From Brigham Young University's Maxwell Institute, this is the Maxwell Institute podcast, Faith Illuminating Scholarship.

In 2026, we are releasing a series called Old Testament Reflections.

Each week, a scholar offers a short reflection on the Come Follow Me reading.

Today's piece, Chosenness, Recognition, and Reconciliation, Reflections on Genesis

Chapter 42 through 50 is written and read by Christian Heel.

I'm a middle child, so I know a little about being overlooked. Even the Bible overlooks middle

children. Well, mostly,

Judah is a famous exception, as is Miriam. But that's beside the point. The Bible, especially

the book of Genesis, is much more concerned about the older younger dynamic and mostly about

the younger subverting the place of the older. There is also a lot of favouritism. A middle child notices

these things too, because it's always happening to someone else. I'm over it. I'm just saying

that I notice it. I've been thinking about the question of favouritism in the book of Genesis.

Favoritism is tricky, mostly because it seems that God is complicit. Well, complicit is perhaps too

load to the term. Let's just say that there is a theology of chosenness present in the book

of Genesis that sets the stage for the rest of the Bible, including the New Testament.

Being chosen by God is wonderful naturally, but it's a sort of a package deal, and the

package always has some surprises. Realising this has been the key to me finding peace with being a

middle child. But this isn't about me. It's about Joseph, Benjamin and Jacob, and his other sons,

and the persistence of favouritism

and the role of recognition and reconciliation in Genesis 42 through 50.

Let's start with Benjamin, who has an outsized role in the story for someone who says nothing.

Firstly, Jacob refuses to send him down to Egypt with his ten other sons,

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