Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Genesis 42:1-4 wherein we see the merging of sub-plots and the pain that yet lingers from their earlier dividing.
When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.
Like a good movie flashing between multiple sub-plots, attention turns again to the patriarch Jacob, the father of Joseph, and what will one day become the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob’s life has been carrying on during all the years of our observation of Joseph who finished his growing up years in Egypt, rising from the position of a slave to the second-in-command, growing his own family, and bringing incredible blessing to the foreign land he resided in. Jacob and his family though had yet to feel the blessing of Joseph; they were simply trying to survive during the famine. But then his instructions to his sons lead to the merging of the sub-plots: “Go to Egypt and buy food.” It might have been that Jacob had even heard of Joseph’s work in that country, only the name that he would have been aware of was Joseph’s Egyptian one: Zaphenath-paneah.
We have to wonder what kind of relationship Jacob had with his sons at this point. It might be that he suspected their fowl play (or at least irresponsibility) in the disappearance of Joseph. It’s likely that over all these years his connection with them had been strained. His words to them seem a bit sharp and condescending. Why do you look at one another? Furthermore, his decision to keep Benjamin at home even though he was now likely a full-grown man shows that he wasn’t too keen on having him in their company. It sounds as if Benjamin is the new favorite, and Jacob undoubtedly knew that his other sons, perhaps rightly so, resented this just as they did when Joseph was favored. No, he needed to keep Benjamin with him just in case. All of this is really a sad sight. Throughout the years, the sons of Jacob had never come clean with their dad concerning the Joseph incident, and Jacob still hadn’t come to that point where he could share his love for his kids equally. Pain and guilt lingered in everyone’s hearts. The conversation among the brothers later when they were being put on the hot seat in Egypt reveals a bit of this: In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us (V. 21). “How stupid we were” had to be the common thought. Thankfully, this is not the end of the story.
But we can learn some important lessons in the meantime. Are there long-time harmful patterns in our lives that need to be broken? Are there people in our lives that we need to come clean with? Are there burdens that we’ve carried that need to be released? We never know what kind of healing might take place if we come to one another with humility and admit our faults. Silent division between loved ones need not be continued through unconfessed sins. And what about our foundational relationship with God as we consider these things? It might be that before we can come to others, we need to come before Jesus, releasing our worries and burdens to Him, asking Him for the strength to then come clean with others. Know the joys of reconciliation and God-given freedom today.
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