But when the cup was really found in Benjamin's sack, they had not a word to say; and as they returned sorrowfully to the house of the great prince, they confessed to each other that God was punishing them for their cruelty to their young brother long ago.
But God saw their sorrow for their sin, and He forgave them, and was going to bring good out of it all.
When they got back to Joseph, after hearing their sorrowful explanation, he could no longer keep in his loving wish to forgive them; and he told them not to grieve, for he was still alive. And then, he sent them all home again, giving his brothers a handsome set of clothes each, and with quantities of presents for his aged father, as well as sending some wagons to the land of Canaan, to fetch his father and all their families down to Egypt, that he might take care of them while the famine lasted.
Joseph sent his father a great many beautiful presents; and when the brothers got back, and told Jacob that Joseph was alive and was ruler over all the land of Egypt, and that he wished his father and all their families to come down to Egypt, the heart of Jacob fainted within him, for he did not believe them.
But when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him down to Egypt, "the heart of Jacob their father revived, and Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go down and see him before I die!"
And children! These wagons of Joseph's have often been a lesson to me!
Like old Jacob, we see God's mercies surrounding us, and yet because we do not believe and trust Him enough, our hearts faint within us at some fresh difficulty that stands in our way, perhaps.
You ask, "What are the wagons, then?"
I think the wagons are a picture to us of the reality of God's promises, and of the reality of the living Jesus.
Jacob said, "Joseph my son is yet alive!"