To understand Genesis 44 we must put ourselves in the brothers’ shoes as they started out from Egypt that final morning. They had gone to Egypt with gloomy apprehensions, fueled perhaps by the even gloomier apprehensions of their father. The last time they had been in Egypt, the prime minister had been suspicious of them. He had called them spies and had refused to believe their word about their family, particularly their testimony about their youngest brother Benjamin who had been left behind in Canaan. More than this, he had demanded proof that they were speaking the truth. They were to bring their younger brother to Egypt, and to make sure they did, he took one of their number, Simeon, and held him behind as a hostage. As they went down to Egypt the second time they must have wondered if their word would be believed even then, though they had Benjamin with them. They must have wondered if Simeon would be released or even if he was still in Joseph’s prison and not already sold into slavery elsewhere.
Their fears in these respects were ungrounded. Their word was proved good and was believed by Joseph. They must have been quite pleased as they departed, telling themselves that it is certainly always a wise course to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Their word had been vindicated.
Moreover, they must have been confident in their money. They had paid for grain the first time. Then, although they did not know how the money from that first transaction had found its way back into their sacks, they had possessed enough silver to bring not only that first payment but even a second payment to Joseph when they eventually returned.
There was a third thing they were also confident about: their integrity. Never mind that they had once sold their younger brother into slavery and had lived with their lie for two decades. They were “honest men.” So when the steward of Joseph’s house went after them according to Joseph’s instructions, accusing them of having stolen his master’s silver drinking cup, they were aghast at the suggestion. “Why does my lord say such things?” they questioned. “Far be it from your servants to do anything like that! We even brought back to you from the land of Canaan the silver we found inside the mouths of our sacks. So why would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves” (vv. 7–9). It takes a great deal of self-confidence to offer to be sold into slavery if any one of a number of a group of people is found to have done something wrong.
