68 GOODBYE JOSEPH

Now that their father was dead and buried we observe an interesting appeal the brothers make to Joseph. Joseph was at court, in the royal city; his brothers were in Goshen, remote in the country. Even so, and perhaps all the more because they were physically separated, it was good to maintain a good understanding and affection between them. This would be both to Joseph’s honor and the brothers’ interest. We might make the very practical and helpful observation that when God has removed the parents by death, the best care ought to be taken to prevent quarrels about the dividing of the estate among the children which often happens.  Also, consider the value of preserving acquaintance and love among those that remain so that unity may continue even when that parental center of unity is taken away.

Joseph’s brothers humbly present an appeal to him for his favor. Perhaps they began to be jealous of Joseph, not that he had given them any cause for this, but their consciousness of guilt and their own inability to forgive and forget in such a case, made them suspect they were in danger. They doubted the sincerity and constancy of Joseph’s favor. Verse 15 says, “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” The human mind has the capacity to imagine dangers and cares that simply do not exist. Many of the things we fear never happen. While their father lived, they thought themselves safe under his shadow; but now that he was dead they feared the worst from Joseph. A guilty conscience exposes men to continual frights, even where no fear is rational, and makes them suspicious of others just like Cain demonstrates as indicated by Genesis 4:14: “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Friend, it you want to be fearless keep yourself guiltless. If our heart does not condemn us, then have we can have confidence both towards God and man. Lacking this confidence, the brothers humbled themselves before Joseph, confessed again their fault, and begged his pardon. Evidently they did it by proxy and in person. ‘‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: ‘I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.’ When their message came to him, Joseph wept” (17). “His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said” (18). The sun and moon had now set, and the eleven stars had done homage to Joseph. The dream was completely fulfilled. They speak of their former offense with fresh regret: Forgive the trespass. They throw themselves at Joseph’s feet, and appeal only to his mercy: We are your servants. In this way, we Christian leaders too must sincerely regret the sins of our past, sincerely enough that we can promise not to repeat the sins we committed long ago, even those which we hope through grace are already forgiven. As we pray to God for His pardon, it is appropriate to also promise to be his servants.

We do not know if Jacob really had told his sons this or not. But the brothers appeal to their relation to Jacob and to Jacob’s God. The brothers claimed that Jacob had directed them to make this request. Why would Jacob, who had been so transparent and open when he blessed his twelve sons, openly rebuking Ruben, Simeon and Levi, have made this request when Joseph was absent? If so, perhaps it was rather because he questioned whether they would do their duty in humbling themselves than because Jacob questioned whether Joseph would do his duty in forgiving them. It would, after all, be easier to expect Joseph’s kindness to them if they in this way qualified themselves for it and knew, or thought, that Jacob had requested it. “So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father left these instructions before he died.’”

While it may be questioned whether or not Jacob actually made this request, it cannot be doubted that our heavenly Father has made such a request. In humbling ourselves to Christ by faith and repentance, we may plead that it is the will of His Father, and our Father, that we do so and that Jesus will pardon us.

The brothers also appeal to Jacob’s God. They plead “I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father” (17). “This was as though to say we are not only children of the same Jacob, but worshippers of the same Jehovah. Though we must be ready to forgive all that in any way injure us, yet we must especially take heed of bearing malice towards any that are the servants of the God of our father: we should always treat fellow servants of the Lord with a peculiar tenderness; for we and they have the same Master.

Joseph, with a great deal of compassion, confirms his reconciliation and affection to them; his compassion appears as his tears of sorrow for their suspicion of him, possibly mixed with tears of tenderness on observing their submission and humility, flow together down his cheeks. His response is oh so wise and may the Lord give Christian leaders the grace to be as forgiving from the heart today as Joseph was. In his reply, Joseph directs them to look up to God in their repentance. He says, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” He, in his great humility, thought they showed him too much respect, as if all their happiness were bound up in his favor, and said to them, in effect, as Peter also said to Cornelius, Stand up, I myself also am a man. This is as though to say, “Make your peace with God, and then you will find it an easy matter to make your peace with me.” When we ask forgiveness of those whom we have offended we must be careful not to put them in the place of God, by dreading their anger and seeking their favor more than God’s. “Am I in the place of God, to whom alone vengeance belongs? No, I will leave you to His mercy.” Anyone who avenges themselves step into the place of God. Romans 12:19 says, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Joseph wisely and graciously reduces their fault, by remembering the great good which God wonderfully brought out of it. Though this might not make them the less sorry for their sin, still it gives us an insight into Joseph’s thinking and may explain partially why Joseph could be the more willing to forgive it. In this study we are tying to identify characteristics of good leaders and this is a mark of a great leader. Joseph said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” You thought evil, perhaps to disappoint my dreams, but God meant it for good.

If Joseph had not gone to Egypt and been humbled and wisened by his experiences there, he would never ever have become the greater blessing to his family and nearby nations that he became. When God makes use of men’s mistaken actions for the doing of His will, it is not unusual for Him to mean one thing and them another. Human action and God’s will can be quite to the contrary, but God’s counsel shall stand. Isaiah 10:7 is a curious and even mysterious verse, containing the spiritual truth that God may have one intention and the human tool He is using has quite another. “But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations.” God often brings good out of evil, and promotes the designs of His plan even by the sins of men. This does not mean that He is the author of sin, far be it from us to think so, but His infinite wisdom so overrules events, that the results end up to His praise which in its original human intention had a direct tendency to His dishonor. Here is the greatest example of this: the slaying of Jesus Christ. To nail the sinless Jesus to the cross was a grievous sin, but look what God did with it! Acts 2:23 says, “This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” This does not make sin the less sinful, nor sinners the less punishable, but it turns out to be greatly to the glory of God’s wisdom.

Joseph assures them of the continuance of his kindness to them: Fear not; I will nourish you. See what an excellent spirit and attitude Joseph had and learn from him to return good for evil. “‘So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” (21). He did not tell them they were on their good behavior, and that if he saw they conducted themselves well, then he would be kind to them. No, he would not hold them in suspense like that, nor seem jealous of them, though they had been suspicious of him. To the contrary, he comforted them. To banish all their fears, he spoke kindly to them. Broken spirits must be bound up and encouraged. Those we love and forgive we must not only do well for but speak kindly to. And if our own spirit is broken and humble all of this is much easier.

Next we will observe how Joseph’s life was preserved and prolonged in Egypt for he lived to be a hundred and ten years old. Verse 22 says, “Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years” Having honored his father, his own days were long in the land which God had given him until God promoted him to the heavenly Canaan. Probably, it was a great mercy to his relations that God kept him there so long as a support and comfort to them.

During Joseph’s remaining years in Egypt his family is built up. He lived to see his great-grand-children through Ephriam and his grand-children through Manasseh. Verse 23 says, “. . . and saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph’s knees.” We could reasonably conjecture that both Ephraim and Manasseh were accepted by the brothers as equal to any of them and their children as leaders of tribes that were to go by their names. I can tell you from my own experience that it is a great joy and source of satisfaction to see our two sons, Dan and Joel, flourishing in their service to the Lord in their generation. Psalm 128:6 says, “May you live to see your children’s children—peace be on Israel.”

Finally, Joseph’s last will and testament of Joseph is announced to his brothers. Probably some of the older ones were already dead, but we can assume Moses intends us readers to believe this included just the living brothers. To those of them who were still alive, and to the sons of those who were gone, who stood in their fathers’ stead, he said this. He comforted them with the assurance of their return to Canaan in due time. Verse 24 says, “Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Jacob had earlier spoken to Joseph. “Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘I am about to die, but God will be with you and take you back to the land of your fathers’” (Genesis 48;21). In this way  we all should comfort others with the same comforts with which we ourselves have been comforted by God, and encourage them to rest on those promises which have been our support.

Joseph was, under God, both the protector and the benefactor of his brethren; and what would become of them now that he was dying? Let this be their comfort, God will surely visit you. God’s gracious visits will serve to make up the loss of our best friends. They die; but we may live, and live comfortably, if we have the favor and presence of God with us. He tells them to be confident: God will bring you out of this land. So they must not hope to settle there, nor look on it as their rest for ever; they must set their hearts on the land of promise, and call that their home. They must not fear sinking, and being ruined there. Possibly the wise and insightful Joseph foresaw the bad treatment they would meet with in Egypt after his death, and therefore gives them this word of encouragement: “God will bring you in triumph out of this land at last.” Wise and insightful or not, Joseph certainly knew what God had told his great-grandfather, Abraham as is recorded in Genesis 15:13,14, “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.” So in God’s name, Joseph assures them of the performance of it. He said it also to be a confession of his own faith, and a confirmation of theirs, he charges them to keep him unburied until that day, that glorious day, would come, when they would be settled in the land of promise, “And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place” (25). He makes them promise him with an oath that they would bury him in Canaan. In Egypt they buried their great men very honorably and with abundance of pomp; but Joseph prefers a fairly obscure yet significant burial in Canaan, and that would be deferred almost 200 years, until the great deliverer, Moses, was used of God to bring Israel to Canaan. In this way Joseph, by faith in the resurrection and the promise of Canaan, is recorded in Hebrews 11:22. “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.” Joseph dies in Egypt; but by faith commits his bones to his brothers that God will surely visit Israel, and bring them to Canaan.

So Joseph dies in Egypt and his body is prepared for burial later in Canaan. Verse 26 says, “So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.”  Notice this detail. Joseph’s body was put in a coffin in Egypt, but not buried! This would not happen until his children had received their inheritance in Canaan as recorded in Joshua 24:32, “And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.”  After a believer’s death, if the soul, separated at death from the body, returns to its rest with God, it is no problem if the deserted and empty body does not find at all, or does not quickly find, its rest in the grave. Nevertheless, I myself having served many months in India, a nation where the dead bodies of unbelievers are cremated because they do not believe in a resurrection of the dead, I see a meaningful significance of the care Christians give to dead bodies of saints because of their belief of the resurrection.

Joseph’s final message is consistent with the major thrust of an emphasis in this entire series of teachings for leaders from the lives of the patriarchs. They all looked forward to another world; another life. In the sixty-eight lessons in this series we have seen this theme repeated. If you and I are to follow their examples, we too will be less concerned with earthly things and more concerned with heavenly matters. I believe this is a prerequisite for effective and good Christian leadership. If we are overly concerned about earthly, material and physical comforts, we will not be willing to single-mindedly press for the goal of taking many others with us to our Father’s house for eternity.