Days 26 – 27. Reading in Genesis 41 – 42 and 43 – 45.

Sunday and Monday’s studies are posted together on Monday. 

I invite you to read the scripture for the day and meditate on it. What stood out to you?

Genesis 41.

Today’s and tomorrow’s readings are fun, almost like reading a novel. Joseph is clever, his brothers are convicted, and Jacob is first in agony and then in ecstasy. And our promise-keeping God is sovereign over it all.

Two years after Joseph correctly interpreted the dreams of the baker and butler, Pharaoh had a dream. He knew it meant something ominous, but he couldn’t figure it out and neither could all his court soothsayers and wise men. 

A light bulb flashes on in the butler’s mind! “Oh, I remember my offenses today,” he cried, two years late for Joseph but in God’s perfect time. “When I and the baker were in prison, a young Hebrew man perfectly told us the meaning of our dreams.”

“Call the young man here!” ordered Pharaoh.  

Joseph is quickly brought out of prison, bathed, shaved, dressed in new “appropriate” clothes, and brought to the king.  Immediately, Pharaoh says that he’s heard Joseph can interpret dreams.  Of course, like Daniel many years later, Joseph says it is not he, who can interpret them, but God.

Pharaoh tells his repeated dream about the seven fat cows and plump corn ears eaten by the seven skinny cows and thin ears of corn.  Easy-peasy for Joseph (and God). Pharaoh’s fat and plump sevens pictured seven years of unequaled plenty in Egypt. The ravenous, skinny, ugly sevens pictured the following seven years of unequaled famine in the entire area (Egypt and beyond). Since the dream was repeated, it meant that God would shortly do it.

Then, without permission, Joseph, who had managed Potiphar’s estate and the entire prison so well, recommended a way to mitigate the years of famine to Pharaoh. 

“Good idea!” Pharaoh cried. “And who better to do it than YOU.  What did you say your name was?”

So Joseph was given wealth, authority, and honor in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh.  He was also given an Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife (who bore him Manasseh and Ephraim). And Joseph did what he had suggested. He managed Egypt’s years of plenty wisely, so a great abundance of grain (like the sand of the sea) was stored up for the famine years.  And when those years came, and the people cried out in hunger, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold them the grain. And, when the surrounding peoples also suffered in famine and came to Joseph, he sold grain to THEM. 

And Egypt became “filthy rich.” How proud and pleased Pharaoh must have been with his prodigy. But it was God who orchestrated it all, and His reasons were many.

Genesis 42.

Back in Canaan, the famine hit hard. Jacob-Israel learned grain was for sale in Egypt, so he sent his ten older sons with donkeys and sacks of money to buy grain for them all. Little Bennie (about 33) stayed home with Papa.

In Egypt, Joseph recognized his brothers. As they bowed before him, he remembered his long-ago dreams (oh, wow!) and knew God was in all that had happened. Quickly, he counted only ten men and feared that perhaps they had also gotten rid of his little brother. He would test them.

“SPIES!” he yelled at them through an interpreter.  “You are SPIES, coming to see Egypt’s nakedness!”

“No, my lord,” the ten cried in terror. “We are the sons of one man. We have never been spies!”

“You are SPIES!” Joseph repeated. 

The brothers explain how they were twelve sons born to one man. “One is no more (Joseph), and the youngest is with our father.”

“No, you are SPIES.”  To test the veracity of their story, he tells them they can’t leave Egypt until the youngest brother comes as proof they are innocent. Then, he puts them all into custody for three days. 

Of course, guilt over what they had done to Joseph was still heavy on their consciences twenty years afterward.  “We SAW how Joseph begged us not to kill or sell him, and we didn’t listen. That is why THIS is happening.”  Reuben pipes up, defending himself. “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy???”

They don’t know Joseph overhears them and understands what they’re saying. At one point, he has to turn away and weep. (But he did learn that Reuben had stood up for him. Perhaps that’s why he held back the second oldest brother in prison.)

Joseph keeps Simeon in prison and sends back the nine with their paid-for grain and a warning. “Don’t bother returning for more grain without your young brother.” (He also has his steward put their money sacks back into their grain bags.)

At one point, one of them opens a bag of grain to feed the donkeys on the return trip and discovers the money pouch. YIKES, he yells. They all find the same when they open the other sacks.  “What has God done to us?” they cry. (By now, they know this is a just repayment for their long-ago deeds.)

At home, they recount all that’s happened to their father, Jacob.  They show him their returned money pouches.  and Jacob goes into mourning. 

“You have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now, you would take BENJAMIN??  All this has come against me. My son shall NOT go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.” 

To be continued…..

Day 27 – Genesis 43 – 45

Genesis 43.

Another year has passed. The grain they purchased in Egypt is about gone, and Jacob asks his sons why they delayed. “Go back to Egypt and buy some grain.”

Judah speaks up. “Um, Dad, did you forget what the man said? Unless you send Benjamin with us, we won’t go.”

“Oh, why did you tell him you had another brother?”

“Because he ASKED us if we had one. We didn’t know he’d demand we brought him with us.”

Then Judah (whose idea it was 20+ years earlier to KILL Joseph) steps up and offers his own life in place of Benjamin’s.  He adds a plea for urgency. “If we hadn’t delayed, we could have been there and back two times.”

Jacob-Israel finally relents and, with a heavy heart sends ALL his remaining sons to Egypt, adding some good things from Canaan as a gift. “May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man.”  (Oh, Jacob, if you only knew!)

Joseph saw immediately that his brothers had brought Benjamin. How his heart must have swelled. He ordered a lunch at his home to be prepared.  Of course, the brothers were terrified about the returned money last time, so they approached the steward right away and assured him they’d brought double the money. 

“Nah, your God must have blessed you. I received your money before.” 

They are confused but very glad to see Simeon alive and well again. 

Joseph inquires about their father and is relieved to hear Jacob is alive.  Then he looked at Benjamin – a young teen when he left, and now a man – and his heart swelled.  He has to run to his room where he cries for joy. Afterward, he orders lunch.

After a wash-up the brothers are all seated in Joseph’s dining hall in order of their birth. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun (perhaps a space here for the “missing” Joseph), and Benjamin.  The brothers are shocked. HOW could this Egyptian lord know their birth order???

Joseph sends portions of delicacies from his own table, with five times more to Benjamin.  Was it just for the love of his full brother, or was he testing the others to see how they reacted to the preferential treatment of the youngest?

Genesis 44.

After lunch, Joseph orders all their sacks to be filled with grain, their TWO pouches of money, and, in Benjamin’s sack, Joseph’s own silver chalice.  The following morning, all eleven of Jacob’s sons left Egypt.  They are joyful to get away with all the grain and all the brothers. They are eager to return to their father with both Simeon and Benjamin.

Then, a dust cloud appears behind them. A chariot roars up and slides to a stop. The stern-faced steward gets out and accuses one of them of stealing the prized silver chalice from the Viceroy of Egypt. Immediately, the brother’s joy turns to terror. They deny it, open all their sacks, and proclaim their innocence. In whoever’s sack it’s found, that one will die, and we’ll all become your servants.

“I’ll only arrest the thief,” says the steward, “and all the rest of you will go free.”  

OF COURSE (as planned), the chalice is found in Benjamin’s sack, just where the steward put it. The brothers’ hearts stop. NOT BENJAMIN!!!  They ALL load up the donkeys and return to Egypt. Will this nightmare ever end? 

(Hey, Bros, how do you think your young brother felt being thrown into a pit, then sold to traders, taken as a slave into an Egyptian household, falsely accused, and put into prison for years??)

At Joseph’s palace, the brothers stood before the powerful man. “What is this that you have done?” 

A confession begins to tumble out. “What shall we say to my lord?  What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the chalice was found.”

“No, no, no,” says Joseph. “ONLY the man in whose hand the chalice was found shall be my servant.  You all can return to your father in peace.”

And now Judah shines. The one who said his daughter-in-law was “more righteous than he.”  The one who pledged to his father HIS own life forfeited for Benjamin’s sake.  This broken man (whose descendant would one day step into the punishment for OUR sake.) went to Joseph and pled for mercy for his little brother.

“My lord asked his servants if we had a father or a brother, We said our father was an old man, and we have a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him. We told you how we couldn’t bring the boy because our father would die if he lost this one. His life is bound up in the boy’s life. If he isn’t with us, our father will die. 

But you insisted and we finally convinced our father because I became a pledge of safety for him. I will bear the blame if he does not return. PLEASE, let me remain as servant, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”

Genesis 45.

At this change of heart and confession, Joseph can no longer control himself. He sends all his Egyptian staff out. and he wept aloud.

“I AM JOSEPH!” he cried in Hebrew.

They all are stunned to silence, mouths agape.

“Come near me. I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. But don’t be distressed or angry with yourselves. God sent me before you to preserve life.  There are five more years of famine. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. It was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me a father to the Pharaoh, lord over his house, and ruler over all of Egypt.

“Hurry now. Go get my father. Tell him God has made me ruler in Egypt. Come down to me.  Hurry!”

After telling them he’s prepared a place in Goshen for them all to live and reminding them that it’s him (Isn’t he speaking in Hebrew to them?), he grabs Benjamin, hugs him tight, and kisses him.  Then the other brothers too.

Later, Joseph sent their grain with them and wagons filled with provisions for the journey for ALL of Jacob-Israel’s extended family, plus his flocks and herds. He also sent many gifts to his father, new clothes to the brothers, and to Benjamin, he gave 300 silver shekels.

“Don’t quarrel on the way!” he calls after them. (Oh, how he knows his brothers!)

.

Jacob-Israel sees the wagons. He counts all eleven of his sons.  Even before they stop, the brothers call out, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!”

Jacob is faint. He gasps.  “What? Joseph, still alive?  OHHHHHH GOD!!! It is enough! Joseph, my son, is still alive. I will go and see him before I die!”

.

What a glorious story, but it’s not over yet. The relieved brothers now have to tell their father the truth about Joseph’s disappearance.  They have to confess their wicked sin and deception. How will he respond? 

Stay tuned.