In Your Offspring Shall All Nations Be Blessed
One Study in Genesis 44–50
by David Gooding
God made four promises to Abraham: 1. that he would give him the land of Canaan; 2. that he would give him offspring; 3. that he would bless him; 4. that in his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. In Genesis 44–50 we see the first-level fulfilment of the fourth promise.
Jacob’s family would have to be built into a tribe and allowed to develop until they became the nation of Israel. It began with Jacob’s sons and their treatment of Joseph. God meant it for good, and when the famine came, Joseph was the means of saving the Egyptians and also his family back in Canaan. When Jacob went to live in Egypt, he would have had very little idea of their part in history. Would these men really be the carriers of God’s promise, and their names engraved on the gates of the eternal city (Rev 21:12)?
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A very good evening to you once more. It’s good to see you at this final study in the book of Genesis. I share your disappointment that our brother is not able to continue what he so nobly began some weeks ago; that is, to outline the final section of the book of Genesis and to bring its message home to our hearts.
It is as a small reward tonight that I am handing out a kind of New Year’s present, in the form of this sheaf of notes. It is simply a table of contents for the last section of the book of Genesis. It will be useful this evening, particularly to me more than to you. It should help us to save a little time; and that is always of great benefit when I am the preacher, so the congregation thinks! In addition, it might conceivably be of some use if ever you should return to study this part of Genesis in detail.
Let us do some reading in the book of Genesis—three lengthy passages. It is, after all, a book of narrative, and we cannot make real sense of it unless we attend to the detail of the narrative.
We’ll begin with Genesis 44:18–45:1.
Then Judah went up to him and said, ‘Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, saying, “Have you a father, or a brother?” And we said to my lord, “We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.” Then you said to your servants, “Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.” We said to my lord, “The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.” Then you said to your servants, “Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.”
‘When we went back to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And when our father said, “Go again, buy us a little food”, we said, “We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.” Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my grey hairs in evil to Sheol.”
‘Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the grey hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, “If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.” Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.’
Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him.
Now from 48:1–11.
After this, Joseph was told, ‘Behold, your father is ill.’ So he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told to Jacob, ‘Your son Joseph has come to you.’ Then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed. And Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, “Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.” And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. As for me, when I came from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).’
When Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he said, ‘Who are these?’ Joseph said to his father, ‘They are my sons, whom God has given me here.’ And he said, ‘Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.’ Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. So Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, ‘I never expected to see your face; and behold, God has let me see your offspring also.’
Alongside that, let’s turn to an illuminating passage in Isaiah 49:14–21.
But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes all round and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the LORD, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does. ‘Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land—surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: “The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.” Then you will say in your heart: “Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?”’ (vv. 14–21)
May God give us good understanding of his word.
God’s four promises to Abraham
So now we come to sum up, as best we can, what remains of the second part of the book of Genesis. In our studies, we noticed that God made four promises to Abraham, the patriarch. He promised him: 1. that he would give him the land of Canaan; 2. that he would give him seed, that is, offspring; 3. that he would bless him; and, finally, 4. that in his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. And in the book of Genesis we find the fulfilment of those four great promises.
From chapter 12 onward, God points to the land he has brought Abraham to, and says, ‘Now, Abraham, this is the land I promised you. Stay here. It will eventually be yours, though not for many centuries to come.’
And then, from chapter 15 onward we are told how God fulfilled the second promise—that he would grant Abraham offspring. For what use would there be in promising Abraham the land and possession of it, hundreds of years hence, if Abraham died childless, with no one to inherit the land that God had promised to give him?
So, in chapters 15 to 22 and onward, Genesis tells us how God fulfilled the second great promise and gave Abraham the promised seed through the birth of Isaac. When Abraham died, Isaac succeeded him. It was in Isaac particularly, though not in his life alone, that God fulfilled the third great promise, and blessed Isaac until even the surrounding Philistines had to admit, ‘You are now the blessed of the LORD’ (26:29). In Isaac’s life and in the early years of Jacob’s, God began to train and discipline his people in order that they would understand more clearly what blessing means.
Now we’ve come to the last section of Genesis in our studies, and we find that God begins to fulfil the fourth of those great promises—‘in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed’ (22:18). In the stories that fill the latter chapters of Genesis, God’s people are going to see the first level of fulfilment of that promise, as the great empire, Egypt, with all her treasures and marvellous and sophisticated civilization, is about to be brought to its knees by its economic problems. They will see God’s great provision for the Gentile empire, that in Abraham and in one of his offspring, Joseph, not only will the empire of Egypt be blessed but all the little surrounding nations.
As I say, that was a first-level fulfilment. Its final, glorious fulfilment still lies in the future. In the nations today, not only do political problems persist, but great economic difficulties are evident everywhere. With all due respect to the experts, if these past twenty years have taught us anything, it is that economics is not a science. For all our theories, the nations remain at sixes and sevens with exactly what to do about economics. We live in an absurd world, where in some countries millions of people perish with starvation, while in other places nations pay millions of pounds every year to keep food rotting in their storehouses, afraid to sell it or give it away, lest it ruin the world markets. We await the day when the choirs of heaven shall sing, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive not only the honour but the riches’ (see Rev 5:12 KJV) and take over the economic development and control of the world. To repeat, then, here in the book of Genesis is the early prototype-fulfilment of that great promise, ‘In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed’.
Joseph
As we listened to our brother and his expert expositions, therefore, we rightly saw visions of glory; and particularly in the person of Joseph we saw a prototype of our blessed Lord Jesus. Joseph was rejected by his brothers and sold to the Gentiles, by whom he was cruelly and undeservedly condemned. But eventually he was brought out of prison, clothed with the robes of state and brought to honour and pre-eminence. Then the very brothers, who had rejected him in his youth, came to him and were obliged to recognize his authority and bow their knees to him. In great mercy and tenderness, he refrained from any revenge, forgave them and blessed them, and they were reconciled. When they were reconciled, they found that this Joseph, their brother, was not only in a position of worldwide glory, but he had a bride who was not a Hebrew; she was a Gentile. Joseph, then, is the great Old Testament character who united both Jews and Gentiles.
Of course, all of this speaks eloquently to us as Christians. Joseph here is a prototype of our blessed Lord Jesus. He was rejected by his Jewish brethren, wasn’t he? ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him’ (John 1:11). Even his brothers in his own family did not believe in him (see John 7:5). He was given into the hands of the Gentiles, who unjustly condemned him; but God raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand (see Eph 1:20). And ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run’.1
The glorious news is that one day, drawn by their extreme need, his Jewish brothers and sisters will come to him. In the end, the severities of God’s judgments are kindnesses, are they not? They shall bring the nation of Israel in their perplexity to him, whom they will discover is their long-lost Messiah, and they shall be reconciled to him. In the words of the Apostle Paul, ‘For if their casting away means the enrichment of our Gentile world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?’ (see Rom 11:15). When at last Israel is restored and reconciled to their great Messiah, they shall find that he has a bride, and that bride is predominantly Gentile.
I must not be tempted to dwell upon all those lovely things this evening, for they have already been expounded better than I could, and my job is to provide a summary of what has gone before.
Jacob
So now we turn to consider some of the practical lessons that lie here for us upon the pages of Scripture. In order to capture those practical lessons, I shall need to ask you to come back to the actual history, and for a moment to forget the typology. And then I must ask you to consider something else that many people find very difficult, for when they first hear it, it appears to be a form of heresy; namely that, although the last section of Genesis says a lot about Joseph, it is in fact about Jacob. That is to say, from a literary point of view, the story is told from Jacob’s perspective. So I would ask you to take a look at the sheet of notes, for part of my reason for listing the contents of these chapters is to show you that the story throughout is told from Jacob’s point of view.
The Generations of Jacob
Genesis 37:1–50:14
Jacob dwelt in the land (Gen 37:1)
- Joseph’s dreams: Joseph sold: Joseph’s coat, false evidence: Jacob’s false deduction: ‘please identify’ (Gen 37:32).
- Judah goes down: the prostitute: false dress: Judah’s signet, cord and staff: ‘please identify . . .’ Judah’s confession: Judah’s sons! (Gen 38:25).
- Joseph in Egypt: Potiphar’s wife: Joseph’s garment: false evidence; Joseph interprets dreams: Pharaoh’s signet, chain, robes: Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen 39:1–41:52).
Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt (Gen 42:1)
First expedition: climax: Jacob: ‘Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin?’ No!Second expedition: climax: Judah, as surety, pleads to be allowed to suffer as substitute for Benjamin.- Joseph made known: sends for father: climax: Jacob discovers truth: evidence of wagons: decides to go to see Joseph.
And Israel took his journey (Gen 46:1)
- Beersheba–well of oath: God: ‘I myself will go down with you . . . and I will also bring you up again’. Names of sons–Egypt.
- Judah sent in front to arrange meeting with Joseph: climax: Jacob blesses Pharaoh.
- Joseph’s treatment of Egyptians and of Israelites: Joseph buys all Egypt and Egyptians for Pharaoh: Israel prospers.
And Jacob lived in Egypt (Gen 47:28)
- Takes oath of Joseph: ‘Do not bury me not in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers’; Joseph introduces his sons to Jacob: ‘Who are these?’ (Gen 48:8–9). Jacob blesses them.
- Jacob’s prophetic blessing of twelve sons: Judah to have the sceptre (Gen 49:10); final charge regarding burial.
- Jacob dies: taken back to Canaan and buried there: Egyptians accompany and join in mourning.
Joseph Returns to Egypt (Gen 50:14)
- Renewed promise to preserve brothers.
- Dying charge: ‘God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham . . . carry up my bones from here’ (Gen 50:24–25).
The story falls into four parts. The first part is the narrative from chapter 37 onward about how Jacob dwelt in the land of Canaan. We are told of how he loved Joseph his son, and gave him a coat of many colours. Joseph was rejected by his brothers and sold; and so the story goes on.
The second part is from chapter 42 onward, when the famine began to strike Canaan and Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt. So, to preserve his family, he sent some of his sons to get corn. That eventually led to the rediscovery of Joseph, and before he dies Jacob is brought down to see his darling son.
The third part begins in chapter 46, with Israel taking his journey to Egypt. God had told his father, Isaac, to stay in the land and not go down to Egypt. But this is a different part of history, and as the responsible head of the tribe Jacob is told by God in a vision that he is now to take the tribe down into Egypt once more. That was a very significant move, and he went down with the promise that one day God would bring them back again to Canaan.
Finally, the fourth part begins in 47:28, and tells us that Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years, then grew old and died. When he died, they took him back to Canaan and buried him there. And when Jacob is buried, Genesis is virtually finished.
So we can see that the last chapters of Genesis are told from Jacob’s point of view. And why is that? Well, you will notice that a new problem asserts itself with the beginning of this section.
In Abraham’s day, God’s great promises were to give him the promised seed, but Abraham made the mistake of taking Hagar and fathered Ishmael, hoping that he would be the promised seed. But God said, ‘No. Ishmael is a decent enough chap, and I will bless him. But send him away, Abraham, for it is in Isaac that your seed shall be called.’ So, though blessed by God, Ishmael was rejected and sent away, and Isaac was chosen to be the carrier of the promise and the destiny.
Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, and they were twins. Esau was the older son; but once more God’s word said, ‘No, it will be Jacob, not Esau. As much as you prefer Esau, the promises and purposes of God shall not be worked out in him, but in Jacob.’
A change in the pattern
When it came to Jacob’s turn, Jacob had twelve boys. Had the same pattern repeated itself, it would have been a question of taking one of those sons and telling all the others to go away. But that’s not what happened. Far from it! It was no longer a question of choosing one and letting all the others go; the very reverse must happen. The time had now come when the fulfilment of God’s promise would mean that Jacob’s family must be built into a tribe, and the tribe must be allowed to develop until it becomes the nation of Israel and plays its great part in human history. So now it’s not a question of sending all eleven away and just choosing one. It’s the opposite problem: how do you keep all twelve together and build them, first into an extended family, then into a tribe, and into a nation? That is the problem, which fills the first two major parts of the last section of Genesis.
Once you’ve managed to keep the twelve boys together and you’ve got them now into Egypt, the next problem is preserving them. They are a very little tribe, a tiny minority in the vast Egyptian empire. How do you preserve and maintain them so that they don’t lose their identity and get lost among the other nations, or fizzle out before they have become an independent nation?
These were the big historical problems that beset God’s purpose at this stage, and it is at this level that Genesis talks to us and applies some exceedingly practical lessons. Cast your minds back to Jacob, his wives and his twelve boys. In eastern fashion, they are the beginnings of an extended family. They could have had only a very small idea of the great glory that God has in store for them—the tremendous dignity, privilege and responsibility that would come with the part they will play in history. From little Benjamin, as he toddled around the camp; to Judah, now grown to be a very powerful man; they had little notion that some three thousand years later there would be people like us in Apsley Street, Belfast, who would still be thinking about them. Nor would they have had any notion then that their very names would be engraved on the gates of the eternal city (Rev 21:12). At that point in time, the whole purposes of God hung on how to keep these twelve fellows together.
You say, ‘That’s easy’.
Well, then, you don’t know life! It isn’t only difficult to keep unregenerate men and women together; it’s sometimes very difficult to keep redeemed men and women together. Oh, we may sing of the glorious time when all the redeemed shall meet in glory. Praise God for it, for God is yet going to triumph. But here in this vale of tears the number one problem with the people of God is, how do you keep them together? It’s not only been a problem with Israel; it’s been a problem with Christendom all down the long centuries.
The world stands by in scorn, pointing the finger: ‘You say you have the answer to the world’s problems and stand there preaching about the Prince of Peace. You tell us that your Saviour has not only saved you, he’s going to save the world and unite all mankind. Yet you can’t keep yourselves together for even five minutes.’
It’s a scandal to the gospel, isn’t it?
Developing the family into a nation
So why were Jacob’s sons divided? Well, we know the story. In the early days, when the visions were first given to Joseph of his authoritative role in the glorious future, the other eleven boys didn’t rally round and say, ‘How marvellous, Joseph! We congratulate you; we’re delighted to be your servants and we’ll work together in this great purpose of God.’ Not on your life did they say that! The old vice of jealousy and envy that fills all of our hearts got the better of them. ‘Are you indeed to reign over us?’, they said.
And then there was another thing. When he made his reports to Jacob, Joseph had been in the habit of telling his father exactly what the other eleven were doing. He brought their father a bad report of them, and, if I may paraphrase it, they said to themselves, ‘Can you imagine what life would be like if Joseph became the boss? No, we won’t have it.’
That’s a very deeply ingrained human thing, isn’t it? Do we hear ourselves saying, ‘We would like a millennium, if only all those people who make the world all wobbly would behave’? ‘We can’t all be expected to be angels; a man has got to look after himself,’ they say. The human heart likes its sin, and if the glorious age of peace will depend on our accepting a Saviour who will confront us with our sins, then, really, we don’t want it. So Jacob’s sons divided on that score, and they sold their potential saviour.
Judah
Genesis 38 then goes on with a colourful, not to say lurid, story of what happened to Judah. According to the great prophecies that Jacob would pronounce upon him, Judah was the one who was going to bear the sceptre (49:10). He already fancied himself as ‘the great Judah’, the head of that family. But then 38:1 tells us, ’Judah went down from his brothers’. He must have forgotten about the visions of glory and God’s purpose for this special nation. Deserting his brothers, he went and lived among the Canaanites and took a Canaanite woman as a wife. I’ll put a veil over the rest of the story, but you should have seen him on a Friday night when he went downtown. Watch him swaggering down the street with a sizable signet on a chain, and you should have seen his staff! He was clearly the boss. One day he found a woman, whom he thought was a prostitute, and you know the rest of the story.
Some people say, ‘But what’s the point of being in politics or other positions of authority if you can’t indulge yourself? If you’re going to be the head and chief, shouldn’t you be allowed to enjoy the perks of your office? Surely that’s what being a chief is? Isn’t it the rulers who get all the big perks, and not the likes of the road maker or the dustbin man?’
If that’s what he thought it means to be the chief—living a life of self-indulgent pleasure—then one might rightfully ask him, ‘Judah, are you really going to be the patriarch of the one who shall call himself the Lion of the tribe of Judah?’ (see Rev 5:5).
Perhaps not you, but wasn’t it a lesson that some of the early apostles had to be taught? Supported in no small degree by their mother, one day James and John—good chaps, of course—came and asked the Lord to grant them anything they should ask (see Mark 10:35–45).
And he said, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’.
They said, ‘Let one of us sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory’.
I hope it’s not wrong to be ambitious in the spiritual life. Don’t you want to get as big a reward as possible, or will you be content with a draughty door inside heaven and having no reward at all, just so long as you’re there? Well, let me tell you, that would be a very curious ambition, because there are no draughts in heaven to start with. While we should strive for the biggest reward we can get, we must remember the lesson that our Lord taught James and John. By asking to be on his right and his left, they were asking to be first or chief in the kingdom. The Lord said, ‘You don’t know what you are asking; do you know what being first means? “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”’ (v. 45).
Oh, my brothers and sisters, it will eternally remain so, won’t it? Do you think that the Lord Jesus, having served us and loved us to death itself and given himself for us at Calvary, now says, ‘That’s enough of that; now that at last I’m sitting on a throne I’m going to serve myself’? No. Surely through all eternity, the exalted Lord of heaven, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, shall serve his people.
Heaven’s scale of values is that the one who serves most is the biggest. If we thought about it, that is so, isn’t it? Forgive me for descending to such lowly levels, but, who is bigger—the pigs who crawl around in the sty screaming their heads off to get more food, or the patient farmer who serves them and brings them their bucket of food and puts it in their dish?
You say, ‘The farmer who serves'.
Yes, that’s right. And Judah had a lot to learn, hadn’t he? If God’s vision for his people is going to come true—that ‘the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes’ (49:10 NKJV)—Judah and his successors will have to be trained as to what being the sceptre bearer means.
From Jacob’s point of view, in the early days his family was a disaster. He lost Joseph, having been deceived by his other sons, though he didn’t know it. Then Judah went off and got himself entangled with Gentiles, and the royal line that issued from him would have been obliterated forever had it not been for a Gentile woman who was more concerned about maintaining the direct line of Judah than Judah was himself. Odd that!
It is a fact nowadays that a lot of Israelis are no longer interested in the coming of the Messiah. ‘All has been fulfilled,’ they say, ‘there’s no Messiah to come.’ And here, you Gentile believers are more concerned about the line of Judah than many Israelis are themselves. Interesting, isn’t it? But that’s an aside.
Jacob’s blessing of Joseph’s sons
When Jacob sent his sons to get corn, Simeon was taken, and the condition was laid down that the next time they came, unless they brought Benjamin they wouldn’t be allowed to see the ruler’s face. In the end, poor old Jacob had to let Benjamin go as well. He said to his sons, ‘I can’t stand it anymore. If Benjamin never comes back, then you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave’ (see 42:36–38). A quarter of his sons were gone—Joseph, Simeon, and now Benjamin.
Do you wonder, then, that the historian is telling the story from Jacob’s point of view? Don’t you parents find your hearts beating with it? What ambitions do you have for your family? How would you feel, if you should lose a third of your children? And that is why I read to you of Jacob’s reaction when he met Joseph’s sons (Gen 48:1–11).
Eventually Jacob got down to Egypt and saw the glory of Joseph. When he became ill, Joseph brought his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to see him, and Jacob was told, ‘Your son Joseph has come to you’. Jacob’s eyes were now dim, and when he caught sight of the shadowy forms of two strapping young fellows, he said, ‘Who are these?’. And Joseph said, ‘They are my sons, whom God has given me here’.
And [Israel] said, ‘Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.’ Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. So Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, ‘I never expected to see your face; and behold, God has let me see your offspring also.’ (48:9–11)
'Who are these?’ The refrain is taken up by the great prophet Isaiah. In chapter 49 he talks about a time when Jerusalem (Zion), shall say, ‘I’m a widow—what is the use of all God’s promises to restore Jerusalem when my sons are gone from me?’. But God says, ‘One day the nations will bring your sons, and there will be so many of them that they shall say to you, “The place isn’t big enough to contain us”. As you see the multitude of your sons, you shall say, “Who are these; where have they come from?”.’
It has been difficult for Israel down the years, hasn’t it? If we think of Jerusalem as a mother with her children gone, what shall we say of almost a third of the nation gone in the gas chambers of Hitler’s Germany? No wonder many Jews say, ‘How can I still believe in God?’. But the day shall come when God will fulfil his promise. In the unbelief of veritable joy, Israel shall say, ‘Who are these?’, as God binds up the hurt and brings them his final blessing under the Messiah.
The roles of Joseph and Judah
But we must get back to our practical problem of how to keep the twelve boys together. Now that they’re sundered, how do you get them back together?
Joseph’s innocent suffering
‘Well,’ you say, ‘the answer is Joseph.’
I thought you were bursting to get back to Joseph, for he is the key, isn’t he? Joseph’s been your hero, ever since Sunday School days anyway. I’d better not say anything to detract from Joseph’s glory, and certainly he was a kingpin in the means of his family’s salvation. His suffering, of course, was innocent suffering. He was falsely accused, falsely charged, lowered down into the pit and put into the dungeon—all the fault of his brothers. But he showed them mercy and compassion, when it was in his power to hurt them. Though he treated them firmly and caused them many tears and heartaches, it was simply to bring them to repentance, for without repentance the old wounds could not be healed. There was no vengeance in his heart, no bitterness, no revenge; he was the great innocent sufferer.
And Christ has left us an example, so that we might follow in his steps, and Peter declares, even to the slaves among the early Christians, that they should be subject to their masters ‘for the Lord’s sake’ (see 1 Pet 2:13–21). He said, ‘When you live and work under unreasonable, unjust masters, and they beat you even though you’ve done no wrong, will you not, being mindful of God, bear it patiently, so that your innocent suffering may speak its Christian message and be a testimony to the Lord Jesus in a world that’s full of revenge, which only complicates things and makes the problems permanent?’.
Judah’s vicarious suffering
But there is something beyond innocent suffering, and that is vicarious suffering. When it became necessary and there was no other way out, everything turned on the ability of Judah to take responsibility (Gen 43:8–9). In the extremity, he stepped forward and said to Jacob, ‘Look here, Dad, this is the only way we can survive. We’ll starve unless you let Benjamin go. I will go surety for him. Take my life for his, if I don’t bring him back.’
Jacob had already heard a similar thing from Reuben when they returned the first time and the money was found in each of their sacks: ‘Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.’ But Jacob at that point refused to let Benjamin go.
You know then the eloquent story in chapter 44 of how, when they were on their way back again from Egypt, the officials of the court caught up with them, and said, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? What do you mean, stealing my lord’s cup?’
They said, ‘We haven’t stolen it, we took back the money that we found in our sacks before; but if it’s anywhere here, whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants’ (see 44:6–9). The cup was found in Benjamin’s sack, and with horrible dismay they went back to Egypt.
When they came to Joseph’s house, the apparently stony-hearted Joseph said, ‘What deed is this that you have done?’ At that moment, the only possible solution was for Judah to make his plea to Joseph. He tried to argue, but, no, that was justice. ‘I’m perfectly just,’ said Joseph, ‘you agreed that the man in whose sack the cup was found, shall be my servant. All the others of you may go in peace to your father’ (see vv. 14¬¬–17).
Then Judah stepped forward and said, ‘Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears. I can’t go back without Benjamin, my brother. If my father sees that the boy is not with us, it will break his heart and bring him down with sorrow to the grave. I became a pledge of safety for him to my father, so please allow me to take my brother’s place and suffer his punishment and imprisonment instead of him’ (see vv. 18–34).
To suffer instead of somebody is not just innocent suffering, is it? It is vicarious suffering, and it proved to be the key to bringing that family together and keeping them safely through the famine.
You will see at once how Judah likewise is a figure of our Lord. It takes not only Joseph—the one who suffered innocently, but also Judah—the one who suffered vicariously, to speak adequately of our Lord’s sufferings. ‘He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth’ (1 Pet 2:22): he suffered innocently. But his sufferings were more than innocent. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions’; and ‘he [gave] his life as a ransom for many’ (Isa 53:5; Mark 10:45): he suffered vicariously.
Christ’s suffering is an example for us
But listen again to Peter, as he tells us that in suffering our blessed Lord has left an example for us to follow:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Pet 2:21–24)
We must not diminish the unique glory of our Lord. Only he could atone for sin; no other could do it. But in becoming the vicarious sufferer he has left us an example, for he calls us to suffer so that others might be saved. It’s not that we could bear the penalty of their sin, but you know that in the course of saving people there is a lot of suffering to be done. Says Paul, ‘Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church’ (Col 1:24). Bringing the people of God home to glory is no innocent child’s play. To keep them together and bring them through their trials and difficulties; to go out into the world so that men and women might be saved; ultimately there’s no way of doing it unless from time to time we are prepared to suffer.
Talking to the Christian women, Peter says that some of them may have had very difficult husbands, who were not converted men, and unconverted pagans could be cruel to their Christian wives. ‘But,’ says Peter, ‘in all your sufferings, remember that, if your husbands can’t be won by the actual preaching, they could be won by your behaviour’ (see 1 Pet 3:1–2). The call was for them to be willing to suffer so that their husbands might get converted.
And so must we all learn that this is the way the Saviour went. This is the glory of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and we are called to follow in his steps.
Jacob’s blessing of his sons
The final section of Genesis tells us how, when Jacob was very old, he gathered his twelve sons around him to tell them what should befall them in the coming days (Gen 49:1–27). It is often the case with the elderly and dying that their vision is clearer regarding the great ages to come.
With his twelve boys standing around his bed, the thirteen of them were gathered together. Here was the beginning of the nation. What a future lay ahead, stretching out over the long centuries: from the coming of the Messiah, to his millennial glories and to the new heavens and the new earth. Would these men really be the carriers of that promise and part of the process? They would definitely need some talking to, wouldn’t they? And it wasn’t any sentimental old granddad lying there on his bed talking to them. Of course, at that moment they were behaving like gentlemen, but sometimes men talking to men can be a bit direct—more so than preachers dare to be. Jacob knew his boys, and he wasn’t deceived. Some of them were very rough diamonds, and before they got to glory they would have to be polished; their characters would have to be changed. And so Jacob addresses each of his twelve sons.
Practical lessons
It is an interesting fact that in the New Testament there is another Jacob. We normally call him James, but in Greek his name is Jacob, as it is in Hebrew. He writes a letter to the twelve tribes, preparing them for the glory that awaits them, and it is remarkable to see the similarities with Genesis 49. Time forbids me to do more than hastily refer to the first three sons.
Reuben: instability
If Jacob’s boys are going to be the carriers of the great purposes of God, then, to start with, the order of firstborn will have to be changed. Jacob says to him, ‘you are . . . unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence’ (49:3–4). In a moment of temptation, Reuben hadn’t the strength nor the sense of proportion to draw back, and with his very birthright hanging in the balance he yielded to a passing temptation and lost his birthright (Gen 35:22; 1 Chron 5:1). Well, thank God, he didn’t lose his salvation; but Reuben will have to learn to overcome that instability, won’t he?
James’s answer: steadfastness
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (1:2–8)
You’ll need stability of faith and consistency in asking God for wisdom as you walk through this life. Sure, we’re not perfect. But let me give you an illustration.
I hear a lady who’s a delightful concert pianist, and I’m enraptured by her performance. I say to her afterwards, with a certain impertinence and cheek, ‘You know, I’ve often wanted to play like that. Would you take me on and teach me?’
She says, ‘I don’t think I could teach you’.
I say, ‘I have great ability, and I would like to be taught’.
At length she agrees to teach me, and says, ‘You’ll come three times a week for three hours each night’.
I say, ‘No, that’s ridiculous. I mean, I only want to play the piano. I’ve got a lot of other things to do.’
‘Then why do you think you could be a concert pianist?’
‘Well, I don’t know, but be reasonable.’
‘All right,’ she says, ‘come once a week.’
‘All right, I’ll come once a week.’
So I come for the first three weeks and play my one-finger exercises, and on the fourth week I don’t turn up, nor on the fifth, but I’m there on the sixth.
She says, ‘Hello, it’s you again, is it? You weren’t here for these last two weeks. Where were you?’
‘My Aunt Jane came, and she took us all out to an ice cream parlour. You’re not saying that ice cream is wrong, are you?’
‘Where were you the second week?’
‘Well, I forgot, actually.’
And she says, ‘Do you really want to play the piano?’.
My brothers and sisters, let us ask ourselves, do we really want to reign with Christ? What is the use of asking God for help one day but forgetting to ask him again for the next six weeks? I shall need stability of faith and consistency in seeking wisdom from God to live right.
Simeon and Levi: anger
Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their wilfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. (49:5–7)
James’s answer: self-control
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (1:19–22)
James reminds us that our anger and our little indignations do not produce the righteousness of God.
Levi: hypocrisy
Levi was eventually given the priesthood, and a great privilege it was. Even there, Levi abused it; like the priest and the Levite on their way up to Jerusalem, who were so preoccupied with their religious observances that they hadn’t time to show mercy to the man who had fallen among thieves (see Luke 10:30–32). Their religion became a mere formality, devoid of such compassion that is the compassion of God.
So we need to listen to old Jacob speaking to his twelve sons; and to the more modern Jacob speaking to the twelve tribes, as he reminds us of what true religion is and how important it is to be doers of the word and not hearers only (see Jas 1:22–27).
James’s answer: respect
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. (2:1)
James says, ‘And if you say you believe in the Lord of glory, pray for God’s help to live in a manner that dignifies and shows respect for your fellow princes and princesses in the great royal family of God’ (see vv. 2–13).
We must leave it there. We believe that we are on our way to glory, do we not? As we enter another year, these are practical lessons that urge us to live consistently with our hope.
The hope for the future
We come now to the very last part of Genesis. Having blessed his sons, Jacob died. They carried his body back to the promised land, and then they all returned to Egypt with Joseph (50:14). Sometime after that Joseph died too. As he was dying, this great second-in-command in Egypt made his brothers, the Israelites, take an oath that they would not bury him in Egypt, but when they left they would take his bones to the promised land (50:24–25).
I don’t know whether Pharaoh ever heard of Joseph’s arrangements for his funeral. If he did, they must have sounded very comical to him. You can hear him say, ‘I don’t want to be rude, Joseph, but don’t your brothers only keep a few cows and sheep somewhere in Goshen? There’s nothing wrong with keeping livestock; but are you really telling me that the future of this world is with your brothers and a few cows and sheep and other things?
‘Did you say your father’s name was Israel, and that you’re going to be the leading nation and produce the Saviour of the world? Come, come, Joseph. Be a realist. Against the big empire of Egypt, how could you think that your little people would carry the great purposes of the Almighty?’
Joseph heard what Pharaoh said, but with all due respect he said, ‘Great as my career in Egypt has been, the future lies with the people of God, and I will be buried in Canaan.’
So it has ever been down the centuries. And so must it be for us, my brothers and sisters. Though it might seem unrealistic to us (and to the world it seems like a fairy tale), the future is not with the Common Market2, nor is it with the great leading industrial nations of the world. The future lies with the people of God and the coming of the Saviour. May God equip us to serve our day and generation in whatever way we are able; even in the very highest positions in the world in which we live, as it pleases God. But may he keep our vision clear that the future does not lie in that, but it lies with the people of God and the Son of God—the Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
May God give us grace to live as insipient princes and princesses in the royal house of heaven.
Shall we pray.
Oh, God, we thank thee once more for these stories in thy holy word. For the sheer glory of them as literature and as stories: the way they present human emotions so movingly and realistically. But beyond it, Lord, we sense and know that these things are the very voice of God, and carry the plans of God. And we thank thee for opening our eyes to these great realities and hopes. Only we do pray thee that what we have enjoyed of thy word this evening and over the years that have passed may not remain just stories, but be so in our hearts by conviction of faith that it shall help us to live in all the realities of this broken and lost world, with hope in our hearts and determination that, by thy grace, thy will shall be done in our lives, and thy purpose for our sanctification be fulfilled, that when the Lord comes we may be ready for his coming and may share his reign, and be with him a blessing to the whole universe. And this we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
And now may God bless you, and a very happy and prosperous new year be yours.
Footnotes
1 Isaac Watts (1674–1748), ‘Jesus shall reign’ (1719).
2 The Maastricht Treaty, establishing the European Union, came into force on 1st November 1993, so it would have been headline news at this time.