Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

To one another, however, they said: “Alas, we are being punished because of our brother. We saw the anguish of his heart when he pleaded with us, yet we paid no heed; that is why this anguish has now come upon us.” 

Reuben broke in, “Did I not tell you not to do wrong to the boy? But you would not listen!  Now comes the reckoning for his blood.”

The story of the Patriarch Joseph is the longest in the entire Old Testament, and there is no room here to retell it all. Perhaps it will suffice to remind my readers that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and, when by God’s design, he became the Pharaoh’s right hand man, they did not recognize him. Today and tomorrow we hear the dénouement of the story.

I would suppose in the intervening years the brothers never discussed their remorse. They saw the grief of their father Jacob but might have blamed the old man for favoring the child in the first place. Joseph too, was naïve, inconsiderate and arrogant as he enjoyed his father’s favor. There are no good guys in this story.  But, despite Jacob’s favoring one child and Joseph’s arrogance, their impulse to kill him and their selling him to slave-traders were inexcusable. Nor did Reuben’s blaming the others vindicate him. The incident haunted them for the rest of their lives.

It’s a clever story because the “mystical” connection between these two unrelated episodes – the betrayal of Joseph and the betrayal of Benjamin – is not mystical at all. Joseph has intentionally contrived it. Hebrew philosophy gave no truck to fate or karma, nor do they enter this story. There is no mindless, mechanical principle of retribution in the universe.

Rather, God directs everything that happens; and God has a purpose in what he does, though it may be incomprehensible to his people. God’s purpose is not retribution, as the brothers suppose, but blessing. With their “anguish” they atone for their sin to Joseph’s satisfaction. The family is reunited, Joseph is restored to his aging father, and the Hebrews are happily settled in Egypt. Now the stage is set for the next chapter when God will deliver Jacob’s descendents from bondage in Egypt.