Introduction
This chapter is entitled to special status in the sequence of events which was listed at the beginning of Genesis 37 as a series of eleven episodes in the [~toledowth] of Jacob. The list there, following Skinner and others, appended this chapter either to number six or to number seven; but we shall treat it as a special unit, thus expanding the outline.
The importance of this chapter lies in the narrative of Judah's offering of himself as a substitute for Benjamin, in which he made an impassioned plea to Joseph on behalf of his brother and his father. In all the writings which have come down from antiquity, nothing surpasses this. Skinner said, "It is the finest specimen of dignified and persuasive eloquence in the O.T."[1] We shall give further attention to this under Genesis 44:18 below.
We are entitling the chapter:
JUDAH EMERGES AS A TYPE OF CHRIST
Significantly, it is Judah who is the hero of this chapter, not Joseph. Joseph indeed was supreme in Egypt, but Judah was supreme among the sons of Jacob, and the events of this chapter entitled him to his place in the ancestry of the Son of God, and to the honor of giving his name to the Glorious One who would stand forever honored upon the sacred page as, "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah" (Revelation 5:5).
The source-splitters are completely frustrated and defeated by this chapter. Speiser admitted that, "There is not the slightest trace of any other source throughout the chapter."[2] The significance of such an admission lies in the fact that a variable name for God is found in Genesis 44:16, as well as other factors usually alleged as "proof" of prior sources. The admitted truth that such things are not proof of prior sources here discredits, absolutely, the notion that such things are "proofs" of prior sources anywhere else. As a matter of fact, the whole Biblical record of the providential appearance in history of the Jewish people, their miraculous preservation, divine guidance in their dispossession of the Canaanites, and in time, their deliverance of the blessed Messiah to mankind, exhibits a unity, coherence, and authority that point inevitably to one author of the entire Pentateuch. It is simply impossible that a redactor, or a hundred redactors, even if they possessed a thousand "prior sources," could ever in a million years have produced anything like the Book of Genesis. It is a person, a man, whose personality lies behind it all, an inspired man, who delivered unto us the Word of God. It is true of the Bible as Walther Eichrodt (quoted approvingly by George Foher and Martin Noth) stated concerning the religion of Israel:
"At the very beginning of Israelite religion, we find charisma, the special individual endowment of a person; and to such an extent is the whole structure based on it, that without it, it would be inconceivable."[3]
Nowhere else in the Bible does one encounter this mysterious person of Moses, the author of Genesis, any more than in this chapter. The mind and authority of God appear in every line of it. To appreciate this supernatural quality of the narrative, one should read the tedious, belabored report of the same episode in the works of Josephus. The Bible bears its own imprimitur as the Word of God.
This chapter is a continuation of the remarkably dramatic history that began to unfold in the last chapter. Here we have:
THE SECOND JOURNEY INTO EGYPT
Jacob's determination not to send Benjamin into Egypt with the brothers on their return mission to buy grain gave way under the dire necessity for the procurement of food for his posterity. The famine grew worse and worse. And although he had no information about how long it might last, there was simply no other way to provide for the children of Israel. Reluctantly, he consented to send Benjamin upon the solemn assurance of Judah that he would be surety for the lad. He also put as good a face on things as he could by sending an appropriate present for the officers from whom they would buy grain, also returning the money which they had found in their sacks following the first journey.
That we are dealing with hard historical facts in this narrative is evident from the wealth of detail concerning social, political, cultural, and economic conditions mentioned here which are corroborated absolutely by the archeological findings of the present century. "The Biblical description of the historical background is authentic."[1] The details of Joseph's elevation to viceroy of Egypt is exactly how Egyptian artists depicted this ceremony. The ring, the costly vestments, the gold chain, even the second chariot have been found on murals and reliefs. "There is even a spot on the Nile river that bears the name of Joseph!"[2]
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