Genesis 42:21-24

The third thing solitude did for these guilty brothers of Joseph's was to cause them to reason spiritually. They were not godly men and probably not even converted men before the events of these chapters. They did not reason spiritually. They thought as most worldly people do, mainly that this is a mechanical world and God does not exist, or at least that He does not intervene here. It is such a world where it is every man for himself. They say, “Who is to say that I’ve sinned? Who has the right to hold me to an accounting?” Then God intervened and suddenly the brothers changed their tune.

They imagined that they were in an impersonal and immoral universe, but now, with their sin before them, they realize that the universe is moral after all because it is God's universe, and every sin must and will have a reckoning.

Genesis 42:21-23

Joseph was put through the wringer emotionally, too. Is being put through the wringer good? Is it a blessing? Is it a curse? So the brothers, especially Reuben, somehow connected their present calamity to what they had committed against Joseph and Jacob. It was almost as if they could feel the noose tightening around their necks. They were correct in assuming the connection, and were also correct in assuming that God was somehow involved. They saw the calamity beginning to fall upon them, but they also failed to see the grace that was involved in this issue, too. I think that is because their understanding of the providence of God was not very well developed, and also because they had guilty consciences, and they could think that "we do not deserve anything good."