Joseph dismissed his brethren, and carried Benjamin off by main force,
and locked him up in a chamber. But Judah broke the door open and stood
before Joseph with his brethren.[266] He determined to use in turn the
three means of liberating Benjamin at his disposal. He was prepared to
convince Joseph by argument, or move him by entreaties, or resort to
force, in order to accomplish his end.[267]
He spake: "Thou doest a wrong unto us. Thou who didst say, 'I fear
God,' thou showest thyself to be like unto Pharaoh, who hath no fear of
God. The judgments which thou dost pronounce are not in accordance with
our laws, nor are they in accordance with the laws of the nations.
According to our law, a thief must pay double the value of what he hath
stolen. Only, if he hath no money, he is sold into slavery, but if he
hath the money, he maketh double restitution. And according to the law
of the nations, the thief is deprived of all he owns. Do so, but let
him go free. If a man buys a slave, and then discovers him to be a
thief, the transaction is void. Yet thou desirest to make one a slave
whom thou chargest with being a thief. I suspect thee of wanting to
keep him in thy power for illicit purposes,[268] and in this
lustfulness thou resemblest Pharaoh. Also thou art like Pharaoh in that
thou makest a promise and keepest it not. Thou saidst unto thy
servants, Bring thy youngest brother down unto me, that I may set mine
eyes upon him. Dost thou call this setting thine eyes upon him?[269] If
thou didst desire nothing beside a slave, then wouldst thou surely
accept our offer to serve thee as bondmen instead of Benjamin. Reuben
is older than he, and I exceed him in strength. It cannot but be as I
say, thou hast a lustful purpose in mind with our brother.[270]
"Therefore let these words of mine which I am about to speak find
entrance into thy heart: For the sake of the grandmother of this lad
were Pharaoh and his house stricken with sore plagues, because he
detained her in his palace a single night against her will. His mother
died a premature death, by reason of a curse which his father uttered
in inconsiderate haste. Take heed, then, that this man's curse strike
thee not and slay thee. Two of us destroyed the whole of a city on
account of one woman, how much more would we do it for the sake of a
man, and that man the beloved of the Lord, in whose allotment it is
appointed that God shall dwell!
"If I but utter a sound, death-dealing pestilence will stalk through
the land as far as No. In this land Pharaoh is the first, and thou art
the second after him, but in our land my father is the first, and I am
the second. If thou wilt not comply with our demand, I will draw my
sword, and hew thee down first, and then Pharaoh."
When Judah gave utterance to this threat, Joseph made a sign, and
Manasseh stamped his foot on the ground so that the whole palace shook.
Judah said, "Only one belonging to our family can stamp thus!" and
intimidated by this display of great strength, he moderated his tone
and manner. "From the very beginning," he continued to speak, "thou
didst resort to all sorts of pretexts in order to embarrass us. The
inhabitants of many countries came down into Egypt to buy corn, but
none of them didst thou ask questions about their family relations. In
sooth, we did not come hither to seek thy daughter in marriage, or
peradventure thou desirest an alliance with our sister? Nevertheless we
gave thee an answer unto all thy questions."
Joseph replied: "Verily, thou canst talk glibly! Is there another
babbler like thee among thy brethren?[271] Why dost thou speak so much,
while thy brethren that are older than thou, Reuben, Simon, and Levi,
stand by silent?"
Judah: "None of my brethren has so much at stake as I have, if Benjamin
returns not to his father. I was a surety to my father for him, saying,
If I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear
the blame forever, in this world and in the world to come.[272]
The other brethren withheld themselves intentionally from taking part
in the dispute between Judah and Joseph, saying, "Kings are carrying on
a dispute, and it is not seemly for us to interfere between them."[273]
Even the angels descended from heaven to earth to be spectators of the
combat between Joseph the bull and Judah the lion, and they said, "It
lies in the natural course of things that the bull should fear the
lion, but here the two are engaged in equal, furious combat."
In reply to Judah, when he explained that his great interest in
Benjamin's safety was due to the pledge he had given to his father,
Joseph spoke: "Why wast thou not a surety for thy other brother, when
ye sold him for twenty pieces of silver? Then thou didst not regard the
sorrow thou wast inflicting upon thy father, but thou didst say, A wild
beast hath devoured Joseph. And yet Joseph had done no evil, while this
Benjamin has committed theft. Therefore, go up and say unto thy father,
The rope hath followed after the water bucket."
These words had such an effect upon Judah that he broke out in sobs,
and cried aloud, "How shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not
with me?"[274] His outcry reached to a distance of four hundred
parasangs, and when Hushim the son of Dan heard it in Canaan, he jumped
into Egypt with a single leap and joined his voice with Judah's, and
the whole land was on the point of collapsing from the great noise they
produced. Joseph's valiant men lost their teeth, and the cities of
Pithom and Raamses were destroyed, and they remained in ruins until the
Israelites built them up again under taskmasters. Also Judah's
brethren, who had kept quiet up to that moment, fell into a rage, and
stamped on the ground with their feet until it looked as though deep
furrows had been torn in it by a ploughshare.[275] And Judah addressed
his brethren, "Be brave, demean yourselves as men, and let each one of
you show his heroism, for the circumstances demand that we do our
best."
Then they resolved to destroy Mizraim, the city of Egypt, and Judah
said, "I will raise my voice, and with it destroy Egypt."