JOSEPH did not wait till his brothers knew him again before he was very kind to them, as you see in reading this chapter and the two next; and yet the more he did for them the more they seem to have been afraid of him! His kindness to them appears to have been a greater trouble to them than even the things in which he seemed unkind. He “spake roughly” to them, called them “spies,” put them all in prison for three days, and kept Simeon even when he let the rest go. And yet we do not read that all of it together upset them so much as finding their money put back into their sacks. The truth is they did not know who it was that had been acting so towards them. He was “the lord of the land”―a man who had not been over kind to them when they were there; so that all about the prison and Simeon seemed a good deal more like him than giving them corn, “as much as they could carry,” and taking no money for it. They saw he was a man who could do pretty much as he chose, and knew it was not a bit of use thinking to get any corn from him next time, unless they did as he told them, and took Benjamin with them; but that a man like the lord of Egypt should really, mean to do them a kindness they could not make out. Indeed, they did not believe it; they thought there must be some mistake, as Jacob says, in ch. 43:12―perhaps it was “an oversight,” something done that was not meant to be done. But it was not so at all. Read verse 25 of this chapter (42), and you will see it was all done because Joseph told them to do it. They were to “fill the sacks” that was what they came for; and put all the money back―that was what they brought; and give them plenty to eat for all the way―that was what they neither brought nor bought, nor thought of. But nothing less would satisfy Joseph. They thought he took them “for spies,” but he did not; he knew right well who every one of them was, and, if they had put him into a pit wherein was no water, he would not let them go home with sacks wherein was no corn!
And yet, when all this was before their eyes, “they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us?” How different to this is what we read in 1 John 4:16: “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” This is what people say who have been brought to know God Himself as their Father, and Jesus Christ, whom He sent (John 17:33And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)). They not only know His kindness shown in what He does, as Joseph’s brothers knew what it was to have heaps of corn for nothing, but they know Himself, what He is. And He is love, as this same verse tells us. We say, He loves us; so that, instead of being frightened, and saying, “What is this that God has done unto us?” we are very glad and thankful, and say, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!” We know what it is that has been done, and who it is that has done it, and it makes us glad forever. Jacob and his sons “saw the bundles of money, and they were afraid;” we believe and know God’s love to us, and rejoice and praise Him. What a difference!
There is more about their fear in the next chapter, but that I must leave till next month, when I will say something more to you, if the Lord will.
W. TY.