Let us do a
little recapitulation of Jacob’s 12 sons. Of the sons he had, Joseph was sold
to Egypt by his jealous brothers. But he had arisen to be the viceroy of Pharaoh
and became a powerful man, who now had control of all of the king’s asset in
Egypt. Joseph rode on Pharaoh’s second chariot and was greatly revered. Because
he was found trustworthy, there was installed for him a great plan ahead. He
and his brother, Benjamin, shared the same mother, Rachel, whom Jacob loved
dearly. Nothing much was said about Benjamin who was now more precious to Jacob.
He treated him with more care and tenderness. Firstly, because he was the other
child whom he had with Rachel. Secondly it’s because he had already lost
Joseph. So he was fearful of losing him.
Reuben, his
first born, did a terrible thing by committing incest with his concubine and
had incurred his displeasure. Simeon and Levi committed mass murder by
finishing off the Shechemites. This pair of brothers deceived the people of
Schehem into circumcision and then had them murdered while they were
recuperating from their circumcision. They committed the mass genocide to exact
revenge on Shechem, the son of Hamor, who had raped their sister Dinah. Then the
ten conspired and had Joseph beaten, stripped and thrown into a pit, intending
to kill him later. They later changed their mind and sold him to an Ishmaelite
trader, who took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar. Furthermore, Judah,
his fourth son, impregnated his own daughter-in-law, Tamar, who had masqueraded
as a Canaanite prostitute. That was because Judah did not keep his promise to
her. Except for Joseph, none of them looked like a good prospect to ensure God’s
promise that the world would be blessed through Abraham’s family.
The brothers
of Joseph were guilty and this needed to be dealt with. Their conscience needed
to be awakened. The way to achieve that was to have them come to grips with their
guilt. The first step to that would be a reconciliation with Joseph, the
brother they had hurt most. Their future rested on them coming to terms for
their misdeeds in handling Joseph. God had engineered the circumstance and it
was about to be unfolded. They needed grace desperately and they were not aware
of it. The famine was not just peculiar to Egypt, it was an earth-wide phenomenon.
The drought induced famine had left the rest of the world starving. Since food
could only be found in Egypt, Jacob sent the ten brothers to buy some to keep
the family alive.
Jacob’s sons were at a lost and did
not know what to do. They were waiting for some direction from their father. So
Jacob said to them, “Why do you look at one another?” So he gave them instruction
to make a trip to Egypt to buy some grains. Verse 4 tells us that Jacob did not send
Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might
happen to him. Though Jacob did not know what had happened to Joseph, he bore a
grudge against the ten sons. From his action, the ten brothers could tell that
he blamed them for Joseph’s death. And they all could feel it. His sending them
to Egypt, without sending Benjamin along, must have made them recall how they
had treated Joseph. They truly felt the weight of their guilt. But the dream of
Joseph was slowly coming true. The first step had taken place.
Guilt can debilitate and incapacitate
us. It was so for the ten brothers of Joseph. They most probably had thought about
their cruel treatment of Joseph. It had to be dealt with. In order not to have
a guilt ridden life about a past mistreatment of someone, we need to seek that person
out to be reconciled with him or her. Take seriously the words of James 5:16 that
say, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so
that you may be healed.”
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