Genesis 44:18-34 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is Genesis 44:18-34. Let’s go!
Genesis 44:18-34 (NIV)
18 Then Judah went up to him and said: “Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.
19 My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’
20 And we answered, ‘We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’
21 “Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.’
22 And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he leaves him, his father will die.’
23 But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’
24 When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said.
25 “Then our father said, ‘Go back and buy a little more food.’
26 But we said, ‘We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’
27 “Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
28 One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since.
29 If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’
30 “So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life,
31 sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow.
32 Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’
33 “Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.
34 How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father.”
Thus far in the book of Genesis Judah has not had a good track record. For example:
– Judah was the one who proposed that his brothers sell Joseph as a slave to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:26-27).
– Judah refused to give his son Shelah to his daughter-in-law Tamar in fulfillment of the law of Levirate marriage.
– Judah solicited a prostitute, not realizing that the prostitute was in fact own daughter-in-law Tamar (Judah 38:26).
– When Judah was told that Tamar was guilty of prostitution and had gotten pregnant as a result, Judah threatened to have her burned to death, until Tamar discloses to Judah that he was actually the one who impregnated her.
In fact you could argue that there is no one in the book of Genesis who is recorded as making more mistakes than Judah. Yet here in this passage Judah does something noble, loving and sacrificial. With Benjamin on the verge of being taken as a slave, Judah recounts to the Egyptian authority how Judah promised his father that he would make sure nothing bad happened to his brother Benjamin. He offers to serve as a slave for the rest of his life in place of Benjamin so that Benjamin can go free.
Here we’ve come full circle: before Judah proposed that Joseph be sold as a slave; now decades later, Judah proposes to be sold as a slave in place of Joseph’s brother Benjamin.
Judah’s willingness to sacrifice himself for Benjamin must have touched Joseph greatly. Considering how dear Benjamin was to Joseph, there was nothing Judah could have done to soften Joseph’s heart than that. Joseph had meant for this whole ploy to be a test to see what was in the heart of the ten brothers and how they would treat Benjamin. Through Judah’s response here, Joseph got the answer he was hoping for.
What can we learn from this?
1. You’re not bound by your past mistakes. No matter how many mistakes a person has made in their past, people can change and mature by the grace of God.
2. Just as Judah offered to sacrifice himself for Benjamin, whose name means “son at my right hand”, so many centuries later a descendant of Judah would sacrifice himself so that we could all be sons and daughters at God’s right hand. That descendant of Judah is Jesus Christ.
Heavenly Father, thank You that no matter how many mistakes I have made in my past, every new day is a God-given chance for a new start. Just as Judah offered himself in place of Benjamin, You sent Jesus Christ to offer Himself in place of me so that I could go free. Thank You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
