Genesis 42 Commentary
The brothers arrive in Egypt – a food-buying mission. Jacob is starving. Israel needs food. Egypt is the solution. Jacob’s God will provide for him from Joseph’s base in Egypt, by Joseph’s hand.
The blessing that the brothers would bow down to Joseph comes to fruition. The dream wasn’t silly, after all!
“May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you…” 27v29. This was the blessing that came down to Jacob from his father Isaac.
It was the same blessing that came to Joseph via a direct voice of the LORD in a dream. The same dream that the brothers hated. The dream we all thought was wishful thinking by a young man. But Jacob knew Joseph’s dreams weren’t vanity. No wonder he kept the matter in his mind.
We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies. 42v11. We should love this part! Honest men! Honest men, indeed.
Simeon is bound and left in prison and the rest are released, with an instruction to ‘bring Benjamin’. You would guess Simeon’s violent nature plays a part in his detention. Simeon and Levi combined to exterminate an entire city.
In a moving statement, the brothers recall and bring themselves to a point of regret. They had cruelly treated their brother. He pleaded with them in vain. He didn’t deserve it. But they didn’t care. Now the ‘honest’ men must pay for their sins.
Could it be that the LORD allows them to get to this point for their own restoration? A wrong must be acknowledged and confessed before the Spirit begins to work in our lives. Cases are really never closed until they are repented.
Now Reuben talks. He had tried to persuade his brothers not to harm Joseph. But we guess his weak position meant his ideas weren’t to be respected. He spoke again assuring his father that he would take care of Benjamin. But who would blame Jacob for not trusting Reuben? He did very little to earn the trust. Character instability was at the core of his life.
Sin weakens one’s position in the family. It’s a spiritual demotion!
The patriarch Jacob sits down to count his losses. Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more. Now Benjamin is next. Everything is against me, he says. Could this be when the patriarch begins to suffer the consequences of his earlier character – now very visible in his children?
A double portion of mischief clearly at work in Jacob’s sons! Let your sons see you cheat with goats and they will cheat with human life itself!
Throughout these pages, Jacob is a clever man. He took advantage of his starving (and weak) brother to buy a position in the family. To his credit, Jacob knew the importance of the firstborn position while Esau lacked both in character and ambition. The LORD would not work with someone lacking ambition.
Lack of ambition meant a lack of desire for the LORD’s blessing that would always go to the firstborn. Later, Jacob would deceive his father Isaac for a blessing. That is how ambitious both Jacob and Rebekah were! Laban tested his own medicine at the hands of Jacob. It’s Jacob’s turn to test the medicine from his “honest” sons!
Now the aged Jacob has no solutions to the problems he faced. He could not resolve the disappearance of Joseph! He could not resolve the disappearance of Simeon!
Jacob must reflect on the LORD’s mercies. It’s a case when things begin to fall apart right in front of you. The solutions that easily solve your problems are nowhere near enough. The smart Jacob is not smart anymore. Jacob has nothing left in his rich armory of solutions but the God of his fathers. It’s a point of brokenness – but a good point for Jacob.
When smartness counts for nothing…then you know what to do.
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