Genesis 43

¹ Now the famine was severe in the land. ² And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” ³ But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ ⁴ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. ⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’” ⁶ Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” ⁷ They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” ⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. ⁹ I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. ¹⁰ If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.” ¹¹ Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry a present down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. ¹² Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight. ¹³ Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man. ¹⁴ May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” ¹⁵ So the men took this present, and they took double the money with them, and Benjamin. They arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph. ¹⁶ When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” ¹⁷ The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph’s house. ¹⁸ And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.” ¹⁹ So they went up to the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke with him at the door of the house, ²⁰ and said, ”Oh, my lord, we came down the first time to buy food. ²¹ And when we came to the lodging place we opened our sacks, and there was each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it again with us, ²² and we have brought other money down with us to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.” ²³ He replied, “Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money.” Then he brought Simeon out to them. ²⁴ And when the man had brought the men into Joseph’s house and given them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder, ²⁵ they prepared the present for Joseph’s coming at noon, for they heard that they should eat bread there. ²⁶ When Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed down to him to the ground. ²⁷ And he inquired about their welfare and said, “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” ²⁸ They said, “Your servant our father is well; he is still alive.” And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.²⁹ And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son!” ³⁰ Then Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there. ³¹ Then he washed his face and came out. And controlling himself he said, “Serve the food.” ³² They served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. ³³ And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement. ³⁴ Portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank and were merry with him.

We have all seen people standing on street corners holding signs and asking for help. Shane Clairborne has written about one he saw that struck him as particularly poignant.

In fact, one of the best cardboard signs for panhandling that I’ve come across was one made by a dear friend who found himself in hard times standing on a street corner.  The sign simply read “In need of grace.”[1]

We could all hold a sign like that!

Philip Yancey has reported something interesting that happened at an Oxford conference on comparative religion.

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. In his forthright manner Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eightfold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.[2]

Yes! That is true! And that is good news because the one need we all have is the need for grace, the need to know that we are forgiven and loved even though we are guilty in our sins and trespasses. Grace is at the heart of the gospel. It is also at the heart of our story, the story of Joseph’s guilty brothers unknowingly being hosted by him in Egypt. And this makes sense. It makes sense for, as we have seen, Joseph is a type and picture of Christ, a marker who pointed Israel to the Jesus who was to come and who points us to Jesus even today.

We need grace, but let us ask this question of our text: how do we receive grace?

For the grace of God to be received we must stop trying to buy it.

We receive grace by understanding first of all that grace cannot be bought. It is a gift. We do not earn it. But this is hard for us to understand. We are by nature earners. We think we must buy something, earn it, or, if necessary, manipulate our way towards what we want. And so we are naturally suspicious of grace. The unredeemed heart does not understand God’s gracious mercy and, tragically, even some who have come to Jesus in faith still struggle to embrace His wonderful love. Let us watch this dynamic at play in the brothers of Joseph. We rejoin them back in Canaan after their first journey to Egypt.

¹ Now the famine was severe in the land. ² And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” ³ But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ ⁴ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. ⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’” ⁶ Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” ⁷ They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” ⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. ⁹ I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. ¹⁰ If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.” ¹¹ Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry a present down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. ¹² Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight.

The brothers and their father, Jacob, are scared. They are scared because they fear Joseph in Egypt though, of course, they do not know that he is Joseph. But had they known he was Joseph the brothers might have feared returning to Egypt even more. After all, they had greatly wronged and imperiled Joseph.

Jacob fears losing yet another son: Benjamin, whose presence has been requested by Joseph. So Jacob, driven by fear, seeks to soften any further injury in the same way that he sought to assuage Esau’s wrath earlier: by buying him off, by giving him riches. Jacob specifically asks them to “take double the money” and to “carry back…the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight.” Robert Alter interprets verse 12 to mean that “they are to go to Egypt with three times the original amount of silver: the amount they intend to return to Joseph, and double that amount besides.”[3]

Jacob proposes that “perhaps it was an oversight.” The brothers fear it is a ploy. They fear it is a setup. They fear that they will be condemned upon their return as both spies and thieves because of the money they found inexplicably in their grain sacks.

Put another way, they misinterpret the kindness of their savior, Joseph, to be a trap.

The hardened heart cannot conceive of grace! Jacob continues:

¹³ Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man. ¹⁴ May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” ¹⁵ So the men took this present, and they took double the money with them, and Benjamin. They arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph. ¹⁶ When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” ¹⁷ The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph’s house. ¹⁸ And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.”

Yes, they were afraid. Jacob had hoped aloud that God Almight, El-Shaddai is the divine title he employs here, might “grant you mercy before the man.” But here, ironically, in the face of the hoped-for mercy, the men hesitate and fear to enter Joseph’s home. They need not have feared! Joseph had prepared a feast for them. Still, they doubted and were suspicious. “For the guilty, even hospitality can seem ominous,” writes W. Lee Humphreys.[4] Thus, in their fear, trembling at the doorstep, they make a cowardly appeal to the steward of the house.

¹⁹ So they went up to the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke with him at the door of the house, ²⁰ and said, “Oh, my lord, we came down the first time to buy food. ²¹ And when we came to the lodging place we opened our sacks, and there was each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it again with us, ²² and we have brought other money down with us to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.” ²³ He replied, “Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money.” Then he brought Simeon out to them.

It is an amazing thing when a pagan Egyptian sees the spiritual truth of the matter more clearly than the sons of the covenant! “Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you!”

Suddenly we see the foolishness of their efforts to pay back the grace of God, to try to match and then exceed the favor that had been bestowed upon them. Jacob, in sending all that money back with his boys, was trying to out-give the savior who had the riches put in their sacks to begin with! He was essentially trying to buy grace, to show himself worthy of it.

But notice this: even in their efforts to buy the grace that had been given to them—to earn it somehow, to pay for it—they still feared! Why? Because even with what they brought they were still at the mercy of Joseph!

And so it is with us! We misinterpret the grace of God as a call for matching funds and then discover, after our best and inevitably paltry efforts, that there is still a gulf between us and the God who has all power! It is not just that you cannot out-give God. It is more that no matter what you give you never get to be God! God remains God and we remain who we are: the guilty in need of mercy.

How foolish it is to load our grain sacks with three times the money. How foolish it is to try to impress God with our best efforts and our silly trinkets. We still come from a position of famine and He still is enthroned on a throne of abundance. We still come as beggars to the cross! We can never match His love with our own effort.

For the grace of God to be received we must see and reject that which renders us guilty.

We must stop trying to buy grace. We must also come to terms with why we need it in the first place. We must see and reject that which renders us guilty. Joseph does something here that is quite powerful. Watch:

²⁴ And when the man had brought the men into Joseph’s house and given them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder, ²⁵ they prepared the present for Joseph’s coming at noon, for they heard that they should eat bread there. ²⁶ When Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed down to him to the ground. ²⁷ And he inquired about their welfare and said, “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” ²⁸ They said, “Your servant our father is well; he is still alive.” And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves. ²⁹ And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son!” ³⁰ Then Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there. ³¹ Then he washed his face and came out. And controlling himself he said, “Serve the food.” ³² They served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. ³³ And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement.

Joseph sets a feast for his brothers. The party is seated in three groups: (1) Joseph, (2) his brothers, (3) the Egyptians. Verse 33 reveals that Joseph’s brothers are seated in order of age. The last sentence in that verse is interesting: “And the men looked at one another in amazement.” Which men and why? Victor Hamilton observes that “the men” who looked at each other in amazement can refer to Joseph’s brothers and/or to the Egyptian men in the room. He proposes that the amazement may result from the fact that “Joseph was able to seat the brothers by age without consulting them” and argues that “Joseph is hinting about his identity to his brothers without saying as much.”[5]

Yes, he may indeed be “hinting about his identity” by his display of knowledge that they do not know he has (i.e., their ages), but the final verse in the chapter reveals that Joseph’s hints go deeper than even this.

³⁴ Portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank and were merry with him.

Did you catch that? The brothers are given their portions, and no doubt the portions are generous, “[b]ut Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs.”

What is happening here? Why does Joseph do this?

At the heart of what is happening here is a truth about grace: if we are to receive it rightly we must understand why we need it in the first place. We must come to terms with our own guilt that creates the opportunity for grace. We must, in a sense, return to the scene of the crime so we can own what we have done and so that we can come to terms with our great need for mercy.

In giving Benjamin “five times” (!!!) as much food, Joseph was showing Benjamin favoritism. Why is this important? It is important because by doing so Joseph was putting before them the very kind of behavior that led to their seething resentment and crime against Joseph in the first place! John Walton sees this “special treatment of Benjamin” as “important” because “it repeats the special treatment he himself had received in the special coat that had stimulated the jealousy of his brothers.”[6]

Joseph is recreating the dynamic of one brother being shown favoritism to (a) take the brothers back to the moment of their shame and (b) give them an opportunity definitively to own, repent of, and move past what they have done.

We are not ready to receive grace until we see and take stock of our sins against God!

How can we be forgiven if we do not know we need forgiveness?

How can we repent if we are not brought back to the ugliness of our sin?

How can we move forward if we cannot name that from which we need to move forward?

This is what Jesus does with us. In fact, he did something very similar to this with Peter in John 21, and He did it in two ways. At the end of John, Jesus has risen and he appears to some of the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius.

⁹ When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.

That little detail about the fire is important: “they saw a charcoal fire in place.” Many have argued that the detail about charcoal is included because charcoal was invented by the Romans to keep their soldiers warm. Therefore, when Peter was sitting around the fire and denied Jesus earlier in John’s gospel he would have likely been sitting around a charcoal fire. In other words, Jesus is recreating the sight and smells of the moment of Peter’s denial, a fact that would not have been lost on Peter. Jesus is taking Peter back to his moment of sin so that Peter can definitively move past it into the offered grace of God. And then, in the way that Jesus offers Peter grace, the same dynamic is at play.

¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶ He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

“Do you love me?”

“Do you love me?”

“Do you love me?”

Three times Jesus asks the question, one for each of Peter’s denials.

The path to grace is the path of confession and repentance. Through the charcoal and the thrice-repeated question Jesus was saying, “I want to forgive you, Peter. I love you. Do you know that you need forgiveness? Do you realize that you need my grace?”

Joseph gives Benjamin five times the food.

Jesus gives Peter three times the question.

Recreating the scene of the crime so that mercy—sweet, sweet mercy—and unmerited grace can come flooding in!

The grace of God! It is offered to us all through the person and work of Jesus Christ: through His perfect life, His substitutionary death on the cross, and His victory over sin, death, and hell on Easter morning!

And it is offered to you, here and now.

Do you see your need for it?

Do you want to receive it?

Then confess, repent, and believe! The grace of God is offered to you!

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10)

 

[1] Shane Clairborne, The Irresistible Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), p.245, fn.1.

[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1997/october6/7tb52a.html

[3] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible. vol. 1 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), p.168-169n12.

[4] Quoted in Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Gen. Eds., R.K. Harrison and Robert L. Hubbard (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), p.549.

[5] Victor Hamilton, p.555.

[6] John H. Walton, Genesis. The NIV Application Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), p.680.