"Everything is Against Me"

Gen. 42:36 – “And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.”

This is an all too common condition, probably familiar to everyone at certain points in their lives. Jacob thought that Joseph had perished years earlier, and Simeon was being held in Egypt as security, only to be released when Joseph’s brothers returned along with the youngest, Benjamin, the last darling of Jacob’s heart. He naturally feared that Benjamin would be lost also, and so he was in the grips of fear and desperation. He had the blessed promises of Abraham, Isaac, and even to himself directly from God, that he and his seed would inherit the land of Canaan forever, as an everlasting covenant. Yet what appeared to be a crumbling of all his hopes caused him to lament so intensely, “All these things are against me.”

It seems that he was experiencing much the same emotions that Joseph probably felt while unjustly imprisoned in Egypt. Joseph knew God had spoken to him in dreams of being somehow exalted, and yet there he was in a prison, the fulfillment of the dreams seemingly impossible. Likewise Jacob had received dreams, visions, and God’s voice itself, giving him the extension of all the promises and the covenant of Abraham and Isaac. Yet all he could see in the moment was a complete disintegration of every hope. “Everything is against me.”

Yet now we know the end of the story. None of his fears for Simeon or Benjamin came true, and he was reunited with Joseph, not only alive but the second ruler in Egypt. The brothers’ insistence that they return to Egypt with Benjamin was in reality a necessary step in Jacob’s reunion with Joseph, and even the family’s very survival, as there were still 5 years of famine to come. God had sovereignly and wisely sent Joseph into Egypt.

This part of the story is clarified in Ps. 105:16-19 – “Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.”

Joseph himself had an understanding of this (in hindsight). In Gen. 45:5-8 he says to his terrified brothers, “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”

God’s purpose was not merely to save Jacob’s family. If that was so they could have gone back to the land of Canaan after the famine was over. God was fulfilling his word to Abraham back in Gen. 15:13-16. “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;  And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.  And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.  But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”

God had an eternal plan to send the Israelites into Egypt where they would be enslaved for over 400 years, but that he would show his mighty power in delivering them from Pharaoh and causing them to go out to inherit the promised land. He also intended to allow the people of Canaan to “ripen” in their sins until their destruction would be just. “The iniquity of the Amorites” needed that 400 years to become full, so that Israel would be caused to come in, defeat the Amorites and take the land.

This was also to bring about the Passover as a picture of Christ’s sacrifice for us to deliver us from the power of Satan. Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7).

Application

We should take Jacob’s lament, together with “the rest of the story”, as an encouragement against allowing feelings of hopelessness and helplessness to overwhelm us. We should remember and confess that God is in control, he is not panicked, and that he has a plan for us that may even require these presently horrible circumstances in order to eventually bring us out to a place of victory. We should have faith that things really will work out for us in the end, if we endure in faith and trust. The Holy Spirit is even now, or especially now in the time of testing, interceding for us. Even our present distressing circumstances are somehow being used for our ultimate good and for God’s glory.

Rom. 8:26-28 – “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.“

So if you are facing something that seems overwhelming, try to remember those who have gone before – Jacob, Joseph, Esther, Hezekiah, and an innumerable host of witnesses, that God’s plan is best, and that nothing is impossible for him. We will never know his ultimate plan for us while it is still happening, but we must believe that he cares for us and that our place is not to despair and not to fear, but to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”