Yet God was leading by this gracious act of the money in the brothers’ sacks, as well as by the other circumstances. It was a case of Romans 2:4 which asks the unrighteous, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his [God’s] kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?”
How was God’s kindness leading? Well, the fact that the money was returned in their sacks (as well as the other circumstances of their journey to Egypt) led the nine brothers to the fullest and most open dealings with their aged father to date. Almost all the commentators note how honest and forthright these men were in telling their father all that had happened in Egypt. I do not find this to be quite accurate since they said nothing about what happened to them as a result of their days in solitude. But even though they did not fully level with Jacob (though they would do so in time as God continued to work on their consciences), they nevertheless did give an accounting that shows progress. They did not hide the problem they had gotten themselves into regarding Simeon and Benjamin.
The brothers were not quite fully honest men yet, but they were beginning to learn what it was like to live by truth and not lies, by honesty rather than deceit.
The second point at which we see progress comes at the end of the chapter. The brothers had explained to Jacob that they would be unable to go back to Egypt without Benjamin, and Jacob had protested. For a time he will refuse to let Benjamin go. But here Reuben, who had earlier dishonored his father by sleeping with his father’s concubine Bilhah, intervenes, pledging his own sons for the safety of Benjamin: “You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back” (v. 37). Earlier he had served himself; no one else’s happiness—not even his father’s—was allowed to intrude. Now he puts himself and his own family on the line regarding Benjamin.
I say again, as I often have in these studies: I cannot see your heart, and therefore I do not know what it conceals. I do not know whether you are hiding unconfessed sin. I do not know whether God is working through the pinch of want, the pain of harsh treatment, the press of solitude or the circumstantial proof of His presence to bring some sin to light and lead you to a saving repentance. But I do know this: If God is working (or has worked), there will be confession. Sin will be repudiated. You will be growing in an honest life marked by the highest commitment to truth. And you will be thinking of and working for other people and their happiness rather than your own.
Why? Because Jesus is like that, and this is what Jesus did for you. He did not come to please Himself but rather to please others. He did not come to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life for many.