"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.
[Illustration: JOSEPH MAKES HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN.--Gen. 45:2.]
So they all came to the lord of the land; and Judah stood up before the
strange, stern, princely man, and told him how much their old father
loved this youngest son, and he would be sure to die if the lad did not
come home safe. And then Judah begged to stay and be a slave in Egypt,
instead of his brother Benjamin, for he said if mischief befell the lad
his father would die, and that he could not bear to see.
But when Judah so spake, the lord of the land sent all the lookers-on
away, and wept aloud, and said that he was their own brother Joseph,
whom they had sold so long ago. He would not let them be afraid; he
embraced them all and wept for joy, and asked for his father. Then he
told them not to grieve for what had gone before; for God had turned it
all to good, and made him be the means of saving all their lives, by
storing up the corn in Egypt.
[Illustration: JOSEPH MEETING HIS FATHER.--Gen. 46:29, 30.]
And now they were to go home, and tell Jacob, their father, that Joseph
was still alive, and was a great and powerful man; and they were to
fetch old Jacob, their father, and their wives and their children, and
all they had, and come to live with Joseph in Egypt, where he would
take care of them.
That was the way Joseph forgot all the ill his brothers had done to
him, and forgave them, and loved them with all his heart. When the
brothers came home, their father Jacob could scarcely believe such good
news; but at last he said, "Joseph my son is yet alive, I will go to
see him before I die."
And he came down to Egypt, and Joseph met him and fell on his neck and
kissed him; and then there was joy indeed, joy as if Joseph had come
back from the dead.
So Jacob lived all the rest of his life in Egypt, and was happy with
his son Joseph. God had given him another name, Israel, and his sons,
and their sons after them, were always called the children of Israel.