Joseph and his Brothers

As one who never had a brother (I was blessed with one older sister and one younger sibling miscarried before I ever knew it as ‘brother’ or ‘sister’) I may lack the necessary qualifications to fully comment on the relationship occurring between brothers, especially when that number reaches a dozen, as is recorded between Joseph and his own.  My mother was one of ten kids, while my father was one of five; and within family gatherings, mixing all the cousins and aunts and uncles together, I did experience the sizable brood of relatives to a certain degree.  Even so, I still could never broach the realization of being the second youngest of twelve boys - spread across four different mothers.

What was Joseph thinking when he told his brothers of dreams he had, not once but twice, of them bowing down to him?  He was a teenage kid.  Granted.  But even so, why would you suggest your supremacy to ten adult men over whom you had no power to control?  Did he trust his position as their father’s favorite to protect him?  Probably.  As much as his brothers hated him, they respected their,  father, and they would do nothing to damage their own relationship with Jacob, making their eventual action against the boy, when the opportunity arose, not premeditated.  They simply saw the opportunity available to them, the boy removed from their father, and they acted.

Joseph, when he saw his brothers again, the positions of authority now being reversed, what thoughts must have passed through his mind at that moment? He spoke harshly to them.  He declared they were spies.  Was he intent on paying them back for all the harm he suffered because of them?  His own flesh and blood?  As second highest ruler over the land of Egypt, he was in a position to enact vengeance most severely.  He could have rendered punishment for their sins against him, revealed himself as Joseph or not, and walked away justified.  He was the legal authority, after all; and his brothers could be viewed as criminals for what they did to him.

For many, many years, reading through the story of Joseph again and again, I always saw Joseph’s action as part of his plan to bring about what eventually occurred: Israel and his family moving into Egypt to grow into a nation of God’s people.  However, after viewing one of the old Hollywood depictions of the story of Joseph, where Joseph orders harsh treatment against his brother Simeon (the brother who remained in Egypt as a hostage while the others returned to Canaan with food), something not stated in the Scriptural account, I began to wonder.  Joseph was a Godly man who held to God’s righteous decrees (that much is detailed in the account), but he was still a man.  He was as human as his brothers, susceptible to the same failings as themselves.  So that initial sighting must have stirred some animosity within him somewhere.  Think of the temptation.  Think of the vengeance he could have rendered.  He could easily have done to all of them precisely what they had done to him.

But he didn’t...