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Genesis 50:24-26
Genesis 50:24-26 contains the story of Joseph's final instructions before his death. Notice Joseph's confidence in these verses. He says twice that God would surely visit the children of Israel. There was no doubt in Joseph's mind that his brethren would be led back to the land God promised to his fathers. His trust in God's future deliverance prompted him to make the children of Israel swear that whoever was alive at that time would carry his bones with them as they left Egypt and returned to their ancestral land. When Joseph says that God would visit them, he is not using that word in the sense of a social call—it is not used that way in reference to God. God "visited" Sarah when she miraculously conceived Isaac (Genesis 21:1). God decreed that He would "visit" the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him (Exodus 20:5). When God "visits" someone, it may be with either benevolent or with punishing intent, but God is always shown acting or performing a work. Thus, Joseph signifies that God would be acting on Israel's behalf when He brought them out of Egypt and back to the land of their fathers. By faith, Joseph made mention of this (see Hebrews 11:22), and the reason is found much earlier, in the story of Abraham: Then He said to Abram: "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. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:13-16) Romans 10:17 instructs us that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (emphasis ours). There is no record of Joseph personally hearing words from God, nor did he have the written Word of God as we do. Instead, God's words to Abraham were relayed to Joseph either by his father, Jacob, or by his grandfather, Isaac, whose life overlapped Joseph's by a number of years. Joseph believed those words to his fathers and acted on them at the end of his life. God promised Abraham this, and Joseph heard this from his father, if not his grandfather. If we add to this the other promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, particularly concerning the land, we can understand the "word of God" that Joseph heard and which made up the basis of his faith. Joseph believed the words that God spoke to Abraham concerning what would befall Abraham's children, and he believed that God would judge the strangers whom they would serve. He also believed that God would bring them out of that strange land and into the Promised Land. These words to Abraham, handed down through Isaac and Jacob to Joseph, formed the trust and confidence in his mind that God would "visit" the children of Israel in a positive way, and then they would be led to their ancestral lands.
David C. Grabbe
The Faith of Joseph (Part One)
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