The Book of Genesis

Hebrew Study

Explanation

When Jacob dies, Joseph "fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him." He has his father embalmed in the Egyptian manner, and Egypt mourns for Jacob seventy days, a remarkable honor for a foreigner, showing how highly Joseph was esteemed. Then Joseph asks Pharaoh's permission to fulfill the oath and bury his father in Canaan, and Pharaoh grants it. A great procession goes up, Joseph, his brothers, and the elders and servants of Egypt with chariots and horsemen, "a very great company." They mourn deeply at the threshingfloor of Atad, and then "his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah," the family tomb where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah already lay. The oath is kept, Jacob rests with his fathers in the land of promise, and the company returns to Egypt.

Gospel Focus

Joseph's careful honoring of his father's last wishes is a picture of faithfulness. He wept genuinely, mourned fully, and then went to great effort and expense to keep the oath and bury Jacob in the promised land. Honoring our parents does not end while they live; it extends even to remembering and keeping faith with them in death. And notice again the significance of the burial place. Jacob would not rest in Egypt, however comfortable, but in Canaan, the land God had promised, and his sons carried him there. That grave in Machpelah was a standing witness that this family's true home was not Egypt but the land of promise. So the people of God live and die with their hope fixed not on this present world but on the inheritance God has sworn to give. Even in a funeral procession winding up from Egypt to Canaan, faith was declaring that God keeps His promises, and that the land He gives is worth carrying our dead to.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Now that Jacob is dead, the old fear grips the brothers again. They reason among themselves that Joseph may have been restraining his revenge only for their father's sake, and now that Jacob is gone, "Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him." So they send a message, appealing to their father's wishes, and beg, "Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin." They call themselves "the servants of the God of thy father," pleading on the ground of their shared faith. The whole scene reveals that though Joseph had long since forgiven them, they had never fully rested in that forgiveness. Guilt still haunted them. And when Joseph hears their fearful, groveling plea, he does not grow angry; he weeps. It grieves him that after all these years his brothers still doubt his love and fear his revenge.

Gospel Focus

The brothers' lingering fear is a picture of how many of us live with God. Joseph had forgiven them completely and treated them with nothing but kindness, yet they still expected wrath and could not rest in his grace. So many believers, truly forgiven by God, still cower in guilt, half-expecting God to turn on them, never resting in the full and free pardon He has given. Joseph's tears show how such doubt grieves a loving heart. God is not waiting to requite us for sins He has already forgiven in Christ; to keep fearing His revenge is to misjudge His heart. And there is a searching word here about forgiveness on our side too. Jesus taught, "if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matthew 6:14). The brothers sought forgiveness, and Joseph freely gave it, as we must freely give it to those who wrong us, and freely receive it from the God who has said we are pardoned. Do not live as a forgiven person still braced for punishment; rest in the grace that has truly been given.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The brothers fall down before Joseph, offering to be his servants, and Joseph gives one of the greatest answers in all of Scripture. First, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God?" He will not take God's role as judge and avenger; that belongs to God alone, not to him. Then he speaks the truth that has carried him through pit, slavery, and prison: "ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." He does not deny that they sinned, "ye thought evil," but he sees, above their evil, the good and saving purpose of God who overruled it all. And he answers their fear with tender care: "I will nourish you, and your little ones." He comforts them and speaks kindly to them. This is the summit of Joseph's life and the theme of the whole Joseph story: God works even the worst that men do into His good and saving plan.

Gospel Focus

"Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" is one of the clearest statements of God's providence in the Bible, and it is the golden thread that ties the whole book of Genesis together. It holds two truths at once: human beings really do evil and are responsible for it, and God, over and above their evil, works His good and sovereign purpose. This is the confidence of every believer: "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). And this very principle reached its highest point at the cross of Christ. There the worst evil ever done, the murder of the sinless Son of God, became the greatest good ever accomplished, the salvation of the world. As Peter preached, Jesus was "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," yet "by wicked hands" crucified and slain (Acts 2:23). Wicked men meant it for evil; God meant it, and used it, for the saving of much people alive. Joseph's words are a small window into the cross. Whatever evil has been done to you, if you belong to God, He is able to weave even that into a saving good you cannot yet see. And like Joseph, we are not to play God by taking revenge, but to leave judgment to Him and answer evil with kindness.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Joseph lives a long, full life, seeing his great-grandchildren, and then his own time to die comes. His last words are words of faith. He does not cling to his high place in Egypt; instead he points his people forward: "I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." Joseph knew Egypt was not their destiny; God would visit them and bring them to the promised land, as He did centuries later in the Exodus. So certain is he of it that he makes the children of Israel swear that when God visits them, "ye shall carry up my bones from hence." Then Joseph dies at a hundred and ten, is embalmed, and "put in a coffin in Egypt." So the book of Genesis, which began with the breath of life in a garden, ends with a coffin in a foreign land, yet even that coffin was a seed of hope, waiting for the day of deliverance.

Gospel Focus

Genesis ends on a coffin, but not on despair, for the last great note is a promise: "God will surely visit you." Joseph died in faith, looking beyond Egypt to the land God had sworn, and his charge about his bones was an act of faith recorded forever: "By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones" (Hebrews 11:22). His bones in that coffin were a standing testimony that Egypt was not home and that God would keep His word. And "God will surely visit you" reaches far beyond the Exodus. God did visit His people to bring them out of Egypt, but the greater visitation came in Christ, of whom Zacharias sang, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people" (Luke 1:68). The promise that closes Genesis is the promise of redemption itself. The book that opened with creation and fall closes with a sure hope of deliverance, and that hope runs on through the whole Bible to Jesus Christ, the one who came to visit and redeem us. Genesis leaves us waiting for God to visit, and He has, in His Son.