Why was Joseph so hard on his brothers? On meeting them for the first time in twenty two years, for instance, he “spoke harshly to them,” Genesis 42:7, accusing them of being “spies” checking out the strength of the Egyptian defences (9, 12, 14), and bluntly refusing to believe they’d only come to buy grain (10-12).
He then threw them all in prison for three days and on the third day he demands that they prove their honesty by having them go back to Canaan and bring back their “youngest brother, so that your words may be verified, and that you may not die” (20) – spying being punishable by death. So Joseph was really going to town to scare the livers out of them, despite knowing they were his brothers. But why?
Well, his brothers had never imagined anything like this happening to them, but those three days in prison together got them thinking. And thinking about Joseph too, in how Joseph must have felt “when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen, and that’s why this distress has come on us” (21). It was their own conclusion, then, that they were getting a well deserved taste of their own medicine.
And on several other counts too: Joseph refusing to believe their story, for instance, was reminiscent of them refusing to believe Joseph’s dreams (37:8). And being accused by Joseph of lying and deceit was also reminiscent of the lies and deceit they’d told Jacob about Joseph’s demise (37:31-33). So was this, in fact, all God’s doing as his way of getting through to the brothers what they’d done?
The brothers certainly thought so, because on discovering that the silver they’d used to pay for their grain was still in their packs – as though they’d stolen it back – they were “trembling,” and their immediate question was: “What is this that God has done to us?” (42:27-28). That’s where their thinking went: it went to God. So had God inspired Joseph to act this way to his brothers to bring them to this point of God becoming real to them? Because that’s what happened here.
Which is super encouraging to know, because of people we know and lying deceitful leaders we know, who at this point in their lives show no interest in God or any respect for him. But they’ve done things to people in their past life that God can have done to them in return to make himself real to them later on. And not only that; he was also “Making Jesus real through Joseph” too….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 