Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Before we get started, if you enjoy the show and want to help keep it on the air, you can go to my website at Beyondthebasics.blog, click the donate button at the top and that will bring you to the website for Passion for Life Ministries where you can make a tax deductible donation. Passion for Life is a ministry that I’ve partnered with that is dedicated to spreading the gospel and feeding the elderly in Central and South America. Please make sure you designate your gift for Beyond The Basics. You can also click the subscribe button which will bring you to my Patreon page where for only 4 dollars a month, you can receive access to the full uncut episode which will include between 10 and 30 minutes of additional audio. You will also receive access to all past episodes starting with Genesis chapter 24. Now, on to the show!

You know we’ve all experienced God’s kindness, God’s mercy, many different ways. Some ways seem very basic and mundane and other ways seem much more extraordinary and personal. Some of those ways that we’ve experienced God’s mercy are in the sun rising every morning. When the rain comes and waters the ground and produces food, we don’t even think about those ways. But that’s God’s kindness. That’s God’s mercy. Sometimes it’s more personal. It’s unexpected money that comes in the mail. It’s restored relationships with people that we never expected to be restored with. Sometimes it’s supernatural protection from disaster. And God shows us kindness in all these different ways. And of course, that’s all besides the fact that he sent his son to die for us on the cross, which is the ultimate display of God’s kindness.

Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 43 are going to experience God’s kindness through Joseph. And the purpose, as we’re going to see, is for God’s mercy and kindness to bring them to repentance for what they did to their brother Joseph so many years prior. So let’s get into the chapter.

Starting in verse 1, it says, now the famine was severe in the land. It’s important to remember that Joseph knew that the famine would last seven years, but his family didn’t. His brothers didn’t know that. His father didn’t know that. And there’s no reason for them to expect that it would last this long because seven years is a long time for a famine to last. It’s not completely unheard of, but it’s not what you would expect for a famine. You would expect a famine to last for a season, maybe a couple years at the most.

So in verse 2 it says, and when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, so they had eaten all the grain, they may not have realized that they would even need to return to Egypt to buy more food. Because as I mentioned, nobody would have expected the famine to last this long. So when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.”

So now they’re going to need to go a second time to Egypt.

Moving on in verse 3, But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us saying, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.”

So now we’re gonna continue to see the transformation of Judah into a leader in the family. If you remember, several chapters ago, Judah had fallen into severe moral depravity and compromise. And by the time we get to chapter 42, Judah had been restored to his family, restored to his brothers. Now, Judah is taking the lead in confronting his father and speaking for his brothers. And this is important because he’s going to be the one who will receive the birthright and the blessing, even though he’s not the firstborn. But we see this subtle thread of Judah being transformed, his descent into immorality and now his slow restoration to his family and his repentance and elevation into the one who would become the seed bearer, who will bear the seed of the Messiah.

So Judah said, “If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food.”

So if you remember from the last chapter, Joseph had told his brothers when they had gone to Egypt to buy food, “Do not come back unless you’re bringing your youngest brother Benjamin with you.”

And the brothers had told Jacob this at the end of chapter 42. Now Judah says to his father, “If you will send your brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him we will not go down, for the man said to us, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.”

Now this phrase is repeated word for word from verse three. And Judah is saying, “Look, we need food. We can go get food. We know where we can get food. It’s down in Egypt, but we need to bring Benjamin in order to buy that food, because the man who sold it to us will not sell it to us anymore unless we bring Benjamin with us to prove that we’re not spies.”

So now, Jacob is going to get super, super selfish here. And he’s going to say in verse six, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you’ve had another brother?”

As if his sons intentionally told Joseph in order to make life difficult for their father and to treat him poorly. And so Judah calls him out. In fact, they all call out their father in verse seven. It says, they replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred saying, is your father still alive?” Et cetera, et cetera.

And then moving down to verse eight. Judah said to Israel, his father, “Send the boy with me.”

Now that word boy could also be translated young man. There’s some dispute about how old Benjamin was at this point. And the English translation in the ESV, I don’t know what other translations say, but the ESV says that he’s a boy. And so the implication is, well, he can’t really take care of himself. And so it’s very dangerous for him. But this word could also be translated as young man. So he may not be as young as Jacob is making him seem. In fact, considering the age of Joseph being around 30 or so, maybe a little bit older, considering it had been 13 years at a minimum since he had been sold into slavery by his brothers, considering that happened after Benjamin had been born, it’s highly likely Benjamin would have been in his late teens or early 20s. Very likely old enough to at least take care of himself, or should something bad happen on the road to Egypt.

So Judah said, “Send the boy with me, and we will rise and go that we may live and not die.”

Judah says, “Send the boy with me and we will arise and go that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.”

He’s saying, “Not just we brothers, but you also, Jacob, you also, father, would live and not die.”

So not only would buying more food sustain them physically, but this is actually foreshadowing what would happen to Jacob later on.

So Judas continues in verse 9 and he says, “I will be a pledge of his safety.”

So his offer was this: He says, “From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.”

This word blame is literally miss the mark, and that’s actually the most common word for sin in the Hebrew Bible. So he’s essentially saying, “Consider me to have sinned against you by not bringing Benjamin back.” And he’s saying, “I will bear this sin forever.”

In fact, Jewish rabbis considered this to be a vow that would last into the age to come. This would be a sin that Judah would bear for all eternity. It’s not something that he would bear for a little while until his father would forgive him and then everybody would be okay. Judah’s saying, “No, if I don’t bring Benjamin back to you consider me one who has sinned against you forever, and I will not ever be released of that burden of sin against you. There is nothing that anybody can do no amount of forgiveness that will release me from that sin.”

He’s willing to not just forfeit his life or the lives of his sons like Reuben, but he’s willing to forfeit his entire eternity for his brother Benjamin. And we’ll get into more of that later.

So then Judah goes on to say in verse 10, “If we had not delayed, we would have now have returned twice.”

So now the trip from Canaan to Egypt would have taken about two weeks. So assuming he is not using hyperbole, that means that the time passed from chapter 42 to now was probably about two months. If they could have gone to Egypt and come back twice, that would take about two months.

So in verse 11, Jacob gives his sons five instructions. First, he says, carry a present in verse 11. In verse 12, he says, take double the money with you. Then he says, carry with you the money that was returned. So that would be separate from double the money. And in verse 13, he says, take your brother and go to the man. And then in verse 14, he says, may God Almighty grant you mercy and send back your brother. This is the key, that last instruction is the key to all five of these instructions because five represents God’s grace or favor. And so, the fifth instruction is to receive God’s mercy. May God grant you mercy and send back your brother. So that’s an indication that that fifth instruction is the most important one. And we’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

In verse 11, he says, carry a present. That’s the first instruction. Jacob had tried this earlier with Esau and it actually worked. So Jacob lists seven presents that he wants his sons to give to Joseph. The first one is going to be a little balm. A little honey is the second gift. Gum was the third gift, which was an aromatic spice, probably for incense, probably used for incense. And then the fourth gift would be myrrh, which was an anointing oil. It was used for perfume and it was also used for burial. The next gift that Jacob recommends is pistachio nuts, which would have been used for food or for oil. And then finally almonds.

And if you are listening to the free show and you go sign up on Patreon, you would have just heard me go through the symbolism of the gifts that Jacob told his sons to bring. So if you go to the Patreon page, the link is on the website beyondthebasics.blog, go click that link and go sign up. You can hear me talk through the symbolism of all those gifts, what they point towards.

So Jacob also tells them to bring double the money in addition to the money that was returned to them previously, like I mentioned already. Now these gifts that he told them to bring were, they had very little value other than the double money of course. And the reason is because they didn’t wanna make it look like they were bribing Joseph. In fact, Joseph would have been a very wealthy man. So these gifts would have probably meant nothing to him. So the gifts were not intended to influence Joseph with their value. They didn’t want to look like they were bribing him because he had already accused them of being spies. They simply wanted to show their generosity that this is all we have to offer. Please accept this gift as we do not have much.

In fact, the Ishmaelite traders were already bringing many of these items to Egypt. In Genesis 37, we’re told that their camels bore gum, balm, and myrrh on their way to carry it down to Egypt. So, many of these products were already on their way down to Egypt anyway.

So I want to return briefly to verse 12, Jacob telling his sons to take double the money. So now we get to the important part in verse 14. Jacob says, may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man. Now this is exactly what they will receive and exactly what they don’t deserve. And this is a central theme of this chapter. And here’s how we know. It’s surrounded by repeating words in the same order. And if you want to download the study guide for this chapter, it’s free on the website. You can go to the page for the podcast post. You can also go to the free download section on the website and download this. You can see it a little bit easier than you may be able to hear it. But I’m going to walk you through it here.

These repeating words go in this order. First in verse 11, it says, carry a present down to the man. Then in verse 12, take double the money with you. In verse 13, it says, take also your brother. In verse 13 again, it says, and arise. And then again, in verse 13, go again to the man. So those are the phrases or the repeating words that lead up to this sentence, may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin.

Now these words are going to repeat again, the phrases. In verse 15, the men took this present, which corresponds to verse 11, carry a present down to the man. Verse 15, they took double the money, which corresponds to verse 12, take double the money with you. Verse 15 again, it says, and Benjamin, which corresponds to verse 13, take also your brother. 15 again, they arose, which corresponds to verse 13, and arise. And then lastly in verse 15, and stood before Joseph, which corresponds to verse 13, go again to the man, which referred to Joseph.

So, those repeating phrases surrounding this phrase, may God Almighty grant you mercy, reveals that this is the central theme and the most important point of the entire chapter of this story. Jacob is blessing his sons with mercy. His prayer is that God would grant them mercy. Now Jacob has no idea still what they had done to their brother Joseph, but he’s still praying for mercy for his sons. We as the readers know what they’ve done. We know they don’t deserve mercy, but Jacob is praying for them to receive mercy anyway, and we’re going to see that that’s exactly what they will receive even though they don’t deserve it.

So moving on, in verse 14, Jacob says, as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. So Jacob now, after praying for mercy for his sons, we’ve seen him go back and forth so many times in the book of Genesis. Now he’s going back to surrendering to fate rather than trusting in God. Even though he had seen God provide and protect him countless times, he’s gonna trust fate instead, rather than trusting in God.

So in verse 15, they took the present, they took double the money, they took Benjamin, they arose and went down to Egypt for the second time, and they stood before Joseph.

So in verse 16, Joseph saw Benjamin, and so he said to the steward of his house, bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal, and make ready for the men are to dine with me at noon. So he’s going to make them a feast.

And in verse 18, the men were afraid because they were brought into Joseph’s house. Now they had no reason to fear. We as the reader already know that they were brought there for a feast, but they thought that Joseph was going to enslave them. They say, “It is because of the money which was replaced in our sacks the first time that we are brought in so that he may assault us and fall upon us and make us servants and seize our donkeys.”

Now, there’s no reason for them to believe this. If Joseph wanted to enslave them, he could have just done it. He didn’t have to put up this show of inviting them over for lunch and then somehow using that to enslave them. He could have just captured them and enslaved them. He was the most powerful man in Egypt other than Pharaoh. So they’re just paranoid. They’re not thinking with reason and logic. They’re fearful because they still have unrepentant hearts. Remember what I said last week when we talked about how unrepentant sin can make every hardship and every tragedy or every difficulty even appear as if it is punishment and consequences of the unrepentant sin.

Verse 19, it says, they went up to the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke with him at the door of the house. They did this to plead their case. They went to the first person who would hear their stories because they didn’t want to be accused of theft. They knew that Joseph was probably aware that they had the money that was returned and they didn’t want to be accused of theft. And so they went to the first guy who would hear, first guy who would listen, and it was the steward of the house. And so they start to tell him the story a second time.

And the fear and anxiety is going to be very apparent in their explanation. Listen to what they say in verse 20. They say, “Oh my Lord, we came down the first time to buy food. And when we came to the lodging place, we opened our sacks and there was each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it again with us and we have brought other money down with us to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.”

So they’re just frantic. They’re very, very fearful. They’re explaining every little thing. But in verse 23, the steward replies with two exhortations, “Peace to you,” so be at ease, and “Do not fear,” there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Imagine being convinced that you did the right thing. And truly these brothers did do the right thing in this instance. They did not steal money. But imagine knowing that you did the right thing, but being absolutely terrified that you were gonna be accused of doing the wrong thing and you try to tell your story to anybody who will listen. Say, “hey, look, I’m innocent.” And the response you get is, “Don’t worry, it’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Be at ease, be at peace.”

I picture that anxiety being built up, built up, built up, and then you hear those words, and suddenly you can breathe out again for the first time. That’s what these brothers are experiencing. So the servant says, “Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you.”

This phrase, the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you, expresses the central theme of the book of Genesis, or at least one of the central themes. The entire theme of the book of Genesis is that God provided land and wealth to Israel’s fathers. And remember that this was written by Moses, most likely, and it would be read by the Israelites just before entering the promised land, the land promised by God to their fathers. So imagine being an Israelite, being at the door of the promised land, of a land flowing with milk and honey, knowing that God had given that land to your fathers and he was about to give it to you.

Imagine the fear and anxiety you might feel and the words come as you’re reading, as you’re hearing in the assembly, “Be peace to you. Do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your Father has put treasure in your sacks for you. Your God and the God of your Father has given you wealth, has given you land, has given you exactly what He promised you.”

That’s what the Israelite, during Moses’ time, would have been thinking as he would be reading this chapter. That was a great comfort to the Israelites in those days. And that’s one of the biggest themes in this book, to give comfort to the Israelites before they enter the promised land that God has given them this land and this land belongs to them forever and no one can take away what God has given, including modern-day Gentile Christians. You know my stance on that. I won’t say anymore.

So the steward goes on and he says, “I received your money.”

So somebody else paid the price for their grain, probably Joseph himself.

Then in verse 24, it says, when the man had brought the men into Joseph’s house and given them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder. They did not expect to be treated with such kindness. They had been afraid to go into Joseph’s house, and now they’re going in and they’re given water. They’re able to wash their feet. Their donkeys are being fed.

In verse 26, Joseph came home. They brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed down to him to the ground, just like in Joseph’s dream many chapters earlier, many years earlier.

And he inquired about their welfare in verse 27. So Joseph showed genuine interest in his brothers. They must have been completely astounded at this kindness that he’s showing to them at this point. Why would he show genuine interest and ask about their father when he had previously accused them of being spies?

Verse 28, after being asked about their father, they said, your servant or father is well, he is still alive. And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves. And then in verse 29, and Joseph lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin. So, we have this contrast, the brothers bowing their heads and Joseph lifting up his eyes. This reveals the contrast in their roles. The younger brother here is ruling over the older brothers. The older brothers are prostrating themselves before the younger brother who is lifting up his eyes. This is just as God had intended in Joseph’s dreams. So, that language is intended to convey the idea that the dreams are being fulfilled.

So, moving on in verse 29, Joseph says, “Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son.”

And this is another central theme of the book of Genesis. There’s a lot of central themes here in this chapter. Here’s another one. God be gracious to you. This is a theme, the theme of grace. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that the new covenant is a covenant of grace, and grace didn’t exist in the old covenant. This is a major, major theme in the book of Genesis. God’s grace is poured out on the entire family of Abraham. He brought them out of a wicked pagan people, the Chaldeans. He showed them kindness and patience. He gave them treasure and wealth and blessing for absolutely no reason. They didn’t do anything to deserve it. In fact, if they did anything, it was to show how they don’t deserve it, and yet God did it anyway, because God is gracious. God gives grace to those who don’t deserve it. God shows steadfast love to those who don’t deserve it. This is a major theme. If we don’t see God’s grace in the Old Testament, we are missing the point of the Old Testament.

In verse 30, Joseph hurried out for his compassion grew warm for his brother. This word compassion is the same word as mercy in verse 14. So God answered Jacob’s prayer. Jacob prayed, may God Almighty grant you mercy. Now they’re being granted mercy in the form of compassion. So he sought a place to wait because he hadn’t seen Benjamin since he was a small child, but he didn’t want to reveal himself to them yet.

Then in verse 31, he washed his face and came out controlling himself. He said, “Serve the food.”

That phrase is very important because Joseph’s brothers thought that they would be turned into Joseph’s servants, but instead Joseph served his brothers. Joseph was the one who served their brothers. His brothers thought that they would be Joseph’s servants, but instead Joseph is his brother’s servant. Joseph is the one who’s ruling over them.

So they served the food and in verse 32 the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews for that is an abomination to the Egyptians.

So moving down to verse 34, it says portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. So this was a test for Joseph’s brothers to see how they respond when the youngest has shown favor. Because the last time the youngest was shown favor, they wanted to kill him and they actually tried. And they would have succeeded until they decided to profit off of him instead. So this is very deliberate by Joseph. Very deliberate to find out if the brothers became offended and angry at the youngest of them being shown favor.

But it says, and they drank and were merry with him, or intoxicated, and very possibly intentional to see if they would confess anything. What’s important here is that this is false joy. It’s a false celebration. It’s induced by wine and food rather than repentance and dealing with their sin. They still hadn’t dealt with their sin. From all the kindness shown by Joseph, all the generosity, all the mercy and compassion. We get to the end of the chapter when we see that Joseph’s brothers still had not responded in repentance and instead they were drinking and being merry falsely. It’s a false reality. It’s contrived by food and too much wine and relief at being treated with kindness instead of being made into servants, but it’s not real.

And so we’re going to find out in the next chapter that they’re going to have to go through more testing to bring them to repentance because they’re still not there.

So how does this chapter point to Jesus? I’ve mentioned before that Joseph is a picture of Jesus and there’s a few ways that Joseph will represent or foreshadow Jesus in this chapter.

First, Joseph ate separately from the Egyptians and the Hebrews, as I mentioned. He ate separately from the Egyptians because he was a Hebrew, but he also ate separately from the Hebrews because he didn’t want his brothers to know that he was a Hebrew. He had to pretend that he wasn’t a Hebrew. This points to Jesus because Jesus was not accepted by the world, represented by the Egyptians, and he was also not accepted by the Jews. And he will continue to not be accepted by the Jews, for the most part, with the exception of a few, until after the seven-year tribulation, which is what this entire storyline over these multiple chapters points to, a seven-year trial, a seven-year tribulation which will result in the repentance and restoration of the nation of Israel to their God.

Now we also have the steward in this chapter, and the steward is a picture of the prophets, just like the servant in Genesis 24. In fact, some translations will actually use the word servant in this chapter, in chapter 43. So, anytime we see a servant, it should raise some flags. And I don’t want to say that every time that we see a servant in a story, it’s speaking of the prophets, but we should at least check to see if it’s talking about the prophets.

And we get that from Matthew chapter 21 verses 33 to 40. Jesus tells a parable about a master of a house planting a vineyard and dug a winepress, and he hires some tenants and leased the land there to the tenants. And later, the master of the house sent his servants to the tenants to get the fruit and the tenants killed the servants. He sent more servants and the tenants killed those servants too. And finally he sent his son saying, they’re going to respect my son at the very least, but the tenants saw the son and they killed him also. The picture of this parable, it’s talking about Israel, which had been given land by God and when God sent his prophets, symbolized by the servants, they killed the prophets until finally God sent his son and they killed his son. So that’s why this role of servant points to the prophets.

Here in Genesis 43, the steward also gives a very clear prophetic message. He says, “Bring the men into the house, slaughter an animal, make ready for the men are to dine with me.” He says, “peace to you. Do not fear. Your God has put treasure in your sacks. I received your money.”

This prophetic message is very, very clear and very consistent with the prophetic message given to Israel. This entire chapter, it’s a prophetic message and it’s highlighted at that last prophetic message given by the steward where he says, “I received your money. It was paid by somebody else.”

Points to Jesus who paid the price. So there’s no reason to fear. You are to be brought in to dine with Jesus. We are to be brought in. Jesus has already been slaughtered like an animal. He’s the slain lamb. He’s the lamb that was slain. He paid the price. Now we are to come in and dine with him. That’s the prophetic message given all through scriptures, and it’s right here in this chapter.

Finally, Judah points to Jesus in that he would bear the blame if Benjamin didn’t return. Remember I mentioned that word blame is also the word that commonly is translated as sin. And so what he’s saying is Judah is going to take the blame. Judah is going to take Benjamin’s place if Benjamin didn’t return. In the next chapter in 44 verses 32 through 33, he says, “For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord and let the boy go back with his brothers.”

So that reveals the intention of what Judah was saying by taking the blame. He’s saying, “I will take the boy’s place. If we get to Egypt and we encounter any trouble, I will take the place of the boy so that Benjamin makes it back to you and I take his place instead, whether that means I am put in jail or whether that means I’m killed. I will take his place.”

Jesus would take our place one day. In Isaiah 53 verses 5 through 6, He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus took our place on the cross. Jesus, the descendant of Judah, took our place, just like Judah was willing to take Benjamin’s place. And if you’re listening today and you’ve never heard that before, that someone would take your place, I encourage you call out to Jesus right now. He’s already taken your place. All you have to do is lay down your life to Him, turn from your sin, give your life to Him, and He takes on your punishment that you deserve. You can walk in newness of life, brand new life.

So the question I have for you this week is very simple, but it requires some reflection. The question is, how has God’s kindness drawn you into repentance? This has been a theme through the entire chapter. God’s kindness, His mercy, His compassion is drawing these men into repentance. How has God’s kindness drawn you into repentance? How have you responded to His kindness? What has God done to show you kindness that has resulted in repentance of sin?

Let’s pray. Lord, I thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you that though we don’t deserve any of it, we don’t even deserve the sun rising every morning. You have chosen to show compassion and give grace because that’s who you are. And we want to respond in love turning from sin. So we ask right now, Lord, that you would give us the grace and the strength to turn from whatever sin might be holding us back. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your character that you reveal to us in your word. Thank you that you sent your son to take our place. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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