The Treasure In The Sack

“Your God has given you treasure in your sacks.”  Genesis 43:23

Joseph knew them the moment he saw them, but the ten tired and hungry shepherds never guessed they were bowing to their baby brother.  They had come to Egypt to buy grain—the need for food knocking them to their knees before the only one who could help them.  Or hurt them.

They were at his mercy, and he could finally make them pay.  Revenge would be so sweet.  Did they remember his anguished cries from the deep, dry well?  They could now.  Had they tasted the humiliation of being sold as property and treated as less?  They could now.  He could make them feel the pain of injustice.  The sting of betrayal.  The lonely days.  The aching heart.   The sorrowed soul.  Payback wouldn’t be pretty, and the score was his to settle.

But he didn’t.  Instead Joseph, still unknown to them, sent them home intact, keeping Simeon in Egypt until they returned with his younger brother.  He filled their sacks with grain and topped it off with the silver they had given as payment.  

His kindness caught them off guard and made them afraid.  When they came back to buy more food, they found Joseph’s steward and said, “‘Please, sir, we came down here the first time to buy food.  But at the place we stopped for the night we opened our sacks and each of us found his silver.  We don’t know who put our silver in our sacks.’  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.  Your God has given your treasure in your sacks’”(Gen 43:23).

“Treasure in your sacks.”  They asked for grain but needed grace, and as Joseph’s brothers pulled the silver from their sacks, they were holding the great treasure of forgiveness—unexpected, undeserved forgiveness.

Don’t pay back others for what they have done.

Pay forward what God has done.

“Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”