Transformation in Egypt

Transformation in Egypt

Genesis 44:1-34

During the two decades that began with Joseph’s brothers selling him into Egypt, God wasn’t only with Joseph, as chapter 39 so insistently repeats, but was also with his brothers, though in a very different way. God never gave their consciences rest.

When at the end of those two decades the brothers traveled to Egypt for their encounters with Joseph, we see that God was with Joseph in his handling of his brothers and with them as they came to terms with their guilt.

During their first visit, God graced the brothers with guilt, fear, and sorrow. I say graced because they knew they were guilty, their fear was a godly fear, and they mourned over the effects of their sin.

Then, during the first day of their second visit to Egypt, the brothers experienced an unexpected shower of mercy as Joseph’s steward greeted them with peace/shalom, assured them that the money in their bags was from God, and released Simeon to them.

Unknown to them, mercy had so welled up in Joseph’s soul for his brother Benjamin that he retired to his room and wept. God was effectively with both Joseph and his brothers in their encounters.

Now, we’ll witness a life-altering transformation of the brothers that will variously involve conscience, repentance, enlarged sympathies, intercession, sacrifice, and substitution—all wrapped in a growing brotherly love that speaks of Christ.

Under God’s direction, Joseph’s method was to reintroduce the temptation his brothers gave into when they sold him into slavery. The temptation was both a test and a path to transformation.

This story, which has so many parallels to our own existence, is most powerful when we allow the events to speak for themselves as we follow the story line.

Joseph Frames His Brothers

The brothers had eaten and drunk to excess. So, while they were sleeping off their merriment, Joseph and his steward set them up.

Genesis 44:1–2 ESV

Then he commanded the steward of his house, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph told him.

A silver cup was, of course, valuable. But its use here involved Joseph’s personal recollection that his brothers had sold him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver, so that “now he harasses and tests them with silver” (Sarna). This shows how carefully calculated Joseph was.

With the rising of the sun, the groggy brothers rose, saddled their donkeys, and set off for Canaan. How relieved and happy they must have been as they reminisced over the day and the party of all parties. And now they had bulging sacks of grain plus their brother Simeon and young Benjamin.

Soon the pagan pyramids would be far behind them. But the brothers didn’t make it far out of the city when Joseph ordered his steward to form a posse to pursue the brothers and deliver a precisely worded accusation.

Joseph’s steward coolly carried out his orders, and when he caught up to the happy group, he repeated the accusation word for wordStunned, and instantly indignant, the brothers shot back:

Genesis 44:7–8 ESV

They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house?

Excellent logic. Do thieves voluntarily return valuables only to steal again? Come on, Mr. Steward! The brothers were so certain of their innocence that they volunteered an extreme punishment on themselves:

Genesis 44:9 ESV

Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants.”

The steward, ever so cool, agreed, likely with an inner smile:

Genesis 44:10 ESV

He said, “Let it be as you say: he who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.”

In this he was kind and reasonable. No death—only slavery—and that for the guilty man alone. Was he mocking them with his reasonableness? Actually, Joseph was interested in one man, Benjamin, and in what choices his brothers would make over him.

So, the search proceeded with the imperturbable steward calmly overseeing it, as if he had no idea of what was about to happen. The brothers’ swift compliance conveyed confident annoyance.

Genesis 44:11–12 ESV

Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.

Reuben’s bag was opened first, and the steward found nothing. Reuben drew himself up in glowering indignation and crossed his arms. The ex-con Simeon’s bag was opened next with the same result, and then Levi’s, and then Judah’s. Take that, Mr. Steward!Then followed the sons of concubinage Dan and Naphtali and Gad and Asher. Again, no silver cup.

All eight stood frowning righteously. Next, Issachar and Zebulun passed the test. Likely, the brothers had begun to smile and to murmur about the steward, hardly paying attention to Benjamin’s bag check. But in a horrifying moment the steward lifted the gleaming object out of the grain and held the silver cup triumphantly as it flashed in the morning sun.

No words are recorded, but the brothers’ actions tell all:

Genesis 44:13 ESV

Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

Wenham remarks, “When Joseph disappeared, it was only Jacob who tore his clothes; now all the brothers do, the first sign of fraternal solidarity.” Something new was taking place. They were changing.

What would they do now? Would they surrender Benjamin and save themselves? No; they would not abandon their father’s favorite son. They were not the same men who once so casually sold their brother into Egypt. So, the brothers tore their clothes and went back weeping to the house from which they had just departed rejoicing.

Joseph Indicts His Brothers

It was still early morning. Joseph had not yet left his home to do business in the marketplace.

Genesis 44:14 ESV

When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground.

This was an act of abject, groveling submission. Again, this is a very subtle touch. Joseph had dreamed that the brothers would bow before him. The bows of Joseph’s brothers demonstrated the fulfillment of Joseph’s dream. “The dream is happening. The future is at work toward life. But in their fearfulness, the brothers do not notice it” (Brueggemann).

With his brothers groveling before him, Joseph maintained his stern pagan persona:

Genesis 44:15 ESV

Joseph said to them, “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?”

As to whether Joseph practiced divination with his cup, the text isn’t clear. Divination was forbidden later in Israel as a pagan custom. It’s also referenced in a declaration of judgment upon Egypt in Isaiah. More than likely, Joseph wasn’t into reading tea leaves!

But here, as Joseph represented himself as a pagan ruler with divine powers, the brothers didn’t doubt him. They were in an impossible situation. There was absolutely nothing they could do. And it was in this despair that Judah stepped up.

Genesis 44:16 ESV

And Judah said, “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.”

In frustration Judah repeated himself: “What shall we say … What shall we speak?” There was no way they could clear Benjamin. But in the heat of the moment, Judah confessed their great long-standing guilt, “God has found out the guilt of your servants.”

As Judah admitted their guilt, he understood that it was not the viceroy who uncovered it but God! Though innocent of stealing the cup, they were still guilty!

It was God who was assaulting them at their most vulnerable point—Benjamin, the one their father had entrusted to them with so many misgivings, all of which were due to their sins against Joseph. So, in Judah’s declaration of guilt they all accepted that God had uncovered their sin. And since they had all offended together, they committed themselves to suffer together, “We are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.”

Joseph heard it all but with remarkable restraint maintained himself as he added a painful twist:

Genesis 44:17 ESV

But he said, “Far be it from me that I should do so! Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father.”

Everything rested on what they would do with Benjamin. Joseph would punish only Benjamin! The reconstruction of the original situation of the favored brother had been achieved. Joseph had restored the original grouping of the earlier betrayal.

The conditions were all perfect for a second betrayal, but at a more enticing price than twenty pieces of silver. The bait was their freedom. For men who had valued their own well-being above all else, the temptation to walk away was awfully tempting.

Judah’s Intercession

At this point, Judah stepped forward and at great personal risk asked if he could speak.

Genesis 44:18 ESV

Then Judah went up to him and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.

Judah passionately pleaded for Benjamin’s freedom, first by reciting the history behind Benjamin’s presence in Egypt, and then predicting what would happen if Benjamin wasn’t allowed to return home.

Basically, Judah presented the whole story in a nutshell, which made it possible for the viceroy (and for us) to reflect on the narrative as a whole.

In retrospect, he argued that Benjamin’s presence in Egypt was due to the viceroy’s persistent questioning and insistence.

Genesis 44:19–23 ESV

My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.’

Judah meant to respectfully implicate the viceroy. He called the ruler’s integrity and fair play into question. Next, having implicated the viceroy, Judah recounted his father’s fear of losing Benjamin.

Genesis 44:25–29 ESV

And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’

As Joseph listened, he gained vital information.

For the very first time he learned what had happened at home twenty years ago when his brothers returned without him. He learned of his father’s heartbroken cry, “Surely he has been torn to pieces” and that it still echoed in Judah’s and his brothers’ minds.

Joseph also learned that Judah and his brothers now spoke differently about the favoritism shown to Rachel and her two sons, because Judah mentioned his father’s favoritism for Joseph and now for Benjamin as a reason for Joseph to let Benjamin go.

Judah’s quoting his father as saying, “You know that my wife bore me two sons” could be taken as a delegitimization of himself and his other brothers. But Judah and his brothers had come to terms with Jacob’s favoritism.

Beyond that, they simply couldn’t bear the thought of their father’s misery. That the sons of the hated wife Leah had come to terms with their father’s special love for Rachel and her two boys was amazing.

That Benjamin, the second of these children, should now be loved by the other brothers was astounding. And that Judah could speak of his father’s favoritism of Benjamin as the reason for freeing Benjamin meant that a transformation had taken place in him.

As surely as Judah’s words gripped Joseph’s heart, Judah’s view (about what would happen to Jacob if Benjamin wasn’t released) cut Joseph like a knife.

Genesis 44:30–32 ESV

“Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’

Judah quoted their father’s own words, but along with his brothers he assumed the responsibility should his father’s gray head go down to Sheol in sorrow. By making the old man’s cry their own, we see that there had been a change in the brothers’ hearts.

Transformation had happened in Egypt.

The brothers had repented of their sin against Joseph. They had forgiven the unfair favoritism of their father. They so loved their father and his favorite son that they wouldn’t abandon Benjamin though the cost was immense.

The transformation was astounding.

These men had committed abominations. ‘

· Simeon and Levi, had conceived and executed the horrific deception and genocide of the Shechemites.

· Reuben had committed incest with his father’s wife.

· Judah got Tamar, the wife of his deceased son, pregnant, thinking she was a Canaanite prostitute.

How remarkable this transformation was!

Judah’s Substitution

But there was more because Judah’s intercession culminated in sacrificial substitution as Judah stepped out of the brotherly circle and spoke for himself:

Genesis 44:33–34 ESV

Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”

Judah had been transformed by the love of God.

Judah’s personal transformation was extraordinary. Though his name means “praise,” his early life had been anything but that. He fully participated in the near murder and sale of his brother into Egypt. His sexual behavior with Tamar became an infamy.

But God was at work in his life in ways both observable and hidden. Judah’s humiliation became the ground for a deep work of God. Here we see him as a man with great force of character. And ultimately his father Jacob saw Judah as the bearer of the line when he prophesied:

Genesis 49:10 ESV

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

As God would have it, Judah’s willingness to suffer as a substitute for his brother foreshadowed the substitutionary atonement of His Son, Christ Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

We must never underestimate the transforming grace of God.

Just as God was with Joseph and his brothers across those two almost silent decades, so He is with all his children. Transformation is connected with the gospel.

The New Testament calls us to commit ourselves to transformation.

Romans 12:1–2 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So, just as Judah and his brothers came to see that God was caring for them all the way along, so must we. God has always been, and still is, about the utter transformation of his people.