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1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

It really is the case that God buries His workers and carries on His work. After Joseph (who was such a great and gifted leader) was removed, the Old Testament ‘church’ exploded with numerical growth. This church started small (5), but it didn’t stay that way. How we need to take on board one of the early messages in 1 Corinthians; namely that we should place no human leader on a pedestal, be it ‘Paul’ or ‘Apollos’ or ‘Cephas’, or anyone else. At best, people are servants working in God’s field or on His building site. It is God Himself who gives the growth. He can do it without Joseph if He so chooses.

Ultimately, the growth of Israel in Egypt came about because it was God’s purpose (see e.g. Gen.12:1,2). God keeps His promises, but He does it in His own way and according to His own time-scale. So trust and patience will be required.

PRAYER: I ask for the faith and patience to walk in step with you, Lord – especially on those ‘quiet’ days when life is hard and nothing much seems to be happening.

“So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.”

Just a final word on Joseph from Dr. Campbell Morgan:

‘Commit your life to God, see vision, do the work that’s nearest, the work He appoints, truly and well and faithfully, and die knowing that you have started delicate influences, dynamic forces which will proceed through every succeeding generation until they gather up the harvest of glorious result about the throne of the Eternal. The man of God has not finished his work in the world when they put him in a coffin.’

“And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead” (Hebrews 11:4). What was said of Abel is also true of Joseph – and other great heroes of the faith. As Warren Wiersbe points out, we are still being impacted by Joseph’s life today. We have learned so much from him these past few months

John Wesley famously said, ‘God buries his workman, but His work goes on.’ This is something we will see as we move into the book of ‘Exodus’ on Monday.

“The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).

PRAYER: Take a moment or two to reflect on some of the blessings of the Genesis story for you. As you have read it again, how has it spoken to you? Thank God for what He has shown you. There will be no notes published tomorrow, but we will begin to look at ‘Exodus’ from Monday.

22 Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years 23 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.
24 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.” 25 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.”
26 So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Note:

• The miracle of mended relationships (22): there is such grace lying behind the opening sentence of verse 22. Only God could bring this about. What forgiveness Joseph exhibited – all because of God. He chose, with divine help, to take the high road;
• The majesty of this long life (22b, 26a): Joseph lived to be 110. Now, at the end of his life, we can pause, look back, and remember the highs and lows, the peaks and troughs of Joseph’s journey. He had experienced such adversity; endured great injustice. But he rose above it all, like some huge mountain towering above the valley floor. There is a majesty about his story which, as we have seen, is a foreshadowing of the life of Christ Himself;
• The mortality of all men: even if you should live to be as old as Joseph, your day to leave the world will come. Life is short, even when it is long, and the greatest among us will pass away. As someone observed, ‘Death is the ultimate statistic: one out of one dies!’;
• The meaning bestowed by faith (24): On his death-bed Joseph spoke in faith, with the Spirit of prophecy upon him. There is almost a parallel with his father Jacob. He died trusting God’s Word. May this be true for us all.

‘Like his father, Joseph knew what he believed and where he belonged. If we consider all the experiences he had experienced in life, it is remarkable that Joseph had any faith at all. He knew God’s promise to Abraham that the nation would be delivered from Egypt (15:12-16), and he reiterated the promise to his family. Joseph had brought them to Egypt and cared for them in Egypt. His coffin reminded them that God would bring them out of Egypt. What an encouragement this was during the dark days of their bondage. Our encouragement today is not a coffin but an empty tomb (1 Peter 1:3ff.).’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.46.

19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Here are three important things to always remember:

• You (and I) are not God (19). It’s stating the obvious, but we’re not. It is not our job to judge anyone. To our own Master we each stand or fall. (By the way, a weekly sabbath can help us remember we’re not God. It is one of its values. It reminds us that the universe, the world and the church do continue without our efforts. It can keep us in your place, and prepare us for the reality of death, when life will not stop because we have gone. It would, of course, if God were to disappear from the scene, but that is just not going to happen!);
• God is in control (20). Joseph had been given a wonderful perspective on his circumstances. In loving and forgiving his brothers, he did not minimise the gravity of their crimes. He didn’t sweep sin under the carpet. But he recognised that God had a higher purpose in all the wrong intended, and done, to him. The ultimate expression of this principle is worked out at the cross, of which we can say both bad men did it and a good God did it. Both are true (see Acts 4:27,28);
• Treat everyone with kindness and respect, and especially those who mistreat you (21). Joseph shows this is possible by God’s grace (see Romans 12:14;17-21).

15 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?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘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.
18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.

Warren Wiersbe writes about three ‘burials’ in Genesis 50; and between the burial of Jacob and Joseph, coming at the beginning and end of the chapter, we have in the middle the ‘burial’ of the past.

No wonder “Joseph wept” when his brothers spoke as they did. He had been so gracious to them. He had forgiven them everything. He held nothing against them. It must have hurt deeply then, that they were not convinced of his love for them.

I was thinking, aren’t we so often like this in our approach to God. Like the prodigal son we say, ”…make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:19). But He sees us as sons, and treats us accordingly.

PRAYER: Lord, help me please to really believe in your love for me, and to revel in it. Enable me to bathe in the wonder of ‘love so amazing, so divine…’

15 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?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘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.
18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.

As a child, I was often given a penny, or half-penny, to spend on sweets from the ‘penny tray’ at a shop I passed on the way to school. But one day, for some un-remembered reason, I had a larger amount of cash than normal in my pocket. I entrusted this to a friend to go and buy the goodies. When he returned with quite a large stash he told me the shopkeeper had said to him, ‘Make sure you share these.’ Of course I did, and I’m sure I intended to. But I’ve often wondered, did she really say that, or was he just making it up out of enlightened self-interest?!!

Similarly, whenever I read this chapter, I find myself thinking, ‘Did Jacob say what the brothers claimed (16, 17)? Or were they just inventing a script to try to cover their backs? Was it fear talking? I can find no evidence Jacob did utter these words.

Well maybe he did; maybe he didn’t. But I know how easily I can invent scenarios in my mind that bear no correspondence to reality. I do it all too often. At times there is a strong whiff of manure lying over this fertile field of my thoughts. Anxiety can cause vain imaginings. You end up having unreal conversations with people inside your head, and sadly, believing what isn’t true.

Anyway, it’s not surprising Joseph was distressed that they so distrusted him, especially when his intentions towards them were totally gracious.

PRAYER: Lord, your word tells us not to lie, and we know we shouldn’t lie to ourselves either. Please help us in our human weakness. Again and again we ‘jump at shadows.’ Please forgive us for when we misrepresent others to ourselves. Lord have mercy, and empower us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. May we controlled by wholesome thinking.

4 When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, “If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, 5 ‘My father made me swear an oath and said, “I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.’”6 Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt— 8 besides all the members of Joseph’s household and his brothers and those belonging to his father’s household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. 9 Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.10 When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. 11 When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning.” That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.12 So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them: 13 They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 14 After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.

Regarding this burial, Tom Hale writes:

‘The reader is reminded of God’s promise to Jacob when he left Canaan to go down to Egypt: “I will surely bring you back again” (Genesis 46:4). Here once again we see the fulfillment of God’s promise. But beyond that, the great procession described here is a hint, a foreshadowing of an even greater procession that would take place four hundred years later: the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt and their fourty-year journey to the promised land. Even the roundabout routes of the two processions were similar: in both cases Canaan was entered from the east.’ ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, pp.202, 203.

There is a sense in which, following each and every burial, we have to ‘return to Egypt.’ What I mean to say is that life has to go on and we have to live it. Back in 2009 I was given a number of books on grieving and bereavement. They were all helpful in their own way. But the stand-out phrase I took away from one of them was, ‘You have to establish a new normal.’ I found that thought so helpful. The ‘old normal’ has gone and will not return, but you can build new patterns. (I appreciate that in the last eighteen months, this phrase has been used re life during, and after, the pandemic, but I think I will always associate it primarily with rebuilding life after loss).

Joseph’s ‘new normal’ back in Egypt involved adjusting to the painful reality that his father was dead, and he would never see him again in this world. But his life went on, as we shall see. It also went on for his brothers.

Life does go on. What, of course, is wrong, is that any of us should insist that people move on when they are not ready. Every grieving soul will move at their own pace, and they need sympathetic, patient friends to walk with them.

‘This was Joseph’s first trip back to his homeland in thirty-nine years, and it’s too bad it had to be for his father’s burial. But he didn’t linger in Canaan, for God had given Joseph a job to do in Egypt, and that’s where he belonged with his family.’

Life does go on, and for every believer there is always work to do.

PRAYER: We pause to pray today for all those who have lost their nearest and dearest. They face the huge challenging of carrying on without those they love. Help them, in your timing, to live again, and give them true companions on their journey. Enable me to be a ‘friend indeed’ to friends in need.

50 Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. 2 Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, 3 taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

Who can not be moved by this scene? Although things turned around massively for Joseph in later years, because of the sins of others he lost years of life with his father. He’d had him ‘back’ for a relatively short time when he had to let him go again. There was no doubt a difference between the formal mourning of the Egyptians, and Joseph’s personal grief.

The Bible is an emotional book. Feelings (all kinds of feelings) are expressed freely throughout its pages. Our Lord Jesus, we are told:

“During the days of (his) life on earth…offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death…” (Hebrews 5:7).

The Anglican poet and pastor, John Keble, called tears “the best gift of God to suffering man.” Tears
can be cathartic. They can bring release and a form of healing. The Bible does not ask us to stuff down genuine grief. It hurts when we lose those we love. No-one can ever understand this heartache until they face it. So don’t be too quick to pour out your ‘wise counsel’ on the bereaved if you’ve not walked that way. Grieving people often have to endure (in addition to their grief) the well-intentioned, but hurtful platitudes and cliches of those who have no idea. We must learn to walk lovingly, kindly and gently with those going through this deep, dark valley

The Bible does not say that Christians don’t grieve, but it does imply that the “hope” we have in some way transforms the grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13ff).

‘…when old people die, those who love them feel the loss deeply. The longer you have someone in your life that you really love, the deeper the roots go into your heart and the more wrenching is the experience of having those roots pulled up.’ Warren W.Wiersbe: ‘Old Testament Commentary’, p.140.

Then he gave them these instructions: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 31 There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. 32 The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.”
33 When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

When a believer dies, they are gathered to their people in more ways than one. We recently buried my dad’s ashes in his parents’ grave in Lancaster. The ashes of his sister and brother-in-law are also in that same plot. I understand it was his cherished wish to be ‘with’ his parents and, for us, as a family, there was a sense of taking him ‘home.’ But as a Christian, it is my conviction that dad is ‘home’ in a far more significant way, and it is comforting to think of the family reunion they are having in another world, another dimension. However, greater than any of this is the reality of being ‘forever with the Lord.’

Jacob was still living by faith when he died, and his last instruction shows it. (This is a repetition of 47:29,30, but in greater detail. He had already spoken to Joseph about the matter, but now he wanted all his sons to be aware of their joint responsibility.) Jacob, too, wanted to be in the same grave as his parents and grandparents, and one of his wives – Leah. But for him it wasn’t primarily an emotional request. It was a statement of faith. Tom Hale explains that that this burial place, where Abraham and Isaac and their wives were buried, was like an “advance” or “deposit” on the family’s eventual inheritance of the promised land. Later, Joseph was to request that his bones be carried to Canaan (50:24,25). ‘In this way the founding fathers of Israel confirmed their faith that indeed, one day, the land would belong to their descendants.’ ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.202.

PRAYER: Thank you Lord for the hope of a richer, fuller life beyond this life for all who trust in Christ