Judah's Tale

Narrator - After coming to Egypt for the second time to buy food Judah, Benjamin and their brothers had met with Joseph a second time still not knowing who he was. As they left the palace Benjamin was stopped and his bag searched – in it was a golden cup stolen from the palace. Benjamin was thrown in jail and his brothers had to plead for his release. Then Judah had to phone home and tell their father what had happened.

(Judah talking on mobile. Pauses as if listening on every blank line.)

Hey Dad. Judah here – Look Dad sorry for the delay in phoning, lost the phone, eventually it turned up in my bag Dad.

Not Bagdad – we are in Eygpt. Bagdad is another country – In my Bag… Dad

Oh never mind anyway the good news… that food you sent us to buy in Egypt. Well we have it. There’s been a couple of um problems though.

Right how many sons do you have Dad?

No I don’t think your loosing your marbles Dad – and… and yes I’m sure you can count, that’s sort of the problem though. Well you know what happened the first time we came to Egypt yeah all the problem with the money.

I swear I paid the man for the food – the gold just appeared in our bags.

No Dad I don’t take you for some sort of idiot.

No sandstorms don’t usually blow open bags and deposit large sums of gold in them. Look can I just get on – you know the man in charge here said that we couldn’t get any more food unless we brought Benjamin along with us this time.

I don’t know why. He’s the prime minister if he says bring along all of your brothers you do it – he’s the most powerful man in Egypt after the Pharaoh and if he says you can’t have food you don’t get any. So we had to do it.

Yes well we brought the food and were on the way back when a guard from the palace stopped us and searched our bags. Some stuff had been stolen from the palace and… it turned up in a bag.

No not my bag Dad.

Don’t make me go through that again – it was in Benjamin’s bag so they took him away and threw him in jail.

(holds phone away from ear as if loud swearing coming from phone)

Yes I know he’s my youngest brother and I should be taking care of him. Yes I know you love him more than the rest of us. You know the experts say you should never say that to your son’s you should love us all equally.

Well I said sorry for that already. Look we knew you wouldn’t be happy so we went back to Egypt to plead for his life.

Yeah the prime minister himself took us into a private room and then spoke to us in Hebrew – Told us he was actually our long lost brother Joseph and Benjamin was absolutely fine.

No I haven’t been out in the sun too long – Joseph is alive! Benjamin is released and all your sons are coming home!

What happened to Joseph – ah. er. Yes well when we said that we found his coat torn apart by some sort of animal – (long pause then in one big rush) we lied. We actually threw Joseph into a pit, sold him to some slave traders and forgot about him sorry batteries just about to run out.

(Switches off phone hurriedly and looks at it worriedly)

I don’t want to go home – how will Dad forgive me? How did Joseph forgive me? We beat him up, sold him into slavery. He spent 12 years in jail because of us. He didn’t have to put Benjamin in jail for a night for a joke. It could have been all of us brothers in jail for 12 years. He could have sold us all into slavery for stealing. I wouldn’t have blamed him. How can he love us enough to forgive us after what we did to him? Can Dad love us enough to forgive us? I just don’t know…