Changing or Not

 Genesis 42-44

            You have to give to Jacob. The man is consistent. Unfortunately in this case, that’s a bad thing. It’s clear he’s still playing favorites among his sons, maybe even more than he was before. His protectiveness of Benjamin, whom he views as his last link to Rachel, is just heartless. Notice Jacob doesn’t send Benjamin with his brothers to Egypt the first time, for fear of losing him. (Genesis 46 numbers ten sons of Benjamin at the time the family went to Egypt, which means Benjamin is certainly a full-grown adult by now!) Notice that Jacob delays sending the brothers back to Egypt until the family is on the brink of starvation. Notice also that he doesn’t care that Simeon is moldering in an Egyptian prison that whole time!

            The brothers, on the other hand, have changed. They recognize that their father has a weakness for Benjamin; they recognize how deeply they hurt him when they sold Joseph and faked his death. Whether they resent Jacob’s weakness we don’t know. But they have certainly become sensitive of it and solicitous to the old man.

            I suppose there’s something to ponder in there, that coming to understand our own weaknesses is a sign of strong, maturing character and that seeing others’ weaknesses while not holding those weaknesses against them is also a sign of maturity.. (There’s a line in The Great Gatsby that I just love: “Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.”)

            Another thing we should at least mention is that Joseph comes across a little vindictive. I mean he knows exactly what he’s doing when he forces his brothers to bring Benjamin and he knows exactly what he’s doing when he frames Benjamin. I don’t think he’s just being mean, though. I think he has a very specific reason for doing these things, namely, he wants to know that they have changed, that they’re not the same jealous monsters that sold him into slavery. (For the record, they are, especially Judah, whose idea you may recall it was to sell Joseph in the first place.)

            There’s a ponderable in there, too. The Scriptures teach us to be loving, and sometimes we take that to mean that we are to be doormats even for toxic people. But sometimes the most loving course of action is to challenge a toxic person exactly for their toxicity and to remove them from our lives if no change is possible. That’s a whole topic in itself. For now, I’ll just lay that thought here for your consideration.