In this chapter Jacob, Joseph's father, tells all of his sons
(Joseph's brothers) to visit Egypt and try to bring back some food for the
family. He sends all of his sons except for one... his youngest, Benjamin. When
they arrived to Egypt they did not recognize Joseph. He is currently the
Governor of Egypt... most likely the last thing they would have expected. They
bowed down to him. What is so interesting about this is that this is exactly
what Joseph's dreams were about in the very beginning of this story. He shares
with his brothers that the interpretation of his dream was that they bowed down
to him but they called him crazy and despised him for it.
Joseph clearly recognizes them but plays it off as though he
does not. In fact, he treats them harshly. He exclaims that they are spies and
in the midst of that he learns that they have a younger brother, Benjamin, and
wants to see it for himself. What he does is holds one of the brothers in
custody and tells the others that they must bring back the younger brother if
he wishes to have a chance of setting their brother free. It all sounds so
crazy but then again I can only imagine what Joseph is going through. It has
been soooo many years since he has last seen his brothers. The ones that
betrayed him and truly made him feel like he didn't matter. He probably still
felt so much unresolved pain and was so surprised when he saw them. I think he
held his brothers captive because he wanted more time with the Lord. I think he
knew in his heart that he was ready to forgive his brothers but never expected
the day to come and now that he faced it so unexpectedly he had to quickly figure
out what exactly to do.
In the midst of all of this craziness the brothers start to feel
the curse of their brother coming back to haunt them. They start to think all
of this bad mojo is going on because of what they did to Joseph and that it is
only right that they are finally being punished for it. When they returned to
Canaan they realized that their was silver in their bags and were immediately
frightened. They knew that this silver would truly make them look like the
thieves they've been called out to be. Before they left Joseph has his servants
sneak it into their bags. Why? we are yet to find out. Joseph is clearly
putting some plan into motion but that is all still a mystery at this point.
Closing this chapter up, Jacob tells his sons the sorrow he felt when Joseph
was lost and the immense pain he felt for him. He tells his brothers they
cannot take Benjamin because he doesn't want to go through that again. The
oldest brother, Reuben, tells his father that if worse comes to worse he will
give his life for his brother. Jacob puts his trust into Reuben and agrees.
The biggest thing I walk away with in this chapter is how
important, yet so hard forgiveness can be. In Joseph's case, it is probably the
hardest challenge he has faced since being sold into Egypt.. which is saying a
lot. He has to look into the eyes of his brothers, the ones that turned their
back on him and left him for dead, and find forgiveness? That is insane. After
all he has gone through he faces yet another challenge. Joseph is not lead by a
man's heart though, he is lead by the Lord and because of that he accepts this
challenge. This is so encouraging to me. I know I have been wronged before, and
will probably be wronged in the future. I know that you probably have to. What
I encourage us to do is to look passed that and just surrender it to the Lord,
exactly what Joseph did. Turn the other cheek and seek Christ's love just as
Joseph did. That is a challenge I think we should all consider and push
ourselves to.
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