58 A CONVINCING APPEAL

In this lesson we will examine a very moving and compelling speech made by Judah to Joseph in behalf of Benjamin. Joseph had provided a test through which he might determine if the brothers had matured since they betrayed himself and to see how careful and considerate they might be for Benjamin. Even though Judah alone makes the speech we might assume that the others more or less agreed with his sentiments. You will recall that Judah had all along been sympathetic towards Joseph’s cause, had been eager to save Joseph from being killed and proposed selling instead of killing him. Now he steps forward and shows a tender heart toward Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother.

Here is a most ingenious and emotionally moving speech spoken to obtain a release from the sentence passed on Benjamin. Though the other brothers may have agreed with Judah’s sentiments, still Judah is the one who stepped up, or was pushed up, to the occasion. Perhaps Judah had a softer heart or was a better friend to Benjamin than the rest and therefore more eager to see him freed. Or, he may have thought himself under greater obligations to attempt it than the rest, because he had given his word to his father for Benjamin’s safe return. It is also possible that the others chose him for their spokesman because he was a man of better sense and spirit or maybe had a greater command of language than any of them. We do not have all the details about why Judah spoke up, but we have enough to know that Judah’s address, as it is here recorded, is very natural and so expressive of his present feelings that we have reason to suppose Moses, who wrote it so long afterwards, wrote it under the special direction of Him that made man’s mouth. This story was passed down from generation to generation as an oral tradition and Moses, through God’s inspiration presents it very well. Judah seems to have been a kind of natural speaker. Augustine advised preachers to study rhetoric so they could preach better. There are ample effective speeches recorded in the Bible so that if you, as a public speaker, will study them you can learn how to be convincing as Joseph, Judah, Nathan, David, Jeremiah, Esther, Stephen, Gamaliel, Peter and Paul were. Develop your verbal skills if you can, if you want to lead.

There is in this speech, the entirety of the verses at which we are looking, a lot of natural art and unstudied and unforced yet effective rhetoric. Judah addresses himself to Joseph with a great deal of respect and deference as we notice in verse eighteen: “Pardon your servant, my lord, let me speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.” He calls him his lord, himself and his brethren his servants. He begs his patient hearing, and acknowledges his sovereign authority. Our beliefs in God do not destroy good manners, and it is still wise to speak respectfully to those who have rightful authority over us. Titles of honor addressed to those who are entitled to them are not flattering titles. 

Judah represented Benjamin as one well worthy of his compassionate consideration. Referring to what they had told Joseph on the earlier trip to Egypt, in verse 20 Judah says, “we answered, ‘We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’” He was a young son, compared with the rest of them; the youngest, not as acquainted with the world, nor ever exposed to hardship, having always been brought up tenderly with his father. It made the case the more pitiable that he alone was left of his mother, and his brother, Joseph, who was supposedly dead. Little did Judah think what a tender point he touched on when he says that. Judah knew that Joseph was sold, and therefore had reason enough to think that he may be still alive. At least he could not be sure he was dead, but they had made their father believe he was dead and had told that lie so often for such a long time that they had evidently forgotten the truth, and begun to believe the lie themselves. There is a lesson right here about the importance of truth. We may forget the truth because of all the emphasis of another story line, but neither time nor repetitions can change truth.

Judah emphasized it very clearly that Joseph himself had required them to bring Benjamin with them and had expressed a desire to see him as verse 21 says,“Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.’” Judah also reminds Joseph that he had forbidden them to come into his presence unless they brought Benjamin with them. This is mentioned twice by Judah, once in verse 23 “But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’ and again in verse 26, “But we said, ‘We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’” Judah seems to be gently hinting that it was Joseph’s specific request that Benjamin was there and now that Benjamin is there, must he be sentenced with so much a penalty as perpetual slavery? Was he not brought to Egypt, in obedience, purely in obedience, to the command of Joseph? and would he not show him some mercy for having obeyed that command? Some observe that Jacob’s sons, in reasoning with their father, had said, We will not go down unless Benjamin go with us as recorded in Genesis 43:5, but that when Judah comes to relate the story to Joseph he expresses it more correctly, “We cannot go down with any expectation of success.

The heart of the great argument Judah insisted on was the awful grief it would be to his aged father if Benjamin should be left behind in prison or a slave. Judah does not know it is Joseph he is talking to. He could not be aware of how these words of verse 22 would so deeply effected Joseph: “His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.” It is only Jacob’s conjecture that if Benjamin leaves his father, his father will die, but it would be much more likely if now Benjamin were to be left behind, never more to return to him.” Notice the power and influence of Judah’s argument against leaving Benjamin in Egypt: “‘29 If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’” 30 “So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, 31 sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow.” The old man, of whom they spoke, had pleaded against his going down. The grey hair, the crown of glory, would go down to the grave in sorrow. This therefore Judah presses in verse 30 with a great deal of earnestness: “my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life” as though to say that “my father’s life is so closely bound up with the life of the boy, that when he sees that the lad is not with us, he will faint away, and die immediately or will abandon himself to such deep sorrow that it would in a few days, make an end of him.”

Next, in verse 34, Judah’s argument shifts from his father’s sorrow to his own sorrow that he would surely feel if he had to watch his father sorrow over Benjamin’s loss. Judah pleads that, for his part, he could not bear to see this, “How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.” We already know that Joseph had a tender and honorable heart. And we know that Judah was talking about Josephs own father and only full brother. You and I, as we read, this can know that Joseph deeply felt the emotional impact of Judah’s appeal.

Not only can we see how Judah’s argument effected Joseph, but we can draw a general lesson from this too. It is the duty of children to be concerned for their parents’ comfort, and to be afraid of every thing that may be a cause for grief to them. In this way the love that descended first from the parent must again ascend from the child, and something must be done toward a reward for their parent’s care.

Remember what Judah had said as the brothers contemplated killing Joseph? Genesis 37:26 & 27 tell that part of the story. “Judah said to his brothers, ‘What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.’ His brothers agreed.” Even back then Judah had showed a concern for Joseph. Now that concern is even stronger and calls forward even stronger language and thought. Next Judah, in honor to the justice of Joseph’s sentence, and to show his sincerity in this plea, offers himself to become a replacement slave instead of Benjamin. In this way Joseph’s requirement might be fulfilled and satisfied; Joseph would be no loser and Benjamin could return home. We may guess that Judah was a more able-bodied man than Benjamin, and fitter for service. It may also be that Jacob would better bear the loss of Judah than of Benjamin. So far was the unselfish Judah from grieving out of jealousy at his father’s particular fondness for Benjamin, that he himself was willing to take Benjamin’s place to make it easy for their father. Verse 33 says,“Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.” Joseph had to be moved by this.

Had Joseph been, as Judah supposed, an utter stranger to the family, yet even common humanity could not but be emotionally moved by such powerful reasonings as these. Nothing could be said more moving or tender; it was enough to melt a heart of stone. But to Joseph, who was nearer akin to Benjamin than Judah himself was, and who, at this time, felt a greater affection both for him and his aged father than Judah did, nothing could be more pleasingly nor more happily said. In actuality, neither Jacob nor Benjamin needed an intercessor with Joseph for Joseph himself loved them both.

Considering the whole character of Judah’s speech, let’s observe several things that are of particular interest to Christian leaders who seek to be the best leaders they can be. Judah wisely suppressed all mention of the crime that was charged on Benjamin’s bag. Had he said anything about that cup he would have had to base his argument on Benjamin’s reputation of honesty. But Benjamin was a foreigner and the cup had been found in his bag! Judah could not argue for Benjamin’s freedom from that position. To argue from that angle he would take the chance that his defense depended on a flaw in Joseph’s justice and the sentence Joseph had passed. So Judah totally side-steps that line of thought and appeals totally to Joseph’s pity. We may compare this with that of Job, in humbling himself before God in these words, “Though I were innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy” (Job 9:15). When we pray we may take the same position. We appeal to God on the basis of His mercy far more than on any other argument.

Much later, near his death, Jacob in Egypt would say of Judah, “Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you.” What very good reason dying Jacob had to say that! Judah excelled them all in boldness, wisdom, eloquence, and a special tenderness toward their father and family. His speech before Joseph is worth reading and rereading as a model for using logic in arguing our case before the righteous Judge of all the earth.

Interestingly, Judah’s faithful loyalty to Benjamin, in his distress, was rewarded long after in the history of Israel by the constant loyalty of the tribe of Benjamin to the tribe of Judah. When all the other ten tribes deserted Judah and went their own way the tribe of Benjamin stayed with Judah.

Finally, it is appropriate that the writer of Hebrews in describing the mediation of Jesus Christ, he mentions the relationship between Jesus the intercessor and Judah, Christ’s ancestor. Even though the tribe of Judah had no priest in it yet Moses did tell this story that puts Judah and his intercessory role before Joseph in a very good light. It was enough to move and turn Joseph’s heart as we will see in the very first verse of the next chapter. Hebrews 7:14 says, “For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.” Jesus, like his ancestor Judah, not only made intercession for the transgressors but also put Himself, as Judah did, in the role of the guarantee for the one for whom He interceded. Judah the intercessor teaches us by his example ,lessons of using tact and logic, good argumentation, dependance on God’s mercy and unselfishness shown by willingness to be a substitute for the one for whom he was interceding. Jesus did that. Christian leaders may need to do that too if we intend to follow Judah and Jesus’ example and help the vulnerable.