Joseph Meets His Brothers Series

Joseph meets his brothers.

Gen. 42:1-38

And God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13).

The events of chapter 42 are thus the occasion for the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham:

The scene in Canaan is almost amusing. The brothers of Joseph stand in the presence of their father, deeply distressed by the fact that their food supply is nearly depleted, and there is no hope of replenishing it so long as the famine persists. Jacob, aware of the availability of grain in Egypt, prodded his sons into action with the rebuke, “Don’t just stand there, go down to Egypt and get some grain.”

Jacob’s partiality toward the sons of Rachel is still very obvious. While the other ten sons were sent to Egypt, Benjamin was kept near, under the watchful eye of his father (verse 4). It could not have been because Benjamin was too young, for he had to have been in his twenties by now At the age of 17 Joseph had been sent a considerable distance from home to check on his brothers (37:2,12). Perhaps the circumstances of Joseph’s disappearance were too suspect for Jacob to take another chance by leaving Benjamin in the care of his other brothers.

In the midst of the food crisis in Egypt, Joseph’s brothers arrived from Canaan, seeking to buy food, as the famine severely affected their land also. They did not recognize Joseph, and he did not reveal himself to them. He dealt with his brothers largely through an interpreter.

Joseph's behavior in this situation became quite shrewd. First, he concealed his identity from his brothers, which—while not necessarily rising to the level of open deceit—certainly was less than forthright. Second, he spoke harshly to his brothers with accusations he knew were unfounded (Gen. 42:7, 9, 14, 16; 44:3-5). In short, Joseph took advantage of his power to deal with a group he knew could be untrustworthy because of their earlier treatment of him. His motive was probably to discern the present character of the people he was dealing with. He had suffered greatly at their hands over twenty years prior, and had every reason to distrust their words, actions, and commitment to the family.

He withheld critical information and manipulated events in various ways He could not proceed with full transparency and expect to get reliable information from them. The biblical concept for this tactic is shrewdness. Shrewdness may be exercised for good or for ill. On the one hand the serpent was “the shrewdest of all the wild animals” (Gen. 3:1 New Living Translation), and employed shrewd methods for disastrously evil purposes. The Hebrew word for shrewdness is also translated as “good judgment,” “prudence,” and “clever” (Prov. 12:23; 13:16; 14:8; 22:3; 27:12), indicating it may take foresight and skill to make godly work possible in difficult contexts. Jesus himself counseled his disciples to be “as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16 NLT). The Bible often commends shrewdness in the pursuit of noble purposes (Prov. 1:4; 8:5, 12).

Joseph’s shrewdness had the intended effect of testing his brothers’ integrity Two important factors differentiate Joseph in making the decision to use means that otherwise would not be commendable.

First, he gained nothing from these machinations for himself. He had received a blessing from God, and his actions were solely in the service of becoming a blessing to others. He could have exploited his brothers’ desperate predicament and spitefully exacted a greater sum of silver, knowing they would have given anything to survive. Instead, he used knowledge to save them.

Second, his actions were necessary if he was to be able to offer the blessings. If he had dealt with his brothers more openly, he could not have tested their trustworthiness in the matter.

Years earlier, Joseph had journeyed from Canaan as a slave; now Joseph’s brothers make the same journey because of hunger (42:1-5). For silver, they sold Joseph to merchants traveling toward Egypt; now they have come to Egypt to buy grain with silver. Those who plotted to kill him now are sent to buy food so they themselves “might not die” (42:3). In the process, they end up bowing before him (42:6), unwittingly fulfilling his dreams (37:7, 11; 42:9) that they once wished to silence (37:20)

That Joseph’s brothers do not recognize him is not surprising; they could hardly expect the likely well-fed Egyptian governor standing before them to be the seventeen-year-old they had sold into slavery. Nor would Joseph now have recognized Benjamin, a boy the last time he had seen him, apart from his brothers (43:29). By contrast, Joseph could well recognize his ten older brothers who had come from Canaan as a group.