Genesis 45:5

Genesis 45:5

Joseph looks away from and thrusts aside the wickedness of his brothers, and refers all to the over-ruling providence of God, bringing good out of evil, and making all things work together for good, to the family of His chosen servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In time of bereavement and sorrow we may put these words into the mouth of him whom we have lost. After a death we are apt to reproach ourselves bitterly for things done or left undone. "Now, therefore," says the one we have lost, whom we trust reposes in Paradise, "be not grieved or angry with yourselves; the faults were not intentional, there was no lack of love. I reproach you not, for God did send me before you, a spy into the promised land. I am at rest, and tarry for you to come to me. I have gone 'to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.'"

S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year,vol. ii., p. 81.

Genesis 45:5 , Genesis 45:8

The words of Joseph in the text contrast somewhat strangely with the words spoken by his brethren of themselves. It is clear that the view he took of their conduct was the one most likely to give them ease. He assured them that after all they were but instruments in God's hands, that God had sent him, that God's providence was at work for good when they sold him as a slave. Both views are true, and both important. The brethren had done what they did as wickedly and maliciously as possible; nevertheless it was true that it was not they, but God, who had sent Joseph into Egypt.

I. That God governs the world, we do not we dare not doubt; but it is equally true that He governs in a way which we should not have expected, and that much of His handiwork appears strange. So strange, indeed, that we know that it has been in all times, and is in our time, easy to say, God cares not, God sees not, or even to adopt the bolder language of the fool, and say, "There is no God." Scriptural illustrations of the same kind of contradiction as we have in the text are to be found: (1) in the case of Esau and Jacob; (2) in the manner in which the hardheartedness and folly of Pharaoh were made to contribute to the carrying out of God's designs concerning the Israelites; (3) in the circumstances of our Lord's sorrowful life on earth, and especially the circumstances connected with His shameful and yet life-giving death.

II. Our own lives supply us with illustrations of the same truth. Who cannot call to mind cases in which God's providence has brought about results in the strangest way, educing good from evil, turning that which seemed to be ruin into blessing, making even the sins and follies of men to declare His glory and to forward the spiritual interests of their brethren. We see human causes producing effects, but we may also see God's hand everywhere; all things living and moving in Him; no sparrow falling without His leave; no hair of one of His saints perishing.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,5th series, p. 63.