“Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy's life,
Judah stands before the ruler of Egypt with one argument left: not evidence, not money, but his father's heart. Joseph's men found the cup in Benjamin's sack. The other brothers can walk away free. Everything now turns on what they do with their father's favourite son.
The test behind the plea
Joseph arranged the whole scene so that history could repeat itself — or not. They again have the chance to leave a favoured younger brother behind.
Hamilton SmithBenjamin stands in the place that once had been Joseph's — the youngest and best-loved son of his father. Benjamin is to go into slavery, just as Joseph once filled the place of a slave. The ten brothers are completely free, as they were before, to return to their father in peace. What will they do now? Will they abandon their brother to slavery, knowing he is innocent?
One life tied to another
Jacob had two sons by Rachel, the wife he loved. One was gone. Everything the old man had left now rested on the boy standing in front of Joseph.
Michael HardtJoseph and Benjamin were the only sons of Rachel, the wife Jacob had loved (29:18). Losing Benjamin would be the loss most like losing Joseph, whom Jacob loved "more than any other of his sons" (37:3). Now Benjamin is the most loved: "his father loves him" (v. 20) and "his life is bound up in the boy's life" (v. 30). Judah is no longer thinking about how God may punish them. He is thinking about Jacob's love for his son, and his grief.
Judah spells out what that bond means in practice.
L. M. GrantJudah pleads with Joseph: if he comes back to Jacob without Benjamin, the shock for his father would be so great that he would die.
A heart set right where the sin lay
Years earlier, a father's love for one son was exactly what the brothers could not bear. Now Judah pleads on the strength of that same love.
William KellyHere we have a heart that has been set right at the very point where the sin lay… "A young brother, the child of his old age." How little they thought of that once! "His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him." Can we not feel how far his brothers now were from hating Joseph because of Jacob's love for him!
Judah now carries in his own mind what the loss would mean to Jacob.
Michael HardtYou can see that Judah's mind has come into communion with Jacob's. True repentance brings the mind of the one who has sinned into communion with the mind of God. It leads the soul to realise how the Son of God was affected by that sin, and what grief it caused for God. This appears to be a central feature of true repentance.
Surety becomes substitute
Judah had guaranteed Benjamin's safety to Jacob before the journey. Here he pays on that guarantee with himself.
The Bible TreasuryThe offer Judah makes is moderate, and at his own risk: "Send the boy with me… I will be a pledge of his safety." Jacob trusts him at once and lets Benjamin go. Jacob judged his character well, for Judah honoured that pledge when he stood forward in Egypt and offered himself as a substitute for Benjamin.
Offering to stay as a slave is what turns a moving speech into proof.
F. B. HoleJudah laid out the whole case about his father and Benjamin with very deep feeling. Such feeling could only spring from something intense and genuine. He proved it real by his closing plea: let him stand as substitute for Benjamin. He was ready to face lifelong slavery himself rather than see his brother taken and his father brought down in sorrow to the grave. We saw Judah in a very bad light in both Genesis 37 and Genesis 38. Now we see the complete change that real repentance produces.
Why plead with one already willing to bless
Joseph had decided on kindness long before Judah opened his mouth. That does not make the pleading pointless.
The Bible TreasuryMany find it hard to see why there should be any need for intercession with God, when He is already full of love towards us. Well, here Joseph was full of love towards these forgiven sinners. From the beginning he had made up his mind to save and bless them. And yet how natural, how fitting, how beautiful and moving is Judah's noble, generous intercession. It did not alter the final outcome (though it may have hastened it), but it altered everything else.
Summary
- Test: Joseph put Benjamin in the place he himself had once filled, and left the brothers free to abandon him again.
- Bond: Jacob's life hangs on Benjamin's return. Losing Rachel's second son would repeat the loss of the first.
- Feeling: Judah has entered into his father's grief. That shared mind, not regret alone, is the mark of real repentance.
- Proof: Judah keeps his pledge. He offers himself as a slave in the boy's place.
- Effect: Joseph had settled on love before the plea began. The plea did not change his purpose. It changed the pleaders.