v.1 Remember, God had promised Jacob, when he left Canaan for Egypt that his long-lost son Joseph would "close his eyes." The strong bond between Joseph and Jacob is expressed once more in this dramatic deathbed scene, unparalleled anywhere else in the OT. The strength of feeling after all that has happened and after seventeen years of life together with his father in Egypt speaks well of the largeness of Joseph’s heart.

v.3 That he was embalmed is a mark of Joseph’s standing in Egypt and, perhaps, given the request that Joseph is about to make, an effort on Jacob’s part to fulfill the expectations of Egyptian etiquette.

v.5 With a deference that may seem at first strange for the second most powerful man in Egypt, Joseph humbly requested permission to fulfill the promise he made to his father. He tactfully omitted his father’s request not to be buried in Egypt (47:29) and, instead, stressed his duty to fulfill an oath his father had made him swear, that his father had already prepared a grave for himself in Canaan, and that, upon burying his father there, he would return to Egypt. Joseph recognized that Pharaoh may be apprehensive about a plan for the entire clan to go up to Canaan and might fear the loss of his trusted viceroy, and so he assured him on that point. [Alter]

We have pointed out several times in our studies in Genesis that the narrator frequently makes use of key words – the narrative interpreters use the German term "leitwort" – to indicate his own interpretation of the significance of the events he records. In chapter 50, such a key word is the Hebrew word "alah" ‘to go up’ which occurs 7 times in this chapter – vv. 5,6,7,9,14 – and in both v. 24 and v. 25 at the climax of the chapter. It is the word that in the next book will often be used for the exodus! It is a way of indicating where Israel really belongs – in the Promised Land – and makes of this funeral procession a prefiguring or enacted prophecy of the exodus.

v.9 The large Egyptian entourage served to honor Jacob as the father of Joseph, but, perhaps, also to ensure the return of Joseph and his family. The children and flocks were left behind as a pledge of their return. This is the grandest state funeral recorded in the Bible. Its detailed record is thus some demonstration of the importance of Jacob in the history of salvation.

v.13 Apparently the Egyptian funeral cortege was left at Abel-Misraim and only Jacob’s sons carried his body into Canaan to bury him in the ancestral tomb.

v.17 There is no record of Jacob having left these instructions and some have thought the brothers, in their desperation, resorted to a fabrication. But, psychologically, there is nothing improbable about such a concern on Jacob’s part or his taking a step to protect the family harmony after he was gone. After not having that unity for so long, Jacob would have been jealous for it to continue after his death.

v.18 Their prostrating themselves before their brother is again the fulfillment of the dreams that God had given Joseph years before.

v.20 The divine sovereignty that takes up human decisions and deeds into its plan, even sinful human decisions and deeds, is here confessed, as it is often confessed in the Bible. How God exercises that sovereign rule, how the holy God remains himself unsullied by his use of human sin, however he uses sin sinlessly, is never explained in the Bible.

v.22 110 years was regarded as the ideal life span in Egypt. You may remember that Joshua also reached this age (Josh. 24:29).

v.23 To live to a ripe old age and see your children’s children is, all through the Bible, a mark of God’s blessing and favor. "Placed on Joseph’s knee" means that they were adopted by Joseph as Ephraim and Manasseh had been by Jacob in chapt. 48.

v.25 As with his father before him, Joseph’s dying concern was with the promise of God and he had faith that the promise would be fulfilled, in token of which faith, he made his brothers swear to take his bones to Canaan when they up from Egypt. "Sons of Israel" by this time may mean "descendants", so Joseph’s own children, and grandchildren and nephews and grandnephews. All of his actual brothers, except Benjamin, had been older than he and, presumably, most, if not all, had died before him.

In this concern for the promise and its fulfillment, the great themes of the Book of Genesis are linked to the Exodus and sent forward into the next book of the Bible.

We have spoken at length in our morning sermons on Genesis of the artfulness of its narrative, how beautifully and powerfully it teaches its theology and ethics by means of historical narrative and how rich that narrative is in lessons of every kind: both what we are to believe about God and ourselves and what God requires of us.

We have spoken from time to time of the variety of techniques the narrator employs to provide his interpretation of the history he records or to emphasize its lessons. We already mentioned the use of key-words, such as the Hebrew verb "go up" in this chapter.

Or we could speak of foreshadowing, which is a frequent technique employed in Genesis. By foreshadowing is meant that the narrator reports events that, in themselves, are anticipations of events to come and, thus, establish an historical pattern. No early reader of Genesis, for example, would fail to note that when Abraham went down to Egypt in chapter 12 and came back from there to Canaan a wealthy man, he had, as it were, traced beforehand the steps that Israel would later take. She would go down to Egypt relatively poor, but at the Exodus, come out from there loaded down with Egypt’s wealth. So here in chapter 50, we’ve already said that the funeral procession is a foreshadowing of the exodus. And it is, actually, even more explicitly than I explained earlier. For in v. 10, the Hebrew literally reads, "the threshing floor of Atad, which is over the Jordan." The most likely sense of "over the Jordan" for an early reader of the Pentateuch would be the "trans-Jordan", that is, a spot east of the Jordan. "Over the Jordan" for an Israelite would mean on the other side of the Jordan from the Promised Land. That would mean that when Joseph and his brothers took their father’s body from "over the Jordan" into Canaan, they would have crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. What that means, of course, is that they would have entered the Promised Land near where Israel would later enter it under Joshua and, therefore, that the route the entourage took from Egypt was broadly similar to the route Israel would later take in the exodus! That is the more striking because the simplest and, one would have thought the most logical, route would have taken them along the Mediterranean coast, not south of the Dead Sea and up its eastern shore. [Alter]

Or, there is what the narrative critics call "Janus material" after the Roman god Janus who had two faces, one which looked backward and the other which looked forward. Janus material is a narrative transition that links what came before with what comes after. We have that here in the last verses of the book, which take us back to all that has been said about and done in regard to the Promised Land from chapter 12 to chapter 50, and to God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, at the same time, looks forward to Israel’s "going up" from Egypt to the Promised Land, which is the subject of the opening chapters of the next book.

And, there is also, as we have seen on a number of occasions previously, what the narrative critics call "the evaluative viewpoint" in an account. In his own voice, or the voice of one or several of the characters in his history, the narrator tells us how to evaluate the material, what to think about it, what judgment ought to be pronounced on what has been said or done. And you have that "evaluative viewpoint" here in Genesis 50. You have it actually at several points in the narrative.

I suppose, through the ages, most sermons preached on Genesis 50 have expounded verse 20 and the theme of God’s over-ruling providence. "You meant it for evil; but God meant it for good." And, no wonder. It is a great and very important subject. It is, itself, by the way, an example of another narrative technique in Genesis, that of repetition. For Joseph has already said virtually the same thing in 45:4-7. We have here a final recapitulation of that point.

But, now it is clear to me that verse 20 is not the climactic thought of the chapter, important as it is. Indeed, that great statement about the divine providence is really just support for the demonstration of something else that is in the front of the narrator’s mind. The narrator has something else on his mind in chapter 50 than divine providence and something else to impress upon us with this closing scene of the book. And he tells us what that is with his evaluative viewpoint.

The evaluative viewpoint surfaces first in v. 12 where the narrator interrupts the flow of the historical account of Jacob’s burial procession itself to remind us, in his own words, that, in doing what they did, Jacob’s sons were obeying their father. Not Joseph only, but all of the sons of Jacob are now set before us as dutiful, devout, loyal, and faithful. Their unity is emphasized again in v. 14 where a special point is made of saying that Joseph returned to Egypt with all his brothers…who had gone with him to bury his father.

The scene that follows – the brothers, now with their father gone, fearful that Joseph may not entirely have forgotten their crimes against him, pleading with him for forgiveness – only further serves to accentuate the spiritual life and harmony that has overtaken the family that once was so wracked with evils of all kinds. See how humble the brothers are before their younger sibling. With no excuses, mitigations, or extenuations they confess their sin and wrong – three of the four principle OT words for sin are used in v. 17. [Wenham] They don’t hesitate to prostrate themselves before Joseph and plead for a forgiveness they openly confess they do not deserve. How far these men have come from where they were years before.

But, see, also, how Joseph responded. His affection and the generosity of his spirit toward his brothers was so deeply felt that it produced weeping, even then, seventeen long years after their initial reconciliation. Just as Joseph wept over his dead father, now he wept over his worried brothers. The family is whole! The great statement concerning divine providence in v. 20 is made for the sake of putting his brothers’ fears to rest. And that scene concludes with Joseph speaking kind and reassuring words to his brothers.

Then, in vv. 22-23, we have a summary of the same evaluative viewpoint. The family was together in Egypt, living under the blessing of God.

As one commentator summarizes:

"With [this scene] the goal not merely of the Joseph story, but of the whole patriarchal history is reached: the ideal unity of the sons of Israel has been created.

Abraham had two sons but they did not get on together. Isaac had two sons, but they parted forever. Not until Jacob’s twelve sons was the future firmly established. But precisely because they were a large number was there a danger of disunity and division. In the event there was dissension among them, so that they hated and persecuted the best of them. But eventually there was a complete reconciliation, not through the arbitration of a third party, but through the inner transformation of those who hated, for which the sufferer had waited and now in brotherly love acknowledges." [Jacob in Wenham, 491]

In other words, Genesis ends with the nation of Israel, in its nascent form, its original form, just on the verge of being no longer a family and instead a people, standing before the Lord in faithfulness and humility and loving one another. The first act in the history of salvation the comes to an end with the covenant people of God – from whom the gospel will be taken to the ends of the earth and reach all the nations of the earth – finally in harmony with the God of the covenant and with one another in the life of the covenant. And though she will not reach it for another 400 years, Israel is also pointed to the Promised Land.

And so Genesis reads, full of promise for the future as one narrative commentator sums up the closing scene of Genesis:

"The book that began with an image of God’s breath moving across the vast expanse of the primordial deep to bring the world and all life into being ends with this image of a body in a box, a mummy in a coffin. … Out of the contraction of this moment…a new expansion, and new births, will follow. Exodus begins with a proliferation of births, a pointed repetition of the primeval blessing to be fruitful and multiply, and just as the survival of the flood was represented as a second creation, the leader who is to forge the creation of the nation will be borne on the water in a little box – not the ‘aron, ‘the coffin,’ of the end of Genesis, but the tevah, ‘the ark,’ that keeps Noah and his seed alive." [Alter, Genesis, 306]

Now, we can conclude our studies of the Genesis narrative by reminding ourselves of the reason why the Bible teaches so much of its theology and ethics in this narrative form. Both in the OT and the NT a significant part of the biblical text is narrative, the recounting of history. And all of that story-telling – story-telling in true sense of the word – all of that recounting of what happened is done with a view to teach us what to believe and how to live in the most effective way. Narrative teaches theology in a way that is more personally engaging, which is why there is so much narrative in the Bible. By imagination, the reader enters into the history and is able to identify with it, see his own life and circumstances in it, and come to understand how he should practice his faith.

For example, after David’s terrible sins, Nathan the prophet came to him to bring him to repentance. But to do so, Nathan first told King David a story. David was easily able to identify with that story. He found himself and saw himself in the story of the wealthy man with many sheep, who, nevertheless, stole the only sheep a poor family had, and through that story his conscience was awakened and he was brought to repentance. Well, so with this real history in Genesis. Narrative not only tells the story, but it provides the meaning, the theology of the events that it reports with a special force and power. So, we are there emotionally when Abraham almost sacrifices his son Isaac, and we know what we are, ourselves being summoned to do in that history and what God himself is promising for us, today, in that story. At an other place we know why Isaac was gapped, and why, therefore there is no toledot of Abraham in the book of Genesis, and we parents in the church realize in a living way how sacred is our responsibility to raise our children to love and serve the Lord. And we see Judah’s transformation from a cruel, selfish, and sensual man to a man of self-sacrificing love and we come to admire and long for such a life and spirit ourselves. And we know that we are being called to that same love and sacrifice in imitation of Judah’s greatest descendant, who gave himself for us, the just for the unjust, to lead us to God.

And just so here in Genesis 50. We find ourselves and our own lives so naturally, so easily, in this narrative. At least, we find what should be ourselves and our own lives.

Take Paul in Titus 2:11-14:

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all

men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, w ho gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

Genesis 50 is nothing other and nothing less than that same Pauline theology and that same Pauline view of Christian living, but it is presented to us, not in the form of a theological essay as Paul gives us in Titus, but in flesh and blood and a beautiful, compelling account of real human life. And it is the more precious a picture of our faith and life because we have seen how it was brought forth by God’s faithfulness through many years and in the teeth of the sins of Jacob and his sons.

We hear in vv. 24 and 25 the same message being spoken to us: "God will surely visit you, come to your aid, and bring you up out of there to the land he promised to give you." And we know exactly what that means. If we are Christians, we too have been transformed, made new creatures in Christ. This was God’s grace to us, his mercy. We did not deserve his kindness, but he has been extraordinarily kind to us. God has made many wonderful promises to us, many of which he has already kept, but many others are still unfulfilled. Chief among those are the promises of the Promised Land. As we wait in faith and hope for our exodus to the Promised Land, we are to live in harmony with one another doing all manner of deeds of love, obedience, and service. All the while we are to be preparing our children after us to do the same. Upon all such God’s smile rests and will always rest.

As Genesis comes to its close it leaves us, then, with the challenge to find ourselves in these men and in their lives there in Egypt at the end of all that God has done for them and in them. And how do we find ourselves in them and our lives in their lives? How do you? In their righteous, faithful, and dutiful lives? In the way they so faithfully met their obligations in life? In their brotherhood? The strength of their bond despite the sins they had once committed against it? In their humility? Their willingness to acknowledge their wrongs and to seek forgiveness for them? In their keeping one eye firmly fixed upon the Promised Land? In their living their lives out of and in the strength of God’s gracious covenant with them?

That is what it means to be a Christian. It is what it meant in Joseph’s day and what it meant in Paul’s and what it means to day. These are the ways by which one knows whether he or she is a Christian: a living dependence upon the grace of God which, as sinners, we absolutely and desperately need; a confidence that such grace has been promised to all who trust in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ, Judah’s heir; behavior that flows from that faith in God and gratitude to God for his mercy and love, a life of obedience and brotherly love and faithfulness; and, finally, a forsaking of this world as a permanent home and a looking for the heavenly country, the Promised Land where we shall be forever with the Lord. None of this perfectly, of course, but really and sincerely.

May God help us all to find ourselves in these 12 brothers and live as they came eventually to live, and hope, as they hoped, for the better country, while we wait for the glorious appearing of God our Savior, who gave himself for us, to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.