Genesis 43:15

Jacob says, "Take a present" to appease the man. "Take double the money" to buy the grain. "Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man." Nature cannot think of God as a giver, or man as a receiver. Nature has no true knowledge of God or man. It cannot imagine a God so rich in sovereign grace that He can only give, or a man so helplessly ruined that he can only receive. But Jacob and his sons must learn this, for all their plans fail entirely to win the blessing from Joseph.

But about this the patriarch, like many now, made a grave mistake. He did not imagine it was to be had "without money and without price." None of them guessed why the money was returned in every man's sack, so they carried it back with the double money — "perhaps it was an oversight." All this shows how little they knew the heart of Joseph, or the goodness of God in sending him ahead of them to preserve life.

They took the present, they took double money, and Benjamin, rose up and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph (15). Joseph pays no attention to their gifts. He does not touch their money. He will not accept Benjamin as a ransom. He completely ignores their plan and begins to act out of his own heart. He says, "The men are to dine with me." Is this not a picture of the far greater message God sends to a world of sinners: "Come, for everything is now ready"? Their plan was only to get a blessing from Joseph. His purpose was to give a blessing — but a blessing they would enjoy in his company and in his home. ... We would be content with forgiveness of sins and salvation from hell. But how far short of God's thoughts! His thought is to have us with Himself, to feast with Him in His home.

But Jacob at last agrees to let Benjamin go. After all this searching of heart they return to Joseph with Benjamin in their hand, and he weighs more with Joseph than all the honey and balm and spices they carried. Seeing Benjamin stirs new affection and fresh kindness in Joseph, and he orders his household to have all these men dine with him at noon.

They did not only see Joseph's face; he made them his favoured guests. But this only awakened their fear and suspicion. Grace does this to people who want everything on a legal basis. They were afraid Joseph was being so kind only to find an excuse to take everything they had. How little they knew Joseph's heart! Many people also stay unsaved only because they are suspicious of God's grace in Christ Jesus.

How little they yet understood that His goodness was leading them to repentance! They had deeply wronged this brother and bitterly hated him, yet he was only working for their best good through all these trials.

How glorious the consequences when the blessing shall be on the head of Jesus "in that day" which is coming, "and on the crown of the head of Him that was separate from His brothers!" Christ is not only the key to this truth but its fullness. It concerns not the heavenly church but God's earthly people, Israel, who must be made ready inwardly for the place God has destined for them before all the nations of the earth. For in this picture Benjamin, the son of his father's hand, must be joined to Joseph, "the separated from his brothers," so that their glory may come — a glory that waits to be fulfilled in its own time.