Genesis 42:3

During the days of plenty the world paid little heed to Joseph. Of his brothers we hear nothing; they were wholly indifferent to him. When the shortage set in, however, need woke up. "The land of Egypt was famished" (v. 55), and Jacob and his sons faced starvation and death (Gen. 42:1-2). The need calls forth a cry for bread. The Gentiles have to learn, and the brothers discover, that no one can meet the need except the one they once scorned and rejected.

Under the stress of famine Jacob has to say to his sons, "Why do you look one upon another?" They are in desperate plight, and this much they realise, there is no help in one another. If help is to come it must be from one outside themselves. So the ten brethren come to Egypt and present themselves before Joseph.

The famine reaches to Jacob's land. God makes him and his sons feel the distress of famine, until they hear that Egypt has plenty of food for sale. So Jacob orders his sons to take a trip there to buy food (v. 2). Joseph's ten brothers then "went down" (v. 3). This shows that Israel must be humbled to receive blessing from God.

They heard that there was grain in Egypt. They heard that there was deliverance to be had if they could only get it, and they were perishing. They heard there was salvation. They felt their need, and felt they would like to be saved, but they could not get salvation without going to the saviour. They could not get deliverance apart from the deliverer. They could not get food in their hunger except from Joseph — the despised one, the one they had hated, the one they had cast out and sold. But God had raised him up to have every resource in his power, everything that could meet their need.

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 honest 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. Their money will not buy grain, and they have no merit by which to claim it… Love is a giver when worthlessness has nothing to plead.

Our chapter opens with the perplexity of the sons, and their father's proposal that they should go down into Egypt for supplies. Only Benjamin must not go, in case harm came to him as it did to his brother Joseph. That burden, though unspoken, always weighed on his heart. How little he could foresee that before long Benjamin must go too! But God was working out His good and holy design, slowly but surely. Man's will or intelligence had nothing to do with bringing it all to pass according to His word.

He was now highly exalted among the Gentiles and acting as saviour of the world, but his brothers needed his bounty as much as others. They had, however, by their own wicked actions, shattered all the links that once bound them to him. Those links could not be rightly restored except by severe dealings — dealings very painful, yet designed to work in them a real repentance. The terrible famine, whatever else it might do, was designed to play a part in bringing about that desirable end.

His brothers had once rejected him, when he was one of them. Now famine forces them to come. The path of repentance and humiliation brings them at last to own him in glory.