Genesis 42:21

Joseph now takes the first step to convict them of their sin, by putting them into prison. The fear of losing their lives had brought them to Egypt, with the result that they lose their liberty. He leaves them in prison for three days, so that they may learn in some measure what their sins deserve. Joseph went to prison unjustly. They come into the same condemnation, and they deserve it. The result is that conscience begins to work... Conscience connects their present trouble with their past sin. They do not only say, "In truth we are guilty," but "In truth we are guilty concerning our brother." They saw the anguish of his soul, but they hardened their hearts. He begged them, but they stopped their ears.

Then the remembrance of their brother came home with power. Joseph did not speak of it. No one in Egypt knew of it. But a warning voice lived within their hearts. It may have been asleep for a time, but it could not stay silent for ever. It now awoke, and each one clearly recalled his very look of anguish... Memory does not die, though it may sleep for a time.

It was their sin against Joseph they called to mind in the day of their distress... Other sins might have been present to the conscience then. Reuben might have thought of the defilement of his father's bed, Simeon and Levi of their bloodshed and treachery, and Judah of his marriage. But they were stirred into life by the Spirit, and not only by the trouble which had come upon them. So they remember the common sin, and speak with one conscience of their wickedness towards Joseph. And it is this which shows the Spirit's work in this conviction.

The account of his sale says nothing about how deeply Joseph felt the trauma of his ordeal. But we learn something of this in his brothers' later words to one another: "we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen" (Gen. 42:21). He was taken to a far distant country and made a slave at the tender age of 17. How many hours of painful agony he must have known!

The first time Joseph wept was when he saw the first stirrings of conscience and self-judgment in his brothers. They spoke among themselves. They never recognised Joseph in Egypt's splendid governor, and never suspected that he understood their language. "In truth we are guilty concerning our brother," he heard them say. Joseph "turned away from them and wept." They were tears of love and thankfulness. He saw that his dealings were beginning to take effect. They were raising the questions about the past that his brothers had to face before they could be happy in his presence.

But how bitter is the anguish that guilt brings... How bitter is the grief of the heart! When guilt weighs on the conscience, you look back on past sins with indescribable remorse. But this is not true repentance; that has not come yet.

Joseph's sorrows came at their wicked hands. Yet, as we saw, he read them very differently from the way their fears and guilt read them. They said, and quite rightly, "In truth we are guilty concerning our brother." He says, and quite truly, "God sent me before you to preserve life." And this is the gospel. We are convicted, but saved. We learn that we have destroyed ourselves, but that in Him is our help... The history of these brothers foreshadows God's chosen ones among the Jews. They will pass through the same experience in the day of Isaiah 53 and Zechariah 13.