Day 83 – Genesis 45:5-8
God Did Send Me Before You
Scripture Reading – Genesis 45:5-8
Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Genesis 45:5 KJV
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Genesis 45:6 KJV
And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Genesis 45:7 KJV
So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
Genesis 45:8 KJV
Scripture Review
Joseph names their act without softening it: “whom ye sold into Egypt.” Then he tells them not to be grieved or angry with themselves, because God sent him before them to preserve life. Twice he says God sent him, and then adds that it was not ultimately they who placed him in this position, but God.
This is not denial of responsibility. The same sentence can hold both truths: they sold him, and God sent him. Their intention was evil; God’s intention was saving. Providence does not change sin into obedience or make the brothers innocent. It means their evil never became the highest purpose governing the event. God overruled what He hated to accomplish what He had promised.
The brothers meant to remove Joseph through sale and separation, acting from envy without concern for the life God would preserve through him.
God meant to send Joseph before the famine, make him a ruler and provider, and preserve a posterity in the earth.
What this asks of me
I should never call evil good, but I also should never treat evil as sovereign. Forgiveness can tell the truth about what a person did and still recognize a larger work of God. If I am the offender, providence is not my excuse. My duty remains repentance. If I am wounded, providence gives me hope that God’s purpose reaches beyond the wound.
Consider
- Can I name a wrong honestly without making it greater than God’s providence?
- Have I used God’s ability to redeem an event as an excuse for the human sin within it?