John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: March 12

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: March 12


Today is: Friday, March 29th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)

Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of March: (Show All Months)

Benoni

Gen_35:18

Of Jacob’s twelve sons all but the youngest were born in Padanaram. That youngest, the only one native to the land of promise, was also the child of the well-beloved Rachel, whose earnest and not always reasonable craving for children had rendered much of her husband’s life uncomfortable. At last her desires were gratified. She had one son in her own country. That was Joseph. And now, when Jacob was on the way from Bethel to join his father at Mamre, just before coming to Bethlehem, another was given to her. But this blessing was won at a costly price. She died in giving him birth. In her dying agony she gave her child the name of Benoni, “the son of my sorrow;” but Jacob changed this name to Benjamin, “son of the right hand.”

Thus Jacob lost, soonest of all, and still young, the wife he loved most, and probably the only one to whom he felt bound by any other tie than that of duty. That loss—and the deep pang it gave, he remembered well—it was always present with him to his dying day. Witness that touching incident in his last discourse with Joseph—the abrupt transition of ideas with which, while discoursing of other matters, he suddenly and sorrowfully remarks: “As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan, in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there, in the way to Ephrath.”

How is it that the favorite of Heaven should thus suffer? Except David—also highly favored of God—and scarcely excepting him, there is no man in all the Scripture so deeply tried in his affections as Jacob. That which he most loved—on which his heart was most fixed, is constantly torn from him, and more than once he had occasion to ask,

“Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low

Some less majestic, less beloved head?”

First he lost Rachel, whom he loved so that his seven long years of service for her, “seemed to him but a few days for the love he bore to her.” Then the son of the lost Rachel twines himself around his heart, and that son is also suddenly reft from him. He sees his bloody robe; he believes him torn of beasts; and when his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I will go down to the grave unto my son mourning.” Next his Benjamin, the sole remaining relic of that beloved wife, is demanded from him, and he gives him up in the strong fear that he shall see his face no more. He resists long in this instance: “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him in the way in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.” But stern necessity compels. He yields him up—he suffers him to depart, with the sad words which strike the ear like a groan, “If I be bereaved, I am bereaved.” Gen_42:38; Gen_43:14.

It was, therefore, in his most treasured affections—in the things that touch the heart most dearly—that it was the lot of Jacob to be tried. We all have our trials—one after this manner, another after that. This was his trial. And it is the hardest to bear. What is the wrath of man—what is the loss of substance, of comfort, of health—compared with such trial, such loss as this? The deceitfulness of Laban was hard: but he had a spirit that rose above it, that trod it down, that turned it to good. The fierce threats of Esau were terrible: but his heart was in God’s hands—he might relent, he did relent. But the grave knows no relenting—the dead come back no more. All other loss is remediable—but such as this never, while the heart lives to suffer. Besides, as in this case, it is the most loved that is soonest lost. Too strong earthly love—and even love not all earthly—seems to blight its object. It is burnt up suddenly, as by the very warmth of our affections, or it wastes silently away before their glowing heat.

But why was the man chosen of God; even in his mother’s womb, thus tried, where he would feel most severely? It may be for the very reason that this was the point in which he would feel most acutely, and in which, therefore, he might be most effectually corrected. He needed correction. There was much in him—as in all of us—of the earth, earthy, which needed sharp fires to burn it out; and this was the fire in which God tried him, because it would best purify him. Even the inordinacy of his affections needed correction. He was one of those men whose affections are not expansive but concentrative. There were many objects—wives and children with claims upon his affection; but he must have some object to love pre-eminently, while the rest were less regarded. First there was Rachel, then Joseph, then Benjamin. But this inordinacy of special affection is often a snare to the soul. It borders on idolatry. It sets a rival on God’s throne, and establishes a conflicting interest between earth and heaven. This must not be. It is dangerous and soul-destroying; and, therefore, often does God, out of mere kindness and pity, take away the desire of our eyes with a stroke. The wit of man can find no other reason than this most authentic one, why it is that the objects we cherish most are soonest lost.

Again, we may observe in this the necessity of submitting our desires to God. Rachel made her own life and her husband’s unhappy by her deep anxiety for children. Well, she has children, and she dies. Had children still been withheld from her, she might have lived many years, enjoying the society of him whose love was to her better than ten sons. How often thus are we judged and punished, by the gratification of our choice desires. We are not content to rely upon the Lord’s judgment of what is best for us. We weary him with complaints as to what he sends, or what he withholds—till at last he says, “They are given to idols; let them alone.” Our wish is granted—and we perish, or find that we have won only sorrow or shame.

Happy they who, in the midst of such afflictions, from the loss of friends by death or circumstances, can say, with chastened hearts—

“As for my friends, they are not lost:

The several vessels of thy fleet,

Though parted now, by tempest tost,

Shall safely in the haven meet.”—Baxter.

No one can fail to be much struck by the deep significance of the change of the child’s name from Benoni to Benjamin. Having regard to the significance of these names, the fact is wonderfully suggestive. There are few whom it will not remind how often that which came as a grief remains as a joy and a blessing—how often, within their own experience, the son of their sorrow has become the son of their right hand. It had been something to change the name for one of neutral meaning—that it might not remain as a memorial of grief; but it is more, when it is changed into a name of strength—a name of gladness and of power. We have known the cases of men greatly bowed down by some affliction, which threatened to make life a blank and a burden to them—but God enabled them to endure. God gave them strength; and in that strength they arose triumphant over privation and pain. Their very sorrow they seized, and made it an instrument of power. Their cross, when manfully taken up, became a sword in their hands, with which they went forth conquering and to conquer; and the thorny crown became a diadem of glory and beauty upon their brows. These are the Jacobs whose Benonis became their Benjamins.