Genesis-165 – In the Wilderness – Part 2

Genesis 50:21–26

 

“Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s household. And Joseph lived one hundred and ten years. Joseph saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph’s knees. And Joseph said to his brethren, “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” So Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Amen.

 

A Drama of Fear Written by Human Standards

As we observed last week, even after all they had been through, the brothers’ focus remained fixed solely on Joseph. It seems they could not clearly perceive God or His providence. When we fail to deeply contemplate God’s heart and will, we ultimately end up writing our own life dramas based on our own standards and imaginations.

 

Imagine for a moment the journey back to Egypt after burying Jacob’s body in Canaan and completing all the funeral rites alongside the Egyptians. What did that road mean to Joseph? For him, it was the very path upon which he had been sold as a slave twenty years earlier—a road of agony where he had hovered on the brink of death. It was, in a sense, a retracing of the path of despair.

 

While we cannot know exactly what reflections Joseph was immersed in, the hearts of the brothers can be clearly surmised through the words they spoke to him. To the brothers, that place was the horrific site where they had conspired to sell Joseph and kill him. Yet now, Joseph is passing by them accompanied by an army. If he sought revenge, what better place could there be?

 

The brothers must have been seized by extreme anxiety, thinking that Joseph might bury them all on that spot or turn the remaining kin in the land of Goshen into slaves. When human standards took the place where God should have been, they could not help but tremble within a drama of fear they created themselves.

 

A Drama Without God and the Shackle of Anxiety

Thus, for all of Joseph’s brothers, the road of return was a continuation of distress. Eventually, they approach Joseph, using their deceased father as a pretext. “Joseph, our father left word for us to be forgiven.” Furthermore, fearing that Joseph might refuse or that his expression might change, they preemptively add, “We will be your servants.” It could not have been easy to tell one’s own flesh and blood that they would become his servants. Because this story they conspired to tell was so unexpected and absurd from Joseph’s perspective, the Bible records that he wept.

 

However, from the brothers’ viewpoint, it was a perfectly plausible drama. Do we not often experience the same? When we immerse ourselves only in our own interests and begin to script our own dramas, fear and worry inevitably follow. We begin to interpret the intentions of others through the framework of our own thoughts. While those guesses may occasionally be right, in most cases, we despair within the tragedies we have written ourselves, trapping our own souls.

 

Their anxiety had its own reasons, and considering the guilt of their past attempt to kill Joseph, it might have been a natural reaction. Yet, there was one decisive element missing from their thoughts: God. Beloved, no matter how precisely you analyze your life or how excellent you are at solving immediate problems, a drama that excludes God ends only in fear and distress.

 

A life where God is absent suffers from the obsession that one must lead the drama alone, reaching every conclusion and achieving every goal by one's own strength. Ultimately, because one must bear the entire weight of life’s burdens, we can never be free from the shackles of worry.

 

Redrawing the History of Salvation through Divine Providence

Joseph redirects the brothers’ gaze from himself to God. The confession in verses 19 and 20—“Am I in the place of God?”—is the core that pierces through this entire event. “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” As Joseph confessed, the moment God intervenes in the drama of life, a history once marred by distress and fear is completely transformed into a history of salvation and life.

 

Beloved, I hope you will certainly remember this truth. The event itself that occurred in our lives has not changed. However, when we fail to see the true essence of the event, we cannot help but be seized by fear, just like Joseph’s brothers. Their eyes could not see the miracle of dying lives being saved, nor could they see the fact that God’s providence had led them to this place to accomplish a marvelous work. God’s work was real, yet their spiritual eyes were veiled.

 

What their eyes saw was only the terror that they “might die here” and the worry that they “might become slaves again.” Their drama might have been filled with meticulous analysis and plausible logic, but because God was absent, they could not face the truth hidden behind the events.

 

What is your life like today? Even if it is a tragic life that must end in sin and death, we know that if God intervenes, it changes into a conclusion of righteousness and life. This is the history of salvation. How do you view the trials before your eyes right now, and what are you gazing at amidst the many fluctuations of life?

 

Of course, you too will face moments of decision where you agonize to analyze the situation and make the best judgment, or strive to discern the intentions of others. At that moment, where is God in the drama you are writing? Have you perhaps pushed God to the role of a supporting actor? Have you treated Him only as someone to ask for help when in trouble, or as an object of resentment, asking why He remains a bystander? To truly understand life, God must be at the center. If we exclude the fact that God is sovereign over all things, we can never discover the true meaning of life.

 

Joseph’s Final Years and the Twist of a Happy Ending

In verse 22, the final scene of Joseph’s life unfolds. At the time of Jacob’s burial, Joseph was in his mid-fifties, but by the time he departed the world, he was 110 years old. He enjoyed about 54 more years of life after Jacob passed away. During those long years, numerous descendants were born. The Bible records that Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children, and the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up under his care. That is, he lived to hold his great-grandchildren in his arms.

 

The reason the Bible records these implications is not simply to inform us that Joseph lived a long life. Psalm 128 says that the one who sees “your children’s children” is blessed. In other words, the Bible summarizes Joseph’s old age in such detail to confirm that he was truly a man who received God’s blessing.

 

The grand journey that began in Genesis chapter 1 finally reaches its climax in chapter 50. What more magnificent ending could there be? This conclusion—where Joseph’s descendants prosper, he reconciles with his brothers, and everyone enjoys peace—seems like a perfect happy ending in itself.

 

However, just as we expect a twist hidden behind a dramatic happy ending when watching a movie, there is a surprising twist in Genesis 50 as well. It is the final testament left by Joseph. If Joseph had regarded life in Egypt as his true resting place, he would not have left such a will. He declares to his brothers: “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore. You shall carry up my bones from here.” If Egypt were the final destination of his life, it would have been enough to die peacefully there. But to Joseph, Egypt was not a happy ending in the truest sense.

 

A Spiritual Decision Toward the Promised Land

Some might think Joseph left such a will simply because he wanted to be with his family even after death. However, the truly interesting point is why Joseph did not return to Canaan during his lifetime. He had personally buried his father Jacob in Canaan and was the Prime Minister who wielded absolute power in Egypt. A single request—“Bury me in Canaan immediately when I die”—would have settled everything.

 

Yet, Joseph says he will first be buried here in Egypt. He only asks that in the future, when his brothers and their descendants march toward Canaan, they must carry his remains with them. This is a truly significant choice and a decision that differs from common ways of thinking. The decisive reason Joseph showed such a firm attitude was the promise of God he had confirmed through his father Jacob.

 

Remember the moment Jacob first came down to Egypt. Despite Joseph’s invitation, Jacob did not move easily. It was then that God appeared to Jacob through Genesis 46:3: “I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.” This was God’s clear promise and will.

 

Jacob’s journey to Egypt was not merely a measure to preserve life from famine. God declared that He would fulfill the covenant of a “great nation” promised to Abraham not in Canaan, but in Egypt. To our minds, it seems right to prosper in Canaan, the Promised Land, but God’s providence led them to Egypt.

 

Jacob returned to Canaan after finishing his mission as a patriarch, but Joseph accurately pierced through God’s plan to form a great nation in Egypt. Because he knew the essence of why Jacob had to come to Egypt, he realized that the history of redemption could not simply stop there. The promise of God—“I will go down with you to Egypt and I will also surely bring you up again”—was being faithfully continued through Joseph’s life.

 

Life in Egypt: A Wilderness Waiting for the Promise

At the same time, God clearly showed Jacob what kind of place Egypt fundamentally was. In fact, the final journey of Jacob’s life was a process of God testifying through his life that although he went down to Egypt, his descendants would eventually undergo the Exodus and return. Therefore, the years Jacob spent in Egypt, even if outwardly prosperous, were spiritually no different from living in a wilderness.

 

Though Jacob might have enjoyed the wealthiest and most splendid life there, the Bible barely describes his life in Egypt. Why does the Bible, which recorded even the shameful anecdotes of his youth when he deceived others, summarize those last 17 years—the most comfortable and peaceful of his life—in a single word? It is because that place was not his home, but a wilderness. Furthermore, it was because that place was a wilderness his descendants would have to endure by faith in the future.

 

Beloved, the salvation Israel obtained through Joseph was the prelude to this wilderness life. As we well know, at the threshold of this wilderness, there always lies an event of forgiveness—the work of salvation where God deals with our sins and delivers us from them.

 

Coming to the painful realization of who I am, facing the reality of what a sin it truly was to sell Joseph, and receiving complete forgiveness from Joseph—all these processes inevitably occur within the journey of salvation. In that moment, Joseph serves as a figure foreshadowing God and Jesus Christ, symbolically revealing God’s love that forgives and embraces sinners.

 

A Sojourner’s Consciousness within a Prosperous Wilderness

Now the time of the wilderness begins. We often associate a wilderness with deficiency and deprivation, but the spiritual wilderness Israel faced was quite different. Egypt was a very prosperous wilderness. That is why it took 400 years to leave that place. It was a wilderness so sweet to settle in that it was truly difficult to escape.

 

We call Canaan a land flowing with milk and honey, but its actual terrain is similar to a Californian climate—a barren land where it is hard to survive without water. If we look only at objective conditions, the land of prosperity flowing with milk and honey was actually Egypt. When the children of Israel first arrived there, they were truly happy. There was no lack, and everything was abundant. Even looking only at Joseph’s life, he enjoyed immense blessing and success in Egypt.

 

Egypt was a site of suffering for Joseph, but simultaneously a land of dazzling success. Therefore, he named his first son Manasseh, meaning “I will forget the toil,” and his second son Ephraim, meaning “fruitful.” He might have intended to perfectly conclude his life with success in Egypt. If anyone had asked him then, the will to carry his remains to Canaan might not have even crossed his mind.

 

However, the moment he faced the brothers he tried to forget, he realized with a shudder that all of this was God’s providence. He finally understood why God had sent him here in advance. Facing his brothers, he recalled God’s promise—the solemn promise God had given to Abraham in Genesis 15:

 

“Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years... but in the fourth generation they shall return here.” Joseph engraved this covenant in his heart. No matter how sweet the prosperity of Egypt might be, he held onto the truth that this was not an eternal resting place, but a journey of a sojourner and a wilderness where we stay as strangers.

 

The milk and honey tasted within the prosperity of Egypt might actually be products bloomed from the soil of sin and evil. While Joseph lived, they would enjoy peace and form a great nation within God’s blessing, but Joseph was looking toward God’s fundamental plan beyond that momentary prosperity.

 

Joseph’s Death: A Signpost Pointing Toward God

But in verse 24, Joseph shifts every aspect of the drama with one short yet powerful sentence. He declares: “I am dying.” This confession does not merely mean that Joseph’s biological life had reached its end. We need to examine the implication of death that pierces through the entire book of Genesis. In the vast genealogies recorded in Genesis, the record of how many years someone lived is invariably followed by the phrase “and he died.” This shows that the final existential limit facing humans who have left God is death. Although Enoch alone was taken up to heaven without seeing death, walking with the Lord—thereby foreshadowing the history of life to be achieved through the Messiah—death was an unavoidable reality for fallen humans.

 

In this context, Joseph’s confession, “I am dying,” is a truly shocking declaration. How much fear must these words have brought to the brothers who had lived with Joseph as their only source of support? They must have been devastated, wondering who would care for them after he was gone and who would be their shield in these harsh years. The fundamental anxiety—“How shall we live now? Is everything ending here? Are we falling back into the status of slaves?”—must have overwhelmed them.

 

However, while Joseph clearly declares his own limits, he simultaneously presents hope beyond death. “Brothers, I have cared for the family as promised. But now you must realize: the one you must look to is not me, Joseph, but God who is with us forever.” He declared that while it seemed he had saved them, in reality, the one who had cared for them and kept the covenant was God alone.

 

Joseph constantly redirects the brothers’ gaze from his own existence toward God. “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Joseph urges them not to bury him in Canaan immediately. Instead, he chose to remain, even in death, at the site of the grueling wilderness that the descendants would have to face.

 

Hope Attested by Death and the Message of the Grave

In Jacob’s life as well, we discover traces of Jesus Christ. His return to Canaan after death shows the image of Christ gazing at God’s glory and His kingdom. Joseph, by contrast, chooses to remain until the end with the generation that would live through the wilderness called Egypt. If Jacob proclaimed what the hope of the promise was, Joseph was the one who proved and lived out that hope through his own death. He perceived that the spiritual training of looking toward the Promised Land had begun for the descendants, and he willingly chose to remain as a grave in the land of Egypt for their sake.

 

Though the Bible does not contain every detailed record, the people of Israel surely never forgot Joseph, who led them to Egypt. Every time they passed Joseph’s grave, they would have recalled his final testament: “Carry my bones, my coffin, and go up to Canaan.” Joseph’s tombstone likely bore the inscription, “Dwelt here, walking with God for one hundred and ten years,” along with the earnest plea, “When you return to the Promised Land, you must take me with you.”

 

Thus, Joseph, by his very existence as a grave, throws a solemn message to the people of Israel: “You will now be disciplined and become strong and prosperous in Egypt. At times, life here may feel comfortable and abundant. But at that moment, remember: this is by no means the home where you will stay forever.” Joseph’s grave was an eternal signpost awakening their souls that were tempted to settle for the present.

 

The Temptation of Settling and the Memory of the Eternal Home

The children of Israel would come to enjoy great wealth under Joseph’s influence. As the Bible testifies, until a new king who did not know Joseph arose, they would enjoy considerable stability. At that very moment, Joseph speaks through his grave. He testifies to the fact that he was a man who met death at the peak of his life, at the height of all respect and glory in Egypt. At the same time, he strictly warns his descendants: “Keep in mind these words I leave for you. This is not our true home.”

 

No matter what they were currently enjoying, no matter how deeply they felt secure in the safety provided by that prosperity, or how much they felt that this was a good enough life—this was a declaration that Egypt could never be an eternal resting place. Joseph also clearly foresaw the suffering the descendants would undergo for four hundred years according to God’s prophecy. As time passed, the waves of suffering would only crash more violently.

 

Beloved saints, I believe you deeply empathize with the precious value of suffering in a believer’s life, even without much emphasis. The reason suffering is not removed from a saint’s life is partly because it disciplines and matures our faith, but most of all because only when standing in the place of suffering does a human face their own weakness and limits as a creature. Suffering is God’s meticulous touch that prevents us from forgetting that we are sojourners on this earth.

 

Facing the Reality of God through Suffering

I say this often, but the benefit of suffering does not stop merely at the cultivation of character. The depth of knowledge of God gained through suffering is truly marvelous. It is a unique and abundant knowledge that cannot be obtained even in heaven. For in heaven, there is no suffering and no falling into temptation. Only here, in this world where God walks with us and clears the storms together, do we come to know and experience that special God.

 

Even as I say this, suffering may still seem strange and agonizing. Why is that? As mentioned before, it is because we exclude God from the drama of our lives. When God is absent, suffering is merely a tragedy marked by pain and tears, and nothing remains but a vague comfort like “after the storm comes the calm.”

 

Think of the stifling tunnel you are passing through right now, the moments you struggle, not knowing what to do. Whether it is a wound caused by others, your own faults, or an unexpected accident, things that are too hard to handle come to us. At that moment, we become immersed only in analyzing ourselves and the situation, asking, “How can I overcome this obstacle?” or “Why did this happen to me?”

 

In those moments, I hope you remember this: “One thing, the most important thing, is missing from all these thoughts—God.” If God is the master of my life and is walking with me right now, this painful moment may actually be a marvelous opportunity prepared by God that we have yet to discover. Joseph’s brothers did not know at first either. Who could have imagined that the evil deed of selling Joseph would become God’s tool for saving lives? But the moment we realize God’s presence in that very site, we finally face the mysterious providence of how God works within our lives.

 

The Joy of Being with Christ within Suffering

This is the secret of how the apostles could enjoy a joy that seemed like praise even while facing suffering. 1 Peter 4 proclaims: “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” The only reason this confession is possible is that God Himself has entered into the drama of our lives.

 

Look at the grand finale of Genesis 50 again from this perspective. Is this truly a happy ending in the worldly sense we often speak of? The testament “Carry my bones and go up to Canaan” seems, at first glance, far from a conclusion like “and they lived happily ever after.” It might look like it ends with an unfinished task. But paradoxically, this is the true happy ending.

 

Joseph is now declaring through his death: “I saw my descendants to the third generation during my life and enjoyed all the honor and wealth of the world. But now I prove by my death that God’s promise is incomparably more precious than all the blessings of this world.” With his deathbed, he confirms once more: the touch of God that disciplines us is a greater blessing than any comfort of the world, and His guidance leading us to God’s kingdom is the safest path.

 

Joseph was a man who had tasted every success of the world and had actually grasped that abundance everyone wants to pass on to their children. Such a man, at the threshold of death where one becomes most serious and honest, reaches a conclusion: God’s promise is more honorable than all of the world, and that path is the most certain. Therefore, he is buried in Egypt for a while, but he asks to be surely taken to the Promised Land later. It is because remaining as God’s poor sojourner is far more glorious than being remembered as the brilliant Prime Minister of Egypt.

 

The Testimony of a Sojourner Longing for the Heavenly Home

Hebrews 11 records this magnificent confession of faith as follows: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.”

 

Longing for the heavenly home is a declaration that the citizenship of my life belongs not to this earth, but to heaven. This means that the diary of life we are writing is not filled merely with personal analysis and fragmentary records, but is filled with God’s touch from the first page to the last. Beyond the daily record of what we ate or what weather we faced, confessions are engraved in every fold of its pages—that God became my spiritual food and manna, and that He became the eternal light of my life.

 

In that diary, not only the tears and sorrows we shed are pooled. It contains how God shaped us into His children through the narrow road of suffering. In times of weeping and distress, in moments when everything felt like the end and we were in despair, we resented God, got angry with people, and even collapsed ourselves. But looking back, God was the master of my life even in those pitch-black moments. The Lord is the one who rewrote my diary and led my life into a mystery of a completely different dimension.

 

The Bible promises this: “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” For those who lived a God-centered life, looking only toward heaven, the Lord willingly became their God and prepared an eternal dwelling.

 

The Love of God Who Is Not Ashamed

Beloved, looking back, we were truly proud. How often have we shifted responsibility by blaming others or the environment? How hard have we tried to prove ourselves, thinking we were wise? We were angered by small slights, and at times we were deeply disappointed in ourselves, facing moments in life we wanted to erase. Sometimes we fell into the abyss of despair, and then suddenly became as arrogant as if we were the center of the world—this is our shameful self-portrait.

 

Though there are many times when I cannot understand or accept even myself, amazingly, God is not ashamed of us. The Lord has a deeper insight into my life than I do. He sees the trajectory of my life, the thoughts I hold now, and the pain and anger swirling inside even at this moment of worship. Our past, present, and future selves, distorted by disappointment and frustration—the one who knows truly who I am more accurately than I do is God. And yet, God says He is not ashamed of you and me.

 

“I am not ashamed of you, and I prepare a new heaven and a new earth for you.” This is the very heart of the Father toward us. Therefore, beloved saints, do not be ashamed of the cross of Jesus. Do not be ashamed to confess Christ, and do not hesitate to live a life walking with the Lord. Rejoice in the touch of the Lord who is the master of the diary of your life and who governs every day’s record. Embracing that grace, I pray that you will thank and praise the Lord who leads our lives with all your heart.

 

Let Us Pray

Lord, who knows us so well, are You truly not ashamed of us? We have often resented and despised You behind Your back on the pretext that we do not understand. While praising Jesus Christ as a great person, in reality, we confess that we treated You lightly, regarding You merely as a useful tool for life on this earth or a means of temporary comfort in times of suffering.

 

However, Lord, You are not ashamed of such people as us; rather, You rejoiced to call us sons and daughters and prepared an eternal city for us. We offer our heartfelt thanks and praise for that immeasurable grace and love.

 

Now, let us also not be ashamed of that glorious name of being Your children, and let us live boldly confessing the Lord in the middle of the world. Lord, who knows our weakness, always accompany us on this sojourner’s life path and let us walk honestly with You, step by step. Let knowing the Lord be the greatest joy of our lives, and let the realization of that endless love for me be our delight day by day.

 

In the name of Jesus Christ, our eternal hope, we pray. Amen.