Is it time to bow down?

Genesis 42:1-9

I have never gone to bed hungry and I’m not sure I know anyone who has, unless it was the time I refused to eat what was on my plate, and by my choice, I was ask to leave the table and my stomach was hungry the next morning.  Jacob and his large family and his servants were in need of food, they had not made a crop, nor had any of their neighbors, and the flocks were not going to make it much longer.  Now everyone had heard that Egypt had food and so Jacob called in his sons and sent ten of them off to Egypt to acquire grain and supplies for the livestock and sheep.  “But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.” (Genesis 42:4)

I personally do not mind shopping, but I have no desire to shop on the day after Christmas where the whole world is out looking for sales or returning gifts they do not want; it’s crazy and you will not find me at a mall on those days.   The ten sons of Jacob were standing in line with all their Canaanite neighbors and many others who had come to Egypt looking for food.  I wonder if Joseph came into the minds of these brothers?   Surely, they still thought about the Midianite traders, to whom they had sold that dreamer, the one who said, “My brothers will bow down to me,” it seems as if they were taking him to Egypt. 

It is important to recall that it has been at least thirteen years since his brothers had seen Joseph, and he is now a man and he is dressed like an Egyptian ruler; his brothers would not have recognized him or expected to see him in this setting.  Picking up the story in verse six, “Now Joseph was governor over the land.  He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.  And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.  Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them.  “Where do you come from?” he said.  They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”  And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.  And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.  And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.” (Genesis 42:6-9)

It would have been much better to be at the mall the day after Christmas, than to be these ten brothers standing before Joseph. 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice