Longfellow wrote, “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.”
More than 20 years have passed since Joseph last saw his brothers, but he recognized them right away. They had come for some grain but would feel some pain before this was done. And why? Because Joseph longed to forgive his brothers, but he wanted sincere repentance. So we read, “He acted as a stranger to them and spoke roughly to them” (Gen 42:7). He accused them of being spies! Oh no, they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and in fact, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no more” (v 13). Despite their protestations that they are “honest men” (v 31), he told them they must be tested. One brother must stay confined in Egypt until they return with the youngest—Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother. The brothers are being ground between the pressures of circumstance and the pangs of conscience: “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us” (v 21). This they spoke in their native Hebrew—and Joseph understood every word! Simeon was taken and bound before them. The men sadly loaded up their donkeys with grain and started the long journey back. At their first stop, one of them noticed—oh, no!—the money he had paid for the grain was mysteriously in the mouth of his sack! Each sack was the same. “What is this that God has done to us?” (v 28) they said in panic. When they arrived home, they told the story. Jacob was overcome. Joseph gone. Simeon gone. And now Benjamin? Never! But time passes. The famine remains. The grain disappears. What to do? Ten men head back to Egypt, Benjamin now riding with them.