†. Gen 42:36a . .Their father Jacob said to them: You have deprived
me of my children.
Jacob held his eldest sons responsible for Joseph's demise. But he is even
more complicit. Jacob should have known better than to send his young
teen-age son all by himself to find the others a good many miles from home
in a mostly wilderness area. That was irresponsible.
†. Gen 42:36b . . Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now
you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!
They all, including Jacob, should have thought the whole situation through
for a minute. The big shot accused the brothers of spying. So now why
would he trump up a charge of theft against them? Which is worse, spying
or theft? Spying, of course, is much worse than theft. And how ever could
thievery prove the big shot's much more serious charge of spying against
them? It couldn't. No proficient spy is going to do something dumb that is
sure to draw attention to himself. When Joshua's spies entered Jericho (Josh
2) did they begin shop-lifting, or taking things off of people's clothes lines?
No. They were discreet. Jericho's authorities still caught on to them anyway,
but at least it wasn't for something stupid.
So the men must have reasoned that the big shot was hedging his bets. If
he couldn't get them on a charge of spying, then he would get them for the
lesser charge of theft. But they should have asked themselves: Why would
the obtuse big shot be so anxious to nail them at all? Is that how he amused
himself; by framing people and throwing them in jail for something they
didn't do? That's not an unusual police activity. In our own day, Iraqi
authorities, under the auspices of Saddam Hussein, used to do that all the
time.
For some reason, it just never occurred to the men that maybe the big shot
down in Egypt simply pitied them. He had, after all, professed to fear God;
and by doing so, implied that just in case their story were true, he didn't
want to be responsible for causing their families any undue hardship; but no,
they assume the worst instead.
†. Gen 42:37 . .Then Reuben said to his father: You may put both of
my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my
care, and I will bring him back.
It would have been interesting to ask Reuben's boys how they felt about
their dad's rash offer to trade their lives for Benjamin's. That is the very
same stupid kind of deal that Lot offered the Sodomites back in chapter 19,
only Lot's was dumber because he offered to trade his wife's babies for two
perfect strangers' lives. What did men in those days think their offspring
were? Cattle? Commodities? God pity kids that grow up in a home with
parents that think so little of them.
And did Reuben really think that slaying Jacob's own grandchildren would
somehow make him feel any better about losing Benjamin? That's like
burning my house, and then stealing my car to make me feel all better
about the loss of my home. Reuben either had a very low IQ, or must have
been out of his cotton-picking mind! Sometimes I think Joseph rather pitied
his elder brothers for being such imbeciles. Small wonder God chose Joseph
to go down to Egypt. The rest of them had no more intelligence than a
compost heap.
†. Gen 42:38 . . But he said: My son must not go down with you, for
his brother is dead and he alone is left. If he meets with disaster on
the journey you are taking, you will send my white head down to
sheol in grief.
Some translations render sheol as the grave; a place to inter a corpse. But
though sheol can include one's grave; it's not the whole picture. The specific
Hebrew word for grave is qibrah. (e.g. Gen 23:4)
Qibrah is the equivalent of the New Testament Greek word mnemeion
(mnay-mi'-on) which means a remembrance, i.e. cenotaph (place of
interment); viz: grave, sepulchre, tomb (e.g. Mtt 27:60). So then, while qibrah
indicates a corpse's disposal site; sheol indicates not only its grave, but
includes a separate place for interring the spirit of the person who at one time
occupied their body before it passed away.
Cont.
/
me of my children.
Jacob held his eldest sons responsible for Joseph's demise. But he is even
more complicit. Jacob should have known better than to send his young
teen-age son all by himself to find the others a good many miles from home
in a mostly wilderness area. That was irresponsible.
†. Gen 42:36b . . Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now
you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!
They all, including Jacob, should have thought the whole situation through
for a minute. The big shot accused the brothers of spying. So now why
would he trump up a charge of theft against them? Which is worse, spying
or theft? Spying, of course, is much worse than theft. And how ever could
thievery prove the big shot's much more serious charge of spying against
them? It couldn't. No proficient spy is going to do something dumb that is
sure to draw attention to himself. When Joshua's spies entered Jericho (Josh
2) did they begin shop-lifting, or taking things off of people's clothes lines?
No. They were discreet. Jericho's authorities still caught on to them anyway,
but at least it wasn't for something stupid.
So the men must have reasoned that the big shot was hedging his bets. If
he couldn't get them on a charge of spying, then he would get them for the
lesser charge of theft. But they should have asked themselves: Why would
the obtuse big shot be so anxious to nail them at all? Is that how he amused
himself; by framing people and throwing them in jail for something they
didn't do? That's not an unusual police activity. In our own day, Iraqi
authorities, under the auspices of Saddam Hussein, used to do that all the
time.
For some reason, it just never occurred to the men that maybe the big shot
down in Egypt simply pitied them. He had, after all, professed to fear God;
and by doing so, implied that just in case their story were true, he didn't
want to be responsible for causing their families any undue hardship; but no,
they assume the worst instead.
†. Gen 42:37 . .Then Reuben said to his father: You may put both of
my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my
care, and I will bring him back.
It would have been interesting to ask Reuben's boys how they felt about
their dad's rash offer to trade their lives for Benjamin's. That is the very
same stupid kind of deal that Lot offered the Sodomites back in chapter 19,
only Lot's was dumber because he offered to trade his wife's babies for two
perfect strangers' lives. What did men in those days think their offspring
were? Cattle? Commodities? God pity kids that grow up in a home with
parents that think so little of them.
And did Reuben really think that slaying Jacob's own grandchildren would
somehow make him feel any better about losing Benjamin? That's like
burning my house, and then stealing my car to make me feel all better
about the loss of my home. Reuben either had a very low IQ, or must have
been out of his cotton-picking mind! Sometimes I think Joseph rather pitied
his elder brothers for being such imbeciles. Small wonder God chose Joseph
to go down to Egypt. The rest of them had no more intelligence than a
compost heap.
†. Gen 42:38 . . But he said: My son must not go down with you, for
his brother is dead and he alone is left. If he meets with disaster on
the journey you are taking, you will send my white head down to
sheol in grief.
Some translations render sheol as the grave; a place to inter a corpse. But
though sheol can include one's grave; it's not the whole picture. The specific
Hebrew word for grave is qibrah. (e.g. Gen 23:4)
Qibrah is the equivalent of the New Testament Greek word mnemeion
(mnay-mi'-on) which means a remembrance, i.e. cenotaph (place of
interment); viz: grave, sepulchre, tomb (e.g. Mtt 27:60). So then, while qibrah
indicates a corpse's disposal site; sheol indicates not only its grave, but
includes a separate place for interring the spirit of the person who at one time
occupied their body before it passed away.
Cont.
/
