Joseph’s testing of his brothers reaches its climax in this study. Will his brethren abandon their brother and return safely to their father in the Land of Canaan? Or, will their sense of being the Covenant People prove true? Will they, in unity, risk all to remain with their brother, Benjamin, and prove themselves to be a people, called of God for his purposes? Up to this point, they proved otherwise! They, jealously, sold their brother Joseph to the Midianites (Genesis 37:28, 36), who, later, sold him as a slave to Egypt, and, if that wasn’t bad enough, they led their father to believe Joseph was torn apart and eaten by wild animals.
Moreover, when Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, was defiled by Shechem, a Canaanite, they made out like they would approve of a marriage between him and their sister, if he and his people would be circumcised (Genesis 34:13-15). When the men of the city were at their weakest point, physically, due to the circumcision rite, the brothers, Simeon and Levi, went into the city, breaking covenant with the people, and slew every male in the city (Genesis 34:25). Moreover, as if to add insult to tragedy, Judah had already picked up stakes, leaving his father and his brethren and began living with the Canaanites, dwelling in one of their cities with his friend (Genesis 38:1, 12).
Nothing, absolutely nothing, in their character would lead one to believe they were a people, who lived by a covenant, which they made with the Lord, their God. As I mentioned in a previous study, the brothers were not religious people. The term, God is never mentioned in connection with what the brothers did or said, concerning Dinah’s defilement (Genesis 34). The fact is that the brothers never make any reference to God until Genesis 42:28, where one of them finds his money in the mouth of his sack of grain, after he opened it to feed his donkey! In other words, it is only after Joseph began testing them that the text shows the brothers even thinking about God. In fact, the only mentions of God or Lord in the text from end of Genesis 33 to Genesis 42:18 are used in connection with Jacob’s own relationship with God in chapter 35, and, afterwards by Joseph, when he mentions God in Potiphar’s house, in prison, before Pharaoh, in the naming of his sons during the days of plenty, and in the presence of his brethren during the days of the famine.
In our present context, Benjamin has been seized by the Egyptians under the guise of stealing Joseph’s silver drinking cup, and they took him to Joseph’s house. The brothers tore open their clothes and returned with him and found Joseph awaiting the return of his men, and the ten brothers fell before Joseph with their faces to the ground (Genesis 44:14; cp. 37:7-8). Then, Joseph, continuing his test of their nature, asked them what purpose lay behind their deed, and didn’t they know that a man, such as he, could find them out through divination (Genesis 44:15)?
Judah, acting as the family spokesman, approached Joseph, saying, “How will we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants,” referring to how they had treated their brother, Joseph, whom Judah didn’t realize was standing before him. Then Judah submitted himself and his brethren to be Joseph’s slaves with their brother, Benjamin” (Genesis 44:16). In other words, he didn’t want to be parted from his brother, even under the present circumstances.
Joseph, however, refused to make the ten brothers his slaves. He would enslave only Benjamin, thus, holding out the offer for them to flee for their freedom and leave their brother helpless with him (Genesis 44:17). Therefore, the time had finally come, when Joseph would know for certain what his brethren’s hearts were like, now, 21 years after they had sold him into slavery into Egypt. It all came down to what Judah would say next!
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