Reassurance

View daily reading plan: Genesis 50.15-21

Jacob was dead, and “Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him” (Gen 50.1). He wept again (Gen 50.17), when the brothers sent a message pleading with him not to take vengeance on them now that their father was dead. How could they misjudge him so badly? How could they think that he was desperate to get even?  Joseph wept because their misjudgement hurt him.
 
“Fear not” (Gen 50.19), there was to be no fear of revenge. Joseph “comforted” his brothers without excusing their crime; “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen 50.20). So then, Joseph saw God’s hand in his circumstances, regarding himself as instrumental in “(saving) much people alive”.
 
Their treachery had meant servitude and imprisonment for him, but he repaid it with kindness. They “could not speak peaceably unto him” (Gen 37.4), yet now there is a “fear not” from him (Gen 50.19). They sold him and yet he succoured them.
 
Joseph’s parting words were his pledge to “nourish” them in the future (Gen 50.21). He had done it since the famine, and now he promised that despite Jacob’s passing, their interests were still secure. What he did for them physically and materially, the Saviour has done spiritually. He has catered permanently for our spiritual hunger; “he that cometh to me shall never hunger” (Jn 6.35).

Monday, 26 February, 2024