The book of Genesis began with creation and blessing, but it ends in Egypt, with coffins and waiting. This is the end of the book of beginnings. As scripture unfolds from here we will see how God will use this beginning to bring about the promises he makes here at the beginning. That Israel will become a great nation, that they will be given a land, and that all the world will be blessed through them. But before we can get to the middle, we need to finish the start.

Genesis 50:22–26 (ESV)

So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own.

Joseph’s life is long and fruitful. He lives to see his grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. It is really a picture of blessing, of God’s kindness after so much difficulty and after all the trials he went through. Once he was sold as a slave boy, but now he is surrounded by his children and his children’s children. God had restored him and saved him. But we should be careful. Just because this has happened to Joseph, does not mean God will do this like this for us. Joseph had a pivotal role to play in God’s redemption story, and we don’t. But at the same time, no matter how big our part is in God’s story, he will ultimately restore all believers when we are raised on the final day.

And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

There is something beautiful about these last words. Joseph talks just like Jacob before him did. Even in his last words, Joseph points beyond himself. He doesn’t place his hope in Egypt, or in all the power and wealth he gained in Egypt. He points to God’s covenant promises. “God will visit you. God will bring you up.” Joseph, like Jacob, knows that Egypt is not their final home. He fixes his eyes on God’s faithfulness. This is the same faith that carried Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”

Just like Jacob before him, Joseph makes his family swear to carry his bones back to the promised land. He wants even his remains to testify: God’s promises are true. One day, Israel will leave Egypt. One day, God will bring them home. And Joseph’s bones will go with them. This promise would not happen until 400 years later, when Egypt had forgotten about God. But Israel remembered, and so when Israel finally walked out of Egypt, they carried him out in a coffin. Sometimes we have to wait a long time, maybe even the length of many human lives, before our faith in God’s promises come to fruition.

So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Genesis ends with a coffin. But it is an odd coffin of hope. Because as the book of beginnings comes to an end, the bigger story is unfinished. The coffin in Egypt points forward to Exodus, when God will raise up a deliverer and bring His people out. It also points beyond Exodus, to Jesus who is the greater Joseph. He is the one who died and was placed in a tomb, but who rose to bring His people into the true promised land.

PrayerFather, thank You that even at the close of Genesis, when coffins fill the land, Your promises still stand. Teach us to live and die like Joseph, trusting that You will visit us and bring us home. Thank You that in Jesus, death is not the end but the doorway to resurrection life. Keep us waiting with hope until the day Christ returns. In His name, Amen.

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Sometimes fear has a way of sneaking back in, even after years have passed. In this passage we see Joseph’s brothers, who have lived under his kindness for a long time start fearing for their future. It seems as if once Jacob their father died, they start thinking that Joseph will now take revenge on them. The protection of their father’s presence is removed, and so they feel their old guilt resurfacing. Would Joseph finally pay them back for what they had done? Let’s have a look.

Genesis 50:15–21 (ESV)

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

These brothers are haunted by their sin. Even after years of Joseph’s kindness, they still expect revenge. Guilt can be like that. It lingers. It reminds you time and again, payback is just around the corner. Sin really is it’s own reward… So these brothers again take things into their own hands. It seems to me that they make up Jacob’s dying words, or at least we have no record of Jacob saying what they say he said. And so they send a message on behalf of their father, to plead for forgiveness.

In response Joseph weeps. Why? Maybe because they don’t understand how forgiveness works. When sin is wiped out, it is gone for good. Maybe he had forgiven them, but he sees that they haven’t forgiven themselves…

His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

This is the gospel. This is actually what the whole book of Genesis has primarily been about. God created the world good, but Satan infiltrated, tempted Adam and Eve and the fall of sin happened. Eventually what Satan had meant for evil, will ultimately result in good. With Jesus glorified through his death and resurrection. Here we see the mini-version of that same story. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Their sin was real. Their betrayal was evil. But God was at work through it all. It is through this broken family, that he saved many many lives from a terrible famine. It is from this family that he will ultimately save many many lives from sin.

And this points us straight to Christ. On the cross, humanity did its worst. We meant it for evil. But God meant it for good.

The invitation is to stop living like Joseph’s brothers, afraid that God is still holding something against us. If we are in Christ, forgiveness has already been given. The debt has already been paid. We don’t need to grovel, we can boldly approach the throne. The war is won. Rejoice.

PrayerFather, we confess that guilt often clings to us, even after we know Your forgiveness. Help us to believe the good news—that in Christ, what was meant for evil You have turned for good. Thank You that He not only forgives us but provides for us, comforts us, and speaks kindly to us. Teach us to rest in His mercy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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There’s something deeply human about wanting to know where we will be laid to rest. Personally, I don’t really care what you do with my body after I am gone. If God can resurrect people from the dead, he can surely gather my ashes from wherever they have been scattered… But many people do care about what happens to their bodies. In Jacob, we see someone who wants even his death to be tied to God’s promises to him. His request about his last resting place shows the extent of his faith. He wanted his bones to rest in God’s promises. He didn’t care about the riches of Egypt’s wealth. He knew that he was just a traveler in this world, and that his true resting place was in God’s promises. There is something beautiful about that.

Genesis 49:29–33 (ESV)

Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah— the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites.”

Jacob is clear: “Don’t bury me here in Egypt. Take me home.” That burial cave at Machpelah was the first piece of the promised land Abraham ever owned. Yes, it is just a field and just a cave. But it is also a kind of deposit or down payment of the full promised land God promised in the Covenant. When Jacob asks to be buried there, he is clinging to and laying claim to those promises. His hope is not in Egypt, but in the God who promised Canaan. Just like he remembers that Abraham and Sarah were buried there, just like his father Isaac was buried there, he too wants to be buried there. He wants to rest in the land of promise.

When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

One sentence later, and he dies. He dies quite unlike he lived. This was Jacob, Israel, the wrestler. But now he is given a simple quiet ending. He drew up his feet and breathed his last. How much our lives can change us! God has been patiently changing and shaping Jacob, redeeming him from the deceitful fighter, to one who ends his life clinging to the covenant promise. It is almost poetic.

We also need to pay attention to that phrase “was gathered to his people”. He didn’t just die. He wasn’t lost. He didn’t vanish. No, he was gathered. You can picture God’s large arm sweeping him up into the family.

This is the same hope and comfort every believer has. Our death is not our end. Our bodies are not destroyed. Sure we may be buried and eaten by worms, or we might be cremated and turned to dust. But we are gathered by God into his arms. And one day when Jesus comes back, even our dead bodies will be raised back to life. Jacob wanted to be buried in his Covenant home in Canaan. But we will be raised into our true eternal Covenant home. A new heaven and a new earth. That is something to look forward to!

Prayer

Father, thank You for the faith You gave Jacob, that even at the end of his life he trusted Your promises. Help us to live and die with the same hope. Remind us that our true home is not here but with You. Fix our eyes on Jesus, who has conquered death and secured our resurrection. Gather us with Your people at the last day, and keep us until then. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Have you ever noticed that when you are away from home for a long time you eventually feel a bit cabin-fever-ish? I remember going on holidays with my family for a month once, and towards the last week, I just could not wait to get home. While the trip itself was fantastic, there’s a deep human longing in our hearts to know where we belong. To have and to be home. That’s what this passage is all about.

Genesis 47:27–31 (ESV)

Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.

Now notice the contrast from the passage we looked at yesterday. The Egyptians, whose land this was, have just lost everything. They gave up their money, their livestock, even their land and freedom to Pharaoh so that they could survive. But Israel had settled in Goshen, and there they grow and multiply. Of course this is not some random luck that they had. This was God’s covenant playing out. He had promised Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation, and here in Egypt of all places that promise begins to take visible shape. In the land of foreign gods, in the middle of a severe famine, God’s people flourish.

And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

Seventeen years. That’s how long Jacob gets to live under Joseph’s care in Egypt. Do you remember how old Joseph was when he was torn away from Jacob when his brothers sold him into slavery? Seventeen. Now in God’s goodness, he gives Jacob those years back. Often God in his goodness restores to us what we have lost. Sometimes it happens in this life, but always it happens in eternity when we are fully restored in Christ.

And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.” He answered, “I will do as you have said.” And he said, “Swear to me”; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed.

Here Jacob looks death in the face. He knows his time is near. But what matters to him most is not the wealth of Egypt, not the comforts he now enjoys, but the covenant promise of God. He says, “Don’t bury me here. Take me back to the land God promised.” I think this is a beautiful picture of a man who had a difficult life, clinging in faith to the covenant promises of God. He knows Egypt is not the final home of God’s people.

That is faith playing out. Even in his dying breath, Jacob rests on the promises of God. Hebrews 11 tells us that Jacob and the patriarchs all “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.” That’s what we see here. A man who had lived a hard life. Remember he described his years as “few and evil”. But this is a man who dies in hope, trusting that God would keep His word, even after he died.

This is the type of faith we should strive to have. Jacob’s faith was in God’s promise, which in his eyes looked like the land of Canaan. But we don’t just look to a piece of land in Canaan. We look to a better country, a heavenly one. Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare that place. And just like Jacob wanted his bones laid in the land of promise, so we set our hope not in this world but in the resurrection to come. We know our true home is with Christ.

PrayerFather, we thank You that Your promises are sure, even when our days are few and our years are hard. Like Jacob, we confess that this world is not our home. Help us die in faith, trusting not in the riches of Egypt but in the covenant promises You have kept in Christ. Fix our eyes on our true home, the better country You have prepared for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.