King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 17 notes
1Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
2And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
Dake’s reminds us that Abraham had done the same in the first famine in Genesis 12:10.
O how countless a time Israel has looked to Egypt for salvation — much to God’s disapproval. Interestingly, the Messiah sought for refuge there and was groomed in Egypt.
This was how far the news had traveled.... Pharaoh was going to be very powerful.
3And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt.
4But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him.
Oh, the griefings of life.
Joseph’s death ☠, the 1st of two sons of his beloved Rachael, brought a great blow to Jacob.
Now the only memory and posterity of Rachael was this last son Benjamin, and he wasn’t going to risk it. Meanwhile Benjamin is a ravenous wolf 🐺.
He cannot be tamed, but the circumstances of life sought to do so to protect him, but by so doing greatly limiting him.
Until the liberty was brought forth by Joseph, the manifestation of being alive.
Though called Benjamin — son of my right hand 🖐️ — interestingly most of its people were left handed.
5And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
6And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.
😇... Interesting, such a big man like Joseph — so why did he personally sell to the people?
I guess because as a leader you do the most important of things and delegate all others, and at this time bread 🥪 was the most important thing the world needed.
For a man of such stature, how come he was personally selling to the people, so directly involved in the sales?
Because that was wisdom. The most important, scarce and expensive commodity in the land was corn, and what else should the greatest man of the land concern himself with than corn?
Joseph was indeed a faithful steward. No wonder Pharaoh and all his masters entrusted all things into his hands.
7And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.
8And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.
9And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
10And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.
11We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies.
12And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
13And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.
14And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies:
15Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither.
16Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies.
17And he put them all together into ward three days.
18And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God:
19If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:
20But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so.
21And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.
It was 13 years and this thing would not go away.
I suspect things had gone against them in their personal lives after they sold Joseph.
And then it began to dawn on them the wickedness of their ways.
At this time most of them were middle-aged men and had their own children and grandchildren.
They understood life better and now saw the grief they had caused their father in the past.
Life had happened to them and now they were wiser, regretful and pained, but they could not change the past.
22And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.
Ah, here it is: their life had turned sore over the years, God had had his pound of flesh, and they had concluded that the blood of Joseph is what’s crying 😢 out against them for their much wickedness.
Now they were parents and knew the pangs of fathers for the children, especially their sons.
I believe their children were very beautiful and adorable and looked a lot like them.
My conjecture is that God might have done this, thus causing their souls to be so strongly knit to their own children.
And now they remember their own sins of lying to their father and selling their most gifted brother out of jealousy.
The guilt never left after all these years.
It had been 13 years — 13 years of torture, not just for Joseph but for his brethren as well.
As each of them married and had children of their own, they saw what they had done to their father and their own brother Joseph.
Not to mention the other crimes they had committed in Shechem.
Now they were much older, and each passing moment they remembered their wrong and regretted it.
The restoration of Joseph was not just a blessing to their father but to the conscience of their brothers as well.
23And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter.
24And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.
Joseph, like David ✡, was wise and soft-hearted, at the same time hard and witty.
See how he maximized the famine till the people sold themselves over.
Yet wept and forgave his brothers whiles still playing them by not revealing his identity immediately.
25Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus did he unto them.
26And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence.
27And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sack’s mouth.
28And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us?
How were they going to go back for more corn when it seemed they did not pay for the first time for such a super scarce commodity?
They would need to be served again, and here they were having seemingly swindled the governor.
29And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto them; saying,
Joseph took Simeon as surety, and he knew the famine would last for some more years, so they would definitely come back.
30The man, who is the lord of the land, spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country.
31And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies:
32We be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.
O I can imagine the guilt and pain the brothers faced as they watched their father, over the course of 22 years, live with the lie they had told him.
They were so affected that after many years, they attributed their ill treatment in Egypt to the sin they had committed.
I think they had repented and were truly sorry. I feel for them.
33And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone:
34And bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffick in the land.
35And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.
36And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.
37And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again.
For him to use his own children as collateral showed he was ready to die for his little brother, though of a different mother.
He didn’t trust Reuben, who had failed the first time as the first born to protect Joseph.
Though of course it wasn’t his fault, and it was not as if Joseph was left in his charge.
38And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Oh old man Jacob, he held on to life for the sake of Benjamin his son. His last born.
If Benjamin is lost, that is the end of his life.