Recently, we looked at Joseph, one of the principle characters of biblical history. We discovered several ways in which Joseph provides a picture of Jesus Christ. Bible students have identified over 100 different ways in which Joseph pictures the Lord Jesus.

One day, Jacob sent Joseph to look for his brothers and report to him of their welfare. When his brothers saw him from a distance coming to them, they wanted to kill him. Instead, they decided to put him in a pit nearby as they pondered what to do with him. One of the brothers, Judah, observed a wandering caravan of people heading toward Egypt and said, “Let’s not kill him. Let’s sell him to these wandering people and get something out of the deal.”

The brothers readily agreed and sold Joseph to the wandering nomads despite—and the Scriptures tell us—despite his cries and the pleadings. You may want to read Joseph’s full story in Genesis 37-50. God elevated him to the number two position in Egypt to manage the bounty that God said would come during 7 years of bounty followed by seven years of famine.

As the famine grew worse, Joseph’s brothers get hungry. They heard of food in Egypt. So, they went down to Egypt to buy food, unaware that their hated brother had risen to number two in Egypt, the man in charge. They would have to deal personally with Joseph in order to get any food. They come before Joseph who recognized his brothers.

Can you imagine the mixture of emotions that must have flooded over Joseph seeing his brothers, wondering if they had changed since they sold him into slavery. For this reason, Joseph administered a series of tests to his brothers to find out if, in fact, they had changed.

For starters, he threw them in prison. Then he asked them about their younger brother who had not come with them. Joseph then told them that one of them must go back home, get the younger brother, and bring him to Egypt to disprove the charge that they had come as spies.

After he let them stew in prison for a while, he came back to them and said, “I will tell you what I will do. I will hold one of you here in prison. The rest of you go back home. But, I make you a vow. Don’t come asking for food unless you bring your younger brother.”

He returned Simeon to prison and sent the others home. Joseph instructed his stewards to place their money back into their sacks of grain. He wanted to test them again. Has some change in their character developed along the way?

They returned home and, to their amazement, as they opened their sacks of grain they saw the money they had paid Joseph right on the top. Dread filled their souls. As the brothers attempted to explain the returned money and the Man’s demands that they return with their younger brother, their father grew anguished.

This background prepares you for the storyline of Judah in the Scripture reference in Genesis 43. Remember, Judah had suggested that he and his brothers sell Joseph to the nomads.

Judah has an interesting history. He had three sons. His first-born son married a woman named Tamar. The Scriptures say that God slew him because of his wickedness (Genesis 38.6-7). God slew Judah’s second son, too, because of his wickedness. He, according to the practice in that day, should have taken Tamar as his wife and raised children in the name of his dead brother (Genesis 38.8-10).

He had a third son, but Judah withheld him from marrying Tamar because of his youth. He promised his third son to Tamar when he became of age.

Well, time came and went, and son number three grew to adulthood. Yet, Judah refused to give him to her. Tamar heard that Judah came frequently to the town where she lived. She took off her widow’s garments, put on the garments of a prostitute, and sat by the side of the road waiting for Judah to come. She hoped to have children by Judah.

Judah must have had a little bit of a history for her to suspect that this would work. She waited for Judah to come and, sure enough, he came along and spied her. He had relations with her, which resulted in the birth of twins. You could read about Tamar in the lineage of Christ, whose ancestry traces through one of the twin sons of Tamar by Judah (Matthew 1.1-3).

You get the picture of Judah, don’t you? He does not fit the description of someone a woman would bring home to mom and dad as husband material.

Now, the brothers had already told their father Jacob, “We need to go back with Benjamin or he won’t give us any food.” Jacob said, “No, not now, not my last son.”

The Scripture reference proceeds with the story.

“Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them,“Go again, buy us a little food.”

But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying,‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’”

Israel [that is another name for Jacob] said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?”

They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?”

And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.” (Genesis 43.1-10)

Do you identify a change in Judah? Earlier in his life, he proposed to his brothers that they sell Joseph. Now he offers himself as surety and pledge for Joseph’s younger brother, Benjamin. “Dad, I give myself as a guarantee, a pledge for your son, my brother’s safety. I will bring him back.”

We have an understanding of a surety, a pledge, someone who makes a guarantee on behalf of someone else. For example, in the United States, a bail bondsman fits this description. When the police have arrested someone for a crime and incarcerated him/her in prison because of the charges, a bail bondsman posts bail for the one charged. In essence, the bail bondsman says, “I will guarantee that this person will return for trial.” He puts up money as a surety, as a pledge, as a promise, a guarantee.