When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.
Comment: The famine was over a very wide area. Jacob, living in Canaan, hadn’t prepared as Pharaoh and Joseph did and when the lean years hit soon Jacob and his household as well as all those in the area were in deep trouble. Old, but not senile, Jacob hears of the situation across the border (for Egypt was relatively close). He couldn’t bear to part with his favourite son, Benjamin who had been born as his favourite beloved wife Rachel died in childbirth – but he told the other ten sons to get on their camels, go to Egypt, and rescue them.
When they arrived at Joseph’s door he didn’t look like or was dressed or behaved anything like the young man that they had sold into slavery and they didn’t recognize him. But he recognized them and you wonder what must have passed through his memory and mind!
Prayer: Lord, help me to let go of the past and walk with You into the future.
As I read it! 
Thank you Barry for your comments. Thank you for choosing this story from Genesis to study. This is one of my favourite stories and every time I read it, it grips me when I realize that God had His Hand upon this family, upon each one of them, upon Jacob and his twelve sons. That God had His plan for this family, and that the dreams that Joseph had as a young teenager were going to be fulfilled because God was weaving everything, the good and the bad, to bring about His great and wonderful purposes.
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I have loved doing it. Working ahead a bit I have just finished and am doing Amos to take me up to Christmas. God bless you and yours!
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