Genesis 50 Study Notes

50:15-21 Despite having lived under Joseph’s provision and protection for many years, and despite knowing that Joseph had named one son Manasseh (“God has made me forget all my hardship in my father’s house”), the brothers still doubted that Joseph had forgiven them. With Jacob now dead, Joseph’s older brothers feared for their lives and hoped that saying their father called for forgiveness before he died would protect them from Joseph’s wrath. They were so afraid of Joseph that they did not dare at first to come to him personally; instead, they only sent a message entreating him to forgive his brothers’ “rebellion” (transgression) and sin, especially since they were “slaves” (servants) of the God of your father—that is, they worshiped the same God that Joseph did. Perhaps the reason the brothers came to Joseph was that they heard he had wept when he received their message. To maximize their chances of survival they bowed down before him (cp. 37:7,9) and offered themselves as his personal slaves.

Joseph refused their offer. They were slaves of God, not of him, and he would not put himself in the place of God to make them his slaves. He admitted that his older brothers planned evil against him, but with great spiritual insight he also confessed that God planned it for good to bring about . . . the survival of many people (see note at 45:5-8). God had transformed the soot of human sin into a diamond of divine blessing (Rm 8:28; 1Pt 2:24). Far from being embittered, Joseph was emboldened to take care of the very ones who had tried to kill him, along with their children. He spoke kindly to them (lit “spoke upon their heart”; cp. Is 40:2) and comforted them.

50:22-23 God’s blessing on Joseph’s life is apparent as he lived 110 years, 93 of them in Egypt and 80 of them as a ruler there. He lived to see the third generation of descendants through Ephraim, a phrase that could refer either to great-grandsons or great-great-grandsons. A further sign of God’s blessing was the fact that Gilead (Nm 26:29) and other great-grandsons by Machir son of Manasseh “were born on the knees of Joseph,” that is, they were ritually adopted by him (Gn 30:3; Ru 4:16).

50:24-26 As Joseph was about to die, some fifty-four years after his father Jacob’s death, he called his brothers to him for one last time and gave them two prophetic promises. First, that God would certainly come to the aid of their descendants. Second, that God would indeed bring their descendants up from Egypt to the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (12:7; 13:15,17; 15:7,18; 24:7; 26:3; 28:13).

After Joseph died, he was embalmed—one of only two persons in the Bible said to have been embalmed (also Jacob; see v. 2 and note at vv. 1-3). His preserved body was then placed . . . in a coffin, awaiting a future day when it was to be carried by Moses and the Israelites to the promised land (Ex 13:19; Jos 24:32).