Read with Me
Genesis 44:18-34 (HCSB)
But Judah approached him and said, “Sir, please let your servant speak personally to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’ and we answered my lord, ‘We have an elderly father and a younger brother, the child of his old age. The boy’s brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him to me so that I can see him.’ But we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he were to leave, his father would die.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘If your younger brother does not come down with you, you will not see me again.’
“This is what happened when we went back to your servant my father: We reported your words to him. But our father said, ‘Go again, and buy us some food.’ We told him, ‘We cannot go down unless our younger brother goes with us. So if our younger brother isn’t with us, we cannot see the man.’ Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left—I said that he must have been torn to pieces—and I have never seen him again. If you also take this one from me and anything happens to him, you will bring my gray hairs down to Sheol in sorrow.’
“So if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us—his life is wrapped up with the boy’s life—when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hairs of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow. Your servant became accountable to my father for the boy, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you, my father.’ Now please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave, in place of the boy. Let him go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the grief that would overwhelm my father.”
Listen with Me
At Joseph’s declaration that Benjamin would remain in Egypt while the other ten brothers returned home, the hearts of all of them sank to the floor. They knew that leaving Benjamin in Egypt would kill their father; he would literally die of a broken heart.
But it was Judah who presented their case to Joseph. Judah had declared to his father that if they didn’t bring Benjamin back with them, he would bear the responsibility before his father all the rest of his life (Genesis 43:8-9). In other words, he would become an outcast. If that was going to be his fate, he figured that he would just as well spend his life as a slave in Egypt.
Judah presented a very clear, very accurate synopsis of their initial dealings with Joseph, and of their conversations with their father. He included the fact that he himself (the one who, incidentally, recommended selling Joseph to the passing Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:26-28)) had pledged security for Benjamin’s safety if only their father would let him go with them.
All that was a promising sign to Joseph that something had changed in the hearts of his brothers. But the tipping point was when Judah offered to stay on as a slave in Benjamin’s place so that he could return home to their father.
This was no symbolic offer. Judah realized that this man was supremely powerful, and that what he said was what would happen. He could say yes or no to the suggestion, but his decision would stand. So, he had presented his most persuasive presentation. Now, he could only wait to see what would happen.
Joseph knew that if Judah was willing to remain behind for life in Benjamin’s place, he truly had changed. He looked intently at his other brothers, seeing in their faces the same concern over their father’s fate, as well as that of Benjamin and Judah, and in that moment, he knew. It was safe to reveal himself to them.
Pray with Me
Father, the hearts of people truly can change. If we submit ourselves fully to You, You can change them quickly. But if we won’t, it takes a lot longer and requires a lot more force through the events, challenges, and ever tragedies that You must bring into our lives to get the job done. The choice, the easy way or the hard way, is entirely ours. Help us to always choose the easy way, Lord. Amen.