The Old Man Alone
Genesis. 44:18-34
Is Joseph being a tyrant now?
Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash
Then Judah stepped up to him and said, “O my lord, let your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead; he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, so that I may set my eyes on him.’ We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.’ When we went back to your servant my father we told him the words of my lord. And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ we said, ‘We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother goes with us, will we go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons; one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces; and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.’ Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die; and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father all my life.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. For 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.” - Genesis. 44:18-34
What is Joseph trying to do?
He asks if there is anyone left at home. He knows the father is alone, so is he trying to get them to admit that they set out to kill the one brother who is lost, Joseph?
Surely they will not confess that they killed their brother to a ruler in Egypt. What would that gain them?
So, there is an impasse, a stalemate.
Joseph’s demands seem excessive to Judah, who stands up to speak for the family.
What Judah does not say is that he and the other brothers were responsible for the loss of Benjamin;s brother, Joseph.
Should Joseph expect that of him?
Look at it from Judah’s perspective. He is doing business with a powerful man who has already held one of the brothers captive, awaiting the return with the youngest son, Benjamin.
Now he is demanding that Benjamin stay with him. This is totally unreasonable and frightening to Judah.
I am not sure I would agree to Joseph’s demands either.
In the current age, however, spam and scams are rampant, so we have all become a bit overly cautious when it comes to requests and demands made of us.
Judah doesn’t have CHATGPT to confirm the validity of Pharaoh’s young ruler, so he has to go on trust and faith, two things he has in short supply.
What will Joseph do now?
Will he agree to let Benjamin go with them, or will he ask to have the father brought to him as well?
We will have to wait and see.
More to come...