Seder 38: Genesis 42:24---Why Simeon?

Joseph used his position as viceroy of Egypt to promote repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation in his family.  When his brothers came to Egypt to buy food furing a famine, he accused them of being spies, then  detained one of them---Simeon---and ordered the others to bring back their brother Benjamin.  

Genesis 42 doesn't tell us why Simeon was the one Joseph chose to detain.  A number of ideas have been proposed, as discussed by Nechama Price in her book Tribal Blueprints.  

One possibility is based on the fact that Joseph's oldest brother Reuben had not gone along with the proposal of killing Joseph  (Ge 37:21-22; 42:22).  Simeon was the second oldest and should be held responsible for what happened.  

Another possibility is that Simeon was more directly responsible for what happened to Joseph.  Perhaps he was the one who proposed the idea of killing Joseph.  After all, he and Levi had been the leaders in the Shechem massacre (Ge 34:25), and they seemed to have violent tendencies.  If Simeon and Levi together were the authors of the plan to kill Joseph, perhaps Joseph decided to split up this dangerous duo by detaining one of them.

Seder 38: Gen 42-43--Joseph Tests his Brothers

 When Joseph recognized his brothers, he did not tell them who he was.  Instead, he accused them of being spies and had them locked up for three days (Gen 42:8-17).  

The narrator tells us nothing about Joseph's thought process beyond a note that he remembered the dreams he had had more than 20 years before (v 9).  That note led to a suggestion by Nachmanides (1194-1270), one of the great medieval Jewish commentators, that Joseph's overall goal was to arrange for the fulfillment of his dreams.  

Most interpreters do not go in that direction, however.  A more usual suggestion is that Joseph's plan was to test his brothers and promote their repentance and the reunification of his family.  

As we continue through the narrative, we at least can keep track of Joseph's actions and their results.  His incarceration of his brothers certainly gave them an opportunity to contemplate their predicament.  They blamed their situation on what they done to Joseph all those years ago (vv 21-22).  They  felt guilty about what they had done, which can be considered a step toward repentance.  

After three days Joseph sent his brothers back home with grain, keeping Simeon in custody and ordering the others to return with their brother Benjamin.  They told their father the truth about where Simeon was, an improvement over their behavior with regard to Joseph.  

It would take some time for Jacob to accept the idea of Benjamin's making the trip to Egypt.  But as the famine continued, Judah finally persuaded him to let Benjamin go, taking personally responsibility for Benjamin's welfare (Gen 43:1-14).  Jacob decided to leave the matter in God's hands, while following his usual strategy of preparing a lavish gift for the Egyptian official (see Prov 18:16).

Seder 35: Gen 38---Who Did Jacob's Sons Marry?

 For Abraham, it was very important that Isaac marry a woman in Abraham's clan (Gen 24).  For Isaac and his wife Rebekah, it was important that her son Jacob marry someone from that same clan (Gen 28:1-2).  

But the book of Genesis never raises the subject of who Jacob's twelve sons were supposed to marry.   There are at least a couple of reasons why this apparently ceased to be an issue.  For one thing, Jacob and his father-in-law Laban had parted on less-than-amicable terms (Gen 31:51-54), so Jacob would not have been likely to send any of his sons back to Haran in search of wives.  

Also, by this point the identity of the covenant family may have become well enough established that assimilation into the surrounding Canaanite culture was no longer such a danger---at least after the destruction of Shechem.  Jacob's family was not absorbed into Shechem, but it's possible that some of the women captured from Shechem (Gen 34:29) married sons of Jacob.

We are given information about the wives of three of those sons.  Judah married the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua (Gen 38:2).  We are not told her name, and she is referred to in 1 Chron 2:3 simply as Bath-shua ("daughter of Shua").  Simeon also married a Canaanite (Gen 46:10), and Joseph married Asenath, the daughter of an Egyptian priest (Gen 41:45). 

Ancient readers of Genesis were curious and concerned about the lack of information given on this subject.  Some sought to fill in the gaps.  For example, the book of Jubilees (second century BC) lists names of wives of Jacob's sons in verses 20-21 of chapter 34:

"And after Joseph perished, the sons of Jacob took unto themselves wives. The name of Reuben's wife is 'Ada; and the name of Simeon's wife is 'Adlba'a, a Canaanite; and the name of Levi's wife is Melka, of the daughters of Aram, of the seed of the sons of Terah; and the name of Judah's wife, Betasu'el, a Canaanite; and the name of Issachar's wife, Hezaqa: and the name of Zabulon's wife, Ni'iman; and the name of Dan's wife, 'Egla; and the name of Naphtali's wife, Rasu'u, of Mesopotamia; and the name of Gad's wife, Maka; and the name of Asher's wife, 'Ijona; and the name of Joseph's wife, Asenath, the Egyptian; and the name of Benjamin's wife, 'Ijasaka.  And Simeon repented, and took a second wife from Mesopotamia as his brothers."

Notice that Jubilees, in its desire for Jacob's sons not to have mixed too much with the Canannites, has some of them going back to Haran to marry women from Abraham's clan.