Week 12: Forgiveness Sealed

Jacob is dead, and the brothers who sold Joseph thirty-nine years ago come home from the funeral sure he’s been waiting for this. Genesis 50 opens with Joseph weeping over his father’s face. Then a funeral procession of Egyptian elders, horses, and chariots goes up to bury Jacob in the cave at Machpelah, while every child in the family stays behind in Goshen. Back in Egypt, the brothers’ old guilt catches up with them. They remember what Esau meant to do once his father was gone, so they send Joseph a deathbed message from Jacob that Jacob never gave. Then they come and bow before him, just as the boy’s dreams said they would, and offer to be his slaves. Joseph weeps for the last time in the story. He refuses the judge’s seat and answers them with the sentence this whole study has been waiting for: You planned evil against me; God planned it for good. He forgives them a second time, because the forgiven couldn’t believe it the first time, and promises to take care of them and their children. Then Genesis moves ahead to Joseph’s own death at 110. He makes his family swear to carry his bones up when God comes to their aid, and the book ends with a coffin in Egypt, waiting.