Genesis 42 – God went to sheol, wiped the tears of your cheeks and brought you up seated with Him.

Finally, it was the moment that Joseph met his brothers. The famine came to Canaan, and Jacob asked his sons to go and buy food to Egypt. (The way he questioned, as if the sons were not proactive enough); When Jacob heard that grain was available in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you standing around looking at one another? “

When they arrived at Egypt, Joseph recognised them but his brothers did not. Joseph pretended to accuse them as a spy and held Simeon hostage then asked them to bring Benjamin to Egypt as a proof.

At that moment, the brother remembered what they have done 17 years ago and felt the shame and guilt of what they did to Joseph. Reuben scolded them, and admonished them, if only they heard Reuben last time as he tried to prevent the evil things to Joseph.

Joseph wept (ba’kah) when he heard that. This is the first mention Joseph wept. The previous time, this word used, was for Jacob when he was weeping after told that Joseph died.

The text, of course, did not elaborate why Joseph wept. We can guess. But the text is silent.

The brothers went back to Jacob and on the way they found out they got both the food and the money back. They were scared.

They persuaded Jacob to let Benjamin go and Reuben even offered to Jacob, that if he failed, to kill his 2 sons!

What a strange proposal! Depicting a delicate and complicated family relationships.

Jacob’s preference of Joseph and Benjamin was explicitly seen as Jacob refused to let Benjamin go. And he mentioned again, his sorrow went down to the grave (sheol); this is the second time in the Bible, sheol is mentioned. First time when Jacob heard Joseph died.

So, if you watch this story in Netflix, the script writer would play lots of flashback. The Tanakh writer left many cues to beautifully arranged the memory and flashback with the choice of words.

For Joseph, it was a painful memory, wound, scar, bitterness, bloody, weeping, etc.

For the brothers were the memory of guilt and shame.

For Jacob, it was the weeping memory of sorrow heart, down to sheol.

What would happen next? You probably know already the ending.

How about us? Do we have past bitter painful past memories, sorrow down to sheol?

Somehow God is able to weave them all and arranged them all for our good.

Jesus went down to sheol, so that He could bring us up seated with Him in the heavenly realm.