Genesis 50:15-22

"And when Joseph's brothers saw their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the transgressions of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we are thy servants. And Joseph said, unto them, Fear not; for am I in the place of God? And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as in this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore, fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

The Biblical narrative does not always give the exact chronological sequence of events related; and we probably have another instance of it here. It seems to us that the logical time for the brothers of Joseph to have pleaded for the full forgiveness of Joseph would have been before they had returned to Egypt, where, of course, they were completely in his power. Josephus, in fact, states this as the case:

Now at the first his brethren were unwilling to return back with him, because they were afraid lest, now their father was dead, he should punish them; since he was now gone, for whose sake Joseph had been so gracious to them. But he persuaded them to fear no harm ... so he brought them along with him, and gave them great possessions, and never left off his particular concern for them.[15]

Despite such a statement, we do not know that that is the way it happened. In any case, Joseph reassured his brothers, whose guilty consciences had so sharply accused them, making them feel, no doubt, that they deserved the worst that Joseph was able to do them. It appears here that we have the very first confession of the brothers of their sin against Joseph. Perhaps the social distance between them had prevented an earlier expression of their sorrow over what they had done.

Another question that naturally rises in this situation regards the commandment which the brothers allege Jacob had sent to Joseph through them. Many respected scholars see nothing unreasonable in such an allegation, but to us it simply does not ring true. If Jacob had wanted to give Joseph a message about forgiving his brothers, he, it seems to us, would have given such a message to Joseph himself, rather than leaving it for the brothers to tell it. On this account, we feel strong agreement with Willis who wrote:

"All this looks suspicious, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Joseph's brothers invented this story in a desperate effort to assure their own safety."[16]

Such a view is no reflection upon the veracity of the Scriptures, because the Scriptures do not say that Jacob said what the brothers reported, but that they said he did. It should be remembered that they are also the ones who dipped the coat in blood and told Jacob they had "found it."

In any event, Joseph magnanimously forgave his brothers, probably long before the event related here, and he even wept at the knowledge that they still held him to be capable of taking revenge against them.

"Am I in God's place ... ?" Willis stated the meaning of this to be, "Is it my prerogative to judge men and to punish them for their injustice to others?"[17] Jacob asked the same question of Rachel who had complained about not having a child; and there, it meant, "Do I have the power to enable you to conceive and bear a child?" As Willis said, "The answer, in both cases, of course, is no."[18]

"Ye meant evil against me, but God meant it for good ..." Francisco's comment on this is:

There has never been a more vivid picture of the providence of God than in these words of Joseph to his brothers. He was not saying that God caused them to think evil against him, for they were responsible for their own thoughts. But God, in his wisdom and power used their evil purpose to achieve his will.[19]