Chapter 26. Part 2.
The servant obeyed, and in the morning they were sent away. When gone, Joseph told the servant to run after the men and accuse them of having stolen the cup, the silver cup out of which his master drank. The brothers were soon overtaken and told what Joseph had commanded. They wondered very much at this for they knew they had stolen nothing, and they said: “With whomsoever of thy servants the cup is found, let him die, and we will be slaves to my lord.” They took down their sacks, and the servant looked and found the cup in Benjamin’s sack. They rent their clothes and went back to Joseph and fell down before him. And Joseph asked them: “What deed is this that you have done?” Judah answered: “What shall we say unto my lord? God has found out the iniquity of thy servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants.” But Joseph said “The man with whom the cup was found, he shall be my servant; and as for you, go back in peace to your father.” Then Judah came near to Joseph and told him how unwilling their father had been to send Benjamin with them and how much he grieved to let him go, and added: “I became surety for the lad unto my father; saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father forever: Now, I pray thee, let me abide instead of the lad and let him go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come to my father.”
Then Joseph could not restrain himself any longer and commanded everyone to go out that he might be alone with his brethren and make himself known to them. And he wept aloud and said: I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt; is my father yet alive? His brothers could not answer him, but Joseph called them near to him and said: Be not grieved, for God sent me here to preserve life. Two years of famine have already past, but there are yet five years in which there shall be no crop. So it was not you that sent me here, but God, who made me as a father to Pharaoh, and a ruler over all this land. Now hasten to my father and tell him his son Joseph is alive, and to come down to me without delay; and you shall dwell in the land of Goshen with all that you have, and I will nourish you during these five years of famine. And tell him of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen.
And Joseph fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and kissed him and all his brethren, and they talked with him. I think they must have told him their sorrow at having treated him so cruelly, and must have felt deeply ashamed of their ways toward him when he forgave them so freely. I trust too that they thanked him for his love to them. What a beautiful example for us! “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” There was but One who did this perfectly: The blessed One of whom Joseph is a picture, the Lord Jesus, who, when we were yet His enemies, died to reconcile us to God. And His forgiveness is so thorough, so perfect, that God says of those who have accepted Him as their Saviour: “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Heb. 10:1717And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 10:17).
ML 08/15/1909