Now let us think about this in its context. By this time, Joseph was about 39 years old, give or take. It had been about 20 years or more since his brothers had sold him into slavery. So 20 years had passed, two decades, and both he and they had changed over those 20 years. Think about it. Joseph was no longer the annoying Papa's favorite who told them his dreams of them bowing down to him. He had gone through slavery. Prosperity under Potiphar. False accusation under Potiphar's wife. Prison. And finally, after all those years, exaltation to premier of Egypt. That is a big change from slave to number two man in the nation. Everyone in Egypt at this point obeyed his word, and even Pharaoh, it says, treated him as a father. He had Pharaoh's respect.
Let us not forget the brothers. His brothers had also changed quite a bit. You know, the years between the time they sold Joseph into slavery and their final reunion with him here had not been kind to them. They were wracked with guilt and had been wracked with guilt for a long time. They had done that dirty deed to Joseph. But then when they saw their father's reaction and how it just ruined him, after all those years they blamed themselves for years and years. Because Jacob mourned Joseph deeply and they had caused it. And then he started doting on Benjamin as he had doted on Joseph.
This time though, the brothers were protective of their father's favorite. They tried every which way to keep Joseph from doing what they thought would be something bad or keeping Benjamin in Egypt and they would have to go back to Jacob and said, say, "You lost another son." Judah especially had been put through the wringer. If you want to go read about that, just read chapter 38. His sons dying right and left and then having to go through that scenario with Tamar and she calling him on it and he having to to admit that he was the lowest form of dirt there was. And we see at the end of chapter 44 (if we want to read that), the change in Judah. He was a different man than the one who had sold him into slavery 20 years before.
In fact, it was Judah's change that finally cracked Joseph's stern testing of his brothers. Because all through these chapters, he had been trying to figure out, what are these guys like? How are they going to react to these tests? How are they going to react to my demands? And when Judah finally said, "No, keep me here, don't keep Benjamin. I'll gladly give my life for his," it broke Joseph down. And he said, "Get out of here, everyone," and he revealed himself to his brothers.
But what if Joseph not being sensitive to things? Had responded to his brothers believing they were just as wicked and uncaring as they had been two decades before? Would he have retaliated? Probably would have. He could have rounded them all up and sold them all into slavery, tit for tat. You did it to me, I will do it to you. What a disaster that would have been for Israel. For the man Israel and for the nation that was just getting started. It would have certainly perpetuated the ill feelings and conflict between them. And we might have ended up with a problem like Isaac and Ishmael. Or Jacob and Edom.
Verses 14-15 tell us how desperately isolated and lonely Joseph must have been during the long years of separation from his father and family, even after he had come to a position of great prestige in Egypt.
This memorable picture of Joseph weeping with his brothers shows us something else about him, something even more commendable than the tender loneliness of his heart. It shows us love. It is not so evident that Joseph should have loved his brothers, even Benjamin, who was the child of his own mother as well as his father. Joseph had been absent from home for more than twenty years and his absence was the result of the hatred of his brothers.
The third remarkable thing about Joseph was his ability to forgive, as seen here in the same incident. Reading about Joseph throwing his arms around his full brother, Benjamin, and weeping over him, we understand it to be an act of pure love. Benjamin was not with the others when they pounced upon Joseph and sold him into slavery, nor would he have been. There was a deep and wonderful bond between these two brothers and Joseph reasonably loved Benjamin, but in verse15 it says that:
This was an expression of love of course, because Joseph truly loved all of them, but it was more than just brotherly love. Since these are the ones who wronged him so many years before, this love is love fused with grace. It is forgiveness.
I want you to notice the emphasis that Joseph puts on his history—their tumultuous history together. He says: “Guys, you thought you were being mean to me. You thought you were getting rid of a spoiled brat. But you didn’t know that God was directing everything you did, to bring me here for this moment, so that I could save Egypt and Israel.” He said “You need to understand this. There’s more happening here than you think. And I’m willing to forgive everything you’ve done to me because God is working out His will. God was working out His plan and we were caught up in it for good.” See his own humility there, his own ability to forget the hardships that he had gone through, that they had placed him in, so he could be one with them again. The lesson from Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers is that he saw God in it and he was content.
