Genesis 44:1-34
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, 2 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.
3 As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. 4 They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now Joseph said to his steward, “Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? 5 Is it not from this that my lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this.’”
6 When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. 7 They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! 8 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? 9 Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants.” 10 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.” 11 Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. 12 And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. 13 Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city. [1]
We like to measure the quality of our lives by our achievements. If you are in the military, you can measure your achievements by your rank, your specialties, and your service meddles. If you’re in business you can measure by your title, your income, the number of people you oversee, how many important clients you have. If you are a parent, you measure the quality of your life by your children’s and grandchildren’s achievements. Even as Christians, we tend to measure our spiritual lives by all the sins we haven’t committed, or by how many good deeds we’ve done and are doing, or by the frequency and length of our quiet times.
We think our successes, earned by our natural abilities and the sweat of our brows, are the great things God must use and recognize – no matter how we achieve them. But in God’s upside-down kingdom, it’s rarely our self-defined successes that God applauds. He uses our greatest failures and humiliations as beginnings of his great works in and through us. So wrote the apostle Paul to the proud and self-satisfied church at Corinth. Speaking of his begging God to take away the spiritual harassment tormenting him, he wrote God answered him:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. [2]
God’s office is just past the end of your rope. Such was the case for the Jacob Family as Joseph their savior continued to show them their sins with one last painful plan for their lives. In the 20 years that began when Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery, God was with Joseph as chapter 39 repeatedly told us. But God has also been with the rest of Jacob/Israel’s family. God has been working the sore nerves of the ten older brothers’ guilt and exposing Jacob/Israel’s idolatry. Now, more guilt and pain and fear come in our chapter this morning.
During their first visit in chapter 42, God used Joseph to shake the brothers to their core. They confessed their guilt to one another, recognized the hand of God at work, and mourned over the consequences of their sins. Then, upon their arrival back in Egypt, they experienced a flood of mercy and peace as Joseph’s chief steward greeted them in the name of Elohim and assured them of their shalom in the vizier’s household. He told them the money in their bags had been a gift from God (through Joseph) and released Simeon to them. Joseph appeared, wished them shalom, and feasted with them from noon until evening. Mercy and peace covered them all.
- Kent Hughes introduces our chapter this way:
Now, as we take up chapter 44, we will 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 reconstitute the temptation to which the brothers succumbed when they sold him into slavery. The temptation was at once a test and a path to transformation.[3]
THE SET-UP (1-13)
The brothers were deep in a food and wine coma when Joseph and his chief stew executed their set-up for the testing to come:
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, 2 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.
Joseph recalls how he was sold for twenty silver pieces, so he picks a silver drinking cup as the basis for his test. This subtle nuance gives us an idea of how carefully the vizier plotted this final test. The brothers didn’t appear jealous of Benjamin receiving five-fold portions of food and drink, but would they sell him out over silver as they had done Joseph?
When the brothers arose, they saddled up their pack animals and set out for Canaan. They were probably a little sluggish, but nevertheless relieved and happy their transaction with “the man” had been full of such mercy and peace and hospitality. What they didn’t know as they left was that the entire feast was part of the set-up to the trap. Joseph had gone out of his way to treat them as honored guests so their shame would be even greater when his silver cup was found. They were leaving with bulging sacks of grain, their brother Simeon, and young Benjamin – a more successful outcome than they could have ever imagined. Soon, their families would be fed again. Soon, their father would have beloved Benjamin with him again.
But they did not get far out of the city before Joseph sent out a posse led by his chief stew to stop them and deliver a precisely-worded message. When the steward caught up to the group, he delivered Joseph’s message word for word. “…Joseph said to his steward, “Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? 5 Is it not from this that my lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this.’” The brothers were stunned and indignant. They confidently shot back, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! 8 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?”
Their defense was perfectly logical. If they were thieves, would they have returned the money they found in their sacks upon their last journey home? They were confident in their circumstances. So certain were they of their innocence, they voluntarily called down their own extreme punishment if such a thing could be proved. “9 Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants.” Overly confident in their presumed circumstances rather than in their God, they unwittingly sentence Benjamin to death and each other to slavery in Egypt.
Joseph’s chief stew must have heard their rash self-sentencing with an inner smile. “10 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.’” He modifies their proposal in two ways. First, the thief himself should not be killed, but enslaved. Second, the rest of the brothers should not be enslaved, but freed.[4] It is ironic that the accused suggest a severer penalty and the accuser suggests a lighter penalty. Egyptian law allowed both witnesses and the accused to propose their own punishment in the form of an oath. If the steward did not change the proposed punishment, Benjamin would be condemned to death and the brothers would be enslaved. The brothers unwittingly receive mercy and grace from their savior, Joseph.
So, the plan proceeded, overseen by the faithful and inscrutable chief stew. The brothers’ quick compliance demonstrated their confidence in their circumstances. “11 Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. 12 And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest.” This is the second time the brothers were arranged according to age, the first being at the feast. Reuben’s bag was opened first, and the steward found nothing. Reuben probably drew himself up in gloating 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. They all smirk at one another in quiet indignation. Then followed the sons of concubines Dan and Naphtali and Gad and Asher. Again, no silver cup. All eight stood frowning righteously. Next, Issachar and Zebulun passed the test. Imagine the ten brothers smiling and murmuring about the steward, hardly paying attention to Benjamin’s bag check. But in a horrifying moment the steward lifted the cup out of the grain.
Moses records no words the brothers spoke in that horrifying instant, but their actions speak volumes: “13 Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.” When Joseph disappeared, only Jacob/Israel tore his clothes. But now, in brotherly solidarity, all the brothers tear their garments in grief. This is the first sign of fraternal unity among Israel’s children. Something new was happening. These men were changing. Would they surrender Benjamin and go back home? No, as it turned out, they would not abandon their father’s favorite son. They all returned to same house weeping from which they had earlier left rejoicing.
JOSEPH CHARGES HIS BROTHERS (14-17)
Being still early in the morning, Joseph had not yet left his palace when the brothers and the posse arrived back. “14 When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, he was still there.” The emphasis in this verse is on Judah, the default leader of the brothers (the verb “reached” is singular, not pleural). In an act of abject, groveling submission, “They fell before him to the ground” (14b). This is the third time they bowed before their brother (42:6; 43:28; 44:14). This time they bow not as sheaves of grain seeking provision, but as stars before the powerful ruler. The brothers take no notice of their actions as fulfilment of young Joseph’s dream since they do not know this is Joseph. He has made sure they believe he’s Egyptian by telling them his silver cup is used for communicating with the pagan demon-gods.
With his eleven brothers groveling before him, the vizier maintains his stern appearance. “15 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?’” Now the brothers have a plausible explanation for how the vizier knew their ages and arranged them accordingly at his feast. Joseph likely didn’t practice divination since he has had such a clear testimony of the One True God and gave his sons Hebrew names. Divination was forbidden later in Israel as a pagan custom (Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 18:10). It is also referenced in a declaration of judgment upon Egypt (Isaiah19:3). “Likely, Joseph was not into reading tea leaves!”[5]
But here, as Joseph represented himself to be an imperious pagan ruler with divine powers, the brothers did not doubt his powers. They were in an impossible fix. There was absolutely nothing they could do. And it was in their despair that Judah stepped up again. “16 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….’” Judah says nothing this time about the execution of the actual thief. One is guilty, but all are liable, says Judah. Their willingness to become enslaved to Joseph apparently means they are prepared not to see Jacob/Israel again.[6]
As Judah admitted their guilt, he understood that it was not the vizier who uncovered it but God. They were innocent of stealing the cup, but they were guilty – very guilty. It was God who was assaulting them at their most vulnerable point – Benjamin. He was the one whom their father had entrusted to them with so many misgivings, all of which were due to their sins against Joseph. So, through 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, “…behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.’”
Joseph maintained his cool regal exterior as he added an excruciating twist:
17 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.”
Joseph’s plan rested on what the brothers would do about Benjamin. Joseph would only enslave Benjamin. The brothers were perfectly free to leave daddy’s favorite enslaved in Egypt and return to with all the food and all the money. Joseph had set the perfect conditions for another betrayal, but at a far more enticing price than twenty pieces of silver. The lure was their freedom. These were brothers who had repeatedly valued their own well-being above all else. The temptation to walk away must surely have crossed their minds, shimmering like a giant flashing “Exit” sign.
JUDAH INTERCEDES (18-32)
At great personal risk, Judah stepped up and begged permission from the vizier to speak. “18 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.” Joseph, having not cut him off, gives Judah tacit permission to speak. Judah fervently advocated for Benjamin’s freedom, first by reciting the history behind Benjamin’s presence in Egypt. And then, second, predicting what would happen if Benjamin were not allowed to return home. Judah was passionate and eloquent, giving the whole story in a nutshell and making it possible for the vizier (and the readers) to reflect on the entire story as a whole. Judah must have presented it with a heartfelt passion and guilt. He argued that Benjamin’s presence was only due to the vizier’s personal questions and his insistence that they bring Benjamin:
19 My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ 20 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.’ 21 Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ 22 We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ 23 Then you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.’ 24 “When we went back to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.
Judah quotes Joseph addressing the brothers three times (vv. 19, 21, 23). Three times Judah quotes the brothers, twice speaking to Joseph (vv. 20, 22) and once to their father (v. 26). Twice he quotes Jacob speaking to his sons (vv. 25, 27–29).[7]
Sprinkled freely throughout these verses is the word servant(s). It occurs ten times, twice again in the second section (v. 33). Judah is careful to follow protocol in identifying himself, his brothers, and even his father, when addressing a superior. Also, he is careful to address Joseph in a way becoming the latter’s high standing in Egyptian society. Six times (vv. 18 [twice], 19, 20, 22, 24), and once again in v. 33, Judah addresses him as “my lord.” One other repeated word in Judah’s speech is father. Judah uses it thirteen times in vv. 18–32, and two times in v. 34. Its repeated use is perhaps Judah’s way of persuading Joseph to be concerned about Jacob/Israel’s needs and fears.[8]
Judah wants to subtly implicate the vizier. He calls Joseph’s motives and fairness into question. Next, he appeals to the “poor old man” defense by mentioning his father, Jacob/Israel:
25 And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ 26 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.’ 27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. 28 One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. 29 If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’
For the first time Joseph learned what had happened at home twenty years earlier when his brothers returned without him. He heard of his father’s heartbroken cry – “Surely he has been torn to pieces” – and that Israel’s cry still haunted Judah and his brothers’ consciences. Judah had no idea how heartrending this revelation would be to Joseph. Joseph also learned that Judah and his brothers now spoke differently about the favoritism shown to Rachel and her two sons since Judah cited his father’s favoritism for Joseph and now for Benjamin as a reason for Joseph to let Benjamin go.
Judah and his brothers had accepted their lot in life as those unfavored by their father. Yet, they could not bear the thought of their father’s grieving misery. The amazing thing is the sons of the “less-loved wife,” Leah, had come to terms with their position as “less than” sons of Jacob/Israel. That Benjamin, the second son of Rachel, should receive the loyalty love of his ten older brothers was astonishing. The fact that Judah could refer to his father’s idolatrous favoritism of Benjamin as the reason for freeing Benjamin meant that Judah’s soul had been radically transformed by the work of Joseph the savior’s plan given him through God’s loyalty love to Abraham’s Seed.
Unknowingly, Judah’s defense penetrated Joseph’s heart as well as the vizier thought back upon the love his father had shed on him as a youngster:
30 “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, 31 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. 32 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.’
By owning Jacob/Israel’s lament, the brothers demonstrate a monumental change in attitude. The fledgling covenant community is moving toward loving solidarity. Judah is mediating between the wrath of an offended ruler and the parties accused. These men were wretches who had committed atrocities. Sons two and three, Simeon and Levi, had conceived and carried out the horrific deception and genocide of the Shechemites and had stood bathed in blood before their father, unrepentant, declaring, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” (34: 31). Reuben, the eldest, had committed incest with his father’s wife, Bilhah, in an effort to gain primary inheritance rights (35:22). And son four, Judah, was a pagan whoremonger who impregnated Tamar, the wife of his deceased son, thinking she was a Canaanite fertility cult prostitute (Ch. 38).
JUDAH’S SUBSTITUTE (33-34)
Judah’s defense culminates in his offer to take upon himself the just wrath for the sin of his brother. He offers to be the sacrificial substitute:
33 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. 34 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 YHWH’s covenant loyalty love. He could see his own sins and repent. He understood his family’s need for grace in a hopeless situation. Judah and his brothers are exactly where their savior, Joseph, wants them to be – in a hopeless, miserable situation where they must focus on their sins and their need for a gracious savior who is drawing them lovingly and inexorably to live with him in a land of plenty. Judah reflects this self-sacrificing love of his savior – love that thought only of Jacob/Israel and Benjamin in their great need and hopelessness. “Such love moved Moses to ask God to blot his name out of the book of life (Exodus 32: 32); such love prompted Paul to wish himself accursed for his brethren if only they could be saved. Judah was transformed by divine love.”[9]
Humiliation, tragedy, guilt, and dire circumstances are the sharp tools that chip away at the lives of self-focused sinners and steadily transform them into images of the Promised Seed in a lost and dying world of idol-worshippers. We who belong to the risen Savior – who lived for us a perfect life and died the death we deserve — cannot escape this painful transformation any more than Israel and his sons. The text of 2 Corinthians 5:17 reads: If any man in Christ: new creation! The emphasis is explosive. Boom! New creation.
God’s primary concern for his people is not your diet, your sleep patterns, your muscle mass, or the size (or existence) of your savings or retirement account. It’s not about retaining your status quo. His concern is that you reflect the Promised Seed. His work in you is to bring you to pray with the Apostle Paul:
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as [excrement], in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through [trust into] Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [10]
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 44:1–13.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 12:9–10.
[3] Hughes, 509-510. Kindle Edition.
[4] Hamilton, 2:563.
[5] Hughes, 512. Kindle Edition.
[6] Hamilton, 2:565.
[7] Hamilton, 2:569.
[8] Id.
[9] Hughes, (quoting D.G. Barnhouse), 515. Kindle Edition.
[10] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 3:8–11. Trans. changes mine.
