Abraham’s Family · c. 1877 BC
Chapter 14
Joseph’s Brothers
Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.”They came near. He said, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.Now don’t be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
found out that there was grain in . “Why do you keep staring at one another?” he said to his sons. “Look, I’ve heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy us some, so that we can live and not die.”
So ten of ’s brothers set off to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob didn’t let , Joseph’s brother, go with them. He was worried that something bad might happen to him. The sons of came to buy grain along with all the others who were coming, because the famine had reached the land of .
Joseph was the governor over the land, and he was the one selling grain to everyone who lived there. Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down in front of him, with their faces to the ground.
Joseph saw his brothers and knew who they were, but he acted like a stranger to them and spoke roughly. “Where did you come from?” he asked them.
“From the land of Canaan,” they answered, “to buy food.”
Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him.
Joseph remembered the dreams he once had about them. “You are spies!” he told them. “You have come to spy out the weak places in our land.”
“No, my lord,” they said. “We came to buy food. We are all one man’s sons, and we are honest men. We are not spies.”
“No!” he told them. “You have come to see the weak places in our land!”
“We are twelve brothers,” they said, “all sons of one man who lives in Canaan. Our youngest brother is with our father right now, and one is gone.”
“It’s just as I said,” Joseph told them. “You are spies! Now I will put you to the test. I swear by ’s life, you won’t leave here until your youngest brother comes. One of you must go and get him, while the rest of you stay locked up. That will show whether you are telling the truth. If you aren’t, then I swear by Pharaoh’s life, you are spies!”
He put them all together under guard for three days.
Joseph spoke to them on the third day. “Do this, and you will live,” he said, “because I fear God. If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers be held in the prison where you were kept, and the rest of you take grain home to your families, who are going hungry. Bring your youngest brother to me. That will prove that what you say is true, and you won’t die.” So they did as he said.
They said to one another, “We really are guilty of what we did to our brother. We saw how much he was suffering when he begged us to have mercy, but we wouldn’t listen. That is why all this trouble is happening to us.”
answered them, “Didn’t I warn you? I said, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ and you wouldn’t listen. Now we are paying for his death.”
They didn’t know that Joseph could understand them, because he was speaking to them through someone who translated for him. Joseph turned away from them and wept. Then he came back and spoke to them again. He took from among them and had him tied up in front of them.
Then Joseph gave orders for their bags to be filled with grain and for each man’s money to go back into his own sack. They were also to be given food for the trip, and all this was done for them. The brothers loaded the grain on their donkeys and set off.
When they stopped for the night, one of the brothers opened his sack to feed his donkey, and there was his money, sitting at the top of the sack! “My money is back!” he told his brothers. “Look, it’s right here in my sack!” Their hearts sank. Shaking, they turned to one another. “What is this that God has done to us?” they said.
They went home to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan and told him all that had happened. “The man in charge of that land was rough with us,” they said. “He treated us as if we had come to spy on the country. We told him, ‘We are honest men. We aren’t spies. We are twelve brothers, all sons of the same father. One is gone, and our youngest brother is with our father today in Canaan.’ Then the man in charge of the land said to us, ‘Here is how I’ll find out whether you are honest. Leave one of your brothers with me. Then take grain for your hungry families, and go on your way. And bring your youngest brother to me. That will show me you aren’t spies but honest men. Then I’ll give your brother back, and you can trade in the land.’”
As they emptied their sacks, each man found his bundle of money inside his sack! When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.
Their father Jacob said to them, “You are taking my children from me! Joseph is gone, Simeon is gone, and you want to take Benjamin away from me too. Everything is against me!”
Reuben told his father, “If I don’t bring him back to you, you may kill my two sons. Let me take care of him, and I will bring him home to you.”
But Jacob said, “My son is not going down with you. His brother is dead, and only he is left. If any harm comes to him on the road you travel, you will send me, a gray-haired old man, down to in sorrow.”
The famine in the land was terrible. When they had eaten up the grain they had brought out of Egypt, their father told them, “Go down there again and buy us a little more food.”
But told him, “The man gave us a strong warning: ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’ So if you send our brother with us, we’ll go down and buy you food. But if you won’t send him, we won’t go, because the man told us, ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’”
Their father Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly? Why did you tell the man you had another brother?”
They answered, “The man asked us directly about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still alive?’ he asked. ‘Do you have another brother?’ We only answered what he asked. How were we supposed to know he would tell us, ‘Bring your brother down’?”
Judah said to Israel his father, “Let the boy go with me, and we will set off. That way we will live and not die, all of us: we, you, and our little ones. I will take responsibility for him myself. If anything happens to him, blame me. If I don’t bring him back and set him here in front of you, let me bear the blame forever. If we hadn’t waited, we could have gone and come back twice by now.”
Their father Israel told them, “If that’s how it has to be, then do this. Fill your bags with some of the best things that grow in our land, and take the man a present: a little balm, a little honey, spices and myrrh, which are sweet-smelling tree gums, and nuts and almonds. Take double the money with you, and give back the money that turned up in the tops of your sacks. It may have been a mistake.
“Take your brother too. Get up and go back to the man. May make the man show you mercy, so that he gives your other brother and Benjamin back to you. If I lose my children, then I lose them.”
So the men took the gift, and double the money, and Benjamin. They set out and went down to Egypt, and they stood before Joseph.
When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward who ran his house, “Bring these men into the house. Butcher an animal and get it ready, because they are going to have their noon meal with me.” The steward did as Joseph said and brought the men to Joseph’s house.
The men were frightened because they were being taken to Joseph’s house. “We’re being brought here because of the money that was put back in our sacks the first time,” they said. “He wants an excuse to attack us, make us his slaves, and take our donkeys.”
So they went over to Joseph’s steward and spoke to him at the door of the house. “Please, my lord,” they said, “we really did come down here once before to buy food. But that night, when we stopped to rest, we opened our sacks, and every man’s money was right there at the top of his sack, the full amount. We have brought it back with us, along with more money to buy food. We don’t know who put our money in our sacks.”
“Everything is all right,” the steward said. “Don’t be afraid. The treasure in your sacks was a gift to you from your God, the God of your father. I got your money.” And he brought Simeon out to them.
The steward took the men into Joseph’s house and gave them water to wash their feet, and he gave their donkeys feed. They got their gift ready for Joseph’s arrival at noon, because they had heard they were going to eat there.
When Joseph came home, they brought in the gift they were holding and presented it to him, bowing down to the ground before him.
He asked them how they were. Then he said, “How is your father, the old man you told me about? Is he still alive?”
“Our father is well,” they answered. “He is still alive.” And they bowed low before him.
Joseph looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother’s son. “Is this the youngest brother you told me about?” he asked. Then he said, “May God be kind to you, my son.”
Joseph’s heart was so full of love for his brother that he hurried out to find a place to weep. He went into his own room and wept. Then he washed his face and came back out. He kept his feelings under control and said, “Serve the meal.”
Joseph was served on his own, and his brothers on their own. The Egyptians who were eating with him were also served by themselves, because Egyptians would not eat with . To them that was disgusting.
The brothers sat in front of him in order of age, from the oldest to the youngest, and they looked at one another in amazement. Food was brought to them from Joseph’s table, and Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as anyone else’s. So they ate and drank and enjoyed themselves with him.
Joseph gave his steward an order. “Fill the men’s sacks with food, all they can carry, and put each man’s money at the top of his sack. Then put my cup, the silver cup, at the top of the youngest one’s sack, along with the money he paid for grain.” The steward did just what Joseph said.
At first light the men and their donkeys were sent off. They had left the city but had not gone far when Joseph said to his steward, “Quick! Go after the men. When you reach them, say to them, ‘Why have you paid back good with evil? Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from, the one he uses for ? What you have done is evil.’”
When the steward caught up with them, he said all this to them.
“Why do you talk like this, my lord?” they answered. “We would never do such a thing! Look, we brought the money we found inside our sacks all the way back to you from Canaan. Then how could we steal silver or gold out of your master’s house? If any one of us is found with it, let him die, and the rest of us will be your slaves too.”
“All right,” he said, “it will be as you say. Whoever has it will be my slave, but the rest of you won’t be blamed.”
They hurried. Each man set his sack down on the ground and opened it, and the steward searched them, starting with the oldest and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.
At this, they tore their clothes in grief. Then they all loaded their donkeys and went back to the city.
Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there. They fell down on the ground in front of him. Joseph said to them, “What have you done? Don’t you know that someone like me really can use divination?”
“What can we say to you, my lord?” Judah answered. “What can we say? How can we prove we are innocent? God has uncovered our guilt. We are your slaves now, my lord, all of us, and the one who had the cup as well.”
But Joseph said, “I would never do that! The man who was found with the cup will be my slave. As for the rest of you, go home to your father in peace.”
Then Judah came up to Joseph and said, “Please, my lord, let me say a word to you. Don’t be angry with me, because you are like Pharaoh himself.
“My lord, you asked us, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’ We told you, ‘We have an old father, and a young boy who was born to him when he was old. The boy’s brother is dead. Now he is his mother’s only son still living, and his father loves him.’ Then you told us, ‘Bring him down here to me so that I can see him with my own eyes.’ We said, ‘The boy can’t leave his father. His father would die if the boy left him.’ But you told us, ‘If your youngest brother doesn’t come down with you, you will never see my face again.’
“So when we went back home to my father, we told him everything you had said, my lord. Later our father said, ‘Go back and buy us a little food.’ But we said, ‘We can’t go down there. If our youngest brother comes with us, we will go. We won’t be allowed to see the man unless our youngest brother is with us.’
“Then my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife gave me two sons. One of them left me, and I said, “He must have been torn to pieces.” I haven’t seen him since. If you take this one away from me as well, and harm comes to him, you will send me, a gray-haired old man, down to Sheol in sorrow.’
“So now, my father’s life and the boy’s life are tied together. If I go back to him and the boy isn’t with us, he will see that the boy is gone, and he will die. We will be the ones who send our gray-haired father down to Sheol in sorrow.
“I promised my father that I would take responsibility for the boy. I told him that if I didn’t bring the boy back, I would bear the blame before my father forever. So please, let me stay here as your slave, my lord, in the boy’s place, and let the boy go home with his brothers. How can I go home to my father without the boy? I couldn’t stand to see the misery that would fall on my father.”
Joseph could no longer control himself in front of all the people standing around him, and he cried out, “Send everyone out!” So when Joseph let his brothers know who he was, there was no one else with him. He wept out loud. The Egyptians heard him, and so did Pharaoh’s household.
“I am Joseph!” he told his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” His brothers were so terrified at the sight of him that they couldn’t answer.
“Please, come close to me,” Joseph said to his brothers. When they had come close, he said, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But don’t be upset now, and don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here. God sent me on ahead of you to save people’s lives.
“The famine has been in the land for two years now, and for five more years there will be no plowing or harvest. God sent me on ahead of you to make sure some of you would be left alive on the earth, and to keep you alive by a great rescue. So it wasn’t you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me like a father to Pharaoh, master of his whole household, and ruler of all the land of Egypt.
“Now hurry, go home to my father and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t wait. You will live near me in the land of : you, your children, and their children too, with your flocks, your herds, and everything that is yours. I will take care of you there, because there are still five years of famine to come. Otherwise you and your household would lose everything you have.’
“Look, you can see it with your own eyes, and so can my brother Benjamin: I am the one speaking to you. Tell my father how much honor I have been given in Egypt, and about all that you have seen. Then hurry and bring my father down here.”
He hugged his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck too. He kissed all his brothers and wept as he held them. After that his brothers talked with him.
The news reached Pharaoh’s palace: “Joseph’s brothers have come!” This pleased Pharaoh and his officials. Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers, ‘Do this: load your animals and travel to the land of Canaan. Bring your father and your families, and come to me. I will give you the good things of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the best the land produces.’
“Tell them this too: ‘Take some wagons from Egypt to carry your little ones and your wives, and bring your father, and come. Don’t worry about your belongings, because everything good in the whole land of Egypt is yours.’”
The sons of Israel did as they were told. Joseph gave them wagons, just as Pharaoh had commanded, and food for the trip. Every one of them got new clothes, but Benjamin got three hundred pieces of silver and five sets of clothes.
He sent his father ten donkeys carrying the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and supplies for his father’s journey. Then he sent his brothers off, and they left. He told them, “Make sure you don’t argue on the way!”
So they left Egypt and traveled home to Canaan, to their father Jacob. They told him, “Joseph is still alive! He is the ruler of all the land of Egypt!” Jacob’s heart went numb, because he didn’t believe them.
They repeated to him every word Joseph had spoken to them. Then he saw the wagons that had come from Joseph to carry him, and their father Jacob’s spirit came back to life. “That’s enough for me!” said Israel. “Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”