One of the classics of Bible history is the magnanimity of Joseph towards his brothers who had sold him into slavery. It is a noteworthy story, whereby Joseph both brought home to his brethren the enormity of their crime and satisfied himself that their repentance was real and sincere. Behind the intertwining movements of the characters in the story lies the larger issue of the Divine purpose, moving smoothly into action and using these elements to fulfil the Divine intention. Here in Egypt, safe from hunger, danger and all adversity, the children of Jacob would grow into that nation which God had declared was to be His special instrument for the preservation of His truth in the earth until its supreme revelation came in the person of Jesus Christ. In a very real sense the moving of Jacob's family into Egypt, and the famine which provoked that move, were pointers to the coming of Messiah.

The famine itself was nothing unusual. Egypt had known such times before and knew them again. This one was of somewhat unusual duration. Most commentators speak of a "succession of years when the Nile remained low" but in Genesis 41.57 it is made plain that Egypt was not the only land affected. "The famine was sore in all lands." Jacob and his family were not the only ones to come into Egypt for the purpose of buying food; and probably not the only ones to settle in that land, at least temporarily. There is some evidence (as in Brooks' "Climate through the ages") that for several centuries terminating about 1600 B.C. the world as a whole passed through a dry and arid phase, followed after that date by a much more rainy era which of itself induced considerably improved fertility. If Joseph did indeed enter Egypt in the early years of the Hyksos regime then the commencement of the twelve tribes' growth in Egypt would more or less coincide with this change; this could have been one factor in the phenomenal increase of the Israelites, and of other nations too. It has to be remembered that although Canaan in the days of Isaac and Jacob was evidently very thinly peopled, when the Israelites after the Exodus only a few centuries later returned thereto they found it well populated with numerous tribes and cities "with walls reaching up to heaven". Explorations in the ruins of Babylon have shown that city to have increased in size many times over at about the same period. It would seem that the population of the Mesopotamian plains showed just the same acceleration of increase as did Israel and Canaan and this fact goes far to confirm the veracity of the Genesis story. The famine of Joseph's time, too, was probably merely the last of a series of such calamities extending over several centuries previously; Egyptian history relates several such occasions reaching back to the time of Abraham. It is likely that the wanderings of Abraham and Isaac recorded in Genesis were largely dictated by necessity due to the impoverishment of the land by dry weather; the various recorded conflicts between their servants and the people of the land over the possession of water holes and wells would tend to support the same conclusion.

The despatch of Jacob's ten sons to Egypt for the purpose of buying food as related in Gen.42 was therefore a perfectly natural thing and one that was paralleled by many other families. Gen.41.57 makes that plain. "All countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy food", and so does 42.5 "and the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came". Chapter 42 tells the story of the first expedition, one in which Jacob would not allow his youngest son Benjamin to participate. The popular image is all too often that of a little lad perhaps ten or twelve years old whom Jacob would fain shelter from the risks and rigours of the journey; in actual fact Benjamin was at the time a grown man thirty-two years of age, and probably already the father of a goodly proportion of the ten sons he ultimately had. The word "lad" used by Judah in 43.8 to denote Benjamin is probably partially responsible for this very general impression. However 'lad' here as in so many places in the Old Testament is the Hebrew "naar" which can denote a boy or young man and is so translated in numerous instances. King Solomon at his accession is described as a "naar". At a time when men habitually lived to 120 or more Benjamin in his thirties would be accounted as a stripling anyway. Jacob's motive in keeping him at home was undoubtedly on account of the fact that, Joseph being lost to him, Benjamin was his only remaining link with his beloved Rachel. The other sons, headed by Reuben, the eldest at sixty-four years of age, took their way to Egypt, travelling almost certainly by the high road skirting the sea shore and passing the frontier guards at the wall called the "Shur" which Egypt had built somewhere near the present Suez Canal. So at last they came into the presence of this high Egyptian official whom they utterly failed to recognise as their brother Joseph.

That is by no means surprising. There must have been a tremendous physical difference between the seventeen year old country shepherd lad whom they had sold into slavery and this calm, dignified Egyptian, whose very mien conveyed authority and self-assurance. They were already awed and subdued by the magnificent buildings and all the other trappings of a civilisation these rough countrymen had never before seen. So they were not likely to perceive in the countenance of this clean-shaven, well-dressed man in whose presence they stood as suppliants, any resemblance to their own bearded and roughly apparelled fellows. They answered his questions respectfully, hopefully, and quite unsuspectingly. Joseph, of course, knew them at once. He had probably been expecting them. He must have realised that his father's family back in Canaan would be as hardly hit as anyone else by the famine, and when parties of Canaanites began to appear in Egypt buying corn he knew it would not be long before his own brothers would appear. He had the advantage of knowing for whom to look; although it was twenty-two years since he had last seen them they would not have changed as he had done. So he was ready with a plan, a plan devised, we may be sure, at least in part by the over-ruling of the Holy Spirit. Joseph would be the means of a much greater deliverance to his father's house than could be achieved by selling them a few sacks of corn to tide them over until they could resume life in Canaan again. It would be a deliverance that was to have as its most far-reaching consequence, the creation of a nation. This has profoundly affected all human history and is destined to survive still, and fulfil its Divine commission to "blossom, and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (Isa.27.6). So in pursuance of his plan Joseph at first pretended to disbelieve their story and accused them of being spies. To their indignant denials he responded with the demand that they prove their story by bringing before him the younger brother whose existence they had inadvertently made known to him. He commanded that one of their number be held prisoner as hostage against their return and the production of their youngest brother. Joseph made it clear that there was to be no alternative. Simeon was summarily bound before their eyes and hustled away to jail. They were given the corn for which they had made the journey and nothing remained but to return to Jacob without Simeon and bear the heavy news that another of his sons was lost to him.

The brothers' anguished conversation between themselves recorded in Gen.42.21.22 is significant. They had immediately jumped to the conclusion that this disastrous sequel to their mission was a Divine judgment upon them for their treatment of Joseph. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother . . . therefore is this distress come upon us. . . therefore also his blood is required". It would seem that these men's consciences must have smitten them before this day; it might well be that they had long ago bitterly repented their hasty action in getting rid of Joseph. The effect of the tragedy upon their father Jacob was always before them, and believing as they did that Joseph was irretrievably lost to them they did not expect ever to be able to right the wrong. For them so quickly to associate this experience in Egypt with that event of twenty-two years earlier can only mean that the evil deed was always in their minds and that to some extent at any rate they regretted their action and would have put it right if they could. So they talked together, agitatedly, in their own tongue, not realising that the Egyptian standing before them understood every word they spoke, for, according to verse 23, Joseph had pretended unfamiliarity with the Hebrew language and had talked with them through an interpreter. For a moment he was overcome. "He turned himself about from them, and wept"; partly, it is almost certain, with emotion at finding his brothers were at least conscious of the sin they had committed and to a degree repentant. So he sent them away, and they set out on the journey back to Canaan.

Jacob's reaction was only to be expected. He flatly refused to let Benjamin go with them into Egypt. Simeon he now accounted as irretrievably lost as Joseph. Bitterly did he reproach his sons for involving him in this new sorrow. The 42nd chapter closes on a note of unrelieved despair, and with no overt move in prospect to rescue Simeon from his servitude.

"And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn ..." It had to come, a decision regarding this problem before the house of Jacob. The famine persisted, and they needed more food. This time Judah had to speak plainly to his father. No Benjamin; no journey. That was the position. The Governor of Egypt had made it plain that they would not so much as be granted an audience unless Benjamin was with them. In a splendidly impassioned plea Judah took upon himself responsibility for Benjamin's safety. "I will be surety for him. Of my hand shall thou require him. If I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever". It was Judah who had suggested selling Joseph into slavery and so deprived Jacob of his firstborn by Rachel. The wheel had turned full circle and now it was Judah upon whom lay the responsibility for presenting to his father Rachel's second born son.

Jacob capitulated. "If it must be so . . ." He was old and weary; he could resist no more. Pathetically, he tried to make arrangements to placate the grim Egyptian potentate who threatened his life's last consolation, "Carry down the man a present, a little balm, a little honey ..." There was not much they could take; the famine had seen to that; but Jacob desperately strove to make the best he could of a bad business in the hope that his meagre offering might please the man in whose hands lay Benjamin's fate. Having done all he could, he committed the whole thing to God who had led him through so long a troubled life. "God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin."

So they came into Egypt the second time. The confidence they had in having Benjamin with them tinged with a certain amount of misgiving over the matter of the money in their sacks. During the journey back to Canaan the first time they had found that the purchase money they had paid for the corn had mysteriously found its way into the tops of their sacks and the circumstance worried them not a little. (Incidentally the reference in 42.27 to the 'inn' where they first discovered this does not mean that there were regular hostelries in the desert where travellers could put up for the night. The word only means a lodging place for the night, of whatever description, and in this instance was probably a convenient well or oasis where they could settle down for the night and water their beasts). Joseph's steward speedily put their minds at rest on this score. He had of course been instructed by Joseph to return the money originally but the brothers did not know this. The restoration of Simeon from prison into their midst was another indication that circumstances were improving. When Joseph at length appeared they bowed themselves before him without the slightest realisation that they were fulfilling Joseph's boyhood dream when he saw the eleven stars making obeisance to him, and the eleven sheaves making obeisance to his sheaf. These were the dreams that became the immediate cause of his brothers' enmity and his being sold into slavery. But they were not now thinking of the past; relief at the apparent friendliness of their reception and the prospect now of getting safely home with both Benjamin and Simeon, and the corn they needed, chased away all other thoughts. It was a happy party of men which sat down to the feast Joseph had prepared. True, when they found they had been set at table strictly in order of age they marvelled somewhat, wondering how this Egyptian could have guessed their order of birth so accurately; it is evident that as yet they had not the slightest inkling of the truth. The feast proceeded and they were merry.

For the second time the brothers set out for Canaan, this time in very much happier frame of mind. All had gone well, they would soon be home and Jacob's fears allayed, Judah's responsibility discharged and evidently no barrier now to obtaining further supplies from Egypt so long as the famine should last. Nothing more is said about judgment for their misdeed of two decades previously. Adversity had gone, prosperity had come, and all was well with the world. That was their happy frame of mind, until Joseph's steward caught up with them.

Of course the accusation was preposterous. The suspicion was completely unfounded. Not one man among them would dream of stealing Joseph's silver divining cup, or anything else out of the land of Egypt. Indignantly they pointed out that the fact they had brought back to the steward the money they had found in the tops of their sacks should be sufficient proof of their honesty. With the boldness of outraged innocence they declared straight away that if the cup was found with any one of them, that man should die and the rest of them be slaves in Egypt forever. They challenged the steward to take up their offer.

So be it, said Joseph's steward, except that my master will not exact penalties from the innocent. The man with whom the cup is found shall go into slavery; the rest may go home free. "Then they speedily took down every man his sack to the ground and opened every man his sack." As the steward proceeded from one to another, taking the eldest first, expressions of righteous indignation began to appear on their faces and with ill-disguised smirks of complacency they began to fasten up their sacks again. And then with a grunt of satisfaction the steward produced the missing cup from Benjamin's sack!

The brothers gave up. They knew there had been some double-dealing going on somewhere. None of them believed that Benjamin was a thief. Somehow the cup had been introduced into his sack unknowingly. We do not know to what extent the steward was in Joseph's confidence in all this He was a servant and he was merely carrying out orders and those orders now required merely that he take Benjamin back to Joseph. The others could go their way. But there was no hesitation on the part of the brothers now. They did not intend to return to Jacob without Benjamin. They turned their caravan about and accompanied Benjamin and the steward back to the city, and stood waiting to hear their doom.

This matter of Joseph using a divining cup has disturbed some godly people. The character of Joseph seems so flawless, he seems so ideal a man of God, that the association of his name with something that looks suspiciously like witchcraft comes as a shock. It was not like that. As can be gathered from references in ancient writers the general idea was to fill the cup with some liquid or other ‑ usually water ‑ fix the gaze intently upon one spot on the untroubled surface and empty the mind of all pre-occupying thoughts. It was believed that in this condition of mind messages from the powers of heaven could be expected and that the recipient was then in the most favourable attitude for receiving them. Thus seen, there is really little difference between this "divining" and many modern systems of quiet thinking and meditation, as for example in the Quiet Time. It might well be that Joseph conformed to the custom of his day in using this divining cup as the outward symbol of his communion with God. In this quietness of mind did he receive that instruction from the Holy Spirit which enabled him to carry out the commission with which God had emtrusted him.

Now Joseph applied the final test. Knowing full well the brothers' consciousness of innocence, he decreed that Benjamin, in whose sack the cup had been found, should remain in Egypt to be his slave for ever. The rest of them were free to return to their father. Now would he see if the history of twenty-two years ago would be repeated. Would they leave their younger brother in Egypt to save themselves, or would they risk their own lives to save their brother?

It was Judah who resolved the crisis ‑ Judah, who had been the one to suggest the selling of Joseph into slavery. This time it was his own self he wanted to sacrifice. In a marvellously impassioned and eloquent speech he pleaded with Joseph to accept his own self a slave forever as substitute for Benjamin, so that the latter might be able to return to Canaan and his father Jacob be not utterly heart-broken in his old age. "For how shall I go up to my father and the lad be not with me?" Rather than have that happen, Judah was prepared to renounce his home and family forever, ending his days in slavery in a strange land. From the expression in Gen.44.16 it is evident that Judah at least, and probably his brothers as well, had by now become persuaded that this terrible position in which they found themselves, innocent of the charge though they were, was of God's own appointing. It had come upon them in judgment for the crime they had committed against their innocent brother those many years back. Judah was ready now to expiate in his own person the guilt for which all his brothers shared the responsibility.

That broke Joseph down. Evidence of the emotional strain under which he had been labouring ever since his brothers first came to Egypt crops up from time to time as the story unfolds. Now, his purpose achieved, satisfied that his brothers had truly experienced a change of heart, he broke down completely and revealed to the amazed group his true identity. At first they were terrified, as well they might be. But Joseph allayed their fears and with true magnanimity asserted that the whole sequence of events had been overruled by God as a means of getting Jacob and his family into Egypt to save their lives, in this time of famine. That does not mean that God was responsible for the evil thing that the brothers had done; it does mean that God can take hold of the position that has been created by evil and make of it a means contributing to the accomplishment of his own eternal purpose.

AOH (To be continued)