Daily Devotions
Genesis
"O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Psalm 130:7-8
Text: Genesis 42:1-38
THE JOURNEY HOME
The brothers made their way home with mixed feelings! What a traumatic experience they had gone through.
1. They had been thrown into jail!
2. They were released on two conditions:-
a) One of them was to remain in jail. Simeon was chosen!
b) They must return with Benjamin in tow!
They felt that God was punishing them for their terrible misdeed when they sold their brother Joseph into captivity in Egypt! On their way home, as they stopped to feed their donkeys, they discovered an inexplicable phenomenon.
“But as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey feed…
He saw his money; and there it was, in the mouth of his sack.
So he said to his brothers, ‘My money has been restored,
and there it is, in my sack!’ Then their hearts failed them
and they were afraid, saying to one another,
‘What is this that God has done to us?'”
GENESIS 42:27-28
HOME AT LAST
The brothers finally reached home! Gathered around their father, they recalled all that they had experienced in Egypt. No detail was left out – including the discovery of the money they had used to pay for the food. Jacob’s heart cried out in despair as he listened to his sons.
“And Jacob their father said to them,
‘You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more,
Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin.
All these things are against me.'”
GENESIS 42:36
Jacob had become a man prone to despair ever since he lost Joseph. Once again, he relived the anguish he suffered as he thought of the fate of Simeon. The brothers had said that the Egyptian governor had spoken to them very roughly. How would Simeon survive in an Egyptian prison?
REUBEN’S PLEA
Reuben, the firstborn, pleaded with his father for understanding. He offered to sacrifice his two sons, if he failed to bring Benjamin back from Egypt, on their next trip there! What was he thinking when he said that (Cf. Genesis 42:37)? Jacob was unmoved!
“My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead,
and he is left alone. If any calamity should befall him along the
way in which you go, then you would bring down my gray hair
with sorrow to the grave.”
GENESIS 42:38
Jacob still grieved for the loss of Joseph! He could not take any more losses!