I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. (Gen. 45:4­5)
The old, lingering rivalry between Joseph and his brothers came to a climax as the brothers knelt unwittingly before Joseph—so Egyptian by now as to be unrecognizable—and begged for the right to buy food. Thus began a long, anguished struggle of the heart.
Joseph could have disclosed his identity and made up with his brothers or he could have gotten revenge by ordering their executions. He did neither. He began a series of elaborate tests, demanding things from them, playing tricks on them, accusing them for nearly two years. All these games brought his brothers confusion and fear, and also flashbacks of guilt over their treatment of him years ago.
The drama took an emotional toll on Joseph. Five times he broke into tears, once with cries loud enough to be overheard in the next room. Joseph was feeling the awful strain of forgiveness. Finally, the brothers discovered the stunning truth: The teenager they had sold as a slave, and nearly killed, was now the second-ranking imperial official of Egypt. He held their fate in his hands.
But Joseph had no interest in revenge. At long last he was ready to forgive and welcome them all to Egypt. The brothers' reconciliation opened the way for the children of Israel to become one family of twelve tribes, a single nation. The old man Jacob, back home in Palestine, didn't know what to believe when he heard the news about his "dead" son. But, spurred on by one last personal revelation from God, he, too, headed off for Egypt.
A large family, a nation, a land—God had promised all these to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. As Genesis closes, only the first of the promises has come true: Jacob's twelve sons have produced a flock of children. The Bible makes plain that these twelve were no more holy than any other sons—eleven of them, after all, had betrayed Joseph. But from this starting point, God would build his nation.
Life Question: What makes it so hard for us to forgive others?
