Judah Steps Forward

A silver cup lies on the floor of an Egyptian palace. Eleven brothers stand frozen. The governor of Egypt points at the youngest. He stays here as my slave. The rest of you, go home. And one brother steps forward.

More than twenty years earlier, Jacob's sons had grown jealous of their brother Joseph, their father's favourite. It was Judah who said, let's not kill him; let's sell him. So they sold Joseph to traders heading for Egypt, and told their father he had been killed by a wild animal. Since then, much has happened. Joseph has risen from slave and prisoner to governor of all Egypt. Famine has struck, and Jacob's sons have come to Egypt to buy grain. They do not recognise Joseph. But he recognises them. He has tested them, demanded they bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, and now he has hidden his own silver cup in Benjamin's sack. He wants to know one thing. Have they changed?

Judah comes near to Joseph. Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word, and don't be angry, for you are like Pharaoh himself. Then Judah tells the whole story. You asked if we had a father or a brother. We told you: we have an old father, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's sons, and his father loves him. You said bring him down. We said, the boy cannot leave his father; if he does, his father will die. But you insisted. Notice something. Judah speaks of his father's love for Benjamin without bitterness. The jealousy that once burned in him over Joseph seems to be gone.

Judah goes on. Our father said, you know my wife bore me two sons. One went out from me, and I said, surely he is torn to pieces, and I have not seen him since. If you take this one too and harm comes to him, you will bring my grey hairs down to the grave in sorrow. Then Judah makes his offer. I promised my father I would bear the blame for the boy for ever. “Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren.” How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I could not bear to see the misery it would bring him. The brother who once sold a brother into slavery now offers himself as a slave, to save a brother.

Joseph cannot hold back any longer. Everyone out, he cries to his Egyptian servants. And when only the brothers are left, he weeps so loudly that the Egyptians hear it, and Pharaoh's household hears about it. “I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?” His brothers are too terrified to answer. Come near to me, please, he says, and they come. I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. What they meant for harm, God had used to save them all.

There is a detail that explains why the brothers never recognised Joseph. In Genesis chapter forty-two, Joseph spoke to them through an interpreter, so they did not know he understood every word they said. Egyptians also kept apart from foreigners at meals; Genesis notes that Egyptians would not eat with Hebrews. Joseph looked, dressed and sounded like an Egyptian official. Scholars who study ancient Egypt, such as the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen, have pointed to many Egyptian details in the Joseph story, from court titles to the price of a slave.

This moment is in Genesis chapter forty-four, verse eighteen, to chapter forty-five, verse five. Judah offered to take Benjamin's place. Long afterward, Jacob blessed Judah and said the sceptre would not depart from his tribe, and from Judah came King David, and Jesus, who gave himself in our place. So here is a question to carry with you. How has God changed you, and is there someone you could stand up for, even when it costs you?