Gen. 42:21-2421And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. 22And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required. 23And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter. 24And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. (Genesis 42:21‑24)
“And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” v. 21. Conscience in Joseph’s guilty brethren, though it had slumbered long had not ceased to exist and was now awakened to search their souls. The brothers were not long in determining why they were in such deep trouble. “Therefore is this distress come upon us,” they declare. God was dealing with them and they were fearfully aware of it, although not yet ready to bow before Him in full submission. “And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.”
Reuben, who originally thought to rescue Joseph from the pit, recalls to them their wicked deed and his remonstrance. “Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required.” v. 22. Their confessions were made in the presence of Joseph but they were unaware that he understood as he spoke only through an interpreter. The natural compassion of his heart compelled him to turn from them and weep. Those were tears of gratitude to him who had watched over all his sufferings and dangers. Now too he could see God’s working not only to humble and bless his brethren but to cheer his father’s heart, both by his own restoration to him as one from the grave, and as to his other sons who had been so little a comfort and so often a shame. How quickly his heart would forgive when the proper moment arrived.
Their distress must deepen yet, for God does not spare the flesh; bud the profit would be all the greater at last. No chastening seems to be of joy but of grief; but the end fs worthy of God. Joseph’s way with his brethren was a demonstration of true love which as yet could not permit the display of any emotion or affection until repentance had wrought its full work.
Their sin against Joseph as well as their father, their sin against God too, after being hid for some twenty years, had now begun to be brought home to them. God would not work the grief of the world unto death, but according to His goodness repentance unto salvation, that the truth they had heard from their father might no longer be a mere theory but a living reality, as it was in Joseph’s soul. How their confusion must have touched his loving heart as he heard them acknowledge the sin of their heartless turning away from his agony when he sought them as his brethren in vain — first in leaving him to perish, and next in selling him as a slave.
We learn then for the first time from these verses of the anguish of Joseph when his brethren dealt so cruelty with him at Dothan.
Joseph soon rose above his emotion and returned to them, and bore their eyes he bound Simeon (not Reuben). Reuben had pleaded on his younger brother’s behalf when he was in the pit, and though he was the oldest brother and thus the one principally responsible for their actions, nevertheless he is spared. Simeon was known for his cruelty and doubtless God was over Joseph’s decision to select him from among his brethren for his confinement.
ML 07/23/1967