The Divination Cup
Read Genesis 44. Why did Joseph put the divination cup in Benjamin’s
sack and not in another brother’s sack?
This story parallels the preceding one. As before, Joseph gives spe-
cific instructions; and, once again, he fills the men’s sacks with food.
This time, however, Joseph adds the strange command to put his pre-
cious cup in Benjamin’s sack.
The events take, therefore, a different course. While in the preceding
trip, the brothers returned to Canaan to take Benjamin with them, now
they have to return to Egypt to face Joseph. Whereas in the preced-
ing situation all the brothers found the same thing in their sacks, now
Benjamin is singled out as the one who has Joseph’s cup. Unexpectedly,
Benjamin, who as the guest of honor had access to Joseph’s cup, is now
suspect and charged with having stolen that precious article. He will
go to prison.
That Joseph was using a divination cup did not mean that he believed
in its power. Joseph “had never claimed the power of divination, but
was willing to have them believe that he could read the secrets of their
lives.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 229.
The magic cup was for Joseph a pretext to evoke the supernatural
domain, and thus awaken in his brothers’ hearts their sense of guilt
toward God. This is how Judah interprets Joseph’s implied message,
because he refers to the iniquity that God has found in them (Gen.
44:16). Also, the stealing of that precious cup would justify a severe
punishment and thus test the other brothers’ thinking.
The intensity of the brothers’ emotion and their reaction is sig-
nificant. They all are united in the same pain, fearing for Benjamin,
who will be lost as was Joseph, and like him become a slave in Egypt
although he was, like him, innocent. This is why Judah proposes that he
be taken as a slave “instead” of Benjamin (Gen. 44:33), just as the ram
had been sacrificed “instead” of the innocent Isaac (compare with Gen.
22:13). Judah presents himself as a sacrifice, a substitution, whose
purpose is precisely to cope with that “evil” that would devastate his
father (Gen. 44:34).
What principle of love, as exemplified in Judah’s response, is
implied in the process of substitution? How does this kind of love
explain the biblical theology of salvation? (See Rom. 5:8.)
