Stepping into the Shoes of Reuben

One of the more interesting ways of reading the Bible is to step into the shoes of people who are in the narratives.  By habit, I think most people do this to some degree; but in most cases people only step into the shoes of heroes such as the Apostles, David, Solomon, Abraham and Joseph.  By only stepping into heroes' shoes and by only seeing the world through their eyes, people often lose a significant amount of information, and a they don't get a large amount of the world in which the Bible characters lived.

One of the best overlooked stories is that of Reuben who was the first son of 12 boys born to Jacob in the book of Genesis.  Because we are so drawn to Joseph's journey, most of us overlook the other sons of Jacob and when it comes to Reuben, there are few other stories in the Bible that are as interesting as his.

Reuben was born into a family of wanderers - nomads.  As nomads, the family preferred to stay to themselves and made their best agreements (such as arranged marriages) with close relatives.  He lived in a world where politics began and ended within the family.  In his world, Reuben's father was a powerful and wealthy man who put fear and respect in the hearts of every city or town he visited or traded in.  Jacob had dozens of slaves, hired servants, cattle, goats, sheep, four wives, twelve sons and several daughters.  Reuben's father was a powerful man who built up his empire through brilliance, hard work, and deception.

Reuben was brought up to believe that he would inherit all that power and wealth in time.  He was already the head of the brothers and they looked up to and accepted his leadership among them.  But all that changed in one day when his father lined up family in order of importance, and for the first time in his life, Reuben realized that his father intended to give it all to the youngest brother (Benjamin was not yet born).  Maybe he sensed his father's excessive doting over Joseph before that day, but he took comfort knowing that he was still the oldest and therefore the one who would inherit leadership and preeminence over the brothers.

The day his father lined up the families, thus showing that Reuben was not the most important among the brother, Reuben's life changed. Genesis records this event like it was a small detail - just a story in the life of Jacob and his family.  But the next time Reuben was mentioned, he was having sex with his father's concubine - his step mother.

On one other occasion in the Bible a son slept with his father's concubines.  When King David ran from Jerusalem, while his son Absalom led a rebellion against his father, Absalom took 10 of David's concubines and had sex with each one of them publicly to shame David and to let the world know that he was breaking all ties to his father.

Reuben likewise was making a statement when he slept with his father's concubine/wife; but unlike Absalom  he didn't want to make his statement public.  He wanted to keep everything under the covers, but his father did find out and would bring it up only one time shortly before he died.  Until his death bed, nothing else was said, and when Reuben's father did finally break the silence, it was not good.  Jacob had never forgotten what Reuben did; and Reuben lost any possibility of future leadership in his family.

Step into Reuben's shoes as he tried to make things up to his dad throughout his life.  In other words, look at what he did through the rest of his story and ask yourself if what he did looks like someone who was trying to make up for a heinous crime.

Step into his shoes as he tried to regain his father's trust when the other brothers wanted to kill Joseph.  Step into his shoes when all of his plans to restore Joseph to his father failed.  Step into his shoes as he lost all leadership among the brothers and as Judah took over during famine and a time of family crisis.

His was a sad but real story of someone who acted in a moment of anger only to regret what he did the rest of his life.  All of this is there in Genesis but can only be discovered by stepping into his shoes and following his journey.