A main focus of both the Jacob and
Joseph material is God’s unfolding of this portion of his plan of salvation for
the whole world, the goal being the redemption of all creation and the undoing
of all the evils recorded in Genesis 3-11.
With the call of and promises to Abraham in 12:1-3, the plan is set into
motion. Jacob and Joseph represent its
continuation with chapters 12-50 as a whole telling us about the beginnings of
God’s plan to undo 3-11. Genesis is thus
always forward-looking, anticipating the next and final stages of God’s plan,
and backwards-looking, remembering God’s promises and his original creation
intentions to give life and blessing.
This wider perspective gets played out throughout the stories of the
patriarchs and recurs throughout the historical writings of the Old
Testament.
Life and blessing and salvation or
rescue from God, however, are always available in the present even if only
imperfectly in the present time. In
chapters 45-50 of Genesis we see just this work of God, anticipating the final
redemption, already manifested in his dealings with Jacob and his family. As part of his plan to bring that great
redemption, God has chosen a particular family to make into a nation for himself
as a vehicle to move his plan forward and bring redemption, life and blessing,
to all nations.
In Genesis 3-4 we see a broken relationship between God and
humans but also between humans and humans.
Cain, the older, kills his brother Abel, the younger, in his
jealousy. This fallenness manifesting
even within the human family has been manifested again in Jacob’s own family –
the family which is to be part of the solution is itself also part of the
problem, as the nation of Israel
will learn again and again throughout their history.
45-50 shows us, however, that it is
God’s plan to heal that breach (the reunion with the brothers heals the
separation through guilt, the reunion with the father heals the separation
through grief) – this time, the plans of the older to kill the younger brother
are transformed in God’s hands and turned into blessing rather than curse,
unlike the case of Cain. The sin of Cain
is in some sense undone in the reconciliation between Joseph and his
brothers. God’s plan and promises are
not simply for the future but bear fruit in the present as well. He can use the evil purposes of fallen
humanity to further his plan to redeem them (Romans 8:28) – like Jesus, Joseph was handed over for God’s
greater purpose.
God’s promises and plan always win
out ultimately, since God is the one in ultimate control. It is his desire not to complete wipe out all
of humanity, but to preserve life and bless humanity in redeemed form. 45:7 describes God as preserving a “remnant”
(She’erit), a concept common in the Ancient Near East and throughout the Bible,
emphasizing continuation of life in the form of a remaining group. In the Old Testament (especially Isaiah),
this notion of a remnant often has an emphasis of faithfulness to God and a
vehicle of blessing – it is in the form of the remnant that Israel will survive
its Exile and the nations of the world will themselves be preserved by God in
the form of remnants faithful to Yahweh, the idea being that God’s people as a
whole, embracing all nations, will be the form in which humanity will survive
and receive blessing and redemption from God.
The preservation of the remnant is how God saves the human race. Through Joseph, the remnant has been
preserved, not for the last time (in fact, his adoption and blessing of
Joseph’s may be in part motivated to preserve Joseph in the form of his sons by
guaranteeing that they, though born in Egypt and not in Canaan, are part of the
family and hence heirs of God’s promises).
The blessings of God for all nations
through Jacob’s family find their way through the preservation of that family
into the nations with which they come into contact. These nations may not yet achieve any
ultimate redemption (though perhaps some do turn to Yahweh), but some aspect of
blessing and preservation spill over to them nonetheless – the promises of God
are powerful beyond human measure. God’s
saving of Jacob’s family from starvation has resulted in Egypt’s
salvation from starvation as well, as imperfect as it may be in either case. In 47:7 Jacob appears like Abraham in chapter
12 and the nomadic shepherd blesses the powerful king as a spiritual superior –
the one who once ungenerously tricked his brother for blessing is himself now a
generous source of blessing. Jacob’s
blessings, whether of Pharaoh or of his own sons (or grandsons) here are an
expression of the future work of God in history looking forward to the
fulfillment of his ultimate plan.
Jacob is himself, however, also a
recipient of the blessings of God’s plan.
Whereas he previously seemed to have lost all hope and despaired of
life, seemingly failing to rest in God’s promises in 37:33, 35; 42:36, 38, now
in 45:28 all of this is reversed. God
has graciously looked out for Jacob and been faithful even when Jacob seemed to
have lost any hope of that. Jacob
himself experiences God’s salvation, a foretaste of the final redemption,
receiving Joseph “from the dead”. In
response to this, he has himself become alive from being dead – his spirit, the
life-giving principle (see 2:7; 6:17;
7:15, 22), is said to be revived. After a long hiatus, God once again speaks to
Jacob in 46:2-4, affirming that going into Egypt
is part of God’s plan to bring salvation and Jacob, strengthened by his revival
of hope, hopes in and believes in God’s promises here as well.
47:29-30 reaffirms Jacob’s hope and
trust in God’s promises, his own burial in Canaan
looking back to God’s promise of the land and forward to Israel’s
return by God’s hand. Hope here, as
elsewhere, seems to be a response to God’s faithfulness to his promises and
plan which will ultimately be expressed in the final redemption. Jacob’s foretaste of this returns him to
hope. The promised return to Canaan,
however, will not happen until after his death – for himself, not long after
his death, but for the rest of his family not until after a long time under a
yoke of slavery. 50:24-25 expresses the
same hope in a much later fulfillment by God.
God’s promises require patience and their fulfillment may not be
realized even prior to our own deaths, as this emphasizes.
By contrast with Jacob and Joseph,
the other sons of Jacob have failed to trust God’s promises or his plan and so
are stuck in their guilt over what happened to Joseph and imagine still that he
may harm them, despite the blessings of Jacob.
Joseph, because of his trust in God’s fulfilling of his plan to fulfill
his promises and preserve Israel
for blessing and for life, rules that their concerns are overruled by God
himself, thus completing their reconciliation.
The changes in our characters and
the blessings bestowed on them in 45-50, as we look closely, are expressed in
terms that do not dwell as much on the characters’ interior faith or
faithfulness or in their own initiative or worthiness or even repentance. Rather, the force of change in the story and
initiation of salvation is always on God’s side. It is his work alone – Jacob’s family is
imperfect and God’s faithfulness to them is not directly dependent on their own
faithfulness to him. As is constantly
emphasized throughout the Old Testament, God’s favor of Israel and his
relationship to them is based on his grace, not their merit (even in the Old
Testament, salvation is not by works, contrary to many popular presentations –
obedience to the Law was seen as a proper response to God’s grace and election,
not a means to these).
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