Context No. 3348 of 4322 · Genesis

Genesis 42:1-7: in context

1Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” 2He said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there, and buy for us from there, so that we may live, and not die.” 3Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. 4But Jacob didn’t send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers; for he said, “Lest perhaps harm happen to him.” 5The sons of Israel came to buy among those who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. 6Joseph was the governor over the land. It was he who sold to all the people of the land. Joseph’s brothers came, and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth. 7Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but acted like a stranger to them, and spoke roughly with them. He said to them, “Where did you come from?” They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”

Driven by famine, Jacob sends his ten older sons down to Egypt to buy grain, keeping only young Benjamin at home. And there they bow before the very brother they had sold into slavery, fulfilling, without knowing it, the dreams they had once hated him for. Joseph recognizes them at once, but they do not know him; he acts as a stranger and speaks roughly to them.

Years before, they had thrown Joseph into a pit and sold him to be rid of his dreams; now they bow at his feet, and God's providence has quietly brought it all to pass. The very thing they schemed to prevent, God has accomplished through their own act of cruelty. There is a deep providence at work here, weaving even the brothers' sin into the saving of their lives and the preservation of a whole family. What people mean for harm, God can bend toward good, often in ways no one involved could have foreseen while it was happening.

Can I trust that God is at work in the long arc of my story, weaving even the wrongs done to me toward a good I cannot yet see?

Sources

Genesis 42:6: "Joseph's brothers came, and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth."
Genesis 42:7: "Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but acted like a stranger to them, and spoke roughly with them."
Genesis 50:20: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good."