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Their father Jacob said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin; all these things are against me.”
Genesis 42:36 NASB
Why did Joseph consider Benjamin so important that he manipulated his brothers to bring Benjamin to Egypt and then to try to keep Benjamin in Egypt at the expense of his brothers? One reason may be to further fulfill the prophetic dreams that God had previously revealed to him when he was shown that all of his brothers would bow before him.
Medieval Jewish commentator Rashi pointed out about this part of the Torah reading מקץ Miketz (“from the end,” Gen. 41:1–44:17) that Jacob suspected his sons were complicit in Joseph’s death/disappearance. Jacob had some animosity and irritation towards his 10 sons, although he loved them. Benjamin, however, was unique. He was the son of Jacob’s beloved wife and was not in any way complicit on Joseph’s disappearance/death and all the love and affection that Jacob could no longer give to Joseph was doted upon Benjamin.
When Joseph gave Benjamin five times the provisions (Gen. 43:34), Joseph was testing his brothers. However, Joseph also gave the brothers, including Benjamin a lot of intoxicants and he was able to observe how they treated each other when they were under the influence of alcohol and their guard was down.
When a person is evenly mildly under the influence of alcohol, they tend to talk more freely about what they like, or what they don’t like. Joseph was trying to see if he could provoke the brothers to make snide comments, jokes or funny looks about the fact that the Viceroy of Egypt was favoring Benjamin over them.
Why was Joseph toying with his brothers?
Everything Joseph did was to provoke jealously and to make it easy for the brothers confess any disdain they may have towards Benjamin. They could discard him to save themselves if they hated Benjamin as much as they had hated Joseph when he was younger.
I’m sure that Benjamin, as Joseph’s full brother, looked, acted and talked enough like Joseph that living around him was a constant reminder of Joseph and if they held that against Benjamin, Joseph was willing to concoct a scenario to take Benjamin away from them forever. But the brothers did not respond that way at all. They never threw Benjamin under the bus. Instead, they blamed themselves and what they had done to Joseph for all the intrigue and drama that was happening to them in Egypt.
“Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
1Corinthians 10:11 NASB
It’s important to understand how and why Joseph tested his brothers so harshly. These tests Joseph inflicted on his brothers were recorded for us, not only to use as a righteous example, but also for us to understand how the Messiah would act and how others would treat Him when He came to earth. Joseph is a Messianic figure, testing the family of Jacob. Yeshua did the same, our Messiah Yeshua’s life was test placed before the family of Jacob. Yeshua put His brothers to the test. Those of us who claim to follow the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, can’t presume to avoid similar testing.
It’s also important to understand why God told Moses to record so much of Joseph’s story for future generations. Why? So we would recognize Messiah because we would read about and learn the list of items that Messiah would do or have done to him as revealed in the lives of His ancestors such as Joseph, David, etc.
What Messiah Yeshua said and did was 100% truth. Very few people know that Yeshua followed all the Feasts and followed Torah completely. Very few people know that the Apostle Paul also followed all the Feasts and followed Torah to the best of his ability, as a Pharisee of Pharisees (Acts 23:4–6).
Hidden Messiah, Leper Messiah
Just as Joseph’s brothers did not recognize him, because they had an idea of what Joseph should look like, but Joseph looked nothing like what he looked like the last time they saw them. He was no longer 17 years old and he did not conduct himself outwardly as a Hebrew. How the body grows over a 20-year period between 17 and 37 is a much more drastic change than the change that one body experiences between the ages of 37–57. It’s easy to understand why Joseph recognized them but they did not recognize him.
Yeshua is the same. Both Christians and Jews will not fully recognize Him when He appears. He will not act like the lawless Jesus of Christianity or the sectarian legalist Messiah of post-Second Temple Judaism. We recognize who the Messiah is by His works.
“I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. … If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
John 10:25, 37–38 NASB
Actions are more important than words. Joseph assessed his brothers by their actions. We will recognize the Messiah by His works as well.
Joseph looked like an Egyptian, not like a Hebrew. He wore Egyptian clothes, he had an Egyptian name, and an Egyptian wife. He wore the Pharoah’s signature ring on his finger, but yet, in important ways, Joseph did not carry himself like an Egyptian. We see this at the dinner that Joseph hosted. The brothers sat at one dinner table, the Egyptians sat at another dinner table and Joseph sat at his own dinner table. Joseph did not eat his meals with the Egyptians who were in his court.
Legacy of those who say ‘yes’ to Heaven
God give all the freedom to choose to follow Him or not. Those who say “no” to God are not recorded in Scripture. Only those who said “yes” are revealed to us in Scripture and noted as examples to us. Our relationship with God is always a two-way street.
The Messiah sits at the right hand of God. He fulfilled all of God’s instructions. I would expect God to test us as Joseph tested his brothers and as God tested Yeshua. No one gets to escape their testing. Just as Jacob bowed down to his son Joseph, because Joseph was the savior of the entire house of Jacob, all will bow down to Messiah Yeshua, including Adam, Eve, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Solomon’s splitting the baby & Judah’s sacrifice for his brothers
The account of the two women who brought their battles over their babies to King Solomon (1Kings 3:16–28) is a simple story on the surface, but we need to compare it with Miketz. Just as Joseph put his brother’s into a situation that they could not escape, Solomon did something similar to these two women. The tests were made to fail, and purposefully designed to be unsolvable.
There was no correct answer in either case. In both tests, those being tested had to decide what was more important: standing your ground or giving up. In both cases, passing the test meant resigning themselves to loss and being willing to give up what belonged to them. By relenting and giving up, both the mother of the live child and Judah (as the representative of Benjamin) ended up victorious.
Summary: Tammy