Genesis 42

¹ When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” ² And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” ³ So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. ⁴ But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. ⁵ Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. ⁶ Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” ⁸ And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. ⁹ And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.” ¹⁰ They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.” ¹² He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.” ¹³ And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.” ¹⁴ But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you. You are spies. ¹⁵ By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶ Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” ¹⁷ And he put them all together in custody for three days. ¹⁸ On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: ¹⁹ if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, ²⁰ and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so. ²¹ Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” ²² And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” ²³ They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. ²⁴ Then he turned away from them and wept. And he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. ²⁵ And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them. ²⁶ Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. ²⁷ And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. ²⁸ He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” ²⁹ When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, ³⁰ “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. ³¹ But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies. ³² We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.’ ³³ Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. ³⁴ Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.’” ³⁵ As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. ³⁶ And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” ³⁷ Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” ³⁸ But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”

He was 30 years old when he began his great ministry that would result in the salvation of the world.

He was wrongfully imprisoned.

He was punished with two other men accused of wrongdoing.

One of the men was saved. The other was not.

He was brought up out of the pit and given a position of glory.

He showed amazing grace to those who did not deserve it.

I am talking, of course, about Joseph, the son of Jacob, in Egypt.

Were you thinking of somebody else? But of course! For even though everything I just said about Joseph is biblically true and scripturally backed up, we know that it was but a foreshadowing and type of the greater Savior to come, Jesus the Christ.

The gospel—the good news of God sending His Son to die in the place of lost humanity so that we, by grace through faith, can be saved—is so powerful, is so wonderful, and is so stitched into the very fabric and tapestry of the human story that shades and shadows of it can be seen throughout the Old Testament scriptures, indeed, throughout the stories of many of the world’s cultures! It is as if the world unknowingly and imperfectly kept telling the story of the Jesus who was to come even before He came because that story, the gospel, is the very heartbeat of the world and is the world’s greatest need.

Many pagan cultures have told stories of dying and rising gods. And almost every culture has told stories of unlikely heroes who overcome amazing odds to save those who are suffering. These stories were, again, imperfectly told, of course, but the broad strokes were there time and time again. And then in the history of Israel the story was told in ways that became increasingly in focus: still incomplete, but closer to what would be in the coming of Jesus. These stories were told every time an animal was sacrificed for the sins of the people, every time the hands of a priest were put on the head of a goat symbolically transferring the sins of Israel onto the head of the goat who would carry the people’s sins away, and every time the great high priest would enter the Holy of Holies in the temple to stand before the God of heaven and earth on behalf of and in intercession for the people.

Yes, the story of Jesus is so fundamental to the world that the world has been straining to tell it in shadows and types without even knowing all that it was saying. We have seen glimpses of it already in Jesus and we see many many hints of the gospel in the account of Joseph in Egypt. Some of these hints I mentioned at the beginning. But in the record of Joseph’s brothers coming to Egypt for food the foreshadowing seems to take on a power and poignancy that is undeniable.

Think of it: the offending brothers now journey to Egypt where they will unknowingly stand before the brother they threw in a pit and then sold into bondage. This is a story, in other words, of those who need forgiveness standing before one who can give it to them.

This is the story of the gospel told before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. This is the gospel in shadows and types, the gospel in broad strokes.

In time, many years after this, Jesus will come and the concrete reality of the gospel will eclipse these foreshadowings. But the story of Joseph played its part and plays its part still: it shows us the heart of God in preparation for the incarnation of the Son of God in due time.

The Journey of the Forgiven: Pride, dishonesty…then conviction.

A famine has struck the land. Joseph had told Pharaoh it would happen when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams. Now it had come. Now the scene switches away from Joseph in Egypt and back to Joseph’s brothers in Canaan. These brothers know nothing of what happened to Joseph. They have not been privy to the story in Egypt like we have been. They assume he is either enslaved or dead. But now they must move toward Egypt and, unbeknownst to them, toward the brother they wronged.

The rebellious must move toward the one who can, if he so chooses, save them.

And in their movement toward Egypt we see the dynamics of the movement of all rebellious human beings, of all sinners—in other words, of all people at all times—toward their Savior. The story of the brothers going to Egypt is the story of the human race writ small. Let us consider the journey of these guilty brothers.

Pride

We will notice first their pride and sense of self-justification.

¹ When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” ² And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” ³ So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. ⁴ But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.

Here we have our first allusion to the guilt of these boys. Jacob does not send Benjamin “for he feared that harm might happen to him.” Our text does not say how Jacob fears this harm might befall Benjamin, but we truly do not have to wonder overly much do we? Has Jacob harbored a suspicion of the sons regarding the fate of Joseph? I think so. Regardless, there is a sense of foreboding in the heart of Jacob. He keeps one son back.

⁵ Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. ⁶ Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” ⁸ And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. ⁹ And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

Joseph, unrecognized by his brothers, tests them, pushes them. He accuses them of being spies. He essentially is suggesting that they are scouting out Egypt to see what they might can steal. His reference to “the nakedness of the land” means that the land of Egypt and its provisions is meant to be concealed from prying eyes and they are seeking to discover what they do not need to discover. They are, in other words, trying to uncover the nakedness of the land.

Why does Joseph say this? Did he mean it? I think not. I think this is a test. He is testing the mettle of these men. He is also working toward a greater goal of revelation and, ultimately, grace. But, for now, Joseph’s ruse reveals the haughtiness of their hearts. They respond:

¹⁰ They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.” ¹² He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.”

See the pride of the human heart!

“We are honest men.”

Excuse me? What?! Honest men? They had lied to their father about the very man in whose presence they now stood! Honest men? They are anything but.

And note their defensive against Joseph’s allegation: “Your servants have never been spies.”

Would be murders, yes, but never spies!

The human heart is an amazing thing. It can rankle at a lesser charge while it whistles past a greater charge. It flinches at the allegation of being a spy but outright denies that it ever did much worse than spying!

The inability to come to terms with our own sinfulness is a great malady. The English novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett once said late in her life, “I do not recall committing a single blameworthy act.”[1] I wonder if there are those here today who would say such an audacious thing? Likely not! But I ask you: do you think it?

We are all sinners in need of grace. Denying that reality only moves you further from the grace you need.

Dishonesty

I note, too, another shade of dishonesty in the brothers.

¹³ And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.”

“One is no more” is a gloss, no? It is a way of dressing up the truer and uglier statement, “We threw him in a pit because we hated him and were jealous of him and resented him and then sold him for money.”

So long as you dress up the reality of your sins you will not be ready truly to receive grace.

Conviction

But in this story of the brothers of Joseph which is the story of the whole human race, we do finally see the wall come down. Conviction enters the story. Watch:

¹⁴ But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you. You are spies. ¹⁵ By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶ Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” ¹⁷ And he put them all together in custody for three days. ¹⁸ On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: ¹⁹ if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, ²⁰ and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so. ²¹ Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” ²² And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” ²³ They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them.

This is a profoundly emotional chapter and, indeed, set of chapters. It is filled with feeling. See the broken hearts of the brothers as their guilt is finally owned.

“In truth we are guilty…”

“So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.”

Conviction.

Brokenness.

Yes, despair.

They feel the full weight of their sin. They see it now. God is judging them, they say. They are paying for their sins.

We must come to this moment of crisis. We must own what we have done if we are to receive the grace of God. Heinrich Arnold, in his amazing little book Freedom from Sinful Thoughts, writes:

Confession—the act of unburdening our sins to someone else in order to be freed of their weight—is simple enough to define, but never easy to practice. As Baudouin writes, “When we discover that we have created our own misery, this recognition contains something so humbling for us that we are reluctant to acknowledge it.” He goes on, “Yet precisely because we have created our misery, it is essential for us to be absolutely truthful about our failings in order to find healing.”[2]

And Calvin Miller puts it a bit more pithily but no less profoundly when he writes:

Confession is the bold step of putting the apple down, looking at it with God and agreeing that the fruit has our teeth marks on it.[3]

I ask you: have you done this? Has your heart broken before your own sinfulness? Have you owned, acknowledged, and confessed who you really are.

The Journey of the Savior: Compassion, Fulfillment, Grace

Now we turn to Joseph, who will be a savior to his brothers as he was to all the world in this time of famine.

Compassion

When the brothers break and confess their sinfulness and guilt, Joseph’s reaction is powerful.

^24a Then he turned away from them and wept.

Joseph weeps. See again the powerful feeling of this chapter! He “turns away from them” so they cannot see. And he weeps. Robert Alter points out that “[t]his is the first of three times, in a clear crescendo pattern, that Joseph is moved to tears by his brothers.”[4] Yes, it is a clear crescendo pattern. The intensity of Joseph feelings grows and grows.

Why does Joseph weep? He feels compassion.

Joseph is not going to destroy his brothers, though he could.

He is not going to have them all killed, though he could.

He is not going to lock them up forever, though he could.

No, the heart beating in Joseph’s chest was a heart of compassion…and so is the heart that beats in the chest of Jesus. In Matthew 9, Jesus, like Joseph, looks upon the broken people before Him. What does He feel?

³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

In Luke 19 Jesus looks down upon the city outside of which He will be crucified. What does He do?

⁴¹ And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it

Right now Jesus is looking at you and sees everything you have ever done or ever thought including whatever it is you are thinking right now. And what does He feel? The same that He felt two thousand years ago: compassion, love, a desire to save you.

Listen to this: Jesus loves you. He really does!

Fulfillment

Joseph loved. Joseph also sought to fulfill the prior word of God concerning this moment. Notice that Joseph adjusts his first proposal that nine of the brothers stay in jail and send one back to Jacob to get Benjamin. Instead, he keeps one brother, Simeon, in jail and sends the nine back to Jacob.

^24b-d  And he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

Why does Joseph do this? Yes, it is true that Benjamin was special to Joseph. He was “‘Joseph’s brother’ in a different sense from the other brothers,” writes Kenneth Mathews, “they shared the same birth mother, Rachel, implying that Benjamin held his father’s special favor, as had Joseph.”[5] True enough! But I think there is more at work here. Remember Joseph’s original dream as recounted in Genesis 37.

⁵ Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: ⁷ Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” ⁸ His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. ⁹ Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” ¹⁰ But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” ¹¹ And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Note that in the dream God had given Joseph earlier, the dreams that verse 9 of our chapter tells us Joseph remembered, it was all eleven brothers who bowed down to Joseph. I think it is true that Joseph wanted to see Benjamin. But I think it is also the case that Joseph, seeing God at work in this moment, and remembering what God had foretold about this moment, needed to see the dream fulfilled as God had given it. All eleven brothers needed to be there. All eleven needed to bow. Not ten. And not because of some ego need in Joseph. No, it was because of Joseph’s awareness that God’s plan to save was meticulous and needed to be fulfilled in completion!

It is an interesting thing: in the gospels we find a frequently-recurring little formula that happens oftentimes after Jesus says or does something. “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken…” or “to fulfill what was said” or some variation of it (Matthew 1:22, 2:15, 2:17, 8:17, 12:17, 13:35, 27:9) will be written. It is written in order to demonstrate that what Jesus said and did was said and done in order to fulfill God’s plan of redemption down to the minutest of details. And this is to show that God knows exactly what God is going to do before God does it!

I believe this is why Joseph sends for Benjamin. The revelation of God in the earlier dreams said that all eleven would be there. So all eleven needed to be there.

God does not waste words in His plan to save!

Grace

In addition to compassion and fulfillment, we see Joseph showing grace.

²⁵ And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them. ²⁶ Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. ²⁷ And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. ²⁸ He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” ²⁹ When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, ³⁰ “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. ³¹ But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies. ³² We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.’ ³³ Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. ³⁴ Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.’” ³⁵ As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. ³⁶ And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” ³⁷ Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” ³⁸ But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”

Grace is shown in two ways here. First, it is shown in Joseph only keeping one and sending back nine as opposed to keeping nine and sending back one for Benjamin. Kenneth Mathews observes that “by keeping only one in prison, the majority of the caravan could return with foodstuffs for the awaiting family.”[6] This is grace. Why did Joseph adjust his plan? I believe it was so that he could send back a greater blessing to his homeland and his father and extended family. Nine can carry more than one and Joseph had much he wanted to give!

But the most surprising act of grace is seen in what Joseph sneaks into the men’s bags as they return.

²⁵ And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them.

Unbeknownst to the brothers, Joseph puts money in their sacks. Their response to discovering this is amazing.

²⁸ He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”

And when they all discover money upon returning to Jacob their collective response is the same: fear.

³⁵ As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.

We will discover that Joseph put money in their sacks as an act of grace, as an act of kindness. Their fear arises from the fact that they now assume they will be accused of thievery in addition to being spies. In this, they misread the situation. On a more fundamental level their fear arises from the fact that they cannot conceive of the very notion of grace. Their asking “What is this that God has done to us?” reveals their basic assumption about God’s posture toward them: wrath. They suspected that this unexpected money was the beginning of the coming reckoning foretold earlier. Walter Brueggemann put it very nicely when he wrote:

Their limited view of God requires a quid pro quo response to their own guilt. They see their guilt as the definitive factor in human and divine relations. They are unable to believe in any promissory God who might break beyond their hopeless mendacity. As a result, the brothers must live in a world where no new thing can be anticipated.[7]

I agree! Their reaction reveals that they cannot conceive of grace. This is tragic because Joseph—the lowercase “s” savior—was showing them precisely that: grace! And, in so doing, Joseph was preparing the collective heart of Israel for the coming of Jesus—the uppercase “S” Savior—who would do the very same but on a whole other level. Listen to how the New Testament speaks of God’s grace in terms of riches. In Romans 10, Paul writes:

¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

Yes! Jesus “bestows his riches on all who call on him”! Indeed He does! And again, in Ephesians 1, Paul writes:

⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

“The riches of his grace.”

Our God is the God who slips riches in the sacks of the guilty—who shows us countless kindnesses—in order to whisper to us, “There is grace here in my Kingdom! I am the King who forgives and gives life to those who do not deserve it! I am the God who forgives the guilty! I am the God who brings back to life those dead in their sins!”

This is what God is like! This is who He is! Why oh why would you not turn to Him now and call on His name in repentance and faith! You will find mercy there if you do.

 

[1] RJN, “While We’re At It,” First Things.  March 1995.

[2] Arnold, J. Heinrich. Freedom from Sinful Thoughts (pp. 40-41). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

[3] Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2007), p.141.

[4] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible. vol. 1 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), p.165n24.

[5] Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26. The New American Commentary. Old Testament, vol. 1B (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, Publishers, 2005), p.775.

[6] Kenneth A. Mathews, p.780.

[7] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis. Interpretation. (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), p.338.