Genesis 42:38

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).

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 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.