THE CUP IN BENJAMIN’S SACK.
There can be little doubt that the events recorded in Scripture are
designed to illustrate its moral maxims and its religious principles.
Distinguishing aright between what the God of the Bible approves and
what he condemns, we find much light shed upon his truth by the conduct
of those whose lives are recorded there. Truth is never presented in
abstract forms, such as only the studious or the learned can
comprehend. On the contrary, it is embodied in life, now to awe us, and
anon to allure; at one time a beacon to warn, at another a signal to
encourage or guide.
But there are many facts mentioned, or customs referred to, in
Scripture, with which we are now but little acquainted. The next
incident in Joseph’s history to which we refer belongs to this class.
His brethren were returning the second time from Egypt with sacks of
corn; but in order to stay, or to test them further, he ordered the cup
“whereby he divined” (Gen. xliv. 5) to be privately deposited in the
sack of Benjamin, who had been sent by his father with extreme
reluctance to Egypt, at the imperative demand of Joseph. His steward
was then ordered to follow them, and seize the party in whose sack the
drinking-cup was found. It was discovered, of course, in Benjamin’s;
and now began consternation to the uttermost among the sons of Jacob.
“They rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to
the city.” They had hoped to escape from the effects of a sin committed
many years ago, but now they must suffer and be in great trepidation
for a sin which they did not commit at all. If conscience has hitherto
been dormant or dead, it is about to be roused to a terrible activity.
It is soon to be with them as with the thief who “dreads an officer in
every bush.”
The first thing that the guilty brothers did, when they reached the
abode of Joseph, was to “fall before him on the ground,” and so fulfil
once more that prediction concerning them and their doing obeisance
which had at first excited their enmity or their envy. They had to
plead their cause with all the force of Eastern pathos before Pharaoh’s
viceroy—their own brother; and their pleading contains some exquisitely
tender appeals, thoroughly Eastern in their style, but as thoroughly
human in their nature. Their father’s grief now occupied their
thoughts: they were not heartless as before; for when the conscience
was once roused it began to stir the better feelings of the heart. Days
of adversity and trial have at length accomplished some favourable
results. As the great I AM had work for Joseph in the world, he had
also work for his brethren to do, and they are reclaimed from their
self-inflicted degradation.
But what is meant by Joseph’s divining cup? When his brethren appeared
before him to answer for the theft alleged against them, the ruler of
Egypt said, “Know ye not that such a man as I am can certainly divine?”
And does that mean that Joseph had adopted the practices of heathen
priests, pretending to forecast the future, and so far usurp the
prerogative of God?
Without going further, the margin of our Bibles may help us to reply to
that question. The word “divine,” in Gen. xliv. 5 and 15, is translated
on the margin “make trial;” and we are thus, perhaps, referred to some
method adopted in Egypt for testing doubtful cases, by some peculiar
use of a cup. According to others, the word means no more than that
Joseph would make strict scrutiny upon such a point. He would sift and
test the character of the men before him. He would not let them go as
innocent, when he had tried them and found them criminal. By such an
announcement Joseph would re-enforce the claims of conscience; he would
deepen the alarms that had already risen in their minds; he was in
God’s hands to work out God’s purposes in those long dormant hearts;
for if Joseph could make strict inquiry, those men knew of One who
could make stricter still—the God who looks upon the heart, whose eyes
are as a flame of fire, and who cannot look on sin without abhorrence.
But however we may interpret what our Bible calls Joseph’s power to
divine, we have no difficulty in understanding the moral lessons of
such events, or tracing the hand of heavenly wisdom, “from seeming evil
still educing good.” When Joseph demanded Benjamin to be brought down,
and when that was reported to his father, we know how he was affected.
Joseph, he believed, was lost; Simeon was detained in Egypt as an
hostage; Benjamin is now demanded; and the patriarch exclaimed, “Me
have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and
ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me” (Gen.
xlii. 36). Now, little did the man who made that sore complaint
understand the ways of God, even after all the experience he had had:
he judged like a short-sighted mortal, as we are ever prone to do, and
not as a believer in “the mighty God of Jacob.” He took counsel of
flesh and blood, and not of the God of all grace. He listened to the
whispers of his own heart; and what can follow such a course but woe?
The patriarch would have been nearer the truth—he would have uttered
the very truth—had he said the reverse of what he here declares. And
the same is true of us all. We are ever prone to misinterpret the ways
of God. We put false constructions upon his most wise and loving
providences: we judge by sense, and not by faith. When he chastens for
our profit, we think that it is for our ruin; we conclude that we are
to be destroyed, when we are only corrected: and thus live in misery
when we might joy in God, as David did when he said, “In very
faithfulness doth he afflict me.” Conscience whispers to many a soul
what we deserve from God; and when sorrows come, conscience generally
concludes that they are the first drops of the vials of wrath.