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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Joseph Demands that Benjamin Stay in Egypt Bible Verse:Genesis 44:14-34 (abridged) (ESV) "When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?” And Judah said, “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.” But he said, “Far be it from me that I should do so! Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father.” When Judah went up to him and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ “When we went back to your servant my father, . . . my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’ Adam Eve serpent 17th century - long + “Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, . . . Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” " Message:
Judah’s words in the second paragraph are fraught with meaning, for when he asks “How can we clear ourselves? God has found out [our] guilt . . . both we and [Benjamin],” he is unknowingly referring to the great wrong they actually had committed many years before: attacking their brother Joseph and selling him into slavery!
Judah pleads for mercy for reasons of compassion, that leaving Benjamin captive in Egypt will kill their father. And Judah redeems his sin, because he offers his own life for that of Benjamin and, symbolically, for that of Joseph. It is the opposite of the acts of his youth, for rather than violence against one of Jacob’s sons (by Rachel), motivated by envy, pride and greed, he now offers his own life for the other of Jacob’s sons by Rachel, our of love for his father.
Judah and Benjamin will remain special throughout the history of Judaism. Judah will become the greatest and most powerful of the tribes, the home of Jerusalem and the last of the tribes to fall into apostasy and be conquered. It is also the tribe of David and Jesus. Benjamin will always be the smallest and the weakest, but beloved. It almost disappears as a tribe, although it keeps a spot in the Kingdom of Judah and is associated with Bethlehem, where David and Jesus are both born.
Meditation : Prayer : Now the God of patience and consolation grant to me, and to all who pray in the name of Christ, to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...... Amen |
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