We've been following Joseph over the last few weeks. It has now been 20 years since his brothers sold him into slavery – he's had no contact with his family during the entire period. We've seen how the LORD God was with Joseph during all that period of time and we've taken note that the LORD's presence with Joseph did not mean that Joseph was shielded from heartaches, homesickness or the sufferings of harsh imprisonment.

Now suddenly we're confronted with the members of Joseph's family and we're able to gain a little insight into what has been happening with then since that fateful day when Joseph disappeared from their lives.

Jacob has, it seems, never stopped grieving for his lost son and lives something of a sad existence seeing everything that happens to him in a negative light. Nothing that anyone does is right for him. How negative he has become!

It would seem too that he has refused to learn from the mistakes he has made from the past. It had been his flagrant favouritism of Joseph that had caused such tensions in his family and that had played such a major part in Joseph's brothers dealing with Joseph so heartlessly. But now what do we find? It seems that Jacob is quite prepared to make the same mistakes all over again this time with Benjamin! Jacob sends his ten oldest sons off to Egypt but keeps Benjamin at home. It is clear that he has become Jacob's new favourite since Joseph has gone.

As for those other brothers, they have had to live with their father's negativity and endless grieving – and they all know just what the real cause is! They are forced to live their lives with a dark, guilty secret that continues to poison the home atmosphere.

How sin and its effects have wreaked havoc in that home!

The Famine Bites

We now learn that the famine that struck in Egypt also struck in the Promised Land. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all suffered the effects of famine in the Land that would later be described as a land "flowing with milk and honey".

We understand famines to be negative things and have difficulty in imaging any good whatsoever coming out of them but God had at least two good purposes to achieve for Jacob's family out of this famine:

1. To remind them not to focus too much on this world – He wanted them to keep in mind that their lasting home was to be a better, heavenly country and a famine in the earthly country would keep them from being too easily satisfied!

2. This famine was to be the divine means of reuniting Jacob's family, of taking the entire family into Egypt and to ultimately prepare the way for the Exodus event that would occupy a position of such importance in the history of God's people!

For the moment Jacob doesn't see the famine this way at all. It's just another occasion to moan at his sons as he chides them for their inactivity and sends them off to Egypt to buy food.

v.5 "Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan."

The Brothers Come to Egypt

I wonder what the probability was of this little group of insignificant men being dealt with by the chief man in Egypt himself? Surely lower-ranking civil servants would have been expected to take charge of such details. But probabilities are not a problem when the God of the impossible is actively at work!

Let us take heart from this – God does not overlook small details when His people's welfare is at stake!

Following the custom of the day, the brothers bow in the presence of the Egyptian High Vizier. The last person the brothers are expecting to see in such a place is Joseph and although they see him they don't recognise him. Joseph on the other hand immediately recognises his brothers – in fact we're told twice in rapid succession that Joseph recognized his brothers – we're told too that he remembered his dreams!

I suppose the natural question to ask is why does Joseph now act the way he does. Why doesn't he make himself known quickly to his brothers? What is he trying to achieve?

Joseph puts his brothers to the test

Some have suggested that Joseph is acting a nasty way, that he is merely seeking revenge, but that really does not seem to fit the facts of the situation. Although he does speak to them "roughly" as though they were "strangers" v.7 he actually treats them in a different way – very different from the way in which they had treated him some 20 years earlier.

Joseph's motives seem to be quite different from those of vengeance and revenge.

Firstly, Joseph wants to ascertain just what has happened to his old family. Remember he is seeing his brothers for the first time in 20 years – he doesn't know where they now live, he doesn't know whether his father is still alive and neither does he know whether his full-brother Benjamin is alive and well.

Secondly, Joseph wants to know whether his brothers have undergone any changes during their 20 year separation. Are they repentant or are they indifferent? His actions are chosen with a view to addressing their consciences. He will challenge them and question them – there is little hope of reconciliation if they remain hardened to what they had done. To reveal just who he was at the outset could have greatly falsified this whole endeavour – he would only discover if his brothers were genuinely sorry and repentant for what they had done to them all those years before if he remained unknown for a little while longer.

So Joseph begins to test his brothers and it is interesting to notice the similarities and the dissimilarities with their earlier treatment of him!

1. He accuses them of being spies.

Now Joseph had "spied" on his own brothers in the past and brought back bad reports of some of them to his father. When he met them at Dothan (ch.37:17) he had been sent by his father with the express intent of finding out how things were with them – to spy upon them.

The brothers protest their innocence – we're honest men they object. And as they insist upon this they reveal details of their background – they talk of their father, their family and their homeland.

Joseph hears himself being described as being "no more".

2. The initial plan is to send just one brother back so that their story can be checked and verified but before that happens Joseph confines them to three days in prison.

3. But quickly the plan changes – the unrecognised Joseph makes it clear that he fears God – did his brothers? Instead of all the brothers bar one remaining in custody – only one will be retained. This one will be set free when their youngest brother is brought to Egypt thus demonstrating their honesty.

With this change to his plan Joseph demonstrates compassion towards his father – how would he have reacted had only one son returned to him with such a tale!

Joseph's penetrating questions and unmerited leniency have succeeded in pricking the sore consciences of his brothers.

How close to the surface must their guilt have been to have resurfaced so quickly! Talking amongst themselves and unaware that Joseph can understand them they speak of the heartless way they had earlier dealt with Joseph when he had begged them in his distress for compassion. They understand their current plight as pay-back for what they had done all those years before. 20 years have passed but their consciences are still raw-red – a guilty conscience is not an easy thing to have to live with – resolution is soon to come for these brothers though they will have trouble accepting that it really is possible. And what about you and your conscience…?

Reuben speaks out too and Joseph learns as he overhears his eldest brother that guilt was not equally shared amongst them all.

Joseph didn't enjoy this experience and had to withdraw for a time because he was overcome by his emotions. His efforts were beginning to work but the task hadn't been completed yet.

Dealing with a troubled, guilty conscience may well take time – Joseph allows the consciences of his brothers the time needed to bring about the necessary changes.

4. The brothers are sent back to Canaan while Simeon is retained. Why Simeon? We're not told. Perhaps Joseph's original plan had been to retain Reuben he being the eldest but upon learning of Reuben's non-participation in the plan he passed over him to retain Simeon the next in line.

5. There is an interesting touch here. The men's monies were returned to them without them knowing it. This would normally be a happy state of affairs but now with troubled consciences these men see in this otherwise "good providence" a worrying development. As Matthew Henry put it "Guilty consciences are apt to take good providences in a bad sense."

God works using circumstances to awaken deadened consciences so that sin can be confessed and properly dealt with. If God is using circumstances to remind us of un-confessed sin, of unresolved sin, then consider it a great mercy and repent of your sin, confessing your sin and call upon the Name of the Lord that you may be saved.

6. What story will the brothers bring back to their father this time as they have a rerun of what happened 20 years before. Then they had returned without one of their number – will they demonstrate any greater concern for the missing brother this time?

They do indeed tell Jacob the substance of what had happened to them – they protect him however from the harsher aspects of what had happened to them and of what had been said to them.

7. What a poor example of a believer Jacob has now become! He wallows in self-pity and blames everyone but himself. If you want to see how far it is possible for a believe to fall just take a look at his words in v.36 – they are the very antithesis of faith.

After rehearsing his woes – Joseph has gone – Simeon has gone – and now they would take Benjamin away from him too – Jacob declares: "All this has come against me."

He has completely forgotten the times when God had helped him in difficult, distressing and trying circumstances – no faith, no trust in God is apparent in this depressed and depressing man. "All this has come against me." he declared and how completely and utterly wrong he was! In the very details that he thought were so set against him God was in fact causing all things to work together for his good!

It will take more time and more experiences before Jacob comes to realise the good that God is working but we already by the end of the chapter see evidences of positive change in Reuben as he expresses his concern for his father – not willing to inflict any more pain upon his father he is willing to lose his own sons!

Conclusion

Who do we associate with as we read through a chapter like this?

Do we see align ourselves we Joseph – victims who have been badly treated in the past? Let's make sure then that we truly follow Joseph's example – he didn't seek vengeance for himself but sort rather to bring others to a realisation of their own failures and short-comings that they might by confession and repentance move on.

Perhaps we feel most like the brothers – crippled by guilt, some dark secret that has long been kept secret and, un-confessed, it has gnawed away destroying our joy and robbing us of our peace. Well, follow where these brothers lead – don't try to suppress those guilty memories but face them and bring them to God for pardon.

Or perhaps you see yourself in faithless Jacob: you've taken your eyes off the God who has blessed in so many ways in the past and you're now reading every single thing that happens to you in the most negative way you can. You need to stop living a life of self-centred pity, you need to stop ignoring the Word of God and trust both Him and His word.

May God help us to move on in positive ways as we grow in our love and understanding of who He is!