WHEN Judah and his brothers reached Joseph’s house, they found him still there, and they fell before him on the ground. Now they were passing through keen sorrow. Perhaps Joseph was testing them to see if they really had affection for their father and for Benjamin. He said to them, What is this that you have done? Judah, who had promised to be surety for Benjamin, was the ono who spoke. He said, What shall we say unto my lord? What shall we speak? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found. Joseph said, No, the man in whose hand the cup was found should be his slave, and the rest should go back to their father.
Then Judah came near to Joseph, for he was in great trouble and sorrow about Benjamin; and he said, Oh, my lord let thy servant speak a word in my lord’s ears; he then asked him not to be angry, and he recounted his promise to his father to take Benjamin safely back and that if he did not take him to him, he would bear the blame forever. He said his father’s life was bound up in the lad’s life, and if he did not take Benjamin back, his father would die. Judah then pleaded to be allowed to be the slave instead of Benjamin, and let him go back with the others. For he said how could he go to his father and not have the lad with him, and see the sorrow that should come upon his father.
Joseph’s heart was touched to the depths; he, could hide his feelings no longer. He cried to cause every man to go out from him. When he was left alone with his brothers he made himself known to them. And he wept aloud, so that those in Pharaoh’s house heard him. And he said to his brothers, I AM JOSEPH. When they heard this, instead of being full of joy, they were greatly troubled. They had been feeling their guilt towards their brother, and they felt that God was dealing with them for it, and now to learn suddenly that this great one before whom they stood was the very brother they had thought to kill, did not bring comfort to them. But oh! how tenderly and graciously Joseph spoke. He told them to come near to him; and they came near. Then he said, “I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me, hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
Was it not most beautiful, the way that Joseph spoke, dear children? Ponder it well. Think of the grace in his heart towards his brothers, after all their unkindness to him; and notice how instead of throwing blame upon them, he traces God’s hand for good in all he had been passing through. It was not they, it was God who had sent him there.
Would that we could all thus recognize the hand of God as controlling all things; and that the very things, which may seem to be against us, are but being made to work out God’s great purposes of love toward us.
When Joseph had thus spoken he made mention of his father, telling them to hasten back and bring his father down to him; they must not tarry; they were all to come with their children, and children’s children, and their flocks and their herds, and dwell near Joseph, and he would nourish them, for there were yet five years of famine to come, and poverty would overtake them if they were not cared for. And they were to tell their father that God had made his son Joseph, lord of all Egypt. And they were to tell him of all the glory he had in Egypt, and of all they had seen. Then again he bade them haste to bring his father down to him.
When he was through speaking he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck; then Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept. After that they talked with him. I suppose their hearts were assured at last.
What a lovely scene it is! And what tenderness, and grace on the part of Joseph toward his erring brothers. May our hearts ponder it well, and may we profit by it!
ML 04/06/1902