Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 42-44.

In yesterday’s passage it said that Reuben encouraged his brothers to throw Joseph into a pit rather than kill him outright.  In today’s passage, when the other brothers attributed what Joseph (although they did not know he was Joseph) was doing to them as God’s judgement on them for what they had done to Joseph, Reuben claimed to have tried to convince them not to harm Joseph.  There must be at least a little truth to what Reuben says here, because his brothers did not call him out for saying it.  On the other hand, I suspect that, while Reuben may have initially tried to talk his brothers out of killing Joseph, he also suggested putting Joseph into the pit as a way to kill him without getting blood on their hands.  However, the key point is that all eleven of the brothers took responsibility for “killing” Joseph (as they thought he was dead).  They knew that they had done wrong, and regretted it.

I also want to look at the difference between Reuben’s promise of safety for Benjamin, which Jacob rejected, and Judah’s, which Jacob accepted.  Reuben offered his sons’ lives as surety for Benjamin’s safe return, while Judah took personal responsibility for ensuring it.  I want to be clear that I believe the main difference for Jacob accepting Judah’s guarantee was time.  Enough time passed after Reuben’s guarantee until Judah’s that things had become more desperate.  However, Reuben offered something he valued, his sons, for Jacob to destroy if Benjamin did not return safely.  Judah offered his personal honor.  Judah offered that he would bear the blame forever if harm were to come to Benjamin.  The difference was that Reuben offered an exchange: if Benjamin came to harm, Jacob could take the lives of Reuben’s two sons, two lives in exchange for one life.   I believe that from Reuben’s perspective he was offering to allow Jacob to cause him the same suffering that Jacob would feel if harm came to Benjamin, but that’s not what it felt like to Jacob.* Judah offered responsibility, he would bear the burden of breaking his father’s heart for the rest of his life.

*In fact, I think Reuben offered both of his sons as compensation for both Benjamin and Joseph (although he could not say the latter).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 42-44.

The first thing which I thought about was how Jacob’s brothers had changed since they had sold him into slavery because their father spoiled him at their expense.  Jacob sent the ten brothers to Egypt, but kept Benjamin back because he was afraid that harm might come to him.  Jacob was willing to risk the ten brothers, but not Benjamin.  When they needed more food, Jacob still would not allow Benjamin to go, acknowledging that he was willing for Simeon to die rather than risk Benjamin (the passage suggests that Jacob believed that Simeon was already dead).  With all of that obvious favoritism, Reuben offered to sacrifice his own sons if he failed to protect Benjamin, and later Judah offered to be held personally accountable if anything should happen to Benjamin.  The brothers acknowledged to themselves and to each other that they had done wrong to Joseph.  In addition, they tried to make recompense for it in the way which they treated Benjamin.  They did not even think twice about going to Egypt to campaign on behalf of Benjamin.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 42-44.

Two days ago, I mentioned that seeing how Joseph’s brothers reacted to him though no fault of his own was important to seeing what had changed between then and when they interacted with him when he was ruler, under Pharaoh, over Egypt.  Today we see how they acted at that later time.  So, previously, Joseph’s brothers hated him because they were jealous of the fact that he was their father’s favorite son.  This time, they acted to protect Benjamin because he was their younger brother and their father’s favorite son.  The way in which Jacob showed his preference for Benjamin over his other sons is just as extreme as what he did for Joseph.  He chose to consider his son Simeon lost to him rather than risk sending Benjamin to Egypt to gain Simeon’s release.  Nevertheless, Judah, the brother who proposed selling Joseph into slavery, offered himself into slavery to save Benjamin.

I want to take notice of one other thing.  Reuben tried to convince Jacob to let them take their brother Benjamin with them to Egypt with by offering the lives of his two sons should he fail to bring Benjamin back from Egypt, but Jacob would not relent.  It was only later when Judah offered to be responsible for Benjamin’s return that Jacob relented.  I cannot tell if the difference in Jacob’s reaction was because Judah took personal responsibility for Benjamin’s safety while Reuben offered Jacob revenge or because time had passed and Jacob was more desperate.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 42-44.

My first thought when reading this was, “Why did Joseph choose Simeon as the one to keep as prisoner until his brothers returned with Benjamin?”  I did an Internet search to see if anyone remembered a passage which explained this choice.  I found the suggestion that Joseph chose Simeon because of his role in extracting revenge for Dinah’s rape, which I suppose is possible, but seems unconvincing to me.  Others suggested that Simeon was the brother who suggested killing Joseph before Reuben convinced them to put him in the cistern (so that he, Reuben, could release him later), but that is just speculation, as the Bible does not attribute that to a specific brother.  My conclusion is that the Bible does not contain an answer to that question, which means that Joseph’s reasons for choosing Simeon are not important.  Initially, I intended to leave my comments about Joseph choosing to imprison Simeon there. but I was reminded about one of the rules for spotting “urban legends.  The rule tells us that when we hear a story which fails to mention the names of key participants, or other information which can be used to either corroborate the story, or falsify it, from other sources that suggests that the story might be an urban legend.  So, the fact that this account identifies Simeon as the brother who was imprisoned by Joseph, and that later we are told that Simeon was reunited with his brothers when they returned with Benjamin.  While the reference to Joseph imprisoning, and later releasing him, does not provide conclusive proof, it does lend support to my faith that this story reflects an event which actually happened (and that this account accurately describes that event).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 42-44.

I am not sure that I ever noticed this before: when Joseph insisted that one of them remain imprisoned in Egypt until they returned with their youngest brother and chose Simeon, Joseph’s brothers returned to their father and families with the food they had bought.  They remained in Canaan until they ran out of food.  However, when Joseph demanded that they leave Benjamin, they all returned to Egypt and Judah, whose idea it had been to sell Joseph into slavery, offered himself up as a slave in Benjamin’s place.  I am not sure I can word the importance of this difference in how they responded to Simeon’s imprisonment and Benjamin’s potential enslavement.  In addition to that I want to note that when he sent his sons to Egypt a second time Israel thought he had lost a second son with Simeon’s imprisonment…he did not think that Simeon would be alive to be released when his brothers returned to Egypt.  Part of the difference in the reaction of Joseph’s brothers to the imprisonment of Simeon vs the potential enslavement of Benjamin was the fact that they believed the situation was punishment for what they had done to Joseph.  Simeon shared their guilt in that, but Benjamin did not.

Looking at the story one might wonder why Judah’s offer to be enslaved in place of Benjamin moved Joseph more than all of the brothers offering to be enslaved with Benjamin.  The latter was not exactly what a simple reading of the passage suggests.  If Joseph had enslaved all eleven of them as they “offered” it would have had serious negative consequences for the Kingdom of Egypt in dealing with other foreigners.  The brothers understood that when they made the offer.  Understand, I do not want to diminish the fact that they were united in standing up for their brother Benjamin.  So, while Joseph was touched by his brothers standing up for Benjamin, who had clearly taken his place as his father’s favorite, it was Judah’s willingness to suffer in Benjamin’s place which moved Joseph to tears.  His brothers had changed.  They had become a family.  And it was at this point that Joseph understood why he had experienced the suffering which he went through.  God had a plan to forge Jacob’s family into a nation.  Abram and his brothers went their separate ways.  Isaac and his brothers went their separate ways.  Jacob and Esau went their separate ways.  But Jacob’s sons stayed together and became a nation.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 42-44.

I do not know if I have ever commented on one thing which always troubles me about this passage: Jacob and his sons left Simeon as a prisoner in Egypt for an extended period of time.  Ancillary to that, I always wonder about how Joseph treated Simeon during this time of imprisonment.  After giving it some thought, I believe that Simeon was treated as a diplomatic hostage, someone who was forced to live in a country hostile to their own in order to ensure that their people abided by a peace treaty.  We have no idea how long it was between the first trip and the second trip, but it was clearly an extended period of time.  During that time, they would have had no idea what kind of circumstance Simeon was in.  Even if Simeon was being treated as a diplomatic hostage, he could never be sure if something would change that for the worse. I will note that this provides some context for Judah’s offer to be imprisoned in place of Benjamin at the end of today’s passage.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 42-44.

My first thought reading this passage today was, “What about this situation made Joseph’s brothers think about what they did to him those many years prior?”  Yes, Joseph had been probing them closely about Benjamin just before they made that connection, but I wonder about it being that simple.  In fact, when we read about the brothers’ exchange with their father before coming back to Egypt the second time we get the impression that Joseph asked many probing questions about their family.  Reading between the lines about the way Joseph sat the brothers and then what his servant said when confronting them about the silver cup, we see that Joseph had led his brothers to believe that he had supernatural sources of knowledge.  In fact throughout this passage we see Joseph use the knowledge he had which others thought he had no way to know to impress and intimidate others (a behavior to keep in mind later when we read about how Pharaoh’s advisers responded to the Plagues).

I also wanted to continue to highlight the differences between Reuben and Judah.  When the brothers blamed their current troubles on what they had done to Joseph, Reuben claimed to have told them not to harm Joseph, which he had not actually done.  Then, when they asked Jacob to send Benjamin with them, Reuben offered the lives of his own sons as surety for Benjamin’s safe return.  On the other hand, Judah offered himself as surety for Benjamin’s safe return.  Then, when Joseph threatened to enslave Benjamin for stealing his cup (which he knew full well that Benjamin had not done), Judah forcefully put himself forward to be enslaved in Benjamin’s place.  I do not want to condemn Reuben for what he did.  Rather, I want to hold up Judah as taking more personal responsibility.  There was nothing wrong with Reuben’s words or actions in this passage, but Judah’s were better.