but it can also serve as a prime
illustration to point the danger of paraphrase and revisions, in that such has the potential to actually change the meanings of ideas’ altogether from that which they originally conveyed in the KJV 1611
read the study, you’Breakfast today was pineapple chunks and dried cranberries. Up early today. Breakfast was right on schedule and on that note, I should note the importance of scheduling, breakfast, bible study, anything.
Say you are in need of a diet, and you go out an buy a bunch of Jenny Craig meals. Well, now you need, a schedule. “Oh, I will just eat when I feel like it…I get hungry, I will pop a Jenny Craig in the oven…and eat…” Yeah, well, seems to me, the fact you need a diet should point that doing what you want to when you want to is what got you in this position in the first place. What happens if your stomach says it is absolutely starving and you eat 5 jenny Craig meals in the same setting? You’d have been better off to go out and get a Double Deluxe Texas sized Whopper King Burger and Super-Super Sized Fries with a gallon of Soda, at least you would had no illusions from kidding yourself that you were sticking to a diet.
Scheduling your activities should not be a strict totalitarian regimen, but it should be an observed general rule, and you will find yourself especially when adapting to new activities or increasing activities, more able to endure for the long run and make goals.
Okay, enough of all that, let’s get to the study…Genesis Chapter 42 Through 45…
GENESIS 42 COMMENTARY
In Chapter 41, we see Joseph has a family in Egypt and rules over the land, he is 30 years old when that happens and the 7 years of plenty begin. Then we see the 7 years of famine begin outside of Egypt first and then spreading into Egypt as well. In the opening verse of chapter 42, we are taken back into Canaan and see Jacob has heard rumors that there is Corn in Egypt. He sends his 10 sons, the men, into Egypt to buy corn and keeps the child of his old age. Well, how old? This is where details can matter, if you want to ask such questions. Scripture tells us that Benjamin was the child of Jacobs old oge.
HE was 92 when he had Joseph, we can see this in chapter 41 by Jacob being 30 years old (Gen 41:46) when he was made ruler of Egypt, then 7 years of plenty come, making him 37, and then we see shortly in the verses coming up, that the events between he and his brethren in Egypt, occur in the second year of Famine (Gen 45:6) Making Joseph 39 at that time he is reunited with his family.
In The Next Segment of this study, or
those of you who love a good story and can’t wait and read it today, you will find that Joseph sends for his father Jacob, and Jacob meets Pharaoh, and we will see another truth about this same subject later when we get to that conversation, but about the same passage we are told that Jacob lives for another 17 years in Egypt and dies at 147 years old. Making him 130 yrs old when Joseph was 39, telling us he had Joseph when he was 91. Now, we could have cheated, well maybe not the right word, but we could have read ahead and seen Jacob’s conversation with Pharaoh in which Pharaoh ask him how old he is and he admits he is 130, but we still would have had to have done some math to see how old he was when he had Joseph. Some would say…91, man, he was an old man, but in those days that’s not so.
And I will just go ahead and highlight it now, he tells Pharaoh that his years have been few and troubled, and that his fathers before him lived much longer than he did. So evidently the loss of Joseph, and then Rachel caused Jacob to age before his time. 91, was still young for his time, seems like his dad lived to be 180 or so, that would have made him middle aged, not old. I have got 15 brothers and sisters from my parents 15 marriages, 12(13) of those marriages credit to my dad. My Dad is 67 years old, I now have a brother who is 5 or 6, another brother who is about 16. My dad was not old when he had the older boy, he was older than most, but if you had met him in the 90’s, you would not have described him as an old man. Such is not the case now, and my youngest brother with a biblical name very befitting this story, is the child of his old age. Jacob was 91 when he had Joseph, his dad lived be 180 yrs old, twice the age he was when he had Joseph, Jacob’s grandfather Abraham lived to be 175 also approximately twice that age. So he may have been middle aged, but he wasn’t old, and Joseph was a teenager when he was sold into slavery, anybody remember how old? Scripture tells us, and the age he was at the opening verses of chapter 37 in addition to Jacobs 91 yrs at his birth, still would have not made Jacob an old man, not by comparison to the age his fathers’ lived to be. He would have been still been middle aged, more seasoned, but middle aged. SO the POINT is, that it took JACOB AND RACHAEL years to have just one child, and Jacob was Middle aged when that happened, he did not expect anymore children, and thus re-iterating that we noted earlier, due these reasons, Joseph was considered at 17 yrs old in Genesis 37, “THE CHILD OF JACOB’S OLD AGE” !!
And the fact Benjamin had not yet been born, meant Joseph was considered ”THE” child of Jacob’s old age, not “A” Child of Jacob’s old age, had he would if his brother Benjamin were already in the World.
So anyway, Jacob sends the grown sons, who themselves have children of their own, into Egypt and keeps the baby boy, the Lad Benjamin at home.
We find that Joseph recognizes them and he is angry, but still is suspecting his vision of his youth, his dreams. By the 11 stars in the dream of his youth, Joseph knew his experience that God has been true to him, and knowing he was shown in his second dream that the stars represented his brothers, he already knows he has a younger brother though he has never met him, and he knew he was going to have a little brother before even his father and mother did!
Joseph, then seeing his older brothers for the first time in more than 20 years, goes to the men, and speaks to his brethren in Egyptian using an interpreter to translate. He accuses them of being spies, and makes inquiry of them, confirming the 11th Star bowing to him In his vision, and that indeed he has a younger brother, and learning his father Jacob is still alive! You see, this is what PERPLEXED Jacob, in Genesis 37…Joseph,
never proclaimed the Sun and Moon represented his parents, but in noting there were “ELEVEN STARS” that bowed before him, understood to be representative of his brothers, “11 STARS” at a time he only had “TEN BROTHERS” in the world…Jacob
”Observed the Saying”!
Progressing forward in Genesis chapter 42 In vs 16, we see the anger of Joseph still illustrated as he was going to keep ALL of his older brothers in prison and only let one go back to Jacob.
Do you remember when he got beat down by his brothers and thrown in the pit? There was only one who tried to stop it, and when he got sold into slavery, there was only one who wasn’t present.
Do you remember who it was?
IT was Reuben, the oldest, remember, he was mourning and worried about his own butt a little bit asking “WHERE WILL I GO, WHERE WILL I HIDE FROM MY FATHERS ANGER?”
And here we are about to see again two things, one Joseph is about to learn Reuben tried to talk them all out of harming the boy Joseph in any fashion and Reuben Reminds the They are accused of spies, and object to such, offering they are 12 brothers, and one is with his father, and the other is dead, and they are placed into jail and still accused of being spies then they argue and all about this as Joseph stands listening and they unaware that he understands their words, Reuben tells them in This same chapter he had warned them not to harm Joseph. At first only one is going to get to go back, and Joseph goes away while they spend the night in jail and think about it, actually they spend 3 days in jail, and then we see the argument noted above as Joseph listens, during the 3 days we know he was angry and surely he recalls his dream and as angry as he is, he is starting to understand, and is afraid to sin against God in the matter, but searches the matter out as he proceed forward, then he tells them through an interpreter three days later…”Hey, I SERVE GOD, and I FEAR HIM, and I am Afraid of sinning against him, so I am only going to keep one of you. So if you are telling me the truth, then let one of you stay and the rest of you fetch back your little brother to prove your story. You decide which one stays.” (42:14-20) And it is at
this point the argument noted above comes into play.
And then we see some divine justice and some human nature going on.
Reuben did the right thing all that time ago. Sure, he could have stood against his brothers more adamantly, and in failing to do so, perhaps he was wrong, but his two immediate younger brothers Simeon the second born, and Levi, the 3rd born were murderers. Reuben had the title, the authority, but they were masculine and had far more testosterone. You ever met a murderer? I know some, my days in drug dealing introduced me to some cold hard facts about life, as well as some cold hard people. So now I have been clean and sober nigh for a decade, but let me tell you, you take one murderer and stick him in group of peers who have never taken life, and introduce a testosterone driven situation in which an ALPHA Driven Hierarchy takes dominance, the laws of survival of the fittest will surface, and 9 times out of ten the animal instinct side of human nature is going to rule, and that murderer is going to rise to the top, and if he is not the leader, he will certainly contend with leadership, and there will be a change in hierarchy, or either there will only be one of two more things, another murder, or a compromise. Believe what you want, but those, in most situations, are the facts of life.
(CONTD NEXT POST)
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