt (Gen 42:1-6); 2) the rough reception (Gen 42:7-17); 3 the tasks imposed and the arrangements made by Joseph (Gen 42:18-34); 4) The voluntary release, the return home, the report, the dark omen (Gen 42:25-35); 5) Jacobs lament (Gen 42:36-38).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
3. Gen 42:1-6. The first journey of Josephs brethren to Egypt.When Jacob saw.It is already presupposed that the famine was raging in Canaan. Jacobs observation was probably based upon the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt. The word is translated corn, but more properly means a supply of corn (frumenti cumulus, Gesen., Thesaur.), or vendible or market corn.Why do ye look one upon another?Their helpless and suspicious looking to each other seems to be connected with their guilt. The journey to Egypt, and the very thought of Egypt haunts them on account of Josephs sale.And Josephs ten brethren.They thus undertake the journey together, because they received corn in proportion to their number. For though Joseph was humanely selling corn to foreigners, yet preference for his own countrymen, and a regard to economy, demanded a limitation of the quantity sold to individuals.But Benjamin.Jacob had transferred to Benjamin his preference of Joseph as the son of Rachel, and of his old age (Gen 37:3). He guarded him, therefore, all the more carefully on account of the self-reproach he suffered from having once let Joseph take a dangerous journey all alone. Besides, Benjamin had not yet arrived at full manhood. Finally, although the facts were not clearly known to him, yet there must be taken into the account the deep suspicion he must have felt when he called to mind the strange disappearance of Joseph, their envy of him, and all this the stronger because Benjamin, too, was his favoriteRachels son, Josephs brother.Among those that came.The picture of a caravan. Jacobs sons seem willing to lose themselves in the multitudes, as if troubled by an alarming presentiment. Knobel thinks the city to which they journeyed was Memphis. According to others it was probably Zoar or Tanais (see Num 13:23). By the double the writer denotes the inevitableness of their appearing before Joseph. Having the general oversight of the sale, he specially observed the selling to foreigners, and it appears to have been the rule that they were to present themselves before him. Such a direction, though a proper caution in itself, might have been connected in the mind of Joseph with a presentiment of their coming. He himself was the . The circumstance that this word appears otherwise only in later writers may be partly explained from the peculiarity of the idea itself. See Dan 5:29. Here Daniel is represented as the third (shalit) of the kingdom. It seems to have been the standing title by which the Shemites designated Joseph, as one having despotic power in Egypt, and from which later tradition made the word , the name of the first Hyksos king (see Josephus: Contra Apion. i. 14).KeilAnd bowed themselves.Thus Josephs dreams were fulfilled, as there had been already fulfilled the dreams of Pharaoh.
2. Gen 42:7-17. The harsh reception. Joseph recognized them immediately, because, at the time of his abduction, they were already grown up men, who had not changed as much as he, and because, moreover, their being all together brought out distinctly their individual characteristics. He was, besides, familiar with their language and its idioms. They, on the contrary, did not recognize him because he had attained his manhood since in Egypt,because he appeared before them clad in foreign attire, and introduced himself, moreover, as an Egyptian who spoke to them through an interpreter. Add to this, that he had probable reasons for expecting his brethren, whilst they could have had no thought of meeting Joseph in the character of the shalit.But made himself strange unto them.By speaking roughly unto them. It is a false ascription to Joseph of a superhuman perfection and holiness, when, with Luther, Delitzsch, Keil, and others (see Keil, p. 259), we suppose that Joseph, with settled calmness, only intended to become acquainted with the disposition of their hearts, so as to lead them to a perception of their guilt, and to find out how they were disposed towards his hoary sire, and their youngest brother. Kurtz is more correct in supposing it a struggle between anger and gentleness. Their conduct to himself may have even made it a sign of suspicion to him that Benjamin did not accompany them. True it is, that a feeling of love predominates; since the humiliation foretold in his dreams was already, for the most part, fulfilled, and he might, therefore, expect the arrival of his father, and of his brother Benjamin, who would, at the same time, represent his mother. His future position towards them, however, must be governed by circumstances. The principal aim, therefore, of his harsh address, is to sound them in respect to their inner and outer relations. According as things should appear were they to expect punishment or forbearance. Finding them well disposed, self-renunciation becomes easier to him; whilst his harsh conduct is to them only a wholesome discipline.Ye are spies.That such a danger was common, in those ancient days of emigration and conquest, is clear from various instances (Num 21:32; Jos 2:1, etc.). See also Knobel, p. 321. Moreover, Egypt was exposed to invasion from the North. Supposing, too, that Joseph had already a presentiment of how the affair would turn out, he might term them spies, with something of an ironical feeling, because their coming was undoubtedly a preliminary to their settlement in Egypt.The nakedness of the landits unfortified cities, unprotected boundaries, etc. Afterwards Joseph himself becomes to them the gate through which they enter Egypt.Nay, my Lord.Their answer shows a feeling of dignified displeasure.We are all one mans sons, we are true men.Yet their mortified pride is restrained by fear and respect. Joseph repeats his charge, and so gets from them the further information, that his father is still alive, and that Benjamin was well at home.And one is not.From this expression Keil concludes that they did not yet feel much sorrow for their deed. But are they to confess to the Egyptian shalit? If, however, their distress alone had afterwards drawn from them a sudden repentance, it could hardly have been genuine.That is it that I spake with you.Josephs great excitement shows itself in his wavering determinations quickly succeeding and correcting each other. They gravitate from severity to mildness. In Gen 42:14, we have his positive decision that they are spies, and are, therefore, to expect death. In Gen 42:15, it is made conditional. As a test of their truth they are to be retained until the arrival of their brother.By the life of Pharaoh.3The Egyptians, as the Hebrews afterwards, swore by the life of their kings (see Knobel, 322). Joseph thus swears as an Egyptian. His main solicitude, however, appears here already: he must know how Benjamin does, and their disposition towards him. In Gen 42:16, he expresses himself more definitely: one of them is to go and bring the brother, the others are to remain in confinement. A change follows in Gen 42:17, they are confined for three days, probably on account of the expression of their unwillingness to fetch Benjamin. Pit for pit (see Gen 37:24)! These three days, however, were to Joseph a time for reflection, and for the brothers a time of visitation. They all seemed now to have fallen into slavery in Egypt, even if they had not incurred the death of criminals. How this must have made them remember Josephs sale! One ray of hope has he left them: on Benjamins appearance they could be released.
3. Gen 42:18-24. The hard terms imposed; Josephs arrangement and the repentance of the brothers; Josephs struggle; Simeon in prison.This do and live.Joseph now presents the charge in its conditional aspect. The motive assigned: For I fear God.This language is the first definite sign of peacethe first lair self-betrayal of his heart. Agitated feelings lie concealed under these words. It is as much as to say: I am near to you, and to your faith. For them, it is true, the expression meant that he was a religious and conscientious man, who would never condemn on mere suspicion. It is an assertion, too, on which they are more to rely than on the earlier asseveration made: by the life of Pharaoh.Let one of your brethren he bound.Before, it was said: one shall go, but the others remain; now the reverse, and more mildly: one shall remain, but the others may go. This guarantees the return with Benjamin, and leaves them under the impression that they are not yet free from suspicion. Joseph sees the necessity of the others going, for his fathers house must be supplied with bread.And they did so.A summary expression of what follows, but anticipatory of their readiness to comply with Josephs request.We are verily guilty.Not: we atone for our brothers death (Delitzsch); for thus there would be effaced the thought that the guilt was still resting upon them. The expiation is expressed in what follows.Therefore is this distress come upon us.Knobel translates it atoning, and makes the trivial remark: All misfortune, according to the Hebrew notion, is a punishment for sin. Josephs case itself directly contradicts him.When he besought us.Thus vividly paints the evil conscience. The narrator had not mentioned this beseeching. Thus are they compelled to make confession in Josephs hearing, without the thought that he understands them. But their open confession, made, as it was, before the interpreter, betrays the pressure of their sense of guilt.And Reuben answered.A picture of the thoughts that accuse or excuse one another (Rom 2:15). Reuben, too, is not wholly innocent; but, as against them, he thought to act the censurer, and what he did to save Joseph he represents in the strongest light. We may, indeed, conclude that his counsel to cast him into the pit was preceded by unheeded entreaties for his entire freedom.For he spake with them by an interpreter.Knobel here has to encounter the difficulty that Joseph, as an officer of the Hyksos (to use his own language), assumes the appearance of not being able to speak Hebrew.And he turned himself about from them.Overcome by his emotion, he has to turn away and weep. This is repeated more powerfully at the meeting with Benjamin (Gen 43:30) and finally, in a most touching manner, after Judahs appeal (Gen 44:18, etc.). The cause of this emotion, thrice repeated, and each time with increasing power, is; in every instance, some propitiating appeal. In the first case, it is the palliating thought that Reuben, the first-born, intended to save him, and yet takes to himself the feeling of the guilt that weighed upon them. In the second case it is the appearance of the young and innocent Benjamin, his beloved brother, as though standing before the guilty brethren. In the third instance, it is Judahs self-sacrifice in behalf of Benjamin and his fathers house. The key-note of Josephs emotion, therefore, is this perception of atoning love, purifying the bitter recollection of injustice suffered. A presentiment and a sentiment of reconciliation melt the heart which the mere sense of right might harden, and becomes even a feeling, at the same time, of divine and human reconciliation. Only as viewed from this definite perception can we estimate the more general feelings that flow from it: painful recollection of the past, and thankfulness to God for his gracious guidance.And returned to them again.Josephs first emotion may have removed his harsh decisiveness. His feeling of justice, however, is not yet satisfied; still less is there restored his confidence in his brethren, especially in reference to the future of Benjamin. But before adopting any severer measures, he communed with them, doubtless in a conciliatory manner. Then he takes Simeon, binds him, or orders him to be bound, that he might remain as a hostage for their return. That he does not order Reuben, the first-born, to be bound, explains itself from the discovery of his guiltlessness. Thus Simeon, as standing next, is the first-born of the guilty ones. He did not adopt Reubens plan of deliverance, though he did not especially distinguish himself in Josephs persecution, as might have been expected of him from his zealous disposition shown in the affair of Shechem,a fact the more easily credited since neither did Judah, the next after him, agree with the majority.
4. Gen 42:25-35. The voluntary release; the return; the report; the dark omen.To fill their sacks., receptacles or vessels, in the most general sense.To restore every mans money with his sack.Joseph would not receive pay from his father, and yet he could not openly return the money without betraying a particular relation to them. Therefore the secret measure, one object of which, doubtless, was to keep up the fear and excitement, as it also served to give them reasons for expecting something extraordinary.Provisions for the way.To prevent the decrease of their store, and to make unnecessary the premature opening of their sacks.One of them opened his sack.At the place of their night-quarters. It could not have been what we now call an inn. Delitzsch supposes that, at that time, already, there were shed-like buildings, caravanseras, existing along the route through the desert (Exo 4:24). Keil doubts this. The fact of the separate opening of his sack by one of them, demands no explanation. He might have made a mistake in the sack, or the money might have been put in a wrong one; but even this circumstance is so arranged as to increase the fear of their awakened consciences.What is this that God hath done unto us?They are conscious of no deception on their part, and they cannot understand how the Egyptians could have done it. Whether it were an oversight on their side, or a cunning trick of the Egyptians to arrest them afterwards for theftat all events, their aroused consciences tell them that they have now to contend with God. They see a dark and threatening sign in it, now that a sense of Gods judgments is awakened in them.And they came unto Jacob.The story of their strange intercourse with the terrible man in Egypt, is confirmed by the fearful discovery made when all the sacks are opened. Josephs intimation, which they report, that they might traffic again in Egypt, provided they fulfilled the imposed condition, is a ray of light, which, in their present mood, they hardly knew how to appreciate.
5. Gen 42:36-38. Jacobs lamentation.Me have ye bereaved of my children.The pain of Simeons apparent loss, grief for Joseph here renewed again, and the anguish concerning Benjamin, move Jacob greatly, and cause him to express himself, hyperbolically indeed, but still truthfully, according to his conception, as a man overwhelmed with misfortune, and losing his children, one after the other. So little thought the wise and pious Jacob how Dear was the joyful turning-point in the destiny of his house. His reproach: me have ye bereaved of my children, as addressed to those who might have formally contradicted it, is more forcible in its application than he could have thought. Or had he a presentiment of something he knew not? In regard to Joseph he could only knowingly charge that he had once sent him to them, and they had not brought him back. In respect to Simeon he could only reproach them with having told too much to the governor of Egypt respecting their family affairs (see Genesis 43). Respecting Benjamin he could only complain that they should ask to take him along. The aroused consciences of his sons, however, told them that truly all the threatening losses of Jacob were connected with their removal of Joseph; for they themselves considered the present catastrophe as a visitation on account of it.And Reuben spake.With a clearer conscience, he has also more courage; but his offer to leave his sons as hostages, so that Jacob might slay them if he did not return with Benjamin, is more expressive of a rude heroism than of true understanding; for how could it be a satisfaction to a grandfather to slay both his grandchildren! It can only be understood as a tender of a double blood-vengeance, or as a strong expression of assurance that his return without Benjamin was not to be thought of. Knobel thinks it strange that Reuben speaks of two sons, since at the time of the emigration to Egypt, according to Genesis 46, he had four sons. And yet he was quite advanced in years, according to the Elohistic account!With sorrow to the grave (see Gen 37:35; 1Ki 2:6; 1Ki 2:9).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. A chapter showing the unfailing fulfilment of the divine decrees, the power of a guilty conscience, the righteous punishment of guilty concealers as visited by suspicion on all sides, the certainty of final retribution, the greatness of moral struggles, the imaginations of an evil conscience, the presentiments of misfortune as felt by a gray-haired sire in a guilty house, and, with it all, the change from judgment to reconciliation and salvation in the life of the now docile sons of the promise. 3. Why do the sons of Jacob look so helplessly one upon the other? Why does it not come into their minds that corn is for sale in Egypt, and that a caravan of travellers is making preparation in their vicinity,? To their guilty conscience, Egypt is a foreboding name, threatening calamity. If they must go, however, they would rather go all together, that, in the multitude, they may find mutual encouragement. They have to explain why they come ten strong, and are thus driven to speak about Joseph; but with what embarrassment do they pass hastily over one who is no more! And now, terrified by the prospect of imprisonment, and threatened with death, they are unable, even in Josephs presence, and within the hearing of the interpreter, to suppress their self-accusation: We are verily guilty concerning our brother. And now, again, how vividly come to their minds the prayers of that brother, in vain beseeching them for mercy. So truthful is the memory of conscience. The money, too, found again in the sack of one of them, becomes another fearful sign that the divine judgments are at last to descend upon them. The last discovery of it in the sacks of all of them, fills up the measure of their fears. All favorable signs are gone: the twofold mitigation of Josephs purpose; his assurance: I fear God; his explanation that Benjamins appearance would satisfy him; the voluntary release; the finding again of their money. Reuben, too, though having a better conscience, shares in their feelings; he sees coming down upon them the full visitation of their blood-guiltiness; even the pious father has a foreboding, becoming even more distinct, that somehow, through the crime of his sons, a dark doom is impending over his house. Therefore is he not willing to trust his Benjamin, for so long a journey, to these sons, who seem, for some reason, to have a guilty conscience,it may be in relation to Joseph. 5. By regarding Joseph as a saintly man, who, from the very first, and with a freely reconciled spirit, was only imposing a divine trial upon his brothers, and leading them to repentance through a soul-enlightening discipline, we raise him above the Old-Testament stand-point; to say nothing of the fact that Joseph could not at first have known whether these, his half-brothers, were not also the persecutors of Benjamin, and with as deadly a hatred, perhaps, as they had shown to him. Neither had he any means of knowing whether or not he could ever be on friendly terms with them. But that he is to pass through a great religious and moral struggle with himself, is evident from his wavering decisions, from the time he takes for consideration, and especially, from the fact that he postpones the trial even after they had brought Benjamin to him. He adopts a course in which both his aged father and his beloved Benjamin are exposed, temporarily, to the greatest distress. Decidedly, from the very beginning, does he take a noble position, but by severe struggles is he to attain to that holy stand-point of complete forgiveness; and for this purpose his brothers confession of their guilt, and especially the appearance of Reuben, Benjamin, and Judah, are blessed to him, just as his own conduct assisted the brothers in bringing on their struggles of repentance and self-sacrifice by faith.
6. The turning of judgment into reconciliation. A principal point in this is the involuntary confession of the brethren in Josephs hearing, the discovery of Reubens attempt to save him, the atonement made by the proud-hearted Simeon, the melting of the brothers obduracy, and, through it, of Josephs exasperation. Above all, the recognition that Gods searching providence is present throughout the whole development. Whatsoever maketh manifest is light (Eph 5:13). Thus under the light of Christs cross the entire darkness of the worlds guilt was uncovered, and only in such an uncovering could it become reconciled.
7. Even now there already dawns upon Joseph the wonderful fact that his exaltation was owing mediately to the enmity of his brethren, and that they were together both conscious and unconscious instruments of Gods mercy and of his providential design to save much people alive (Genesis 45, 50). HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Doctrinal and Ethical. The brethren appearing before Joseph. Thus the world before Christ, the oppressors in the forum of the oppressed, the wicked at the judgment-seat of the pious.Joseph and his brethren as they stand confronting each other: 1. He recognizes them, but they do not recognize him; 2. the positions of the parties are changed, but Joseph exercises mercy; 3. the judgment must precede the reconciliation; 4. human and divine reconciliation go together. We are verily guilty concerning our brother: 1. This language considered in their sense; 2. according to Josephs understanding; 3. in the sense of the spirit. The guilty conscience terrified, at first, by signs that were really favorable. Jacobs lamentation as the seeming curse of his house becomes gradually known. At the extremest need help is near. Benjamins dark prospects (his mother dead, his brother lost, himself threatened with misfortune), and their favorable issue.
Taube: The hours of repentance that come to Josephs brethren: 1. How the sinner is led to repentance; 2. how repentance manifests itself; 3. the relation of the Lord to the penitent sinner.
First Section (Gen 42:1-6). Starke: The utility of commerce. The different products which God has given to different countries, demand mutual intercourse for their attainment. A believer must employ ordinary means, and not tempt God by their refusal. Nothing can hinder Gods decrees in behalf of the pious.Schrder: The guilt of Benjamins brothers in respect to Joseph seems to weigh upon the fathers heart as a kind of presentiment.Calwer Handbuch: Josephs brethren are they called, because Joseph stands here in the foreground of history, and the destiny of the family is connected with him. The very ten by whom he was sold must bow themselves before him, and receive the righteous and higher requital.Heim: The expression sons of Israel, instead of sons of Jacob, points to Israel the man of faith, whose children they were, who accompanied them with his prayers, and for whose sake, although he knew it not, this journey to Egypt, so dark in its commencement, became a blessing to them all.
Second Section (Gen 42:7-17). Starke: Formerly they regarded him as a spynow are they treated as spies in turn.
Gen 42:15. This expression is not an oath, but only a general asseveration. The first Christians, though making everything a matter of conscience, did not hesitate thus to affirm by the life of the Emperors, but they were unwilling to swear by their divinity. Juramus sicut non per genios Csarum, ita per salutem eorum qu est augustior omnibus geniis. Tert. Apol.Hall: The disposition of a Christian is not always to be judged by his outward acts.Gerlach: Gen 42:9. Nothing is more common than this reproach upon travellers in the East, especially when they would sketch any parts of the country.Schrder: He who was hungry when they were eating, now holds the food for which they hunger. To him (Joseph) there was committed, for some time, the government of a most important part of the world. He was not only to bless, but also to punish and to judge; i.e., become forgetful of all human relations and act divinely. [Krummacher: Still Joseph felt as man, not as though he were Providence.] Joseph plays a wonderful part with his brethren, but one which humbles and exercises him greatly. A similar position God assumes towards believers when in tribulation; let us, therefore, hold assuredly that all our misfortunes, trials, and lamentations, even death itself, are nothing but a hearty and fair display of the divine goodness towards us (Luther). Josephs suspicion, though feigned in expression, has, nevertheless, a ground of fact in the former conduct of his brothers towards him.
Third Section (vers 1824). Starke: God knows how to keep awake the conscience.
Gen 42:18. The test of a true Christian in all his doings, is the fear of the Lord.Bibl. Tub.: How noble is religion in a judge!Lange: Chastisements as a means of self-examination. There may be times when sins, long since committed, may present themselves so vividly before the eyes as to seem but of yesterday.The same: Gods wise providence so brings it about, that though a guilty man may escape the deserved punishment for a time, the visitation will surely come, even though it be by Gods permitting misfortunes to fall upon him through the guilt of others, when he himself is innocent.
Fourth Section (Gen 42:25-35). Starke: Simeon may now let his thoughts wander back, in repentance for his murderous deeds at Shechem, in weeping for the grief he had caused to Joseph, and in imploring Gods forgiveness. God does not bestow the blessing of the gospel on the sinner in any other way than in the order of the law, or in the knowledge of his sins. A frightened conscience always expects the worst (Wis 17:11).Schrder: Simeon is bound; probably because the leader at Shechem was also the prime mover against Joseph (Baumgarten.
Fifth Section (Gen 42:35-38). Starke: He who wrestled with God (and man) and prevailed, shows here great weakness of faith. Yet he recovers, and again struggles in faith, like Abraham his grandfather.Cramer: When burdened with trials and temptations, we interpret everything in the worst way, even though it may be for our peace.Gerlach: Jacobs declarations betray a feeling that the brothers were not guiltless respecting Josephs disappearance. He knew their jealousy, and he had experienced the violent disposition of Simeon and Levi.Schrder: There is nothing so restless or so great a foe to peace as a frightened heart, that turns pale at a glance, or at the rustle of a leaf (Luther). He had long suspected them in regard to Joseph (see Gen 42:4); the old wound is now opened again. Reuben is once more the tender-hearted one. He offers everything (Gen 42:37) that he may prevail with his father. But it is out of reason what he offers. Luther.Heim: Jacobs painful language. There breaks forth now the hard suspicion which he had long carried shut up in the depths of his own heart.
Footnotes:
[1][Gen 42:4.. A rare Hebrew word, occurring only here, in Gen 42:38, and in Exo 21:22-23. Gesenius would connect the root with the Arabic , others with the Arabic and the Syriac , which means to heal. The first comes nearer to it in sense, but a much closer agreement, both in form and significance, exists between it and the Arabic , to be in grief or pain, and its noun , pain, affliction. It occurs in the Koran, v. 29, 72; vii. 91; lvii. 23, in the very sense here demanded by the context.T. L.]
[2][Gen 42:28. , and their heart went out. LXX, . Hence the Greek , ecstasy. It may denote rapture, astonishment, overwhelming sorrowany condition of soul in which the thoughts and affections seem to pass beyond the control of the will. The heart goes forth, the mind wanders, the soul loses command of itself. It is the same imagery, and nearly the same terms, in many languages. Corresponding to it are the expressions for the opposite state. Compare the Latin exire de mente, ratione, etc., to be or go out of ones mind, and the opposite, colligere se, to take courage, to recover ones self. So the English, to be collected, or composed. There is a similar usage of the Greek and , to collect, gather back the soul. See the Phdo, 67 c. Vulgate, obstupefacti sunt.T. L.]
[3][Gen 42:15. . Literally, by the lives of Pharaoh; but the primitive conception, whatever it may have been (see note, p. 163, 2d. column), that gave rise to the plural form of this word, had probably become dim or lost, and there is intended hero only the one general sense of life. There is, however, a remark of Maimonides on this phrase, in this place, that is worthy of note. His critical, as well as most philosophical, eye observes a difference in this little word , and the vowel pointing it has in the Scriptures according as it is used of God or man. Thus in the Hebrew oath, (comp. 1Sa 20:3; 1Sa 25:26; 2Ki 2:2; 2Ki 2:4; 2Ki 2:6; 2Ki 4:30; and other places), which is rendered, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, he notices what has escaped most critics, viz., the change of vowel in the word ; so that the rendering should be, as the Lord liveth, or by the living Jehovah, and by the life of thy soul. The reasons of this he thus states in the Sepher Hamada, or Book of Knowledge, the first part of the great work entitled Yad Hachazakah, ch. ii. sec. Genesis 14 : In Gen 42:15, it is said, , by the life (lives) of Pharaoh; so in 1Sam. Gen 1:26, , by the life of thy soul, as also in many other places. But in the same connection it is not said (chei), but (chai), in the absolute form instead of the construct or genitive, because the Creator, blessed be he, and his life are one, not separate, as the lives of creatures or of angels. Therefore, he does not know creatures by means of the creatures, as we know them, but by himself ( ), because all life leans upon him, and by his knowing himself he knoweth all thingssince he and his knowledge also, as well as he and his life, are one. This is a matter which the tongue has not the power of uttering, nor the ear of hearing, nor can the mind comprehend it; but such is the reason of the change, and of its being said , by the life of Pharaoh, in the construct state, since Pharaoh and his life are two. Again, sec. xi. and xii.: All things beside the Creator, blessed be he, exist through his truth (or truthfulness) and because he knows himself, he knows everything. And he does not know by a knowledge which is without (or outside, ), to himself, as we know, because we and our knowledge are not one; but as for the Creator, blessed be he, both his knowledge and his life are one with himself in every mode of unity. Hence we may say that he is, at the same time, the knower, the known, and the knowledge itself, all in one. Or, as he tells us in the beginning of this profound treatise, ch. i. sec. Genesis 1 : Gods truth is not like the truth of the creatures, and thus the prophet says (Jer 10:10), Jehovah God is truth, and God is life (plural lives; compare , Jam 1:17), he is the the king of eternity, the king of the world. That is, he is, at the same time, the truth, the life, the everlasting law. Compare, also, Maimonides, Porta Mosis, Pococke edition, p. 256.T. L.]
CONTENTS
A gracious GOD in his over-ruling providence, having caused a famine of bread to prevail in Canaan, compels thereby the sons of Jacob to go down into Egypt to seek sustenance for themselves and their household. And this brings about the leading design which the LORD had in view, (as the HOLY GHOST informs the Church, Psa 105:16-17 .) in sending Joseph before his family into Egypt. The contents of this Chapter, are: the departure of the sons of Jacob from Canaan: their arrival at Egypt: their appearance before Joseph: their unconsciousness of him: his knowledge of them: their humbling themselves before him: his treatment of them: he supplies them with corn, but detains Simeon; their return to Canaan: and the distress of their father in finding that they had left Simeon behind. Gen 42:1
Reader! recollect that at our last view of Jacob, we left him in a state of the greatest affliction, on the supposed loss of Joseph Gen 37:35 . Here we find him in the midst of his family, likely to perish for want of bread! Remember what JESUS saith, Joh 16:33 . Then read that sweet scripture, Isa 33:16 .
Endurance, the Christian’s Portion
Gen 42:36
From his youth upwards Jacob had been full of sorrows, and he bore them with a troubled mind. His first words are, ‘If God will be with me… then shall the Lord be my God’. His next, ‘Deliver me, I pray thee’. His next, ‘Ye have troubled me’. His next, ‘I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning’. His next, ‘All these things are against me’. And his next, ‘Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been’. Blow after blow, stroke after stroke, trouble came like hail. That one hailstone falls is a proof, not that no more will come, but that others are coming surely; when we feel the first we say, ‘It begins to hail,’ we do not argue that it is over, but that it is to come. Thus was it with Jacob; the storm muttered around him, and heavy drops fell while he was in his father’s house; it drove him abroad. It did not therefore cease because he was out in it: it did not end because it had begun. Rather, it continued, because it had begun; its beginning marked its presence; it began upon a law, which was extended over him in manhood also and old age, as in early youth. It was his calling to be in the storm; it was his very life to be a pilgrimage; it was the very thread of the days of his years to be few and evil.
J. H. Newman.
References. XXXII. Spurgeon, Sermons, Nos. 2739, 2817, 2979, 3010. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 116.
The Fear of God
Gen 42:18
No one could say this with more confidence than Joseph, all whose actions were evidently inspired and governed by genuine piety. He seems to have used this language as a pledge of honourable and just dealing with those who were completely within his power.
I. What does the Fear of God Involve?
( a ) A conviction of God’s existence. Without this man is little better than the brutes that perish, to whom an unseen and Superior Being remains unknown, through the limitation of their faculties. It is the prerogative of man to know that God is, and that He is omnipresent and omniscient.
( b ) A reverential regard for God’s law. The Supreme is not only a Creator; He is also a Ruler, who ordains laws and ordinances for the regulation of the life of His intelligent and voluntary subjects. The mind of man can not only comprehend such laws; it can appreciate their moral authority, admire their justice and wisdom, and treat them with loyal respect.
( c ) A sense of amenability to God’s authority. This may take various forms, but from true piety it is never absent. The godly man fears to offend a Governor so great, so righteous, and so interested in the obedience of His people.
II. Is the Fear of God Compatible with the Relation of the Christian to his Saviour? The ancient Hebrews cherished toward Jehovah a reverence and awe which gave an especial gravity and solemnity to their religion and their worship. The revelation of the law amid the thunders of Sinai was fitted to form in the Jewish mind an association between religion and trembling awe. But ‘grace and truth came by Jesus Christ’; and we are told that ‘perfect love casteth out fear’. The solution of this difficulty is to be found in the progressive nature alike of revelation and of experience. There were reasons why the earlier revelation should be especially of a God of righteousness, why the latter revelation should be of a God of love. And the penitent sinner, whose religious feelings are first aroused by fear of justly deserved punishment, advances through the teaching of the ‘spirit of adoption’ to an intimacy of spiritual fellowship with His Father in heaven which softens fear into reverence and awe into a chastened love. Thus the Christian never ceases to say, ‘I fear God’; though the expression from his lips has a somewhat altered shade of meaning.
III. Are Important Social Ends Answered by the Prevalence among Men of the Fear of God? Yes, for it is
( a ) A corrective to the undue fear of man.
( b ) A preventive from the tendency to follow out every natural impulse.
( c ) A strengthening of the bonds of mutual confidence in society. Where the members of a community are understood to be under the influence of this spiritual and religious motive, there will be less of suspicion and distrust, and more of harmony and fellowship and true love.
The Power of Conscience
Gen 42:21
The history of Joseph is well known, but let us briefly recount it up to the point when the brethren break out in the words of the text. It is here that the strange part of the story begins.
What was it that made these men, just at this moment, when they saw one of their number bound before their eyes to be retained as a hostage, utter these strange words of self-accusation?
I. It was the Power of Conscience. But observe that conscience was stirred by memory.
( a ) Was there anything in the tone of Joseph’s voice which brought back to their minds the thought of the brother whom they had so many years ago so wrongfully treated? It is a well-known fact that the voice changes less than anything that belongs to us, and when recognition by form and features fails after years of absence, some well-known and well-remembered tones will start again forgotten links of memory.
( b ) Was it in the action of blindfolding, which reminded them of that scene so many long and forgotten years ago?
( c ) Or did they think of what would be the grief of the old man at home when he found another son lost, and did this call to their minds the outburst of grief when Joseph was thought to be no more? In any case, it illustrates the fact that conscience is stirred by memory.
II. The Power of Conscience to Punish How many times had that scene of anguish, when they were about to cast Joseph into the pit, caused them misery, and how they now recall it! ‘ We saw the anguish of his soul and would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.’ The face of Joseph is before them as perfectly as if the deed had only happened yesterday. See the story of Herod Anti-pas, the murderer of John the Baptist, in the Gospels.
( a ) Conscience is the witness in our hearts of a moral ruler.
( b ) Conscience is the witness to us of a day of account.
References. XLII. 21. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlii. No. 2497. XLII. 21-22. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (2nd Series), p. 236. XLII. 22. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 840.
Gen 42:36
‘A God of infinite perfections has the whole of our life in His hands, sees the end from the beginning, knows how to adjust the strain of trouble to our powers of endurance, sends appropriate little mitigations of one kind or another, like temporary cordials; and by a long and wonderful series of interventions, succours, and secret workings, Jacob, who at one time said, ‘All these things are against me,’ finds himself housed in Goshen, in the land of light.’
James Smetham, Letters, p. 174.
A Sea of Troubles
Gen 42:36
I. There are times when everything seems to be against us. It is clear that such a time had come to Jacob. He was old life’s fire was damped and the land was famine-stricken and his sons were lost. Jacob had reached one of those bitter times when everything seemed to be against him. It is not the way of the messengers of evil to come at respectable and ordered distances. Sometimes the hand of one has barely ceased to knock when the feet of another are hurrying to the threshold. If this view of the coming of troubles be a true one, and not a rare or exceptional experience, there is one proof of it that we shall be sure to find. We shall find it expressed and crystallized in proverbs, for a proverb is an epitome of life; and a proverb will only live in people’s tongue if it interpret with some measure of truth a people’s heart. Well then, have we not one proverb that says, ‘Troubles never come singly’? Have we not another that says, ‘It never rains but it pours’. These proverbs have lived because men feel that they ring true. They might be written across this hour in Jacob’s life, and they might form the motto of hours in your life and mine. May I not say that in the life of Jesus, too, we find traces of this unequal pressure? There were days for Him when every voice made music; there were hours when everything seemed to be against Him. Had it been otherwise the Bible dared not have written that He was tempted in all points like as we are. So to our Lord there came the hour of darkness when sorrows were massed and gathered as to a common centre, and pierced not by one shaft but by a score. He died as a sacrifice upon the cross.
II. Things that seem against us may not be really so. God wraps His blessings up in strange disguises and we rarely have faith to see into their heart. Many a thing that we should call a curse, in the language of heaven may be called a blessing; and many a thing we welcome as a blessing, in the language of heaven may be called a curse. I would suggest, then, in all life’s darker seasons a wise and reverent suspense of judgment. It takes the totality to understand the parts, and we shall not see the whole until the morning.
III. The things that seem against us, then, may not be really so; then lastly, whether they are or not we may still triumph. If God be for us who can be against us all things are working for our good. So may a man whose faith is firm and steadfast wrestle on towards heaven ‘gainst storm and wind and tide till the light affliction which endureth for a moment, is changed into the glory of the dawn.
G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, p. 207.
References. XLII. 36. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 837. J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, p. 113. XLII. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 152. XLIII. 1. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons, vol. i. p. 262.
Joseph’s Elevation
Gen 41:46
Joseph was about seventeen years of age when he went out, at his father’s request, to make inquiry concerning the well-being of his brethren. We find from the text that he was now thirty years old. Think of thirteen years being required for the fulfilment of a dream! The Lord counteth not time as men count it. He sitteth upon the circle of eternity. He seems to be always at leisure: though doing everything, to be doing nothing. A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday, and all time is but as a watch in the night. But what about the effect of this long suspense upon the mind of the dreamer himself? It is hardly any comfort to us to know that God can afford to wait centuries and millenniums for the fulfilment of his purposes. There is another, there is a weaker side to this great question of the dreamer. Here is a young man exiled from his lather’s presence and the comforts of his home; labouring under the vilest imputations and the gravest suspicions; wasting, as it appears to us, thirteen prime years of his life. What about this waiting on the part of God, so far as Joseph is concerned? See, for example, how likely it was to discourage his faith in things spiritual. The youth had a dream, a vision, granted him as he believed of God; and yet through thirteen years his dream takes no shape, his vision is but a spectre of the memory not a grand ruling fact of the life. Mark how his faith comes down accordingly. He reasons thus with himself: “Up to this time I have had faith in the God of my fathers. I have believed that dream and vision, strange token and wonderful signal, all meant something in the Divine providence and government of the world. I thought my own dream had a great meaning in it: but I waited twelve months and nothing came of the dream; and twelve months more, and my vision was as nothing; and another year, and I have suffered nothing but ill-treatment, and all this ill-treatment has come to me through this very dream of mine. Verily, it was but a vexatious nightmare; or, if a vision of God, it was sent to mock my ambition and to destroy my peace.”
If the young man had run off into some such soliloquy as that, he would be a very mighty man who could justly rebuke him for taking that view of the affairs which constituted so large a portion of his life. It is so with ourselves, my brethren. There are many things which conspire to destroy our faith in the invisible, the spiritual, the eternal. There are daily occurrences which teach us that there is something higher than matter; yet there are things occurring around us which are perpetually rebuking our trust in the distant, the intangible, the spiritual, the Divine. And who are we, that we should speak to men who for thirteen years have been groaning under heavy burdens, and chide them, as if all the while they ought to have been musical, bright with Divine hope and beauty, and not sad and heavy-hearted, mournful and pathetic in tone? We should look at such things seriously, with consideration. It is a terrible thing for some men to believe in God! It takes the whole stress of their nature, and all the help which can come of their personal history and their family traditions, to bind them to the belief that, after all, though God is taking a long time to fulfil their dream, yet he is working it out, and in his own good hour he will show that not a moment has been lost, that all the dozen years or mote have been shaped into a peculiar and bright benediction.
Then look at the inferential rectitude of his brethren. Joseph might have turned in upon himself in some such way as this: “Though my brethren dealt very harshly with me, yet they had keener and truer insight into this business than I had. They saw that I was the victim of a piece of foolish fanaticism. I thought I was interpreting to them a dream of Heaven, a vision of God. When I told my dream they mocked me; they visited me with what appeared to be evil treatment. But now that I have had thirteen years of disappointment, vexatious delay, and all the consequent embitterment of spirit, my brethren were right after all. They might not have taken, perhaps, the very best method of showing that they were right; yet now I forgive them, because they were right on the main issue, and they were called of God to chide my fanaticism, my imbecility and folly.” Well, there is a good deal of sound sense in that monologue. It does appear as if the brethren were right and Joseph was wrong. The brethren can turn to thirteen years’ confirmation of their view of Joseph’s dream. They could say: “Where are his dreams now? He had a vision of greatness. All the sheaves in the field were to bow down to his sheaf, and all the stars were to make obeisance to him as the central sun. Where are his dreams now?” It is even so with ourselves. There are views of life which I get that impress upon me this conclusion: Bad men are right after all. There are what are called “facts,” which go dead against the good man’s faith and the holy man’s prayer. There are men today who can tell you that they have prayed and struggled and fought and endured, and for twelve years nothing has come of their holy patient waiting upon God, nothing that is worthy of being set against the stress under which they have suffered, the discipline that has pained them, the misunderstandings which have troubled and tormented their lives. There have, indeed, been little flecks of light upon their daily course; there have been little compliments and social courtesies; but, putting all these things together, they are not worthy to be named in comparison with the poignant anguish that their souls have endured. Yet will not history be to us a tone without language, a messenger without a message, a wasted thing, if we do not learn from this incident that if we have waited twelve years, yet, in the thirteenth, God may open the windows of heaven and pour out upon us a blessing that there shall not be room to contain? It is not easy to wait. It does not suit our incomplete nature to tarry so long. But we fall back upon history, which is God interpreted, and we find in that an assurance that when the heart is right, the outward circumstances shall be shaped and directed to our highest advantage.
Some men’s dreams do take a long time to fulfil. The butler and the baker’s dreams were fulfilled in three days. But what was there in their dreams? Everything depends upon the vision we have had of God. If we have had a butler’s dream we shall have a butler’s answer. If we have had such a dream as a great nature only can dream, then God must have time to work out his purposes. Joseph is not the only man who has suffered for his dreams. God oftentimes punishes us by making dreamers of us. Some men would be thankful today if they could close nine-tenths of their sensibility, if they could become leathern or wooden, to a large extent. This power of feeling of feeling everything to be Divine, and to have a Divine meaning in it: this power of seeing beyond the visible right into the unseen: this power of dreaming and forecasting the future brings with it severe pains and terrible penalties. Here is a man who dreams of the amelioration of his race. He will write a book, he will found an institution, he will start certain courses of thinking, he will seek to reverse the thought of his contemporaries and turn it all into a directly opposite channel. He sees the result of all this. He tells his dream, and men laugh at him. They say, “It is just like him, you know. He is a very good sort of man, but there is a great deal of fanaticism in him. He has always got some new scheme, and some very beautiful vision floating before him.” And men who never dreamed except it was that their wretched little house was being broken into feel called upon to snub him with their contempt, and to avoid him as a man who is too good or too clever for this poor common world. What are we to make of history, if we do not get out of it this lesson? that there are dreams which God gives, and there are dreams which take a long time to fulfil. We do not make history we interpret it. God causes the facts to transpire, and he says to us, “Be wise, be understanding: draw the right inferences from these circumstances.” But was it worth waiting thirteen years for? A good deal will depend upon the answer we give to that inquiry. Is there nothing worth waiting thirteen years for? Some men require twenty-five years’ hard, good schooling before they are quite as they ought to be. Other men may require only two days, and they are as sharp and clear as any scholar need be. Others require thirteen years on the treadmill, thirteen years’ discipline and scourging, thirteen years’ weaning from old affections and old associations. Observe, God was now training a spoiled child, and spoiled children cannot be drilled and put right in two hours. Some of us have been spoiled in various ways. Some with excess of goodness, and some with excess of harshness, it may be, yet spoiled. Our nature has got a twist, or we have got ideas which require to be taken out of us; and only chastisement, suspicion, imprisonment, scourging, loss, hunger, affliction, and the very gate of death itself, can bring us to that measure of solidity and tenderness and refinement which God wants, in order to start us on the highest course of our manly service Was it worth waiting thirteen years for? Yes. All countries, according to the Biblical statement, came to Joseph for food, and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn, because that the famine was sore in all lands. He was the feeder of the nations, the father, the preserver, the benefactor of innumerable multitudes! It seems to us to be an easy thing to step into that position. But we do not see the whole case; we do not see the temptations which beset it, the difficulties which combine to form that position; we do not know all the collateral bearings and issues. Let God be judge. He took thirteen years to make this man; and this man was the benefactor, and, under God, the saviour of nations. Why should not we endeavour to learn that lesson? We should like now to be second to Pharaoh. Some of us have the notion that we are tolerably ready, today, to receive all the homage which people can give us. That is our mistake. If we wait thirteen years, we shall be better; we shall be stronger and wiser, than we are now. The years are not wasted to souls that make a right use of them. Every year that goes by should lift a man up, give him enlargement of capacity, and tenderer sympathy, and sensitiveness of feeling. So Joseph waited thirteen years. But after he had waited, he went before Pharaoh, and was as Pharaoh to the people of Egypt.
“Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? ” ( Gen 42:1 ).
The old man was perfectly innocent: he had no evil tormenting associations with the word Egypt. If his sons had heard there was corn many a mile farther off than Egypt, surely these stalwart, active, energetic men would have been off before the old man chided them by this speech of his about waiting and looking upon one another. But, corn in Egypt! Some words are histories. Some words are sharper than drawn swords. Egypt was a keen double-edged weapon that went right into the very hearts of the men whom Jacob sought to stimulate. Jacob saw only the outward attitude. The sons appeared to be at their wits’ end. Jacob thought his children were inactive had no spring or energy in them; that they had faded away into ordinary people, instead of being the active, strong-limbed, energetic, and, as he thought, high-minded men of old. Men do not show all their life. Men have a secret existence, and their outward attitude is often but a deception. I have seen this same principle in operation in many stations of life. I have seen it in the Church. I have known men, whose interest in the sanctuary has begun to decline, who have been inattentive to the ministry, who have fallen off in their support of Christian institutions, and, when asked by the unsuspecting Jacobs, “Why is this?” they have said “that they do not care so much for the minister as they used to do. There is not food for the soul; they want another kind of thing; and, therefore, until some change has taken place, they must withhold support from this and from that.” So the minister has had to suffer: to suffer from unkind words, from chilling looks, from attitudes which could not be reported or printed, but which were hard to bear. And the poor minister has endeavoured in his study to work harder, and to get up the kind of food which such souls souls! could digest. He has toiled away, and in six months it has turned out that the wretch who criticised him and made him a scapegoat, was preparing for bankruptcy, and was edging his way out of the Church, that he might do it with respectability and without suspicion. Such a case is not uncommon. It may vary in its outward aspects and the way of putting it. But there are men that seek to get out of duties, and out of positions, by all kinds of excuses, who dare not open their hearts and say, “The reason is in myself. I am a bad man. I have been caught in the devil’s snare; I am the victim of his horrible temptation and cruelty.” It is the same, I am afraid, with many of you young men in the family circle. You want to throw off restraint. You want to alter this arrangement and that in the family; and you speak of your health, your friends, or some change in your affections. You put altogether a false face and a bad gloss upon the affair, so that your unsuspecting father and mother may not know the reality, the reality being that your heart is wrong, or your soul has poisoned itself. You want to be away, to do something that is truly diabolic, and which you would not like those who gave you birth and who have nourished you through life to see. Believe this, that not until the moral is right can the social be frank, fearless, happy. When men’s hearts are right they will not have anything to hide. They may have committed errors of judgment, but these have been venial, trifling. But where there is no deep villainy of the heart, men can bear to tell their whole life, and show how it is that they are fearful concerning this, or despondent concerning something else.
This law of association is constantly operating amongst men. A word will bring up the memories of a lifetime. You had only to say to ten great-boned men in the house of Jacob and say it in a whisper Egypt! and you would shake every man to the very centre and core of his being. If you could have met the oldest, strongest, sturdiest of them on a dark night, and said to him, Egypt! you would have struck him as with the lightning of God. Yes, it is a terrible thing to have done evil! It comes up again upon you from ten thousand points. It lays hold of you, and holds you in humiliating captivity, and defies you to be happy. That this may be so I think is tolerably clear from the twenty-first verse of the forty-second chapter. The men were before Joseph, after they had been cross-examined by him.
“And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore, is this distress come upon us” ( Gen 42:21 ).
Many years after the event! Their recollection of that event was as clear as if it had transpired but yesterday. Learn the moral impotence of time. We say this evil deed was done fifty years ago. Fifty years may have some relation to the memory of the intellect, but it has no relation to the tormenting memory of the conscience. There is a moral memory. Conscience has a wondrously realising power, taking things we have written in secret ink and holding them before the fire until every line becomes vivid, almost burning. Perhaps some of you know not yet the practical meaning of this. We did something twenty years ago. We say to ourselves, “Well, seeing that it was twenty years ago, it is not worth making any to-do about it; it is past, and it is a great pity to go twenty years back, raking up things.” So it is, in some respects, a great pity to bother ourselves about things other men did, twenty years ago. But what about our own recollection, our own conscience, our own power of accusation? A man says, “I forged that name twenty-five years ago, and oh! every piece of paper I get hold of seems to have the name upon it. I never dip the pen, but there is something in the pen that reminds me of what I did by candle light, in almost darkness, when I had locked the door and assured myself nobody was there. Yet it comes upon me so graphically, my punishment is greater than I can bear!” Time cannot heal our iniquities. Forgetfulness is not the cure for sin. Obliviousness is not the redeemer of the world. How, then, can I get rid of the torment and the evils of an accusing memory? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” That is the kind of answer men want, when they feel all their yesterdays conspiring to urge an indictment against them as sinners before the living God. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Can I impress this upon myself and upon you? Time cannot redeem us. Ten thousand ages hence, a man’s sin will confront him, scourge him, and defy him to enjoy one moment’s true rest. Who then can destroy sin, break its power? Whose arms can get round it, lift it up, and cast it into the depths of the sea? This is a Divine work, God’s work! It is not to be done by your ethical quacks and your dreamy speculators. It is to be done only by the mighty redeeming power of God the Son, Jesus Christ! This is the gospel I have to preach to men. Fifty years will make no difference in your crimes. Conscience makes us live continually in the present; and only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash out the stains of evil deed and unholy memory.
“And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required” ( Gen 42:22 ).
Showing how bad men reproach one another, how little unity there is in wickedness, what a very temporary thing is the supposed unanimity of bad men, how bad men will one day turn upon one another, and say “It was you!” Ha! such is the unanimity of wicked conspirators! “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not”; they will turn against thee some day. Though your swords be pointed against one man at the present hour, and you may be unanimous in some wicked deed, God’s great wheel is going round and round, and the hour cometh when the men who urged thee to do the evil deed, and share with them their unholy counsels, will seek thy heart, will accuse thee, will charge thee with participation in their nefarious, hellish designs and work. The way of transgressors is hard! Smooth for a mile or two, and then hard, thorny ravenous beasts there, serpents lurking here. It is very difficult to get back when you once start upon that way. I have known young men who have said, “We want to go just a mile or two down this road, and when we find it becomes rather intricate, we intend to turn right round; and then, after all, you will see that we have only been sowing a few wild oats, and just doing a few odd things, and by-and-by we shall settle down into solid men.” I am not so sure about it. If a man goes into the evil way, and the great Enemy of souls goes after him, he will blot out his footprints. So when the man says, “I will now go back again; I can put my feet where I put them before,” he looks for his footprints, but they have gone, and he cannot tell which is east, west, north, south! Footprints gone; landmarks altered; the whole metamorphosed, and to him downward is upward. None so blind as he, the eyes of whose soul have been put out!
All this, too, was in the hearing of Joseph. Joseph heard them say that he was their brother. They used to call him “dreamer.” He heard them say “the child,” tenderly. Once they mocked him. He heard them speak in subdued, gentle tones. He remembers the time when their harsh grating voices sent a terror through his flesh and blood, and when he was sold off to travelling merchantmen. It was worth waiting for to see further into one another, after such experiences as these. He never would have known his brethren, but for this terrible process. Some disciplines open men’s nature and show us just what they are. “His blood is required,” said Reuben. Certainly, such requirements made life worth having. There are pay days. There are days when bills become due. There are times when business men are particularly busy, because the day has come on which certain things are due and must be attended to. And shall a paltry guinea be due to you or to me, and a man’s blood never be due? Shall we be very conscientious about pounds, shillings, and pence, and forget the virtue we have despoiled, the honour we have insulted, the love we have trampled underfoot? God will judge us by our actions, and will charge upon us that we were conscientious in little things, in trivial relationships, and forgot that sometimes man’s blood is due, and man’s honour comes with a demand to be satisfied.
Joseph’s Brethren Under Trial
Gen 42:24
Joseph had spoken roughly to his brethren, whom he knew, though they knew not him. He had declared unto them, by the life of Pharaoh, that they should not go forth from his presence, except their youngest brother came with them. Having heard Joseph’s decision, they began to reproach one another. They said, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” And Reuben turned the whole thing upon them in a very pointed reproach. He said, “Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.” Joseph understood their speech, though they did not understand the speech of Joseph, because he spake unto them through an interpreter. The interview having come to this point, Joseph turned himself about from his brethren and wept. Harsh experience need not destroy the finest sensibility, the tenderest feelings of the heart. Here is a man who has had twenty years’ very painful, almost unendurable, treatment; and yet, at the end of that period, he is susceptible of the tenderest influences, responds emotionally, with tears, with unutterable yearning and tenderness of soul, in the presence of his brethren, and the mute appeal which was involved in that presence. There is something for us to learn here. Our harsh experiences often deaden our sensibility, work in us a sourness of heart and feeling which becomes misanthropic, selfish, resentful. We learn from the history before us that it is possible to be exiled from home, ill-treated by relatives and friends, thrown into the way of pain, sorrow, loss and desolation; yet to come out of the whole process tender, sensitive, responsive to appeals which are made to our nature. Why, there are some men who cannot overget the very slightest offence. If they have not their own way in everything, they show their resentfulness in a thousand little ways, they become peevish, censorious, distrustful, ungenial. You never meet them but they give you to understand that they have been insulted, offended, dishonoured. They have had to endure slight, or contempt, or neglect. How little, how unutterably paltry, such men appear in the presence of the man who, after twenty years of exile, solitude, evil treatment of all kinds, weeps when he sees his brethren, keeps his heart through it all, has not allowed himself to become soured or misanthropic! He keeps a whole, tender, responsive heart through all the tumult, and trial, and agony, and bitter sorrow of thirteen years’ vile captivity, and seven years of exaltation which might, by the very surprise it involved, and the very suddenness with which it came, have over-balanced the man’s mind and given him false views of himself. If he was great, why should not we be great? If he could keep a whole heart through it all, why should we allow our moral nature to be frittered and dribbled away? Why should we become less, instead of greater, notwithstanding the evils we have to endure, and the difficulties which press upon us on every side? This is a great question, calling men to devout consideration, and to a searching and complete review of their moral position.
After the lapse of many years, Joseph, on seeing his brethren, wept. Why, he might have been vengeful. It is easy for us glibly to read the words, “Joseph” turned himself about and wept.” But consider what the words might have been! We oftentimes see results, not processes. We do not see how men have had to bind themselves down, crucify themselves hands, feet, head, and side and undergo death in the presence of God, before they could look society in the face with anything like benignity, and gentleness, and forgiveness. What the words might have been! Joseph, when he saw his brethren, might have said, “Now I have you! Once you put me into a pit, I shall shake you over hell; once you sold me, I will imprison you and torture you day and night; you smote me with whips, I shall scourge you with scorpions! It shall be easier to go through a circle of fire than to escape my just and indignant vengeance today!” He might have said, “I shall operate upon the law: A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye.” That is the law of nature; that is elementary morality. It is not vengeance, it is not resentment; it is alphabetic justice justice at its lowest point incipient righteousness. It is not two eyes for an eye, two teeth for a tooth; but an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth a blow for a blow, a pit for a pit, selling for selling, and so on. A great many men are perfectly content with elementary morality and alphabetic justice. People do not educate themselves from this kind of righteousness into Christian nobility of disposition. It is not a question of education; it is a question of sanctification. Few men can rise beyond mere justice. Many men find in mere justice all the moral satisfaction which their shallow natures require; they cannot see that mercy is the very highest point in justice, and that, when a man stoops to forgive, he becomes a prince, and a king, and a crowned ruler in the house and kingdom of God. It requires all that God can do to teach men this: that there is something higher than the law of retaliation; that forgiveness is better than resentment, and that to release men is oftentimes if done from moral considerations and not from moral indifference the highest form of Christian justice. But revenge is sweet! I am afraid that some of us like just a little revenge; not that we would ourselves personally and directly inflict it; but, if our enemies could, somehow or another, be tripped up, and tumble half-way at least into a pit, we should not feel that compunction, and sorrow, and distress of soul which, sentimentally, appears to be so very fine and beautiful. Nothing but God the Holy Ghost can train a man to this greatness of answering the memory of injury with tears, and accepting processes in which men only appear to have a part as if God, after all, had been over-ruling and directing the whole scheme.
“And Joseph turned himself about from them, and wept.” Afterwards he left their presence and went into his chamber and wept. Think of the secret sorrows of men! The tears did not flow in the presence of the ten men. The tears were shed in secret. We do not know one another altogether, because there is a private life. There are secret experiences. Some of us are two men. Joseph was two men. He spake roughly unto his brethren. He put it on; he assumed roughness for the occasion. But if you had seen him when he had got away into his secret chamber, no woman ever shed hotter, bitterer tears than streamed from that man’s eyes. We do not know one another altogether. We come to false conclusions about each other’s character and disposition. Many a time we say about men, “they are very harsh, rough, abrupt”; not knowing that they have other days when their very souls are dissolved within them; that they can suffer more in one hour than shallower natures could endure in an eternity. Let us be hopeful about the very worst of men. Some men cannot cry in public. Some men are, unfortunately, afflicted with coarse, harsh voices, which get for them a reputation for austerity, unkindliness, ungeniality. Other men are gifted with fairness and openness of countenance, gentleness and tunefulness of voice. When they curse and swear it seems as though they were half praying, or just about to enter into some religious exercise. When they speak, when they smile, they get a reputation for being very amiable men, yet they do not know what amiability is. They have no secret life. They weep for reputation; they make their tears an investment for a paltry renown. We do not want all our history to be known. We are content for men to read a little of what they see on the outside, and they profoundly mistake that oftentimes. But the secret history, the inner room of life, what we are and what we do when we are alone, no man can ever tell, the dearest, truest, tenderest friend can never understand. Do not let us treat Joseph’s tears lightly. Under this feeling there are great moral principles and moral impulses. The man might have been stern, vengeful, resentful. Instead of that, he is tender as a forgiving sister. When he looks he yearns, when he listens to their voices all the gladness and none of the bitterness of his old home comes back again on his soul.
“And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid” (Gen 42:28 , Gen 42:35 ).
What mistaken views we take about what is called the commonplaces of life! Some of us are often discontented because of the insipidity of our existence. To-day so like yesterday, and tomorrow will be but a repetition of today. We are always wanting something to happen. We say, If anything would but occur today to stir the stagnant pool of our life! We want to get out of old ruts and ordinary modes. Here are men to whom something had happened, and they were afraid! We could not live sensationally. Men can bear shocks and sensations only now and then. In life there must be great breadths of commonplace and ordinariness. We could not stand a shock every day. It is enough, now and then, to be stimulated and shaken out of what is common and usual, and what has come, by reason of its commonness, to be under-valued and contemned.
They were afraid when they saw their money in their sacks. See the possibility of mercies being turned into judgments, of the very goodness of God striking us in the heart, of mercy itself smiting us as with the rod of wrath. How can this be so? When the moral nature is wrong, when man’s conscience tells him that he has no right to this or that privilege or enjoyment, when man is divided against himself, when he has justly written bitterness against his own memory and his own nature altogether, then his very bread becomes bitter in his mouth, and the sunlight of God is a burning judgment upon his life. Naturally, one would have said that, when the men saw their money in the sacks, saw that it had been planned, that it was not an accidental thing, being in one sack and not in another, but being in every man’s sack, when they saw order, regularity, scheme in the whole thing, they might have said, “We are glad: we have been kindly and nobly treated by the men of Egypt; we are thankful for their consideration.” Yet, when they saw the money, they would not have been more surprised if a scorpion had erected itself out of a sack and aimed to strike them in the face. A time will come to bad men when even God’s mercies will trouble them, when the light of the day will be a burden to their eyes, and when the softest music will be more unendurable than the most terrible thunder. Bad men have no right to mercies. Bad souls have no right to be in the pastures of God’s richness of love and mercy and compassion. They feel themselves out of place, or they will do so. Altogether, sirs, it is a bad look-out for bad men! They cannot find rest anywhere. Put them in the very finest pastures you can find, and there will arise one day in their hearts this accusation: You have no right to be here; your place is in the sandy desert. Put them in the sandy desert, and the very wilderness will be filled with discontent and unrest until the bad men get out of it. Altogether the universe will not want them. God will turn his back upon them! There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
See, further, how small things can upset man’s enjoyment, man’s pleasure and satisfaction in life. Here is a paltry handful of money in each man’s sack, and because of the event there is no rest in the house of Israel that day. Life does not turn upon great events and sublime circumstances. Life, after all, has in it great breadths of repetition. One day is very much like another. It is upon little wheels that great things turn. We undervalue little things. The young man does not care to live today, because nothing great or sublime is occurring. He does not know that his very life is hung upon a little thread; that his breath is in his nostrils; that one element thrown into the air he breathes will destroy his animal existence, and that life is such a delicately constructed affair that little things will increase our joy a millionfold, or will utterly consume and destroy our pleasure. How, then, can I get mastery over this life? I don’t want to be it the mercy of these little things that occur every day. Is there no means by which I could have a sceptre of rulership and symbol of mastery? Is there no way to the throne, seated on which, I could be calm amid tumult, rich amid loss, hopeful in the midst of disappointment, strong and restful when great things all about me are shaking and tottering to the fall? Yes, there is a way. A way to independence, and mastery, and peace. What is that way? It has a thousand names, but call it now Fellowship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He who sits through the mercy of the Most High on the throne of God, sees all things from God’s point of view. He does not grapple with mere details: is not lost amid a thousand mazy ways, but sees the processes of life in their scope, their unity, and their whole moral significance. “Great peace have they that love thy law.” “O, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” This alone can give a man steadiness, composure, childlike assurance, and saintly triumph amid breaking fortunes, vanishing enjoyments and comforts, and cause him to say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” When he hath brought his work to an end, I shall praise him for the mercy of his judgments, and for the gentleness of his rod.
“And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave” (Gen 42:36 , Gen 42:38 ).
An old man, who does not know what he is talking about! What does the oldest and best man amongst us know about life? Jacob is writing a list of his grievances and misfortunes and distresses, and God’s angels are looking down upon him and saying that the whole statement, though it is one of what men call facts, is a mistake from beginning to end. Think of a man writing his life, and of God’s writing the same life in a parallel column! Now old Israel is perfectly correct, so far as the story is known to himself. Jacob their father said, “Me have ye bereaved of my children.” That is right. “Joseph is not” That is perfectly true, so far as Jacob is concerned, so far as his information extends. “And Simeon is not” That also is literally correct, so far as the absence of Simeon may be regarded. “And ye will take Benjamin away.” Precisely so, that is the very thing they have in view. “All these things are against me.” It is exactly the same with us today. Men do not know what they say when they use words. They do not know the full meaning of their own expressions. They will always snatch at first appearances and pronounce judgment upon incomplete processes. Every day I afflict myself with just the same rod. I know what a fool I am for doing so, and yet I shall do it again tomorrow. There comes into a man’s heart a kind of grim comfort when he has scourged himself well; when he knows all the while that ten thousand errors are accusing him of a repetition of his folly.
There are men who do not know their own family circumstances, yet they have undertaken to pronounce judgment upon the Infinite! Some men are very familiar with the Infinite, and have a wonderful notion of their power of managing God’s concerns. We seem at home when we go from home. Here is an old man saying, “Joseph is not, Simeon is not, Benjamin is to be taken away. All these things are against me.” Yet we who have been in a similar position, though the circumstances have been varied, have undertaken to pronounce judgment upon God’s way in the world, God’s government, God’s purposes. Why do we not learn from our ignorance? Why do we not read the book of our own folly, and learn that we know nothing, being children of yesterday? We cannot rise to that great refinement of learning, it would appear. Every day we repeat our follies. It is but a man here and there who has a claim to a reputation for religious wisdom.
How life depends upon single events! We may say, The old man’s life is bound up in the life of Benjamin. There are individuals without whom the world would be cold and poor to us all. You may say, He is but one of ten thousand, let him go, she is but one of a million, why care so much for her? We live in ones and twos. We cannot live in a countless population. We live in an individual heart, a special individual, personal love and trust. I cannot carry immensity! I can only carry a heartful of love. There are men today who would not care to look at the sun again if they lost that dear little child of theirs; men who look at everything through the medium of an only daughter, or an only son; who would not care for spring, and summer, and golden autumn; for fortune, position, influence, or renown, if that one ewe lamb were taken away. Life may be focalised to one point of interest, impulse, desire, and purpose. A man’s life may be centred upon one individual existence.
Let us understand, however, that Jacob does not begin his sorrow with the possible taking away of Benjamin. This is the last sorrow of a series. That is how some of us are worn down in soul, and heart, and hope. It is not because you have had taken away one thing; but because that one thing happens to be the last of a series. The great hammer that fell on a block of marble and shivered it, did that blow shiver it? No. It was blow upon blow, repercussion. No one stroke did it, though the last appeared to accomplish the purpose. Some of you have had many sorrows. You think you cannot bear the sorrow that is now looking at you through the dark, misty cloud. You are saying, “I should pray God to be spared that sorrow. I have had six troubles: I cannot bear the seventh.” Not knowing that the seventh trouble is the last step into heaven! Is there no answer to this difficulty of human life that will give satisfaction to souls? There is one answer. There is a Comforter which liveth for ever. I would not teach God forbid that I should ever so far lose my humanity as to teach; for a man can only teach well in proportion as he is a man that we should be indifferent about children and friends, the hearts that we love. I do not want to grow into an independence of human regard, and human trust, and human love; I do not care to be lifted up into such a position of hazy, heartless sentimentality as to be able to let friend after friend die, and care nothing for the loss. That is not Christianity; that is a species of the lowest beasthood. There may be men who can see grave after grave opened, and friend after friend put in and covered away, and shed never a tear or feel never a pang of the heart. I would hope there are no such men. I do not teach that Christianity enables us to destroy our feeling, to crush our sensibility, and to be indifferent under the pressure of sorrow. But Christianity does enable us to see the whole of a case. Christianity comes to a man in his greatest losses, and troubles, and bereavements, and says to him, amid his tears, and regrets, and passionate bewailings, “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” Christianity teaches that death is but a variation of life; that the grave is not the full stop in the difficult literature of human existence; that when we put away from us the dearest and best things that belong to our hearts, God will bring them back again to us multiplied in strength, and beauty, and freshness.
Some of us require most varied and prolonged humiliation before we are prepared for the highest honours of our life. All these arrangements and tests on the part of Joseph tended towards the humiliation and the penitence of his brethren. He might instantly have said, “I am Joseph”! They could not have borne it At once he might have said, “Brethren, I forgive you all.” He might thus have done more harm than good. The men required to be tested. They had no right or title to any consideration that came before they were put to scrutiny and criticism. God has a long process with some of us. He has to take away the firstborn child, and the last-born, and all between. He has to come in, time after time, and turn the cradle upside down. He has to wither our business, blight our fortunes, and smite us with sore disease. He has to foil our purposes, break up our schemes, turn our counsel back upon us, and confound us at every point, until we begin to say, What does all this mean? He has to make us afraid by day; he has to trouble us by night; he has to turn even his mercies into judgments, before he can bring us to say solemnly, with meaning, This must have some religious intent. What does God purpose by all this various discipline?
XXX
JOSEPH IN EGYPT
Genesis 42-45
The history of Joseph in Egypt is exquisitely charming in style, the most beautiful story of any language, and so plain that anybody can understand it. There are no critical questions to discuss, but I will emphasize some points.
Stephen, in Acts, says that this famine extended over Egypt and Canaan; other references indicate that it was much more extensive. Anyhow, it came to Jacob at Hebron, and he sent his ten sons to buy wheat. Corn in the Old Testament does not mean Indian corn, or maize, which was not known until the discovery of America. Many other things were not known until that time. The world had no sugar, molasses, coffee, tobacco, or potatoes. When Sir Walter Raleigh first carried Irish potatoes to England, they ate the tops like salad, not knowing the roots were good. So Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to bring back a caravan load of corn, and Joseph recognizes them. As they did not recognize him, he affected to consider them as spies. But he had a purpose in view. His heart was very kind and generous to them, but he wanted to impress some very solemn lessons on them. He put them in ward for three days. On the third day he took them out and said that by leaving one of their brethren as a hostage they could take corn home to their father, and if they had told the truth and were not spies, when they returned they must bring the youngest brother, about whom they had spoken.
Now follows this language, which I have often made the occasion of a sermon: “And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; but ye would not hear? therefore also, behold, his blood is required.” The point is that they were convicted of the sin of having sold Joseph into Egypt. Joseph had not said anything to them about it. The crime had been committed a long time back) and they had never shown any compunction of conscience. A circumstance comes up in a strange land, and all at once every one of them is convicted of sin. The use I make of that in preaching is this: I begin at the first of Genesis and go through the entire Bible, making a digest of every case of conviction of sin mentioned. I write that case out, stating what the sin was, how long after the sin before conviction came, and the causes of conviction. The object of the study is to prepare me to preach to the unconverted. If you cannot convict people of sin, they do not want a Saviour. Their own consciences convicted these men. A sinner becomes apprehensive; he flees when nobody pursues. He will construe any sudden judgment as a punishment for that sin. Unless you know that about human nature, you won’t know how to deal with conviction. That was exactly the effect that Joseph wanted to bring about, but not by open accusation or denunciation. He wanted to treat them in such a way that they would get into a tight place and their consciences would do the rest. Other remarkable cases of conviction are where Nathan convicted David; Jonah the Ninevites; and the cases on the day of Pentecost. After studying the Bible through, I go to my experience to find the first thing that made me feel that I was a sinner, and the other times I have felt conviction of sin. From my own experience I learn how to deal with others in their experience. That I regard as the most important thought in this lesson.
Before these boys get home, they find the money paid for the wheat in their sacks. See how that conviction creeps out again: “Behold, my money is returned, and their hearts went out, and they turned trembling one to another, saying, What is this that God has done unto us?” When they got home they had to explain to their father the absence of Simeon, the return of their money, and that they must take Benjamin with them on their return. Jacob said, “Me have you bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.” I used to treat that this way: that in our pessimism we are apt to construe things against us that ultimately prove good for us. I illustrate it by: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” But from the translation: “On me are all these things,” you get an entirely different and very suggestive sermon. Jacob hints that they had killed Simeon, or disposed of him some way like they had Joseph. The thought is this: no man can commit a sin that terminates in himself. It always breaks some other heart. If a boy steals, it hurts his mother worse than it hurts him. If a man commits a murder, his wife may say, “On me is this thing.” If he is a drunkard, on her and her children are all those things. In the social order no human being is independent of others, but bound by indissoluble ties of blood and society; nor stands by himself, and cannot sin by himself. Preaching on that subject once, I drew a picture of a North Carolina boy who went away from home and left his widowed mother in sorrow. While traveling he took a religious furlough; played cards, drank whiskey, became dissipated, finally had delirium tremens, spent all his money, got into debt, lost his reputation, and determined to commit suicide. I drew a picture of him standing on the brow of a precipice, ready to jump. I called attention to a cord around him which went back, and I followed that cord back to North Carolina, and found it knotted around his mother’s heart. When he jumped it tore her heart also. “On me are all these things.”
We come to the generous proposition of Reuben: “My two eons shalt thou slay if I bring him not to thee.” Since Reuben was not guilty of selling Joseph, it was very generous on his part. But his father could not trust Reuben: “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: if harm befall him by the way in which ye go, then will ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave [Sheol].” But Jacob did not take into account the pressure of the famine. We stand against many things, sometimes, to which after awhile we yield. Judah now proposes to become a surety for the lad: “My life and everything I have is in thy hands, if I don’t bring this boy back.” That has often been used as a representation of Christ’s becoming surety for this people. Jacob most reluctantly gives his consent, and with his usual wisdom takes every precaution to guard against trouble: “Take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, a little honey, spicery and myrrh, nuts and almonds.” He has done all that he could; now he is going to pray: “And God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release unto you your other brother and Benjamin.”
We have an account of their reception in Egypt, and I want you to note the working of that conviction again. Joseph made ready a feast for them, released Simeon to them, “And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said: Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in: that he may seek occasion against us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses.” How easy it is for an apprehensive heart to suppose that every seeming sinister thing is a messenger of God and of judgment. So they stepped out to the man who had charge of Joseph’s house and explained about the matter. They supposed that accusation was going to be made against them, and sought to defend themselves beforehand. Shakespeare in Hamlet thus refers to the queen: “The lady protests too much, I think.” Whenever anybody gives you an explanation of a thing before there is an accusation and keeps on explaining, it instantly creates a thought in the minds of others that something needs explaining.
Here in Gen 43:27 , is a very touching thing, and in studying literature you ought always to notice pathetic and delicately expressed things: “And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he yet alive? And they said, Thy servant, our father, is well, he is yet alive.” Now, when he asked that question how must his heart have stood still until he got the answer, and how much he was touched at the sight of Benjamin. Notice in Gen 43:32 , that Joseph could not eat with his brethren, because Egyptians could not eat with strangers. The Jew to this day will not eat with Gentiles. A Jewish drummer has to get a dispensation from his Rabbi to eat at hotels. The Egyptians required certain precautions in order to escape ceremonial defilement, and would not eat with those who ate certain animals. They would not eat with any one who would kill a cow, a crocodile, a beetle, or sacred animal. The Jews once brought complaint against Peter because he had eaten with uncircumcised Gentiles. Notice Gen 43:34 : “And he took and sent messes to them from before him: but Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs.” That has become a proverb. Old Baptists used to say, “Have you prepared a feast for us today?” “Yea, a Benjamin’s mess.”
The next chapter tells how Joseph sent them out again and put their money back; and how he had his silver cup inserted in Benjamin’s sack. When they had gone, he sent men after them with this question: “Wherefore have ye requited evil for good? Is not this that in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth?” What is meant by divining with a cup? When I was a little fellow they used to divine this way: They would take a cup of muddy coffee and let the coffee escape, leaving the grounds (dregs) in the bottom of the cup, and would whirl the cup around, and tell a fortune by the position the dregs assumed. That was a very simple Arkansas method of divining, but it was exactly in line with this Egyptian method. Gipsy women divine with cards, or by the lines of one’s hands. They denied having the cup, but when the bags were opened it was found in Benjamin’s bag. In v. II notice that conviction of sin again. When they got back Judah said, “What shall we say unto my lord? What shall we speak? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants,” still carrying everything back to that crime they had committed. It is that response of human conscience that enables criminal lawyers, who understand human nature, to become mighty prosecutors of crime. Daniel Webster used to say, when they were morally sure of the guilt of a man and he had no legal evidence, ‘”Never mind, I will get the testimony.” Then he would begin his speech. He would draw a supposititious picture of the crime; how the man crept in at the window, etc., and if he did not tell it exactly right the fellow would cry out: “It was not that way”, which would betray him. If he would follow the crime to the line, the criminal would show the fear in his face. Webster always had an ally in the conscience of the criminal.
Now we come to one of the greatest pieces of oratory in the world, the speech of Judah before Joseph. Analyze the power of Judah’s speech. In Scott’s Heart of Midlothian , in Jeanie Deans’ speech before the queen of England, you will find the only thing in literature which I think compares with this speech of Judah. Effie Deans, sister of Jeanie, had been convicted of a crime; Jeanie walked most of the way from Scotland to make a petition for her sister’s pardon. The Duke of Argyll befriended her, and managed that she should have an interview with the queen, and told her just to speak her heart, and not to fix up anything to say. This noble Scottish girl and that part is history as well as romance delivered one of the most impressive, affecting, pathetic little speeches that ever fell from the lips of mortal. I will glance at this speech of Judah’s and show you what I think constitutes its elements of power. “And Judah came near to him, and said, O my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant, for thou art even as Pharaoh.” Notice two elements of power: the humility of the speaker and the conciliation of the one whom he addressed: “Thou art even as Pharaoh.” The next element of power is that he most delicately makes Joseph responsible for the situation: “My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father or brother? And we said unto my lord, we have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother.” “His mother is dead and his father loves him, and you made us bring him.” Having made that point clear, he introduces the father, “Thy servant, my father, said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons and one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces, and I saw him no more, and if you take this one also from my presence, and harm befall him, ye will bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the under-world. Now, when I go to my father, and the lad is not with us, it will come to pass that he will die.” And he comes to the last point of power, and that is his proposition of substitution: “Now, therefore, let thy servant remain instead of the lad, and let the lad go to his father.” When Judah reached the climax it had power with Joseph. Judah was a father himself and many times had made that generous proposition to go into bondage in place of the boy.
Whereupon Joseph makes himself known to his brethren. And Joseph said, “Come near, I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” That brings up the question: Who sent Joseph into Egypt? Their consciences told them they had done it, and they knew it. But they sent him for evil, but God sent him for good. That will enable you to get a principle by which the hardest doctrines in the Bible will be reconcilable. We are all the time conscious of doing from our own will. AB Peter said to the Jews: “What God had predetermined to be done, ye with wickedness have done.” There is predestination on God’s part, and action on their part, which did not exculpate them from blame, on account of free moral agency and predestination.
Alexander Carson, one of the greatest Baptist writers, a Presbyterian, converted in North Ireland, has written a book on the providence of God, and illustrates his theme by the case of Joseph, showing that while the father had his care, the boys their sin, and Joseph wept at being put into the pit and sold into bondage, and that Potiphar’s wife intervened with her lust, and that the prison held Joseph, yet over all these intermingling human feelings and devices and persecutions, far beyond human sight, the government of God was working. An examination question will be: “Who wrote a book on the providence of God, and illustrated it by the life of Joseph?” After this reconciliation Joseph sends his brothers back home to bring their father back. We will take up the story there in our next discussion.
QUESTIONS 1. What can you say of the story of Joseph in Egypt?
2. What the extent of the famine in Egypt?
3. What did Jacob send to Egypt after, and what several products were then unknown to the people in the Orient?
4. How did Joseph treat his brothers on their first trip, and why?
5. What inner nature of history does the narrative of his brethren disclose?
6. Show the workings of the consciences of his brothers.
7. What direction for a study of conviction?
8. What was the second step of Joseph in convicting them of sin?
9. What explanation did they have to make to Jacob?
10. What was his reply and the lessons therefrom? Illustrate.
11. What was the proposition of Reuben and Jacob’s reply?
12. Who finally prevailed with Jacob, and how?
13. What evidence of the workings of conviction on their return to Egypt and how did they try to excuse themselves?
14. What of Shakespeare’s statement in point and its lesson?
15. What touching incident of their meeting Joseph on the second trip?
16. Why did Joseph not eat with them?
17. What expedient did Joseph adopt to get Benjamin?
18. What is meant by divining with the cup?
19. What evidence of conviction here?
20. What advantage of this principle to criminal lawyers? Illustrate.
21. What is the expositor’s estimate of Judah’s speech before Joseph in behalf of Benjamin?
22. With what speech in the works of Sir Walter Scott may it be compared?
23. Give an analysis of the power of Judah’s speech.
24. Who sent Joseph into Egypt, and what part of the divine government is most strikingly illustrated in his history?
25. What noted Baptist author has written a book on this subject?
Gen 42:1 Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
Ver. 1. Now when Jacob saw that there was corn. ] A sale of corn. Heb., A breaking: so called, either because corn breaks famine; or, because it is broken and ground to make bread of; or, for that they made their bread in thin cakes and so broke it. Or lastly, because he that selleth it breaks the heap and gives part to the buyer.
Why look ye one upon another? a Convivium sit simile Alphabeto, &c.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 42:1-5
1Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?” 2He said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy some for us from that place, so that we may live and not die.” 3Then ten brothers of Joseph went down to buy grain from Egypt. 4But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “I am afraid that harm may befall him.” 5So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming, for the famine was in the land of Canaan also.
Gen 42:1 “Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt” The VERB “see” is used twice in Gen 42:1.
1. “Jacob saw,” BDB 906, KB 1157, Qal IMPERFECT
2. “Why are you staring at one another,” Hithpael IMPERFECT
This same word is used of Pharaoh’s dream (cf. Gen 41:19; Gen 41:22; Gen 41:28) and by Joseph for Pharaoh to look for a discerning and wise man (cf. Gen 41:33). This common VERB is used in this chapter several times (i.e., Gen 42:1 [twice],7,9,12,21,27,35). Rashi says that he had a divine vision, but he probably saw that others in Canaan were purchasing grain from Pharaoh (cf. Gen 47:14).
Gen 42:2 Jacob commands his sons to go to Egypt to sustain (i.e., “live and not die”) the family.
1. go down there, BDB 432, KB 434, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. buy some for us, BDB 991, KB 1404, Qal IMPERATIVE
3. so that we may live, BDB 310, KB 309, Qal IMPERFECT used in a COHORTATIVE sense. The famine was pervasive and severe!
Gen 42:3-4 Jacob still did not trust the brothers. They had somehow been a part of Joseph’s death and he would not trust something similar to happen to Rachel’s only remaining child, Benjamin.
Gen 42:4 “that harm may befall him” The term “harm” (BDB 62) is rare (cf. Gen 44:29; Exo 21:22-23) and implies a life-threatening accident. Jacob is fearful for the life of the only child of his beloved, deceased Rachel (i.e., Benjamin, Joseph’s younger full brother). One wonders if Jacob thought he would be the leader of the family.
This VERB (BDB 896, II KB 1131m Qal PERFECT) is used in a negative sense here and in Lev 10:19; Deu 31:29; Job 4:14; Isa 51:19; Jer 13:22; Jer 44:23, and is usually translated “befall.”
Gen 42:5 “So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming” Some wonder why Jacob sent all of his sons (earlier he had divided his family for safety, cf. Gen 32:22-32). It was possibly because (1) each individual could only buy so much grain or (2) that there was safety in numbers.
“for the famine was in the 1and of Canaan also” From history we know that famine periodically swept through this part of the world. It was caused by (1) lack of rain at the appropriate time; (2) too much rain or cold; (3) insects; or (4) blight, mildew. Canaan was dependant on regular natural cycles, but Egypt was dependant on the Nile (i.e., flooding).
Why . . . ? &c. Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6. That is what we all too often do when in trouble or difficulty.
The Pharaoh in Egypt had had two dreams with similarities because they had one interpretation. The first dream involved the seven fat cows grazing by the river and seven lean cows rising up and eating up the fat cows and still being lean. And then a wheat with seven stalks or corn of wheat upon them and fat and full followed by seven lean blasted wheat. And the lean and blasted wheat ate up the fat wheat.
The dream bothered Pharaoh. He called for his wise men and his astrologers for an interpretation which they were not able to give. And at that time the Lord jolted the memory of the butler who two years earlier had had a dream in the prison that was interpreted by Joseph. And he informed the Pharaoh that there was a young Hebrew boy in prison who is able to interpret dreams.
And so Joseph was brought before the Pharaoh to interpret for him the meaning of the dreams. And Joseph said your dream is actually one. For the Lord has shown to the Pharaoh what is going to happen. There are going to be seven good years; years in which you’re going to have a surplus, years in which there will be bumper crop. But they will be followed by seven very lean years, so lean that the drought of the seven years will eat up all of the surplus of the good years.
Now he said, “let the Pharaoh find a wise man within his kingdom that during the seven years of abundance he might gather together the surplus into barns and granaries and all of the cities of Egypt, store it up so that when the lean years come, you’ll be able to survive”. And the Pharaoh said, “There is no wiser man than you in the kingdom because no one else was able to tell me what the dream means. So I make you second in command to me. Of all of those in Egypt, none will be greater than you except myself.” And he puts Joseph in royal robes. He gave him his own royal chariot. As he would go down the street in his chariot the people would cry out, “Bow your knee”. And the people thus did obeisance unto Joseph and he was exalted there in Egypt.
And during the seven good years he stored up in the granaries huge amounts of surplus. Actually used to be that the people gave ten percent of their crops to the king but they ordered them during this time to give twenty percent. And so a sort of taxation of twenty percent during these good years. And Joseph laid up so much wheat that they just left off counting it. They just didn’t measure it anymore. It was just such a great abundance during the seven years. But then the seven lean years began. Now the famine or the drought that came was not local, that is, it extended beyond Egypt. And it extended into the area of Canaan where Jacob was living.
And as we come now into chapter forty-two:
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said to his sons, Why do you look one another, [why do you look at each other] ( Gen 42:1 )?
Now they heard there’s plenty of corn down in Egypt. And the boys started looking at each other, probably guilty conscience. Egypt, yeah, that’s where we sold Joseph to, you know. What if we go down there, what if we should see him as a slave? What would we do? What would be our reaction? We sold him as a slave and what if in going to Egypt we saw this guy laboring out in the field and, you know, being mastered over and, what would be the reaction? And probably just a little bit of a tinge as they thought of Egypt. They’re looking at each other thinking, “Oh man”, you know, “what would happen if”, you know; that kind of a thing.
Jacob said, Why are you looking at each other?
He said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: now go down, and buy from there; that we may live, and not die ( Gen 42:2 ).
And so Jacob is ordering his sons now to go on down to Egypt to buy the corn from Egypt.
And Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph’s full brother ( Gen 42:3-4 ),
His brethren went down but Joseph’s full brother Benjamin.
Jacob did not send with the brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him ( Gen 42:4 ).
Now Rachel, the one that Jacob was dearly in love with, had two sons. I don’t know that we can really fault Jacob too much for his love for Rachel. Leah was, you know, just put on him in a dirty switch by her dad. He had labored for Rachel and his great love was always for Rachel. It was really a dirty thing that Laban pulled on Joseph switching the bride at night, all veiled and all, so that he didn’t even know who he was married to until the morning light. And he looked across the bed and instead of seeing Rachel, it was her sister. And he could not help but sort of resent the dirty trick. His love originally and always was first for Rachel.
So though Leah bore many sons, when Rachel finally bore him a son, the son of Rachel, the one he truly loved became a favored son in Joseph’s eyes. He was the son of his wife who he truly loved. She also had a second son, Benjamin, but while she was in childbirth with Benjamin, she died. And so she first called him “Benoni”, the child of my grief or sorrow and Jacob graciously changed his name to Benjamin. It would be a sad tag to put on a kid all his life, “son of sorrow”. And so his dad changed the “son of my right hand”. But he also loved Benjamin because of the fact that it was Rachel’s son.
So when Joseph was sold by his brothers, Benjamin no doubt replaced Joseph in the affections of his father. And that place that Joseph once held was now held by Benjamin, a place of favoritism, a place of sheltering. He was the youngest son and as the youngest son had, of course, advantages of that which the youngest child so often has when all of the brothers and sisters are older. And then they come along; they’re the baby of the family. And you usually by that time have more maturity in your raising your kids. You’re easier on them; you don’t crack the whips so hard. And so had that favored position now that was once held by Joseph.
So that when his brothers went down to Egypt to buy grain, Benjamin was kept home. You don’t know what problems might befall you on a journey like that, about two hundred and sixty-five miles through wilderness area. And so Benjamin was kept home, “lest peradventure mischief should befall him.” In case they got any trouble, at least he still has Benjamin there at home.
Now the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan ( Gen 42:5 ).
So many people were coming down from Canaan to buy corn in Egypt or to buy wheat, actually.
And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land ( Gen 42:6 ):
So Joseph was over the land and it seems that when you would come from another country, that you had to sort of clear through Joseph in order to buy your wheat.
and so Joseph’s brothers came, and they bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brothers, and he knew them, but he made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Where are you come from? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brothers, but they knew him not ( Gen 42:6-8 ).
Now no doubt when they bowed down before him, his mind flashed back to his dreams. His dreams that had made his brothers so mad. When he was at home he said to his brothers, “I had a dream last night. I dreamed that we were all out in the field and we were binding our sheaves and my sheaves of wheat stood upright and yours all bowed down to mine”. Oh, did they get mad! “Bow down to you, you runt, no way”, you know. And now here is Joseph and he sees his brothers all bowing down and probably a flashback on that dream that he had had.
It was twenty-one years since his brothers had seen him. He was only seventeen years old when they sold him to the caravan going to Egypt and now it is twenty-one years later, he is thirty-eight years old. He has matured. He is dressed as the Egyptians. And they just didn’t recognize him. Who would expect to see their brother, you know, in this position in Egypt anyhow? And so he made himself strange to them and though he recognized them. He has the advantage. He recognized them but they didn’t recognize him.
And Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed of them, and he said to them, You are spies; you’ve come to see the nakedness of the land. And they said unto him, Oh no, my lord, but to buy food that’s why we have come. We’re all one man’s sons; we are true men, the servants, thy servants are really not spies. And he said unto them, Oh no, to see the nakedness of the land is the reason why you’ve come. And they said, Thy servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That’s it, I’ve said it unto you from the beginning, You are spies ( Gen 42:9-14 ):
And so he’s just really giving them a rough time, you know, as they are there and he said.
Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of Pharaoh you will not go from here, except your youngest brother come on down ( Gen 42:15 ).
In other words, we’ll send one of you back to get him and you’re going to have to bring him down before I let you go from here.
And so we’ll,
Send one of you, let him fetch your brother, and you will be kept in prison, that we may prove your words, whether there’s any truth in what you have to say: or else by the life of Pharaoh you are surely spies. And so he put them all in jail for three days ( Gen 42:16-17 ).
Now they had not had much mercy on him. They had thrown him in the pit and he had spent a lot of time in jail because of what they had done to him. And so he figured a few days in jail won’t hurt them, you know, they caused me to experience several years in that jail. And so he just acted tough and rough to them and accused them of being spies. Finally just threw them in jail.
And Joseph after three days said unto them, I’ll tell you what, this you can do, and live; for I fear God ( Gen 42:18 ):
Now it is interesting as part of his disguise he was swearing by Pharaoh. You know, I swear by Pharaoh you’re not going to see me and all. But now he calls them. He says, “Look, I fear God”.
And if you are true men, let one of your brothers be bound in the house of your prison: and you go, and carry corn for the families of your houses: But bring your youngest brother unto me; and thus your words will be verified, and ye shall not die. And so they did. And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn’t listen; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them and said, Didn’t I tell you don’t sin against the child; and you wouldn’t listen to me? therefore, behold, also his blood is required ( Gen 42:19-22 ).
You know time of recrimination. “I told you so. Why didn’t you listen to me?” You know. “Didn’t I tell you?” But it is interesting that twenty-one years later they are still feeling the guilt of their misdeed. You cannot cover guilt. Your guilt will out. Sooner or later your guilt is going to out. A guilty conscience is something that continues to nag.
The US Treasury Department has what they call “The Conscience Fund”. Every year they receive thousands of dollars, not checks because it’s sent in anonymously. People who have cheated on their taxes and they feel guilty and so they send in the amount to cover that which they cheated the government. And they just have what they call “The Conscience Fund”.
They say that neurotic behavior patterns are often subconscious desires or created by subconscious desires for punishment. I know I have done wrong. I have this sense of guilt. I desire to be punished. I’m too big, my dad isn’t around anymore to take me into the other room and to relieve me of my guilt complex. And so I start some weird little behavioral pattern, an anti-social kind of a behavior pattern where people start saying, “What’s the matter with him? Man, he’s crude”. And I hear them saying these things and I think, “Aha, yes, I’m being punished now”, you know, and it gives me a sense of relief from guilt. Guilt will out in neurotic behavior or somewhere or other, guilt is going to out.
Twenty-one years they carried the guilt of what they had done to Joseph and now when they are really in trouble, what do they think about? When they are really in a tight place, what do they think about? We did wrong to our brother. We didn’t listen to him when he was begging with us and asking us and pleading with us to, you know, to not sell him and all. Oh, we did wrong.
Now Joseph can understand what they’re saying. They don’t know that he can, but he understands everything they’re saying and he’s probably learning a lot about the whole conspiracy. As Reuben says, “Yeah, didn’t I tell you not to hurt the kid and you wouldn’t listen to me” and all? “I told you don’t lay your hand on him.” And thus he realizes, “hey, Reuben was standing up for me”. And perhaps Reuben was looking at Simeon when he said it. Somehow or other, Joseph got the idea, and of course he was there when the thing happened, too, and he could hear them talking above the pit when he was down inside, and no doubt Simeon was sort of the henchman in the whole thing.
Now Simeon was cruel. He was hot-tempered and cruel. Later on as Jacob was giving the patriarchal-kind of prophecies over his son, he said to Simeon, “Cursed be thy cruelty.” So Joseph chose Simeon to stay in jail while the brothers took the corn on back to their father.
Now Joseph, of course, was concerned with his father’s welfare and the family welfare. He knew that the famine was going on and he didn’t want them to run out of food and so after the three days of letting them all sit in jail, he called them out and he said, “I’ll just keep one of you as hostage. The rest of you go on back and take the supplies back for your families and all. But don’t bother to come again unless you bring your youngest brother.”
They didn’t know [verse twenty-three] that Joseph could understand them; for he spoke unto them through an interpreter. And so he turned himself about from them, and cried ( Gen 42:23-24 );
Actually he couldn’t take it. He heard them talking saying, “Oh, you should have listened to me. Oh, don’t you remember the way he was begging”, and all. And talking about Joseph and realized that they were now really repenting for what they had done to him. I believe that this whole thing of Joseph’s was a design to really test his brothers to find out where they really were after this length of time.
Joseph knew that the purposes of God were to be accomplished through these boys. That God’s providential plan was all wrapped up in this family. Jacob had no doubt shared with Joseph many times the visions that he had had and the dreams that he had and God speaking with him and telling him the destiny of the family. That the nation was going to come forth from them and the various tribes from each of the brothers and knowing God’s destiny was involved with these boys.
He was wondering, “Are they now ready for God to work in them?” And really just sort of putting them unto the test. And here’s the first sign that things have changed; there’s a repentance here. “We did wrong”, a confession of their sins, no longer an attempt to justify it.
The Bible says “he who seeks to cover his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth his sin shall be saved”. We many times make a mistake in trying to justify or cover our guilt. It’s not until we come to the confession that we can really get rid of it. “As we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” ( 1Jn 1:9 ).
And so here is a confession of sin, here is a repentance of sin, they are good signs.
Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with wheat, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for their ways: and thus he did unto them. And as they laded down their asses with the wheat, they departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give provender to his donkey in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in the sack’s mouth. And he said to his brothers, My money is here in the sack: and their hearts failed them, for they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God has done unto us ( Gen 42:25-28 )?
I imagine that Joseph had a sense of humor, too. And he just knew, you know, what this is going to do to them when they open their sacks and they find their money that is there.
And so they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, and they told him all of the things that had happened: saying, The man, who is the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us, and he took us as spies. But we told him that we were just true men; we weren’t spies: That we were twelve brothers, sons of our father; and one was not, and the youngest was still with our father in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that you are true men; leave one of your brethren here, and you take the food for the famine for your households, and be gone: And bring your youngest brother unto me: and then I will know that you are not spies, but that you are true men: and so will I deliver your brother, and ye shall be able to come and go in the land. And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid ( Gen 42:29-35 ).
Jacob figured that the boys had ripped them off and was really shook now over this whole affair. And so at this point,
Jacob their father said unto them, Me have you bereaved of my children ( Gen 42:36 ):
I wonder if Jacob began to-suspicion something concerning Joseph by this point. And he is accusing them of bereaving him of his children.
Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me ( Gen 42:36 ).
Jacob allowed fear to come in his heart because he was looking at the outward circumstances. He saw the money in the boys’ sacks. He heard their story of the roughness of the lord of Egypt. He heard the demand made by the lord of Egypt. And because of fear taking over, he despaired.
Fear usually leads to despair. And when you despair, you often do foolish things. First of all, he lashed out against his own sons. When a person has come to a point of despair, quite often he’ll lash out at his own friends. It’s hard to go to comfort a person who has come to the point of despair because a lot of times they get to the place they don’t even want to be comforted. And if you go to say some kind words, they’ll just snap at you and they’ll just, you know, come right back at you because in despair you do foolish things. Because of his despair, he exaggerated his situation. And it is interesting that when we become filled with despair or fear, fear has a way of exaggerating a situation.
When we were first pastoring, well our second church, we were pastoring in Tucson and we were hardly more than kids; I was in my early twenties. And we were having a meeting with our youth leaders where we were going to lay out our plans for our youth program, because this is what we’ve been taught to do. And so we had a couple girls that were twins. They were real rowdies. They were spoiled and they have been used to sort of running things. And so they sort of got a conspiracy of, you know, and time for the meeting to start and they just-before the meeting should start, took off and went up to the drugstore to buy some chewing gum ’cause they were always popping gum.
And so I figured, “All right, young ladies, I’m not going to just sit here and wait for you to get back. I’m going to teach you when 7:30 comes and we’ve called a meeting for 7:30,we want to start at 7:30 . So I called one of the fellows that was there and I said, “Let’s go up to the drugstore”. And just about half a block from the drugstore, there was one of these in Tucson they have these rain runoff areas they called washes and the wash came under the road. And there was a corrugated pipe that ran under the road and so we went and hid in this wash. And as the girls got to the wash, I said, “Grab ’em”. And I took a big boulder and I rolled it down this corrugated pipe underneath the road and it rumbled, you know, and these girls screamed and took off across the street running and screaming.
Well, the other fellow and I headed back to the church real quick and we just sat down in the room like we were waiting for them. And pretty soon a police car came up and let the girls out and they came in and told us their story; how that at least fifteen guys tried to grab them and they went on with their wild story, you know. But their fear magnified the whole thing tremendously. It’s amazing how fear can exaggerate a situation.
And so Jacob’s account was an exaggerated account, as fear so often exaggerates the problem. “All things are against me.” Oh, that isn’t so. It just looked like all things were against him. But we should never measure the problem by that which we can see. That was his mistake.
Paul said we don’t “look at those things which are seen, but the things which are not seen: the things that you’re seeing are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal” ( 2Co 4:18 ). Jacob, that isn’t true. All things are not against you. In fact, Jacob, if you only knew the whole truth, instead of crying out in despair and fear, you would be rejoicing and jumping up and down if you only knew the whole story. Despair so often comes from just half of the truth. Just that which I can see and not taking God into account. It’s when I take God into account that I begin to endure and have that staying quality and fear begins to subside when I consider God is on the throne. God is still working. God hasn’t abandoned me. And then I can have confidence.
But the cry, “All things are against me”, it was a false cry based upon fragmentary knowledge. The Bible tells us that all things are not against us. The Bible tells us that “all things are working together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” ( Rom 8:28 ). All things. What do “all things” include? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Famine, persecution, nakedness, peril, sword? Nay, in all these things”( Rom 8:35 ).
These things may include famine. They may include nakedness. They may include peril. They may include sword. But if I have to endure these kinds of afflictions, whatever comes it’s working together for good because I love God and they cannot separate me from the love of God. For “in all these things I am more than a conqueror through Him who loves me. For I am persuaded, that neither depth, nor height, nor principalities, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature, is able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus” ( Rom 8:37-39 ).
Do you have that kind of confidence in God’s love tonight? If you do, you are a happy, peaceful man. I am so persuaded of God’s love. I’m so persuaded of God’s plan. I’m so persuaded of God’s overruling providential care of my life, that I do not fear of what might happen to me or anything else. Because whatever comes it can only come to me as God allows it to come. And God loves me and He’ll only allow those things to come that can work out to my good. He won’t allow anything that would come that would destroy me, only those things that will work out for my good will God allow to come to me.
I have that kind of confidence in God and thus I am persuaded that in all of these things I can be more than a conqueror because God loves me. And if you have that kind of confidence in God’s love, you can go through the darkest night and it’s life about you because of His love and that confidence that He gives.
So Jacob’s cry was a false cry. It was a cry that was based upon fragmentary knowledge. “All things are against me.” That isn’t true. Jacob, if you only knew the whole truth instead of crying out in despair, you would be rejoicing in victory. How many times do we cry out in despair and moan and complain unto God when God says, “Oh, if you only knew what I was doing. Wait; let Me finish this story. Let Me finish this chapter.” The end comes out good. It’s just a beautiful mystery. “But wait until the whole thing unravels and you’re going to be so excited over the good plan that I have.” But oh, think of the hassle God has to go through to get us there.
Oh, I don’t think You love me anymore, God. I don’t know about-I don’t know if I’ll serve You or not. If You can do this to me, I don’t know. I think maybe I’ll just quit and all. God has to go through all this guff and mouthing off and hassle that we give to Him as He’s trying to do something good for us. Sometimes I feel sorry for God. The things He has to endure in order to show His goodness to us, all of the accusations and all that we cast upon Him. And all the while in His mind, He is thinking good and He sees the good fruit and the good results that’s going to come.
Here’s Jacob. “All things are against me.” And complaining. And he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know the whole story.
So Reuben spoke unto his father, and he said, Kill my two sons, if I bring him not to thee ( Gen 42:37 ):
In other words, you know, Benjamin is not going to go down. I won’t let him go. He said, “Hey, kill my two sons if I don’t bring him back”. Now what good will that do? That’s sort of a stupid thing to say but Reuben was unstable as water. He just didn’t have very much smarts anyhow. And so he makes this kind of a rash thing, a statement. What comfort would that be to a grandfather to kill his two grandkids? You know, it’s just you want to say something but that’s the danger of saying something when just for the sake of saying something. Better that you have something to say. “Slay my two sons if I bring him not to thee.”
deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to you again. And Jacob said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, he is left alone: and if mischief would befall him by the way in the which you go, then you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave ( Gen 42:37-38 ).
“
According to the foretelling of Joseph in interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, the famine came; but through Joseph’s executive ability Egypt was provided with corn sufficient not only for its own needs, but equal to the need of other peoples.
At last Joseph’s brethren are seen fulfilling his dream of long ago and bowing down in his presence. His conversation with them is revealing. Questioned about themselves, they replied, ‘We . . . are twelve brethren . . . and one is not.” These men were evidently conscious of their guilt. It would seem the memory of the wrong done to their brother long ago had haunted them through the years, recurring with new force in this hour of danger. While their action was utterly evil, yet they referred to their “brother.” Though they had no consciousness that the Egyptian governor was their brother, the memory of the sin of long ago sprang up when they found themselves in peril.
When they returned to him without Simeon and communicated the demand of the governor that Benjamin should be brought to him, Jacob’s complaint was full of sadness. The old man said, “All these things are against me.’ It was not the language of faith, and yet surely none of us can criticize him, for the outlook was dark enough. Had he been a man of less subtle faith, perchance he might have been able to say, “All things work together for good.”
Though he was not able to say this, the fact remains that the things which seemed to be against him were really working together to give him back his long-lost boy and to carry toward completion those gracious purposes for which he and his father stood. As we study the story we may surely learn the lesson that it is never wise to measure the facts of any hour by the limits of our own vision.
Joseph Sees His Ten Brothers
Gen 42:1-17
The true interpretation of Josephs treatment of his brethren is to be found in the supposition that he repeated toward them, as nearly as possible, the behavior that they had shown to himself at the pits mouth, and this with no thought of retaliation, but that their consciences might be awakened, and that he might discover if they would deal differently with Benjamin than they had dealt with him. He needed to be sure of their repentance before he could trust himself to them again. His purpose therefore was in part secured when he heard them saying to each other in the dear old home-tongue, which they never expected him to understand, We are verily guilty because of our brother. So God deals with us. The east wind blows bitterly in our faces, the famine is behind and the harsh governor before. All these things are hard to bear; but behind them is the tenderest love, which struggles with its tears and is only eager to get us right before entrusting itself to us.
Gen 42:3
I. The story of Joseph is a good example of what is meant by Providence working for the best in the lives of men. Look at the young foreigner, as he comes to a land not his own; see how he resists the one great temptation of his age and station; observe how, through means not of his own seeking, through good report and evil, through much misunderstanding of others, but by consistent integrity and just dealing on his own part, he overcomes all the difficulties of his position, and is remembered long afterwards in his adopted land as the benefactor of his generation and the deliverer of his country.
II. The story of Joseph is, perhaps, of all the stories in the Old Testament, the one which most carries us back to our childhood, both from the interest we felt in it as children, and from the true picture of family life which it presents. It brings before us the way in which the greatest blessings for this life and the next depend on the keeping up of family love pure and fresh, as when the preservation and fitting education of the chosen people depended on that touching generosity and brotherly affection which no distance of time, no new customs, no long sojourn in a strange land, could extinguish in the heart of Joseph. Home is on earth the best likeness of heaven; and heaven is that last and best home in which, when the journey of life is over, Joseph and his brethren, Jacob and his sons, Rachel and her children, shall meet to part no more.
A. P. Stanley, Sermons in the East, p. 17.
References: Gen 42:3.-G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv, p. 218. Gen 42:4.-Weekly Pulpit, vol. i., p. 300. Gen 42:8.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 4.
Gen 42:9
Jacob became aware of a fact which his brother had not cared to know-a fact for himself and his seed after him. The Being who had made man in His own image told this man that he was made in His image; taught him that he was not meant, like the serpent, to go on his belly and eat dust. This is the only explanation given. It assumes that man lives because he is related to God, that when he denies that relation he chooses death; it assumes that God is continually teaching men of their relation to Him, and that they are continually flying from His voice.
I. Joseph’s story is in strict accordance with these principles. He had dreams of greatness: his brothers’ sheaves are to bow down before him; the sun and the moon are to pay him obeisance. In his vanity he tells the dreams, and is hated the more. His brothers plot against his life, throw him into a pit, sell him to a company of Ishmaelites. There is no description of his anguish, or of any thoughts of comfort that came to him. We are merely told that God was with him, that he found favour with Potiphar, and became the steward of his house.
II. We know that though our dreams have never told us anything about that which is to come, they have told us secrets of our own experience; they have shown how near dark, fierce thoughts, which we fancied at a great distance, were lying to us. The interpretation of dreams for us and for the old world lies in the belief that we are under a loving and Divine Teacher, who does not wish us to walk in darkness.
III. There are crises, however, in a man’s life, when he is neither troubled with the dreams of the night nor of the day-when he is called to act, and act at once-when life and death hang on the decision of a moment. To such a crisis had Joseph come when he spoke the words, “How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” The belief in a living, present God, was then all in all to him.
IV. Joseph’s sermon to Pharaoh was a simple declaration that the Righteous Being was the Lord over Egypt, that He could set it in order. And his sermon to the Egyptians was the proof which his administration gave that he had spoken truth.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 118.
References: Gen 42:11-J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 369. Gen 42:13.-G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 15. Gen 42:18.-J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 369; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 131. Gen 42:21.-J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Missions, p. 248; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 178.
Gen 42:21-22
I. Joseph’s brethren had not been placed in any peculiar circumstances of trial since the loss of Joseph; consequently their sin had slept. There had been nothing to call it to light; they had well-nigh forgotten it; its heinousness had become dim in the distance. But now they were in trouble, and they could not help seeing the hand of God in that trouble. Their spiritual instinct told them that their trouble did not spring out of the ground; it had been planted there,-it had a root. Their sin had found them out at last, and their own adversity brought about that contrition for their offence which its own hatefulness ought to have been sufficient to produce.
II. We see from this story that men may commit sins, and may forget them; and yet the sins may be recorded, and may one day rise up again with a frightful vitality. Men will soon bury their own sins, if they be left to themselves; but it is like burying seed, which appears to die and be forgotten, and yet it. rises up again, and perhaps becomes a great tree.
III. The voice of conscience is a good voice, a wholesome voice,-yea, the very voice of God to our souls, and one to be welcomed by us if we only listen to it at the right time. The consciousness of guilt is a blessed thing, if only it come at the right time, and when there is opportunity for bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. Well for us if our estimate of our condition is the same, at least in its main features, as that estimate which God has made, and which the last day will produce!
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 118.
References: Gen 42:22.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 840. Gen 42:24.-Parker, vol. i., p. 329. Gen 42:25.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 194. Gen 42:28.-E. Garbett, The Soul’s Life, p. 125.
Gen 42:36
So spoke the patriarch Jacob when Joseph had been made away with, Simeon was detained in Egypt, Benjamin threatened, and his remaining sons were suspected by him and distrusted; when at his door was a grievous famine, enemies or strangers round about, evil in prospect, and in the past a number of sad remembrances. Thus did Almighty God remind His people that the world was not their rest.
I. In Jacob is prefigured the Christian. What he said in dejection of mind, the Christian must say, not in dejection, not in complaint or impatience, but calmly, as if confessing a doctrine-“‘All these things are against me,’ but it is my portion; they are against me, that I may fight with and overcome them.” If there were no enemy, there could be no conflict; were there no trouble, there could be no faith; were there no trial, there could be no love; were there no fear, there could be no hope.
II. To passages like these it is natural to object, that they do not belong to the present time, that so far from Christians being in trouble because they are Christians it is those who are not Christians who are under persecution. The answer is that affliction, hardship, and distress are the Christian’s portion, both promised and bestowed, though at first sight they seem not to be. If Christians are in prosperity, not in adversity, it is because, by disobedience, they have forfeited the promise and privilege of affliction.
III. Take up thy portion then, Christian soul, and weigh it well, and learn to love it. There is an inward world which none see but those who belong to it-an inward world into which they enter who come near to Christ. They have a portion in destinies to which other men are strangers; and, having destinies, they have conflicts also. Never, while the Church lasts, will the words of old Jacob be reversed-All things here are against us, but God; and if God be for us, who can really be against us?
J. H. Newman, Selection from Parochial and Plain Sermons, p. 113; also vol. v., p. 284.
References: Gen 42:36.-Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Sermons Preached at St. Paul’s, No. 18; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 371; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 837; Old Testament Outlines, p. 19. Gen 42:38.-S. W. Skeffington, Our Sins and Our Saviour, p. 90. Gen 43-M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 231; F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 156; W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 122. Gen 43:6.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 96. Gen 43:14.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 194. 43:15-45:3.-Ibid., p. 205. Gen 43:27.-S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i., p. 350.
CHAPTER 42 The First Visit of Josephs Brethren
1. Josephs brethren sent to Egypt (Gen 42:1-5)
2. Joseph meets his brethren (Gen 42:6-16)
3. Put in prison for three days (Gen 42:17)
4. Josephs demand (Gen 42:18-20)
5. The accusing conscience (Gen 42:21-23)
6. Joseph weeps and Simeon bound (Gen 42:24)
7. The return of the nine (Gen 42:25-38)
The famine years bring Josephs brethren to repentance and after the deepest exercise Joseph makes himself known to them and they find forgiveness and deliverance. Thus it will be during the tribulation of the last days of the present age. The remnant of Israel will pass through that time called Jacobs trouble and be saved out of it. Then the Lord Jesus Christ will make Himself known to His brethren, according to the flesh.
Josephs treatment of his brethren, whom he recognized, was harsh, so that they might be led to acknowledge their sin. And they readily confess their guilt on account of having sold their brother and take the harsh treatment and imprisonment they received as a just retribution. And Joseph understood all their words so that he wept. And He who was rejected by His own has a loving sympathy for this nation. Simeon remains behind; while Joseph demands Benjamin. The grief of Jacob is pathetic.
when Jacob: Gen 41:54, Gen 41:57, Act 7:12
saw: i.e. heard, from the report of others, that there was plenty in Egypt. The operations of one sense are frequently put for those of another in Hebrew – see the parallel passages. Gen 42:2, Exo 5:19, Exo 20:18, 1Ki 19:3, Hos 5:13, Gal 2:7
Why do ye: Jos 7:10, 2Ki 8:3, 2Ki 8:4, Ezr 10:4, Jer 8:14
Reciprocal: Gen 42:19 – carry corn Gen 43:2 – General 2Sa 21:1 – a famine Joh 13:22 – looked
Joseph and His Brethren
Gen 42:1-26
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
As we enter the Gen 42:1-38 of Genesis we find Jacob and Joseph’s brethren under the throes of the famine. As we see it from the Divine viewpoint there are several lessons from this famine, that, so far, we have not touched.
1. The Famine was sent from the hand of God. It was His hand that sent the years of plenty, as well. Those years were not years of average crops, but years of unprecedented harvests. Nothing like them had been known. God had opened the windows of Heaven and poured out blessings that there was not room to receive. The people had all they wanted for themselves and had in addition sold to Joseph at big crop prices, so much of cereals that he had ceased numbering the quantities.
2. The famine came from God, but, by God, it was forewarned, and foreprovided against. We mean that God, knowing that He must send the famine, had abundantly prepared the people against the day of its coming. He had provided a way by which that famine might be escaped.
The years of plenty were from the hand of God’s grace; the years of famine were from the hand of His righteous judgment. God is both gracious and merciful, but He will not keep anger forever, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
The years of plenty said, there is mercy and love and grace with God; the years of famine said, there is wrath with God against sin.
3. The famine was sent from the hand of God to drive men to Joseph. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. But grace abounded only in Joseph. There was corn only in Egypt, and there was corn in Egypt only in Joseph. This is true today in its spiritual application. God punishes the sinner. He abides tinder the wrath of God, and yet, to every sinner there is a full and a free salvation in Christ.
Joseph had become the saviour of the world, he had become that savior by means of his sufferings. Jesus Christ is the Savior of men, but a Savior through suffering.
4. The famine was sent from the hand of God to bring Joseph’s brethren back to Joseph. We need not stretch our imaginations to see that the whole course of events away down in Egypt was paving the way to answer Joseph’s prayers, and to set him on high among the sons of Jacob, even among his brethren.
God was moving in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. From the day that Joseph was innocently hated of his brethren, God began to work out the restoration of Joseph to his brethren.
We do not believe that Joseph doubted God’s promises. His quick perception of Pharaoh’s dream and his utter confidence in its certain fulfillment showed no sign of his weakening in faith. Thus, through all the weary days of Christ’s being set at naught of His brethren, He never doubted. He knew that they would ultimately return. Nearly two thousand years have passed, and Israel is still scattered and unbelieving. However, the famine is now on, and the children of God, His chosen nation, will soon be going to their Joseph for corn.
I. THE FAMINE WAS IN THE LAND OF CANAAN (Gen 42:5, l.c.)
This verse is important. The famine had laid its thin fingers on more than Egypt. Canaan had felt the strangling grip. Why Canaan? Because the brethren of Joseph were there. Think you that Joseph’s brethren would have gone to Egypt to see if Joseph still lived? Think you that they were concerned with finding the one they had sought to slay, and whom they had ruthlessly sold to the Ishmaelites? Not they. The only way to get them to Egypt, and, incidentally, to Joseph, was by way of a famine.
We now are enabled to see back of God’s movements, the consummation of a Divine purpose. The famine had two great purposes, the one was to give to Joseph his rightful exaltation, and the other was to awaken in Joseph’s brethren a repentant heart, that they might with sincerity be restored to Joseph.
1. It is vital to view recent world events in the light of their relationship to the chosen nation. The World War, from man’s viewpoint, was waged from greed of gold, or enlargement of territory, or from pride of achievement. However, the World War, from God’s viewpoint, was waged to begin to pave the way for Israel’s restoration to power in their own land, Palestine, When General Allenby entered Jerusalem, with the fleeing of the Turks and the ensuing suzerainty of Britain, the war was over.
2. It is vital to view what is now about to happen in the light of Israel. The famine of Joseph’s day was sent primarily to get Joseph’s brethren back to God and to Joseph. The famine and pestilence and the wars which are now heading up among men, with the coming of the antichrist and his direful persecutions against Israel are all for the purpose of preparing the heart of Israel to receive their Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ.
II. JACOB SAW THERE WAS CORN IN EGYPT (Gen 42:1)
1. Corn came to Jacob under the election of God. Thus, what Jacob’s descendents, Israel, could not obtain, the election hath obtained. Jacob and his sons, even in disobedience, were yet the objects of God’s watchful care and tender love. Israel is still moving, even in their present sinful state, under God’s watchful eye. He who watches over Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep. God may permit much of famine, much of suffering to come to the chosen race, but He will not suffer them to be utterly destroyed. For their sakes the days of the Great Tribulation will be shortened.
2. Corn in Egypt provoked Jacob to jealousy. We wonder how the blessings to the Gentiles, under Christ, our Joseph, have appealed to the Jews. They must, as a race, realize that the Church of Christ has a relationship to God, and a blessing under God’s leadership that they themselves do not enjoy.
Great paeans of praise ascending from the hearts and lips of millions of Gentile Christians certainly must cause thoughtful Jews to sit up and take notice. The sons of Jacob, who still live, have heard that there is “corn in Egypt.”
3. God was able to bring Joseph’s brethren back to favor. The sin of Jacob’s sons, Joseph’s brethren, proved to be the riches of the Gentiles, the Egyptians. This very blessing upon Egypt, was, however, that the brethren might be restored and blessed.
We trust that all can see how God, in blessing Egypt, blessed Jacob. During all the steps of Joseph’s imprisonment and exaltation, God was steadily moving toward the hour of the happy restoration of Joseph and his brethren. Thus God is able to graft Israel back again. Even now her redemption draweth near.
III. JOSEPH’S BRETHREN FORCED TO COME TO JOSEPH (Gen 42:6)
1. It was the distress of famine which sent Joseph’s brethren to him. Our minds cannot but ponder the centuries of wandering which have marked the Children of Israel. They have gone from country to country, scattered among all nations, and yet ever unmindful of Him who loved them and bought them with His Blood. Once their progenitors cried, “His Blood be on us, and on our children,” and under this self-pronounced curse they have wandered for many centuries.
Shall Israel always refuse to know the Lord? Nay. They shall yet return in full repentance and faith unto Him. However, that return will be brought about just as the return of Joseph’s brethren was brought about, by means of famine and affliction.
It is only when the hour of Jacob’s trouble, which will reach its peak in the time of the Great Tribulation, has come that Israel will nationally turn their faces once more toward their Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ.
They, who sold Him for thirty pieces of silver and delivered Him unto death, shall yet come to Him with great tears and crying.
2. It was the fact that there was no other help save in Egypt that sent the “brethren” to Joseph.
Had there been any help in themselves they had never gone to Joseph for help. God had to shut them up to their own utter inability before they would turn their faces Egyptward.
The old phrase, “Sweet are the uses of adversity” comes before us, God permitted them to suffer want that they might seek their Jehovah-Jireh. God sent suffering that they might be driven to Joseph-Zaphnath-paaneah-the savior of the world. God shall once more send suffering that they may be driven to Jesus Christ, the Savior of men.
IV. JOSEPH’S BRETHREN KNEW HIM NOT (Gen 42:8)
It seems almost unprecedented-this marvelous prophetical outline of Israel’s coming history. The story of Joseph grows with intense interest as we see that, at one time, we are studying both the history of Joseph and also the history of Israel, and of Christ in the days to come.
1. Joseph knew his brethren. During all the years of Christ’s rejection, Christ has known His brethren. He has kept Israel as the apple of His eye. He has watched their every footstep, seen their every movement, known their every sorrow.
He that watches over Israel has never slumbered nor slept. Great has been His faithfulness. It has been fresh every evening and renewed every morning. There has never been a word in her tongue that God has not known it altogether. He has known her downsitting and her uprising. He has seen her thoughts afar off.
He has not only known, but He has guided. Even though Israel has rejected Him, He has led her, unbeknown to herself, in the way that she should go. He has been a wall of fire round about her. In all of her goings He has been the Goer-before. When she has passed through the fire, He has passed with her, and through the floods He has not forsaken her.
2. His brethren knew not Joseph. So with Israel and Christ. Their eyes have been blinded that they could not see; their ears have been heavy that they could not hear. They crucified the Son of God and have believed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
Think of it, to Israel belonged the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the keeping of the Law, and the service of God, and the Prophets; and of Israel, as concerning the flesh, Christ came; yet they followed not after righteousness, and knew not the Lord. As Joseph was a stumbling block to his brethren, so was Christ a stumbling block to His. All day long has Christ held out His hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.
V. JOSEPH SPAKE ROUGHLY TO HIS BRETHREN (Gen 42:7)
1. There is a time when approving smiles must be withheld. Had Joseph shown his brethren favor before they had truly repented they might have sought again to entangle him or even to slay him. They had never come clean with their father, Jacob, neither had they sought after the welfare of their brother.
David foolishly forgave Absalom and restored him to the place of recognition when Absalom had shown no sincere repentance for his sins. The result was that Absalom, after forty years, gathered together an army to take the throne of David by force.
All these centuries God has been holding out His hands to a sinful and rebellious nation. He has been willing to forgive them, but has found this impossible because they have been unwilling to confess their sins, and to receive His mercy.
2. Joseph’s brethren had not yet come to the place of confession. When Joseph frowned upon them and said they were spies who had come to see the nakedness of the land, they said unto him, “Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies.”
When Joseph pressed upon them, they said, “Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.” The men were speaking the truth, but there was no acknowledgment of former guilt. They said, “One is not,” and yet the one whom they said was not, was even at that moment speaking with them.
VI. HOW JOSEPH BROUGHT HIS BRETHREN TO THE CONFESSION OF THEIR SIN (Gen 42:21)
1. Joseph put them all into prison for a few days. As the men languished in the ward, they were learning the lesson of Divine retribution. God! will render unto every man according to his deeds. They had put Joseph into the pit, and now Joseph places them in the prison.
2. Joseph bound Simeon before their eyes, and held him as a hostage, until they should return and bring their brother, Benjamin, with them. All of this was done in order to quicken the consciences of these men. The result was that the ten men said one to another, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.”
It is so vital for us to remember that God is a just God, and He can, by no means, clear the guilty. The wages of sin is death, and there is no way to avoid just retribution.
If you argue that God forgives the sinner when he truly repents and believes, we reply, that God, in this forgiveness of sin, by no means changes the irrevocable law of His justice. If the sinner goes free, it is only because the Son of God suffered in the sinner’s stead.
The application of all this is plain. The ten sons of Jacob cast into the ward for three days is the type of Jesus Christ three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The binding of Simeon in order that the others may go free to their homes presses home the story of substitution, and speaks of how Christ was bound, of how He suffered and died, the Just for the unjust, that we might be saved.
Thus it was that Joseph dealt with his brethren, and thus it was that they began to confess their guilt and shame.
VII. JOSEPH’S PROVISION FOR THE NEEDS OF HIS BRETHREN (Gen 42:25-26)
As Joseph heard his brethren confessing their guilt one to another, he turned himself about and wept. He had understood them though they knew it not. Then Joseph, Simeon having been bound, commanded his servants to fill the sacks of his brethren with corn, and to restore to every man his money in his sack. In addition Joseph gave them provisions by the way and with their asses laden with corn, they departed thence.
1. During all the years of Israel’s wanderings, God has proved Himself to be the God of abundant supply. Joseph did not suffer his brethren to have lack, neither did God suffer His people Israel to be without needed provisions. Even as the tribulation period comes on, and the world reels under the throes of war and famine and pestilence, God will not forget His people. They will be oppressed and afflicted of men, but loved of God.
It is interesting to observe that God will seal one hundred and forty-four thousand Jews against the day of famine. Not only that, but when the antichrist and Satan cast down seek to overwhelm the Children of Israel, God will prepare a place for them in the wilderness where they shall be nourished for three years and a half. Israel may suffer, and will suffer many things, but in all of their suffering, God will not utterly forsake them,
2. When Jacob said, “All these things are against me,” he failed to know that God was working for him. Upon the return of the nine brethren, they related to Jacob, their father, the whole story of Joseph’s dealings; the roughness of his speech, his detention of Simeon, and his demand that they should bring Benjamin with them on their second trip. Then it was that Jacob said, “Me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.”
The Children of Israel have no more understood God’s dealings with them than Jacob understood God’s dealings with him. Joseph was not working against but for his father and his brethren. Neither is God working against Israel. Even as Joseph looked upon his brethren, he wept; even as he bound Simeon, his heart ached,-so has it been in God’s dealings with Israel.
AN ILLUSTRATION
“JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN”
“Keepers of Brothers.” Wherever the Christian religion really makes itself felt there we find a growing sense that “no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself,” but that in a very true sense we are our brothers’ keepers. Some months ago, in the Philippines, as the Rev. J. C. Robbins, who had been holding meetings for several days in a certain place, came to the last evening, a woman, a native convert, said to him: “You ought not to leave us tomorrow. You ought to stay longer.” But he said: “We have been here four days; you must not expect to keep us. You have had your opportunity, and now we must go on to other places.” The woman answered: “Oh, I was not thinking of ourselves, but of those who will come in from the neighboring villages tomorrow. They have never heard of Jesus. And they might hear, if you could only stay. I was not thinking of ourselves, but of them.” The young convert in the Philippines, who had learned but a few lessons of the Christ, had come to see more clearly, perhaps, than many of us do, that we are our brothers’ keepers.-Rev. John A. Hawley.
Joseph’s Brothers Bow Before Him
Jacob heard of the great supply of grain in Egypt. He sent the ten older brothers to buy grain to sustain them. As the grand vizier, Joseph had complete control over the food distribution. His brothers came before him and bowed, which was an exact fulfillment of his earlier dream ( Gen 42:1-6 ; Gen 37:5-8 ). It will be remembered they hated him for the dream, yet it was fulfilled.
Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him. He spoke roughly to them and accused them of being spies. They explained they were ten of twelve brothers born to one man. They said one was at home with their father and the other was no more. Joseph said the only way they could prove they were not spies was if one of them returned home and brought their younger brother to him.
After keeping them in prison three days, Joseph said he would keep only one of them in Egypt while the others returned to get their brother. The brothers felt trouble was coming to them for their mistreatment of Joseph. Joseph turned away so they could not see the tears that came to his eyes as he remembered the painful past. Simeon was taken and bound while the brothers watched ( Gen 42:7-24 ).
Gen 42:1-2. When Jacob saw That is, heard, as the word is used, Exo 20:18; or saw the corn which his neighbours had bought there and brought home. Why look ye one upon another? As careless and helpless persons, each one expecting relief from the other; but none offering either counsel or help for the subsistence of all. Go down thither Masters of families must not only pray for daily bread for their families, but must, with care and industry, endeavour to provide it.
Gen 42:4. Benjamin. Jacob wished to reserve him to be heir of the blessing instead of Joseph, who he thought was dead. Hence he let the ten go, for it is highly probable that the Egyptians would not sell corn in large quantities to one man. Jacobs fears seem to indicate a secret suspicion that Joseph had received foul treatment.
Gen 42:6. Bowed down. The ten sheaves now made obeisance to Josephs sheaf, though they knew it not. Joseph, it would seem, made all strangers come to Memphis, the capital; and as sultan, or minister, he wished to be well acquainted with the laws and strength of all the neighbouring nations.
Gen 42:8. They knew not him. In a youth separated from his family at seventeen, the changes which twenty years made in his appearance would be considerable; and especially when raised from the rank of a shepherd to that of a prince.
Gen 42:9. Joseph remembered the dreams, when he saw his ten brothers bowing to the earth. His soul melted with divine emotions, and all his sentiments were collected on this one point, What shall I do to bring them to true repentance, and make them good men? What an idea of Gods faithfulness must now strike him; and how deeply must he have been affected with a sense of the divine goodness.Ye are spies. Ten fine looking men, not servants but masters, he would insinuate had a suspicious appearance. He here judiciously accuses them of a probable crime, to bring them to repentance for a real crime. Joseph would here plead that they looked too well to have spent their life in driving asses, and that they were too near of an age to be brethren.
Gen 42:13. And one is not. In appearance suspicion falls heavily upon them; yet they now tell the truth, forbearing expressly to say that Joseph was dead, though the words implied as much. The Jews have a tradition that their affairs have never prospered since the sale of Joseph; they took this journey partly to make inquiries concerning him.
Gen 42:15. By the life of Pharaoh. Joseph regarded this expression as proper language to be used by a man high in office; it cannot be supposed, and in a moment when his heart was so much affected by the divine goodness, that he would use a phrase offensive to God. The oath was sacred: the Hebrews swore by Jehovah, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake. 1Ki 17:12.
Gen 42:17. Put into ward. Here they had time to recollect that they had put their brother into the pit, disregarding the anguish of his soul: now they were in the pit, and no man to comfort them.
Gen 42:23. They knew not that Joseph understood them. Though the primitive language had been confounded at Babel, yet all the oriental nations could then with a little difficulty understand one another. See on Gen 11:1.
Gen 42:24. Simeon, who was principal in the massacre at Shechem, Genesis 34., and foremost in advising his brethren to kill Joseph. The Jews say, that Simeon bound Joseph with his own hands, little dreaming that after more than twenty years, Joseph should cause him to be bound. He certainly was a wicked man, as appears from Jacobs dying words. Genesis 49. Hence Joseph fixed on Simeon, to do him good by affliction, and to edify his brethren. He well knew that the detention of this hostage would bring his family once more into Egypt, and Benjamin in particular. It was therefore a masterly stroke of more than human prudence.
Gen 42:28. What is this that God hath done? On finding the money they were embarrassed and afraid. Return they could not, for want of Benjamin; and if they went forward they might be pursued. Ah, the covered sin of an injured brother, everywhere, whether in Canaan, in Egypt, or in the desert, presented itself to their view.
Gen 42:37. Slay my two sons. Reuben had four sons; but two he thought equivalent, for Joseph and Benjamin. No doubt, his words are to be understood as pledges of filial devotion; confident that his good old father could not augment the family calamities by the sacrifice of two grandsons in case of future disasters. Joseph must have foreseen the feelings of his father, but there was no milder way of bringing his offending brethren to repentance. What a stroke on the Sire that Benjamin must go into Egypt, and leave him childless.
REFLECTIONS.
When Josephs brethren had cast him into the pit, they sat down to eat and to drink; for they required some opiate to compose their conscience. And for the long space of twenty two years, the guilt which seemed to slumber, still secretly corroded in the heart. Just so, neither length of time, nor change of circumstances can diminish the guilt of sin; and consequently the sooner a man acknowledges a fault, with the generous fruits of true repentance, the better it is for his soul; nor can he have peace till this is faithfully done.
These brethren, finding themselves wrongfully imprisoned as spies, could now trace a connection between their present sufferings and their past sins. This we likewise should never fail to do, that we may meet the chastising hand of God with a humble and penitent heart. His severe rebukes and harsh treatment are most graciously designed to make us better men.
But did Joseph seek a place to weep in, the moment he heard his brethren begin to accuse themselves? Oh the joy there is in heaven among the angels of God when a sinner repents, and becomes a new man. And when good men can weep like Joseph, under a marvellous sense of Gods long and great mercies, it is a sure indication of a gracious heart. The soul swells with emotions of confidence and joy; it looks higher than worldly good, and expects the Lord to become its exceeding great reward.
Did Joseph also, notwithstanding his tears, persevere in duty, by the detention of Simeon? In like manner, God the judge and lawgiver, having once arrested the guilty sinner, will not let him go till he has brought him to a full and ample confession. Let no man therefore stifle conviction, and revolt as the bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: rather let him pray the Lord to strike yet more, and to give deeper regret for his sins.
In Josephs prudence ministers have an excellent model, to guide them in the management of awakened people. His feeling heart and weeping eyes would gladly have sent the joyful tidings of all his glory to his mourning father, but this he could not do without spoiling the work of repentance, so auspiciously begun in his brethrens heart; and their salvation was more important than the greatest tidings of temporal joy. We must therefore never do the Lords work in a superficial manner. We must search the conscience and the heart, and not impair the efforts of repentance by comforts injuriously applied. As he left his brethren several grounds to expect the best treatment, if he found them honest in their narrative, so during the convincing economy of the Holy Spirit, the hope of salvation should be set before the sinner; but we should never teach him to think his state safe, till he is come to a sound conversion by an actual close with Jesus Christ. And who is sufficient for these things? Who can penetrate the heart, and accommodate his ministry and conversation to all the weaknesses, temptations and fears of an awakened people! Here the ablest preacher needs divine assistance, as much as the weakest believer.
Genesis 37 – 50
On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, – in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.
In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not.” He had “no form nor comeliness in their eyes.” They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold “his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of “grace and truth.” They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.
Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;” and they hated him yet the more….And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren.” This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.
Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth – He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing – He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as “the truth,” but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:” grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.
“And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. “But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” God sent His Son into the world with this thought, “They will reverence my son;” but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the “well beloved” of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.
ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.” (Gen. 49: 22-26)
These verses beautifully exhibit to our view “the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” “The archers” have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but “the arms of his hands have been made strong” in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at “the throne of the majesty in the heavens,” we see the same thing.
Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.” (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but “they had not had sin.” So He says, in another place, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin.” (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, “this is the heir;” but yet he said, “come, let us kill him.” Hence, “they have no cloak for their sin.” Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?
Genesis 42. Josephs Brothers Come to Egypt to Buy Corn, and unwittingly Encounter Joseph.The greater part is taken from E, but Gen 42:2; Gen 42:4 b, Gen 42:5; Gen 42:7; Gen 42:9 b Gen 42:11 a, Gen 42:12; Gen 42:27-28 ab, Gen 42:38 may be assigned to J. The treatment accorded to the brothers was not less than they deserved, and Joseph meant to punish them. But he meant also to test them and see if they had become better men. Presumably he intended all along to disclose his identity, for there was his father to be considered, but to have done it at once would have made it impossible to find out the real character of his brothers. Hence he racks them with suspense, treats them now harshly, now generously, holds firmly to his predetermined line of conduct though it costs him a hard struggle with his affections, and at last is convinced that love and forgiveness may have free course.
The brothers come down at Jacobs behest, and fulfil Josephs dreams by prostrating themselves before him, as he personally sells the corn. He recognises them, and charges them with being spies, bent on discovering the weak places in the fortified and jealously-guarded frontier. They meet this with the statement that they are all sons of one man, therefore the rather large number in which they have crossed the frontier is due to kinship, not to political or military combination. They go into detail, and thus not only tell Joseph that he is dead but that they have a younger brother, which gives Joseph the opportunity on which the future development hinges. (According to J the statement is not volunteered but secured in answer to his own inquiry.) Reiterating his charge, he proposes that nine shall be detained and one sent to bring Benjamin, but after three days suspense in custody he allows nine to take back corn and one to be detained. The brothers own among themselves the justice of the retribution for their callous deafness to Josephs anguished plea, and Reuben reminds them how he had vainly counselled them against harming him. (They had taken the advice he actually gave, but his real intention had been frustrated.) Joseph now learns, for the first time, of Reubens intervention, and cannot control his feelings; still he steels himself to carry out his plan, and passing over Reuben, selects Simeon and binds him as a hostage. Their money is put into their sacks with the corn, and provisions for the journey are given them, so that their sacks need not be opened till they reach home. So it fell out according to E (Gen 42:35), but according to J first one (Gen 42:27 f.) then all (Gen 43:21) discovered it at the lodging-place. On their arrival, they report to Jacob, who replies that they have bereaved him of two sons and want to take away a third, to which Reuben replies that his own two sons shall be forfeit if Benjamin does not return. They wish to take him at once that Simeon may be released. Gen 42:38 belongs rather to the next chapter.
JACOB SENDS HIS SONS TO EGYPT
The famine reaches to Jacob’s land. God makes him and his sons to feel the distress of famine until they hear that Egypt has an abundance of food that is available for sale. Jacob therefore orders his sons to take a trip there to buy food (v.2). Joseph’s ten brothers then “went down” (v.3), indicating that lsrael must be humbled in order to receive blessing from God.
Benjamin does not go with them, for Jacob feared for his safety, no doubt specially because Joseph had before been taken from him, and Benjamin was the only son of Rachel remaining. In this matter there is striking spiritual significance. Joseph’s brothers had rejected him, a picture of Israel’s rejection of the Lord Jesus. Joseph is therefore a type of Christ in suffering before exaltation. Benjamin (“son of the right hand”) is a type of Christ, the Messiah, reigning in glory. At the time when Israel is again awakened because of their need, they will not only have no recognition of Christ as the rejected Sufferer, but even thoughts of a glorious Messiah will be practically dormant in their minds.
When the brothers come they are brought into the presence of the governor himself rather than a lesser authority, but they of course had no idea that they were bowing down to their brother Joseph, though Joseph recognized them. But he spoke roughly to them, asking them where they came from (v.7). Verse 23 tells us he spoke to them by an interpreter, though of course he knew their language perfectly well, but he would not give them the least inkling that he might be known to them. When they asked to buy food, he accused them of being spies. Though this was not accurate, yet Joseph was seeking to awaken exercise in their hearts as to their past dishonesty. They protest that they are true men, the sons of one man (v.11). They must later be brought to confess that they have not been true.
When Joseph continues interrogating them, they give him the information that their father had twelve sons, one of them remaining at home, while the other, they say, “is not”. How little they suspected that the governor knew better than that! But now he is going to test them in regard to their attitude toward another younger brother, Benjamin. He tells them that they must be kept in prison while one of their number returns home to bring Benjamin with him (vs.15-16).
They are all put in to prison, however, for three days. Joseph was wisely making them feel the pain of enforced confinement, though only briefly compared to the years of his own imprisonment. After the three days he lightens the sentence against them, for instead of nine being kept in prison, he decrees that only one be kept while the rest return home to bring their younger brother back with them. He did this because, as he said, “I fear God” (vs.18-20).
These words too spoke to their conscience, for with Joseph present they confessed to each other that they were guilty concerning their treatment of Joseph, “because,” they say, “we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress is come upon us” (v.21). Reuben reminded them too that he had before remonstrated with them and they ignored him. “Now comes the reckoning for his blood,” Reuben says. They knew it was true that we shall reap what we sow, and they recognize that it is God who is bringing this back upon their own heads, though they do not mention the name of God.
When Joseph heard them speak this way he turned away from them and wept (v.24), for it was evident that God was beginning a work in their hearts by the convicting of their conscience. But Joseph would not yet reveal himself to them, for a deeper work was yet required which would take more time. Still, God rewarded Joseph’s wisdom up to this point by the apparent self-judgment of his brothers, and he would be encouraged, though having to still wait in patience.
He returned to them and took Simeon and bound him before their eyes, a reminder of their having before made Joseph a captive. But without the brothers knowing it, he gave orders to fill all their sacks with grain and to restore their money to them by putting it into their sacks, besides also giving them provision for their journey. So the Lord Jesus, even when He has to use discipline measures, cannot forbear to show the kindness of His grace. He does this with people individually, and will eventually do it with the awakened remnant of Israel in order to encourage their further self-judgment and restoration. The law, with its strict regulations and demands, while it might expose men’s sins, will never lead them to repentance Rom 2:4 is most clear, however, in its declaration, which many do not realize, “that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.”
The brothers loaded their donkeys and began the return journey without Simeon. But when they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack in order to feed his donkey, and was alarmed to find his money in the mouth of the sack (v.27). His brothers too were shocked at this, and realized that this was a matter in which God was definitely intervening, but for what purpose they do not understand. They were afraid. John Newton expresses this reaction clearly in his hymn, “Amazing Grace,” when he writes, “Twas grace first taught my heart to fear.” It is always grace that brings us face to face with the living God, though because of our sin this experience at first is frightening. This is the first time we hear the brothers mentioning God’s name, so that we know that they did not miss what Joseph said as his fearing God.
Returning home, they recount to their father Jacob their experience with the governor of Egypt (vs.29-34). Then, opening their sacks, they find the money of all restored to them. Both they and their father were afraid rather than thankful, for they suspected some ulterior design in this. Thus is it with mankind generally. They are suspicious that there must be some “catch” when the free grace of God in Christ Jesus is proclaimed (v.35).
Jacob is greatly disturbed. He tells his sons that they have bereaved him of Joseph (which was more true than he suspected) and now also of Simeon, and that they want to take Benjamin away with them. “All these things are against me,” he says. He did not have the slightest idea that all these things were going to work out wonderfully for him. Do we not also too frequently have a complaining attitude as though everything is against us? Yet the fact is that everything works together for good to all who love God (Rom 8:28).
Reuben then proposes to Jacob that he would be responsible for Benjamin if Jacob would send him, and in fact offers the lives of his two sons as surety (v.37). But such a thing would be folly. If Jacob’s son was taken from him, would the death of his two grandsons serve to comfort him? Jacob flatly refuses, saying his son would not go with them to Egypt, for he feared that some type of harm would come to Benjamin which would cause Jacob such grief as to result in his own death (v.38)
42:1 Now when {a} Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye {b} look one upon another?
(a) This story shows plainly that all things are governed by God’s providence for the profit of his Church.
(b) As men destitute of counsel.
Twenty-one years after his brothers sold Joseph into slavery they bowed before him in fulfillment of his youthful dreams (Gen 42:6-7; cf. Gen 37:5-9). Ronald Hyman analyzed Joseph’s skillful use of questions to uncover his brothers’ attitudes and intentions as well as the key role of questions in the whole Joseph narrative-there are 30 to 40 of them. [Note: Ronald T. Hyman, "Questions in the Joseph Story: The Effects and Their Implications for Teaching," Religious Education (Summer 1984):437-55.]
"The time was when Joseph’s brethren were men of high respectability in the land of Canaan, whilst Joseph himself was a slave or a prisoner in the land of Egypt. Now, by a signal reverse, Joseph was governor over all the land of Egypt, while they appeared before him as humble suppliants, almost craving as an alms those supplies of food for which they were both able and willing to pay the price demanded." [Note: Bush, 2:298.]
"The double identification of Joseph as hassallit [administrator] and hammasbir [dispenser] recall Joseph’s two earlier dreams, the one in which the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed before him (his position of authority), and the other in which the brothers’ sheaves bowed before his sheaf (his position of provider)." [Note: Hamilton, The Book . . . Chapters 18-50, p. 519. Cf. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, p. 163.]
People who sell their brother into slavery are not trustworthy. Therefore Joseph retained power over his brothers until he could trust them.
The chiastic structure of Gen 42:7-24 focuses attention on the brothers’ imprisonment.
"A Joseph knew his brothers and remembered (Gen 42:7-9 a).
B Joseph accused them of being spies, but they explained their situation (Gen 42:9-13).
C Joseph set out a test whereby they could prove they were honest men (14-16).
D Joseph put them in prison (Gen 42:17).
C’ Joseph set out a new test for the brothers to prove they were honest (Gen 42:18-20).
B’ The brothers confessed their guilt concerning their brother, and Reuben accused them of their fault (Gen 42:21-22).
A’ Joseph understood and wept (Gen 42:23-24)." [Note: Ross, Creation and . . ., p. 649.]
VISITS OF JOSEPHS BRETHREN
Gen 42:1-38; Gen 43:1-34; Gen 44:1-34
“Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.”- Gen 50:19-20.
THE purpose of God to bring Israel into Egypt was accomplished by the unconscious agency of Josephs natural affection for his kindred. Tenderness towards home is usually increased by residence in a foreign land; for absence, like a little death, sheds a halo round those separated from us. But Joseph could not as yet either revisit his old home or invite his fathers family into Egypt. Even, indeed, when his brothers first appeared before him, he seems to have had no immediate intention of inviting them as a family to settle in the country of his adoption, or even to visit it. If he had cherished any such purpose or desire he might have sent down wagons at once, as he at last did, to bring his fathers household out of Canaan. Why, then, did he proceed so cautiously? Whence this mystery, and disguise, and circuitous compassing of his end? What intervened between the first and last visit of his brethren to make it seem advisable to disclose himself and invite them? Manifestly there had intervened enough to give Joseph insight into the state of mind his brethren were in, enough to satisfy him they were not the men they had been, and that it was safe to ask them and would be pleasant to have them with him in Egypt. Fully alive to the elements of disorder and violence that once existed among them, and having had no opportunity of ascertaining whether they were now altered, there was no course open but that which he adopted of endeavouring in some unobserved way to discover whether twenty years had wrought any change in them.
For effecting this object he fell on the expedient of imprisoning them, on pretence of their being spies. This served the double purpose of detaining them until he should have made up his mind as to the best means of dealing with them, and of securing their retention under his eye until some display of character might sufficiently certify him of their state of mind. Possibly he adopted this expedient also because it was likely deeply to move them, so that they might be expected to exhibit not such superficial feelings as might have been elicited had he set them down to a banquet and entered into conversation with them over their wine, but such as men are surprised to find in themselves, and know nothing of in their lighter hours. Joseph was, of course, well aware that in the analysis of character the most potent elements are only brought into clear view when the test of severe trouble is applied, and when men are thrown out of all conventional modes of thinking and speaking.
The display of character which Joseph awaited he speedily obtained. For so new an experience to these free dwellers in tents as imprisonment under grim Egyptian guards worked wonders in them. Men who have experienced such treatment aver that nothing more effectually tames and breaks the spirit: it is not the being confined for a definite time with the certainty of release in the end, but the being shut up at the caprice of another on a false and absurd accusation; the being cooped up at the will of a stranger in a foreign country, uncertain and hopeless of release. To Josephs brethren so sudden and great a calamity seemed explicable only on the theory that it was retribution for the great crime of their life. The uneasy feeling which each of them had hidden in his own conscience, and which the lapse of twenty years had not materially alleviated, finds expression: “And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” The similarity of their position to that in which they had placed their brother stimulates and assists their conscience. Joseph, in the anguish of his soul, had protested his innocence, but they had not listened; and now their own protestations are treated as idle wind by this Egyptian. Their own feelings, representing to them what they had caused Joseph to suffer, stir a keener sense of their guilt than they seem ever before to have reached. Under this new light they see their sin more clearly, and are humbled by the distress into which it has brought them.
When Joseph sees this, his heart warms to them. He may not yet be quite sure of them. A prison-repentance is perhaps scarcely to be trusted. He sees they would for the moment deal differently with him had they the opportunity, and would welcome no one more heartily than himself, whose coming among them had once so exasperated them. Himself keen in his affections, he is deeply moved, and his eyes fill with tears as he witnesses their emotion and grief on his account. Fain would he relieve them from their remorse and apprehension-why, then, does he forbear? Why does he not at this juncture disclose himself? It has been satisfactorily proved that his brethren counted their sale of him the great crime of their life. Their imprisonment has elicited evidence that that crime had taken in their conscience the capital place, the place which a man finds some one sin or series of sins will take, to follow him with its appropriate curse, and hang over his future like a cloud-a sin of which he thinks when any strange thing happens to him, and to which he traces all disaster-a sin so iniquitous that it seems capable of producing any results however grievous, and to which he has so given himself that his life seems to be concentrated there, and he cannot but connect with it all the greater ills that happen to him. Was not this, then, security enough that they would never again perpetrate a crime of like atrocity? Every man who has almost at all observed the history of sin in himself, will say that most certainly it was quite insufficient security against their ever again doing the like. Evidence that a man is conscious of his sin, and, while suffering from its consequences, feels deeply its guilt, is not evidence that his character is altered.
And because we believe men so much more readily than God, and think that they do not require, for forms sake, such needless pledges of a changed character as God seems to demand, it is worth observing that Joseph, moved as he was even to tears, felt that common prudence. forbade him to commit himself to his brethren without further evidence of their disposition. They had distinctly acknowledged their guilt, and in his hearing had admitted that the great calamity that had befallen them was no more than they deserved; yet Joseph, judging merely as an intelligent man who had worldly interests depending on his judgment, could not discern enough here to justify him in supposing that his brethren were changed men. And it might sometimes serve to expose the insufficiency of our repentance were clear-seeing men the judges of it, and did they express their opinion of its trustworthiness. We may think that God is needlessly exacting when He requires evidence not only of a changed mind about past sin, but also of such a mind being now in us as will preserve us from future sin; but the truth is, that no man whose common worldly interests were at stake would commit himself to us on any less evidence. God, then, meaning to bring the house of Israel into Egypt in order to make progress in the Divine education He was giving to them, could not introduce them into that land in a state of mind which would negative all the discipline they were there to receive.
These men then had to give evidence that they not only saw, and in some sense repented of, their sin, but also that they had got rid of the evil passion which had led to it. This is what God means by repentance. Our sins are in general not so microscopic that it requires very keen spiritual discernment to perceive them. But to be quite aware of our sin, and to acknowledge it, is not to repent of it. Everything falls short of thorough repentance which does not prevent us from committing the sin anew. We do not so much desire to be accurately informed about our past sins, and to get right views of our past selves; we wish to be no longer sinners, we wish to pass through some process by which we may be separated from that in us which has led us into sin. Such a process there is, for these men passed through it.
The test which revealed the thoroughness of his brothers repentance was unintentionally applied by Joseph. When he hid his cup in Benjamins sack, all that he intended was to furnish a pretext for detaining Benjamin, and so gratifying his own affection. But, to his astonishment, his trick effected far more than he intended; for the brothers, recognising now their brotherhood, circled round Benjamin, and, to a man, resolved to go back with him to Egypt. We cannot argue from this that Joseph had misapprehended the state of mind in which his brothers were, and in his judgment of them had been either too timorous or too severe; nor need we suppose that he was hampered by his relations to Pharaoh, and therefore unwilling to connect himself too closely with men of whom he might be safer to be rid; because it was this very peril of Benjamins that matured their brotherly affection. They themselves could not have anticipated that they would make such a sacrifice for Benjamin. But throughout their dealings with this mysterious Egyptian, they felt themselves under a spell, and were being gradually, though perhaps unconsciously, softened, and in order to complete the change passing upon them, they but required some such incident as this of Benjamins arrest. This incident seemed by some strange fatality to threaten them with a renewed perpetration of the very crime they had committed against Rachels other son. It threatened to force them to become again the instrument of bereaving their father of his darling child, and bring about that very calamity which they had pledged themselves should never happen. It was an incident, therefore, which, more than any other, was likely to call out their family love.
The scene lives in every ones memory. They were going gladly back to their own country with corn enough for their children, proud of their entertainment by the lord of Egypt; anticipating their fathers exultation when he heard how generously they had been treated and when he saw Benjamin safely restored, feeling that in bringing him back they almost compensated for having bereaved him of Joseph. Simeon is revelling in the free air that blew from Canaan and brought with it the scents of his native land, and breaks into the old songs that the strait confinement of his prison had so long silenced-all of them together rejoicing in a scarcely hoped-for success; when suddenly, ere the first elation is spent, they are startled to see the hasty approach of the Egyptian messenger, and to hear the stern summons that brought them to a halt, and boded all ill. The few words of the just Egyptian, and his calm, explicit judgment, “Ye have done evil in so doing,” pierce them like a keen blade-that they should be suspected of robbing one who had dealt so generously with them; that all Israel should be put to shame in the sight of the stranger! But they begin to feel relief as one brother after another steps forward with the boldness of innocence; and as sack after sack is emptied, shaken, and flung aside, they already eye the steward with the bright air of triumph; when, as the very last sack is emptied, and as all breathlessly stand round, amid the quick rustle of the corn, the sharp rattle of metal strikes on their ear, and the gleam of silver dazzles their eyes as the cup rolls out in the sunshine. This, then, is the brother of whom their father was so careful that he dared not suffer him out of his sight! This is the precious youth whose life was of more value than the lives of all the brethren, and to keep whom a few months longer in his fathers sight Simeon had been left to rot in a dungeon! This is how he repays the anxiety of the family and their love, and this is how he repays the extraordinary favour of Joseph! By one rash childish act had this fondled youth, to all appearance, brought upon the house of Israel irretrievable disgrace, if not complete extinction. Had these men been of their old temper, their knives had very speedily proved that their contempt for the deed was as great as the Egyptians; by violence towards Benjamin they might have cleared themselves of all suspicion of complicity; or, at the best, they might-have considered themselves to be acting in a fair and even lenient manner if they had surrendered the culprit to the steward, and once again carried back to their father a tale of blood. But they were under the spell of their old sin. In all disaster, however innocent they now were, they saw the retribution of their old iniquity; they seem scarcely to consider whether Benjamin was innocent or guilty, but as humbled, God-smitten men, “they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city.”
Thus Joseph in seeking to gain one brother found eleven-for now there could be no doubt that they were very different men from those. brethren who had so heartlessly sold into slavery their fathers favourite-men now with really brotherly feelings, by penitence and regard for their father so wrought together into one family, that this calamity, intended to fall only on one of their number, did in falling on him fall on them all. So far from wishing now to rid themselves of Rachels son and their fathers favourite, who had been put by their father in so prominent a place in his affection, they will not even give him up to suffer what seemed the just punishment of his theft, do not even reproach him with having brought them all into disgrace and difficulty, but, as humbled men who knew they had greater sins of their own to answer for, went quietly back to Egypt, determined to see their younger brother through his misfortune or to share his bondage with him. Had these men not been thoroughly changed, thoroughly convinced that at all costs upright dealing and brotherly love should continue; had they not possessed that first and last of Christian virtues, love to their brother, then nothing could so certainly have revealed their want of it as this apparent theft of Benjamins. It seemed in itself a very likely thing that a lad accustomed to plain modes of life, and whose character it was to “ravin as a wolf,” should, when suddenly introduced to the gorgeous Egyptian banqueting-house with all its sumptuous furnishings, have coveted some choice specimen of Egyptian art, to carry home to his father as proof that he could not only bring himself back in safety, but scorned to come back from any expedition empty-handed. It was not unlikely either that, with his mothers own superstition, he might have conceived the bold design of robbing this Egyptian, so mysterious and so powerful, according to his brothers account, and of breaking that spell which he had thrown over them: he may thus have. conceived the idea of achieving for himself a reputation in the family, and of once for all redeeming himself from the somewhat undignified, and to one of his spirit somewhat uncongenial, position of the youngest of a family. If, as is possible, he had let any such idea ooze out in talking with his brethren as they went down to Egypt, and only abandoned it on their indignant and urgent remonstrance, then when the cup, Josephs chief treasure according to his own account, was discovered in Benjamins sack, the case must have looked sadly against him even in the eyes of his brethren. No protestations of innocence in a particular instance avail much when the character and general habits of the accused point to guilt. It is quite possible, therefore, that the brethren, though willing to believe Benjamin, were yet not so thoroughly convinced of his innocence as they would have desired. The fact that they themselves had found their money returned in their sacks, made for Benjamin; yet in most cases, especially where circumstances corroborate it, an accusation even against the innocent takes immediate hold and cannot be summarily and at once got rid of.
Thus was proof given that the house of Israel was now in truth one family. The men who, on very slight instigation, had without compunction sold Joseph to a life of slavery, cannot now find it in their heart to abandon a brother who, to all appearance, was worthy of no better life than that of a slave, and who had brought them all into disgrace and danger. Judah had no doubt pledged himself to bring the lad back without scathe to his father, but he had done so without contemplating the possibility of Benjamin becoming amenable to Egyptian law. And no one can read the speech of Judah-one of the most pathetic on record-in which he replies to Josephs judgment that Benjamin alone should remain in Egypt, without perceiving that he speaks not as one who merely seeks to redeem a pledge, but as a good son and a good brother. He speaks, too, as the mouth-piece of the rest, and as he had taken the lead in Josephs sale, so he does not shrink from standing forward and accepting the heavy responsibility which may now light upon the man who represents these brethren. His former faults are redeemed by the courage, one may say heroism, he now shows. And as he spoke, so the rest felt. They could not bring themselves to inflict a new sorrow on their aged father; neither could they bear to leave their young brother in the hands of strangers. The passions which had alienated them from one another, and had threatened to break up the family, are subdued. There is now discernible a common feeling that binds them together, and a common object for which they willingly sacrifice themselves. They are, therefore, now prepared to pass into that higher school to which God called them in Egypt. It mattered little what strong and equitable laws they found in the land of their adoption, if they had no taste for upright living; it mattered little what thorough national organisation they would be brought into contact with in Egypt, if in point of fact they owned no common brotherhood, and were willing rather to live as units and every man for himself than for any common interest. But now they were prepared, open to teaching, and docile.
To complete our apprehension of the state of mind into which the brethren were brought by Josephs treatment of them, we must take into account the assurance he gave them, when he made himself known to them, that it was not they but God who had sent him into Egypt. and that God had done this for the purpose of preserving the whole house of Israel. At first sight this might seem to be an injudicious speech, calculated to make the brethren think lightly of their guilt, and to remove the just impressions they now entertained of the unbrotherliness of their conduct to Joseph. And it might have been an injudicious speech to impenitent men; but no further view of sin can lighten its heinousness to a really penitent sinner. Prove to him that his sin has become the means of untold good, and you only humble him the more, and more deeply convince him that while he was recklessly gratifying himself and sacrificing others for his own pleasure, God has been mindful of others, and, pardoning him, has blessed them. God does not need our sins to work out His good intentions, but we give Him little other material; and the discovery that through our evil purposes and injurious deeds God has worked out His beneficent will, is certainly not calculated to make us think more lightly of our sin or more highly of ourselves.
Joseph in thus addressing his brethren did, in fact, but add to their feelings the tenderness that is in all religious conviction, and that springs out of the consciousness that in all our sin there has been with us a holy and loving Father, mindful of His children. This is the final stage of penitence. The knowledge that God has prevented our sin from doing the harm it might have done does relieve the bitterness and despair with which we view our life, but at the same time it strengthens the most effectual bulwark between us and sin-love to a holy, over-ruling God. This, therefore, may always be safely said to penitents: Out of your worst sin God can bring good to yourself or to others, and good of an apparently necessary kind; but good of a permanent kind can result from your sin only when you have truly repented of it, and sincerely wish you had never done it. Once this repentance is really wrought in you, then, though your life can never be the same as it might have been had you not sinned, it may be, in some respects, a more richly developed life, a life fuller of humility and love. You can never have what you sold for your sin; but the poverty your sin has brought may excite within you thoughts and energies more valuable than what you have lost, as these men lost a brother but found a Saviour. The wickedness that has often made you bow your head and mourn in secret, and which is in itself unutterable shame and loss, may, in Gods hand, become food against the day of famine. You cannot ever have the enjoyments which are possible only to those whose conscience is laden with no evil remembrances, and whose nature, uncontracted and unwithered by familiarity with sin, can give itself to enjoyment with the abandonment and fearlessness reserved for the innocent. No more at all will you have that fineness of feeling which only ignorance of evil can preserve; no more that high and great conscientiousness which, once broken, is never repaired; no more that respect from other men which for ever and instinctively departs from those who have lost self-respect. But you may have a more intelligent sympathy with other men and a keener pity for them; the experience you have gathered too late to save yourself may put it in your power to be of essential service to others. You cannot win your way back to the happy, useful, evenly-developed life of the comparatively innocent, but the life of the true-hearted penitent, is yet open to yon. Every beat of your heart now may be as if it throbbed against a poisoned dagger, every duty may shame you, every day bring weariness and new humiliation, but let no pain or discouragement avail to defraud you of the good fruits of true reconciliation to God and submission to His lifelong discipline. See that you lose not both lives, the life of the comparatively innocent and the life of the truly penitent.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2. They came at last; late indeed, but come they must, even if it had been from the remotest bounds of the earth. Josephs brethren were to come and bow themselves down before him. Gods decrees must stand. It is not because Joseph saw it in a dream, but because in the dreams there was represented the realization of Gods decrees as already interweaving themselves with the future of the sons in the innermost movements of their most interior life. So sure is the fulfilment of the divine counsels,so. unfailingly grow the germs of destiny in the deepest life of man.
4. Ye are spies. Though Josephs suspicion was unfounded, it expresses a righteous judgment: that guilty men who conceal a crime demanding an open atonement, must ever encounter suspicion as the reflex of their evil secret. Even when trusted they cannot believe it, because not yet true to themselves. To Joseph it must have appeared strangely suspicious that they came without Benjamin.
8. Jacob feels the burden of his house, and his alarming presentiments of evil become manifest more and more. We must imagine this to ourselves, if we would clearly understand his depression. He is not strengthened by the spirit in his household, but put under restraint and weariness. He feels that there is something rotten in the foundation of his house.
9. Here, too, death is not denoted as a descending into Sheol, but as the dying from the hearts sorrow of an uncompleted life. Opposed to it is the going home to the fathers when the soul is satisfied with the life on earth, and its enigmas are all solved.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary