Joseph wants to know, are his brothers the same men that threw him in a well and then sold him into slavery for their own pleasure and gain? And so he puts them through several tests to see who his brothers are after all this time. Will they abandon their little brother, Benjamin, and leave him as a slave the same way that they abandoned Joseph? Or will they lay down their lives for the sake of Benjamin’s freedom?
“For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers.” Genesis 44:32-33