When the room was cleared of all outsiders, Jo'seph turned to his brothers and said, "I am Jo'seph." He wept as he said this, trembling and overcome by the depths of his feelings. The brothers sat dumbfounded and terrified by this announcement, not one of them being able to speak. Again Jo'seph said "I am your brother Jo'seph." And then he asked tenderly, "Is my father alive?"
Jo'seph then asked his brothers to draw near, and talked with them in a gentle, tender way. He might have said to them, "You are murderers, and I am a prince in spite of you. My position and power make it easy for me to have revenge upon you. My glory is your shame, and you are now in peril of your lives." But Jo'seph did not speak in this manner. Instead, he assured his brothers of pardon, and love, and future protection under his own hand. He said, "Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me into bondage. God sent me before you into this land, and has made me the friend of Pha'roah and ruler over his country that I might preserve life. It is God's plan that I should save not only the lives of E'gypt, but also the lives of my own family now in Ca'naan."
Jo'seph went on to explain to his brothers that the famine would continue for five years more, and that in every country except E'gypt, where the LORD had enable him to store up food enough to meet the calamity, there would be continued suffering and starvation. He told them that he had made ready a place for the Covenant Family of Is'ra-el to dwell, and that his father's entire household should be brought to E'gypt at once.
Tenderly embracing Ben'ja-min and kissing all the others a fond farewell, Jo'seph sent his brothers, with servants and wagons, for his father.
