Israel in Egypt (Genesis 46-50)

The last five chapters of Genesis have always felt like an extended postlude to me. Sort of like everything in The Lord of the Rings after the ring has been destroyed. (Only with divine inspiration and things that have relevance for life today of course.) The story is over, and all that follows is historical bridging to lay the groundwork for the next steps in the larger salvation plot. This is how Israel ends up in Egypt that will later enslave them. We also see Jacob blessing his sons (and pharaoh). To a degree, some of those blessings are prophetic and tease things we will later see fulfilled in their tribes.

The final scene sees Joseph’s brothers afraid for their well-being after Jacob is dead. It is here we get one of the more quoted lines from Genesis:

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”

That is almost a thesis for the book of Genesis and the Old Testament message as a whole. Mankind in rebellion against God has been seen again and again to be violent and evil. But God is conducting history and using the evil that men intend to accomplish His purposes to save the lives of many—to redeem the fallen Creation.