The time frame here back in Canaan is twenty years since the brothers sold Joseph into slavery. Benjamin was now about twenty-three years old. The text does not say exactly how Jacob knew that there was food in Egypt. But because of the extent of the famine the word was out so to speak. Interestingly he looks at his eleven sons and essentially asks them to get moving and do something to secure food for the family by going down to Egypt for it. They are obviously reticent about this and simply look at one another as though stunned. They knew what they had done to Joseph twenty years ago and where he most likely ended up. They did not want to go there where they might see him or learn of his fate as a slave. Even after twenty years they still had guilt over this. However, the need for food and their father’s command to go caused them to overcome their unresponsiveness. They went to Egypt to secure food. In a famine people will do anything to secure food. Jeremiah even tells us about the famine caused by the war with Babylon in 586 B.C., which caused mothers to eat their children (Lamentations 2: 20).
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