Biblion Bible Commentary
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A meal, and a portion five times as much
Genesis 43:15-34
15 The men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and got up, went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. · WEB
Terrified men are seated in birth order at a banquet, and the favored youngest is given five times what they get.
They stand before Joseph with Benjamin, and his instruction is immediate: butcher an animal, prepare, for the men will dine with me at noon.
The brothers' reaction to being brought to the house is pure dread, and their reasoning is entirely rational: the money in the sacks is a frame, and they are about to be seized as slaves. Men with guilty consciences read every kindness as a trap, which has been their condition since the first sack was opened.
So they intercept the steward at the door and explain everything before anyone accuses them — the money found, the full weight, the money brought back, the money brought for this trip. We don't know who put our money in our sacks.
The steward's reply is one of the most surprising sentences in Genesis: Peace be to you. Don't be afraid. Your God, and the God of your father, has given you treasure in your sacks. I received your money.
An Egyptian household official tells a family of Hebrews that their God has done this. He is Joseph's steward and has evidently learned whose the household really belongs to, and he says it to frightened men as a comfort rather than as a formula. And the last clause is a plain lie in their favor — he did not receive their money, and he closes the matter so that they cannot reopen it.
Then Simeon is brought out, and nothing at all is recorded of the reunion.
Joseph arrives and they bow to the ground again, and his first question is the one he has been waiting to ask: Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he yet alive?
And then he sees Benjamin, and the narrator supplies the detail that matters: his brother, his mother's son. Of the eleven men in that room, one shares his mother, and he last saw him as a small child. What he manages to say is a blessing — God be gracious to you, my son — and then he has to leave.
Joseph hurried, for his heart yearned over his brother; and he sought a place to weep. He entered into his room, and wept there. He washed his face, and came out. He controlled himself, and said, "Serve the meal." Six clauses covering the whole business of breaking down and pulling oneself together in private. It is the third time he has wept and the first time he has had to hide it in his own house.
The seating arrangement is the strangest thing in the chapter. Three tables — Joseph alone, the Egyptians separately, the brothers separately, because Egyptians would not eat with Hebrews — and the brothers are placed the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth.
And the men marveled with one another. Of course they did. Eleven men seated in exact birth order by a foreigner who cannot possibly know it. The odds against are astronomical and they have no explanation, and Joseph is watching them work it out and saying nothing.
Then the test is set. Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs. Rachel's son, publicly favored at a table, in front of the ten who once could not speak peaceably to a favored younger brother.
And nothing happens. They drank, and were merry with him.
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