Genesis 43:1-14

Now the famine was brutal in the land.

² And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, purchase us a little food.”

³ But Judah said to him, “The man gravely warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’

⁴ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and purchase you food.

⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go down, because the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face, unless your brother is with you.'”

⁶ Israel said, “Why did you treat me so poorly as to tell the man that you had another brother?”

⁷ They replied, “The man questioned us suspiciously about ourselves and our kin, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we said to him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way have known that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?”

⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will get up and go, so that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.

⁹ I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.

¹⁰ If we had not postponed going, we would have come back twice now.”

¹¹ Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be this way, then do this: take some of the choice products of the land in your bags, and carry a gift down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds.

¹² Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Maybe it was an oversight.

¹³ Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man.

¹⁴ May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as far as I am concerned, if I am to become childless, I will be childless.”

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awful choices

Life can be harsh and cruel, and often makes no sense. No one is promised a smooth road in this life. Sometimes we are left making a choice between two terrible fates. Such was the case with Israel and his sons. The famine had been so great that there was no food left. They were forced to acquiesce to the demands of the ruler in Egypt and return with their youngest brother. To do so would break their father’s heart. To not do so was to die of starvation. What kind of world are we living in, if people are forced to make such choices? We live in a world that is sick, and needs a Savior.

The good news is that God is still alive. He has not deserted his chosen family. He has a good future in store for Israel, if they would only trust him to make it happen. He is at work behind the scenes, so one of the awful choices they have to make will lead them to God’s best. They must make that choice in faith, trusting that he will turn a bad choice into a good future. That is what life is like sometimes.

It parallels the awful choice that our LORD himself was presented with, after our rebellion in Eden. He had to either destroy us all (unthinkable justice) or redeem us with the life of his only Son (unthinkable grace). He made the awful choice to sacrifice the life of his Son so that we might live.

LORD, when we face life’s awful choices, give us the insight into your plan that allows us to make the right choice, trusting you to turn it into something glorious.