Genesis 44:1-17

the button.
Hey, welcome back.
As we start Monday in the 44th chapter of Genesis,
continuing to make our way
toward the end of this book as we continue to focus on the Joseph story.
Recap of last week,
the brothers have returned to Egypt,
including Benjamin, the youngest.
They’ve been together with Joseph.
At this point, the deception is still in place.
They don’t know that Joseph is their brother.
They don’t know that he can understand them speaking.
He is continuing to play that stuff close to the vest.
Today,
they have had their meal,
and they depart for home.
And we pick up the story there in the 44th chapter.
“Then he commanded the steward of his house,
fill the men’s sack with food,
as much as it can carry,
and put each man’s money in the top of the sack.
Put my cup, the silver cup,
in the sack of the youngest,
with his money for the grain.
He did as Joseph told him.
As soon as the morning was light,
the men were sent away with their donkeys.
When they had gone
a short distance from the city,
Joseph said to the steward,
‘Go follow after them,
and when you overtake them, say, ‘Why have you returned evil for good?
Why have you stolen my silver cup?
Is it not from this that my Lord drinks?
Does he not indeed use it for divination?
You have done wrong in doing this.'” So let’s stop there, Michael.
We saw glimpses on Thursday in the last story,
where Joseph had dinner with his brothers,
that they had a good time together.
But
Joseph, for whatever reason, is not done with whatever he is doing with them.
He either knows what he’s
doing, or he’s changed his mind,
or the mood has taken him, whatever it is,
he continues to mess
with them.
And in this case,
as last time,
he puts the money that they brought to buy grain
back in their sacks,
and then he sets up Benjamin, especially,
by placing a silver cup in his sack.
Now,
as these sacks are returned to the brothers,
obviously this story is told as if they don’t look in them.
They’re not aware of this.
They go on out of town.
Joseph tells the steward,
“Go get them,
and accuse them of stealing.”
So this is going to have lots of different implications as we try to
parse all of these different threads.
But one thing to note here is,
you may notice that we
have the detail given that it’s the silver cup.
If you remember,
it was indeed silver that the
silver cup was given to the brothers.
It was a very good idea to put that in slavery. So here we have this recurring sort of look back at Joseph’s own story.
And there’s almost an implicit question
in that to his brothers, right?
“You were willing to sell me for silver.
Are you willing to sell out your younger brother,
again, Benjamin, the second time for silver?
Will they be willing to let him go again,
all involving this thing that Joseph has cleverly hidden?” It’s an interesting sort of
look back to a previous stage of the story,
and it’s clear in that that Joseph is still thinking
of what had happened to him.
I mean, he still has in mind the damage that was done,
and he’s in some
ways testing his brothers to see what they might do in this circumstance.
Yeah, and so the steward catches them.
We don’t need to read this,
but verses 6 through 13 here,
he overtakes them,
he accuses them.
They basically tell him,
“Look, you can search all the sacks.
There’s no way that we’ve done this.” He says,
“Okay, then in accordance with your words,
let it be with whom it is found.
They shall be a slave,
but the rest of you might go free.”
And the brothers in confidence
believing themselves to be innocent,
knowing that they’ve not done it,
verse 11, “Each one quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened the sack.
He searched, beginning with the eldest and
ending with the youngest,
and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.
At this,
they tore their clothes.
Then each one loaded his donkey and returned to the city.” Now,
this is very interesting.
Remember, remember Jacob’s response on being told that Joseph has been killed.
And by the way,
he’s shown torn robe in order to prove that.
He then tears his clothes,
which is a sign of grief,
which is a sign of mourning.
They now respond of all the sacks that it could be found in,
to be found in Benjamin’s sack.
The brother that they have guaranteed they would bring safely,
the one that their father wasn’t willing to let go,
they now understand something of
the predicament they’re in.
And of course, they’re terrified.
They’re mourning.
They’re grieving.
This is a very tight snare.
Joseph has,
I think in the last episode when he messed with them,
we saw a kind of open-ended this.
They get home.
They find the money.
They say, “Oh, we don’t know what happened.” This is a tight trap.
He really has them snared here.
There’s no way out of this.
Yeah, and in many ways,
it’s been chapters in the making.
I think that’s what maybe makes this story so interesting,
Clint, is how much time is dedicated to it,
because I can’t think of another character who has the sheer amount of time given towards the
setting of the trap,
the snare being laid.
Because you think of Jacob.
He certainly had some wily moves, but they were generally pretty time-limited.
Here,
you can see how
sending the brothers back without one of the brothers as a way of ensuring they’re going to come back,
and then demanding when you do come back,
you need to bring your youngest brother,
or otherwise will know that your spies,
as I’ve accused you.
All of that stuff that reaches back, chapters now,
has now come to the climax of the story.
We now have seen that the youngest
brother now sits at a crucial fulcrum at a crossroads.
In putting Benjamin in this position
of essentially being guaranteed to be a slave,
Joseph is asking his brothers once again,
“What are you willing to do to one of your brothers?” This entire game which has been played out,
which we’ve already been willing to admit is uncomfortable.
The idea where you have Joseph
giving the youngest brother all of these accoutrements,
and the best food,
and the most food,
and all of this attention given to him,
now suddenly we see that Joseph’s plan has been put
into action, and it succeeded.
We, the reader, I think has the same question that maybe Joseph
have, and that is, “Well, how will the brothers respond to this?” In the moment of the great
climactic need that they now find themselves in,
will they respond in a way that we’ve seen before,
or will they respond differently?
The text really has set us up for that in the same
way that Joseph set his brothers up.
Yeah, and let’s just go through the culmination of this story here.
Verse 14,
Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house while he was still there.
They fell on the ground before him.
Joseph said to them,
“What deed is it that you’ve done?
Do you not know that one such as I can practice divination?” And Judah said,
“What can we say
to you, my Lord?
What can we speak?
How can we clear ourselves?
God has found our guilt
of your servants.
God has found out the guilt of your servants.
Here then we are, my Lord’s slaves,
both we and also the one in whose possession the cup has been found.” But he said,
“Far be it for
me that I should do so.
Only the one in whose possession the cup was found shall be my slave.
As for you,
go up in peace to your father.” A couple of very interesting things.
Again, we spoke a moment ago about how tightly this trap has been sprung.
They know they have no way out
of it.
They’re in Egypt.
They’re in front of the Egyptians.
They have been found with this stolen property.
They notice that they don’t say,
“We didn’t do it.” What they do say is fascinating.
God has found out our guilt,
and here we are,
my Lord’s slaves,
all of us.
They still seem to be
under the impression, or at least the text seems to indicate,
that they believe themselves to
in the midst of being punished for what they did to Joseph those many years ago,
that they carry with them a burden and a belief that they deserve punishment.
And so here it is really interesting that they attribute their situation not to trickery on
Joseph’s part, not to the deceit of the Egyptians,
not to a misunderstanding.
They attribute it
to God doing something to them that has now brought them at a place where they’re going
to be punished and where all of them are going to enter slavery.
Yeah, Clint,
towards that point, you know, when you really consider what Judah says here,
it’s a really interesting way to phrase,
not just because of the naming of the guilt,
like you said, but also because when he offers up all of the brothers as slaves,
he is immediately doing the
opposite of what they had done for Joseph,
right?
The idea that they would single out,
the 11 would single out, or the 10 would single out the one and would then sell him into slavery here.
Judah is making it clear that they’re all willing to subject themselves to this task.
And so that is unto itself the first step that is different from what Joseph himself had experienced.
And it is a marked sort of change.
Now, is that a reflection of a
wiser, more mature character,
Judah?
Is that someone who has some years under his belt?
Is that someone who simply recognizes the really,
really dangerous position that they all find
themselves in?
You know, this could go lots of different ways.
But I think when you recognize
the guilt being expressed,
and that guilt isn’t just like,
“Hey, you caught us.
Yes,
we obviously had this thing,” though they don’t know how they got it,
it does harken back to the previous story
of the guilt that they’ve had for all these years.
There’s maybe a sense in which he’s also thinking
that this is the ultimate end.
This is the payment for what they did.
And that itself is a kind of
resignation to that things have maybe changed for them.
And as we read this story,
having the benefit of overhearing the conversations that these
brothers have had with Jacob and the anguish that Jacob displayed,
it is easy to feel like
what Joseph is doing is cruel.
And there may be some cruelty in it.
There’s certainly some retribution in it.
I do think we probably have to soften that a bit with the reality that in the
way the story’s told,
Joseph doesn’t know about the conversation that the brothers have had with
Jacob.
He doesn’t know about the promises of,
“You could have my sons,” or “I guarantee him with my
life that I will bring him back.” Clearly,
he is,
at best,
ornery in the way that he’s treating his brothers.
At best, he is enjoying a moment of power over them and seems to be intentional
in the way in which he is keeping them off balance and making them even afraid for their lives.
But there’s another sense in which he probably doesn’t fully understand
some of the backstory and the anguish,
maybe, that he’s bringing in regard to that backstory.
It’s hard to say.
It’s hard to parse that out in the way this story’s told.
But it may not be
quite as cruel as it seems,
but it definitely has an edge to it.
Clint, this is another example where the Scriptures do not really give us a whole
lot of narration about what God thinks about this.
There’s no statement here that God approves or
that God demands how there’s a way in which the text really leaves it open for us,
the reader, to see that Joseph here is taking action.
He’s doing this thing,
and we’re watching it play out.
And I don’t think that that honestly really helps that much as we encounter a story like this,
because it does have all of these really sharp barbs built into it.
But on the other hand,
it’s worth noting that the Scripture is telling us as it was without any kind of moralizing or condemnation.
And when it does that,
I think we often see that God is still working even in the
midst of all of this family brokenness,
because clearly Joseph being sold was a sign of that
brokenness.
Now we see Joseph in some ways giving his brothers an experience of something similar
to what they had done to him.
And in doing so,
there’s maybe a moment here where they are getting
an opportunity to choose a different path from the choice that they had made before.
But that isn’t necessarily a good thing.
The text doesn’t say that it was blessed by God.
So it’s a messy moment, right?
And yet in the middle of that moment,
God is somehow still working under the scene.
And we are left to wrestle a little bit,
Clint.
I mean, if we’re going to be honest,
we’re left to wrestle with a brother who’s doing the thing,
which I mean is,
like you say, even at best, it’s severe.
I mean,
maybe it is calculated and it’s chosen,
and maybe it creates an opportunity
for the brothers.
But it’s hard to not see this action and to see how much pain,
how much terror,
how using his power in this way is in some ways,
if not destructive, it’s certainly dangerous.
And the brothers are deeply impacted by it.
Yeah.
And not to defend it,
but the last time
he saw these brothers,
they tried to kill him or they considered killing him and they did sell him.
Maybe he believes himself to be protecting Benjamin.
Maybe his thought is to get them
through a fairly devious plan to unsettle them.
And it is working.
So really tomorrow,
tomorrow we see pretty close to the culmination of the plan.
We see things kind of come to a head
and I think an interesting text,
an interesting turn in the story.
So I hope you can be with us.
We want to thank you for being with us today and hope you all have a good rest of your day.