Week 8: Joseph Reveals Himself

Joseph can't hold it in any longer. He clears the room, weeps so loudly the whole palace hears him, and tells his terrified brothers who he is. His first words name exactly what they did: "the one you sold into Egypt." In the very next breath he tells them God sent him ahead to save lives. Joseph holds both of those truths together, and for the first time in fourteen chapters someone says out loud what God has been doing all along. He kisses every one of his brothers, and men who once couldn't speak a peaceful word to him finally sit and talk with him. Then come wagons, new clothes, and a realistic warning not to argue on the road. Back in Canaan, an old man who's been numb for twenty-two years comes back to life when he sees the wagons.