Genesis 42:11

Listen. "We are true men." Well, you say, surely that is a lie. Yes, it is. Oh, my friend, you can put on whatever face you like with me or with your neighbour, but you cannot put on a face with God. He knows you. "True men," indeed! That is their verdict about themselves. What do you think of their hatred and hypocrisy? True men they were not, and they had to learn it. You too will have to face your sin before God, my friend.

"Joseph spoke roughly to them." The question of sin must be got to the bottom. The cutting cord of a guilty conscience must be pulled a little tight. "You are spies." And now notice their defence — "We are all one man's sons; we are true men." They stood in front of the one they had rejected and, in effect, killed. Yet they could talk of being true men. What a picture of this world! — men can reject Christ, and then can pretend to keep the law.

The brothers protest that it is their need that brings them into Egypt. "We have come to buy food" (v. 10). They have indeed come to the right person, but they have come with a wrong plan and with a wrong plea. Their plan is to buy, and their plea, "We are true men" (v. 11). As yet they know neither the love of Joseph's heart, nor the evil of their own hearts. They must learn that Joseph is too rich to sell to his own, and that they have nothing in themselves to plead... They must learn that Joseph is ready to give every blessing. But he is one on whom they have forfeited every claim. Love is a giver when worthlessness has nothing to plead. If they think they are true men, then Joseph will put them to the test.

When they asked to buy food, he accused them of being spies. Though this was not accurate, yet Joseph was trying to stir their hearts about their past dishonesty. They protest that they are true men, the sons of one man (v. 11). Later they must come to confess that they have not been true.

Joseph had no thought of vengeance... He makes himself a stranger to them for no other purpose than their real good. If God worked by the pressure, then the man who had His mind would lead them. His words and ways troubled them, to wake their long-sleeping conscience, so that they too might fear God as he did. It is just so in principle that grace has worked with every one of us who has been truly brought to God. Feelings cannot be trusted, unless the conscience also cries out to God in a true sense of our own ruin and deep distress.

They had been called spies when they were honest men. Now they were treated as common thieves, though again they were honest. They might have said this was too bad... But no — nothing of this — these were not the brothers Joseph had known. They had once hidden their guilt under the lie which they sent to their father; now they are willing to hide their innocence about the cup under the confession they make to Joseph.