Joseph’s heart was full; he could not wait any longer to tell his brothers who he was and so he called out for everyone to go out but themselves. When the place was empty, Joseph began to weep, and not quietly either, for the people outside heard him, and he said, “I am Joseph. Does my father still live?” He was happy, but his brothers were just the opposite, they were terrified and could not speak to him. This news was far worse, they thought, that Simeon’s being made a prisoner while they were away before, or threatening to keep Benjamin for a slave. Would Joseph kill them all, now that they were in his hands?
“Come near to me,” said Joseph, and they came near. This is what the Lord wants with each one of us—to draw near to Him. He is not saying now, “Depart from Me.” He will say that when it is too late for you to come to Him, but now He is saying, just like Joseph, “Come near to Me.”
Joseph’s brothers obeyed him. Have you obeyed the call of the Lord Jesus? They came near, and Joseph said, “I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.” There had been two years of famine in the whole land, and there were to be five more.
Joseph was the one who was able to meet all their needs, just like the Lord Jesus for us. There is a famine in this world, for there is nothing here that can satisfy us; the Lord Jesus alone can fill our hearts, and fully satisfy us.
Joseph also told them that God had made him a father to Pharaoh, and lord of his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. He told them to hurry back to his father, and tell him what his son Joseph had said, and how that God had made him lord of all Egypt, and that he should come to him without delay, and they and their children should live in the land of Goshen near him, and he would take care of them there.
He fell on Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck; he kissed all his brothers, and wept on them, and after that his brothers talked with him.
This gives us a beautiful lesson of how the Lord wants us to do with Him. He wants us to talk with Him in prayer, seeing He has so fully expressed His love upon us.
“Perfect love casteth out fear,” and that love is love of the Lord Jesus. The glad news reached Pharaoh, and he said, as Joseph had, that the brothers should bring down their father and all their families, and make their homes in Egypt.
When the brothers left, they took wagons for the children, and the mothers, and Jacob to ride back in. New suits of clothes for each brother, and five suits for Benjamin, who received three hundred pieces of silver, too. Ten donkeys carried the good things of Egypt, and ten more were loaded with grain and bread and meat for Jacob and the others to eat on the way down from Canaan.
Joseph gave his brothers good advice when he said as they left. “See that ye fall not out by the way.” Brothers and sisters too, are apt to get cross with one another very easily.
When they reached Jacob and told him about Joseph, he couldn’t believe it, and was quite overcome, but when they told him all that Joseph had said, and he saw the wagons, he revived, and he said, “It is enough: Joseph my son is yet alive: will go and see him before I die!’
Thus Joseph’s dreams were fulfilled, and he was a type of the Lord Jesus who will vet reign over this whole earth; and His brethren, the Jews, will be restored to Him, and bow before Him, as well as other people.