Then the ten were in great distress.They stood around Joseph's tent and talked rapidly in Hebrew.Their old crime was heavy on their minds.It was a terrible thing to have sold their brother Joseph to the foreign slave-trader.Now,apparently,they were about to lose their second brother.What would their father Jacob say when he heard of this?
They implored Joseph to be merciful.But he refused.He had overheard their conversation.He was greatly pleased at their repentance.The last thirty years seemed to have taught his brothers a stern lesson.But he was not yet certain.He must try them once more before he could forgive them for what they had done unto him when he was young.
And so it was decided that Simeon should stay behind as a hostage,while the others went back to get Benjamin.
This proved no easy task.Jacob was heart-broken.But his family was hungry,his servants were dying,and there was no seed-grain for next year.And so he was forced to give in.Benjamin and the other brothers returned to Egypt and Jacob remained alone.
The last time,they had been arrested as soon as they had crossed the frontier.Now,however,all the officials were most polite.The brothers were straightway taken to the palace of the Governor.There they were given rooms and were entertained in royal fashion.
They did not quite like this.
After all,they were not exactly beggars.They were poor,but they had come prepared to pay for whatever they got.They did not want charity.But when they offered their gold in exchange for grain,they were told that they could have all they wanted for nothing and when they insisted upon paying they found that the money had been returned to them and had been hidden in their sacks.
They were talking about this strange occurrence that night when they were resting after the heat of the day's journey.
Suddenly there were loud voices and out of the darkness there came a group of Egyptian soldiers.They had been sent out to overtake the Jews and to arrest them.
The brothers asked what they had done and protested their innocence.The Egyptian captain,however,had his orders.The drinking-cup of the viceroy had been stolen.No one had been near him that day except a few Jewish visitors.All foreigners must therefore be searched.The brothers submitted to the inevitable.One after another,they opened their packs.And behold!at the bottom of the grain sack which was carried by Benjamin,and which was unpacked last of all,there lay the drinking cup of Joseph!
The evidence was overwhelming.As prisoners,the Jews returned to Egypt,and were taken into the presence of the viceroy.In utter despair,they tried to explain something that seemed wholly inexplicable.They swore that they were not guilty,but Joseph remained stern and frowning and accused them of ingratitude.At last,they broke down.They told Joseph everything that had happened and how they had once done a very wicked thing,and how they would now give everything they had,could they but undo their crime.Until Joseph could not hold his feelings in check any longer,and he explained how the cup had been placed in Benjamin's sack at his own command.
He ordered all Egyptians to leave the room and when they were all gone,he came down from his throne and then he embraced Benjamin,and to the terrified sons of Jacob,there stood the mightiest man in all Egypt revealed as their own brother,whom they had sought to kill,and whom they had sold out of greed to the Midianite slave-traders.
Of course,so strange a story appealed to all the people from the highest to the lowest.The King gave a number of his own chariots to bring Jacob to Egypt and Joseph took some of the newly acquired farm lands (which were in a province called Goshen)and he gave them to his own family.
In this way,the Jews happened to leave Canaan and move into Egypt.But in their hearts,they remained faithful to the old home,for when Jacob was dying,he asked that his body be taken to the cave of Machpelah,where his father and his mother and his grandparents lay buried.
This was done.Joseph himself carried the body back to Canaan.Then he returned to Egypt and he lived for many years more,and his people loved him,for he had been as good as he had been generous.
