The Myopia of Grief: When All Things Seem Against You Text: Genesis 42:35-38
Introduction: The War Against Providence
We live in an age that has declared war on reality. At the heart of this rebellion is a flat refusal to believe that the world is governed. The modern mind wants a universe that is either a cosmic accident, a great swirling chaos of particles and probabilities, or, if there is a god, he must be a well-meaning but impotent bystander, wringing his hands on the sidelines of history. But the God of Scripture is neither accidental nor impotent. He is the absolute sovereign, and His providence is meticulous, total, and inescapable. He works all things, not just some things, according to the counsel of His will.
This is a hard truth, and it is most severely tested not in the philosophy classroom, but in the crucible of personal suffering. It is one thing to affirm the doctrine of providence when the sun is shining and the sacks are full. It is another thing entirely when the darkness descends, when loss piles upon loss, and when the evidence of your senses seems to scream that God has either forgotten you or turned against you. This is where Jacob is. This is the trial of every believer who has ever had to walk by faith and not by sight.
Jacob's cry, "all these things are against me," is one of the most honest and raw expressions of grief in all of Scripture. It is the cry of a man looking at his circumstances through the narrow lens of his pain. It is the logic of a faith that has been battered and bruised into a state of spiritual myopia, unable to see past the immediate, threatening facts to the sovereign hand that is arranging those very facts for his ultimate deliverance. This passage is not just a historical account of a patriarch's anguish. It is a divine lesson on how to interpret reality when God's plot takes a terrifying turn. It forces us to ask the question: when our world seems to be unraveling, will we trust our fears, or will we trust the God who weaves even our sorrows into a tapestry of grace?
The Text
Now it happened that they were emptying their sacks, and behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and they and their father saw their bundles of money, and they feared. And their father Jacob said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin; all these things are against me.” Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hand, and I will return him to you.” But Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone remains. If harm should befall him on the journey on which you are going, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”
(Genesis 42:35-38 LSB)
The Fear of Inexplicable Mercy (v. 35)
We begin with the discovery that sets off this crisis of faith.
"Now it happened that they were emptying their sacks, and behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and they and their father saw their bundles of money, and they feared." (Genesis 42:35)
Here we see a profound principle of how a guilty conscience and a fearful heart operate. The return of their money was an act of grace. Joseph, the hidden instrument of God's providence, was providing for them freely. This was mercy. But they do not interpret it as mercy. They interpret it as a trap. They feared. Why? Because it was inexplicable. It did not fit their narrative. They had gone down to Egypt expecting a cold, hard transaction with a powerful pagan ruler. What they got was a series of bizarre and unsettling events that they could not control or understand. The money in the sack was a loose thread that threatened to unravel their entire grasp on the situation.
When God is at work, His ways are not our ways. His providence often operates outside our neat categories of cause and effect. And for men who are trying to manage their own lives, to control the outcomes, an act of sovereign, mysterious grace can be more terrifying than an act of predictable judgment. They knew how to deal with a harsh ruler; they did not know how to deal with one who plays by a different set of rules. This is a picture of us. We are often more comfortable with a god we can understand and predict, even a harsh one, than with the living God whose goodness and mercy are so far beyond our comprehension that they frighten us. They feared the very mercy that was the first sign of their salvation.
The Arithmetic of Despair (v. 36)
Jacob's reaction to this news is not just fear, but a torrent of grief-stricken accusation.
"And their father Jacob said to them, 'You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin; all these things are against me.'" (Genesis 42:36)
Notice Jacob's accounting. He is a man keeping a ledger of his sorrows. He looks at his sons and says, "You have bereaved me." He is the victim. Then he does the math. Joseph is a negative. Simeon is a negative. And now the demand for Benjamin is a looming, catastrophic negative. He adds up all the visible data points, all the painful circumstances, and comes to a conclusion that seems, from his limited vantage point, entirely logical: "all these things are against me."
This is the logic of unbelief. It is the creed of a man drowning in his circumstances. He is looking at the "things," but he has lost sight of the God who is sovereign over all the things. The apostle Paul, by faith, would later look at a world full of tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, and sword, and come to the opposite conclusion: "in all these things we are more than conquerors" (Romans 8:37). And before that, he declared that "all things work together for good to those who love God" (Romans 8:28). Jacob sees the individual, chaotic, painful brushstrokes. He cannot see the finished masterpiece that the artist is painting. This is spiritual myopia. His grief has so shortened his vision that he can only see the threats immediately in front of him. He cannot see the covenant-keeping God standing behind them.
But we must see the irony God is weaving. Every single thing Jacob lists as being "against him" is in fact a crucial part of the machinery God is using to save him and his entire family. The "loss" of Joseph was the means of his exaltation. The "loss" of Simeon was the means of testing the brothers' repentance. The demand for Benjamin would be the very thing that would break their pride and bring about the final, glorious reunion. The things Jacob perceived as weapons against him were, in the hands of God, the surgical tools of his redemption.
The Folly of Human Guarantees (v. 37)
Into this vortex of despair steps Reuben, the firstborn, with a heartfelt but utterly foolish proposal.
"Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, 'You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hand, and I will return him to you.'" (Genesis 42:37)
Reuben means well. He is trying to solve an impossible problem. But his solution is a monument to the bankruptcy of human effort in the face of divine trials. He offers Jacob a guarantee. What is his collateral? The lives of his own two sons. Think about the absurdity of this. "Father, I know you are grieving the potential loss of your son. So, to reassure you, let me offer you the future lives of your two grandsons. If I fail, you can compound your grief by executing them." This is not a comfort; it is a horror. It is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
This is what happens when we try to secure God's promises with our own fleshly vows and carnal strategies. Reuben is trying to fix a crisis of faith with a works-based contract. He cannot simply say, "Father, let us trust God." He has to invent a grotesque human security system. This is a picture of all false religion. It is man trying to offer God a deal, trying to provide collateral, trying to manage his relationship with the Almighty through bargains and guarantees. But the life of faith does not operate on the basis of our guarantees to God. It operates on the basis of His guarantees to us, sealed in the blood of His Son.
Clinging to the Remnant (v. 38)
Jacob, rightly, rejects Reuben's offer, but his reasoning reveals that his heart is still trapped in the grip of fear.
"But Jacob said, 'My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone remains. If harm should befall him on the journey on which you are going, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.'" (Genesis 42:38)
Jacob's refusal is absolute. "My son shall not go down with you." His entire world has shrunk to the preservation of this one boy, Benjamin. His reasoning is a mixture of faulty facts and overwhelming fear. "His brother is dead." This is what he believes, but it is false. "He alone remains." This is his emotional reality, the last living link to his beloved Rachel. Benjamin is not just a son; he is a relic. He is the last visible evidence of a blessing Jacob fears has vanished.
This is the great temptation in times of trial: to identify our hope with a tangible, created thing rather than the invisible, creator God. Jacob is clinging to the remnant. He is guarding his last Benjamin so fiercely that he is unwilling to entrust him to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would rather starve in Canaan with Benjamin than trust God on the road to Egypt. His final statement is the desolate cry of a man who expects the worst. He does not see a journey of potential deliverance; he sees only a journey where "harm should befall him." His story, in his own mind, ends in a grave of sorrow.
Conclusion: From Myopia to the Cross
Jacob was wrong. All these things were not against him. They were profoundly, secretly, and gloriously for him. He was in the middle of a divine comedy, but his grief only allowed him to see it as a tragedy. His myopia prevented him from seeing that the very path of sorrow he refused to take was the only path to life and reunion.
And this is where the story of Jacob becomes our story. How many times have we stood in his shoes, surveying the wreckage of our plans, counting our losses, and declaring that all things are against us? We lose a job, we receive a frightening diagnosis, a relationship breaks, and we conclude that God's plan has failed. We see the cross before we see the resurrection.
The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate refutation of Jacob's despair. On Good Friday, if ever there was a moment when it seemed "all these things are against me," that was it. The disciples saw their Lord betrayed, arrested, tortured, and executed. They saw the promises of a kingdom die on a Roman gibbet. They saw only bereavement, loss, and defeat. Their ledger was full of nothing but negatives. But they were suffering from the same myopia as Jacob.
They could not see that this ultimate act of evil, this ultimate loss, was the very instrument God was using to accomplish the ultimate good. God was using the hatred of men to display the love of God. He was using death to destroy death. The cross was not the end of the story; it was the hinge of all history. The thing that seemed most against them was, in fact, the only thing that could ever truly be for them.
Jacob would eventually be forced by the famine to let Benjamin go. He would be forced to walk the path of faith, to entrust his last treasure to the God he could not see. And on that path, he found not the sorrow he expected, but a joy he could not have imagined: the restoration of all he thought he had lost. Our path is the same. God will, in His wisdom, bring us to places where we must let go of our Benjamins. He will strip away our securities until we have nothing left to cling to but Him. And it is in that place of surrender, not in the fortress of our fear, that we will discover that He has been working all things, even the terrible things, for our good and for His everlasting glory.