Or, Joseph’s Brothers Are at His Mercy
Scripture: Genesis 43:1-34
Date: April 2, 2017
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Adults pretend way better than kids. Adults have a wider variety of background material to work with. Adults have more mental horsepower under the hood. Adults produce some fabulous and complex fictional worlds, sub-creations as Tolkien labeled them. Bestselling novels and blockbuster movies and role-playing video games all provide astonishing evidence that we can pretend real good.
But that’s not the first fiction I’m thinking about when I say that adults are way better at pretending than kids are. I mean that adults are way better at pretending that they are in control.
I am not a fatalist or a hypercalvinist. I believe that man is responsible, that todo lists and doing the todos are good things to do, that our responses matter, that goals should be made and pursued, and that enjoying the process is right and necessary for humanity. I don’t think anything happens by blind chance or luck or fortune. I am the kind of Calvinist who believes that I am responsible to drink enough coffee every day to keep myself healthy.
But it just doesn’t take that much looking around before being confronted with the reality that I am not in control. “The way of man is not in himself” (Jeremiah 10:23). “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21). That reality punches me in the throat daily, minutely. Not one of us can control time or our own heartbeat. We can’t control the weather, we can’t control gravity, we can’t control growth, we can’t control other people. We can barely control ourselves.
It is make-believe, as in, footloose and fantasy faith, to imagine that we are in control. We might not pretend that we are omnipotent, but more like we are semi-sovereign, and enough of us do it at the same time so as not to deflate our collective illusion. But we need to come to terms with our dependent status. We are at the mercy God and, because of how He made the world, at the mercy of others God puts into our lives.
Joseph, Joseph’s brothers, and Joseph’s dad have to come to terms with things out of their control. Not even Pharaoh can boss his way out of a famine, even though he took measures to counteract it. Yet he only took those measures because God revealed beforehand what God was about to do, and because God sent Joseph to interpret the dreams, and because God gave Pharaoh advice through Joseph for sake of God’s plan to save Joseph’s family. Pharaoh did not have, nor did any other character, control on the macro level of human history or on the micro level of seed sprouting and Joseph’s chariot wheels staying attached as he circuited Egypt building barns.
In Genesis 43 we are around two years into the seven year famine (see Genesis 45:6). Joseph’s brothers have already come to Egypt to buy grain, and Joseph recognized them and put them to the test. He gave them grain but kept Simeon. He told them that if they wanted to see their brother again, they must bring their youngest brother back to Egypt. When the brothers told Israel, he flipped out at them and said such a thing would never happen or else he would die. He’s about to die anyway, not from sorrow but from starvation.
Two parts to this chapter: negotiation and resignation (verses 1-14) and fear and feasting (verses 15-34). The brothers, in particular, are at Joseph’s mercy.
Things are even more intense than they were at the beginning of chapter 42. The famine was (still) severe in Canaan, the cupboards were bare like before, but now one of the brothers is in jail in Egypt and their father is as rigid as a petrified tree. They are between a rock and a hungry place.
When they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” How long it’s been between chapter 42 and 43 we don’t know, but the sense is that it’s been at least a few months, maybe even a year. They’ve been surviving, but they apparently haven’t been talking. The sons had been willing to go back to Egypt as soon as they got home, not just for food, but for Simeon’s sake. But the terms “the man” gave them required them to bring Benjamin as well (Genesis 42:34). Had Jacob forgotten it? Does Jacob think his sons had forgotten it? How can he talk like this is just running out to the store for some milk?
It’s not Reuben that steps forward this time but Judah. The last time we saw Judah was in chapter 38 when he spurned the family and married a Canaanite woman, then he pledged a goat to a woman who he thought was a prostitute but was really his daughter-in-law whom he had been cheating. Judah appears to be different now as he appeals to his father.
Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down” and then he repeats the terms from “the man.” It is straightforward and willing.
But Israel wants reality to be some other way. Since he can’t actually change it, he complains. ”Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” “It is easy to be wise after the event, and Jacob’s grumble about their indiscretion is really just stalling” (Wenham). But why is it their fault?
They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to the questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” These specifics of Joseph’s interrogation aren’t provided in chapter 42, but this is certainly what the brothers felt was required of them in defending themselves against the charge of being spies.
Then the rest of the response to Israel comes from Judah, a response that is respectful, realistic, and also responsible. Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.” Three generations will starve to death. ”I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.” Reuben offered to sacrifice his two sons. Judah offers to take the blame himself. Judah also jabs at how Jacob had dragged their feet. ”If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”
Israel resigns himself to the inescapable facts of the situation. He can’t pretend that there are other options anymore. ”If it must be so, then do this: followed by seven commands. He urges his sons to collect a gift for “the man,” a gift of things they had, even in a famine, things that would be of value but not things that a family could survive on. He also urges them to take money, double the money, money to purchase more grain and the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks from the last trip.
After all of that he finally gets to the linchpin. ”Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man.” Without this the wheels fall off. The present and the money are fine, but “the man” didn’t raise the rate or take offense at their failure to honor him the first time. This is all about the Benjamin.
Then Israel offers a benediction. ”May God almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin.” “Mercy” could also be translated “compassion,” and we’ll see that word again near the end of the chapter. The final comment is a full resignation, ”And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” It may seem strange to follow an optimistic prayer with a pessimistic acceptance of something undesirable, but he acknowledges that it is out of his control.
The final half of the chapter happens back in Egypt. The brothers took double the money with them, and Benjamin and stood before Joseph .
It’s at least been a few months, yet the picture is of Joseph keeping his eye out for the return of his brothers. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” He must have been back at the store, overseeing the selling of grain, and his brothers came back to the same store as well.
The steward did as Joseph told him . He pulled the men out of line and whisked them to Joseph’s house. But the brothers did not interpret this as a good sign. The men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.” This is nothing like how they were received the first time, and their minds defaulted to the worst case scenario.
In a desperate move they initiate an explanation to the steward. They swore that they didn’t know how their money got back in their sacks (verses 20-22). But the steward, who was likely the one who put the money in their sacks, replied, ”Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you.” He senses their panic, but they appear not to listen to his comment about “the God of your father.” How did the steward know about that God? The brothers are blinded by their anxiousness, but Joseph certainly must have communicated his worship of Israel’s God in his household.
The steward showed them hospitality and they prepared the present since they knew that the man would be coming home for lunch.
The brothers gave Joseph their present and bowed down before him again, but Joseph was focused on other details. ”He inquired about their welfare and said, “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” This question wouldn’t make much sense if it had only been a few weeks since their last conversation. They answered that their dad was doing fine and then bowed their heads and prostrated themselves .
Then Joseph lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?” But he doesn’t even wait for them to answer. ”God be gracious to you, my son!” And he’s overwhelmed such that he hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there. Joseph was “at the point of tears” (NET Bible), though “had a good cry” (The Message) misses the timbre of the text. “Compassion” in verse 30 (“deeply stirred” NAS, “bowels did yearn” KJV, “overcome with affection” (NRSV) is the same word (rahamim) as “mercy” in verse 14; they could/should be translated the same way. May the man have compassion, and now the man does indeed have compassion. Though the object of Joseph’s compassion is Benjamin in particular, there were benefits of compassion toward all the family.
And controlling himself he said, “Serve the food.” He pulled himself together and ordered lunch to be served. Joseph ate by himself, in a position of honor. There were two other tables, one for the Egyptian officials and another table for the Hebrews because it is an abomination to the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews. It was decisively detestable, probably more for religious than simple racial reasons.
More significantly, the brothers sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. They were all grown men by this point, and since they didn’t have the same mother, and some were born the same year, how could they be set in order so correctly? At the start of chapter 42 Israel accused them of looking at one another in apathy. Here the men looked at one another in amazement. The providence was too coincidental.
The final observation was also not coincidental, it was a test. Portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. Joseph loved Benjamin most, true, his only brother with the same mother. But Joseph wanted to see the reactions of the brothers. They did not respond well when Joseph received favoritism. How would they handle this?
And they drank and were merry with him . They responded just fine. They had been humbled. They didn’t appear to be bothered whatsoever that Benjamin got special attention. It’s not as if he could eat five times as much. He was being honored, and whatever explanation the brothers imagined, they did not take it out on him. Were merry is a word that usually means drunk, but they were in high spirits.
The story isn’t done. We really do need to read through chapter 45 to get to the actual resolution. But what I want to point out is that, especially from Israel’s perspective and his sons’ perspective, they are not in control. They can’t control the famine, they can’t control the terms of “the man” in Egypt, they can’t control “the man” with their pleading or with their present, they can’t control how many portions he gives to which of them, they can’t control if they will make it back home with Benjamin.
They are at the compassion of God, and at this point, at the compassion of God through Joseph. Both God and Joseph know more. Joseph knows them and what he’s planning for them. He knows that it will test them and be for their good. They keep being astonished along the way. Little things pop up that should cause them to see the connections. But they would have to pretend if they thought that feasting and merriness were produced by themselves.
We all must come to terms with God’s sovereignty, that we are not in control, that we are dependent on His compassion. When we come to terms with God’s mercy, we do not reach agreement with how He shows it but that we can’t live without it. We need mercy, but we don’t negotiate for it.