Tag Archives: Genesis 42:36

Fear – Genesis, Part 7

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The grain Joseph’s brothers brought back from Egypt didn’t outlast the famine.  “Return, buy us a little more food,” their father said.  But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’  If you send our brother [Joseph’s younger brother Benjamin] with us, we’ll go down and buy food for you.  But if you will not send him, we won’t go down there because the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’”[1]

At first Jacob (also called Israel by God) remained reluctant.  When Judah reminded him how the Egyptian [their brother Joseph] had questioned them, and promised to be surety for Benjamin, their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: Take some of the best products of the land in your bags, and take a gift down to the man – a little balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, pistachios and almonds.  Take double the money with you; you must take back the money that was returned in the mouths of your sacks – perhaps it was an oversight.”[2]  This reminds me of the strategy Jacob employed when he returned home and met his estranged brother Esau.[3]

But Israel continued, “Take your brother too, and go right away to the man.  May the sovereign God grant you mercy before the man so that he may release your other brother and Benjamin!  As for me, if I lose my children I lose them.”[4]

You are making me childless!  Jacob had complained to his sons.  Joseph is gone.  Simeon is gone.  And now you want to take Benjamin!  Everything is against me.[5]  But Israel was willing to trust the sovereign God with the outcome.  Yes, they are the same man, but it reminds me of those born of the flesh of Adam and born from above of the Spirit of God.  For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, Paul wrote the Galatians, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want.[6]

Joseph’s brothers returned with Benjamin to Egypt.  When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the servant who was over his household, “Bring the men to the house.  Slaughter an animal and prepare it, for the men will eat with me at noon.”  The man did just as Joseph said; he brought the men into Joseph’s house.[7]  Joseph invited his brothers to a meal, but the men were afraid (yârêʼ)[8] when they were brought to Joseph’s house.  They said, “We are being brought in because of the money that was returned in our sacks last time.  He wants to capture us, make us slaves, and take our donkeys!”[9] As far as I can tell the rabbis who translated the Septuagint left this particular fear out of their Greek translation.

Joseph’s brothers approached the man who was in charge of Joseph’s household and spoke to him at the entrance to the house.  They said, “My lord, we did indeed come down the first time to buy food.  But when we came to the place where we spent the night, we opened our sacks and each of us found his money – the full amount – in the mouth of his sack.  So we have returned it.  We have brought additional money with us to buy food.  We do not know who put the money in our sacks!”[10]

“Everything is fine,” the man in charge of Joseph’s household told them.  “Don’t be afraid (yârêʼ).  Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks.  I had your money.”  Then he brought Simeon out to them.[11]  In Greek in the Septuagint afraid was φοβεῖσθε (a form of φοβέω).[12]  Do not be afraid (φοβεῖσθε) of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, Jesus told his disciples.  Instead, fear (φοβεῖσθε) the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.[13]  Jesus was sending them to their deaths.  That sounds ominous, but Jesus is sending all of us to our deaths whether we believe Him or not.  One may die a martyr serving the Savior, another may choke out his last breath from advanced emphysema or heart failure or a brain tumor, but (with the possible exception of those alive and trusting Christ at the time of His return) we are all going to die, or sleep as the New Testament writers seemed to prefer to call it.

The one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell is either God the Father, or the Lord Jesus Himself if I take his teaching literally:  For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed.  For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.  Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father.  The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.[14] All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Jesus said.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.[15]

So Matthew 10:28 contains a New Testament occurrence of the fear of the Lord.  It’s also a no-win scenario for Bible translators.  The first part of Jesus’ statement is fairly clear:  Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Jesus doesn’t want his followers to be terrified into fleeing from, or struck with fear by, those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  He doesn’t want that fear to stop one from believing or even professing faith in Him.

Still there are other definitions of φοβεῖσθε listed in the NET online Bible.  There may be plenty of good reason to be “startled by strange sights or occurrences,” “struck with amazement,” even “to fear” or “be afraid of one” posing some irrational threat of violence.  It is wise at times “to fear (i.e. hesitate) to do something (for fear of harm).”  It is necessary for conscience’ sake “to reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience” those in authority, even those who would kill the body for professing faith in Jesus Christ.  And the negation in this quotation is μὴ,[16] the qualified as opposed to the absolute negation according to Strong’s Concordance.

Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,[17] Jesus continued.  It is fairly obvious that Jesus was not telling his disciples to flee in terror from Him, but to “reverence, venerate, to treat [Him] with deference or reverential obedience.”  Of course if the translators had translated φοβεῖσθε reverence here, I might have complained that they were obscuring the fact that both words were φοβεῖσθε.  Jesus made his point perfectly clear as He continued, Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.  Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.  So do not be afraid (φοβεῖσθε); you are more valuable than many sparrows.[18]  And again, the negation is μὴ, the qualified as opposed to the absolute negation so as not to conflict with the command to fear or reverence Him.

Up to this point in the story Joseph’s brothers feared God’s punishment:  Surely we’re being punished because of our brother, they had said to one another, because we saw how distressed he was when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen.  That is why this distress has come on us![19]  But I think something changed in them after everything they’d been through, when Joseph’s steward said:  Don’t be afraid.  Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks.[20]

So that day they ate and drank with Joseph until they all became drunk.[21]  But Joseph still didn’t reveal his identity.  In fact, he tormented them again.  He had his servant return all their money in their sacks, and hide the cup he used for divination in Benjamin’s sack.  They had not gone very far from the city when Joseph said to the servant who was over his household, “Pursue the men at once!  When you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil?’”[22]  This time, however, the brothers were indignant rather than fearful.

“Why does my lord say such things?  Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!  Look, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan.  Why then would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house?  If one of us has it, he will die, and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves!”[23]

“You have suggested your own punishment!” Joseph’s servant replied.  “The one who has it will become my slave, but the rest of you will go free.”[24]  This, I think, is the tipoff to Joseph’s plan.  His servant knew Joseph wanted Benjamin alive even though he had no suspicion why.  Joseph, after seeing Benjamin, had to leave the room again, for he was overcome by affection for his brother and was at the point of tears.[25]  And Joseph knew the famine would continue, for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting,[26] he said.  By arresting Benjamin Joseph could both spend time with him and guarantee his brothers’ return for more grain.  But his brothers upended his scheme.

When Joseph’s servant found the divination cup exactly where he had placed it in Benjamin’s sack, his brothers did not abandon their younger sibling to his fate.  They all tore their clothes!  [a sign of mourning or repentance]  Then each man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.[27]

Fear – Genesis, Part 8

Back to Son of God – John, Part 3

Back to Fear – Numbers, Part 4

[1] Genesis 43:2b-5 (NET)

[2] Genesis 43:11, 12 (NET)

[4] Genesis 43:13, 14 (NET)

[5] Genesis 42:36 (NET)

[6] Galatians 5:17 (NET)

[7] Genesis 43:16, 17 (NET)

[9] Genesis 43:18 (NET)

[10] Genesis 43:19-22 (NET)

[11] Genesis 43:23 (NET)

[13] Matthew 10:28 (NET)

[14] John 5:20-23 (NET)

[15] Matthew 28:18-20 (NET)

[17] Matthew 10:28b (NET)

[18] Matthew 10:29-31 (NET)

[19] Genesis 42:21 (NET)

[20] Genesis 43:23a (NET)

[21] Genesis 43:34b (NET)

[22] Genesis 44:4 (NET)

[23] Genesis 44:7-9 (NET)

[24] Genesis 44:10 (NET)

[25] Genesis 43:30 (NET)

[26] Genesis 45:6 (NET)

[27] Genesis 44:13 (NET)

Fear – Genesis, Part 6

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After Jacob and his family spent some time in Bethel they moved on to Ephrath (Bethlehem).  On the way Rachel went into labor – and her labor was hard.  When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid (yârêʼ), for you are having another son.”[1]  The rabbis who translated the Septuagint changed the word to θάρσει[2] in Greek.  “Have courage (θάρσει), son!  Jesus said to the paralytic lying on a mat.  Your sins are forgiven.”[3]  With her dying breath, Rachel named him Ben-Oni [“son of my suffering”].  But his father called him Benjamin [“son of the (or “my”) right hand”] instead.[4]

Rachel was Jacob’s favorite wife.  Her father had tricked him into marrying her sister Leah as well.  Bilhah and Zilpah, Rachel’s and Leah’s servant girls, were given to Jacob when the sisters vied with each other for their husband’s affection.  Joseph, Rachel’s firstborn, was Jacob’s favorite son.  Joseph’s elder brothers hated him.  On top of that Joseph had a couple of dreams which indicated to his brothers and Jacob that Joseph thought he would rule over them.

Joseph’s brothers decided to kill him.  Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, talked his younger siblings down from murder.  They put Joseph in a dry cistern.  Reuben hoped to return later to rescue him.  Judah—Leah’s fourth born son after Reuben, Simeon and Levi—said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?  Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let’s not lay a hand on him, for after all, he is our brother, our own flesh.”  His brothers agreed.[5]  The Ishmaelites sold Joseph to Potiphar the Egyptian, and eventually Joseph became a ruler in Egypt because of his ability to interpret prophetic dreams.

There was a famine in the land and Jacob sent ten of Joseph’s brothers to Egypt to buy grain.  Now Joseph was the ruler of the country, the one who sold grain to all the people of the country.  Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down before him with their faces to the ground.[6]  Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.  Then Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see if our land is vulnerable!”[7]

Though I have heard it many times I am not persuaded that Joseph had some wise master plan to test his brothers’ repentance.  I think he was the outcast little brother who had his elder brothers right where he wanted them, and he wanted to make them squirm.  Beyond that he wanted to see his younger brother Benjamin.  But when he heard his brothers’ fears, he was moved, perhaps even to a repentance of his own:  They said to one other, “Surely we’re being punished because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen.  That is why this distress has come on us!”  Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ but you wouldn’t listen?  So now we must pay for shedding his blood!”[8]

Joseph spoke to them through an interpreter, but understood their language as they whispered among themselves.  He turned away from them and wept.[9]  Here, I can be persuaded that Joseph began to formulate a plan to both save face as a ruler of Egypt who had embarked on a path of revenge, and to share with his brothers some of the mercy the Lord had shown him.  When he turned around and spoke to them again, he had Simeon taken from them and tied up before their eyes.  Then Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to return each man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey.  His orders were carried out.[10]

On their return journey one of the brothers discovered the money in his sack.  They were dismayed; they turned trembling one to another and said, “What in the world has God done to us?”[11]  The brothers were so sure that God was punishing them they misunderstood his mercy.  The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us and treated us as if we were spying on the land,[12] they told Jacob their father.  Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, “This is how I will find out if you are honest men.  Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for your hungry households and go.  But bring your youngest brother back to me so I will know that you are honest men and not spies.  Then I will give your brother back to you and you may move about freely in the land.”[13]

When they were emptying their sacks, there was each man’s bag of money in his sack!  When they and their father saw the bags of money, they were afraid (yârêʼ).[14]  In the Septuagint this was translated ἐφοβήθησαν.  Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain.  And he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.  Then Moses and Elijah also appeared before them, talking with him.[15]  Peter, James and John took all this in stride.  They had been with Jesus awhile by then and were becoming somewhat accustomed to the spectacular and miraculous events that accompanied Him.

Peter offered to build three shelters (or, shrines) to honor Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my one dear Son, in whom I take great delight.  Listen to him!”  When the disciples heard this, they were overwhelmed with fear (ἐφοβήθησαν, a form of φοβέω) and threw themselves down with their faces to the ground.[16]  I don’t know how to write about the relationship of these two passages without first considering the Son of God.

I can’t help but feel a great sympathy for those who pursued a law of righteousness.[17]  About the time they got a really firm grasp on the fact that Yahweh was not like the gods of the nations, He visited them as a pagan myth, a Son of God.  Growing up I would have interpreted the statement, God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him,[18] this way: “Yahweh has sent Jesus into the world so that we may live through Him.”  But the more seriously I take Jesus’ words, before Abraham came into existence, I am![19] the more I am compelled to acknowledge that it was Yahweh (He is; I am was literally the unspeakable name of God) who was sent into the world to be born as a human being named Jesus (the Greek translation of Yahweh saves in Hebrew) so that we may live through Him.  Then Yahweh/Jesus began to speak of another God, his Father, whom no one had known: no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him.[20]

The voice that frightened Peter, James and John also spoke after Jesus’ baptism, This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.[21]  After Jesus walked on the water and calmed the storm, those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”[22]  Peter testified, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven!”[23]  Then he instructed his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.[24]  And as they came down the mountain after his transfiguration Jesus commanded them, “Do not tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”[25]  The reason for this gag order was fairly obvious (Matthew 26:63-66 NET):

The high priest said to [Jesus], “I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself.  But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”  Then the high priest tore his clothes and declared, “He has blasphemed!  Why do we still need witnesses?  Now you have heard the blasphemy!  What is your verdict?”  They answered, “He is guilty and deserves death.”

I was curious how the three carried out the Lord’s command to tell about the vision after Jesus’ resurrection.  James, John’s brother, didn’t write any of the New Testament and Herod had him executed with a sword[26] early in the first century.  Peter described Jesus as both Lord and Christ but did not mention the offensive Son of God in any of his recorded sermons in Acts.  In fact, in one sermon it seemed that Peter was still making Jesus equal to Moses: “Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’”[27]  Did Peter not know that Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant…But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house?[28]  Or am I in error when I assume that he was ascribing this prophecy to Christ, the Son of God?  Peter did however recount the story of the transfiguration in his second letter (2 Peter 1:16-18 NET):

For we did not follow cleverly concocted fables when we made known to you the power and return of our Lord Jesus Christ; no, we were eyewitnesses of his grandeur.  For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory: “This is my dear Son, in whom I am delighted.”  When this voice was conveyed from heaven, we ourselves heard it, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

John was the one who wrote most forthrightly about Jesus as the Son of God.  In all fairness to Peter, John probably didn’t write any of these things until after 70 A.D. when the ecclesiastical power of those who pursued a law of righteousness was destroyed.  And this is where I began to see the relationship of the two fears (ἐφοβήθησαν).  Both groups of men were eyewitnesses to the mercy of God and both groups feared punishment because God’s mercy did not match their preconceptions (or their rulers’ preconceptions) of “what is,” or “how things should be.”  Despite all of God’s mercy toward him Jacob was most eloquent in his fear when he complained to his sons, You are making me childless!  Joseph is gone.  Simeon is gone.  And now you want to take Benjamin!  Everything is against me.[29]

[1] Genesis 35:16, 17 (NET)

[3] Matthew 9:2 (NET) Table

[4] Genesis 35:18 (NET)

[5] Genesis 37:26, 27 (NET)

[6] Genesis 42:6 (NET)

[7] Genesis 42:8, 9 (NET)

[8] Genesis 42:21, 22 (NET)

[9] Genesis 42:24a (NET)

[10] Genesis 42:24b, 25 (NET)

[11] Genesis 42:28b (NET)

[12] Genesis 42:30 (NET)

[13] Genesis 42:33, 34 (NET)

[14] Genesis 42:35 (NET)

[15] Matthew 17:2, 3 (NET)

[16] Matthew 17:5, 6 (NET)

[17] Romans 9:31 (NET)

[18] 1 John 4:9 (NET)

[19] John 8:58 (NET) Table

[20] Matthew 11:27b (NET)

[21] Matthew 3:17 (NET)

[22] Matthew 14:33 (NET)

[23] Matthew 16:16, 17 (NET)

[24] Matthew 16:20 (NET)

[25] Matthew 17:9 (NET)

[26] Acts 12:2 (NET)

[27] Acts 3:22a (NET)

[28] Hebrews 3:5, 6a (NET)

[29] Genesis 42:36 (NET)