Cat and mouse: Joseph's revenge on his brothers

At this moment, if his only concern was to learn whether the brothers had changed, he could have stopped the charade. Instead, he has Simeon bound in front of them. He sends them back with their sacks filled with grain and instructions not to return unless their youngest brother is with them. Just to add to their fear and confusion he conceals their money in the sacks.

Jacob is adamant that Benjamin is not to go, but when the famine is worse, and Judah offers to be a surety for Benjamin, Jacob reluctantly agrees. When they return to Egypt, Joseph’s steward invites them to Joseph’s house and reassures them that there is no problem with the money they had found in their sacks. He releases Simeon.

When Joseph sees Benjamin, he weeps in secret for the second time. But, just to exacerbate their fears, he seats them according to their age, suggesting that he knows everything about them.

Joseph’s final trick is to send them on their way, but this time with Joseph’s silver goblet hidden in Benjamin’s sack. When stopped they are accused of stealing it. Joseph has subjected them to his second terrible ordeal, when he was falsely accused of a serious crime by Potiphar’s wife. The goblet is found in Benjamin’s sack.

They have to return to Joseph, who accuses them of betraying his hospitality! Judah asks how they can prove their innocence. He offers that all of them become slaves, but Joseph once again cynically protests his moral values — only the one in whose sack the goblet was found will be his slave, the rest can return in peace to their father.

The scene is set for Judah’s speech in Genesis 44:18-34, which finally persuades Joseph to stop this cruel game. It is often assumed that Joseph has seen in the behaviour of the brothers such a change of heart, especially in their desire to protect Benjamin, that he is finally able to forgive them.

But perhaps it is something else in Judah’s words that affects him. Judah quotes Jacob’s words: “You know that my wife bore me two sons, and one left me and I said ‘He has surely been torn to pieces’, and I have not seen him till now. And if you take Benjamin from me and something happens I will go grieving to my grave” (Genesis 44:27-29).

Previously the brothers had only used the phrase about Joseph’s death, that “he is not”. Now for the first time Joseph learns that Jacob was convinced that he had been killed, torn apart by a wild beast. If we re-examine Joseph’s behaviour, we will see that though he was manipulating the brothers, the real target, the one who would ultimately suffer most with the loss of Benjamin, would be his father, Jacob.

Judah’s words must have answered the one question that had haunted Joseph throughout the entire time of his exile in Egypt. Why did his father, who loved him so much, not come to find and rescue him? Remember all the substitute “fathers” he had spent his life trying to please: Potiphar, the keeper of the prison, Pharaoh.

All the explanations he might have made to himself, all the anger he must have suppressed, are suddenly shattered. Joseph has to weep once again and finally expose himself to his brothers.  Now he can go in search of the real father that he thought he had lost for ever.

Those who are used to the children’s version of the Joseph story may be uncomfortable with this reading of Joseph’s behaviour. But the biblical version locates Joseph in a real world of fear, pain and suffering. Joseph is a victim of abuse, violated and abandoned by those he had trusted. His anger and bitterness had to be expressed when his brothers unexpectedly fell into his hands. Yet when the truth was revealed the other side of Joseph could emerge, including the faith that had sustained him.

Extracted from Rabbi Magonet’s book ‘How Did Moses Know he was a Hebrew? Reading Bible Stories from Within’, Hakodesh Press, £37