Chapter 42

There are four basic principles found in the next section (chapters 42-46).

a) The biblical principle of sowing and reaping. Galatians 6:7; Hosea 8:7.

b) The principle of cursing turned to blessing. This is accomplished by means of grace.

c) The principle of Romans 8:28.

d) The principle of the crisis. God’s man for any crisis is the man who lives in the Word and uses the Word.

We have seen the crisis which came not only to the Egyptian empire but to the entire world at that time. There are two analogies in the famine. The first is

evangelistic in nature. The famine and the resultant starvation is a picture of sin and its punishment: the wages of sin is death. Under this circumstance Joseph is a type of Christ. The storehouse from which Joseph distributed the grain is a picture of salvation, the imputation of divine righteousness and eternal life. The people coming to Joseph for food is a picture of coming to Christ for salvation. In addition there is also the Christian analogy. The famine is an adversity, a trial, a serious situation, and Joseph, again, is a type of Christ, a picture of the one who meets every need in life. Principle: There is no adversity, no trial, no difficulty in life for which there is not a perfect solution for the believer found in the Word of God. The storehouse is God’s provision in time of crisis, and coming to the storehouse would be the believer’s utilisation of same.

Chapter 42 opens with consternation, despondency, confusion, helplessness, as far as the ten brothers are concerned. In Genesis 37:4,8 the brothers hated Joseph because they had mental attitude jealousy. In verse 11 they envy him, in verse 18 they plotted against him, and in verse 19 they ridiculed him and it made them feel while he wasn’t there to ridicule him. In verse 20 they wanted to kill him and they cast him into a pit to starve in verse 24, and in verse 27 they sold him into slavery. Then in verse 33 they lied about him to their father. This is the sowing of the ten brothers. Chapter 42 is the reaping of the whirlwind. Between chapters 37 and 42 there was no confession of sin by the brothers.

Verses 1-6, the ten brothers go to Egypt, and in verse 6 they are bowing down to the brother that they threw into the pit and then sold into slavery.

Verse 9 – “And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them.” Joseph knew right then that the Word of God as being fulfilled. But in reaping the whirlwind these brethren received some rough treatment. This time they are telling the truth but whole Joseph knows it is the truth he pretends that it is a lie. He accuses them of being spies even though he knows they are not.

Verse 18 – “This do, and live; for I fear God.” I am a believer in Elohim. The word fear means to trust.

Verse 21 – “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” They began to remember. They have gone seventeen years without rebound! It took a situation where they were unjustly treated before they would wake up. There is a lesson here. The longer you prolong confession of your sin to the Lord and/or rebound the worse things are going to become for you. Sometimes you have to be brought to the most awful place before you will wake up and use the grace of God. That is what happened to these brothers, they are reaping the whirlwind. They recognised what had happened.

Verse 22 – Reuben says in effect, I told you so. This doesn’t make him any better. He told them but he was unstable and his instability cancelled out his nobility, and just to stand around and talk about it doesn’t add anything to his stature.

Note verse 36 – When they go home and report to Jacob. “And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.” Simeon the second brother was to be held as a hostage and the father has already counted him out. That is because at first he will not part with his youngest son Benjamin. This is Jacob’s reaping. He was a very poor father. He was a poor father because he showed favouritism. He was a poor father because he did not assume responsibility for his own business but put it in the hands of his youngest son, Joseph. So Jacob did some sowing and now he reaps—“all these things are against me.” Self-pity. The person who will not assume responsibility for his own actions always winds up a mental basket case—self pity.

Reuben had tremendous potential—Genesis 49:3, but here is what ruined him—49:4, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel …”

Verse 37 – “And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again.” In other words, Reuben’s nobility comes to the front. He is personally going to take responsibility for Benjamin. It is a noble offer, and also very stupid. A grandfather killing his grandsons isn’t going to solve anything. Two wrongs never make a right. Instability cannot see issues clearly. Once a person becomes unstable they can never see true issues clearly, even though they have nobility. This is an illustration of how nobility is neutralised.

Verse 38 – “And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.” Who is Jacob thinking about? You can’t take my son away because if anything happens to him I’m going to feel worse than I do now! Well poor old Jacob! Instead of thinking about his whole family and all of the people around starving he says, in effect, I want what I want. Go ahead and starve the rest of you. He is a self-righteous, self-pitying, egocentric old man. Don’t take my boy. If anything happens to him think how I will feel. And yet there are seventy people there, starving. Selfishness, self gratification. People who seek to gratify themselves always do so at the expense of others, and instead of finding happiness at the end of the line they find nothing but misery.

By contrast, all of the way through Joseph was a man who used the Word of God. And Joseph reaps. Principle: No matter what your parents are like you make your own way in life. Notice the grace in Joseph. He was rough but he loved his brothers.

Verse 23 – Joseph spoke to them by an interpreter and when they were talking among themselves in Hebrew he understood every word that had been said.

Verse 24 – all of these years he still loved them. Here was a person who had more persons do things that were wrong to him, yet it never changed his mental attitude. He had mental attitude forgiveness, mental attitude love.

Verses 25-28, Joseph is a picture of mental attitude grace. These brothers were frightened by an act of grace. No one had ever treated them that way before. People with a bad mental attitude can’t understand it when someone treats them in grace. These brothers had thrown Joseph into a pit and sold him into slavery; Joseph treats them in grace. We as believers are a blessing to people because of what we think, not because of what we have.