Assuming his leadership role, Judah
at great personal peril unassumingly requested for permission to talk to the
viceroy. He began by acknowledging Joseph’s
authority and that he has as much power as Pharaoh himself. He then earnestly pleaded
for Benjamin to be set free and forwarded two mitigating reasons. Firstly, he
recounted how Benjamin came to be with them on this trip to Egypt. Secondly, he
forecasted what would happen to Jacob should Benjamin fail to return with them.
He spoke with great emotion, persuasively giving precise details of what had happened
so far. If not for the viceroy’s insistence, Benjamin would not have come with
them for this trip. Judah had cleverly
implicated Joseph, the viceroy, but in a very courteous way. He was subtly pleading
for some fairness.
Having put the viceroy into the
equation, he then went on to narrate his father’s fear of losing Benjamin. He
recounted how they managed to convince their father to let Benjamin accompany them
on this trip. He said that when their father asked them to
return to Egypt to buy some more grains they told him that, “We cannot go down.
If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the
man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.” And he went on to show how their father reluctantly
consented. Judah gave the reason why his father was reluctant to have Benjamin on
this trip. He narrated Jacob’s exact reason: ‘You know
that my wife bore me two sons; and the one
went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces,” and I have
not seen him since. If you take this one also
from me, and harm befalls him, you will bring my gray hair down to
Sheol in sorrow.”
Judah had painted the scene so
clearly that though Joseph was not with them in Canaan, he could imagine what
took place from the vital information he had given. He could see the father’s wounded
heart when he failed to return some twenty years earlier. From what he heard, he
also could sense his brother’s quickened conscience. Judah of course was not cognizant
of how touching his revelation was to Joseph. His revelation had shown how they
had come to terms with Jacob’s preference of Joseph and Benjamin over them. Though
they knew he favored Joseph and Benjamin they did not mind it at all now.
Joseph also got to see how much his brothers had grown to love Benjamin and had
sought to protect him in this journey. Joseph’s brothers had indeed undergone
deep transformation and Joseph could see it.
In a similar situation, how many of us would go for
self-preservation? How many of us would have re-actively made a case of our
innocence? Judah’s brave actions showed how willing he was to sacrifice for the
safety of his family. He had shown us that to reason is better than to be defensive.
He left us with an example on how to handle guilt when we know we are innocent.
Like Judah, when we are wronged, we should stay non re-active and calmly speak
the truth without being self-centered.
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