What Does Genesis 42:37 Mean?

Then Reuben said to his father, "Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you." Reuben's offer to Jacob is the oldest brother attempting to take leadership responsibility and offer guarantees for Benjamin's safety. "Kill my two sons": this is Reuben putting his children's lives as collateral for Benjamin's return. The offer is extravagant and perhaps foolish: no grandfather would execute his own grandchildren as a penalty for the loss of a son. But Reuben's intent is to offer the most serious personal guarantee he can imagine: his own children's lives as security.

Reuben's offer is also evidence of where the brothers stand morally at this point. Reuben was the one who said "shed no blood" in Genesis 37:22 and who planned to rescue Joseph from the pit. He is the one who invoked "a reckoning for his blood" in verse 22. Now he is offering his own children as security for Benjamin: the most personal offering available to him. He is trying to do something right for the family he has watched suffer under the Joseph situation and its aftermath. The offer is serious, even if its terms are not practically executable.

Jacob's response in verse 38 rejects Reuben's offer, and the rejection is revealing: the problem is not the guarantee but the risk itself. No guarantee could compensate Jacob for losing Benjamin. Reuben is trying to solve an emotional problem (Jacob's fear) with a legal mechanism (collateral). But Jacob's grief is not a legal problem; it is the grief of a man who has already lost more than he can Bear. The guarantee that addresses the insurance question does not address the anguish question. Reuben's offer, while genuine, does not touch the actual source of Jacob's refusal.