Genesis 50

14. And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to 15 bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their 16 father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the 17 evil which we did unto him. And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did 18 command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the 19 transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil; and now, we 20 pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph 21 wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; 22 and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not; for am I 23 in the place of God? And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good,

21 to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them. 22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born upon Joseph’s knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: but God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

15-20. If Joseph had been rancorous, this depreciation had charmed him; but now it resolves him into tears: they are not so ready to acknowledge their old offence, as he to protest his love; and if he chide them for anything, it is for that they thought they needed to entreat; since they might know it could not stand with the fellow-servant of their father’s God, to harbor maliciousness, to purpose revenge; “Am not I under God?” And, fully to secure them he turns their eyes from themselves to the decree of God; from the action to the event; as one that would have them think there was no cause to repent of that which proved so successful. Bp. II.—20. Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. In using this language Joseph by no means intended to upbraid his brethren with what they had thought against him. His mention of their intentions was only designed as a contrast to the gracious intentions of God. What he had told them seventeen years before, he still adhered to, and the same considerations which induced him to pass by their offence then, induced him to do it still. Bush.

The true Christian forgiveness, as here in Joseph’s example, is unconditional. It was a frank, full, free remission—consoling them—trying to make them forget—neither by look nor word showing memory, unless the fault had been repeated. It was unconditional, with no reserve behind. That was forgiving and forgetting. No mere maxims got by heart about forgiveness of injuries—no texts perpetually on the tongue will do this—God alone can teach it: By experience; by a sense of human frailty; by a perception of “the soul of goodness in things evil;” by a cheerful trust in human nature; by a strong sense of God’s love; by long and disciplined realization of the atoning love of Christ: only thus can we get that free, manly, large, princely spirit which the best and purest of all the patriarchs, Joseph, exhibited in his matured manhood. F. W. R.

“Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good”—that is the golden lesson that comes out of this whole history. The Providence of God was in and over every incident in it, making them all co-operate for the bringing about of the great design which he had for the deliverance of the people in famine, for the education of the children of Israel in Egypt, and for the unification of them at length into a nation capable of taking possession of the Land of Promise. W. M. T.

When God makes use of men’s agency for the performance of his counsels, it is common for him to mean one thing, and them another, even the quite contrary; but God’s counsels shall stand (see Is. 10:7). God often brings good out of evil and serves the designs of his providence, even by the sins of men; not that he is the Author of sin, but his infinite wisdom so overrules events and directs the chain of them, that in the issue that ends in his praise which in its own nature had a direct tendency to his dishonor; as the putting of Christ to death (Acts 2:23). This does not make sin the less sinful, nor sinners the less punishable, but it redounds greatly to the glory of God’s wisdom. II.—God does not hinder evil by force; but even the abuse of human freedom to evil, He takes as a link in the chain of His adorable scheme of providence. Man is judged, not by the results, but by the motives and aim of his conduct; and moral evil remains evil, although higher wisdom interfere and from it bring forth good. Men were but instruments; but the counsel of God is fulfilled, and the fulfilment is nothing less than the deliverance of an entire nation. Van O.—At the end we see the wisdom and goodness of the design; while at the beginning, or at the middle, we see nothing but darkness. Thus it was dark when Joseph was thrown into the pit; when he was sold into Egypt; when by a false accusation he was cast into prison. The lingering days of that imprisonment were dark; but they lasted not one moment too long. Had one of the links in the chain of Providence been omitted, Joseph might never have been ruler in Egypt, nor his father and his father’s house been kept alive from famine. Joseph’s faith must have been sorely tried, as he could not foresee the end of the Lord, nor the reason of these dealings. Yet that trial and chastening might have been necessary to fit him for his subsequent advancement to power; and without them his exaltation might have been his ruin for time and eternity. God meant it all for good. And see how the subordinate purposes of God entwine together, and interweave themselves with the great purpose of the main scheme. Joseph was blessed, his father’s house was saved; but God was also preparing a history by which men may believe his goodness while as yet they are unable to perceive it. The benefits conferred upon Joseph and his family were, perhaps, as nothing, compared with the greater and more enduring benefits to them who read his history. An.

22. Joseph dwelt in Egypt.** At the death of his father Joseph’s age was 56, and he lived after that event 54 years more. The records of Egyptian history show that Apophis, the patron of Joseph, reigned alone 61 years. It was about the 51st or 54th year of his reign that Jacob and his family came into Egypt; so that he died about seven or ten years after that event, and consequently before the decease of Jacob, Joseph, then, survived Apophis many years, and was minister to his successors on the throne. According to Manetho, the successor of Apophis was named Jannes. He associated with himself his son Asses, who, according to the monuments, was “a most munificent and prosperous monarch.” It is highly probable, then, that Jannes and Asses were the monarchs of Egypt during the latter period of the life of Joseph; and so valuable a servant had he proved to Apophis, that they retained him in the office which he held. The benefits he had conferred on Egypt were of the greatest value and importance, and they were not forgotten when he became infirm. He was had in esteem to the end of his days. M.

Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. Eighty of which he spent in great prosperity, being but thirty years old when he first stood before Pharaoh. Bp. Patrick.—The life of Joseph was very different from that of his fathers. He lived in a sumptuous palace, honored by the whole nation of Egypt, and by the surrounding nations, as the wisest and one of the greatest of men. Yet he lived in his palace by faith, as his fathers had done in their tents. Not surely for the sake of the honors and pleasures which the court of Egypt could afford him, but rather because it was the will of

God that he should dwell there to be a father to Pharaoh, and to be the shepherd of Israel. Bush.

23-26. Joseph had the joy of seeing his father’s blessing commence to be fulfilled. Ephraim’s children of the third generation and Manasseh’s grandchildren “were brought up upon his knees.” As he felt death approaching he gathered “his brethren” about him. Joseph was full of honors in Egypt; he had founded a family than which none was more highly placed. Yet his last act was to disown Egypt, and to choose the lot of Israel, to renounce the present in order to cleave unto the future. It was a noble act of faith, true like that of his fathers! His last words were these: “I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” And his last deed was to take a solemn oath of the children of Israel, to carry up his bones with them into the land of promise. In obedience to his wishes they embalmed his body, and laid it in one of those Egyptian coffins, generally made of sycamore wood, which resembled the shape of the human body. And there, through ages of suffering and bondage, stood the figure-like coffin of Joseph, ready to be lifted and carried thence when the sure hour of deliverance had come. Thus Joseph, being dead, yet spake to Israel, telling them that they were only temporary sojourners in Egypt, that their eyes must be turned away from Egypt unto the land of promise, and that in patience of faith they must wait for that hour when God would certainly and graciously fulfil his own promise. A. E.

For a confession of his own faith, and a confirmation of theirs, he charges them to keep him unburied till that day should come, when they should be settled in the land of promise. He makes them promise him with an oath, that they would bury him in Canaan. Joseph prefers a significant burial in Canaan, before a magnificent one in Egypt. Thus Joseph, by faith in the doctrine of the resurrection and the promise of Canaan, gave commandment concerning his bones (Heb. 11:22). He dies in Egypt; but lays his bones at stake, that God will surely visit Israel and bring them to Canaan. H.—The most remarkable of all features in the character of Joseph is that which comes out in his dying charge, “God will surely visit you—bury me not in Egypt—carry my bones hence.” So the Apostle evidently regarded it, since in looking over the whole life of Joseph for an instance best illustrating his heroic faith in God, he passes by his wonderful faith in prison, his faith in the warnings of God of the approaching famine—his faith that could comfort brethren with the assurance “it was not you that did it but God”—and selects this dying charge as the most wonderful instance of all—“By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones.” Instead of desiring the Egypt of coming ages to remember their obligation to the son of Jacob, he desires no part or lot there, even a monument for himself, nor desires his brethren to settle permanently there, evinces most wonderful faith, and shows that the word of the God of Abraham and his promise were of infinitely more value in Joseph’s view than all the glory of Egypt. And even though that promise reached forward into a far distant future, his faith gave it reality, as the substance of a thing hoped for. It is saying, in effect, do not permit yourselves to be led astray from the covenant by your present prosperity. Remember, this is not your rest. Be ever on the alert, watching for the signal of your departure. You are pilgrims and strangers now, as all your fathers were. Thus the dying saint aims to win them away from that very glory to which he had attained, and from that prosperity to which he had brought them. And well, therefore, might the Apostle cite it as an illustrious instance of faith. S. R.—This man, surrounded by an ancient civilization, and dwelling among granite temples and solid pyramids, and firm-based sphinxes, the very emblems of eternity, confessed that here he had no continuing city, but sought one to come. As truly as his ancestors who dwelt in tabernacles; like Abraham journeying with his camels and herds, and pitching his tent outside the walls of Hebron; like Isaac in the grassy plains of the South country; like Jacob keeping himself apart from the families of the land, their descendant, an heir with them of the same promise, showed that he too regarded himself as a “stranger and a sojourner.” Dying, he said, “Carry my bones up from hence.” Therefore we may be sure that, living, the hope of the inheritance must have burned in his heart as a hidden light, and made him an alien everywhere but on its blessed soil. And faith will always produce just such effects. In exact proportion to its strength, that living trust in God will direct our thoughts and desires to the “King in his beauty, and the land that is very far off.” A. M.

When we are called to leave the earth, the work in which we delighted shall not be lost.

We die, but God lives; and we may be sure that under his care it will flourish. And the same thing holds true of the loved ones whom we are called to leave on earth. God remains to take care of them, so that we may say to them as Joseph did to his kinsmen, “I die, but God will surely visit you.” Though he have no other legacy to leave them, the dying Christian can leave his God to his children, and is not that enough? Therefore when we are in departing, we may take comfort in the thought that the covenant of Jehovah is with us and with our children, and that he remains to keep that covenant with those whom we leave behind us. W. M. T.

The faith of the dying Jacob dwells upon the memories of the past with all its hereditary associations. It was natural enough, for he had recently left Canaan, an old man, and he longs that his dust shall mingle with that of those he loved. But the dying Joseph’s request has reference to the future rather than to the past. As Jacob belongs to the generations that have lived and died in Canaan, so Joseph belongs to the new generations of young Israel that are to spring up in Egypt from him as the fountain-head. Hence it is that while Jacob commanded, take me back to Canaan, and bury me beside my father and my wife, Joseph’s command is, “Keep me among you, for after death I would be one of you, and return along with you.” And while this is the principle that animated the faith of Joseph, there was also a profound reason of expediency for his course. He desires though dead to be yet speaking, and teaching his people perpetually the lesson so likely to be forgotten by them, which he now seeks to impress by his dying words. Joseph knew how likely they would be amid all this worldly prosperity to suffer God’s great truths to drop out of their consciousness. He will therefore stand among them as a perpetual monitor. He will have his embalmed corpse remain unsepulchred, because his people are waiting to return to Canaan, and Joseph, so far as his dead body can represent him, desires to go with them. His corpse shall stand as a perpetual symbol of a family waiting to go when the Lord God of Abraham shall call them. A mysterious but eloquent preacher—the more eloquent as silence is greater than speech—shall be this skeleton preacher, standing in the great banqueting hall of Ephraim’s house or Manasseh’s to keep Israel in perpetual remembrance. In solemn funeral tones it seemed to say even in the midst of festal gayeties, “This is not your rest, you have another home secured to you by the covenant of God. Egypt is not your home. Let not its smiles deceive you, nor its after frowns frighten you. Set not your hearts upon it. Remember the promises are all bound up in Canaan. Let the habit of your life be fashioned not after Egypt’s license, but after the holy covenant of Canaan. And when sorrows come, as they will come, be assured, as you look upon my unsepulchred body, that the tribulations of Egypt are to end in the joy and peace of Canaan." And that Joseph judged wisely in this heroic act of faith their subsequent history testifies. Amid all the hurry of leaving Egypt on that memorable passover night we are expressly told (Ex. 13:19): “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.” And that the cherished remains were faithfully carried through all the forty years of rebellion and wandering in the wilderness, we know from the second in Joshua 24:32. “And the bones of Joseph which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt buried they at Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver, and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.” As this case of Joseph is a beautiful, practical example of what life believers should live, so is this death-bed scene a striking example of what should be a Christian’s dying concern. As in life—whether in great prosperity or in the depths of adversity—you should strive, like him, to keep a steady eye on the promised inheritance, so in the arrangements for dying it should be a chief concern that children and friends shall be more effectually admonished, after you are gone, to fix their hearts, not on the transitory glories of Egypt, but upon the enduring pleasures of the Canaan which is promised to the household of faith. S. R.

With the magnanimity of a great and pure soul, he passed uncontaminated through the flatteries and temptations of court-life; and, like Moses, “esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.” He has not indulged in any affectation of simplicity, nor has he, in the pride that apes humility, declined the ordinary honors due to a man in his position. He has lived in a region in which such honors make no deep impression; and in his death he shows where his heart has been. The small voice of God, spoken centuries ago to his forefathers, deafens him to the loud acclaim with which the people do him homage. By later generations this dying request of Joseph’s was looked upon as one of the most remarkable instances of faith. And through all the terrible bondage they were destined to suffer, the embalmed body of Joseph stood as the most eloquent advocate of God’s faithfulness, ceaselessly reminding the despondent generations of the oath which God would yet enable them to fulfil. And thus, as Joseph had been their pioneer who broke out a way for them into Egypt, so did he continue to hold open the gate and point the way back to Canaan. Jacob had been carried up to Canaan as soon as he was dead: Joseph declines this exceptional treatment, and prefers to share the fortunes of his brethren, and will then only enter on the promised land when all his people can go with him. As in life, so in death, he took a large view of things, and had no feeling that the world ended in him. His career had taught him to consider national interests; and now, on his death-bed, it is from the point of view of his people that he looks at the future. Dods.

The person of Joseph is not mentioned in the Old or the New Testament as a type of Christ. The facts of his life in their hearing on the future were unquestionably typical. A. E.—It is a fundamental law of the whole of the sacred history, till its ultimate completion, that the way of salvation leads through abasement to exaltation, through serving to ruling, through sacrifice to possession, through suffering to glory. And this fundamental law, of which the highest and most perfect manifestation is seen in the life of the Redeemer, was first displayed in a definite and concrete form in the life of Joseph. The typical character of the life of Joseph consists in this, that he, the first temporary deliverer of Israel, who brought the first stage of its history to a close, like the perfect Saviour of Israel in whom its entire history terminated, was slighted, despised, persecuted, and betrayed by “his own;” that like Him he passed through abasement, service, and suffering, to exaltation and glory, and also that like Him he succeeded at length in softening their hardened hearts by the fulness of his forgiving love, and in raising his own to the enjoyment of the benefits which he had secured for them. K.

In the four great patriarchs, faith showed itself under different phases or modes of operation. In Abraham we admire the firm, unshaken confidence, and the unhesitating obedience of faith, in all its power and fulness. In Isaac, faith is exercised in patient endurance and suffering, in quietness and waiting. In Jacob, it has to wrestle hard with flesh and blood,—with the corruptions of the heart within, as well as with the ills of the world without. In

Joseph, it is seen both enduring patiently and working laboriously, and is crowned at last with signal victory. W. G. B.—Joseph, indeed, seemed to inherit and happily combine the highest qualities of his ancestors. He had Abraham’s dignity and capacity, Isaac’s purity and power of self-devotion, Jacob’s cleverness, buoyancy and tenacity. Diels.

The last of the patriarchs, as Joseph has been called, his character is almost without a flaw, and there are in it some of the most admirable traits ever exhibited to the world. Jehovah was with him; and therefore, as a modern writer has said, “he was a slave, and yet a free man; unfortunate, and yet a child of fortune; abandoned, yet still standing firm in the fiercest temptations; forlorn, yet still in the presence of God; an object of impending wrath, yet still preserved alive; a state prisoner, and yet a prison-keeper; every way subdued, yet ever again superior to his condition.” The Lord was with Joseph to the last. He was always great, and always through faith victorious over evil and sin. His trials were such as few men are called to bear; but he rose superior to them,—the trials of adversity, and the still greater trials of prosperity, only serving to bring out the noble qualities of his mind. In his self-sacrificing spirit, in his love for his brethren, in his readiness to forgive, in his providing for the necessities of a numerous people, in his elevation to the government of a mighty nation, and in the wisdom with which he administered its affairs, we can now see set forth the greatness of the Redeemer of the world; but, as the antitype is always superior to the type, so Christ is in every respect far above Joseph, and to him, therefore, every knee must bow, and every tongue confess. Thornley Smith.

We mark in Joseph a constant recognition of the presence of God with him. That seems to be the one great, all-dominating consciousness of his life. His history was a constant “walk with God.” His faith had almost the strength of sight. He felt that the Lord was round about him, and whatever men might intend he knew that God always “meant it unto good.” This faith in the constant presence of God with him kept him from being either very much depressed by adversity, or exceedingly elated by prosperity. God was with him in the dungeon, and that kept him from over-estimating its hardships; God was with him in the chariot, and that kept him from over-estimating its honor. W. M. T.

Here ends the fourth and last division of the book (chs. 12-50) containing the history of the Patriarchs. The groundwork is now fully laid for the history of the people of Israel, and for all the historical allusions necessary for the illustration of their history, and of the purpose of God in selecting and setting them apart as his chosen people. T. J. C.

The sacred writer here takes leave of the chosen family, and closes the bible of the sons of Israel. It is truly a wonderful book. It lifts the veil of mystery that hangs over the present condition of the human race. It records the origin and fall of man, and thus explains the coexistence of moral evil and a moral sense of God and judgment in the soul of man. It records the cause and mode of the confusion of tongues, and thus explains the concomitance of the unity of the race and the specific diversity of mode or form in human speech. It records the call of Abraham, and thus accounts for the preservation of the knowledge of God and his mercy in one section of the human race, and the corruption or loss of it in all the rest. It solves the fundamental questions of physics, ethics, philology, and theology for the race of Adam. It notes the primitive relation of man to God, and marks the three great stages of human development that came in with Adam, Noah, and Abraham. It points out the three forms of sin that usher in these stages,—the fall of Adam, the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, and the building of the tower of Babel. It gradually unfolds the purpose and method of grace to the returning penitent through a Deliverer who is successively announced as the seed of the woman, of Shem, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. Hence the Lord establishes his covenant successively with Adam, Noah, and Abraham; with Adam after the fall tacitly, with Noah expressly, and with both generally as the representatives of the race descending from them; with Abraham specially and instrumentally as the channel through which the blessings of salvation might be at length extended to all the families of the earth. M.

The Law and the Prophets of the next Dispensation had their prototypes in that of the Patriarchs. Among these the distinction of clean and unclean is already known, as much in detail as under the Levitical Law, every animal being arranged by Noah in one class or the other; and the clean being exclusively used by him for sacrifice. The blood, which is the life of the animal, is withheld as food. Murder is denounced as demanding death for its punishment. Adultery is forbidden, as we learn from the cases of Pharaoh and Abimelech, of Reuben, and Joseph. Oaths are binding. Fornication is condemned, as in the case of Sheehan, who is said “to have wrought folly in Israel, which thing ought not to be done.” Marriage with the uncircumcised or idolater is prohibited. A curse is denounced on him that setteth light by his father or his mother. Purifications are enjoined those who approach a holy place, for Jacob bids his people “be clean and change their garments” before they present themselves at Bethel. The brother is already commanded to marry the brother’s widow, and to raise up seed unto his brother. These laws, afterward incorporated in the Levitical, drop out incidentally in the book of Genesis, as the course of the narrative happens to turn them up. They are therefore to be reckoned fragments of a more full and complete code which was the groundwork in all probability of the Levitical code itself; for it is difficult to suppose that where there were these there were not others like to them. But this is not all—the Patriarchs had their sacrifices, that great and leading rite of the Church of Aaron; the subjects of those sacrifices fixed; useless without the shedding of blood; for what but the violation of an express command full of meaning could have constituted the sin of Cain? It is impossible to read the particulars of Abraham’s offering of the heifer, the goat, the ram, the turtle-dove, and the pigeon—their ages, their sex, the circumspection with which he dissects and disposes them—without feeling assured that very minute directions upon all these points were vouchsafed to the Patriarchal Church. She had her Sacraments; for sacrifice was one, and circumcision was the other. Then as she had her sacrifices and sacraments, so had she her types—types which in number scarcely yield to those of the Levitical Law, in precision and interest perhaps exceed them. For we meet with them in the names and fortunes of individuals whom the Almighty Disposer of events, without doing violence to the natural order of things, exhibits as pages of a living book in which the Promise is to be read—as characters expressing his counsels and covenants writ by his own finger—as actors, whereby he holds up to a world, not yet prepared for less gross and sensible impressions, scenes to come. Indeed I see the Promise all Genesis through, so that our Lord might well begin with Moses in expounding the things concerning himself; and well might Philip say, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law did write.” I see the Promise all Genesis through, and if we construct a rude and imperfect Temple of Patriarchal Worship out of the fragments which offer themselves to our hands in that history, the Messiah to come is the spirit that must fill that Temple with his all-pervading presence; none other than he must be the Shekinah of the Tabernacle we have reared. Couple it with this consideration, and the scheme of Revelation, like the physical scheme, proceeds with beautiful uniformity—a unity of plan connecting the meanest accidents of a household with the most illustrious visions of a prophet. Abstracted from this consideration, it presents details of actions, some trifling, some even offensive, pursued at a length (when compared with the whole) singularly disproportionate; while things which the angels would desire to look into are passed over and forgotten. But this principle once admitted, and all is consecrated—all assumes a new aspect—trifles that seem at first not bigger than a man’s hand, occupy the heavens. It is upon this principle of interpretation that we may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, who have made those parts of the Mosaic History a stumbling-block to many, which, if rightly understood, are the very testimony of the covenant; and a principle, which is thus extensive in its application and successful in its results, which explains so much that is difficult, and answers so much that is objected against, has, from this circumstance alone, strong presumption in its favor, strong claims upon our sober regard. Such is the structure that appears to unfold itself, if we do but bring together the scattered materials of which it is composed. The place of worship—the priest to minister—the sacerdotal dress—the ceremonial forms—the appointed seasons for holy things—preachers—prophets—a code of laws—sacrifices—sacraments—types—and a Messiah in prospect, as leading a feature of the whole scheme, as He now is in retrospect of a scheme which has succeeded it. Complete the building is not, but still there is symmetry in its component parts, and unity in its whole. Yet Moses was certainly not contemplating any description of a Patriarchal Church. He had other matters in his thoughts: he was the mediator not of this system, but of another, which he was now to set forth in all its details, even of the Levitical. Blunt.