The Test

v. 1. And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth. The feast which Joseph had arranged may have lasted a large part of the afternoon. At its conclusion the chief steward received orders to have the sacks of the strangers filled, but with very good measure. The return of the money in this case did not belong to the test but inasmuch as it was intended to strengthen the general impression.

v. 2. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his corn money. The placing of this cup in Benjamin’s sack had the object to concentrate the test upon his person, to bring his person into the foreground. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. Everything having been prepared according to Joseph’s plans, the brothers spent the night in the Egyptian city.

v. 3. As soon as the morning was light, with the earliest dawn, the men were sent away, they and their asses, they were dismissed without any intimation of the surprise in store for them.

v. 4. And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them (he was to pursue until he did overtake them), say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? Having been received and feasted by Joseph in such a royal manner, had they been so mean and treacherous as to become guilty of theft? The haste was necessary lest some one of the brothers open his sack and they all return of their own free will.

v. 5. Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? in order to play his role as Egyptian ruler to the end, Joseph has the steward represent the matter as though he practiced hydromancy, that is, presumed to predict future events from the appearance of the liquid contents of his cup, also to expose hidden things. Ye have done evil in so doing. They were flatly to be accused of the theft, the subsequent discovery of the cup being intended to confirm the impression of Joseph’s supernatural wisdom.

v. 6. And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these same words, in bold accusation and with well-feigned anger.

v. 7. And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants should do according to this thing. In the consciousness of their innocence the brothers repel the charge with horror: Far be it from thy servants, the idea never entered our minds.

v. 8. Behold, the money which we found in our sacks’ mouths we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan; this surely was proof of their honesty; how, then, should we steal out of thy lord’s house silver or gold?

v. 9. With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord’s bondmen. That made the denial as vigorous as could be expected from innocent men.

v. 10. And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words; he with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye shall be blameless. The chief steward accepted their proposal, but with the modification which agreed with Joseph’s object in the trial, namely, to find out how the brothers were disposed toward Benjamin, especially now that he had been honored so signally by Joseph.

v. 11. Then they speedily, as their outraged feelings of innocence demanded, took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. They were absolutely certain that the cup would not be found.

v. 12. And he, the chief steward, searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest, partly to hide his own share in the scheme, partly to make the climax all the more effective. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. This was an outcome which not one of them had expected, their feeling of relief having grown as one sack after another had not yielded the cup.

v. 13. Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city. They were overcome with terror, fear, and grief, and it was with a feeling of the greatest dejection that they turned back to the city which they had left with such light hearts a few hours before.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Gen 44:1, Gen 44:2

And he (i.e. Joseph) commanded the steward of his house,literally, him that was over his hoarse (Gen 43:15)saying, Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth (as before, but not this time as a test). And put my cup,, from an unused root, , conveying the sense of elevation or roundness; hence a goblet or bowl, commonly of a large size (Jer 35:5), as distinguished from the , or mailer cup, into which, from the gabia, wine or other liquid was poured (cf. Gen 40:11)the silver cup, (LXX.). Bohlen mentions that the religious drinking utensil of the Indian priests is called kundiin the sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his corn moneyliterally, the silver of his grain, or of his purchase. And he (i.e. the steward) did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.

Gen 44:3-5

As soon as the morning was light (literally, the morning became bright), the men (literally, and the men) were sent away, they and their asses. That Joseph did not make himself known to his brothers at the repast was not due to unnatural callousness which caused his heart to remain cold and steeled (Kalisch), or to a fear lest he should thereby destroy the character of his mission which made him the medium of retribution for his brothers (Kalisch), but to the fact that in his judgment either his brothers had not been sufficiently tested, or the time did not appear convenient for the disclosure of his secret. And when they were gone out of the city (literally, they went forth out of the city), and not yet far off (literally, they had not gone far), Joseph (literally, and Joseph) said unto his steward (or man over his house), Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them (literally, and overtake them, and say to them), Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? The interpolation at this point of the words, “Why did you steal my silver goblet?” (LXX; Vulgate, Syriac) is superfluous. Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth?literally, and divining he divineth, or maketh trial, in it, the verb (from which is derived nachash, a serpent: vide Gen 3:1) originally signifying to hiss or whisper, and hence to mutter incantations, to practice ophiomancy, and generally to divine. The special form of divination here referred to (, or divining out of cups) was practiced by the ancient Egyptians. “Small pieces of gold or silver, together with precious stones, marked with strange figures and signs, were thrown into the vessel; after which certain incantations were pronounced, and the evil demon was invoked; the latter was then supposed to give the answer either by intelligible words, or by pointing to some of the characters on the precious stones, or in some other more mysterious manner. Sometimes the goblet was filled with pure water, upon which the sun was allowed to play; and the figures which were thus formed, or which a lively imagination fancied it saw, were interpreted as the desired omen” (Kalisch). Traces of this ancient practice of soothsaying have been detected by some writers in the magnificent vase of turquoise belonging to Jam-shoed, the Solomon of Persia. Like Merlin’s cup, described by Spenser (‘Faery Queens,’ 3.2, 19)

“It vertue had to show in perfect sight
Whatever thing was in the world contained
Betwixt the lowest earth and heven’s hight,
So that it to the looker appertaynd.”

A similar account is given by Homer of the cup of Nestor; and Alexander the Great is reported to have possessed a mystic goblet of a like kind. It is said that in the storming of Seringapatam the unfortunate Tippeo Saib retired to gaze on his divining cup, and that after standing awhile absorbed in it he returned to the fight and fell (vide Kitto’s ‘Cyclopedia,’ art. Divination). Ye have done evil in so doing.

Gen 44:6

And he (i.e. the steward) overtook them, and he spake unto them these same words.

Gen 44:7-10

And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants should do (literally, for be thy seesaws from doing) according to’s thing: behold, the money (literally, the silver), which we found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan (this was an irrefragable proof of their honesty): how then should we steal out of my lord’s house silver or gold? They were even so confident of their innocence that they ventured on a rash proposition. With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord’s bondmenliterally, for servants to my lord. And he (the steward) said, Now also let it be according to your words. So LXX; Vulgate, and commentators generally; but Kalisch reads it as an interrogation, “Is it right according to your words?” meaning that strict justice demanded only the punishment of the thief, as he explained. He with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye (i.e. the others of you) shall be blameless.

Gen 44:11-13

Then they speedily took down (literally, and they hasted and took down) every man his sack (from off his ass) to the ground, and opened every man his sack. Thus as it were delivering them up for examination. And he (the steward) searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest: and the cup was found (where the steward himself had put it) in Benjamin’s sack. Then (literally, and) they rent their clothes (on the simlah vide Gen 9:23), and laded every man his ass (by putting on the sack which had been taken down), and returned to the city.

Gen 44:14-17

And Judahwho is recognized as the leader in this second embassy to Egypt (Gen 43:8)and his brethren came to Joseph’s house; for he was yet there:”awaiting, no doubt, the result which he anticipated” (Murphy)and they fell before him on the ground. The expression indicates a complete prostration of the body. It was a token of their penitence, and a sign that they craved his forgiveness. And Joseph said unto them,in a speech not of “cruel and haughty irony” (Kalisch), but simply of assumed resentmentWhat deed is this that we have done! were ye not (or, did you not know?) that such a man as I can certainly divine?literally, divining can divine (vide on Gen 44:5). Though Joseph uses this language, and is represented by his steward as possessing a divining cup, there is no reason to suppose that he was in the habit of practicing this heathen superstition. And Judah said (acting throughout this scene as the spokesman of his brethren), What shall we say unto my lord? What shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? (i.e. justify ourselves, or purge ourselves from suspicion). God (literally, the Elohim) hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord’s servants (literally, servants to my lord), both we, and he also with whom the cup is found. And he (i.e. Joseph) said, God forbid that I should do so (vide Gen 44:9): but the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant; and as for you, get you up in peace unto your father. Thus they were once more tested as to whether they could, as before, callously deliver up their father’s favorite, and so bring down the gray hairs of their father to the grave, or would heroically and self-sacrificingly offer their own lives and liberties for his protection (Rosenmller, Keil, Lange, Murphy, and others). How nobly they stood the test Judah’s pathetic supplication reveals.

Gen 44:18-34

Then Judah came near to him, and said,the speech of Judah in behalf of his young brother Benjamin has been fittingly characterized as “one of the master. pieces of Hebrew composition” (Kalisch), “one of the grandest and fairest to be found in the Old Testament” (Lange), “a more moving oration than ever orator pronounced” (Lawson), “one of the finest specimens of natural eloquence in the world” (Inglis). Without being distinguished by either brilliant imagination or highly poetic diction, “its inimitable charm and excellence consist in the power of psychological truth, easy simplicity, and affecting pathos” (Kalisch)Oh my lord (the interjection Oh is the same as that used by Judah in Gen 43:20; q.v.), let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord’s ears (probably pressing towards him in his eagerness), and let not thine anger burn against thy servant: for thou art even as Pharaoh (i.e. one invested with the authority of Pharaoh, and therefore able, like Pharaoh, either to pardon or condemn). My lord asked his servants, saying, Have yea father, or a brother! And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age (vide Gen 37:3), a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. Substantially this is the account which the brethren gave of themselves from the first (Gen 42:13); only Judah now with exquisite tact as well as resistless pathos dwells on the threefold circumstance that the little one whose life was at stake was inexpressibly dear to his father for his dead brother’s sake as well as for his departed mother’s and his own. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. This last clause is also a rhetorical enlargement of Joseph’s words, (LXX.); the phrase, to set one’s eyes on any one, being commonly used in a good sense, signifying to regard any one with kindness, to look to his good (cf. Ezr 5:5; Job 24:23; Jer 39:12; Jer 40:4). And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die. Judah in this no doubt correctly reports the original conversation, although the remark is not recorded in the first account. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more (cf. Gen 43:3-5). And it came to pass (literally, it was) when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. The effect upon Jacob of their sad communication Judah does not recite (Gen 42:36), but passes on to the period of the commencement of the second journey. And our father laid (i.e. after the consumption of the corn supply), Go again, and buy us a little food (vide Gen 43:2). And we laid, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down: for we may not see the man’s face, except our youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto us (at this point Judah with increased tenderness alludes to the touching lamentation of the stricken patriarch as he first listens to the unwelcome proposition to take Benjamin from his side), Ye know that my wifeRachel was all through her life the wife of his affections (cf. Gen 46:19)bare me two sons:Joseph and Benjamin (Gen 30:22, Gen 30:24; Gen 35:18)and the one (Joseph) went out from me (and returned not, thus indirectly alluding to his death), and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since. Jacob means that had Joseph been alive, he would certainly have returned; but that as since that fatal day of his departure from Hebron he had never beheld him, he could only conclude that his inference was correct, and that Joseph was devoured by some beast of prey. And if ye take this also from me (in the sense which the next clause explains), and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the graveSheol (vide Gen 37:35). Now therefore (literally, and now) when I come (or go) to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life (or soul) is bound up in the lad’s life (or soul); it shall come to pass, when he sooth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the grey hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever (vide Gen 43:9). Now therefore (literally, and now), I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman (or servant) to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. “There was no duty that imperiously prohibited Judah from taking the place of his unfortunate brother. His children, and even his wife, if he had been in the married state, might have been sent to Egypt. He was so far master of his own liberty that he could warrantably put himself in Benjamin’s room, if the governor gave his consent” (Lawson). For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on (literally, shall find) my father. The sublime heroism of this noble act of self-sacrifice on the part of Judah it is impossible to over-estimate. In behalf of one whom he knew was preferred to a higher place in his father’s affection than himself, he was willing to renounce his liberty rather than see his aged parent die of a broken heart. The self-forgetful magnanimity of such an action has never been eclipsed, and seldom rivaled. After words so exquisitely beautiful and profoundly pathetic it was impossible for Joseph to doubt that a complete change had passed upon his brethren, and in particular upon Judah, since the day when he had eloquently urged, and they had wickedly consented, to sell their brother Joseph into Egypt. Everything was now ready for the denouement in this domestic drama. The story of Joseph’s discovery of himself to his astonished brethren is related in the ensuing chapter.

HOMILETICS

Gen 44:1-34

Joseph’s artifice to detain Benjamin, or the story of the silver goblet.

I. JOSEPH‘S STRATAGEM (Gen 44:1-13).

1. The formation of the plot (Gen 44:1-5).

(1) The singular nature of the plot. This was, after filling the men’s sacks with corn, and putting each man’s money in his sack’s mouth as before, that the steward should secretly deposit in the amtachath of Benjamin the silver goblet from which Joseph was accustomed to fill his wine-cup when he drank.

(2) The immediate object of the plot. It was designed that the company should be pursued under suspicion of theft, and that, on examination made, Benjamin should be arrested as a criminal.

(3) The ultimate purpose of the plot. Not simply to detain Benjamin, whom Joseph longed to have beside him, but chiefly to try the others as to whether they could witness unmoved Benjamin’s consignment to exile and probable imprisonment, as formerly with callous hearts they had beheld his (Joseph’s) sale and departure as a bondman into Egypt.

2. The execution of the plot (Gen 44:6-12).

(1) The cup was put into the sack of Benjamin, as arranged, and the men allowed to depart with the first streak of dawn in happy unconsciousness of what had been devised against them.

(2) Overtaken by the steward, and abruptly charged with having stolen his master’s divining cup, they indignantly repel the charge, and somewhat rashly suggest that their sacks should be searched on the spot, at the same time offering, so conscious were they of innocence, to deliver up the culprit to death, and themselves to a voluntary captivity.

(3) Taking them at their word, and modifying their proposal to the extent that he would take the guilty one only as a servant, the sacks were opened out, and, as the steward of course expected, the missing vase was found where he himself had placed it, in the amtachath of Benjamin.

3. The result of the plot (Gen 44:13-16).

(1) Utter consternation of mind: “they rent their clothes” to give expression to the anguish of their souls.

(2) Instantaneous retracing of their steps: “they laded every man his ass, and returned to the city.”

(3) Abject acknowledgment of {heir offence: “What shall we say unto my lord? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants.”

(4) Faithful fulfillment of their contract: “Behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found.”

II. BENJAMIN‘S SENTENCE (Gen 44:17).

1. Exceedingly severe. He became a bondman. Remark upon the sadness of slavery, even when most mitigated.

2. Circumstantially justified. Appearances were against him. But the evidence of circumstances is sometimes fallacious.

3. Absolutely undeserved. In every sense of the expression Benjamin was blameless.

4. Wisely designed. It was meant to assay the characters of both Benjamin and his brethren.

III. JUDAH‘S SUPPLICATION (Gen 44:18-34).

1. Deferential humility (Gen 44:18). It is difficult to imagine language more respectful and deferential than that of Judah. Almost every word is so framed as to convey a sense of Joseph’s lofty station, superior dignity, and just cause of indignation against the speaker.

2. Artless simplicity (Gen 44:19-26). Infinitely more powerful than either voluble rhetoric or closely-compacted argument is the plain and unsophisticated logic of truth. Without the most distant approach to sophistry, or even an attempt at persuasion, Judah confines himself to a bare recital of the facts of the case which were already well known to Joseph.

3. Inimitable pathos (Gen 44:28-32). Depicting his father’s love for Benjamin for his dead mother’s and his lost brother’s sakes, he tells how he himself had become surety for the lad to his aged parent, and that if he should fail to take him back again in safety he would bring down his father’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

4. Heroic self-sacrifice (Gen 44:33, Gen 44:34). Rather than that Benjamin should not go home again to Hebron, he would himself remain a bondman to my lord the governor for ever. Nay, he explicitly makes offer that he should take the young man’s place, as he would rather die than see the sorrow which his absence would bring down upon his venerable sire. Noble Judah! thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.

HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY

Gen 44:1-34

Character built on faith.

This chapter continues the same thread of Joseph’s policy, and the same lessons are in it.

I. PRACTICAL WISDOM THE FRUIT OF PIETY. The true man is the strong man. With a deep knowledge of the human heart, Joseph felt quite sure that the only way to move Jacob from Canaan was to detain Benjamin.

II. THE SANCTITY OF THE AFFECTIONS. Real religion their only safeguard in the world’s hardening and perverting influences. Joseph did apparent violence to his brethren’s and his father’s feelings that he might afterwards fill them with joy. There was a great deal of genuine family affection at the bottom of the scheme. He could not bear to part with Benjamin. He at first meant to maintain the dissembling till the old man was brought, but nature burst through the restraint. The whole a testimony to the real purity and simplicity of Joseph’s heart, and therefore, in such circumstances of temptation as his, to his real religion.

III. CONTRAST BETWEEN GOD‘S IDEAL OF GREATNESS AND THE WORLD‘S. Great rulers and statesmen are not wont thus to cultivate the emotions. The tendency of high position is to harden the heart, and to change nature into policy, and the real into the artificial. Yet such instances as Joseph show the possibility of uniting the two spheresthe secular and the spiritual, and being great in both.R.

HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY

Gen 44:5

Probation.

Divination by cups was practiced by the ancient Egyptians. But no reason to suppose that Joseph actually used this art. It would have been inconsistent with his habitual faithfulness to God, and with the ascription to him alone of the power to reveal secrets (Ge 40:7-41:16). He was now acting a part. He spoke in the character of an Egyptian ruler, to whom the nation ascribed supernatural wisdom. We need not now inquire how far he was right in this. But his object was to try his brethren, whether, and how much, they loved their father and their young brother. He contrived that Benjamin should appear to have incurred the penalty of servitude. What would the rest do? Would they, as they had done to him, leave their brother in slavery? Would they go home and deceive their father by a false story of his death? Could they bear to renew his grief? Had they learned that God marked their actions, and ordained the things that happened to them? The cup hidden in Benjamin’s sack was indeed that whereby he was divining their secret thoughts. They Stood the test. They acknowledged God’s hand, and refused to purchase their own safety at the price of their brother’s freedom (contrast Gen 37:26, Gen 37:27, with Gen 44:30, Gen 44:34). Forthwith the clouds passed away. In him whom they feared they found a brother.

I. GOD BY HIS PROVIDENCE TRIES THE SPIRIT THAT IS IN US. The events of our lives are ordered so as to bring this about (Deu 8:2). They are to us as Joseph’s cup. Daily work, family life, professional duties, the common intercourse of society, raise questions which are answered according as God or self rules the heart and guides the actions. Hence no part of our life is unimportant in a spiritual point of view. Things, in themselves of small account, test the character and motives of the life, as floating straws show the current; and this all the more because their spiritual bearing is not apparent. Kindness, truth, unselfishness, in little matters, reveal the man more truly than on greater and more conspicuous occasions (cf. 1Co 13:3).

II. TRIALS ARE SENT IN LOVE AS INSTRUMENTS OF BLESSING (Jas 1:12). Through their operation the Christian life is matured (Rom 5:3-5). Every grace must be exercised in order to grow, and trial is the opportunity of exercise. Without trial there could be no real victory over evil, no real submission of the will to God. We pray to be kept from temptation. To run into it is to court a fall. But where God sends trial grace is provided (1Co 10:13), answering every need; help for the falling or fallen as well as strength for the steadfast.

III. How TO STAND IN THE DAY OF TRIAL. In each of the messages to the Churches (Rev 2:1-29; Rev 3:1-22.) trial is implied now of persecution, now of false doctrine, now of indolent spiritual ease. And the blessing is “to him that overcometh.” How? “By the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 12:11), i.e. by faith in it. Not merely belief in the doctrine, but realizing what the work of Christ has won for us, and the love of the Father from which it proceeds, and the claim which the mercies of God make upon us (Rom 12:1). The first step is receiving with an undoubting spirit the love of God; not letting in unbelief in the garb of humility. The next is keeping that truth present in the mind in the midst of daily work, that the love of Christ may constrain the direction of our life.M.

HOMILIES BY W. ROBERTS

Gen 44:14-34

The conversion of Judah.

I. THE EVIDENCE OF IT.

1. The unexpected confession of guilt which he makes. “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants.”

2. The sensitive appreciation of the terrible blow which Benjamin’s loss would be to Jacob. “When he seeth the lad is not with us he will die.”

3. The noble sacrifice he proposes to make for Benjamin. “Let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord.”

II. THE CAUSE OF IT.

1. The memory of his old sin, which appears to have haunted his conscience.

2. The arrestment of Divine Providence, which in his Egyptian experience he suffered.

3. The inward operation of God’s grace upon his heart.

Learn

1. That no living sinner is beyond the reach of conversion.

2. That for the most part the work of conversion is gradually consummated; and

3. That when once it is completed it appears in a change of character and life.W.

HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS

Gen 44:32

A surety.

“For thy servant became surety for the lad unto his father.” The brethren of Joseph had been surprised on their second visit to Egypt at the cordiality of their reception. They started homewards with well-laden sacks and trembling gladness. They had not gone far when they were overtaken, their sacks searched, and the cup found. With depressed spirits and dreary forebodings they were brought back to the city, and into the presence of Joseph. Joseph had several motives in his strange treatment of his brethren. He may have desired in some way to punish them for their sin against himself by letting them taste some of the bitterness he had experienced when, ruthlessly torn from his home, he was sent a shrinking slave into a distant land. Human nature was strong in Joseph as in others. His brethren had to learn the nature of their own sin by suffering. They have also to learn that their lives were forfeited by sin to justice. He wished also to bring them to a state of humility, so that they should afterwards behave rightly to each other. He may have had doubts as to the safety of his own brother Benjamin with them. He tests thus their interest in their half-brother, for they could have left with some sort of excuse Benjamin as a slave in Egypt. He tests also their regard for their father, and finds out also how they would look upon himself when he should reveal himself to them. Judah is the spokesman for the rest in the painful circumstances in which they are all placed. Joseph proposes to keep only Benjamin as a slave, but Judah draws near, and with deepest humility and heartfelt earnestness pleads with Joseph. Consider

I. JUDAH‘S PLEADING.

1. Judah pleads as surety for Benjamin, and as a brother. We find that it is Judah and not Reuben who pleads now for the life of a brother. Age has mellowed the fierce Judah. We cannot always tell from what a man is in his early years what he will be later on.

(1) Judah admits the wrong, attempts no excuse or extenuation. All evidence was against Benjamin. Judah and the rest cannot tell what to think of the act. He admitted it. We must admit our sin.

(2) Confessed that it was right that Benjamin and they should suffer. Some blame others for their circumstances and sins. To all appearance here Benjamin was alone to blame.

(3) He throws himself on the righteousness and compassion of Joseph. This is all we can do before God. He pleads the pain which it will cause to his father. His appeal is most pathetic. Read it, and the fount of tears must be touched. In all the volumes of fiction ever written there is nothing to surpass the tenderness and pathos of this pleading of Judah.

2. We learn from this position and pleading of Judah as to how we should approach God. We have sinned and can only throw ourselves on his mercy. We see also how Christ pleads for us. His pleading is real and earnest. He prayed on earth for his disciples. The present is a dispensation of mediation. Hence Christ still pleads as our surety in heaven.

II. JUDAH‘S OFFER. He is ready to be bound for Benjamin. It is one thing to talk, another to act. He had promised his father to bring Benjamin again (Gen 43:9), and he wishes to keep his word. He became surety, a guarantee, as one who is bound by signing a paper. He was answerable to his father. He is ready to give his service for Benjamin, his life for his brother. His faithfulness was thus proved. Christ is our surety. He makes himself one with us (Heb 2:11). He sprang from Judah (Heb 7:14). He became one with us in nature and in temptation, and was accepted as our substitute, was bound, abused, and crucified. He bore the curse for us (Gal 3:13). He sacrificed himself for us. Christ died for us who were below him. We may see in the success of Judah’s pleading an indication of the success of Jesus’ work. Joseph needed no entreaty to be merciful to Benjamin. He was nearer of kin to Benjamin than Judah was. So God is our Father. Joseph only wished to see the brethren in a fit state to be forgiven. They were entirely forgiven (Gen 44:5-15). He forgave freely, and wished them to forgive themselves. He knew very well that if they began to blame themselves too much, or to upbraid each other, they would never be happy. Forgiveness should produce peace.

1. Let us see ourselves in those suppliant brothers of Joseph.

2. Let us see in Judah how Christ pleads for us, and with what power. Certainly he excelled in his appeal, in wisdom, boldness, eloquence, tenderness, and self-sacrifice. How much more should we not praise Jesus for his power, his life, his love, sufferings, death, and present intercession.

3. Let us then trust him. What would have been thought of the others if they should have said to Judah, “You are not equal to being surety for him,” or” You are not of sufficient standing, not above us, so as to speak in the name of the rest”? And is not Christ equal to the work of securing our salvation? If he can do it, shall we attempt to mar by our meddling? Full atonement is made, as well as powerful intercession offered. What we have to do is to trust Christ’s work. Let us give up hope of preparing ourselves. He is not like some who are sureties, and are unwilling to pay. He has paid. The law and justice have nothing to demand. Should either present a claim, point to the cross, for that answers all demands. Oh the mystery of redeeming love! Oh the simplicity and yet the depth of meaning contained in that work of Christ! It is a stumbling-block to the high-minded, but a salvation to the humble.H.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

SEVENTH SECTION

The second journey. Benjamin accompanying. Joseph maketh himself known to his brethren. Their return. Jacobs joy.

Genesis 43-45

A. The trial of the brethren. Their repentance and Josephs reconcilableness. Joseph and Benjamin.

Gen 43:1 to Gen 44:17

1And the famine was sore in the land. 2And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food. 3And 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. 4If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food; 5But if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down; for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face [again], except your brother be with you. 6And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? 7And they said, The man asked us straitly of our state, and of 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 certainly know that he would say, Bring your brother down? 8And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. 9I 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; 10For except we had lingered, surely now we had returned this second time. 11And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds; 12And take double money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight; 13Take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the Man 1:14 And God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin.1 If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. 15And 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. 16And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon. 17And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Josephs house. 18And the men were afraid, because they were brought into 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,2 and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. 19And they came near to the steward of Josephs house, and they communed with him at the door of the house. 20And said, O sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food; 21And it came to pass, when we came to the inn, 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 brought3 it again in our hand. 22And other money have we brought down in our hands to buy food; we cannot tell who put our money in our sacks. 23And he said, Peace be to you, fear not; your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks; I had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. 24And the man brought the men into Josephs house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. 25And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon; for they heard that they should eat bread there. 26And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed themselves to him to the earth. 27And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive? 28And they answered, Thy servant our father is in good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed down their 29heads, and made obeisance. And he lift up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mothers son, and said, Is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said farther [without waiting for an answer] God be gracious unto thee, my son. 30And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother; and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber and wept there. 31And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. 32And they set en for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves; because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews: for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. 33And they sat before him, the first born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth; and the men marvelled one at another. 34And 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.

Gen 44:1 :And Joseph 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. 2And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sacks mouth of the youngest, 3and his corn-money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As 4soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore 5have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing. 6And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these same words. 7And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants should do according to this thing; 8Behold, the money which we found in our sacks mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan; how then should we steal out of thy lords house silver or gold? 9With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lords bondmen. 10And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words; he with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye shall be blameless. 11Then they speedily took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. 12And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamins sack. 13Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city. 14And Judah and his brethren came to Josephs house; for he was yet there; and they fell before him on the ground. 15And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that ye have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine? 16And 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 servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found. 17And he said, God forbid that I should do so; but the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant; and as for you, get you up in peace unto your father.

B. The narrative of the reconciliation and the recognition. Judah and Joseph.

Chap. Gen 44:18 to Gen 45:28

18Then Judah came near unto him, and said, O 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. 19My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? 20And 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. 21And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. 22And we said unto my lord, The lad can not leave his father; for if he should leave his father, his father would die. 23And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. 24And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. 25And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food. 26And we said, We can not 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. 27And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons; 28And the one went out from me [and did not return], and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since; 29And if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye 30shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave [sheol]. Now, therefore, when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us, seeing that his life is bound up in the lads life; 31It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die; and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. 32For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to 33my father for ever. Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. 34For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father.

Gen 45:1 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. 2And he wept aloud; and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. 3And 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. 4And 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 5sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me thither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. 6For 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. 7And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity 8in 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. 9Haste 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; 10And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen [East district of Egypt; the name is of Koptic origin. Uncertain: district of Hercules], 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; 11And 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. 12And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. 13And 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. 14And he fell upon his brother Benjamins neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them; and after that his brethren talked with him.

C. The glad tidings to Jacob, Gen 44:16-28.

16And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaohs house, saying, Josephs brethren are come; and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. 17And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; 18And 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. 19Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. 20Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. 21And the children of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. 22To 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. 23And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn, and bread, and meat for his father by the way. 24So he sent his brethren away, and they departed; and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way. 25And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. 26And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacobs heart fainted, for he believed them not. 27And 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. 28And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive I will go and see him before I die.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Contents: a. The trial of the brethren. Their repentance and Josephs forgiveness. Joseph and Benjamin. Gen 43:1 to Gen 44:17 : 1. Judah as surety for Benjamin unto his father, Gen 43:1-14; Genesis 2. Joseph and Benjamin, Gen 43:15-30; Genesis 3. the feast in honor of Benjamin, Gen 43:31-34; Genesis 4. the proving of the brethren in respect to their disposition towards Benjamin, especially after the great distinction shown to him, Gen 44:1-17 b. The story of the reconciliation, and of the recognition, as presented under the antithesis of Judah and Joseph, Gen 44:18; Gen 45:13. 1. Judah as surety and substitute for Benjamin, Gen 44:18-34; Genesis 2. Josephs reconciliation and making himself known to them, Gen 45:1-5; Genesis 3. Josephs divine peace and divine mission, Gen 43:5-13; Genesis 4. the solemnity of the salutation, Gen 43:14-15. c. The glad tidings to Jacob, Gen 43:16 to Gen 28:1. Pharaohs message to Jacob, Gen 43:16-20; Genesis 2. Josephs presents to Jacob, Gen 43:21-24; Genesis 3. the return of Josephs brethren; Pharaohs wagons and Jacobs revivification, Gen 43:25-28.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

a. The proving of the brothers. Their repentance and Josephs forgiveness. Joseph and Benjamin, Gen 43:1; Gen 44:17. 1. Gen 43:1-14; Judah as surety for Benjamin unto the father.Buy us a little bread.In death and famine a rich supply is but little; so it was especially in Jacobs numerous family, in regard to what they had brought the first time.And Judah spake.Judah now stands forth as a principal personage, appearing more and more glorious in his dignity, his firmness, his noble disposition, and his unselfish heroism. He, like Reuben, could speak to his father, and with even more freedom, because he had a freer conscience than the rest, and regarded the danger, therefore, in a milder light. Judah does not act rashly, but as one who has a grand and significant purpose. His explanation to the wounded father is as forbearing as it is firm. If they did not bring Benjamin, Simeon was lost, and they themselves, according to Josephs threatening, would have no admittance to himyea, they might even incur death, because they had not removed from themselves the suspicion of their being spies.Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me?Knobel: His grief and affliction urge him on to reproach them without reason. Unreasonable, however, as it appears, it becomes significant on the supposition that he begins to read their guilty consciences, and, especially, when, with the one preceding, we connect the expression that follows: Me have ye bereaved of my children.The man asked us straitly.[Lange translates the Hebrew literally, or nearly so: er fragte und fragte uns aus; or, as it might be rendered, still closer to the letter, he asked to ask; or, if we take the infinitive in such cases as an adverb, he asked inquisitively, and then proceeds to remark]: This expressive connection of the infinitive with the indicative in Hebrew must not be effaced by grammatical rules; we hold fast to its literalness here. They did not speak forwardly of their family relations, but only after the closest questioning. By this passage and Judahs speech (Genesis 44), the account in the preceding chapter (Gen 43:32) is to be supplemented. They owed him an answer, since the question was to remove his suspicion; and, moreover, they had no presentiment of what he wanted.Send the lad with me. (with me) says the brave Judah. He presents himself as surety; he will take the guilt and bear the blame forever. The strong man promises all he can. To offer to the grandfather his own grandchildren, as Reuben offered his sons, that he might put them to death, was too unreal and hyperbolical to occur to him. We become acquainted with him here as a man full of feeling, and of most energetic speech, as Gen 43:3, and Genesis 33 had before exemplified. He eloquently shows how they are all threatened with starvation. The expression, too: Surely now we had returned the second time, promises a happy issue.If it must be so now.Jacob had once experienced, in the case of Esau, that presents had an appeasing effect on hostile dispositions. From this universal human experience there is explained the ancient custom, especially in the East, of rendering rulers favorably disposed by gifts (see 1Ki 10:25; Mat 2:11; Pro 18:16; Pro 19:6).Of the first fruits of the land.(Lange translates: Of that which is most praiseworthy.) Literally, of the song; i.e., that which was celebrated in song. The noblest products of nature are, for the most part, celebrated and symbolized in poetry. In presents to distinguished persons, however, the simple money-value of the things avails but little; it is the peculiar quality, or some poetic fragrance attached to them, that makes them effective. Delitzsch doubts this explanation, but without sufficient reason. They are especially to take balm, the pride of Canaan, but in particular of Gilead. Then honey. Knobel and Delitzsch suppose it to be the honey of grapes, Arab., dibs. Grape syrup; i.e., must boiled down to one third, an article, of which, even at the present day, there are sent yearly three hundred camel-loads from Hebrons vicinity to Egypt. Delitzsch. But this very abundance of the syrup of grapes would lead us to decide rather for the honey of bees, were it not for the consideration, that in the Egypt of to-day great attention is given to the raising of bees, and that it is no wine country, although not wholly without the culture of the vine (Gen 40:10).Spices.(Lange, tragacanth-gum.) A kind of white resinous medicament (see Winer, Tragacanth).Myrrh.Frankincense, salve medicament (see Winer, Ladanum).Nuts.The Hebrew word occurs here only, but by the Samaritan translation it is interpreted of the fruit of the Pistacia vera, a tree similar to the terebinthoblong and angular nuts of the size of a hazel-nut, containing an oily but very palatable kernel, which do not, however, grow any more in Palestine (as is stated in Schuberts Travels in the East, ii. p. 478; iii. 114), but are obtained from Aleppo (comp. Rosen., in the German Orient. Magazine, xii. p. 502). Keil.Almonds.(See Winer, Almond-tree.) On the productions of Palestine in general, see CalwerBibl. Natural History, etc.And take double money.(Lit. second money. They are not to take advantage of the mistake, even though no unfavorable construction should be put upon it, or it should occasion them no harm.And God Almighty.Here, when some strong miraculous help is needed, he is again most properly designated by the name El Shadai.If I be bereaved of my children.Be it so. An expression of resignation (Est 4:16). As his blessing here is not a prayer full of confidence, so the resignation has not the full expression of sacrifice; for Jacobs soul is unconsciously restrained by a sense of the ban resting upon his sons. He is bowed down by the spiritual burden of his house.

2. Gen 43:15-30. Joseph and Benjamin.And stood before Joseph.Knobel justly states that the audience they had with Joseph did not take place until afterwards. The meaning here is that they took their place in front of Josephs house, together with Benjamin and the presents, and so announced to him their arrival.Bring these men home.With joy had Joseph observed Benjamin with them, and concludes from thence that they had practised no treachery upon him, through hatred to the children of Rachel, the darlings of their father. Benjamins appearance sheds a reconciling light upon the whole group. He intends, therefore, to receive them in a friendly and hospitable manner. His staying away, however, until noon, characterizes not only the great and industrious statesman, but also the man of sage discretion, who takes time to consult with himself about his future proceeding.And stay.Bohlens assertion that the higher castes in Egypt ate no meat at all, is refuted by Knobel, p. 326.At noon.The time when they partook of their principal meal (Gen 18:1).And the men were afraid.Judging from their former treatment they know not what to make of their being thus led into his house. If a distinction, it is an incomprehensibly great one; they, therefore, apprehended a plan for their destruction. Some monstrous intrigue they, perhaps, anticipate, having its introduction in the reappearance of the money in their sacks, whilst the fearful imagination of an evil conscience begins to paint the consequences (see Gen 43:18). A thief, if unable to make restitution, was sold as a slave (Exo 22:3). Therefore they are not willing to enter until they have justified themselves about the money returned in their sacks. They address themselves, on this account, to Josephs steward, with an explanatory vindication.When we came to the inn.In a summary way they here state both facts (Gen 42:27; Gen 42:35) together. For afterwards they might have concluded that the money found in the sack of one of them was a sign that that money had been returned in all the sacks.In full weight.There was, as yet, no coined money, only rings or pieces of metal, which were reckoned by weight.Peace be to you.It can hardly be supposed that the steward was let into Josephs plan. He knew, however, that Joseph himself had ordered the return of the money, and might have supposed that Josephs course toward them, as his countrymen, had in view a happy issue. In this sense it is that he encourages them.Your God and the God of your father.The shrewd steward is acquainted with Josephs religiousness, and, perhaps, has adopted it himself. He undoubtedly regards them as confessors of the same faith with Joseph. Knobel: His own good fortune each man deduces from the God he worships (Hos 2:7).Has given you treasure.Thus intimating some secret means by which God had given it to them; but for all this they still remain uneasy, though sufficiently calmed by his verbal acknowledgment of receipt: I had your money, but more so by the releasing of Simeon. It is not until now that they enter the house which they had before regarded as a snare. Now follow the hospitable reception, the disposition of the presents, Josephs greeting, and their obeisance.And he asked them of their welfare.This was his greeting. See the contrast, Gen 37:4. For the inquiry after their fathers welfare they thank him by the most respectful obeisance, an expression of their courtesy and of their filial piety. They represent their father, just as Benjamin represents the mother, and so it is that his dream of the sun and moon fulfils itself (Gen 37:9). If we suppose Benjamin born about a year before Josephs sale, he would be now twenty-three years of age. Knobel does not know how to understand the repeated expressions of his youth (, etc.). But they are explained from the tender care exercised towards him, and from the great difference between his age and that of his brothers.And he said.It is very significant that Joseph does not wait for an answer. He recognizes him immediately, and his heart yearns.My son.An expression of inner tenderness, and an indication, at the same time, of near relationship.And Joseph made haste.His overwhelming emotion, the moment he saw his brethren, like Jacobs love of Rachel, has a gleam of the New-Testament life.4 It is not, however, to be regarded as a simple feeling; it is also an emotion of joy at the prospect of that reconciliation which he had, for some time, feared their hatred towards Rachels children might prevent, and so bring ruin upon Benjamin, upon Jacobs house, and upon themselves. No emotions are stronger than those arising from the dissolution of a ban, with which there is, at the same time, taken away the danger of a dark impending doom, and the old hardening of impaired affection.

3. Gen 43:31-34. The banquet in honor of Benjamin.And he washed his face.A proof of the depth of his emotion. It was still hard for him to maintain a calm and composed countenance.And they set on for him by himself.Three tables, from two different causes. Josephs caste as priest, and in which he stood next to the king, did not allow him to eat with laymen. And, moreover, neither Josephs domestics, nor his guests, could, as Egyptians, eat with Hebrews. Concerning the rigidness of the Egyptian seclusion, see Knobel, p. 328. Besides, the Hebrews were nomads (Gen 46:34). On the Egyptian castes, see Von Raumer, Vorlesungen ber die alte Gesch, i. p. 133.And they set.They were surprised to see themselves arranged according to their age. But the enigma becomes more and more transparent; whilst strange presentiments are more and more excited. The transaction betrays the fact that they are known to the spirit of the house, and that it can distinguish between their ages. The Egyptians sat at table, instead of reclining; as appears from their pictures.And he took and sent messes.They were thus distinguished by having portions sent to them; whilst, as yet, they were hindered by no laws from eating of Josephs meat.But Benjamins mess.This is a point not to be overlooked in the proving of the brethren; it is an imitation, so to say, of the coat of many colors. It would determine whether Benjamin was to become an object of their jealousy, just as his fathers present had before been to him the cause of their hatred (so also Keil, p. 264). His mess is five times larger than the rest. Such abundance was an especial proof of respect. To the guest who was to be distinguished there were given, at a meal, the largest and best pieces (1Sa 9:23; Hom.Il. vii. 321, etc.). Among the Spartans the king received a double portion (Herod, vi. 57, etc.); among the Cretans the Archon received four times as much (Heraclid. Polit. 3). Five was a favorite number among the Egyptians (Gen 41:34; Gen 45:22; Gen 47:2; Gen 47:24; Isa 19:18). It may be explained, perhaps, from the supposed five planets.And they drank and were merry with him.Intoxication is not meant here (see Hag 1:6), but a state of exhilaration, in which they first lose their fear of the Egyptian ruler. Benjamin was sitting as a guardian angel between them, and it was already a favorable sign, that the distinction showed to him did not embitter their joy. Nevertheless, whether Joseph had reached the zenith of an inexpressible rapture, as Delitzsch says, may be questioned. In all this happy, anticipation, we may suppose him still a careful observer of his brethren, according to the proverb invino veritas. At all events, the effect of the present to Benjamin was to be tested, and their disposition towards him was to undergo a severe probing.

4. Gen 44:1-17. The trial of the brothers disposition towards Benjamin, especially after his great distinction.And he commanded the steward of his house.The return of money does not belong to this trial, but only the cup in Benjamins sack. Knobel is incorrect in calling this also a chastisement. So also is Delitzsch, in holding that a surrender of Benjamin by his brethren loses all authentic support, in the fact that in all the sacks something was found that did not belong to them. Rather is Benjamin the only one who must appear as guilty, and as having incurred the doom of slavery (Gen 44:17).Up, follow after the men.The haste is in order that they may not anticipate him in the discovery, and so defeat the accusation by their voluntary return. The steward is to inquire only for the silver cup.And whereby indeed he divineth.In Egypt, the country of oracles (Isa 19:3), hydromancy also was practised, i. e., to predict events from appearances presented by the liquid contents of a cup, either as standing or as thrown. This mode of divination is still practised.5 It was called , lit., whispering (in magic formulas or oracles), divinare. Delitzsch. Compare also Knobel, p. 329. The indicating signs were either the refraction of the rays of light, or the formation of circles on the water, or of figures, or of small bubbles, whenever something was thrown in. According to Bunsen, however, the aim was, by fixing the eyes of the diviner upon a particular point in the cup, to put him into a dream-like or clairvoyant state. Concerning this kulikomancy, or cup-divination, see Schrder. The cup is, therefore, marked, not only as a festive, but also as a most sacred, utensil of Joseph; and, on this account, to take it away was considered as a heinous crime. Knobel, in his peculiar way, here tries to start a contradiction. According to the Elohist (he says), Joseph gets his knowledge of the future from God (Gen 40:8); whilst here he derives it from hydromancy, as practised by one received into the caste of the priests. So, too, did he swear, in all earnestness, by the life of Pharaoh; and the older exegetes would relieve us from the apprehension that in so doing he might have taken a false oath! In a vigorous denial, and with eloquent speech, do the accused repel the charges of the steward and give strong expression to the consciousness of their innocence.With whomsoever it be found, let him die.Whilst consenting to their proposal, the steward moderates it in accordance with the aim of the prosecution. The possessor of the cup alone is demanded, and he, not to die, but to become Josephs slave. He presents this forthwith, so that the discovery again of the money may not be taken into consideration, and that temporary fear of death may not harm Benjamin. Benjamin only is to appear as the culprit, and this is in order to find out whether or not his brethren would abandon him. For these reasons the money found in the sacks is not noticed at all.And began at the eldest.This was in order to mask the deception.They rent their clothes.This was already a favorable sign; another, that they would not let Benjamin go alone, but returned with him to the city; third, that they put themselves under the direction of Judah, who had become surety for Benjamin; and fourth, that they, together with Benjamin, prostrated themselves as penitents before Joseph.Wot ye not?Josephs reproach was not so much for the vileness, as for the imprudence, of the act; since he intends to conduct the severe trial as sparingly as possible. The Hebrew , etc., denotes here a divinely-derived or supernatural knowledge, to which Joseph lays claim, not only as a member of the caste of priests, but as the well-known interpreter of the dreams, owing his reception into this caste to his remarkable clear-sightedness.That such a man as I.He puts on the appearance of boasting, not to represent them as mean persons, but only as inferior to himself in a contest of craftiness. Thus he meets the supposed improbability that he could still divine although the cup was taken from him.And Judah said, What shall we say?Judah considers Benjamin as lost, and without inquiring how the cup came into his sack, he recognizes in this dark transaction the judgment of God upon their former guilt. This appears from his declaration: We are my lords servants.Benjamin, it is true, had no part in that old guilt; neither had Reuben and Judah directly, but concerning this no explanation could be given in the court of the Egyptian ruler. In a masterly manner, therefore, he so shapes his speech ambiguously that the brethren are reminded of their old guilt, and admonished to resign themselves to the divine judgment, whilst Joseph can understand it only that they are all interested in the taking of the cup, and he especially, as the one confessing for them. I, above all, am guilty, says the innocent one, in order that he might share the doom of slavery with the apparent criminal. In this disguised speech the reservatio mentalis appears in its most favorable aspect. For his brethren he utters a truth: Jacobs sons have incurred the divine judgment. For Joseph his words are a seeming subterfuge, and yet a most magnanimous one. Thus the two noble sons of Jacob wrestle with each other in the emulation of generosity, one in the false appearance of a despot and boaster, the other forced to a falsity of self-accusation that seems bordering on despair.And he said, God forbid that I should do so.Here is the culmination of the trial. Benjamin is to be a slave; the others may return home without him. Will they not be really glad to have got rid of the preferred and favorite child of Rachel, in such an easy way? But now is the time when it comes true: Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise (see Gen 49:8).

b. History of the reconciliation, of the recognition, and of their meeting each other again under the antithesis of Judah and Joseph, Gen 44:18 to Gen 45:15.1. Gen 44:18-34. Judah as surety and substitute for Benjamin before Joseph. Judahs speech is not only one of the grandest and fairest to be found in the Old Testament (connecting itself, as it does, with an increased significance, to those of Eliezer and Jacob), but, at the same time, one of the most lofty examples of self-sacrifice contained therein.Then Judah came near unto him and said.Peclus facit disertum, the heart makes eloquent. Necessity, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, give the inspiring confidence ().In my lords ears.He presses towards him, that he may speak the more impressively to his ear and to his heart (Gen 50:4; 1Sa 18:23). And yet, with all his boldness, he neglects not the courteous and prudent attitude.For thou art as Pharaoh.In this Judah intends to recognize the sovereignty which could not be affronted with impunity. For Joseph, however, there must have been in it the stinging reminder that the acme of severity was now reached. The vivid, passionate style of narration, as the ground of treatment in the cases presented, is ever the basis of all Bible speeches.And his brother is dead.Joseph has here a new unfolding of the destiny to which God had appointed him; especially does he begin to perceive its meaning in relation to his father Jacob (Gen 44:28). This language strengthens what is said about Benjamin, as the one favorite child of an aged fatherdoubly dear because his brother is dead.And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father.From this it appears why Joseph confined them three days in prison. They had refused to bring Benjamin. It appears, too, that they had consented to bring him only because Joseph had especially desired it, and had intimated a favorable reception (that I may set mine eyes upon him, see Jer 39:12). Judah gently calls his attention to this as though it were a promise. And, finally, they are brought to this determination on account of the pressure of the famine. It had cost them, too, a hard struggle with the father. The quotation of Jacobs words (Gen 44:27-29) shows how easily they now reconcile themselves to the preference of Rachel and her sons in the heart of Jacob.That my wife.Rachel was his wife in the dearest sense of the word, the chosen of his heart. Therefore, also, are her two sons near to him.And the one went out from me.Here Joseph learns his fathers distress on his own account. His mourning and longing for him shows how dear Benjamin must be, now the only child of his old age.When he seeth that the lad is not is with us.With the utmost tenderness Benjamin is sometimes called the youngest child, sometimes the lad. Out of this a frigid criticism, that has no heart to feel or understand it, would make contradictions. If Joseph has his way, Jacob will die of sorrow. And now Judah speaks the decisive word,one which the mere thread of the narration would not have led us to anticipate, but which springs eloquently from the rhetoric of the heart.For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father.Therefore the passionate entreaty that Joseph would receive him as a substitute of the one who had incurred the sentence of slavery. In all this he makes no parade of his self-sacrifice. He cannot, and will not, return home without Benjamin. He would even regard it as a favor that he should be received in his place. He would rather die as a slave in Egypt, than that his eyes should behold the sorrows of his father. So stands he before us in his self-humiliation, in his self-sacrifice, equal in both with Joseph, and of as true nobility of soul.

2. Gen 45:1-5. Josephs reconciliation and making himself known.Then Joseph could not refrain.The brethren had not merely stood the trial; Judahs eloquence had overpowered him. Reconciliation never measures itself by mere right; it is not only full but running over. Thus is it said of Israel: he wrestled with God and prevailed. We must distinguish, therefore, between two elements in Josephs emotion: first, his satisfied reconciliation, and, secondly, his inability to restrain any longer, though in presence of all the beholders, the strong agitation of his swelling heart. See a full representation of this as given by Delitzsch (p. 558). When, however, he says, that Benjamins brothers, do not press him (Benjamin) with reproaches, notwithstanding they had reason to regard him as guilty, and as having, by his theft, plunged them into misfortunes, there must be borne in mind their earlier suspicions as expressed Gen 43:18. Doubtless they now conjectured that they were the victims of some Egyptian intrigue; still they recognized it as a divine judgment, and this was the means of their salvation. In their resignation to suffering for Benjamins sake, in their sorrow for their fathers distress, Joseph saw fruits for repentance that satisfied him. He beheld in them the transition from the terror of judgment to a cheerful courage of self-sacrifice, in which Judah offers himself as a victim for him, inasmuch as he does it for his image. This draws him as with an irresistible power to sympathize with their distress, and so the common lot becomes the common reconciliation.Cause every man to go out from me.He wished to be alone with his brethren at the moment when he made himself known to them. The Egyptians must not see the emotion of their exalted lord, the deep abasement of the brethren, and the act of holy reconciliation which they could not understand. Neither was the theocratic conception of the famine, and of his own mission, for Egyptian ears.And he wept aloud.With loud cryings he began to address them; so that his weeping was heard by all who were without, and even by the people in the house of Pharaoh. It follows that Josephs dwelling must have been near the palace; his residence was at Memphis. (Knobel.)I am Joseph.This agitating announcement, for which, however, their despair may have prepared them, he knows not better how to mitigate than by the question: Doth my father yet live?He had already heard this several times, yet he must ask again, not because he doubted, but that, in the assurance of this most joyful news he may show them his true Israelitish heart, and inspire them with courage. Nor are we to forget that Judahs words had vividly pictured to him the danger that the old man might die on account of Benjamins absence, and that it now began painfully to suggest itself to him, how much he might have imperilled his fathers life by the trial of his brethren.For they were troubled.In their terror they seem to draw back.Come near to me, I pray you.I am Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt.It seems as if he had to confess for them the thing they most dreaded.Now therefore be not grieved.Seeing their sorrow and repentance, he would now raise them to faith. The one portion of them, namely, those who were conscious of the greater guilt, must not mar this favorable state of soul, and render faith more difficult by their excessive mourning, nor should the guiltless (Reuben, Judah, Benjamin) produce the same effect by angry recriminations.To preserve life.To this they are now to direct their attention.

3. Gen 45:5-13. Josephs divine peace, and divine mission.To preserve life did God send me.What they had done for evil God had turned to good. And now, having repented and been forgiven, as God had shown to them in his dealings, they are now in a state to understand his gracious purposes. A closer explanation of these words, which would require the giving of his whole history, he, for the present, discreetly waives.And yet there are five years.This shows already the point towards which his mind is aimingto draw them down to Egypt.Neither earing nor harvest.A vivid representation of the years of famine.Before you to preserve you.The preservation of Jacobs house seems now of more importance than that of the Egyptians, and the surrounding peoples.By a great deliverance.The question was not one of assistance merely, however great, but of deliverance from death and famine. It may, however, be so called in reference to the great future, and as containing in it the final deliverance of the world.So now it was not you,but God.Here he makes a pointed contrast: not you; in this is contained: first, his forgiveness; secondly, his declaration of the nullity of their project, and its disappearance before the great decree of God. Thrice does he make these comforting declarations. But in what respects was it God? He made him, first, a father unto Pharaoh, that is, a paternal counsellor (2Ch 2:12; 2Ch 4:16). It was an honorary distinction of the first minister, and which also existed among the Persians (Appendix to Est 2:6; Est 6:10), and the Syrians (1 Maccab. Gen 11:32). Knobel. These words also refer to the interpretation of Pharaohs dreams, and the advice connected with it. The consequence was, that he obtained this high position which he can now use for the preservation of his fathers house.Come down unto me.The immediate invitation given without any conference with Pharaoh shows his firm position; but it was, nevertheless, a hazardous undertaking of his agitated, yet confident heart.In the land of Goshen.(Gen 47:11).Raamses.A district of Lower Egypt, north of the Nile, and very fruitful (Gen 47:6; Gen 47:11), especially in grass (Gen 46:34). Even at this day the province of Scharkijah is considered the best part of Egypt (Robinson. Palst., 1:96). Knobel. See The same, p. 333, and the Biblical Dictionaries. See also Bunsen.And there will I nourish thee.The expression may mean, that thou mayest not become a possession, that is, fall into slavery through poverty, and thus Knobel interprets it with reference to Gen 47:19, etc.; but it may also mean, that thou mayest not be deprived of thy possessions, so as to suffer want,an interpretation which is to be preferred.And behold your eyes.If their father in his distrust (see Gen 45:25) should not credit their testimony, he will undoubtedly believe the eyes of Benjamin.All my glory.He perceives that his aged father, oppressed by sorrows, can only be revived again through vivid representations (see Gen 45:27).

4. Gen 45:14-15. The solemnity of the salutation.And he fell upon his brother Benjamins neck.Benjamin is the central point whence leads out the way to reconciliation.Kissed all his brethren.The seal of recognition, of reconciliation, and of salutation.And wept upon them.Delitzsch: While he embraced them. But of Benjamin it is said, he wept upon his neck. Benjamin would seem to remain standing whilst the brothers bow themselves; so that Joseph, as he embraced, wept upon them.And after that his brethren talked with him.Not until now can they speak with him,now that they have been called, and been forgiven, in so solemn and brotherly a manner. The joy is gradually brought out by an assurance, thrice repeated, that he did not impute their deed to them, but recognized in it the decree and hand of God.

c. The joyful message to Jacob. Gen 45:16-28.Pharaohs commission to Jacob.And the fame thereof was heard.At the recognition Joseph was alone with his brethren; now that he has made known their arrival, he avows himself as belonging to them.And it pleased Pharaoh well.Recognitions of separated members of the same family have an extraordinary power to move the human heart, and we already know that Pharaoh was a prince of sound discernment, and of a benevolent disposition. But what was pleasing to Pharaoh was also pleasing to his courtiers, and his servants. Besides, Joseph had rendered great service, and had, therefore, a claim to Egyptian sympathy. Thus far a dark shadow had rested on his descent; for he had come to Egypt as a slave. Now he appears as a member of a free and noble nomadic family.And Pharaoh said unto Joseph.First, he extends an invitation to the brethren agreeing with Josephs previous invitation. Then follows a commission to Joseph, the terms of which bear evidence of the most delicate courtliness.The good of the land.This is generally taken as meaning the best part of the land, that is, Goshen (Raschi, Gesenius, and others). Knobel, according to Gen 45:20; Gen 45:23, interprets it, of the good things of Egypt: whatever good it possesses shall be theirs. The connection with the following: the fat of the land, would seem to point to a leasing of possession, but, of course, not in the sense of territorial dominion. It is not an argument against this that the leasing of places is afterwards asked for (Gen 46:34; Gen 47:4). On the contrary, the petition there made rather rests on a previous general promise.Now thou art commanded.Pharaoh had refrained from using the form of command towards Joseph, but now in adopting it, in a case of his own personal interest, it must be regarded as, in fact, a refined courtesy. It is the very strongest language of authorization.This do ye.He regards the cause of Joseph, and his brethren, as one and inseparable. The sense, therefore, is not: cause thy brethren so to do (Knobel); for they, of themselves, could not take wagons from Egypt.For your little ones.Egypt was rich in wagons and horses; they are not mentioned among the nomadic Hebrews. The small two-wheeled wagons of the Egyptians could be also used on the roadless wastes of the desert. Keil.Also regard not your stuff.They should not grieve over the articles of furniture they would have to leave behind; since they would have everything abundantly in Egypt.The children of Israel.A decisive step for the house of Israel.Joseph gave them wagonsand provision for the way.Changes of raiment.Lange: Lit., festival habits (holiday clothing) as a change for the usual dress.But to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment.He makes amends to this guiltless brother after the well-meant alarm which he had given him.And to his father.In these presents love seems to surpass the measure of its aim, since Jacob had been invited to come speedily to Egypt; but there might possibly be hindrances to the journey. Besides the ten asses were for the common transportation, and the occasion of their dismission is employed to send along with them costly things of various kinds from the land.See that ye fall not out by the way.The old explanation: do not quarrel by the way, is held by Knobel, Delitzsch and Keil, in opposition to Michaelis, Gesenius, and others, who make it an admonition: fear not. But the language, and the situation, both favor the first interpretation.6 The less guilty ones among them might easily be tempted to reproach the others, as Reuben had done already.Joseph is yet alive.In this message his heart lost its warmth7 and joy. He had not full trust in them. It was by no means the incredulity of joy (Luk 24:44), because the news seemed too strangely good to be true; rather had his suspicion, in its reciprocal working with their long consciousness of guilt, made him fundamentally mistrustful. And now that dreadful shalit of Egypt turns out to be his son Joseph! Even Benjamins witness fails to clear up his amazement.And when he saw the wagons.Not until they had told him all the words of Joseph, and added, perhaps, their own confessionhow they had sold him, how Joseph had forgiven them, how he had referred them to the divine guidanceis Jacob able to believe fully their report; and, now, in connection with all this, there come the Egyptian wagons, as a seal of the storys truth, as a symbol of Josephs glory, a sign, in fact, from God, that the dark enigma of his old years is about to be solved in the light of a golden sunset.It is enough.His longing is appeased, he has as good as reached the goal.I will go.The old man is again young in spirit. He is for going immediately; he could leap, yes, fly.

Now purified at last, with hope revived,
For lifes new goal he starts.
(See the close of the dipus Coloneus.) Delitzsch: Thus Jacobs spirit lives again.And Israel said.It is Israel now that speaks. How significant this change of name.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

(Gen 43:1 to Gen 44:17)

The great trial: 1. Its inevitableness; 2. its need; 3. its apparent end (the banquet); 4. its acme; 5. its glorious issue.
1. The pressure of want, and its power in the hand of providence: 1) How inexorable in its demands. Jacob is to deliver up Benjamin. 2) How full of grace in its designs. By it alone can Jacobs house be delivered from the burden of deadly guilt.

2. Judahs confidence. A lions whelp (Gen 49:9). This confidence he would not have had, if he had not formerly proposed to sell Joseph in order to save him, or had be not been willing to sacrifice himself for Benjamins safe return: The spirit of self-sacrifice is the great source of courage.

3. It is in the name of Israel that Jacob treats with his sons in the giving up of Benjamin. His reproach, too (Gen 43:6), is in the name of Israel. It seems to come, indeed, from Jacobs weakness, and to be, therefore, wrongly used; but behind the mere sound there lies the hidden announcement of a suspicion that they were dealing unfairly with the sons of Rachel. We now recognize Israels character, especially in the following traits: 1) Not to his other sons does he entrust Benjamin, not even to Reuben, whose weakness he knows, but only to Judah, whose frankness, honesty, and strength seem to inspire him with confidence. 2) He again employs the old weapon, the giving of presents to a threatening antagonist; yet well knowing that the Egyptian would not, like Esau, look to the quantity so much as the quality of the things offered, and so he sends him the most highly prized or celebrated products of the land. 3) With a severe uprightness does he require his sons to return the money found in their sacks, and thus disarm the suspicion of the Egyptian. 4) He entrusts to them Benjamin as their brother. 5) He commits himself to the protection of Almighty God, i. e., the delivering and protecting God of the patriarchs, who wrought miracles on their behalf. 6) He resigns himself to Gods providence, even at the risk of becoming entirely childless.

4. The prized fruits of the land of Canaan. In Jacobs words there appears an objective poetry, or the poetry of the lands, as it may be called. First of all, it consists in their noblest products, not as they serve the common wants of life, but rather its healing, adornment, and festivity. When he selected them, however, Jacob could have had but little thought how mighty the influence these noble gifts of Canaans soil would have upon the great Egyptian ruler,how they would impress him as the wonders of his youth, the glories of his native land.

5. Josephs state of soul at the appearance of Benjamin: 1) His joy; 2) his deep emotion; 3) his doubt, and the modes of testing it: a. the feast; b. the cup; c. the claim to Benjamin. If at the first meeting with his brethren Joseph had to struggle with his ill-humor, he now has to contend with the emotions of fraternal love.

6. The agitating changes in the trial of Josephs brethren: 1) From fear to joy: 2) from joy to sorrow; 3) and again from sorrow to joy.
7. Their negotiation with the steward, or the delusions of fear. They are innocent (respecting the money), and yet guilty (in respect to their old crime). Having once murdered confidence, there lies upon them the penalty of mistrust, compelling them to regard even Josephs house as a place of treachery. They could have no trust whilst remaining unreconciled.
8. The steward. Josephs spirit had been imparted to his subordinates.
9. Good fortune abounding (the money given to them; Simeon set free; the honorable reception; the banquet; the messes); and yet they had no peace, because the pure foundation for it was not yet laid.
10. Josephs deep emotion, a sign of reconciliation.
11. The banquet, and Egyptian division of castes. (The distinction of caste is here recognized as custom interpenetrated by dogma, and this gives the method of the struggle. Joseph sends messes from his table. The true tendency of the caste doctrine is to absorb everything into that of the priesthood.) Egyptian forms (honorary dishes; the number five). An Israelitish meal. As the banquet of Josephs joy, of his hope, of his trying watch. As the feast of reviving hope in Josephs brethren; their participation without envy in the honoring of Benjamin. As an introduction to the last trial, and a preparation for it.
12. The successful issue in the fearful proving of Israels sons.

(Gen 44:18 to Gen 45:16. Joseph and Judah.)

1. Judahs speech. Delitzsch: Judah is the eloquent one among his brethren. His eloquence had carried the measure of Josephs sale; it had prevailed on Jacob to send Benjamin with them; and here, finally, it makes Joseph unable to endure the restraint which he wished to put upon himself. The end, however, is attained, not more by his touching eloquence than by his heroic deed, when lie offers himself as surety for Benjamin, and is willing to sacrifice himself by taking his place.

2. And I said. This citing of Jacobs language, in Judahs speech, must have had something especially agitating for Joseph,all the more so because the speaker is not aware of the deep impression it must have made upon him. In this citation of Jacobs last words in respect to that old event, there is reflected, as Schrder rightly remarks, Jacobs doubt. I said, that is, I thought at that time.

3. The moral requisites of reconciliation, whether human or divine, are quite obvious in our narrative. Reuben represents the better element in the moral struggle, Benjamin the innocent party, Judah the surety, who takes upon himself the real guilt of his brethren and the factitious guilt of Benjamin. Repentance, faith, and the spirit of sacrifice, severally appear in these representatives. Through three stages do these elements prepare the reconciliation to Josephs heart and to the brethren as opposed to him. It has for its foundation a religious ground, though only in an Old-Testament measure. The thrice-repeated declaration of Joseph: Ye have not sent me, but God has done it, is the strongest expression of restored peace and forgiveness. As Benjamin, so to speak, had taken his place, the conclusion avails: Whatever ye have done to him, ye have done it even unto me.
4. It is an especial New-Testament trait in Josephs mode of thinking, that he so fully recognizes how the sin of his brethren, after having been atoned for, is entirely taken away; the divine providence having turned it to good. This truth, which he so promptly read in his mission, many Christians, and even many theologians, are yet spelling out in the letter. Joseph, however, recognizes, as the central point of the divine guidance, his mission to save Israels house from starvation, and to preserve it for a great deliverance. In this thought there lies enclosed the anticipation of a future and an endless salvation. For this end the treachery of the brethren is first turned away, as guilt expiated, and then, under the divine guidance, turned to good. Thus Josephs mission becomes a type of the cross of Christ; though the expiating points, which are found separated in Josephs history, are wholly concentrated in the person of Jesus. Here they appear in divers persons: It is Reuben the admonisher, Benjamin the innocent, Judah the surety, Joseph the betrayed and the forgiving, Jacob the father of a family pressed down by the guilt of his house.

5. Josephs kiss of peace reminds us of Christs greeting to his disciples and to the world.
6. Benjamin, by the way, became in after times, a wild and haughty tribe, then deeply humbled (in the days of the Judges), then Judahs rival, in the opposition of Saul and David, then Judahs faithful confederate and protege; in the New-Testament time, Paul again, its great descendant, connects himself in faithful devotion, with the lion of the tribe of Judah.

7. The recognitions of relatives, friends, lovers, long lost to each other, are among the most important occurrences in human life, especially as they appear in their reality, and in the poetry of antiquity8 (see Langes History of the Apostolic Times, i. p. 42). In the most conspicuous points, however, of outward recognitions, are reflected the spiritual (Luk 15:20), and, in both, those of the world to come.

8. The ambiguous forms that present themselves in the history of Joseph, and in which, at last, Judah and Joseph stand opposed to each other, lose themselves entirely in the service of truth, righteousness, and love. At the same time they appear as imperfections of the Old-Testament life in comparison with the joy of confession that appears in the New Testament. What they represent, of the things that last forever, is the caution and the prudence of the New-Testament wisdom. Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

(Gen 45:18-27. Joseph and Jacob.)

1. The joyful news: 1) The announcers: Joseph, Pharaoh, Egyptians, the sons of Jacob. 2) Their contents: Joseph lives; his glory in Egypt; come down. 3) Jacobs incredulity; the chill of his heart at the words of his sons, whom he does not credit. 4) The evidences and the tokens: Josephs words, Pharaohs wagons. 5. Jacob becomes again Israel in the anticipation of the serene clearing up of his dark destiny, in the discharging his house of an old ban. Josephs life restores to him the hope of a happy death.
2. Delitzsch: In Josephs history the sacred record maintains all its greatness; here, in this scene of recognition, it celebrates one of its triumphs. It is all nature, all spirit, all art. These three here become one; each word is bathed in tears of sympathy, in the blood of love, in the wine of happiness. The foil, however, of this history, so beautiful in itself, is the , the glory, of Jesus Christ, which, in all directions, pours its heavenly light upon it. For as Judah (?) delivered up Joseph, so the Jewish people delivered Jesus into the hands of the heathen, and so, also, does the antitypal history of this betrayal lose itself in an adorable depth of wisdom and divine knowledge. The same: This Jacob, over whom comes again the spirit of his youth, is Israel. It is the name of the twelve-tribed people, whose migration to Egypt, and new-birth out of it, is decided by the , I will go, of the hoary patriarch.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See Doctrinal and Ethical. Forms of character. Forms of reconciliation. The types in our history. Taube: Josephs revelation to his brethrena type of. Him who rose to his disciples.

(Gen 43:10 to Gen 44:17.)

Starke: Gen 43:10. Bibl. Tub.: A less evil should justly be preferred to a greater.The same: A Christian must bear with resignation the troubles that God ordains.At the door of the house. Perhaps that they might leave in time. The guilty conscience interprets everything in the worst way (Luther). [Sitting at a meal is more ancient than lying (Exo 32:6); the latter mode came much later into use, among the delicate and effeminate Persians.]Osiander: Let every land keep its own customs, unless they are in themselves indecent and godless. [Gen 44:15; Joseph is said to have learned magic in Egypt; but this is hardly credible.][Gen 43:9; that was said very rashly (?).]Gen 44:16. Cramer: God knows how to reveal secret sins in a wonderful manner (Psa 50:21).Calwer Handbuch: In suffering for Benjamin, they were to atone for their sins toward Joseph.Schrder: Conscience is greater than heaven and earth. If this did not exist hell would have no fire and no torment.

(Gen 44:18 to Gen 45:18.)

Starke: When God has sufficiently humbled his faithful children, he makes a way for their escape (1Co 10:13).Gen 45:5. Luther: A poor weak conscience, in the acknowledgment of its guilt, is filled with anguish. We must hold up and counsel, open heaven, shut hell, whoever can, in order that the poor soul may not sink into despair. When a Christian has been exalted by God to high worldly state, he must not be ashamed of his poor parents, brothers, sisters, and other relations, nor despise them (Rom 8:28).The same: I wonder how Joseph must have felt when he came to kiss Simeon, the ringleader in the crimes committed against him; and yet he must have kissed him, too.Comparison of Christ and Joseph, according to Luther and Rambach.Mat 5:24. Calwer Handbuch: That is the most rational view in all cases, especially in the dark dispensations of human life, not to halt at human causes, or stay there, but to look at Gods ways, as Joseph does here; and to trace his leading, like a golden thread drawn through all the follies and errors of men.Schrder: Here (at the close of Judahs speech) is the time that the cord breaks (Luther).The thoughts and feelings of Jacobs sons are all directed intently to this one thing: Benjamin must not be abandoned; everything else ceases to trouble them.Judah is bold because he speaks from the strong impulse of his heart.Luther, on Judahs speech: Would to God that I might call upon God with equal ardor.Judah shows that he is the right one to be surety (Richter).Judah may have closed with tears, and now Joseph begins with them (Richter).Joseph shows himself a most affectionate brother, while, as a genuine child of God, he points to him, away from himself and his people.In God all discords are resolved. Grace not only makes the sin as though it had never been, but throws it into the sea (Mic 7:19); without abolishing sin as sin, that is, as unexpiated, it makes the scarlet dyed as white as snow (Isa 1:18)Heim: Jerem. Risler, is section 40. of his historical extracts from the books of the Old Testament, presents not less than twenty-two points of resemblance between Joseph and Jesus. Such a gathering, however, of separate resemblances may easily divert us from the main features. Each essential homogeneity is always reflected in many resemblances. Yet Rislers parallel is quite full of meaning (see Heim, p. 540). As yet we have had before us the fulfilment of the type in the course of history; the fulfilment of the other half still lies in the future (namely, that Jesus makes himself known to the Jews, the brethren who rejected him), Zec 12:10; Mat 23:38-39; Rom 11:25-26.

(Gen 45:17-28.)

Starke: Egypts great honor and glory; its showing hospitality to the whole Church, that is, the house of Jacob. After dark and long-continued storms, God makes again to shine upon his people the sun of gladness. The joy of pious parents and children at seeing each other again in the life to come.Schrder: (Three hundred pieces of silver, equal to two hundred dollars.) He not only wished to show his love to his brethren, but also, to induce the absent members of the family to undertake the journey (Calvin). On the journey to eternity we must not become angry, either with our companions, or with God (Berl. Bib.). Christians, as brethren, ought not to quarrel with each other on the way of life.Heim: The first impression that the joyful news made upon the aged and bowed-down Jacob, was to chill his heart. Cases are not unfrequent of apoplexy and sudden death arising from the reception of glad tidings. It was somewhat like the joy of Simeon (Luk 2:29-30).

Footnotes:

[1][Gen 43:14. . Rendered: If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. Our translators, by putting in children, would seem to have regarded it as emphatic, thus: If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved of all. It may be taken, however, as a declaration of submission to what appears inevitable, as in Est 4:16, . Or it may be regarded as a passionate exaggeration in view of Josephs supposed death, Simeons confinement, and the demand for Benjamin: I am bereaved of all my children, one after the other.T. L.]

[2][Gen 43:18.. The here is servile. Compare Mal 2:13 and Gen 28:6. In Gen 30:15, we have both forms of the infinitive ( and ) in immediate connection. See it explained in the Sepher Harikma, or Hebrew Grammar, of Ben Gannach, p. 30, line 30. He regards both alike as infinitives.T. L.]

[3][Gen 43:20. . Gesenius regards in this and some similar cases (see Jos 7:8), as a contraction for , from the root , a very rare word in Hebrew, though very common in the Chaldaic and Syriac. In the sense of entreaty, occurs only Isa 21:12, and of inquiry, Oba 1:6. Abbreviations are made only of words that are much used, and we cannot, therefore, regard it as a forma precationis (, my prayer), having such an origin. The Targum of Onkelos interprets it in this way, but this is owing to its being written in the Chaldaic language. A much better view is that of Aben Ezra, who regards it as the preposition and pronoun, with an ellipsis of the word , as in 1Sa 25:24, , on me my Lord be the guilt. Or it may be a sort of ejaculatory phrase, with an ellipsis of the precatory verb,as would seem to be confirmed by Jdg 6:13, , come tell me, my lord, if Jehovah is with us, why, etc. See Ben Gannach, Sepher Harikma, 32, 31. The view of Gesenius was suggested, probably, by the Syriac rendering of this passage, Jdg 6:13, . In Jos 7:8, where the same phrase occurs, the Syriac has left it out entirely.T. L.]

[4] [A glimpse of the New-Testament life. It is very common to represent the Old Testament as containing the harsher dispensation, and as presenting the sterner attributes both of God and man. This is often done without much thought, or discrimination of the respects in which it may be false or true. The Old Testament is, indeed, a less full revelation of mercy as a doctrine, or a scheme of salvation, but the mercy itself is there in overflowing measure, and expressed in the most pathetic language. It is peculiarly the emotional part of Holy Scripture, presenting everything in the strongest manner, and in strongest contrast, whether it be wrath or tenderness, indignation against apostasy or love for the oft-times apostate and rebellious people. It may even be maintained that the New Testament, though more didactic, is less tender in its language, less abounding in pictures of melting compassion on the part of God, and of devoted affection of one human heart to another. What more moving, in this respect, than the language of the prophets (compare Isa 49:15; Isa 54:8-10; Isa 57:15-16; Psa 103:13-15; Gen 8:21; Deu 10:12; Deu 10:19; Deu 24:14-22; Eze 16:60-63; Hos 11:8-9; Mic 6:8; Mic 7:18-19), so full of Gods pathetic yearning, we might style it, towards humanity! On the other hand, what more exquisite pictures can there be found of human tenderness, than those of David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, the pathetic meeting of Joseph and his brethren as here described, Davids forgiving tenderness towards Saul, and even Esaus reception of Jacob (Gen 33:4-15) after all the wrong he had apparently, or in reality, received from him. In this latter case, we may regard Esau as one who had but little if any grace, and yet the feeling here, viewed as growing out of the patriarchal life and religious ideas, may well be compared with any general influence of our nominal Christianity in arousing men to deeds of tenderness and heroism. This false view of the Old Testament, which ignorance of the Bible is causing more and more to prevail, is a great wrong to the whole cause and doctrine of revelation. Even the most tender dialect of the New Testament, is drawn from the Old. Its Hebraisms are its most pathetic parts. Of this there is a good example in the very style of language here employed. The expression , rendered, his bowels did yearn (rather, warmed), has been naturalized in the New-Testament Greek, where is used for . It may be said, however, that both the Hebrew and the Greek are marred for the English reader by the rendering bowels, especially if taken in the sense of intestina, instead of the larger meaning that belongs to the Latin viscera. It may be doubted whether does ever, of itself, denote any part of the body, either more or less interior. When the singular is used for the womb, it is rather to be regarded as a metaphorical use of its primary sense of cherishing, or as that which loves and cherishes. The Greek counterpart, , denotes the most vital parts, such as the heart, the lungs, and the liver, the parts which, in the case of animals slain, were regarded as the choicest eating, and were given as an honorary portion to the guest. See Homer everywhere. They included the , with the , or prcordia, and the , or liver. Another word was , which was used exactly as is used here, and with a similar verb signifying to be warm, or burn; as Odyss. i. Genesis 48 :

, .

My heart is burning for the brave Ulysses; with an evident paronomasia in and . Compare Psa 39:4 , my heart grows hot within me, , the fire is burning; also Luk 24:32, , was not our heart burning within us? Instead of bowels, it would be more in accordance with the spirit of the Hebrew word to render it here, his heart yearned, or warmed. Rosenmller, on this passage, makes one of his wise remarks about the ancient men (prisci homines), and their great simplicity in regarding these parts of the body as the seat of the affections. It has, however, always been so, more or less, in all languages. In the ancient tongues even intellect is generally assigned to these middle regions, and but rarely, or comparatively so, to the head. With us it seems almost a matter of consciousness that we think with our heads, but this is an effect rather than a cause of the change of language. In the Latin, cor is used for wisdom, prudence, and cordatus is equivalent to , a wise and prudent man. The Greek popular language placed thought in the , not in the , or brain, although the latter is sometimes referred to in this light, especially by Aristotle. Demosthenes once makes a popular allusion to some such notion in the oration De Haloneso; but the poetical language, the best representative of the popular feeling, is all the other way. So in the Hebrew, the seat of thought, is in the reins, , Latin renes, Greek (with digamma) : try the hearts and the reins, Psa 7:10; in the night season my reins instruct me, Psa 16:7. Only once in the Bible is the head so referred to; and that is in the Chaldaic of Dan 4:7, where Nebuchadnezzar says: the visions of my head upon my bed, . Everywhere else it is the heart, , or the reins , or the inward part , or sometimes expressions denoting something still more interior, as and , rendered the hidden part, Psa 51:8 : In the hidden part make me to know wisdom. The practice of divination, by the inspection of these parts in sacrifice shows the same mode of thinking, and a similar verbal consciousness.T.L.]

[5][See in the text notes, p. 323 (5, Gen 9:6), another interpretation of this by that acute Jewish grammarian, Ben Gannach. The in he renders concerning it, instead of by it,that is, as a means of divination. Could not such a man find out by divination who had his cup?T. L.]

[6][The old rendering is supported by the fact that the primary sense of is not fear, but excitement of mind in any way, like Greek , , by which the LXX translate it, Psa 4:5 (see, also, Eph 4:26, Be ye angry, yet sin not), and which is one of the places referred to by Rosenmller for the sense of fear. In the other places cited by him the sense of anger, or excitement, suits the context best; as Exo 15:14; Deu 2:25. In all other places the sense of rage or anger () is beyond doubt. There is no intimation of anything on the way which should cause fear (in the sense of terror, commotion) any more than in any of their previous goings and comings. The fear of apprehension, or anxiety, such as might be felt on account of the mishap of the money found in the sacks, would be expressed by a very different word. Whereas everything in the context renders this advice of Joseph, that they should get into no disputes with one another, very probable. LXX, , Syriac, , do not quarrel on the road. So the Targum.T. L].

[7] [Hebrew, and his heart grew chill. It is the same idea as the Greek , , , an onomatopic word of the second class, denoting some resemblance between the sound and the effect producedhardness, solidness, compactness; hence solidity, coldness. The heart stopping in chill and amazement. It is interesting, too, to note how common in language is this metaphor, or secondary sense, expressing hope and joy by warmth, distrust and despair by a chill. As in the Odyssey, i. 167

,

.

No warmth to us,that is, no warming hope, should any one on earth declare that he would come again,forever gone, the day of his return. This is very much as old Jacob felt. Compare, also, the Iliad, vi. 412, where , warmth, in this sense, is opposed to chilling grief. , cold, is used in the opposite way.T. L.]

[8][The dramatic power of such recognitions appears in their having been made the effective points in some of the noblest Greek tragedies. Aristotle has a special section upon the , as it is technically named, in his Ars Poetica, ch. xi., defining it as , . He cites as examples the recognitions in the Odyssey, and especially that of Orestes and Iphigenia, from Euripides. He might have cited, as a still more striking example, that of Orestes and Electra, in Sophocles. This story of Joseph, had it been known to him, would have furnished the great critic with the best illustration of what he calls the pathetic, , as the chief clement of power in the dramatic exhibition.T. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The interesting narrative of the Patriarchal history is still prosecuted through this Chapter. The brethren of Joseph having purchased corn and laden their cattle, take their leave of Joseph to return to their father. But Joseph, wishing to detain them, having ordered his steward secretly to put their money in the mouth of their sacks, and his silver cup in the bag of Benjamin; soon after their departure from the city sends his steward after them to charge them with this breach of honesty. Their sacks are examined, and the cup being found, they all return to Egypt in the greatest sorrow and distress imaginable. In this state when brought before Joseph, Judah becomes the mouth of the rest; and unconscious before whom he spoke, he feelingly represents the history of his family in the several incidents of it: describes the supposed death of Joseph: the distress of his father which was now again renewed in parting with Benjamin; offers himself as a bond-slave forever, rather than that Benjamin should be detained; and concludes with praying Joseph for mercy, that the grey hairs of his father may not be brought down with sorrow to the grave.

Gen 44:1

Is there not a spiritual lesson here! Are not the ministers and stewards of GOD’S mysteries to fill the hungry and to supply the thirsty: and that without money and without price? See 1Co 4:1 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Temperament and Grace

Gen 44:3-4

A man’s reputation after death is a very haphazard thing. History is full of minor characters of whom after ages have formed a very definite, but possibly wholly wrong idea, based on some single and perhaps insignificant incident in their career, or a chance remark upon them. The same thing may even happen in lifetime: sometimes a man or woman carries about through mature years a wholly false character, founded on some irrelevant thing they did or said in childhood, and which is the only thing their circle of friends remember them by. One wonders, is this the case of Reuben, son of Jacob, who has carried down the ages the burden of a name for ‘instability’.

I. But first, are we sure what his father meant by ‘unstable as water’? I fancy most of us think he referred to the weak and yielding nature of that element. We are wrong. He meant ‘boiling over like water’. He was thinking of a caldron placed on a fire of desert thorns. The blaze of the quick fuel heats the pot and suddenly the water bubbles up; as suddenly the treacherous fuel gives out, and the boiling water drops again, flat, silent, chill. What Jacob meant to say of Reuben by this gipsy metaphor was that he was a spirit which boiled up readily and as readily grew cold. We may safely take it that in Reuben we have the type of what we call the impulsive man, with the merits and the defects of that temperament.

II. It has struck me that there is a Reuben also in the New Testament. This New Testament Reuben is not a shepherd but a fisherman, but he is generous, warm-hearted, strong in impulse, weak in constancy, he boils up and he falls cold. Peter is Reuben in temperament: yet Reuben was a moral failure, ‘he could not excel,’ while Peter was a saint and did excel.

III. The moral I desire to fix on the Old Testament story is that whatever be our temperament, too fast like Reuben’s, or too slow like some others, Christ can so remake us that we shall not be failures in life. I do not mean that Christ alters our temperaments. He did not alter Peter’s. The dissimilation at Antioch, the tradition of Peter’s flight from persecution at Rome and his return to die, tell us that he was in natural make the same man. But the power of Christ recovered him as surely as he fell.

J. H. Skrine, The Heart’s Counsel, p. 85.

References. XLIV. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 161. XLV. 1-5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliii. No. 2516. XLV. 1-15. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 260. XLV. 3. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 37. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 370. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1488, p. 41. XLV. 3-5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No. 449. Gen 45:4

‘The true tears are those which are called forth by the beauty of poetry; there must be as much admiration in them as sorrow. They are the tears which come to our eyes… when Joseph cries out, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt”. Who does not feel that the man who wrote that was no shallow rhetorician, but a born man of genius, with the true instinct for what is really admirable?’

M. Arnold, in his Essay on Tarbert.

References. XLV. 4. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. p. 78.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Joseph’s Revelation

Gen 44:1-5

How wonderfully even spoiled children may be developed in those very faculties which are supposed to lie dormant under all the pampering and care-taking of exaggerated parental affection! You have observed, from time to time, how deep, yet how simple, how complete, yet apparently how easy, have been all the plans and schemes which Joseph devised to meet the exigencies of his trying course. Think of him as the spoiled boy with whom we began. The rough wind was not to beat upon him; he was never to get his feet wet; any little thing that his father could do for him was to be done; he was to be coddled, and protected, and saved from every little annoyance; and if there was an extra drop of sweetness for any member of the family it found its way into Joseph’s cup. You say, after reading all this, “What kind of a man will he make? Why, if there were any germ in him of manhood at the beginning, it must have been worn out and wasted by such excessive pampering, such ill-spent care and attention, as Jacob’s.” Yet he comes out of it all sagacious as a statesman, with a wonderful breadth and solidity and substance of character, upsetting all the calculations and notions of people who say that if you take too much care of a boy, pamper a life to excess, you are actually doing more harm than good. Now, let us be clear about that, because there is a particle of truth in that theory. I pause here, if haply my printed words I dare not say my spoken message should reach any spoilt child, any over-pampered life. There is no reason why you should not, after all, be a man! Your father’s fondling and your mother’s caresses need not kill the vigour that God gave you. You may come out of it all a strong and tender, wise and efficient servant of the public. It has been said, too, by those people who observe the ways of men, that oftentimes those who have been most carefully brought up can, when occasion requires, rough it with the best grace, and can do things which excite everybody’s wonder. We say, concerning certain boys who have had nothing but confectionery to eat ever since they were born, that have always been kept out of dangerous places, “Depend upon it, when the wind turns into the east, when there is a flood or a fire, when there is some sudden and terrible adversity in their lives, they will be unprepared for such a visitation.” And it has turned out that the spoilt child has sometimes been the best man. He has stooped with a grace which has excited the wonder of everybody; he has shown how possible it is, under the covering of decoration and excess of attention, to be cultivating the best strength, and preparing for the wettest day. Some of us, who never had two halfpennies to make a noise with, when we have got into a little prosperity, and then a little adversity has come sharply and suddenly round upon us, why, we have grunted and complained, and been pettish and snappish, as though we had been nursed in the very lap of heaven and never set our feet on anything coarser than gold. Oh, be men! Do have a life that domineers over circumstances; that takes the bitterest cups, or the exile’s solitude, or the slave’s lash, and that says, “After all, I am God’s child, and I will live for that dear Father.”

“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 lord’s servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found” ( Gen 44:16 ).

Contrast that speech with the scene at the pit’s mouth. Can you recall the former scene? They put the boy into the pit, sit down and eat bread, see a party of merchantmen in the distance, suddenly resolve on selling him; and they exchange their brother body, soul, and spirit for a handful of shekels, and never say good-bye to the child. But, now, “What shall we say unto my lord?” Judah came near and said, “Oh, my lord.” “My lord asked his servants.” “And we said unto my lord.” Yet once again Judah said, “My lord.” It is the same Joseph, it is the same Judah. Such are the alterations which occur in man’s life! One great difficulty which some of us feel, is the difficulty of punishing a body of men. It is comparatively easy to punish one man. But it is next to an impossibility to punish a committee. The Church can injure its one poor minister; but what can the minister do in the way of bringing punishment not vindictive punishment, but righteous retaliation upon an immoral, corrupt Church, that will do things in its corporate capacity which every individual member would shrink from in horror and disgust?

Joseph has had his task set in this business, so to work that he can bring the rod down upon the whole lot. How is it that we lose our consciences when we join bodies of men? How is it that our moral nature becomes diluted the moment we consent to act upon a committee? How comes it, that the honest man, when he joins a Church, may be persuaded to hold up his hand in confirmation of a resolution which is based on corrupt morals? Yet this may be done. There is in England today many a man smarting from resolutions passed by corporate bodies, and yet not one of the members of these corrupt bodies will come forward and say, “I took my full share of that resolution, and I accept the responsibility connected with it” One hands over the responsibility to another. One man says “he would not have voted for it, just as it stands, but he thought it might have saved something worse.” Another says that he “didn’t fully understand it: it was made in such a hurry, and passed in such a tumult.” And so they go on! But they are breaking one man’s heart all the time. God’s righteous curse rest upon such foul conspiracy! These are not passionate words. If I have spoken fire, it is because there was fuel enough to light.

So they called him, My lord! my lord my lord! You cannot redeem your character by paying compliments after the deed is done. No man can redeem himself by too late courtesies. There are civilities which are right in their season, beautiful when well-timed. But they may come at a time which aggravates the old memory and tears open the old sore. This was so long in coming! Let us add up the years, and see how long Joseph was in hearing such words. He was seventeen when he went out first to seek his brethren; he was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh. Thirteen years we have up to this point. Then there were seven years of plenty, during which time Joseph never heard from his brethren. At the end of the seven years, making twenty in all, his brethren began to come before him. So it required something like twenty years to bring about the scene which is now before us. Some interpretations are a long time on the road. Some men have long to nurse their hopes, and to cheer themselves up, thinking that after all God will come. Twenty years is a period which takes the strength out of a man, sucks the very sap out of his power, unless he have meat to eat that the world knoweth not of, unless he knows the way to the wellhead and can refresh himself with the springing water. So long in coming, but it came at last! This is it, sirs. The bad man’s day is a wasting day. Every moment is a moment ticked off, it is one fewer. But the good man’s day is an augmenting quantity, knows no diminution. Whilst it wastes, it grows; every passing hour brings the day nearer; and the day of the good man has no sunset. Judah continued to speak with marvellous eloquence and pathos, pleading for the release of Benjamin and making wonderful use of the old man and the grey hairs. In the thirty-second and thirty-third verses he said:

“For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren” ( Gen 44:32-33 ).

Showing the possibility of being so very careful about one member of the family and caring nothing about another. Here is Judah pleading for Benjamin as if he were his own child; yet this same Judah took part in selling another brother. So many of us are only good in little bits! We have points of excellence. People say about us, “After all, there are some points about him that are tolerably good.” But what is that? We don’t want to be good in points, we want to be good altogether! Not to love for such reasons as Judah suggested even, in this eloquent and pathetic appeal; but to be good for goodness’ own sake. Not to save some man’s grey hairs; but to honour God’s law, and thus to be most profoundly and universally gentle and pathetic Then there is a great fallacy underlying all such pleading as Judah’s; at all events, a possible fallacy. We try to compensate for our evil deeds to some people, by being extra-kind to others. Brethren, it cannot be done! You used your poor friend very ill, twenty years ago, and the memory of it has come upon you again and again. You have reproached yourself, and cursed yourself, for your unkindness, neglect, misapprehension, cruelty; and, in order to appease yourself, to make atonement to yourself, you have been very kind to some other friend. But you cannot touch the dead one! all your efforts towards helping Benjamin have had in them some hope of doing something at least towards making up for your cruelty to Joseph. But these efforts have been unavailing. Whilst your friend is with you, love that friend. It is but a short grey day we are together. There ought not to be time for strife, and debate, and harshness, and bitterness. The hand is already laid on the rope that shall ring the knell! And when the eyes once close in the last sleep they do not open again. It is all over! Then come pangs, scorpions, poisonings, piercings! We would give all the world to have another hour one more short hour with the dear, dear dead one! But it may not be. Whatever we may do to survivors and relatives, we do not touch the great and terrible blemish of our past life.

Now I have this question to ask: Is there any means by which I can touch the whole of my life? There is not. “Why,” you say, “that is the language of despair.” So. it is, for you, believe me; and if the despair is settled upon your soul, then you are so far prepared for the gospel, which is this: You can find no means of touching all your yesterdays, all your past life; but God has found such means. “The blood of Jesus Christ, Son of God, cleanseth from all sin.” When we get into the mystery of his Cross, we see how every sin can be met. Believe me, it can be met only by all the mystery of that infinite, unspeakable love. So why should we be endeavouring to reach the past, when we have enough to do today? Why should we seek to hold a lifetime, when we cannot keep ourselves right for one hour? What then? I rest on Christ, and go up to his dear Cross, and say, “If I perish, I will perish here, where no man ever yet did perish.” May God torment our consciences, raise us to the highest point of self-accusation, remind us of all our neglects, all our harshness, and all our cruelty, till we feel ourselves surrounded by scorpions, by messengers of judgment, and by terrible forces of all kinds: until there be extorted from our hearts the cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” Then there shall come out of the Cross a glory which will cast the night of the soul away.

Judah having concluded his speech, we read in the next chapter that Joseph could not refrain himself before all those that stood by him. The room was cleared. Joseph wept aloud, and said unto his brethren, “I am Joseph!” Joseph, and yet more than Joseph. We shall not be the same men twenty years hence that we are today. The old name yet there may be a new nature. The old identity yet there may be enlarged capacity, refined sensibilities, Diviner tastes, holier tendencies. I am Joseph! It is as if the great far-spreading umbrageous oak said, “I am the acorn”! or the great tree said, “I am the little mustard-seed”! Literally it was Joseph; yet in a higher sense it was not Joseph: but Joseph increased, educated, drilled, magnified, put into his right position. You have no right to treat the man of twenty years ago as if twenty years had not elapsed. I don’t know men whom I knew twenty years ago! I know their names; but they may be if I have not seen them during the time, and if they have been reading, thinking, praying, growing entirely different men. You must not judge them externally, but according to their intellectual, moral, and spiritual qualities. To treat a man whom you knew twenty years ago as if he were the same man is equal to handing him, in the strength and power of his years, the toys with which he amused his infancy. Let us destroy our identity, in so far as that identity is associated with incompleteness of strength, shallowness of nature, poverty of information, deficiency of wisdom; so that men may talk to us and not know us, and our most familiar acquaintance of twenty years ago may require to be introduced to us today as if he had never heard our name.

But the point on which I wish to fasten your attention most particularly is this: that in human life there are days of revelation, when people get to know the meaning of what they have been looking at, notwithstanding the appearances which were before their eyes. We shall see men as we never saw them before. The child will see his old despised mother some day as he never saw her. And you, young man, who have attained the patriarchal age of nineteen, and who smile at your old father when he quotes some trite maxim and wants to read a chapter out of what he calls the Holy Bible, will one day see him as you have never seen him yet. The angel of God that is in him will shine out upon you, and you will see whose counsel you have despised and whose tenderness you have contemned. We only see one another now and then. Sometimes the revelation is quick as a glance, impossible to detain as a flash of lightning. Sometimes the revelation comes in a tone of unusual pathos, and when we hear that tone for the first time we say, “We never knew the man before. Till we heard him express himself in that manner, we thought him rough, and coarse, wanting in self-control, and delicacy, and pathos; but that one tone! Why, no man could have uttered it but one who has often been closeted with God, and who has drunk deeply into Christ’s own cup of sorrow.”

Joseph made a more eloquent speech than Judah had done. He said to his brethren in the course of his address: “So, now, it was not you that sent me hither, but God.” The great man is always ready to find an excuse for the injury that is done him, if he possibly can find one! This grand doctrine is in the text: that all our little fightings, and scratchings, and barterings, and misunderstandings: all our tea-table criticisms of one another, and magazine articles in mutual depreciation: all our little schemes to trip one another up, and to snip a little off each other’s robe, all these things are after all secondary and tributary. “The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice.”

“Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him” ( Gen 45:15 ).

A day of reconciliation! A family made one. Brethren coming together again after long separation. It is a beautiful picture. Why should it not be completed, where it needs completion, in our own day amongst ourselves? Ministers sometimes have misunderstandings and say unkind things about one another and exile one another from love and confidence for years. Is there never to be a day of reconciliation and Christian forgetfulness of wrong, even where positive wrong has been done? Families and households often get awry. The younger brother differs with his elder brother, sisters fall out. One wants more than belongs to him; another is knocked to the wall because he is weak; and there come into the heart bitterness and alienation, and often brothers and sisters have scarce a kind word to say of one another. Is it always to be so? Do not merely make it up, do not patch it up, do not cover it up, go right down to the base. You will never be made one, until you meet at the Cross and hear Christ say, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” It is in Christ’s sorrow that we are to forget our woes; in Christ’s sacrifice we find the answer to our sin; in Christ’s union with the Father we are to find all true and lasting reconciliation. But who is to begin? That is the wonderful question that is often asked us. Who is to begin? One would imagine that there were some very nice people about who only wanted somebody to tell them who was to begin. They want to be reconciled, only they don’t know who is to begin, I can tell you. You are! But I am the eldest, yes, and therefore ought to begin. But I am the youngest. Then why should the youngest be obstinate? Who are you that you should not go and throw yourself down at your brother’s feet and say, “I have done you wrong, pardon me”? Who is to begin? You! Which? Both! When? Now! Oh, beware of the morality which says, “I am looking for the opportunity, and if things should so get together ” Sir, death may be upon you before you reason out your wretched casuistry; the injured or the injurer may be in the grave before you get to the end of your long melancholy process of self-laudation and anti-Christian logic

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

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?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 44:1 And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks [with] food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth.

Ver. 1. And he commanded the steward. ] Peccata extrinsecus radere, et non intrinsecus eradicare, fictio est, saith Bernard. Humiliation for sin must be sound and soaking, or else it is to no purpose. Hypocrites “hang down their heads as a bulrush,” Isa 58:5 while some storm of trouble is upon them; but in a fair sunshine day, they lift up their heads as upright as ever. Something they do about sin, but nothing against it. As artificial magic seem to wound, but do not; or as players seem to thrust themselves through their bodies, but the sword passeth only through their clothes. This Joseph well knew; and therefore, that his brethren might make sure work, and have their hearts leavened and soured (as David’s was, Psa 73:21 ) with the greatness of godly sorrow; that they might mourn as men do in the death of their dearest friends; Zec 12:10 that their sorrow might be “according to God” ( Y , 2Co 7:10 ), deep and daily, like that sorrow, 2Sa 13:36 ; that waters of Marah might flow from their eyes, and their hearts fall asunder in their bosoms like drops of water; he puts them to one more grievous fright and agony before he makes himself known unto them. And this was a high point of heavenly wisdom in him. For had he presently entertained and embraced them as his brethren, they would sooner have gloried of their wickedness than repented of it. Neither would a little repentance serve for a sin so ingrained, and such a long time lain in. Their hearts were woefully hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, their consciences festered: and had it been fit for him to break their bones before they were set; and lap up their sores before they were searched? “Repent ye,” saith St Peter to those that had crucified Christ, and were now “pricked in their hearts.” Act 2:37-38 He saith not, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven,” now that you feel some remorse for them; but, Stay a while upon the work of repentance, and be thorough in it; leave not circumcising your hearts, till you find them as sore as the Shechemites felt their bodies the third day. And this the apostle said to such as already felt the nails wherewith they had crucified Christ sticking fast in their own hearts and piercing them with horror. Take we heed of laying cordials upon full and foul stomachs: “the feeble minded” only are to be “comforted,” such as are in danger to be swallowed up with grief. But some men’s stains are so inveterate, that they will hardly be got out till the cloth be almost rubbed to pieces.

Put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth.] Should they not have been content that their sacks were filled with corn, though there had not been money in the mouth of them? And should not we also rest satisfied with our many mercies? &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 44:1-5

1Then he commanded his house steward, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. 2Put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph had told him. 3As soon as it was light, the men were sent away, they with their donkeys. 4They had just gone out of the city, and were not far off, when Joseph said to his house steward, “Up, follow the men; and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? 5Is not this the one from which my lord drinks and which he indeed uses for divination? You have done wrong in doing this.'”

Gen 44:1 This is the second time Joseph has done this (cf. Gen 42:25).

1. fill, BDB 569, KB 583, Piel IMPERATIVE

2. put, BDB 962, KB 1321, Qal IMPERATIVE

Gen 44:2 The placing of Joseph’s silver cup (cf. Gen 44:5) in Benjamin’s sack is new. Joseph is still testing his brothers to see if their jealousy and aggression against his full brother (Rachel’s children) is finished.

It should be noted that the term translated “cup” (BDB 149) is really a larger vessel, possibly a bowl or even a pitcher (cf. Jer 35:5). The normal word for “cup” is found in BDB 468 I (cf. Gen 40:11; Gen 40:13; Gen 40:21; 2Sa 12:3; Psa 16:5; Psa 23:5; Pro 23:31).

Gen 44:4 “the city” Which city depends on who the Pharaoh is. Later in Genesis it seems that Joseph talks to his father in the land of Goshen and Pharaoh in the capital in the same day. This implies a capital in the delta region. The Hyksos had their capitals there. The next Pharaoh to move the capital to this region was Seti I. He was the Pharaoh of the brutal treatment of the Israelite people before the exodus, probably during Rameses II’s reign.

See OT Survey, Introduction to Exodus at www.freebiblecommentary.org.

Joseph commands his servants to a follow-up action.

1. up, BDB 877, KB 1086, Qal IMPERATIVE

2. follow, BDB 922, KB 1191, Qal IMPERATIVE

3. when you overtake them, BDB 673, KB 727, Hiphil PERFECT used in an IMPERATIVE sense with a temporal element. This is a hunting term for pursuing game. It was used of Laban chasing after Jacob (cf. Gen 31:25).

4. accuse them (with a question) of theft!

“Why have you repaid evil for good” The LXX (followed by the NRSV, TEV) adds after this sentence, “Why have you stolen my silver cup?” The Peshitta does not have this addition.

Gen 44:5 “Is this not the one from which my lord drinks and which he indeed uses for divination” Throughout these three chapters Joseph has been developing a plot which would test his brothers’ character. However, it is somewhat surprising to see him mention divination (BDB 638, KB 690 in an intensified grammatical construction of the INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE and IMPERFECT VERB of the same root, cf. Gen 44:15). This may be just another element of his Egyptian disguise, for most of the leaders of Egypt during this period would have been diviners or used them. The term originally meant “to whisper” or “to hiss” (cf. Lev 19:26 and Deu 18:10, where it is later condemned). In the Septuagint it is translated “augury” which means to know the will of God by observing a flight of birds.

The Jerusalem Bible mentions in a footnote (p. 67) that the divination was done by

1. the way water fell into the cup (hydromancy)

2. the sound of the water falling into the cup

3. the pattern of oil drops poured into the cup (lecanomancy)

which were all used in the ANE. S. R. Driver adds another one

4. pieces of gold, silver, or precious stones were dropped into the cup and their distribution or arrangement was noted (cf. UBS, Handbook on Genesis, p. 989).

Much of our information about divination techniques comes from old Babylonian omen texts (also note later techniques in Eze 21:21). There is not much information about divination methods in this period of Egyptian history (see James M. Freeman, Manners and Customs of the Bible, pp. 52-54).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

men. Hebrew, plural of ish, or ‘enosh. App-14.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 44

And so he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks ( Gen 44:1 )

Well, let’s see. “And he sat them before him according to birthright.”

And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him ( Gen 43:34 ).

So they had a big party and they were merry. But he showed favoritism towards Benjamin. Sort of like family, you eat more than all the rest. And so he gave to Benjamin five times the portion that he gave to his other brothers. “And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks”

with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in the sack’s mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his wheat money also. And the steward did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. And as soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys. And when they were gone out of the city, they were not yet very far off, Joseph said to his steward, Up, and follow after the men; and when you overtake them, say unto them, Why have you rewarded evil for good? Is not this in it which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divines? And you have done evil in so doing ( Gen 44:1-5 ).

In other words, the steward was to follow them and say, “Hey, you guys, he did you a favor, he was kind to you. You ate in his house. Why would you rip off his silver cup? Don’t you know this was his divining cup?”

Now the Egyptians were very skillful in the arts of magic. In fact, they still have some of the ancient books of the magic of Egypt and so forth. And you remember at the time of Moses when he went in before the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh had his Egyptians that were able to pull off some pretty shrewd tricks. And so they were gifted in arts of magic and one of the things that they have were divining cups made of pieces of silver and gold. And it was sort of like reading the dregs in the cups, like tea leaves are read and so forth. And so Joseph said, “Hey, you”. They were accused of stealing his divining cup, his silver cup. “Don’t you know that he divines in that thing?”

And so the steward went out and he overtook them, and he spoke to them these same words. And he said unto them, Why saith my lord ( Gen 44:6-7 ).

And so they said,

Why saith my these words? God forbid that your servants should do according to this thing: Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought it again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: why should we steal out of my lord’s house silver or gold ( Gen 44:7-8 )?

So the brothers are protesting. “Hey, we haven’t stolen anything. What do you mean? Why would we want to do that? We brought back the money that was in our sacks the first time and we have no intention of ripping off your master.”

With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord’s bondsmen. And so he said, [All right], let it be according to your words: with him with whom it is found he will be the servant; and you will all be blameless ( Gen 44:9-10 ).

In other words, they all promised to be bondsmen and kill the one that you find it with. They said, “No, we’ll take you at your word but we’ll just let the one that we find it with, let him be the servant. The rest of you are blameless. You can go on home.” Joseph was trying to keep his younger brother down there that he might have a great time with him and let him know who he was.

And so they speedily took down every man his sack to the ground, and he opened every man his sack. And they searched, and they began with the eldest, and they finished with the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. And they tore their clothes, every one of them and they loaded back up their donkeys, and they returned to the city. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph’s house; for he was still there: and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that you have done? Don’t you know that such a man as I can divine ( Gen 44:11-15 )?

You think you could get away with that? Don’t you realize that the position I’m in I’m able to divine these things? You know, I’m able to see these things that are taking place and all.

And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? How can we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we, and also him with whom the cup is found ( Gen 44:16 ).

Judah is saying, “Hey, what can I say? How can I clear myself? God has found us out.” In other words, the iniquity. Again going back to their selling of their brother Joseph. Now they had the bags of silver that they have brought down the first time, ten brothers. They came, they had come back with that silver plus more silver. The ten brothers that came back again because Simeon was still there, twenty sacks of silver. I wonder if that maybe rang a bell. They had sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver. And so they said, “What can we say? Our iniquity has been found out. We can’t clear ourselves. And so we’ll be your servants and the boy here will just be your servant.”

And he said, God forbid that I should do so: but the man in whose hand the cup is found, he’ll be my servant; and as for the rest of you, go in peace back to your father ( Gen 44:17 ).

I believe that Joseph is still testing. I believe that he is really anxious to see what their attitude is, their true attitude towards Benjamin. Are they jealous of Benjamin, as they were jealous of Joseph? Would they like to get rid of Benjamin like they got rid of Joseph? Does that deep jealousy still burn in their hearts? If it does, how can the purposes of God ever be accomplished through them? And I believe that Joseph is just really testing his brothers at this point to see the attitude that they have towards Benjamin.

I think the whole thing was set up by Joseph. He wants to see, “are they willing to dump him?” You see, here’s an easy opportunity. All right, we’ll go home and you know, you just keep the little guy and we got rid of the other brother that was a trial to us and now we get rid of Benjamin. Now we all inherit the old man’s goods. And so the old man dies, we become the heirs anyhow. So sure, keep him.

Testing their attitude to see if time has changed their attitude. Now he has already received the confession of guilt from them. This is a good sign. “Our iniquity has caught up with us.” And here they’re saying, “Hey, we’ll all be your servants”. And he says, “No, no, you don’t have to all be my servants, just the one with whom we found the cup. The rest of you go on back in peace.”

Then Judah came near unto him, and he said, Oh 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 you’re even as Pharaoh ( Gen 44:18 ).

You’re as great as Pharaoh.

My lord asked his servants, saying, Have you a father, or a 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, and his father loves him ( Gen 44:19-20 ).

You see, the love that was that he had for Joseph was now being lavished upon Benjamin. Did they hate Benjamin for it? Did they have the same animosity towards Benjamin?

And you said unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set my eyes upon him. And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die. But you said unto your servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, you’re not going to even see my face again. And so it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food. And we said, We can’t go down: if our youngest brother is not with us, then we will go down: for we pray for we may not see the man’s face, except our youngest brother be with us. So thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bore me two sons: and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since: and if you take this also from me, and mischief befalls him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. 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 lad’s life; It shall come to pass, when he sees 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 the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not again unto thee, then I will bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brothers. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad not be with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come upon my father ( Gen 44:21-34 ).

And so Judah, beautiful intercession. An offering to take the place of Benjamin. Oh, what a change of attitude and a change of heart. Notice how he speaks of the love of Jacob for Benjamin. Our father’s life is bound up in this kid. And if we don’t bring him again, our father will just die. It’ll bring the death to my father and it shows a love still for the ancient Jacob that Judah had and it shows really no animosity at all. Willing to take the place of Benjamin in becoming a bondman instead of Benjamin. The final test is being passed. Joseph now knows that the brothers truly have repented. He now knows that the feelings of bitterness and animosity are gone. He knows that that’s all in the past. And they are passing the test royally; Judah offering to take the place, to take the guilt and to suffer in the place.

Now it is interesting that from Judah Christ was to come. The Lion of the tribe of Judah who offered to take our guilt and our place and took our punishment for us. Here Judah offering to do that for his brother. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Occasionally, criticism of Joseph’s action in placing the money and his cup in the sacks of his brethren has been made. To put the matter in the mildest form, surely such criticism reveals a lack of humor. The story is really most natural and beautiful. Such methods are best tested by their ultimate meaning and results. Joseph was preparing for a dramatic ending. One can imagine his quiet enjoyment of the difficulties of his brethren as he played this trick on them. It was a trick which could have been suggested only to a man who still had the heart of a boy. He was arranging for the moment when he would reveal himself and be able to pour out on them all the pent-up love of his heart.

Nobleness and beauty mark Judah’s attitude and plea on behalf of his father. Evidently, back of his moving appeal was a keen consciousness of the sin of the past, and, so far as possible, a desire to atone or at least to prevent any further darkening of the last days of the old man. With splendid devotion to this high purpose, Judah asked to be allowed to take the place of Benjamin in the mouth of whose sack the governor’s cup had been found.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Josephs Cup in Benjamins Sack

Gen 44:1-17

It is a terrible revelation when our Benjamins are found possessed of the cup. They have been so loved, so favored, so screened; they have never been guilty of the excesses of Reuben and Judah; they have given no rise to evil reports, like the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, Gen 37:2. Now when they are convicted of sin, the surprise of their brethren is only equaled by their own remorse. This accounts for the soul agony of men like Cyprian, Augustine, Bunyan and Spurgeon. What transitions there are in life! At the close of the previous chapter the brothers were as happy as they could be, and here plunged into the deepest anguish. But the intensity of their pain and sorrow, like fire, melted and cleansed them, and prepared for the great reconciliation.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 44:1

I. There had been a strong combination, designed and undesigned, to keep Joseph down. But it was in vain. “Light is sown for the righteous.” It is sometimes late in springing, but God’s harvests are large ones, if it is far on in the autumn before they are gathered. They only linger to grow. He who had been sold as a slave lived to say to the steward of his house, “Fill the men’s sacks with food”; and the men were those who had sold him.

II. Joseph has always been a favourite type of Jesus. In these words of his we seem to hear our Joseph saying to His stewards, the ministers and teachers of every sort, “Fill with food, not flowers.” Hungry men cannot eat flowers; yet some preachers act as though poetry and pretty ideas were the only things fit for food. Food, not chaff. Chaff is worse than flowers; they are at least pleasant to look at before they fade, but dry, tasteless preaching gives neither pleasure nor profit. The finest of the wheat is in the granary, and only needs serving out.

III. Fill,- do not give short measure. There need be no stint. There is plenty. The less the mind that comes, the more pains should be taken that it has a full sack.

IV. “Put their money in their sacks.” God’s grace is free. Salvation cannot be of grace and of debt. Our royal Joseph is a King, and does not trade.

T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, p. 12.

Reference: Gen 44:1-5.-Parker, vol. i., p. 338.

Gen 44:12

I. That there is sorrow, and sorrow on a vast scale, is a great fact-a fact both too patent and too painful to be gainsaid. Joseph put the cup in the sack to try his brothers’ faith, love, and loyalty to their father. (1) Sorrow was sent into the world as a preventive of greater sorrow. (2) Sorrow gives occasion for the exercise of many an else impossible virtue. (3) This would be a lame excuse indeed if it stood alone. But grief is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. (4) When we remember our sins, we wonder, not that life has had so many sorrows, but that it has had so few.

II. Why should sorrow so often smite us in the most sensitive place? or, to take up the parable of the text, (1) Why should the cup be in Benjamin’s sack? Just because it is Benjamin’s, we reply. The very thing that leads God to smite at all, leads Him to smite you here. God takes away earthly pleasure, and thus helps you to remember your sin and repent of it. (2) The cup was put there to bring them to a better mind ever after. (3) It was put there to give Joseph the opportunity of making himself known to his brethren. (4) It was put there to lead them out of the land of famine into the land of plenty. From this we may learn three lessons: (a) Learn to think more kindly of God and His dispensations, as you see how much reason you have to expect sorrow, how little right to look for joy; (b) learn the lesson the lesser sorrows are meant to teach, lest you need the greater; (c) take care lest you not only lose the joy, but lose the good the loss of joy was meant to give.

J. B. Figgis, The Preacher’s Lantern, vol. ii., p. 694.

References: Gen 45-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 165; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 219; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 251. Gen 45:1.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 91; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 245. Gen 45:1-15.-W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister; p. 122. Gen 45:2.-Outline Sermons for Children, p. 13.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 44 The Feigned Dismay and the Bringing Back

1. The cup concealed and the dismay (Gen 44:1-13)

2. The return to Josephs house (Gen 44:14-34)

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

But Benjamin’s mess

Cf. (See Scofield “Gen 35:18”). It is important to observe that Benjamin now becomes prominent. Joseph is peculiarly the type of Christ in His first advent, rejection, death, resurrection, and present exaltation among the Gentiles, but unrecognized of Israel. As the greater Benjamin, “Son of sorrow,” but also “Son of my right hand,” He is to be revealed in power in the Kingdom Gen 1:26-28. See Scofield “Zec 12:8”. It is then, and not till then, that Israel is to be restored and converted. See Scofield “Deu 30:3”. Typically Gen 45:1; Gen 45:2 anticipates the revelation prophetically described,; Eze 20:33-36; Hos 2:14-23 at which time the Benjamin type of Christ will be fulfilled.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

the steward: Heb. him that was over his house, Gen 24:2, Gen 43:16, Gen 43:19

Fill the: Gen 42:25, Gen 43:2, Isa 3:1

Reciprocal: Gen 15:2 – the Gen 45:17 – lade your Joh 11:6 – he abode Rom 3:7 – if the truth

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A Test for Joseph’s Brothers

Once again, Joseph told his steward to fill the sacks with grain and place each man’s money in his sack. However, he also told him to put his silver cup in the mouth of Benjamin’s sack. All eleven brothers left at dawn. Before they had gone very far out of the city, Joseph told his steward to find them and ask why they had taken his cup. They told him they had not taken the cup and he could kill the man with whom it was found.

When the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack, they tore their clothes and went back into the city with him. Judah told Joseph he felt this trouble arose because of sin in their past, likely referring to selling their brother into slavery. He offered Joseph the service of all the brothers as slaves. Joseph told him only the one in whose sack the cup was found would be made a slave. Judah then explained how difficult it had been to get Jacob to let Benjamin go to Egypt. He expressed a sincere fear that Jacob would die if his youngest son was not with them. He also told Joseph that he had guaranteed Benjamin’s safe return and offered himself in the lad’s stead ( Gen 44:1-34 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Gen 44:2. Put my cup. A splendid cup decorated with devices; in these cups the Egyptians fancied they could divine by the various refractions of light on its mouldings. Sometimes they put polished trinkets into the water, still more to vary the light. Josephs brethren having hated him because his father had given him the birthright, being the firstborn of Rachel, his beloved wife; and Benjamin having now inherited that blessing, he wished to try whether they secretly hated him from the same cause.

Gen 44:9. Let him die. Jacob used the same expression when Laban charged him with having stolen his gods. Gen 31:32. The sentence implies the strongest confidence in their own innocence, and the most pointed abhorrence of theft.

Gen 44:13. Rent their clothes. A custom prevalent among the oriental nations. Job 1:20. It was one of the most striking expressions of anguish, and sometimes of indignation, which a man could give.

Gen 44:15. Wot ye not that such a man as I could certainly divine? It was a practice generally prevalent in great men of the patriarchal ages to affect divine intelligence, and superiority over the public mind. Soothsaying, hariolism and divination, were held in reputation among the benighted gentiles.

Gen 44:16. God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants. Judah believed, no doubt, that Benjamin had stolen the cup. This on the one hand, and the oath on the other, which he had made to his father, operated on his heart, and produced the sublime of eloquence in his narration, and in his offer of servitude for his brother. This most pathetic and successful speech realizes the ancient adage, that a speaker must himself feel first the tender sentiments he would excite in others. Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi. Cicero.

Gen 44:28. Surely he is torn in pieces. Here Judah, personating his father, speaks the truth; and yet he has a sufficient command of prudence not to confess the family crime to an Egyptian judge. Perhaps Joseph could see in his countenance the sorrows of his heart.

REFLECTIONS.

This chapter opens with the great kindness of Joseph to the Hebrew strangers, and they left Memphis with high notions of his rectitude and hospitality. Such were their sentiments, when the pursuing cavalcade arrested them on a charge of the foulest ingratitude. In this way, soon or late, the hand of God will arrest every sinner, and bring him to reflection, and to the bar of justice. Happy if we have then a friend and a brother on the throne.

The speech of Judah discovers all the efforts of a great mind, suddenly overwhelmed with a calamity, by which all the passions are roused to eloquence. A criminal so circumstanced would have been struck dumb and appalled; but a conscious rectitude gave elevation and utterance to his soul. His narration is all simple, the circumstances are all pathetic; his feelings for a long-afflicted father are worthy of a son; his fidelity to the oath discovered the integrity of his heart; and his overture of servitude for Benjamin was so generous and grand, that the judge could no longer resist. The long-lost brother instantly appeared in all his latent characters of forgiveness and love. It was as much as he could do to contain himself, till Judah had closed his speech; and from the manner in which Judah pleaded with the judge, from the tender and irresistible touches of his eloquence, every penitent may learn how to plead with God. Go then poor alarmed and awakened soul, go to thy great High Priest and Prince at the Fathers right hand. Go with a full heart and utter all thy woes. Acknowledge thy transgressions, and plead the atonement of Calvary. Do not fear to mention the garment rolled in blood; though it be a badge of thy guilt, it is nevertheless a pledge of thy pardon. Plead like Judah, till the judge, seeing all thy soul disclosed, shall enter into thy sorrows, and weep in thy tears. Then mercy shall no longer be able to conceal her beams in the clouds of justice. She will open her hands in blessings, and the store shall be so great as to fill the soul with admiring silence, and all the awe of sanctifying love.

We should here remark, that God has various ways of bringing sinners to the knowledge of himself, and that many serious persons have suffered much because they have been led in a way very different from what they were taught to expect. Josephs brethren had committed a grievous crime, and they had long persisted in the lies by which it was concealed. Therefore he was instructed of God to speak roughly to them, mixing his treatment with kindness and severity; and not discovering his person till after they had rent their garments, and patiently offered themselves for that servitude to which they had sold their innocent brother. Such are the awful characters of divine justice, and such the rigorous requisitions of the law. Persons of mild dispositions and of religious habits, it is granted, are often drawn by love, and gently allured to Jesus Christ; but sinners like these are seldom converted, without a powerful law-work on the mind. During the course of ignorance and crimes, the sinner has buoyed up his mind with the presumptuous notion, that it is but to repent at last and all will be well; that God being so indulgent and tender, we have only to ask, and we shall instantly receive forgiveness, and a meetness for heaven. But this man, on becoming deeply awakened, finds himself deceived. His mind strives to keep the law, but his heart revolts against it. He endeavours to compose his conscience; and it daily becomes more alarmed by new discoveries of his sin. He groans and struggles for deliverance, but sinks the deeper into the mire. The billows go over his head, the arrows of God wound his soul, and despondency overshadows his hope. Look which way he will for help, he sees no way of escape. The counsel and aid of man utterly fail. Thus it is, that this class of sinners wait and weep; thus they plead and make their supplication till by some ray of brightness, till by some gracious promise or happy thought, he chases away all gloom from the mind, and sheds abroad his love in the heart. And oh the joys, the unutterable joys which then inspire the soul: they are like the overwhelming joys which these brethren felt when the angry ruler, now softened into tears, saidI am Joseph your brother.

In Judahs solicitude that no fresh trouble should be brought on Jacob, children have a fine model of duty, in their endeavours to make the old age and last years of a parent easy and happy. To accomplish this, he was willing to sacrifice his liberty. What filial affection, what benevolence of heart, what magnanimity and disinterestedness! May his example inspire our children; and may we so conduct ourselves towards them, that the return of kindness shall be their delight.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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?

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Genesis 44. Benjamin is Accused of Stealing Josephs Silver Cup, and Judah Pleads with Joseph to Punish him instead of Benjamin.The narrative is from J. Joseph arranges this final test that he may be fully assured as to the true disposition of the brothers. At the same time, it is skilfully planned to prolong their suspense, swing them to and fro between hope and despair, and harrow them in their tenderest feelings. They have come safely through a rather perilous situation, Simeon has been restored to them, the trouble about the money cleared away, Benjamin is safely on the road for home, the Viceroy finally, it seems, convinced of their honesty and friendly in his attitude. But they have not left the city far behind when the steward overtakes them, and confronts them with a new and horrible complication: they have stolen Josephs cup, his drinking cup, but also used for divination. Indignantly repudiating such an abuse of hospitality, appealing to their return of the money, they offer, conscious of their innocence, to accept death for the culprit and slavery for the rest. The steward replies that it shall be slavery for the culprit, freedom for the others. He knows where the cup is, for he has hidden it, and therefore leaves Benjamins sack till the last. Sack after sack is opened and searched, time after time, with no result, while the spirits of the brothers rise. Then, when it seems as if their innocence was to be established, for one sack alone remains, and that Benjamins, they are suddenly plunged into the blackest despair. It could not be worse: Benjamin was the most favoured of Josephs guests, and Jacobs happiness, perhaps his life, hung on his return. Not accepting the freedom promised (Gen 44:10) (for how could they go back without Benjamin ?), they all return, and Judah offers, not now that the culprit shall die, for it is Benjamin, and the rest be slaves, but that Benjamin shall be a slave and they forfeit the liberty pledged to them. Joseph reaffirms the stewards conditions (Gen 44:10). Not that he desired to keep Benjamin and dismiss the others (it would have been unfilial to inflict this bereavement on Jacob), but to ascertain their response to this demand. It comes in a plea from Judah, unequalled in the OT for its blending of skilled presentation of the case, pathos, persuasiveness, and eloquence, culminating with the noble offer to remain as a slave in Benjamins place, that his father may be spared the agony of losing Rachels only surviving son.

Gen 44:5. That it is a divining cup adds the guilt of sacrilege and the peril of meddling with the uncanny. Whether Joseph really used it in divination (cf. Gen 44:15) or merely heightened their terror by claiming to do so is not clear.

Gen 44:20. a little one: in Gen 46:21 he is at the time father of ten sons, and assuming that Joseph had been twenty-two years in Egypt (Gen 37:2, Gen 41:46; Gen 41:53, Gen 45:6) and that Benjamin was born before Joseph was sold, he must have been more than twenty-two. The difficulty is greatly mitigated if Ps chronology is set aside, and J may have regarded Benjamin as born after the sale of Joseph.

Gen 44:30. Read mg.

XLV. Joseph Discloses his Identity and Sends for Jacob.J and E are here closely united, E being the leading source. It is not worth while to discuss the analysis. Profoundly moved by Judahs noble plea, Joseph can no longer mystify his brothers, or repress his longing to reveal his identity. But this self-disclosure is too intimate, too sacred, to be made while others are present. When they have obeyed his order to depart, he bursts into uncontrolled weeping, and then, to the consternation of the brothers, declares that he is Joseph. In a fine and reassuring speech he bids them not be troubled, for Gods hand was in it all, to save them in the famine. Then he tells them to return, inform Jacob, and invite him to come with all his family and possessions. This invitation was endorsed by Pharaoh in most cordial and generous terms. So they go with handsome presents for themselves and their father. The news is too good for Jacob to believe it till he sees the wagons Joseph has sent, and then he is reassured, happy that he will see his long-lost son before his death. It is assumed in Gen 50:17 that Jacob learnt of the wrong Joseph had suffered from his brothers.

Gen 44:10. Goshen: a fertile district E. of the Delta and near the frontier, part of what is now known as Wady Tumilat. It is mentioned only in J.

Gen 44:24 b. Do not dispute about the apportionment of blame for your treatment of me.

Gen 44:26. his heart fainted: his mind was too numb to grasp it.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

BENJAMIN ACCUSED WRONGFULLY

The wisdom of Joseph is seen now in such a way as to lead his brothers to repentance without accusing them. He instructed his steward to fill the brothers’ sacks with food and again restore their money to them in their sacks (v.1). but as well as this he tells him to put his own (Joseph’s) silver cup into the mouth of the sack of Benjamin. The next morning they were on their way, no doubt rejoicing that this time everything had gone so well.

However, this relief was short lived, for Joseph had told his steward to overtake them and accuse them of returning evil for good in stealing Joseph’s silver cup (vs.4-5). Of course such an accusation was a shock to the brothers. They protested that they would not think of such a thing. The fact that they brought the money back after having found it in their sacks was surely proof that they were not thieves (vs.7-8). They are so confident of this that they say if one was found to have the silver cup he should die and the rest would be slaves to Joseph (v.9)

The steward approved of their words, but was much more lenient in answering them. Of course Joseph had instructed him. He tells them that the guilty one would be kept as a slave to Joseph and the rest could go free. The search began at the eldest, finishing with the youngest, in whose sack the silver cup was found (v.12). What a shock to them all! What a traumatic experience for Benjamin who knew himself innocent!

The brothers knew they could not leave Benjamin and go home under these circumstances. Heavy-hearted they return to the city, where Joseph was still in his house. Again they bow down to him. Joseph asks them, “What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that such a man as I can practice divination?” (v.15).

JUDAH’S BROKEN CONFESSION

It is not Reuben, the eldest, who speaks to Joseph, but Judah, the one who had been leader in selling Joseph as a slave. He does not plead any difference whatever. In fact, though he had not been personally guilty of stealing the cup, yet he realizes that God was in this way reminding him of their previous guilt in selling Joseph. He tells the governor therefore, “God has found out the iniquity of your servants.” In fact, he does not condemn Benjamin and justify himself, but takes his place with Benjamin and his brothers in a willingness to accept the place of slaves to Joseph (v.16).

However, Joseph answers that he would not require the brothers to be slaves, but would keep only Benjamin as a slave while allowing the others to return home to their father. Joseph knew of his father’s affection for Benjamin and that the very mention of their father now would devastate the brothers in having to return to him without Benjamin. Judah in particular had made himself surety for Benjamin, so he found himself in a dreadful predicament. What could he do now but plead for consideration from the governor?

He came near to Joseph, as Israel will yet eventually come near to the Lord Jesus without realizing who He is. He entreats Joseph not to be angry at his further speaking to him, “for,” he says, “you are equal to Pharaoh” (v.18). So indeed in a coming day Israel will confess that Christ is equal to God. Judah recounts the experience of meeting the governor at first, and Joseph’s asking them if they had a father or a brother, and their answer to the effect that their father was still alive and had a younger son, the only remaining son of his mother, for her only other son was dead (not exactly a convincing statement so far as Joseph was concerned!).

Judah reminds him that they protested before that their father was so attached to Benjamin that would not think of letting him leave, but that Joseph had firmly insisted that if Benjamin did not come, Joseph would refuse to see them (vs.21-23). Therefore when Jacob again urged the brothers to go to Egypt to buy food, they told him they could not go unless Benjamin was with them. Their father has responded to this that his wife Rachel had borne him two sons and first had never returned when he left home, and Jacob considered him to have been killed by wild beasts. He was therefore all the more jealous concerning his younger son and said, “if you take this from me and harm befalls him, you will bring my grey hair down to sheol in sorrow” (v.29).

Judah pleads then with Joseph that if he comes back to Jacob without Benjamin the trauma for his father would be so great that he would die, since as he says, “his life is bound up in the lad’s life” (vs.30-31). More than this, Judah tells Joseph that he had become surety for his brother to his father, offering to bear the entire blame himself if he did not bring Benjamin back (v.32).

The last words of Judah to Joseph are refreshing in the way they reach the root of the whole matter. For he asks Joseph to allow him to take the place of Benjamin as a slave and that Benjamin be allowed to return to his father (v.33). What a contrast to the way Judah had before treated his younger brother Joseph! This was the end that Joseph had been seeking, to see in Judah a genuine repentance that was willing to suffer as he had made his brother suffer. This is the repentance that is seen in the thief who was crucified with the Lord Jesus. He said that he and the other thief deserved the punishment they received (Luk 23:41).

The last matter would speak to Joseph’s heart was Judah’s changed attitude toward his father (v.34). Judah now was deeply concerned that his father would be utterly grief stricken if Bemjamin did not return.

Thus too, when Israel goes through the great tribulation, the sovereign grace of God will work in many hearts to bring them to have real concern for their promised Messiah (Benjamin) and concern for the living God whom they had before dishonored in the rejection of His Son. This work will have begun in their hearts before they ever realize that Jesus whom they rejected (Joseph) is actually their true Messiah.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

That Joseph practiced divination is not clear from Gen 44:5 or Gen 44:15. He may have, but this seems inconsistent with his character as a man of faith in Yahweh. It also seems unlikely since Joseph had the gift of interpreting dreams (divine revelations) from God. If anyone needed to resort to divination it would not have been Joseph. Some interpreters, however, believe Joseph’s claim was just part of his ruse. [Note: E.g., Waltke, Genesis, p. 559; and Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 799.] The first statement made by Joseph’s servant may have been a lie (Gen 44:5). The second statement made by Joseph did not claim to practice divination (Gen 44:15). Joseph said that such a person as he could do it. Leon Wood believed that Joseph meant that he had information not available to ordinary people. The Hebrew verb in both Gen 44:5; Gen 44:15 is nahash (to whisper, mumble formulations, prophesy), not qasam, the word normally translated "to divine." [Note: Wood, The Prophets . . ., pp. 32-33.] These references to divination seem intended to impress Joseph’s brothers with the value of the cup that had disappeared. The Hebrew word translated "cup" here, gabia’, refers to a chalice or goblet, not to a common drinking cup, a kos. The brothers inferred that Joseph used it for purposes other than simply drinking.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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: Expositors Bible Commentary