LESSON VII-MAY 18

JOSEPH MEETS HIS BRETHREN

Golden Text

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal. 6.7

HOME DAILY BIBLE READINGS-M. Gen. 42.3-17. Jospeh Meets his Brethren. T. Gen. 42.18-25. Conscience Awakened. W. Gen. 42.26-38. Sin Finding them out. T. Gen. 43.1-15. Increasing Anxiety and Trouble. F. Ps. 99. Pardon with Punishment. S. Ps. 32. Confession and Forgiveness. S. Dan. 9.1-10. Prayer for Forgiveness.

STUDY Gen. 42 COMMIT vv 15, 16

3 And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy grain from Egypt. 4 But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure harm befall him. 5 And the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. 6 And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. 7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly with them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. 8 And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 10 And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. II We are all one man's sons; we

are true men, thy servants are no spies. 12 And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 13 And they said, We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. 14 And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies: 15 hereby ye shall be proved: by the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. 16 Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be bound, that your words may be proved, whether there be truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies. 17 And he put them all together into ward three days.

WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED

Lesson Outline. I Jacob's Sons sent to Egypt for Grain, 1-4. II. The Ten Brothers meet Joseph, 5-6. III. Joseph charges them with being_Spies, 7-17. IV. Simeon bound and the Others depart, 18-26. V. Their Return Journey and Report to Jacob, 27-34. VI. Their Money found and their Father's Fears, 35-38.

1-3. Why do ye look one upon another? Why does each of you look helplessly at another for a solution of our trouble? Although so old, Jacob surpassed his sons in energy. I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. He would hear this from the travelers who passed through Canaan on their way between Assyria and Egypt.-Ten brethren. It was necessary that they should all go in order to care for the pack animals and for defense if attacked by marauders on the way. Went down to buy grain. From Jacob's words in verse I we may infer that they went with great reluctance; the word Egypt may well have had a direful sound to them because to that land they had sold Joseph as a slave. 4-6. Benjamin Jacob sent not. The youngest and the only surviving son of

Rachel, as Jacob supposes, is now his father's favorite.-Peradventure. Perhaps. -Bowed down themselves to him. As Joseph had dreamed, Gen. 37.7-9; 41.43. -with faces to the earth. See below.

8-9. They knew not him. It was many years since they had seen him (compare Gen. 41.1, 48 and 45.6), his face was shaved like all Egyptians, he wore an Egyptian headdress, his costume and language were foreign, he spoke to them through an interpreter, and he had, moreover, purposely made himself strange

unto them, verse 7-Ye are spies. See p. 202.-The nakedness of the land. Its undefended portions.

11-13. We are all one man's sons. The force of this reply lies in the inference that no father would let all his sons risk their lives as spies.-The youngest. Benjamin.-One is not. Is not alive; Joseph is meant.

15. By the life of Pharaoh. See p. 202.-Except your youngest brother come hither. Joseph would find out whether the ten brothers had been as false to Benjamin as they had been to him.

SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS FROM HELPFUL WRITERS

5. The famine was in the land of Canaan. The extension of the famine to Canaan and other countries is remarkable, and can only be explained by the supposition that there was a simultaneous failure of rain both in Canaan and in the country about the sources of the Nile. Certainly seven years of famine in both countries does not seem very probable; but the narrative does not require more than two years in Canaan (45.6). Dr. Driver, in Genesis.

36. All things are against me. It was a great mistake. Joseph was alive-the governor of Egypt; sent there to preserve their lives, and to be the stay of his closing years. Simeon was also alive-the blessed link which was drawing and compelling his brothers to return into the presence of the strange Egyptian governor. Benjamin would come safely back again. All things, so far from being against him, were working together for good to him; and if only he would trust God, he would live to see it so. All things are yours, if you are Christ's. All things serve you. Even those that seem most awry and trying are really promoting your best interests. If you knew as much about them as God does, you would go down on your bended knees and thank him, with streaming eyes, for the most untoward of your circumstances. The seed buried in the ground may rejoice in the frost as much as in the genial sunshine. And even though some events cut us to the quick, if we believe that the infinite love of God is working in and through them, we may sing as Paul and Silas did, albeit that our feet are fast in the stocks. Let us cultivate the habit of looking at the bright side of things. If there are only a few clouds floating in your sky, do not say that the whole is overcast; and if all the heaven is covered, save one small chink of blue, make much of that: and by all means do not exaggerate the darkness. Dr. F. B. Meyer, in Israel, a Prince with God.

LIGHT FROM ARCHEOLOGY OR FROM ORIENTAL LIFE

6. Bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. In Palestine today when a native of standing, or wealth, or position, meets men of a lower position than himself, his bow to them is very slight, but theirs is as low as possible without danger to themselves of toppling over. Slaves and servants

throw themselves on their knees, as their lords pass by, and touch the ground with their foreheads. Gamahliel Wad-el-Ward.

9. Ye are spies. This was a natural accusation, for Egypt was so open to attack on the east that she was always on the lookout for invasion, and always

on guard lest the weakness of her defence should become known. Under the twelfth dynasty fortresses were built across the Isthmus of Suez, and under the nineteenth dynasty this frontier was closely watched, officers stationed there taking the names of all that passed in either direction.

A report of a frontier official in the reign of Merenptah, probably a few years before the Exodus, has come down to us

which gives the number of people and the official dispatches that passed each day to and from Syria; another report gives details of some Bedouins coming to pasture in the Wady Tumilat. Thus the smallest details, Professor Flinders Petrie points out, were being reported in true Eastern fashion with that system of minute registration which characterized all their administration. It is natural to suppose that the same precautions were taken in Joseph's time. So large a band as that of ten men would not escape suspicion.

15. By the life of Pharaoh. Or, better, As Pharaoh liveth. A form of oath known from Egyptian monuments: in an account of criminal proceedings, belonging to the twentieth dynasty, a thief has an oath administered to him by the king's life, to prevent his speaking falsely. The popular Hebrew forms of oaths were As Jehovah liveth, and As thy soul liveth. Dr. S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis.

THE HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND

Review Questions. What were the two dreams which Joseph told his brothers when he was a lad? What effect did these dreams have upon them? To what did their envy and hatred lead? What qualities did Joseph show when in Potiphar's home and in the prison? How did he come into power?

Joseph was thirty years old when he gained the favor of Pharaoh and was made ruler of Egypt. His position was strengthened socially by his marriage with Asenath, the daughter of Potipher, a priest of On. Two sons were born to them: the elder was named Manasseh, Making to forget, for, said Joseph, God hath made me forget all my toil; the second was named Ephraim, To be fruitful, "For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." The seven years of plenty passed, during which Joseph stored away abundant grain. The seven years of famine came and Joseph opened the storehouses and sold the grain to the Egyptians.

What has been happening meanwhile in Jacob's household back in Beersheba? For more than twenty years Jacob had mourned Joseph as dead, and had found his main comfort in Benjamin, Joseph's own brother, the son of Jacob's beloved wife, Rachel. The time is drawing near when God's purpose of bringing Israel into Egypt is to be accomplished. The selling of Joseph into slavery and the coming of the long famine were the immediate means by which this purpose is wrought.

On the eastern border of the Delta, seven miles northeast of modern Cairo, was the great national temple of the Sun at On, or Heliopolis. This temple was served by the most learned priests in the land; Asenath, Joseph's wife, was the daughter of its chief priest. Here Moses was educated, for in his day it

was the Athens of Egypt. A long avenue of sphinxes led to the temple and at its entrance in front stood several obelisks, one of which, dating from about 2000 B. C., still marks the site. See the photograph, opposite page 268.

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS OF LITTLE FOLKS

By questions review the story of Joseph sent from his home to find his brothers, and their treatment of him. Picture the desolation in his home when the brothers returned without him and gave their father his coat of many colors which they had dipped in blood. During all the years that Joseph was serving in Egypt, these brothers have been caring for the sheep at his old home. Many years have passed and now these brothers are going down to Egypt for grain, for there was a famine in Canaan as well as in Egypt. They little thought that they would meet Joseph in Egypt, but as they travelled over the same road that Joseph had gone over when they sold him to be a slave, they must have thought about him, and wondered if he were still living (as Emma A. Robinson suggests in 'Stories of Bible Victories"). "Perhaps they wondered how it must feel to be a slave, and belong to some one else, for they had never heard a word from Joseph since that morning they sold him. As soon as they came near the king's house and asked for corn, Joseph knew them, but they did not know him. They never thought of his being a ruler and wearing such fine clothes. As Joseph looked at them, he must have thought of all their unkindness to him, and of the hard times that they had made him have. He might have thought, as they did the day they saw him coming at Dothan, 'Now is my chance.'"

Instead of wishing to be revenged for what he had suffered from his brothers, Joseph wished to do them good, but first he wished to make sure that they had treated his younger brother Benjamin better than they had him. See 18, p. 218. Describe the scene as the brothers came before Joseph, and recall Joseph's dreams.

In all the lessons about Joseph seldom does the language need simplifying or the thought need explanation. No stories are more vividly told than these and their dramatic interest never wanes.

SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNING THE LESSON

For Younger Pupils. Of course you have learned Whittier's words about reaping as we sow: what are they?

We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,

And fill our future's atmosphere

With sunshine or with shade.

The tissues of the life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

What seed had Joseph's brothers sown in the field of destiny whose harvest they did not expect to reap? Many years have gone by and they think that deed past and over. What caused them to go down to the land to which Joseph had been taken?

We

For Older Pupils. Joseph's treatment of his brothers when they came into Egypt to buy corn seems at first thought harsh, though not revengeful. must remember that he had been twenty years without news of his father's family. Benjamin, his own brother, was a three-year-old lad when he left home; may he not have fallen heir to his father's favoritism, his brothers' hatred, and his own fate? May not his father, in grief over the loss of his favorite son and in distress over the evil conduct of the older sons, have gone down in sorrow to the grave? Have these brothers grown to be violent, selfish men or have time and a father's pious influence wrought a change in their evil natures?

Joseph must test them in such a way as to find out those facts before he can reveal himself to them.

LESSON THOUGHTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

I HANDS OFF!

We would better keep our Hands off God's Providences. A modern writer has a story entitled "Hands Off," which illustrates providence in the life of Joseph. It represents a man in another stage of existence looking down upon Joseph as he is in the hands of the Midianites. Being an active, ingenious young man, Joseph succeeded in escaping from his captors on the first night of his captivity, and had just reached the outer limits of the camp when a yellow dog barked and awakened his captors and Joseph was returned to his captivity.

But the onlooker wanted to interfere and kill the dog before he had awakened the camp. Then Joseph would have reached home in safety and his great sufferings would have been avoided. But his guardian said, "Hands off!" To let him see the evil of his interference he took him to a world-so the story runswhere he could try his experiment. There he killed the dog. Joseph reached home in safety, his father rejoiced, his brothers were comforted. But when the famine came there had been no Joseph to lay up the corn. Palestine and Egypt were starved. Great numbers of people died, and the rest were so weakened that they were destroyed by the savage Hittites. Civilization was set back. Egypt was blotted out. Greece and Rome remained in a barbarous state. The whole history of the world was changed and countless evils came all because a man in his ignorant wisdom killed a barking dog and saved Joseph from present trouble, to his future loss and the world's.

We would better keep our hands off God's providences. Many a beautiful plan of his is spoiled by human meddling. Peter wanted to keep Jesus back from the cross. Suppose he had done so, what would have been the result? No doubt, many a time, love has kept a life back from hardship, sacrifice, and suffering, thereby blighting or marring a destiny, a plan of God. We are likely to pity the boy Joseph as we see him enter his period of humiliation, and as we read of his being sold as a slave, then cast into irons. But we see well that if human pity could have rescued him from this sad part of his life, the glorious part that followed, with all its blessed service to the world, would have been lost. Dr. J. R. Miller, in Devotional Hours with the Bible.

The Attempt to Extirpate Christianity from China. If Christian people could have had their way, they would have prevented the Boxer uprising in China. The terrible events of that time seemed only evil. But the divine decree was "Hands off"! Now Christian workers recognize his power and guidance in the fact that "the very action which was intended to extirpate Christianity from China has had, as one of its results, an unprecedented forward movement in missionary work in that country, and that since the year 1900 the doors have been opened to the Gospel far wider than before. Dr. Ford of Syria says, 'Rarely has the hand of God been more plainly revealed in the march of human events than it was in the crises of July, 1908 and April, 1909 in Turkey. Those are indications of the revelation of the supernatural factor in advancing the Kingdom of God in the world.'

God's Providence in a Great Tragedy. A miserable tyranny drove out of Great Britain a number of its bravest men and purest women. Watching the Mayflower driven with its sorrowful freight over the wild sea to an unknown world, the troubled spectator might have protested, Where is the justice, wisdom, or benign purpose in the permission of this tragedy? What condemnation can be too severe of the government which allows this expatriation, if such government there be? But it is all clear enough now. The American Republic is the interpretation of the dubious incident of the seventeenth century. Dr. W. L. Watkinson in The Supreme Conquest.

Find God's Hand in Failure. It seems probable that America was discovered by Mohammedans long before Columbus was born. But their boats were destroyed and their facilities exhausted before they could land and effect a settlement. Moreover, it is said that in the year 499 A. D., a Buddhist monk pioneered the cause of an early settlement in New Mexico but it also died out. Five hundred years later enterprising Norsemen effected a temporary settlement