Upon reaching the land of E'gypt they were sent to the high officer who had charge of all the grain. Without his permission, no grain could be taken from E'gypt. Little did the brothers think that this mighty ruler was the boy they had sold into slavery! They feared that they might meet him among the slaves of that country, but never dreamed of seeing him as a ruler second only to the king. For this reason it was easy for Jo'seph to keep them from knowing who he was.
When the brothers were brought before Jo'seph, they bowed so low that their faces almost touched the ground, for this was the manner in which common people showed respect to a great ruler. Jo'seph wore the costly robes of his office, spoke the E'gyp-tian language perfectly, and acted with all the dignity of a nobleman. It is no wonder that even his own brothers did not know him as he stood before them. Jo'seph, however, knew them at once, for they had changed very little since he last had seen them. Because he loved his brothers in spite of what they had done to him, it was hard for Jo'seph to treat them as though they were strangers, but this he did.
Jo'seph had dreamed of the day when his brothers should bow before him, and they had been very angry when he told them the dream, but now it had come true. They had mocked him, making light of his prophetic dreams, but now they bowed before him in all humility. It was not yet the proper time to tell them who he was, so he patiently continued to let them think he was an E'gyp-tian.
Speaking roughly to them, Jo'seph forced his brothers to tell him from whence they came. When they said that they had come from the land of Ca'naan to buy food, he pretended not to believe them, and he declared that they were spies who had come to plan an attack upon his country. By these words Jo'seph hoped to lead his brothers into telling him all about his father without their suspecting that he was their long lost brother.
The plan of Jo'seph was successful, for the brothers said: "Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Ca'naan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not." Having learned that his father was living, Jo'seph continued to test his brothers by demanding that all but one of them be left with him in E'gypt while the other went back to Ca'naan to bring their youngest brother before him. Jo'seph then warned them that their only hope of escaping death was for the youngest brother to come back with the one who should go to fetch him.
