GENESIS 41 and 42
Joseph was given all the honour, power, and status that a de facto ruler of Egypt deserved; Pharaoh remained king of Egypt in name only (a kind of constitutional monarchy!). Joseph was renamed ‘Zaphenath-Paheah’ – which probably means: ‘God speaks and lives’; this would have made Joseph more acceptable to Egyptian ears. Two-fifths of all the bumper harvests of those seven years were yielded to the royal storage facilities, in preparation for those imminent years of famine on the horizon. The storehouses groaned with grain and the administrators gave up counting! Joseph married a priest’s daughter – as befitted his new-found social status – and she produced two sons: Manasseh (meaning: ‘Forgetting’), and Ephraim (meaning: ‘Doubly Fruitful’).
Then the famine hit the Middle East, including Egypt. Joseph’s administration of Egypt’s food supply was perfection itself, and soon all the nearby nations were forced to trade with them – including a certain family with twelve brothers! Jacob’s sons – with the exception of Benjamin – made the long trek to buy grain and didn’t recognise their estranged brother – well he was 30 rather than 17, without a beard, and dressed in Egyptian high fashion. And you don’t really expect to find your kid brother in charge of the greatest empire in the world, do you! On the other hand, it was relatively easy for Joseph to recognise them and to understand easily their conversations that they thought were secret.
Joseph couldn’t resist playing a small game of ‘pay-back’ with them and, suddenly recalling his own childhood dreams, decided to manipulate their fulfilment too. He declared to them that he was a god-fearing man – which had the effect of activating the brothers’ dormant consciences regarding their previous treatment of their long-lost brother. One of the brothers was to be imprisoned as a hostage to ensure compliance with the agreement to return with Benjamin. The brothers, aware of the justice of the LORD in their lives, began to blame themselves for their callous treatment of Joseph all those years ago. Unwittingly, they did so in Joseph’s hearing and in his native tongue!
Therefore, Joseph spared Reuben the indignity of being the hostage (perhaps because of what Reuben had just said, or because he had not played any part in selling Joseph to the Midianite slave traders) and he opted for Simeon instead – perhaps because, as Son Number Two, Simeon had negotiated his price to those slave traders. He then packed the rest of them off to Jacob, hoping that Jacob would take the bait and agree for Benjamin to travel next time. Their grain was provided free of charge, since their silver had been quietly refunded. The brothers all arrived back home and – despite Reuben’s generous promises – a shocked Jacob categorically refused Benjamin permission to make the return journey to Egypt.
Children rarely understand their parents’ pain until they are parents themselves; Joseph probably had not thought through how much he was heaping more worry upon his poor father with this charade. A simple revelation of his true identity from the outset would have surely sufficed. Oh well! Dream on!
The Big Picture 