but if God's plan is for His people to become a nation, He could end your life to insure His promises, overlooking your petty anxieties. Trusting His covenant, assuring His will be done, what happens to you matters little, choosing the time for ending your life. Our famine remains severe, unrelenting without any rain, leaving us to wonder if God sends a prophet for rain to fall elsewhere, selecting a different people to bless, because we have failed to be a blessing, seeking blessings for no one but ourselves, and failing in this to His dismay.
Bystander: Hunger changes people's convictions, pushing many to heed Molech's calling, sacrificing loved ones to nature's forces, now bringing Jacob to his day of reckoning.
Jacob: Benjamin and memories of Rachel no longer sustain me, realizing we have consumed all our grain, hampering my will to reason, hunger making me irrational, fearing to approach starvation, inflicting more serious consequences, afflictions destroying our community, so I tell you to go again, buy more food, at least enough to satisfy me through my remaining days.
Judah: I remind you again of the conditions for us to return for more food. The master deciding on who could buy food told us, You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you. We must obey what he orders, compelling you to send Benjamin with us, assuring our journey success in going down to buy food, but if you will not comply, we endanger our clan, believing the master was serious with his words warning us, You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.
Jacob: Why do you endanger my peace again, having taken so many years to recover, babbling so much about me, more than anyone needs to know, broadcasting my past and present, giving others fodder to judge me--better for them not to know--telling this unknown master you had another brother, like it should mean something to him?
Reuben: The master questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, asking, Is your father still alive? Have you another brother? Upon answering these questions, could we in any way know what he would say, telling us to bring down our brother? He could just as easily have said, Bring down your father.
Judah: Send the lad with me, dispelling your fears, trusting in the Lord for a safe journey, going and coming, and see us off now as we arise and go, sending us off with prayers, believing in intercessions for us to live and not die, both for us and for success, insuring our little ones can still become as numerous as stars in the sky. I will safeguard Benjamin, bringing him back to be a certainty for your remaining days, trusting my hand to satisfy your love for him. If I do not bring him back, setting him before you, then let me forever bear blame, despite lamenting for our delay, thinking without our hesitation, we would now have returned twice.
Jacob: If it must be so, then do this, Take some of our land's choicest fruits, storing them carefully in your bags, and carry down a present for the master, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Take money with you, carrying back the money, returning the coins discovered in the mouth of your sacks, but never fret about intentions for their concealment, regarding it perhaps as an oversight. Take also your little brother, arise, go again to the master, beseeching God Almighty to grant you mercy before the master, praying He will intercede and release Simeon, sending him back with your brother Benjamin. If I am to be bereaved of my children, I will be bereaved.
Preparing for Inevitable Confessions
Bystander: Traveling, especially through a drought-stricken wasteland, numbing the mind to its barren scenery, forgetting it might have some beauty, monotonously slowing time, moving nomads without any sense of urgency, wondering how God survives existing outside of time, seeming to be wandering aimlessly, needing no time to mark His progress, is perfect for minds to prowl, feasting on imaginations, fearfully deploring ominous soul-searching, banking all thoughts once on fire, or fearing what may suddenly appear to disrupt the peaceful monotony, perhaps around the next bend, but more likely from within the band of brothers, little understanding a person's foes lurk within, hiding in one's own household
Judah: Must there be circumstances where uncertainty makes me fearful, upsetting my composure, disturbing my confidence, dreading what might happen, reminding me of when we lied about Joseph's fate? Why should anxiety grip me now, fearing our meeting the master might spring unexpected results, prodding us to unveil our past deceptions, forcing us to be honest, exposing our hidden memories, maybe for the master, perhaps for our father? What more could I imagine the master doing, maybe tampering further with our secrets, asking more about our family, leaving me to wonder why he should care?
Reuben: You think too much, imagining only bad things to happen, wondering how we will be treated, whether a continuing famine would force us return again, more than this time, making us dependent on someone other than ourselves, interfering with our efforts to control destiny, effects of famine on our needs. Determine our needs for this moment and do what is necessary to satisfy them. We can't worry what tomorrow will bring.
Judah: You have lived by, Just do it. Look what it has gotten you, a document of your unlawful deed in a record lasting for your many ancestors to know, never to be erased, indelible as all sins, proving you were born to sin, never worrying what tomorrow will bring, never discerning your virtue is destitute.
Reuben: You believe I am devious, but my reason proves me to be clever. We could disable fate's endeavors by substituting another person for Benjamin, temporarily securing a replacement for him, exchanging him for a deaf and dumb slave, borrowed from a slave trader, leaving Benjamin in safety until we return, defying the master's demand, and easing our anxiety. The master has never seen him so he would never suspect this action to be devious.
Judah: What if fate reveals the ruse? What consequences could you fathom? Our destiny could become disastrous, ending our promises to be a blessing.
Reuben: We could find a bearded one about Benjamin's age and the master would never know, even if he had seen him before. Finding one deaf and dumb would preclude anyone questioning him. We could explain his deafness as due to a plague, sweeping through our land some years ago, afflicting relational senses for many.
Judah: Must we continue to live a lie, refusing to acknowledge we sinned against Joseph and our father, never wanting to confess and repent, admitting our wrong doings?
Reuben: I offer only a suggestion to ease your anxiety.
Judah: The Lord has already given me peace, and I suffer remorse no longer. We will meet the master as planned with Benjamin. Following His way, not mine, removes all my anxiety.
Reuben: As we approach the master again, my conscience speaks loudly, crying out to rectify our error, our decision to not immediately return money left in our sacks, procrastinating on its return to the master, to delay showing him money left in our bags, its inner voice claiming he left it there to judge our integrity, testing us to reveal our virtues, prompting us to worthy action, but I wonder if we indeed have any. The master is likely to doubt any good for our questionable ways since we have taken so long to return.
Judah: We deceived our father long ago. Do you think we have lost our cunning ways much since then?
Reuben: The master may not know about our payment for the grain, having no knowledge of its accounting, perhaps trusting one of his assistants, but who knows how honest his workers are, wondering how many will skim off coins, stealing some, leaving some with the payees, suggesting they will be judged, making them victims incriminated for dishonesty to blame for any shortfall. Do you think they have a lord to direct them otherwise? Not likely. Their gods tolerate anything, existing merely to be worshipped, never asked to honor virtues, expecting only to receive homage, people thanking gods for what they possess, for nothing more, except maybe for being the top dog, marking their way in the world, calling evil good, and good evil.
Judah: Isn't it time for us to change and begin to follow our Lord's commands, to start honoring the covenant made with our fathers, respecting Him with our worship, no longer paying homage to our idols, destroyin
g them all, and resurrect God's instructions on what we must do?
Reuben: You being one us, no different from your brothers, propose something near impossible, changing ourselves to someone we can never will to be. Tell us how you would transfigure yourself to become someone working your way to righteousness?
Judah: We have always lived blameless lives so we would be respected by others, but the fault of our blamelessness is all eventually exposed. I failed in raising my sons, my derelictions causing the Lord to end their lives early, telling me to intervene on behalf of their childless widow, making an oath soon forgotten to promise the widowed Tamar my youngest son when he reached maturity, but in neglecting this pledge, the Lord created a circumstance for me to sin, visiting an apparent prostitute, treating her less than a sister or daughter, and impregnating her with twins, naming one Perez. Without ever confessing my sins, acknowledging this could happen, I conceived a man in sin, consummating my oath to be broken, showing I could never be blameless. Whatever I may promise, swearing