Genesis 42:25-38 NKJV
25 Then Joseph gave a command to fill their sacks with grain, to restore every man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. Thus he did for them. 26 So they loaded their donkeys with the grain and departed from there. 27 But as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey feed at the encampment, he saw his money; and there it was, in the mouth of his sack. 28 So he said to his brothers, “My money has been restored, and there it is, in my sack!” Then their hearts failed them and they were afraid, saying to one another, “What is this that God has done to us?”
29 Then they went to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan and told him all that had happened to them, saying: 30 “The man who is lord of the land spoke roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. 31 But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies. 32 We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is with our father this day in the land of Canaan.’ 33 Then the man, the lord of the country, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: Leave one of your brothers here with me, take food for the famine of your households, and be gone. 34 And bring your youngest brother to me; so I shall know that you are not spies, but that you are honest men. I will grant your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.’ ”
35 Then it happened as they emptied their sacks, that surprisingly each man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and when they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. 36 And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me.”
37 Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.”
38 But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If any calamity should befall him along the way in which you go, then you would bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.”
Joseph’s brothers return to Canaan with grain, but without their brother Simeon. They must face their father and recount the Egyptian governor’s demand that they return with their younger brother, Benjamin. To drive their guilt deeper into the hearts, Joseph commands his servants to put each brothers’ money—which they had used to pay for the grain—back into their sack along with the grain. Stopping on the return trip to Canaan to feed their donkeys, one of them opens his sack and sees his money. “Then their hearts failed them and they were afraid, saying to one another, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’” (28). They see this as God’s judgment for their sins against their brother Joseph and their father decades ago.
Arriving home, they recount most of the experience to their father. But when each of the nine brothers’ sacks contains their money, fear grasps them, even their father. He rebukes them, “You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me.” The brothers now see how they not only sinned against Joseph but their father as well, depriving him of two of his sons and endangering the only remaining child of his beloved Rachel. Reuben offers his two sons as payment, but the death of two grandsons cannot amend for their sin.
See how masterfully God has ordered all things to bring these men to see their guilt, lament it, and desire to make amends! Then recall the Lord’s word, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal” (Deut 32:39). Like Joseph’s brothers, He leads us to contrition and sorrow over our sins, not so that we may despair and die in our sins, but so that He might forgive our sins, give our consciences peace, and bestow His Holy Spirit on us so that we work to amend our sinful lives. When He wounds and kills us with His judgment for our sins, He desires our contrition and that we turn to Him in faith, trusting His promise: “I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘Therefore turn and live!” (Ezekiel 18:32).
Let us pray: Discipline us not in wrath, O Father, but in love, so that worthily lamenting our sins we flee to Jesus and find peace and forgiveness according to Your promise. Amen.