OUR FATHER WHOSE GREAT DAY OF RECKONING APPROACHES

Genesis chapter 43 verses 9 - 12 starts with Judah speaking to his father Jacob. The passage reads this way;

 I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.”

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balm and a little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds. Take double the amount of silver with you, for you must return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.

As Pharoah's dream had foreseen many years before, a severe famine gripped Egypt and all the surrounding countries.

It became known that Egypt had grain for sale so Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to bring back some food. Jacob kept his youngest son, Benjamin,  at home with him.

The brothers arrived in Egypt and were serepticiously recognized by Joseph their  brother.  Joseph pretended to believe they were spys and he questioned them about their family.

To verify that their account of their family was true, he ordered them to leave one of the brothers with him, go back home  and return with the youngest brother.

The brothers got back home and when the food they had purchased ran out, they needed to return to Egypt. They had to persuade Jacob to let them take Benjamin with them in order to get Simeon released as well as be able to get more food.

Jacob, still grieving the painful loss of his son  Joseph, was very reluctant to release his youngest son.

Judah, one of the older brothers, spoke up and guaranteed Benjamin's safety by taking full responsibility for his life.

Jacob resigned himself to grief and released Benjamin to go with the others back to Egypt and he supervised the collection of gifts to take back to Egypt; Balm, honey, spices, myrrh, pistachio nuts and almonds.

He also instructed his sons to take back double the amount of silver that had been secretly put in their bags when they left in case it had been a mistake that the silver was there. 

These were carefully considered gestures of goodwill to the man who had so many questions about his family. Jacob called upon his own deep understanding of how to appease people to prepare a gift for the Egyptian stranger that would yield the best chance of bringing his family home safely.

What was still unspoken up to this point was that the brothers were responsible for the loss of Joseph in the first place. 

They had left the deception of the sale of Joseph to slave traders intact unaware that the God of heaven and earth knows all things and that the long strands of history were being entwined so that everything would be revealed.

Psalm 14 verse 1 says;

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

The brothers seem to have held the belief that there was no God  and that the erasure of a person from their family could be swept under the rug indefinitely. 

Our own godlessness  can lead us to be corrupted by doing vile deeds and having no good deeds registered in our lives.

A great day of reckoning approaches when all the unspoken things lingering in our lives will be spoken and revealed.

Lord have mercy on us all.

Amen.