NOTES for Gen 42:1-38

And now the most gripping part of this story begins: Joseph meets his brothers. Unrecognized by them, he plays a complex game with them: several times they come to Egypt for grain, where ever new meetings with Pharaoh's strange official await them. This man is constantly trying to catch them in a crime, calling them spies, but implying an entirely different matter that lies on their conscience. What is all this game for? Would it not be simpler to reveal himself to his brothers at once and accuse them directly? But Joseph has another plan: he does not want to accuse them; he wants them to understand for themselves the full horror of their crime. To this end he several times places them before the possibility of losing yet another brother, Simeon or the youngest, Benjamin. Several years earlier they had renounced their brother without a second thought, but now conscience begins to awaken in them. Was this Joseph's design? This intrigue also has a spiritual meaning, because here Joseph acts, as it were, on God's behalf. God, too, rarely accuses a person directly; the risk is too great that the person will laugh in response. God begins a game with him, gradually revealing to him the true essence of his life, patiently waiting until at last he wakes up and sees it in an entirely different light.