The famine reaches Canaan, and Jacob sends ten sons to Egypt to buy grain. They bow before Joseph with their faces to the earth, just as he had dreamed, but they do not recognize him. Joseph speaks roughly to them and tests them. Their consciences awaken: “We are truly guilty concerning our brother.” Joseph turns away and weeps. God is working repentance in the brothers before reconciliation comes.
On the second journey Joseph sets a final test. His silver cup is placed in Benjamin's sack, and Benjamin is condemned to become a slave. Judah — the brother who once said, “Come and let us sell him” — now steps forward and offers himself: “Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord.” The man who sold one brother now gives himself for another. Judah has been changed.
Joseph cannot restrain himself. He sends everyone out and weeps aloud: “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” His brothers are terrified, but Joseph says, “But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Three times he says God sent him. Joseph sees God's hand over all the evil his brothers did.
God tells Jacob at Beersheba, “Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.” Seventy persons of Jacob's family go down to Egypt and settle in Goshen. Jacob blesses Pharaoh, adopts Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, crossing his hands to put the younger first, and then gathers his sons to tell them what will befall them in the last days. Over Judah he speaks a prophecy of a coming King: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”
After Jacob dies, the brothers fear Joseph will now take revenge. Joseph weeps and says, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.” He comforts them and speaks kindly to them. Joseph dies at one hundred and ten years, saying, “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land.” He makes them promise to carry his bones to the promised land. Genesis begins in a garden and ends in a coffin in Egypt — but it ends with faith that God will keep His word. The story continues in Exodus.