79 Joseph's Brother Return Home

The brothers set out for Canaan without Simeon and didn’t realize that that the governor of Egypt with whom they have been dealing is Joseph. This journey would be about two hundred fifty miles. The Israelite homeland was in Hebron and Joseph was in Memphis, which is about ten miles south of present day Cairo. It would be a three-week journey. When they stopped at a camping place, (not an inn the Hebrew word is melone which is a camping place מָלֹון), to feed their animals one of the brothers opened the sack he had just purchased from the Egyptians and saw the money he used to purchase the grain resting at the opening of the sack on top of the grain. This caused them to panic. But they acknowledged the root source of all their issues when they said, “What is this that God hath done unto us?” They feared it was a ruse by the Egyptians to entrap them. The governor had accused them of being spies and now they could be accused of being thieves as well. They must have hurried to get far away from Egypt before the Egyptians could find them. God was using Joseph to break their hard hearts. Finally, when they got home they told Jacob the worst news; the Egyptian governor has Simeon and wants Benjamin as well. If they will bring Benjamin back, then the governor will know that they are not spies, he will release Simeon, and they can have free travel in Egypt “traffic about.”