Genesis Chapters 42-45
42:1-2 Jacob has to urge his sons to keep his extended family from starving. “The famine extended to Canaan, and Jacob became somewhat upset with his son’s lack of initiative; they just sat around looking at one another helplessly” (Davis p. 278). As in earlier days, Jacob is a man who doesn’t appreciate inaction or laziness (Genesis 29:7). “Their business was predominately cattle and sheep raising, rather than agriculture, but the drought had seriously damaged the entire economy. Furthermore, even though they still had great wealth, money could not buy grain if there was no grain to be bought” (Morris p. 593). During the last twenty years these men had been living with a guilty conscience. Guilt can seriously undermine our own personal motivation. In the life of David we will see how sin can make us inactive. After his adultery with Bathsheba, David is apparently unable to rebuke and punish a terrible sin committed by his own son (2 Samuel 13:21). 42:3-4 Benjamin is kept back, not because he was too young (he was more than twenty years old), but because he was Rachel’s only remaining child and in that respect had taken the place of Joseph in his father’s affections. It is clear that Jacob dearly missed both Rachel and Joseph. 42:5 “An Egyptian text reflects a similar situation: a frontier official reported that he admitted ‘the Bedouin tribes of Edom’ into the eastern Delta ‘to keep them alive and to keep their cattle alive’. The document also notes that such peoples were admitted only on specified days” (Davis p. 279). 42:6 Joseph apparently maintained close personal supervision over the stores of grain, realizing how critical they were to the survival of Egypt. He also appears to have been personally involved in selling grain to all outsiders. “It might well be that, under cloak of such a purchasing mission, outsiders might enter the land for subversive purposes. Foreign kings might covet Egypt’s wealth and desire to 1