Introduction
9. Joseph’s last test and its results ch. 44
Joseph next tested his brother’s loyalty to Benjamin by framing Benjamin and charging him with stealing Joseph’s cup. These events prompted the brothers to acknowledge that God was punishing them for their treatment of Joseph many years earlier. Judah’s plea for Benjamin voiced the genuineness of the brothers’ loyalty to Benjamin. It contrasts with their former disloyalty to Joseph.
Joseph wanted to discover if his brothers would sell Benjamin as a slave as they had sold him and possibly kill Jacob with sorrow. Their alternative was to submit to slavery for Benjamin’s sake. This discovery seems to have been the object of Joseph’s actions as Moses related them in this chapter. As God had tested the genuineness of Abraham’s faith (Genesis 22:1), so Joseph tested the genuineness of his brothers’ repentance.
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