Benjamin is Charged With a Felony

The famine continued throughout the land of Canaan and was getting worse.  Soon Jacob’s family had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt.  None of their crops would grow and there was no food left anywhere in their country.  They had no alternative but to buy some more food in Egypt, so their father said to his sons, "You must go back to Egypt and buy us some more food."

Judah reminded his father, "If we go we have to take Benjamin with us. The man in charge of the food bank solemnly warned us that he would not see us again or let us buy any more food unless our youngest brother came back with us to prove that the story we told him was true.  We will only go back to Egypt if you let Benjamin go with us.  It would be dangerous for us to go without Benjamin.”

Jacob was annoyed.  He asked his sons, "Why did you tell the man that you had another brother? You have created a big problem for us."

The sons replied, "The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our family.  He asked us if our father was still alive and whether we had another brother.  We answered his questions.  How could we have known that he would demand that we bring our brother back with us?”

Then Judah said, "Father, please send Benjamin with me.  You must let us go back to Egypt immediately to get more food so that all of us may live and not die—you and we and also our little ones will starve if we do not get food.  I will personally guarantee that I will bring Benjamin back and you can hold me accountable for his safety. If I do not bring him back to you then let me bear the blame forever.  If we had not spent so much time arguing over this we would have been able to go and come back twice."

Jacob finally relented and said to his sons, "If that is the way it must be, ok, go ahead and take Benjamin with you, but also take with you some of the choice products of our land and give them as a gift to the manager of the food—a little balm and a little honey, gum, resin, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Take twice as much money as you need to buy the food. Take back the money that was returned in your sacks on your last trip because perhaps it was just a mistake. Take your brother Benjamin and be on your way to Egypt to see the manager of the food bank.   May Yahweh The Almighty protect you on your journey and send back your brother Simeon as well as Benjamin.  As for me, if I lose my children, I will be heartbroken and in mourning for them until I die."

The brothers took gifts for the manager of grain sales and double the money they needed to pay for grain so they could repay the money they found in their bags when they got home from their previous trip, and they took Benjamin and went on their long journey to Egypt.  When they got to Egypt they went immediately to Joseph’s office.   

When Joseph saw that Benjamin was with them he said to his assistant, "Bring the men to my house, and slaughter an animal and prepare a great feast.  These men are to dine with me at noon."  The servants did as Joseph commanded and brought the brothers to Joseph's house.  The brothers were afraid when they learned they were being taken to Joseph's house and as they talked about it they concluded that it must be because of the money they found in their sacks on their return from their previous trip to Egypt.  They suspected they were being taken away so the Egyptians could attack them or kill them, or make them slaves and take their donkeys.

Fearfully they spoke to the house manager, who met them at the entrance of Joseph's house, and said to him, "Sir, we came to Egypt a couple of years ago to buy food and on our way home when we stopped at our lodging place for the night we opened our sacks and there was our money in the top of each man’s sack.   We don’t know how it got there, but all our money that we had paid for grain was in the sacks. So we have brought it back with us and we brought additional money to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks."

The house manager said, "Don’t worry about it.  There’s no problem.  Your god or the god of your father must have put that money in your sacks for you.  We have your money."  Then he brought their brother Simeon from the jail to join them.  

The house manager brought the brothers into Joseph's house, gave them water so they could wash their feet, and gave them fodder for their donkeys. He told the brothers that Joseph was coming at noon to dine with them.  The brothers prepared for dinner and got out the gifts they had brought for Joseph.

When Joseph returned home, the brothers gave him the gifts they had brought and bowed to the ground in front of him.  Joseph inquired about their welfare and asked them, "Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?"

“Yes,” they said, "your servant our father is alive and well."  And they bowed their heads respectfully in deference to his rank.  Then Joseph noticed his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, "Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about when you were here before?"

Suddenly Joseph rushed out of the room without saying anything else because he was overcome with emotion and affection for his brother and tears were forming in his eyes. So he went into a private room where they could not see his tears. Then he washed his face and returned to the brothers and controlling himself he said to the servants, "Serve the meal."

First the servants served dinner to Joseph at his own table, then served the brothers who sat by themselves at a separate table.  Finally the servants served dinner to the other Egyptians who ate with Joseph at his table.  The Egyptians would not eat at the same table with the Hebrews for they considered them to have lower social status than Egyptians and eating with them would be unacceptable and disgraceful.

They were seated at a separate table from Joseph, according to their age, from the first born who had the birthright down to the youngest.  They were surprised when they noticed that the amount of food set before Benjamin was five times as much as theirs.  They considered that a good sign, so they relaxed, ate and drank and had a good time.

After dinner Joseph commanded his house manager, "Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the top of his sack. Put my cup, the silver cup, in the top of the sack of the youngest, along with his money for the grain."

The house manager did as Joseph told him.  The brothers went to sleep in the guest quarters of Joseph’s house.  Early the next morning, as soon as it was light outside, the brothers said goodbye to their host and started out on their journey home, with their donkeys and their full sacks of grain. 

After they had been gone only a short time Joseph said to his house manager, “Take some officers with you and go after the Hebrews who just left here.  When you catch up to them arrest them and ask them, ‘Why did you return my kindness to you with criminal behavior?  Why did you steal from us after we were good to you? Why did you steal my master’s silver cup, the one he drinks his wine from, the one he uses to see the future?  You have done wrong.’”

The house manager did as he was told.  Quickly he overtook the brothers on the road and arrested them, and said to them as he had been instructed.  The brothers were shocked at their arrest.  They said to the manager, "Why does my lord accuse us of these things?  We would not do what you accuse us of!  We returned the money that we found at the top of our sacks when we got home from our last trip to Egypt.  Why then would we steal silver or gold from your lord's house?  If you can find anything on us that we have stolen you can kill the thief and you can take the rest of us as slaves to your master.”

The house manager said, “Well, as you have said, that’s pretty much what will happen—except that we will make a slave of the guilty man and the rest of you will go free.” 

Under the careful eye of the manager, the brothers unloaded their donkeys and opened their sacks.  The officers started searching them, starting with the oldest and down to the youngest—and when they got to Benjamin’s sack they found the missing silver cup that belonged to Joseph.  The brothers were stunned and shocked.  In grief they tore their clothes.  Then they loaded their donkeys again and returned with the officers to the city.  They were taken directly to Joseph’s house. 

When they saw Joseph they got down on their faces in front of him.

Joseph said to them, "What have you done? Don’t you realize that a man in my position knows what is going on and can even see into the future?”

Judah said, "I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know what we can tell you to clear our names of these false charges.  I don’t know how to convince you that we are innocent.  Yahweh himself has made us appear guilty, so there’s nothing we can do about it.  So now we are your slaves, all of us, as well as the one who was found with the stolen cup in his possession.” 

Joseph said to them, "That’s not the way I do things.  Only the one who is actually guilty, the man found with my cup, shall become my slave.  The rest of you are free to go.  Go in peace back to your father and to your homes.”

Then Judah stepped up to Joseph and said to him, "Please, sir, let me speak to you directly, and please do not be angry with me.  You are like the Pharaoh himself.   When we were here before you asked us whether we had a father or a brother.  I told you, yes, we have a father back home in Canaan, an old man now.  We used to have a younger brother, the child of his old age, but he is dead, and there is another brother we left at home with our father, and our father would not let him come to Egypt with us for fear something would happen to him and our father would then be left alone.  But you said to us that you wanted to see the brother we left at home.  We told you that the boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father and not return, his father would die of grief.

“Then you told us, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, I will not see you again and you will not be able to buy food from us.’

“So we went home and told our father what you said. You kept our brother Simeon here as a hostage.  Still our father would not let us come back here and bring our youngest brother.  But the famine continued and one day our father said to us, ‘You must go back to Egypt again and buy us some food, because we have to eat, we don’t have any choice.’ 

“We told our father, ‘We cannot go back to Egypt without taking our youngest brother Benjamin with us.  The man in charge in Egypt will not see us or sell us any food unless our youngest brother is with us.'

“So my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.  One did not return home and we believe that he was torn to pieces somewhere on the road—anyway I have not seen him since.  If you take this son from me also and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to the underworld of the dead.'  Benjamin is everything my father has left in the world that gives him the will to live.  If I go home to my father and Benjamin is not with us, then when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and we will be responsible for our elderly gray-haired father departing this life to the underworld in great sorrow.  I gave my word to my father that I would bring him back safely.  I made a pledge that if I do not bring him back home again then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father all my life.  Please let me take Benjamin’s place as a slave and let the boy go back home with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father."

Joseph could no longer control himself before all those members of his household who were standing around.  He shouted, "All of you, get out of here except for these men.”  Immediately all his staff and members of his household left the room.  When Joseph was alone with his brothers he let them know who he was—their lost brother Joseph.  Joseph was overcome with emotion and wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it from another room.  Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?"

His brothers were speechless with shock and did not answer him immediately.  Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me because Yahweh sent me here to preserve life.  There has been famine and starvation throughout the land these past two years and there are five more years coming in which it will be pointless to plow the dry barren fields because there will be no crops to harvest.  Yahweh has sent me to save lives in this time of trouble, and I have become very powerful and I rule over all the land of Egypt.”

Then he told his brothers to go back home immediately and to tell their father that Joseph is alive and well and ruler of all Egypt and to bring their father, and their entire families, with all their flocks and herds and move to Egypt to live in new lands that he would give them in the eastern part of the Nile delta region known as the Land of Goshen.  He told his brothers: “There I will provide you and your households with food and whatever you need so that you do not end up in poverty.  You can see that it is me, your brother, who speaks to you.  Now you must go home and tell my father that I am greatly honored in Egypt, and you must bring my father to me.  There were tears and hugs all around and lots of conversation about what had happened in the years they were apart from each other.

When the news reached Pharaoh that Joseph’s brothers had come to Egypt, he was happy for Joseph and commanded him:  “Tell your brothers to load up their animals and go home to Canaan and then return with their father and their entire households.  I will give them some of the best land in Egypt to live on.  Take wagons with you to transport the women and children.  Don’t worry about what you are leaving behind, because I will give you fertile lands here in Egypt.”

Joseph did as Pharaoh commanded.  He sent them home with wagons and provisions for the journey.  To each of them he gave a set of new clothes.  In addition he gave Benjamin five sets of new clothes and 300 pieces of silver, and for his father he sent 20 donkeys loaded with grain, bread and provisions for the trip from Canaan back to Egypt.  He sent the brothers back to Canaan with one final instruction—don’t quarrel among yourselves along the way.

When they got home to Canaan and told their father what had happened he was stunned and could hardly believe them.  But when he saw the wagons, the donkeys, and the things that had been sent back with the brothers he was finally convinced—and overjoyed that his son Joseph was still alive, and told his sons, “I can hardly believe that my son Joseph is still alive. Now I must go and see him before I die."

 

Jacob had twelve sons, but only two (Joseph and Benjamin) were sons of his beloved wife Rachel and he favored those two, who were also his youngest.  His other children were mothered by Leah or by the servant-concubines.  The names of the twelve brothers are patronyms, and represent the twelve tribes that are believed to have joined together to form the later nation of Israel.