Genesis 42--Joseph's Brothers Go to Egypt

Joseph's Brothers Go to Egypt
42 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?”
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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.”

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Last time, we left Joseph as the governor of Egypt (or something similar as he Pharaoh was greater than him only in the throne).  Whatever Joseph said was what was done as the people of Egypt needed the wisdom that God had given to him in order to survive the coming famine.

We are now transported back to the land of Canaan to check-in on Joseph's family--you know the brothers that wanted to kill him, but instead sold him into slavery so they could make something off of him, and told their father that his most beloved son was dead, and a father that has been grieving ever since--at least, until his last son, Benjamin was born, as he sees Benjamin as some sort of way to have a second-chance.  When he sees Benjamin, he sees Joseph as Benjamin was Joseph's only full brother (all the other brothers were half-siblings of Joseph and Benjamin from 3 other women).

The famine is so severe that it has reached Canaan and it seems that Jacob's sons are wallowing in self-pity staring at each other instead of doing anything productive, and old-man Jacob tells them to get up and go to Egypt to buy grain because he's heard they have an abundant supply there and may be willing to sell some of it to the Israelites.

Jacob does not send Benjamin with them because he no longer trusts them to take care of his beloved son.  Maybe in all these years Jacob has gotten some feeling that the older brothers were responsible for what happened to Joseph.

Joseph somehow recognizes his brothers after all these years, and remembers the dreams that God had given him as a child.  Surely this was the fulfillment of his first dream where his older brothers would bow down before him, and God had even made the dream about them gathering grain and their sheaves of grain bowing down before Joseph's sheave.  But wasn't there another dream where there the sun, the moon, and ELEVEN stars bowed down before Joseph?  Joseph still hasn't been able to figure this dream out until his brothers tell him about Benjamin, the brother that Joseph never knew about.  Joseph knows that he must bring Jacob, Leah, and all of the other brothers down to Egypt.

Notice he skips over the oldest brother Reuben when deciding who to put into jail, probably because Reuben tried to save his life, and goes to the next-oldest brother, Simeon.  Joseph may not have even been aware of this part of the story until they confessed right in front of him in Hebrew, assuming that he couldn't understand as he had been speaking in Egyptian and using a translator the whole time, but he hears the whole thing and realized that Reuben always wanted to come back and save him and was not responsible for what happened.  He decides to hold one of the brothers hostage while he sends nine of them back with grain and with the money that had brought to buy the grain, which makes them appear to be thieves.  He said he would not release Simeon until they came back with their brother Benjamin, for he longed to see the brother he had never seen, and we'll see later that he even tried to use some trickery to make Benjamin stay with him in Egypt later.

Jacob is distressed at hearing that Simeon is gone and that the governor of Egypt thinks them to be spies (a crime that would likely be a capital punishment) and thinks that both Joseph and Simeon are dead and now the governor wants to take Benjamin too?  This is too much for the old man's heart and he would rather he and his family starve and let Simeon rot in prison then ever let his son Benjamin out of his sight--that is, until the famine gets so bad that he has no option other than to go back to Egypt to try to buy food again and his sons remind him they can't go back without Benjamin.  We'll see that next time.