And Jacob their father said to them, Ye have bereaved me of children Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin! All these things are against me.
Jacob hears his sons' report and sees the returned silver in their sacks. One son is gone, one is held in Egypt, and now a demand hangs over the youngest. He reads it all as a verdict against him. His words are the honest cry of a grieving man. They are also a misreading of what God was doing.
Jacob says the same words about Joseph and about Simeon. The phrase is not about whether they exist. Scripture uses it in a fixed sense, and one writer traces that back to Enoch. (The ESV reads "is no more" and "All this has come against me"; older translations, which the writers quote, read "is not" and "All these things are against me.")
When God took Enoch from the earth, "he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). He was no longer on earth, but in the other world. Again, Jacob was asked to let Benjamin go down into Egypt. He cried out, "You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away" (Genesis 42:36). So the phrase was not has in Scripture a definite meaning… It says nothing about whether the person exists. It is a technical term about personal presence on earth.
Jacob says his sons have robbed him of his children. Years earlier he had accepted a different story about Joseph. The change in his words went to work on his sons' guilty consciences.
Jacob seems now for the first time to come to a suspicion that they had been guilty concerning Joseph. He had before said, "A fierce animal has devoured him," but now it is "You have bereaved me of my children." … All this must have stirred the arrow afresh in their hearts, so that it might still be doing its needed work there.
Jacob totals up three sons and calls the sum a loss. Read from the other end, the same three items are the stages of his rescue.
Jacob is not guilty, like his sons, but his feeble faith can see no trace of God's hand in all these circumstances… To sight and nature these things were against him. But they were the very means God was using to bless him. "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away." These are the things that were for him. Joseph lost to his father, rejected and sold, imprisoned and then raised high; Simeon held in prison; Benjamin taken from his father — these were all stages on the path to blessing… Had Jacob been able to persist in his thoughts he would have thwarted God in His ways of blessing, for Jacob says, "My son shall not go down."
The old man expected to lose Benjamin as he had lost Joseph. What lay just ahead was the opposite of everything he feared.
He never thought that the shadow of dreaded loss lying on his spirit was really the clouds beginning to break. Instead of losing Benjamin he was about to get Joseph back. And with Joseph back, every pinch of hunger would be over. He would live in the land Joseph supplied and receive from his plenty, even while the rest of the earth was starving. Ask Jacob, "Does God care?" Hear his answer, spoken to Joseph: "I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your offspring also" (Genesis 48:11).
One writer weighs Jacob's verdict against faith. Take away the losses, he says, and the blessing goes with them.
"All these things are against me" was not the language of faith; for without all those very things the Lord could not have made good His way of blessing.
Years later Jacob described his life in the opposite way. One writer sets his complaint here beside the promise that God works everything together for good.
He had yet to learn that all these things were part of God's plan for his ultimate good. That is why, at the end of his life, he could speak of "the angel who has redeemed me from all evil" (Genesis 48:16). The fact was that "all these things" were going to "work together for good," and so give us an effective illustration of the truth of Romans 8:28.
- Missing, not dead. "Is no more" (older versions: "is not") means absent from the scene, not gone from existence. Joseph, the son Jacob counted as lost, was alive and providing.
- Absent, and at work. Joseph gone, Simeon held, Benjamin demanded: Jacob mourned all three. Each was a stage God used to bring the whole family into blessing.
- A cry that convicts. "You have bereaved me of my children" was truer than Jacob knew. The charge kept working on the consciences of the sons who had sold Joseph.
- Sight counts losses; faith counts God. "All this has come against me" is not the language of faith. Without those very things the blessing could not have come.
- The end tells the truth. The man who could see nothing ahead but loss ended his life speaking of the angel who redeemed him from all evil.
And Reuben spoke to his father, saying, Slay my two sons if I bring him not back to thee give him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again.
Famine has driven Jacob's sons to Egypt and back. Egypt's ruler is holding Simeon, and he demands that they bring Benjamin down. Reuben now tries to break his father's refusal with a startling pledge, and commentators judge his words very differently.
Reuben stakes the lives of his own sons on his promise. One writer notes that the pledge does not survive a few simple questions.
A common mark of the man who cannot make up his mind is his habit of strong speech and big promises. Indeed you can often spot him by that alone. It is good advice never to trust anyone who always speaks in superlatives. Reuben wants his father to send Benjamin with him. He says, "Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you." That sounded very emphatic — kill his own son, and his two sons at that! It is so forceful that it barely leaves room for a few mild questions. Who on earth wanted to kill his two sons? What comfort would this be to their already grieving grandfather? And the sacrifice he offered was not of himself but of someone else. One would also like to know what the two sons themselves thought about it.
Jacob does not argue with the offer. He turns it down, and the same writer sees that refusal as Jacob's verdict on his son's words.
His father soon showed what he thought. He says, "My son shall not go down with you." He knew Reuben, "unstable as water." He knew that weak actions balanced his strong words.
The same writer traces this to a deeper trait, and points back to the day Reuben found Joseph's pit empty.
Two other features stand out in Reuben's character. One of them is the misery of a mind that cannot decide. It never truly repents, yet it is always full of remorse over its weaknesses or its missed chances. When Reuben returned to the pit and found Joseph gone, "he tore his clothes … and said, The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?"
Commentators differ here. Another writer sees Reuben's words as part of a work going on inside these brothers, and as a real step, not empty noise.
So the work goes on in their souls. They had been convicted, and godly sorrow was then producing fear in them. And very soon they showed much more than sorrow and fear. They had returned home and told their father one thing: they dared not hope for a fresh supply from Egypt unless Benjamin went with them. At that, Reuben and Judah at once stepped forward in a spirit of self-sacrifice. "Kill my two sons," says Reuben, "if I do not bring him back to you." "I will be surety for him," says Judah: "from my hand you shall require him."
Judah makes a second offer, and the two differ in where the risk falls.
The contrast in Judah's character is striking everywhere, and nowhere more than here. Judah makes no large offers at the expense of his sons. His offer is far more modest, and at his own risk. "Send the boy with me … I will be surety for him." Jacob trusts him at once and lets Benjamin go. In doing so he again showed that he could read character. Judah nobly kept his pledge: he stood forward in Egypt and offered himself as a substitute for Benjamin.
Jacob sees only losses piling up — Joseph, Simeon, and now the demand for Benjamin. One writer looks past the loss to what those blows were for.
Yet these blows which fell so heavily on his affections were the needed path to blessing and joy for them all. And such is the end of the Lord for all who fear Him, however hard the road. Joseph had known it too, and far more deeply than anyone. In this he was a picture of Christ, faithful among the unfaithful. His brothers and even Jacob were struck for their own faults, which is a very different thing.
- Big words. Reuben's pledge is loud. But nobody asks what his two sons thought, and it offers Jacob no comfort.
- Small risk. The lives Reuben stakes are not his own. Writers differ: some hear bluster, others hear a first stir of self-sacrifice.
- Known character. Jacob simply says no. He measured Reuben by his actions, not his big words — "unstable as water."
- Real pledge. Judah offers less and risks more, at his own cost. Jacob lets Benjamin go at once. Judah kept his word: he offered himself in Benjamin's place.
- Hidden purpose. The blows Jacob felt as pure loss were the path God was using to bring blessing and joy to them all.
But he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left; and if mischief should befall him by the way in which ye go, then would ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
Jacob has already lost Joseph. Egypt holds Simeon. Now the food runs out unless Benjamin goes too. His answer is a flat refusal. It raises a hard question: what do you do when God's path to blessing runs through the thing you cannot bear to lose?
Reuben tries to break the deadlock with a pledge of his own. It was worthless.
Reuben proposes that he will be responsible for Benjamin if Jacob sends him. He even offers the lives of his own two sons as a guarantee (v. 37). But such a thing would be folly. If Jacob lost his son, would the death of two grandsons comfort him? Jacob refuses. He says his son will not go down with them to Egypt. He fears that some harm will come to Benjamin, and that the grief would be the death of him (v. 38).
Jacob still has other sons. Benjamin is his last link to the wife he loved.
Joseph and Benjamin were the only sons of Rachel, the wife Jacob had loved (29:18). Losing Benjamin would come closest to the loss of Joseph, the son Jacob loved "more than any other of his sons" (37:3). Now Benjamin is the most loved son: "and his father loves him," and "his life is bound up in the boy's life."
Jacob judged by what he could see. Yet the son he mourned as dead was alive, and every loss was a step God was using.
Jacob is not guilty, like his sons. But his weak faith can see no trace of God's hand in any of it… "Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin away." These were the very things that were for him. Joseph lost to his father, rejected and sold, imprisoned and then lifted high; Simeon held prisoner; Benjamin taken from his father — all these were stages on the path to blessing… Jacob could see nothing ahead but sorrow and the grave. At that very moment God was about to bring him into joy and blessing. If Jacob had held to his own thinking, he would have thwarted God's ways of blessing, for Jacob says, "My son shall not go down."
Jacob would learn better before the end of his life.
He had yet to learn that all these things were part of God's plan for his ultimate good. At the end of his life he could speak of "The angel who has redeemed me from all evil" (Genesis 48:16). "All these things" were going to "work together for good." So they give us a clear illustration of the truth of Romans 8:28.
Older translations put Jacob's last word as "the grave." The ESV keeps the Hebrew word Sheol. One writer uses this verse to show how much that word covers.
The mistake starts with a wrong idea of what the word sheol covers. It really includes the grave, as well as the region where spirits without their bodies wait for their resurrection. So Jacob cried out in the bitterness of his soul, when he was asked to part with Benjamin, that his sons would bring down his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, that is, sheol (Gen. 42:38)… Sheol meant what we might call the whole underworld. Both body and soul were pictured as entering it.
Reuben's pledge failed. A quieter one worked.
Judah makes no large offers at the expense of his sons; what offer he makes is much more moderate, and at his own risk. "Send the boy with me… I will be a pledge of his safety." Jacob trusts him at once and lets Benjamin go. In that he showed again how well he could read a man. Judah honoured his pledge: he stood up in Egypt and offered himself in Benjamin's place.
Jacob must do what Abraham once did — put the son he loves into God's hands.
His love cannot give up its last hope. So he refuses to put the son of his old age into the hands of this unknown ruler of Egypt, who seems cruel and yet fears God. But he must do what Abraham did long before. He must place the child of promise into the hands of God. Then he will receive him back — not simply as he gave him up, but joined to his long-lost, never-forgotten son, through whom all the glory and blessing were to be secured.
- Grief. Jacob speaks as a man with one link left to Rachel; Benjamin's life is bound up with his own, so losing him feels like death.
- Blindness. His weak faith saw no trace of God's hand. Joseph gone, Simeon held, Benjamin demanded — these were the stages of the path to blessing.
- Danger. "My son shall not go down" would have blocked what God was doing. Jacob's own reading nearly cost him his rescue.
- Surety. Reuben's offer of two grandsons moved nothing. Judah's offer of himself opened Jacob's hand, and he kept it by standing in Benjamin's place.
- Return. What is placed in God's hands comes back — joined to the brother once thought lost, and sorrow to Sheol turned into joy.