"God Almighty give you mercy before the man."--_Genesis 43:14._
JOSEPH'S brothers were soon obliged to go again and buy more corn in Egypt. Joseph had said they must bring the young brother they had told him of, or he should not believe their story; and when they said Benjamin must go, their father Jacob was greatly grieved, and showed how little he could trust them now, after the way they had behaved to Joseph. He would not have let Benjamin go at all if Judah had not promised to take the greatest care of him; and Judah could be trusted.
The story is so beautiful, and so easy to understand in the Bible, that I hardly like to tell it in my own words. Only think of Joseph's heart being so full when he saw his own dear youngest brother, that he could not stay with him for his tears, and went away to weep in his chamber! And yet he still tried the brothers. He wanted to see if they still were envious of the one their father loved best; so he made his steward hide his cup in Benjamin's sack of corn, and then go after them, and pretend to think they had stolen it.
The sons of Jacob were no thieves, and they said the steward might search their sacks. They took them down and looked, and there was the cup in Benjamin's sack!
They were all shocked; and the steward said that Benjamin must go back and be punished.
How pleased they would have been long ago if such a misfortune had happened to Joseph! But now their hearts were changed, and they were shocked and grieved.
[Illustration: JOSEPH PROCLAIMED RULER OVER EGYPT.--Gen. 41:41, 43.]
1. What had Joseph's brothers done to him? 2. What trouble did you hear last Sunday he was in? 3. But how did he behave? 4. And what had he come to be? 5. What had he stored up? 6. Who came to buy corn? 7. How many brothers came? 8. Which did not come? 9. Why did not Benjamin come? 10. Did the brothers know Joseph? 11. What did he tell them to do? 12. When he saw Benjamin, where did he go? 13. What did Joseph tell his steward to do? 14. What did Joseph want to see? 15. How did the brothers behave this time?
"God did send me before you to preserve life."--_Genesis 45:5._
ALL the eleven sons of Jacob turned back in grief, and fear, and dismay, when Benjamin, the youngest brother, whom Judah had promised to bring safely back to their father, was found to have the silver cup of the lord of the land in his sack. How it came there they could not guess, but they knew that their father's heart would break if they came home and left Benjamin to be a slave.