Joseph’s Brothers and His Death – Genesis 50:15-26

Receiving forgiveness.  Easy?  Not always.  Sometimes we don’t receive it because we’re too proud to be humbled in that way.  Sometimes we feel what we have done is too awful to forgive.  Sometimes we cannot forgive ourselves, so how could someone else forgive us.  Joseph’s brothers are struggling with receiving his forgiveness.

[15] When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” [16] So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: [17] ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. [18] His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” [19] But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? [20] As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. [21] So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

[22] So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. [23] And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own. [24] And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” [25] Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” [26] So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50:15–26, ESV)

The brothers’ report of their father’s command seems highly suspicious.  Why wouldn’t Jacob have directly commanded Joseph to forgive them rather than sending the message through the brothers?  At first they don’t go directly, face-to-face, to tell Joseph this message, but send it to him through a messenger.  Then they came to him and bowed down, again as his dream many years before had predicted, and declared themselves his servants.  It broke Joseph’s heart.  We can imagine that this is the heart of God, also, when we don’t receive His forgiveness.

Joseph affirms his forgiveness of his brothers.  He does not dismiss that they have sinned against him (“you meant evil against me”), but he is not God that he should avenge their evil.  And he sees that what they meant for evil God meant for good.  God used their wicked behavior to bring about the rescue of their family.  As many have said, this is the Romans 8:28 of the Old Testament.  God causes all things to work together for good to those who are the called according to His purpose.  Of course, God could have gotten Joseph to Egypt another way, or rescued Israel another way, without the hateful actions of his brothers.  Their guilt was not removed because of the good end that came from it.

The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph.  He has lived a long and prosperous life.  He sees the third generation of his second son Ephraim, the one favored by Jacob in his blessing.  He adopts the grandchildren of his firstborn son, Manasseh, as his own, showing some favoritism perhaps to his firstborn.  But most importantly, he instructs his brothers about the certainty that God will return them to Canaan and makes them swear they will take his bones with them and bury him there (his bones were taken by Moses and Joshua to Canaan and buried in Shechem, Joshua 24:32).

It would be 400 years before Joseph’s bones would be taken to Canaan.  Being embalmed preserved his entire body to be taken.  Did Joseph know he was going to be embalmed or was he thinking his body would decompose and his bones would be re-entombed (in an ossuary)?  Surely he knew that all high officials of Egypt were embalmed.  So we may suppose he was speaking in a colloquial way about being re-buried in Israel.

God is fulfilling His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make them a blessing to all nations, and to make them a great nation.  The promise of Genesis 3:15 is being carried out through this chosen people.