Genesis chapter 42

So, on Jacob hearing there was food in Egypt, he sends his boys off to go buy some.   Love the translation in the Message:

Genesis 42:1-2 When Jacob learned that there was food in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you sit around here and look at one another? I've heard that there is food in Egypt. Go down there and buy some so that we can survive and not starve to death." (The Message)

Or, in other words, get up off your lazy backsides and go do something about the food shortage rather than just sitting there whingeing about it!

So off they go to Egypt where Joseph immediately recognises them but they do not recognise him.  After all, there was no reason why they should expect to see him anyway as they thought he was dead.  So Joseph accuses them of being spies, locks them up for three days and then says that he will let all of them go except one provided they bring back their youngest brother to prove the truth of their story. Interestingly, the brother who is left in prison whilst the others return to their father was Simeon, the second eldest, not Reuben, the eldest, or one of the younger brothers.  Maybe Joseph had known that Reuben had been planning to go back and rescue him, maybe it was just a coincidence that Simeon was left in prison, maybe it was because joseph knew Simeon was the second eldest and he left the elder of the brothers to take care of the others, maybe Joseph thought Simeon had been the ring leader of the plot to get rid of him. Or maybe the conversation Joseph overheard when Reuben talked about this being God's judgement on them for the murder of Joseph led him to select Simeon.  Whatever the reason, after three days in prison (one for each year Joseph was imprisoned?),  Simeon was left in prison whilst the other brothers were freed to return to Canaan and fetch Benjamin. 

But Joseph also returned their money for the grain to their sacks before the brothers left.  This clearly shows just how much Joseph had changed.  He could easily have charged them double or more than anyone else was paying, but instead, he chooses to return their money, ensuring the family has enough food at no cost.  He is being generous and forgiving, whereas many people in the same situation would have been hard and unyielding, having held a deep drudge for all those years.  To behave like that can only have been through the grace of God at work in his life.

Firstly, the one thing that the brothers think of when Joseph accuses them of being spies is that they are being punished for what they did to Joseph.  Years have passed since they sold Joseph into slavery and yet this is the first thing that springs to mind.  They were consumed by their guilt and had probably spent all the intervening years with that nagging sense of having done something wrong, always worrying about what they had done, whether Jacob would find out and so on.  They had had no peace in all those years.

But what a change had been wrought in the brothers.  Here, Reuben accepts responsibility, stands up to his father and promises to bring Benjamin back safely or else Jacob can kill Reuben's two sons.  Yet all those years ago, he went along with the scheme to kill Joseph and did nothing to prevent harm coming to his brother.   Just as God had been working on Joseph, changing him from the proud young man to a man who knew that God was in control, a man of responsibility, of status, working to keep nations alive through a severe famine, God had also been working on the brothers, making them appreciate the wrong they had done and turning them from jealous, insecure men to men who could be relied upon and trusted, men who would do the right thing no matter what the cost.  They could have become even more hardened, have continued to close their hearts and minds to God.  I mean, men who would do this to their brother are capable of anything, and it would have been so easy so slip down the road of always trying to get their own way, being self centred and using their strength to get what they wanted. 

In the same way, God is working on each one of us believers making us more like Jesus each and every day.  For some, this may be something that takes place very quickly, for others it takes years.  It can be a quick process or a gradual one.  What matters is that we are prepared to accept God working on us, that we allow the Holy Spirit to change us from within, and that we have the patience to wait and see what God does.