GENESIS 43-44 - A Life Made New

Introduction

It has become my carefully considered opinion—as a pastor, entertainment consumer and human being—that reality TV is the worst. I really do not believe there is anything worthwhile or any positive benefit to regularly consuming reality TV shows with their scripted conflicts, backstabbing, morally ambiguous behavior and outlandish selfishness.

And yet the opening verses of Genesis 43 presents us with a family whose betrayal, backstabbing, selfishness and outlandish behavior is enough to make Khloe Kardashian say “Tone it down, guys...” Jacob’s family would have gotten a three-season deal from FOX, and they wouldn’t even have had to have producers giving them scripted fights to stage!!

Consider where we left off last week—the brothers have come back from Egypt having brought with them all their money (so they basically stole all their grain), and left their brother Simeon as a hostage until they brought their son Benjamin back to Zaphenath-paneah (their brother Joseph that they thought was dead!)

But instead of immediately making plans to rescue Simeon from an Egyptian hostage pit and make restitution for all the grain that they basically stole, they just settle in and eat the grain! No sense of urgency, not a word about their brother in Egypt (nothing new for them...), no remorse whatsoever about eating stolen grain.

And to all appearances, they would have gone happily on their way if they had never eaten through all of their grain! It wasn’t until they ran out that Jacob said it was time for another trip south:

Genesis 43:1–2 LSB

Now the famine was heavy in the land. And it happened when they had finished eating the grain which they had brought from Egypt, that their father said to them, “Go back, buy us a little food.”

And immediately the fighting and squabbling and blame-shifting kicks in:

Genesis 43:3–7 LSB

Judah spoke to him, however, saying, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ “If you send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. “But if you do not send him, we will not go down; for the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’” Then Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly by telling the man whether you still had another brother?” But they said, “The man questioned particularly about us and our kin, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Have you another brother?’ So we told him concerning these things. Could we possibly have known that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?”

All of the mess and dysfunction and sin that has characterized Jacob’s family since Chapter 37 is still on display—they still distrust one another, they are still ignoring the fact that they have a brother in captivity in Egypt, they still blameshift and quarrel and fight.

But there are clues in these verses that God is about to do something extraordinary in this hopelessly messed-up family. First of all, notice that Moses uses Jacob’s covenant name, Israel, in this chapter (vv. 6, 8). The covenant that YHWH made with Abraham is starting to come back into focus in this story—He is going to start moving in a way for His promises to be fulfilled.

Secondly, notice in Verse 8 that Judah suddenly begins acting very differently than he has been in the previous chapters:

Genesis 43:8–9 LSB

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, we as well as you and our little ones. “I myself will be the guarantee for him; from my hand you may require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then I shall bear the sin before you all my days.

The man who in Genesis 37 had his brother sold into slavery in Egypt is now volunteering to bring another brother back from Egypt. The man who in Genesis 38 left his father’s house and left the land of the Covenant is now volunteering to save the covenant family and covenant land from starvation. The man who left his family so that he could take Canaanite wives and have Canaanite children is now ready to pledge his life to the protection of Benjamin, a child of the Covenant.

And all of this just appears suddenly, as if out of nowhere. This is not how you’re supposed to tell a story, right? There’s supposed to be a character arc for Judah, not a flat-out transformation.

But here’s the thing—God loves to tell stories like this! He delights to show Himself able and willing to completely and unexpectedly change a sinner into a faithful son—just as Saul on the road to Damascus, just ask Zaccheus clinging to the sycamore tree; just as the jailer in Philippi who suddenly sees and believes in the power of God to save—this is what our God loves to do.

And this is what we see here in this account as well—count on it, beloved:

God’s grace will utterly CHANGE you from the INSIDE OUT

We are going to trace the transformation of a life made new here in Judah’s story—everything God has been doing through these past six chapters of this account has been so that His promises to save the world through Abraham’s seed would come to pass. And so even though the focus is on Joseph and his adventures, this story is really about Judah—the man whose seed will be the Savior of the world promised to Abraham.

And in order to bring that salvation to pass, God begins to sovereignly, providentially and graciously transform Judah—there is no other explanation for Judah’s change in this chapter. It is not merely a change of behavior; what we will see here is a complete change of character in Judah. He becomes a brand new person, and the only explanation for his transformation is God’s sovereign grace in his life!

The theological term for what we see in Judah’s life here in this account is regeneration. The doctrine of regeneration can be understood as

REGENERATION: God’s spiritual TRANSFORMATION a person’s HEART so that they DELIGHT in HIM and His WILL

There are at least three characteristics of a regenerated heart that we see in Judah in this account. God is transforming Judah from the inside out—in Verses 8-10, we

In these chapters we begin to see God’s work of transforming Joseph’s brothers’ hearts--starting with Judah, and in the next few verses, his father as well. God’s grace began to change them from the inside out—first, by giving them

I. A heart of REPENTANCE (Genesis 43:8-15)

In Verses 8-10,

Judah pledges to RETURN Benjamin to his FATHER (vv. 8-10. cp. Gen. 37:27)

Genesis 43:8–9 LSB

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, we as well as you and our little ones. “I myself will be the guarantee for him; from my hand you may require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then I shall bear the sin before you all my days.

Consider what a transformation is taking place in Judah—this is the man whose idea it was two decades earlier to sell his younger brother into slavery; now, he is willing to take personal responsibility to bring his youngest brother back from Egypt! His brother Rebuen in Genesis 42:37 had tried to make a similar pledge earlier, saying that he would let Jacob kill his sons (Jacob’s own grandchildren!) if anything happened to Benjamin.

But Judah’s pledge was far more noble—he pledged himself to bear the sin if he allowed Benjamin to be lost in Egypt. Judah’s heart has been changed, and that heart-change is beginning to show up in his outward behavior.

The next evidence of a repentant heart we see is in Israel himself—he commands his sons in Verses 11-12 to prepare payment and gifts for the Egyptians, and then in Verses 13-14

Israel pledges to TRUST God for his CHILDREN (vv. 13-14; cp. Gen. 42:38)

Genesis 43:13–14 LSB

“And take your brother also, and arise, return to the man; and may God Almighty grant you compassion before the man, so that he will release to you your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”

This is a fundamental change from the way Jacob had flatly refused to allow Benjamin out of his sight at the end of Chapter 42:

Genesis 42:38 LSB

But Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone remains. If harm should befall him on the journey on which you are going, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”

But you can see the transformation in Jacob’s heart when he repents of that unbelief and entrusts his sons to God’s almighty protection! He is still Israel— “He who strives with God”— struggling with doubt and unbelief and fear, but coming to the conclusion that God is a God who can be trusted! He can let Benjamin go to Egypt and be content that if he does not come back, he can still trust in God in the midst of his bereavement

God’s grace in regeneration transforms you from the inside out—the sins that used to define you have been left behind; you are governed by a new heart that turns away from those old lies and lusts and pride and greed. Judah was not the same man that he was at the beginning of this story—his actions show that he had a heart of repentance, and in the next chapter there is another transformation in his life—when he meets Joseph again we see in him

II. A heart of HONESTY (Genesis 44:1-16)

The rest of Chapter 43 describes the brothers’ return to Egypt. We are given a glimpse of Joseph’s deep emotional reaction when he sees Benjamin for the first time in over two decades:

Genesis 43:29–31 LSB

Then he lifted his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son. And he said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?” And he said, “May God be gracious to you, my son.” And Joseph hurried out for he was deeply stirred with compassion over his brother, and he sought a place to weep; and he entered his chamber and wept there. Then he washed his face and came out; and he restrained himself and said, “Set the meal.”

Joseph has seen his brother Benjamin; his brothers have passed the first test. And so Joseph decides he can risk the smallest hint to them of his true identity:

Genesis 43:33 LSB

And they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, and the men looked at one another in astonishment.

How did this Egyptian nobleman know how to seat the brothers by age—the same way they would have sat together in Jacob’s tent when they ate together? But this is merely a prelude for another test:

Genesis 43:34 LSB

And he took portions to them from his own table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times greater than any of theirs. So they feasted and drank freely with him.

Do you see what Benjamin is doing? He sets them in order of birthright, demonstrating that he knew that Reuben was the oldest, and then he loads Benjamin’s plate with five times the food! Would the others be offended? Would the favoritism he is being shown at the meal trigger the brothers’ resentment of the favoritism Benjamin received at home? Joseph was likely scanning their faces and their body language, waiting for signs of simmering resentment at Benjamin. But nothing showed. They “Ate and drank freely” (other translations say “they drank and were merry with him!”) Their old envy and animosity against the sons of Rachel was fading away—God was at work in this family!

The next day, Joseph set another test before them—one with higher stakes than they had yet encountered:

Genesis 44:1–2 LSB

Then he commanded his house steward, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. “Now put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph had told him.

This time, though, Joseph doesn’t give his brothers a chance to get as far as Hebron before finding their money and his silver cup—as soon as they passed the city limits, Joseph sent his house steward after them to bring them back. In Verses 7-12, the steward catches up to the brothers and delivers the words that he was commanded to:

Genesis 44:4–5 LSB

‘Why have you repaid evil for good? ‘Is not this the one from which my lord drinks and which he indeed uses to interpret omens? You have done evil in doing this.’”

They immediately protest this accusation; in fact, they had not stolen from Zaphenath-paneah, and they said so!

Genesis 44:8–9 LSB

“Behold, the money which we found in the mouth of our sacks we have brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? “With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.”

And then in Verse 12 Joseph’s test is revealed—the silver cup is found in Benjamin’s sack! Their own words have just condemned Benjamin to death—the one that Jacob said he would die without. They are about to lose their brother and their father; their lives have essentially been ruined.

But God has been at work in Judah’s life—even though it meant losing his brother and losing his freedom in Egyptian slavery,

Judah willingly RETURNS to EGYPT (v. 13)

Genesis 44:13–14 LSB

Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey and returned to the city. Then Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there. So they fell to the ground before him.

There was a time in Judah’s life when he would have simply killed the steward and made off for Hebron—grain, money, Benjamin, silver cup and all! But he has been transformed by God’s grace—he was no longer that man. Even though he had been falsely accused he did not argue, he did not fight, he did not utter a word. He accepted his fate with humility, turning around with his brothers and heading back to the city to face their judgment. And when he came back before Zaphenath-paneah, he did something that would have sent his younger self into a murderous rage—he humbly fell on his face before Joseph.

And when Joseph pressed him to explain himself for the presence of his silver cup in Benjamin’s sack—with everything riding on Judah being able to prove his family’s innocence—does he argue? Does he protest and say that they were framed? Does he insist on his and his brothers’ innocence?

No—see how God has been at work in his heart—

Judah freely CONFESSES his GUILT (v. 16)

Genesis 44:16 LSB

So Judah said, “What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? And how can we justify ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s slaves, both we and the one in whose possession the cup has been found.”

This is the man who, in Chapter 38, simply turned his back on YHWH’s covenant, turned his back on the land, turned his back on his family and shamelessly took Canaanite wives, who showed no remorse whatsoever in his immorality with his own daughter-in-law. There is not a word from Judah of repentance anywhere in that whole affair, and even as recently in Genesis 42:11 he calls himself “an honest man”!

But Judah’s humility before Joseph here is an indication of a deeper humility before God! He isn’t even concerned with Zaphenath-paneah’s judgment of him—he realizes that YHWH Himself has found him out for his sin! “GOD has found out the iniquity of your servants...” This confession isn’t just about a stolen silver cup: Judah is recognizing his guilt before God for everything—his straying in Canaan, his envy of his brother and the crimes he committed against him, his lies to his father, his bitterness and jealousy and murderous hatred—all of it. And he knows he has no excuse.

When God’s transforming grace in regeneration changes you from the inside out, you no longer want to cover up your guilt before Him; you have no desire to defend yourself or explain away your sin; you know that God sees it all and knows it all; you know that you have no excuse, no defense. Judah was no longer the man who covered up his sin against his brother Joseph; he is no longer the man who lied to his father to hide the crimes he committed against his favorite son. Judah’s heart has been transformed by God’s grace into a heart of honest humility before men and God.

Joseph is seeing real evidence of transformation in his brother’s life—he has a humble heart, but does he have

III. A heart of SACRIFICE (Genesis 44:18-34)

Joseph sets one more test before his brother in Verse 17:

Genesis 44:17 LSB

But he said, “Far be it from me to do this. The man in whose possession the cup has been found, he shall be my slave; but as for you, go up in peace to your father.”

What will happen if Judah is told that Benjamin will not go home? Has there been real transformation in Judah’s life? Twenty years ago he was willing to break his father’s heart by lying to him and saying that Joseph was never coming home. Has he changed now?

And in Verses 18-22, we see that there really has been a change in Judah’s heart—instead of callously ignoring the grief Benjamin’s absence would cause Jacob, we see Judah

Pleading for MERCY for his FATHER (vv. 18-22; cp. Gen. 37:31-35)

Genesis 44:18–22 LSB

Then Judah came near to him and said, “O my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are equal to Pharaoh. “My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ “And we said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and a little child of his old age. Now his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ “Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’ “And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he should leave his father, his father would die.’

Judah goes on to plead with Zaphenath-paneah—in Verse 28 he even describes the heartbreak that he caused Jacob by telling him that Joseph was dead:

Genesis 44:28–29 LSB

and the one went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him since. If you take this one also from me and harm befalls him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in evil.’

There is no other explanation for Judah’s change of character, of his sudden and genuine concern for his father and his baby brother, outside of a remarkable work of God in his heart. When God’s transforming grace works in a sinner’s heart, the result is a radical, complete and comprehensive change in his life. Judah became a man who would plead for mercy for his father—and even more amazingly in Verse 33 we see him

Becoming a RANSOM for his BROTHER (vv. 30-33; cp. Gen. 37:25)

Genesis 44:30–33 LSB

“So now, when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us—and his life is bound up in the boy’s life—so it will be that when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow. “For your servant became a guarantee for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the sin before my father all my days.’ “So now, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a slave to my lord, and let the boy go up with his brothers.

The man who left his brother Joseph in a pit while he pled for his life twenty years ago is now willing to trade his life for Benjamin’s. The man who was instrumental in Joseph’s banishment to Egypt as a slave is now volunteering to remain in Egypt as a captive so that his brother Benjamin can go home to his father. And he is making this plea (unknown to him at the moment) to the brother that he banished! The man who walked away from his family so that he could live among the Canaanite pagans and make a life with them is now sacrificing himself for his family so that they can take their cargo of life-saving grain back to Hebron to save the covenant people of Abraham.

This transformation reveals something striking to us about this whole account—even though Joseph has been in the spotlight for so much of the last several chapters, this account is about the transformation of Judah! Look at this account in terms of story structure—Joseph is the least interesting person in the story! He appears as a fully-developed character; no flaws, no sins, he acts completely consistently in every way, the challenges he overcomes don’t really change him in any way. He is a remarkable man to be sure, but he is not who this story is about!

This story is about Judah—this is why he shows up with his own chapter in Genesis 38 to demonstrate his character flaws and failures. It establishes his character arc and shows his response to obstacles and trials and how they transform him. But all of that character development is meant to show one overriding reality in Judah’s life: the transformation that took place in him because of the supernatural working of YHWH in his life!

There is no human explanation for the transformation we see in Judah’s life—it is the working of God in his heart to utterly change him from the inside out.

Only God’s regenerating work in Judah’s life could cause him to be so completely changed. Had it been up to Judah to change his own life enough to care about Benjamin and care about his father and his family to go back to Egypt, it never would have happened! Jacob’s family would have died in the famine, Abraham’s seed would have failed, and the covenant YHWH made with him to bless the whole world through his offspring would be broken.

But God never breaks his promises! And if the survival of Abraham’s seed for the fulfillment of the covenant promises meant that the murderous, incestuous, envious, selfish, deceitful Judah needed to be transformed by God, then so be it! God’s purposes cannot be thwarted by wicked men; instead, God transforms them into righteous men so that His promises will stand!

Christian—see here that God’s power to transform a life from the inside out is your greatest hope in your battles with sin! In your regeneration, God turned you from an enemy that hates Him into a child that loves Him. And because you have been transformed into a child who loves Him, you want to please Him. And so the remaining sin you battle in your life is a burden and a heartbreak to you because you truly want to please your Heavenly Father.

So take heart, Christian— the power of God that regenerated you is also sufficient to perfect you in that righteousness!

Philippians 2:13 LSB

for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Here in these chapters we see YHWH working out His good pleasure in the transformation of Judah and his brothers--His good pleasure to bring to pass all of his promises to Abraham through his descendants, who are at the earliest stages here of being transformed from a quarrelling reality-TV family to a mighty nation of His redeemed people.

And beloved, if God can transform that bunch, He can certainly transform you and me! God’s regenerating work in your life will change you from the inside out—nurturing in you a heart of repentance, a heart of honesty, a heart of sacrifice. These are not traits that you have to generate in your life; these are not things that you have to start making an effort to do. These are evidences of a real work that God has already done in you, and is continuing to do in you.

God transformed Judah from the inside out so that the seed of Abraham’s line would be preserved. It was through Judah that the Redeemer Himself would come; the One Who ransomed Himself in your place, Who put Himself into the punishment you deserved so that you could go free from the death penalty you had earned by your sin.

Have you come to Him for that transformation? Have you trusted His sacrifice on the Cross for the forgiveness of all of your wickedness and rebellion? The only rescue you can possibly have from the consequences of your actions is for you to give up trying to re-invent yourself; quit trying to “turn over a new leaf”, quit trying to gin up your own goodness or virtue out of your own self-will. None of those attempts will get you anywhere but more condemnation.

There is grace to transform you from the inside out today; there is One Who has paid your ransom; One Who has borne your guilt and shame and Who has taken it down to the grave with Him and then left it there when He rose again. Come to Him for forgiveness, come to Hi for righteousness, come to Him for a life made new. Come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

1 Peter 5:10–11 LSB

And now may the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, restore, strengthen, confirm, and ground you. To Him be might forever and ever. Amen.

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