Joseph’s brothers: “We are honest men” - Tuesday evening 6.9.2009

Genesis 42:10 - “No, my lord,” they answered.  “Your servants have come to buy food.  We are all the sons of one man.  Your servants are honest men, not spies.” 

Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food during the famine.  They claim to be honest, righteous men, despite their long history of committing murders, immorality, deception, and acts of cruelty.  They show the position of sinners when they come before Christ trying to justify themselves, not recognizing their own sin and need for salvation.  Joseph’s brothers were indebted to him, but they want others to treat them as honorable men - just as unbelievers want God to treat them. 

The stories in Genesis about Joseph’s life are a prophetic, pointing us to Jesus.  Joseph was the favorite son of his father, and the one who faced rejection by his brethren.  He endured mistreatment as a slave and then as a criminal, like Jesus.  Joseph was also the one who went ahead to prepare a place for his brethren, who stored up everything that they needed to live, and who granted forgiveness to the very ones who harmed him.  In all these things, we see illustrations of the Lord Jesus and his work of salvation.  We must look beyond the letter, beyond the superficial meaning of the stories, because the letter kills or brings spiritual death (2 Corinthians 3:6).  Jesus said that if we really understood the Old Testament, we would see that it is all about him.  (John 5:39).  

The Lord established Joseph in a high position and gave him revelation so that he had plenty of food stored up.  The famine spread to Canaan, where Joseph’s brothers were living, and they came to Egypt to buy food.  Joseph recognized them immediately, even though it was years after he had last seen them. 

Yet Joseph’s brothers could not recognize him for several reasons.  First, they had sold him as a slave when he was a young man, so they would not have expected to find him in the second highest position in Egypt (which was one of the wealthiest, most powerful countries in the world at that time).  Instead, they assumed he was no longer alive.  Second, the stewards and assistants there would have introduced Joseph by his new Egyptian name, the great Zaphenath-Paneah, instead of calling him “Joseph.”  Third, Joseph was wearing Egyptian clothing, speaking a different language (he used an interpreter to speak to his brothers, as mentioned in Genesis 42:23).  All these factors created an effective disguise so that these travelers did not realize he was their own brother.  Unbelievers today have trouble recognizing Jesus for the same reasons.  They have not thought about Him since they were young, and they do not expect him to be alive and speaking today, much less in a position of having everything they really need.  They think Jesus is just the founder of a religion or someone people worship, not understanding that he is the Lord, that he is eternal, and that he is the one who gives revelation (that is what “Zaphenath-Paneah” means).  They do not understand the way the Lord speaks to us today. 

His brothers came to buy food, to meet their material, physical needs.  They met with Joseph but did not recognize him.  They bowed down before him because they thought he was a foreign prime minister or other dignitary.  ”Then Joseph remembered his dreams about them and said…”  Many years before this, the Lord had given Joseph dreams showing that his brothers would come and bow down before him.  (These are in Genesis 37).  Now he remembered those dreams as he saw the fulfillment before his eyes.  The dreams also showed his father coming after them.  After he remembered these dreams, he realized it was God’s plan to bring all of them to the land of Egypt, so he adopted a plan or strategy that would guarantee his father would come.  His brothers understood nothing about this.  Joseph asks many questions about their father, wanting to know if he still alive.  He is more interested in their father than they are. 

He pointed out to them that a group of adult foreign men traveling in the country together like that looked suspicious - they looked like spies.  They probably did not all look like brothers because they were from three different mothers.  (See Genesis Ch. 29-30).  This was a reasonable accusation, if someone did not know them personally.  The brothers were crafty men, with a history of dishonesty, violence, and deception, and their faces may have shown their bad character and mischievousness, as men’s faces often do.  

The brothers insisted that they were good, honest men.   They mention their father only to explain that they are brothers, and this is the reason these ten men are traveling together in another country, supposedly to get food.  They have little love for Jacob, their father - they had brought him great trouble and sadness on many occasions, without any remorse (see, for example, Genesis 34:30-31; 37:31-33).  Overall, their answers were as vague as possible, to give as little information as they could.  They mention that they used to be twelve brothers, but one “is no more,” and the other (Benjamin) is at home with their father.  They felt that Joseph was treating them more harshly than they deserved.  

It is ironic that they repeatedly claim to be honest men; but liars and deceivers always do this.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  They lied to their neighbors (Gen. 34:13) and to their own family members (Genesis 37:31-32; Genesis 38:11), and they are lying here to Joseph (but he knows better).  They were violent men who committed a massacre of an innocent village, and even plotted to kill their own brother.  (Genesis 34:25-27; 37:20; see also Genesis 38:24).  They were greedy, looting and stealing what did not belong to them (Genesis 34:27-29).  They committed scandalous sexual sins (Genesis 35:22; Genesis 38:16, 23).  They showed no remorse or sorrow over their misdeeds. 

Joseph detained them in prison for three days, the measurement of God’s prophetic time that we see all throughout the stories in the Bible.  God is a Trinity, and He lives in eternity, outside of human time.  With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.  (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8).  ”Three days” shows the prophetic element in this story, showing that we are speaking of God’s project, which operates on His prophetic time.  Then Joseph let them go but kept Simeon captive, which neither his brothers nor his father cared much about, for Simeon was under a curse for his savage acts in Shechem (Genesis 49:5-7). 

The story of salvation is the same.  Man comes to God seeking help with some material problem.  He does not recognize at first that he is a debtor.  He does not feel his own fault.  Christ offers us salvation from sin, but first people must recognize their need for forgiveness.  They need to come to God humbly, asking for mercy.  Instead, unbelievers make excuses for themselves, rationalize their failings, justify their actions, and demand that everyone treat them as honorable men.  Even the accusation of being “spies” is not far from the truth in many cases, because unbelievers often come to a church looking for weaknesses they can criticize and attack, just like spies enter a country looking for unprotected areas and vulnerable spots. 

Jesus told the religious leaders in his day, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now you claim that you can see, and your sin remains.”  (John 9:41).  They thought they were righteous and did not need a Savior, but when Jesus asked them to identify which one of them had no sin, they all left, starting with the oldest.  (John 8:9).  Jesus told a powerful story about this in Luke 18:9-14.

Jesus presented a similar parable to Simon the Pharisee when he was at his home:  “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender.  One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both.  Now which of them will love him more?”  Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” . . .  But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”  (Luke 7:41-47).  Of course, the “greater debt” is just a matter of our own perception.  The wages of any sin is death (Romans 6:23).  The problem is that some people think their sins are not as bad as the sins of others.  The Apostle Paul was a good religious Pharisee before he converted, faultless in keeping outward rules (Philippians 3:6).  Even so, he saw himself as the “worst of sinners.”  (1 Timothy 1:15; see also Proverbs 20:9). 

We must come to God humbly, acknowledging and confessing our sins, seeking forgiveness and mercy.  This is how David approached the Lord in Psalm 51.  (See also Romans 1:17-24).  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”  (1 John 1:8-10).  We need to come to Christ admitting our need of salvation.  Those who feel they are righteous stay in religion, apart from the project of salvation.  They feel no need for it.  Whenever we see a pastor who treats the sheep harshly, who preaches harsh, thundering sermons against the sheep, we know that he lacks humility.  Somehow, he got the idea that he is superior to the sheep.  We want our pastors to realize their own need for forgiveness and to be deeply thankful that God is letting them serve in the pulpit.  Then they will be gentle and spiritual in their preaching, as the Lord wants. 

Joseph’s brothers were aware of their wrongdoing, and interpreted bad events as some sort of fatalistic punishment for it (Genesis 42:21-22).  Even so, they would not admit it or do anything about it.  They blamed each other for it, just as unbelievers blame everyone else for their own faults and failures.  It was a long time before they confessed their sins and asked Joseph for forgiveness (Genesis 50:17).  Today is the day we should recognize our need and come to Jesus for salvation and pardon, because he is ready to forgive us and cleanse us.