“So the men took that present and Benjamin, (the real treasure Joseph longs to encounter ☺️) and they took double money in their hand, (more than enough to appease a man by secular standards) and arose and went down to Egypt; (moved over into deliberate action once it was consented to by their father, one can almost feel the creaking on the clock of the turning of the hands of fate as the next instalment of the story is now ready to unfold) and they stood before Joseph. (Oh how the tables have turned, from that fateful day in the field when young Joseph stood before them completely at their mercy and was cruelly forsaken, to this new dawn when they all stand trembling and humbled before him, quite literally in the words of their father that “God Almighty [Himself might] give [them] mercy before the man”.)  When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Take these men to my home, and slaughter an animal and make ready; for these men will dine with me at noon.” (What a beautiful picture we have here of precisely the same immediate, spontaneous hearty response we see in the parable of the prodigal son as soon as the good father sees his beloved lost son return, here made manifest as soon as Joseph lays eyes upon his own beloved lost brother, the last son of Israel – truly, truly a cause for feasting!) Then the man did as Joseph ordered, and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.” (This statement is exceedingly significant in that it hails a great transition from their being simply random [possibly even condemned] foreigners seeking to buy grain, to their being exalted as esteemed and honoured guests of the leader of the land in that they are literally “brought into [his very own] house”; if they were confused before, can you imagine how perplexed they must be at this juncture? What is furthermore quite striking is how Joseph is taking them through a process, in the small, of first being imprisoned then exalted, in much the same way as God did with him – is it not striking to behold how the Lord lovingly teaches and guides us through continued sanctification, purification and other processes of maturing until one day we find ourselves acting as He acts, speaking as He speaks, thinking as He thinks, so much so that He is able to trust us to actually start acting as His proxy here on earth! I cannot help but marvel.)

“¹⁵So the men took that present and Benjamin, and they took double money in their hand, and arose and went down to Egypt; and they stood before Joseph. ¹⁶When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Take these men to my home, and slaughter an animal and make ready; for these men will dine with me at noon.” ¹⁷Then the man did as Joseph ordered, and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.”

– Genesis 43:15-17 (NKJV)