Dr. Ron Sumners
November 29, 2009
Psalm 33:10-11 says, “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the people. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.”
The absence of food is not a passing matter. It means life or death. The scenes of drought and starvation from Africa, with which we are all too familiar, will help us imagine the situation of Joseph’s family back in Palestine during the world-wide famine.
The opening words of Genesis 42 shift the scene of the Joseph story from Egypt back to Canaan. Twenty years have passed since we have heard anything from the family of Jacob. But even though the years have been silent, God has been working in incredible ways in Egypt. The family’s salvation from the terrible famine was already in place in the person of Joseph. He was second in command in Egypt. The purpose for which God had permitted all of Joseph’s trials was ready to be revealed: “the saving of many lives” (50:20).
We know that Jacob had many people to provide for, because later on, at least seventy people moved to Egypt when Joseph brought his family to be with him. When Jacob heard there was food in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you just keep looking at each other?” (Genesis 42:1).
This is a classic parental question. It is the kind of question that children don’t understand until they become parents and find themselves saying the same thing to their children. Mothers often start this question a couple of days into summer vacation. The kids are sitting around, bored and complaining about their boredom. They sit there staring at each other and mother says, “Why are you sitting there just looking at each other?” In other words, “Why don’t you go and find something to do?”
We can imagine the situation in Jacob’s family. These grown men were sitting, looking around the tent. They each knew the gravity of their situation yet each one was hoping that one of the others would come up with an idea that would keep them from starving. They displayed a striking lack of inactivity.
Jacob finally followed up his question with a word of direction. “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, that we may live and not die.”
Jacob was clearly a man who trusted in God. But trust in God is always accompanied by action! Jacob’s trust that God would provide did not cause him to sit around and wait for God to drop food from the sky. Jacob took the initiative. Jacob sent his sons to Egypt – but not all of them. Only the guilty ten were dispatched to go buy grain.
Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with the others, because he was afraid that some harm might come to him. (Genesis 42:4). We already know why Jacob clung so tightly to his youngest son. Benjamin was not only the baby, but also, like Joseph, was the son of Jacob’s beloved Rachel.
Jacob had already gone through the terrible experience of losing one of his sons. Jacob was determined he was not going to risk that pain again. He loved all his sons, but he was willing for the ten older sons to go, but not Benjamin.
The second conversation in this passage begins in verse 7b, but the context is set in verses 5-7a, which tell us that Joseph’s ten brothers made their way to Egypt and became a part of the long line of people waiting to purchase grain from Joseph.
The brothers came before the governor of Egypt and bowed down before him, thus fulfilling Joseph’s dream concerning them (Genesis 37:7). They did not recognize Joseph, but he recognized them.
Picture the scene for a moment. Here was a group of tired, dusty, middle-aged Hebrew shepherds and farmers coming into the dazzling courts of Egypt. Their beards had grayed, their hair had fallen out a little, and they had been weathered by the sun and buffeted by life. They had wives and children at home; they had come in obedience to their father’s direction.
These men were just ten of the many who had made their way to Egypt in hope of buying some precious grain to keep starvation from their families. Egypt had become the soup kitchen of the world. Can you imagine the emotion that must have stirred in Joseph’s heart as he looked out over this sea of faces, all looking to him for help – and then he sees his long-lost brothers!
Before making himself known to them, Joseph wanted to find out something. So, the text says, “as soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them.”
Why did the brothers not recognize Joseph? Twenty years had passed and Joseph had been just a boy the last time they saw him. Look at your high school annual picture and then look in the mirror. Have you changed?
Beside the years that have passed, everything about Joseph had changed. His brothers had left him in rags as they sold him to the merchants. Now he stood in finery as the Egyptian governor. Even his language had changed. Joseph was speaking with them through an interpreter (v.23). Even if his brothers were looking for Joseph; they would have looked in the slave market, not the governor’s palace!
It is interesting that as Joseph looked at his brothers, he remembered his dreams as a boy (v. 9). He needed to find out if they still hated him or whether they felt any sense of sorrow or remorse for their actions toward him. So, Joseph decided to conceal his identity until he got those answers. God was using the brother’s trip to Egypt to bring them face-to-face with their long-concealed sin!
Joseph accused his brothers of spying. Of course, he knew that was not the case. They replied, “We are all the sons of one man. Your sons are honest men, not spies” (v. 11). Why did they mention that they were brothers? They were saying that no sensible man wanted to engage in spying and risk losing his whole family. Besides that, what kind of spy operation would send ten people parading around in the open? Spies operate covertly, in the dark, behind closed doors and in secret. I have never seen a spy movie in which the spies went around in groups of ten.
Joseph knew this but he pushed them again, repeating his charge. And as a result, the layers of the brother’s consciences began to peel away, “Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is with our father and one is no more” (v. 13).
The brothers did not realize that they were talking to “Mr. No More!” When I get to heaven, and I know that I am going, do you? I am going to ask Joseph how he felt when his brothers said, “One is no more.” Joseph maintained his cover and repeated the charge for a third time.
Why did Joseph use this particular charge? Spying may have been a problem during this time of worldwide famine, as desperate nations tried to find a way into Egypt to steal some of the grain they had stored. But I think it was more than that. Joseph was holding a mirror up to his brothers, reminding them of what had happened to him twenty years before.
Do you remember the three things about Joseph that had annoyed his brothers? There was his special coat and his dreams, but he had also been a tattle-tale and had given a bad report about them to their father (Genesis 37:2). In other words, the brothers had seen Joseph as a spy. Now he was accusing them of the same thing.
Joseph decided to accuse his brothers of the same thing they had held against him those years before. If they had never thought of it before, these ten sons of Jacob now knew how it felt to be clapped into prison for something that they didn’t do. They saw their own actions in a mirror and it wasn’t pretty.
Joseph was not simply being peevish and vengeful. He was making a powerful appeal to his brothers’ consciences so they would recognize and admit their sin against him. At any rate they had three days in the slammer to think about it!
On the third day, Joseph had his brothers brought before him again. He had told them earlier that he was going to keep nine and let one go home to get Benjamin. But now he decided to keep only one and let nine go back to Canaan. He kept Simeon. Joseph then fell silent. The brothers did not disguise their thoughts and spoke to each other. They did not think that Joseph could understand them.
This was a very revealing discussion and gave an explanation for their hearts and their actions. The conversation was so emotionally charged that when Joseph heard it, he had to turn from them and weep (v. 24).
They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen, that’s why this distress has come upon us” (v. 21).
Reuben added, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you would not listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood” (v. 22).
What an emotionally charged atmosphere this was! What painful memories were being dredged up for all eleven brothers! Isn’t it interesting that the ten guessed immediately why the Egyptian official had them put in prison? God uses encounters like these to bring us back to the place of our disobedience and rebellion.
This was a painful time, but it was also red-letter day in the lives of these men. For twenty years they had been living a lie, keeping up the pretense with their father, making him think that Joseph was “no more” and watching their father suffer. They had been callous in the way they treated Joseph, and two decades of deceit had hardened their hearts even more. But here the first chink in the armor of their lies begins to appear.
Anyone who assumes these men never gave the incident a second thought doesn’t know much about human nature. Joseph woke up in Egypt in a cold sweat on more than one night remembering his ordeal; don’t you think that his brothers did the same?
Don’t you imagine they awakened in the night with dreams so vivid they perspired and put their hands over their ears because they could hear Joseph’s cries from the pit? They lived in the shadow of their crime, waiting for the blow of judgment to fall. They admitted as much in their honest conversation.
Up to this point Joseph’s brothers had never acknowledged their guilt. Do you remember their reaction to Joseph’s cries from the pit? They sat down and ate their midday meal and ignored his pleas for mercy. Now they remember, we saw him, we would not listen, and we must give an account!
One of the first signs of an awakening conscience is the admission of personal guilt. Some people go to church every Sunday carrying the knowledge of the pain and chaos they have caused, knowing that that have been wrong, yet not willing to acknowledge their guilt.
But until that admission comes, there is no future for those people. God has nothing in the way of usefulness for them. What must happen is an admission of sin as that which David made in the 51st Psalm or the Prodigal son made in the book of Luke.
Some people think that they are Christian when they are not! They are prepared to acknowledge that they have made mistakes and used bad judgment, but they are not willing to admit that they are sinners and truly repent!
But without this there is no conversion. What the Bible calls conversion is when a person admits, “I am absolutely guilty and deserve death for my crimes. I have no excuses, and throw myself completely on the mercy of Christ. Without Him, I am utterly lost. My life is in His hands.”
Isn’t it interesting that Joseph, the brother against whom the ten had sinned, was the one who held their lives in his hands!
Nowhere is the hand of God more dramatically evident than in this portion of the story. God so moved and arranged events that twenty years after the crime all of the guilty offenders were delivered to the very doorstep of the brother they had offended.
Look at Joseph’s attitude. Instead of lashing out at them with hate and revenge, he filled their bags with grain and said, “Take this back for your starving households” (Genesis 42:19).
If the cupboards had been full, the brothers would never have made their trip to Egypt and they would have never found their brother and would have never experienced God’s provision for them. They also would never have repented and been forgiven for their sin against Joseph!
It is only when God shows us that the cupboards of our self-righteousness are absolutely bare that we are ready to admit our need and come humbly to Him who is the Bread of Life!
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