Have you ever been in a situation where you have done something that has left a bad impression on somebody else, and then later you needed the help of that same person, and you had to go back with your tail between your legs to ask for help, knowing they will remember? I asked our young people before the service if they had any recall of this, and there were quite a few nods around the room, and quite a few hands went up when I asked if anybody had a story along those lines they would like to share. Well, these were stories people preferred to keep quiet. It's embarrassing.
Maybe it's the schoolteacher that you had many years ago, and you and your classmates were not kind to that particular teacher. And then three or four years later, you discover the timetable set you that same teacher, and they'll be the ones to write your reference for university, and you think, "Oh no!"
Or a next-door neighbour that you had some petty little argument with, but then you need access to their garden to repair something on the side of your house. Or one particular ticket inspector on the train, that you were just—you had a bad day, you were tired, a petty little argument, you were just being nasty. But then the one day you actually did forget to buy a ticket—guess who is on the train that day? Or the tradesman that comes to your house, and you're just—you're not particularly kind, gracious, the tea was not forthcoming, you were a little harsh with them. But then another pipe starts to leak, and you realise it's time to ask if anybody else knows a plumber.
What do you do if it's God? What if you treat God badly and then need his help? Because, let's be honest, all of us treat God badly. All of us are responsible for the death of God's Son. It's been said that before you can appreciate the truth that Jesus died for you, you need to learn to accept that Jesus was killed by you.
So then, when you need God's help, and he is the one that you have been nasty to and rebellious—tried to kill his Son—well, what will God do when you come to him?
This was a situation that Joseph's brothers were in. To remind you of the story: they had tried to kill him. Then they left him in a pit to die before selling him into slavery. But now, in today's story, the brothers need his help. Although part of the twist of the tale is that they don't actually know that it's Joseph's help that they need.
Let's look together at the story, and then we're going to draw out a couple of key lessons for us today. So, chapter 42, verse 1:
"When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, 'Why do you just keep looking at each other?'"
Well, they don't say anything, so we have to carry on.
He continued: "I've heard there's grain in Egypt. Why don't you go and buy some for us so we don't die?" Then ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with the others because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel's sons were among those who went down to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also.
These brothers, standing around—a symbol of uselessness, hands in their pockets, moaning that they are hungry. Jacob—well, lots of the troubles in his family stem from the fact that he had favourites. He favoured the son born to his favourite wife. I mean, having two wives is not a good idea. Having a favourite is even worse. And then favouring her sons is even worse. He favoured Joseph, and that's why this whole story is happening. But after Joseph's gone, it's clear he's learned nothing. He favours Benjamin, Rachel's other son. So Benjamin does not go.
But the brothers do, and they find themselves before Joseph, and they bow down with their faces to the ground, just like in Joseph's dreams. And then we get two really key verses in this passage, chapter 42:7:
"As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognised them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. 'Where do you come from?' he asked. 'From the land of Canaan,' they replied, 'to buy food.' Although Joseph recognised his brothers, they did not recognise him."
This word "to recognise"—it's a relatively unusual verb in the Old Testament. But we have it eight times in the Joseph story. It's a bit of a key word that gets our attention when we meet it in the Joseph story. We had it twice in chapter 37. Remember, after the brothers sold Joseph, they put some animal blood on Joseph's coat and showed it to Jacob. And they said, "Recognise this," and Jacob recognised it.
We had it in chapter 38. Remember that weird story—if you were here—of Judah with his daughter-in-law Tamar? And Tamar comes out with Judah's staff and his ring and various other pieces, and she says to Judah, "Recognise these," and we're told he recognised them.
And then four times in these verses, 7 and 8: Joseph, we're told, verse 7, recognised them, but he pretended—literally made himself unrecognisable—to be a stranger. Although Joseph recognised his brothers, they did not recognise him.
This whole story turns on the fact that he knows who they are but they don't know who he is. Or more exactly, didn't recognise him.
Now, at this point, put yourself in Joseph's shoes. You might wonder, why does the story not fast forward to chapter 44, which we'll look at next week, when Joseph finally says to his brothers, "It's me, Joseph. Come and live in Egypt; there's food." Why did he not just do that here and cut all this long reading out of the way? Why does all this has to happen first?
Well, I can think of a couple of reasons. We have to read between the lines, because it's one of the tensions our narrator gives us. He deliberately leaves us hanging on, going, "What's going to happen?"
But reading between the lines, I think he doesn't trust them. Does he actually want these scoundrels in Egypt with him? Or is it just inviting trouble?
Imagine you move house because you have some really difficult next-door neighbours. You move house somewhere else, and then the house next to you comes on the market—and your previous neighbours come. Do you really want them?
But what if maybe also they don't trust him? If he says, "It's Joseph," what are they going to do? They're going to run out of the room screaming. They're not going to stop running till they get back to Jacob in Canaan. And then, out of breath, they're going to say, "Dad, Dad, find food somewhere else—whatever you do, do not go to Egypt!" Because if he goes to Egypt, Joseph's going to tell their dad what happened.
So I can see quite why he just holds on to this little secret for now. Instead, he sets up the perfect test: "Bring back Benjamin to me." I suspect he's wondering, "Wait a minute, there's ten of you here—Benjamin's missing. What have you boys done? I want to see Benjamin. I want to know he's still alive. Bring back Benjamin. Nine of you can stay behind; send one person to go and get him."
And then he softens. Verse 18:
"On the third day, Joseph said to them, 'Do this and you will live, for I fear God. If you're honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison while the rest of you go and take grain back to your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me.'"
Joseph softens because he fears God, and he doesn't want his family to starve.
At this point, the boys start to bicker. They clearly still feel very guilty at how they treated Joseph. Now, they don't know who he is. They don't know this is Joseph. But they also don't know that he can understand every single word they're saying, because we discover now Joseph has been using a translator to keep the sense of mystery going. So they are talking very freely about Joseph, unaware that he can hear everything they say.
And then verse 24—this is all a little bit much for Joseph:
"He turned away from them and began to weep."
He cares for his brothers, and the fact they're feeling guilty softens his heart further, and he sheds a little tear.
He's now learned enough to know that Reuben, the eldest boy, actually tried to rescue Joseph back in the pit, which means that Reuben may be the eldest, but he is not the one to blame for what the brothers did to Joseph. So instead, Simeon, the second eldest, is the one that is picked to stay.
Verse 25:
"Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to put each man's silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey."
And after this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.
They didn't just go home with food—they didn't know it yet, but they went home with free food. And having worked a little bit with university students for a while, I can tell you: there is nobody who does not appreciate free food.
The question is: why is the food free? Well, there's a couple of reasons why Joseph wants their food to be free for them. Partly because they're family. Family don't pay for their lunch. If you have your family round for lunch, you don't charge them. Although there is one grandmother somewhere in England who gets reported in certain less-quality newspapers every Christmas time, who does have the habit of charging her extended family for Christmas dinner. And the newspapers concerned like to report what her rate is this year. But that's only amusing to report because it's an aberration. You don't charge your family.
But also, it is the perfect test. You see, before, the boys sold Joseph into slavery for silver. And he now gives them a choice. What will they do? Will they keep the silver and cut Simeon loose, or will they bring the money back, put themselves into danger, and come and get him?
Well, they get home. They tell Jacob the whole story—that Benjamin must go. And Joseph—Jacob's—favouritism just gets worse. Just listen to what Jacob says to his nine sons. Okay, verse 36 of chapter 42:
Here we go:
"Their father Jacob said to them, 'You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me.'"
Verse 38:
"'My son will not go down with you. His brother is dead, and he is the only one left.'"
Excuse me—the nine of you in front of me, are you my children? Apparently not.
Well, Reuben's guilt comes out again. He's the one that really feels the guilt of failing to rescue him. Verse 37:
"'You may put both my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back.'"
"If Benjamin does not come back," Reuben is thinking, "I will then be responsible for the loss of two of your sons, so in retribution you may take two of mine." He's actually owning up to a responsibility for Joseph by doing this. Reuben had four sons. He offers exactly two.
This is a rash thing to offer. It's pointless too. Jacob is grieved. He would have lost two sons. What does killing two grandsons do to improve that?
Well, eventually the boys—the family—they get hungry.
So, chapter 43 starts:
Now, the famine was still severe in the land, so when they’d eaten all the grain they brought from Egypt, their father said to them, "Go back and buy us a little more food."
He makes it sound like they’re popping to Aldi for some bread and milk! Well, Judah is growing up. He’s maturing from earlier in the story. Reuben offered his sons as a guarantee; Judah offers himself as a slave if Benjamin does not return.
And so they go, armed with double the money and with some other gifts as well: a little balm, a little honey, and spices and myrrh and pistachios and almonds. By the way, exactly the same things the Ishmaelites took to Egypt when they took Joseph with them.
They’re taken to Joseph’s house now. Again, they are in the dark. Joseph knows, and we know, that they’re being taken there for a banquet. They haven’t a clue; they think that they are going to be in trouble for the silver.
So, on the way over, they talked to the boss man. Chapter 43, verse 20:
"We beg your pardon, our lord. We came down here the first time to buy food, but at the place where we stopped for the night, we opened our sacks, and each of us found his silver — the exact weight — in the mouth of his sack. So we brought it back with us. We've also brought additional silver with us to buy food. We don't know who put our silver in our sacks."
And then the boss man's reply is another one of those very significant things in this story. He says this — verse 23:
"It's all right. Don’t be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, has given you treasure in your sacks. I received your silver."
This man may be an Egyptian, but he’s the one in the story that explains to them what God is doing in all this. And he says two things. First thing he says is, "It’s all right. It’s all right."
Now, this just piqued my interest. I just thought to myself, what is the Hebrew for "It’s all right"? It’s kind of one of those very odd… how do you say that in Hebrew?
Let me tell you: Shālôm lākem. Peace be with you. Wow. That’s a pregnant phrase in the Bible, isn’t it?
And then he says, "God put treasure in your sacks." Now, the word silver is another one of those really key Joseph story words. You get it all the way through the Joseph story — silver. It’s one of these little things that you get, and the writer of Genesis loves repetition. He’d get very bad marks in his English GCSE for writing Genesis, because in modern-day English it’s bad form to use the same word every time. Use some synonyms! No — silver, silver, silver, silver, silver.
So you would expect at this point him to say, "The God of your father has given you your silver in your sacks." No — treasure. Another really unusual, uncommon word as well. Our attention is being… "got" is the wrong word… jarred!
God didn’t just return their money. God is in the business of giving them real treasure.
Well, Joseph comes in. He sees Benjamin, and it’s time for him to weep again. Verse 30:
"Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep. He went into his private room and wept there."
The emotion in this story is growing. This is the second time he’s wept. The first time it was just briefly mentioned; now we get lots of detail as to where and how he wept. He’ll weep one more time in chapter 44, and there it’ll be so loud it’s heard outside the windows and across the street.
The emotion is building as we work our way through.
But then the brothers feast, and two things astonish the brothers as they feast.
Number one, Joseph seats them all in age order. How does he know? Remember, these are grown men — you can’t just sort them by height. It’s not primary school! How does he know what order to sit them in?
And then, out comes Benjamin’s helping — not double, five times what anybody else had!
But how do they respond? Not with jealousy. They just delight, and they tuck in. And that’s where we leave the story, which continues next week. Come back for more. Find out what happens next when they go home. There are yet more twists along the way.
But what are the lessons for us as we read this story?
We’ve said several times over the past few weeks that God has deliberately woven the story of Joseph to prepare us for the coming of Jesus. He’s made the story of the way Joseph is treated and the things that happen to Joseph resemble, in advance, the way that God will rescue the world through the Lord Jesus.
So there are two lessons I want to show us from this passage — for the readers of Genesis the first time, when it was first written. But these then become lessons about Jesus for us.
So here’s lesson number one:
In Jesus, recognise God’s finger
Recognise God’s finger. Ask the question: why did the author of Genesis — let’s call him Moses — recall all of these details and not just skip to the bit when they all moved to Egypt?
And the answer is because God’s rescue plan is incredibly detailed. God wants to bless Abraham’s family, and he wants to bless the whole world through them. And part of that is that they get the land of Canaan as their own.
But from chapter 15 onwards, the plan has included this detail: the family must first move to Egypt, and then 400 years later they will return to Canaan.
And the question is, how will God get them to Egypt?
And the answer is: through a family rivalry that leads them to sell one of their own to slavery — who then happens to become Prime Minister of Egypt when there was a famine everywhere else. So the brothers have to go and buy food — and where one of them is then able to skilfully manipulate and test them, to the point where they trust him enough and the family rifts are healed, so that they can move as a single coherent family to come and live in Egypt.
Wow. That is mind-blowing.
God was in control of the details to get his people in the right place. And this was designed to reassure the first readers of Genesis that there is a masterful God working out his plan to save them. And it’s designed to reassure us of the same thing.
You see, not only did God do this, this same God sent Jesus into the world. But the pattern continues: Jesus, who gathered a ragged bunch of disciples from different previous professions — including one Judas Iscariot, who loved money more than he loved Jesus — and so betrayed Jesus at exactly the right time and place, so that he would die on a tree at Passover, and so on.
What we see here is the finger of God accomplishing an amazing level of detail to achieve his perfect plan. Which means we can have utter confidence that God will finish that plan. He will bring his people into a future world that will be perfect, renewed, and wonderful.
And often life, for us as for Joseph, just feels utterly chaotic. It’s a disordered mess. But what we see here is that God is in control of the chaos. God is in control of the details of the chaos. And we see here how God skilfully uses it to achieve his purposes.
So be reassured.
In Jesus, recognise God’s Saviour
So the problem in this story to be solved was that the brothers needed to recognise Joseph. They didn’t just have to recognise his identity — “Ah, yeah, got it, that’s Joseph.” They had to recognise his authority. But they also had to recognise his benevolence — that he was on their side.
Joseph had to bring them to see who he is, but also that he wants to bless them.
So what does Joseph do to convince them of this?
Well, he could have held nine brothers. He just holds Simeon — because he fears God and wants to feed their families. He could have charged them for their shopping — but instead gave them free food. Better than free — actually gave them treasure. God gave them treasure through him. He could have punished them for stealing the silver — but instead he feeds them with a banquet.
And why does he do all these things?
Well, because he loves them. He longs to see Benjamin again. He needs to know that Jacob, his father, is alive and well. He weeps — with the emotion growing in intensity each time.
And so it is that the brothers come to recognise Joseph — not just for who he is, but that he will now bless them rather than seek revenge.
There is a danger that people — people today — that we do not recognise Jesus. And like the brothers of this story, this is against the backdrop of our own failings. As I said at the start, our sin led Jesus to the cross, and we are all aware of ways that we have failed to love and follow him in the past.
But against that backdrop, we need to come to recognise Jesus.
Let me speak, first of all, to those of us here who are not yet Christians — you’re still looking into whether this is something for you. And let me ask you the question: do you see who Jesus is? Not just that he’s the Prime Minister of Egypt, but that he’s the Lord of the whole world.
Do you see that?
Now, you might expect that if you then came to him, it would be to have a big telling-off for the way you’ve treated him in the past — and treated other people. But he is the one that God sent to save us. So recognise him as the Saviour.
And when Jesus was on Earth, he too wept — not just at the grave of Lazarus; he wept over those who rejected him. And he wants you to come to him and to follow him so that he can bless you.
Do you recognise him?
But to those of us who are Christians, let me ask you the same thing: do you see who he is? Do you recognise him?
Jesus has detailed control of all the intricacies of your life. But when life gets tough, you may be hesitant to come to him for help. The fact that he is in the toughness — well, that could actually be threatening, couldn’t it? Gosh — if Jesus is in control and has allowed this to come, does that mean he doesn’t love me?
We’re all aware of ways we’ve not been faithful to him in the past. So how easy it would be to assume that Jesus is now against you — and if you come to him for help, he will say, “Funny you should ask that, but do you remember when…?” — and turn you away.
Let Joseph bring you to Jesus.
Conclusion
Let Joseph teach you this really important lesson:
The Jesus you rebelled against is the Jesus you can trust.
The Jesus you rebelled against is the Jesus you can trust — and who wants to bless you.
Joseph is a picture of the Lord who cares, and who blesses, and who forgives.
And so, in conclusion, let me say this:
In Jesus, receive God’s peace and God’s forgiveness.
Brothers and sisters, it is no accident that when Jesus rose from the dead, the angel who first met the disciples at the tomb, and the Jesus who met them in the upper room behind locked doors, said to them:
"Peace be with you."
On the day of Pentecost, as Peter was preaching to the crowds — who were the very people who had executed Jesus — it is no accident that he says to them that if they come to him, they will have forgiveness of sins and the promised Holy Spirit. God will bless them.
So come to Jesus — and don’t be afraid.
Let’s let the steward have the last words:
"It’s all right. Shālôm lākem. Peace be with you. Don’t be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, has given you treasure."