From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (XVIII)

In Genesis 45:22, Joseph does something that strikes me as kind of odd. He's just been reunited with his brothers, he's sending them back to fetch Jacob, their dad, and it says: "He gave each of them changes of clothes, but to Benjamin (the youngest brother, his own mother's son) he gave five changes of clothes and 300 pieces of silver." I call this strange because this is, in one sense, exactly what started the whole Joseph-and-his-jealous-brothers saga. Dad gave Joseph, and Joseph alone, an amazing technicolor dream coat, and his brothers hated him for his favoured position. And here, at the end of the story, Joseph does (essentially) the same thing with Benjamin. It could be a test, actually: if Joseph wants to see if his brothers have indeed changed, what better way to do it than by re-setting the circumstances that led to their original fall? No wonder he tells them in verse 24, not to quarrel on the way.

 Of course, if it is a test, it's a test for us, too, I think. Because I'll have to admit, my first thought on reading this is: hey, that's not fair! Shouldn't they all get the same? But then it occurrs to me that, in thinking that, I'm sort of standing with Joseph's jealous brothers back in Chapter 37, plotting against him because he received something they didn't. From there, my mind moves on to this thought: could our inability to celebrate it when God blesses others with things we don't have--our inability to celebrate God's generosity, simply because we weren't the recipients of it (if indeed we are unable to do so)--could that be the real sin of covetousness that Commandment Number 10 is warning us against?

Put differently, could one of the signs that we truly are growing in the Lord be the ability simply, sincerely, and joyfully to celebrate it when the Lord pours blessing into the lives of others, even if we ourselves aren't the recipients?