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Providence and the Good Meaning of God in Joseph's Suffering · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking, a deep dive into the historical
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and theological realities of the biblical text.
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Thanks for having me back. Yeah, glad you're here.
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So today we are looking at what happens when a a family dynamic
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goes catastrophically wrong. Oh yeah, like the worst case
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scenario. Right.
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Think about a modern corporate scenario where your own siblings
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conspire to, you know, strip you of your shares in the family
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business. Yeah, they vote you out of the
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boardroom, freeze your assets and literally leave you on the
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street. With absolutely nothing and they
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just divide your inheritance among themselves.
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It is the kind of brutal betrayal that ruins people for
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life. It really is.
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But you know that scenario is terrible, but it is nothing
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compared to what we are investigating today.
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No, not at all. We are looking at the historical
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account of Joseph in the book of Genesis, and we are focusing
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intensely on one specific statement in Genesis 50.20.
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You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
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Right that verse, The material we are analyzing today, includes
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these incredibly dense analytical theological essays,
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and they unpack the doctrine of Providence, the concept of
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compatibilism, and how human guilt intersects with divine
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sovereignty. And our goal today is to
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synthesize these materials to give you, the listener, a really
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robust practical theology. Yeah, we want to establish a
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framework that dethrones the desire for personal vengeance,
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you know, and anchors your faith during severe trials.
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Because this is not a theoretical exercise to rack up
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trivia points. This has immediate application
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to how you process the worst things that happened to you.
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Oh, absolutely. We are definitely not framing
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this as some simple Sunday school story about, you know,
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being a nice person and forgiving your siblings after
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they break your favorite toy. We're looking at a staggering
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theological framework that answers a massive question like
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how does God govern the wicked actions of humans while
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remaining completely holy and doing so to bring about the
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salvation of his people? Well, to answer that, we have to
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start at the ground level. I mean, before we can look at
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the high theology of God's sovereignty, we first must
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establish that these events happened in real space, real
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time, and real dirt. Yeah, because if the history is
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fake, the theology just falls apart.
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Precisely. You cannot build a solid
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theology on a fairy tale. No, you can't.
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So setting the stage historically is crucial here.
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Where and when are we in the ancient world?
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We are in the patriarchal period.
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Specifically, the artifacts and documents we are analyzing
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locate this during the Middle Bronze Age.
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Which runs roughly from what, 2000 to 1550 BC?
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Yeah, right in that pocket. And this was a distinct era in
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redemptive history. I mean, God was dealing
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exclusively with the physical offspring of Abraham to
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establish the baseline for the nation of Israel.
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Right. And the geopolitical landscape
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type of the ancient Near East of this time was well, it was one
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of the emerging empires and established highly lucrative
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trade rates. Yeah, and there is a fascinating
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archaeological detail in the text that proves we are in that
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specific time period. It involves the actual
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transaction price of Joseph. Oh, right, when his brothers
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throw them into a pit and then decide to sell them into slavery
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to a passing caravan, they sell him for 20 shekels of silver.
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I want to look closely at that number because it is not
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arbitrary. Extra biblical documents from
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the ancient Near East verified that 20 shekels of silver was
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the precise going rate for a male slave in that specific era.
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In the early 2nd Millennium BC, right?
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Yeah. We know this from things like
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the Code of Hammurabi and the Mari tablets.
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OK, I want to pause there and make sure we define what those
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things are because they get thrown around a lot in biblical
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archaeologies. Sure, assume I have no idea.
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What a Mari tablet. Is fair enough.
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So the Mari tablets are a massive collection of thousands
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of cuneiform clay tablets discovered in an ancient city
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called Mari. Which is in modern day Syria I
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think. Right, modern day Syria, and
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they were essentially the administrative and economic
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archives of a Kingdom. They detailed trade, diplomacy
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and everyday purchases. And the Code of Hammurabi is a
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very famous Babylonian legal text carved into a massive stone
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pillar detailing the laws and economic regulations of the
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Babylonian Empire. OK, so when archaeologists
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translated these ancient receipts and laws from the
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Middle Bronze Age, they found a very specific economic standard.
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Yes, the price of a slave was 20 shekels of silver.
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And it is vital to note they didn't have minted coins yet.
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A shekel was just a unit of weight.
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Right, they were literally putting pieces of silver on a
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scale. 20 shekels is roughly 8 ounces of silver.
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But what is so compelling here is how that price changed over
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the centuries due to economic inflation.
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Yeah, inflation happened in the ancient world just like it does
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today. As economies grew and silver
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became slightly more common, prices went up.
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So by the time of Moses, which is the late Bronze Age, the
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price of a slave had inflated to 30 shekels.
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Spot on. You see that reflected in the
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laws in the Book of Exodus and later by the Iron Age.
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Several centuries after that, the price reached 50 shekels.
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Which is recorded in the Book of Second Kings.
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Finding that 20 Shekel detail in Genesis is like finding a
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perfectly dated receipt from 1920 in an old coat pocket.
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You know it's from 1920 because the price of a loaf of bread is
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listed at a nickel, not $5. That is a great analogy.
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It proves the author had access to the precise economic
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realities of the Middle Bronze Age.
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This historical accuracy utterly crushes liberal higher
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criticism. We.
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Should probably explain what that is for the listener.
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Yeah, definitely. Higher criticism was a movement,
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largely starting in the 18th and 19th centuries, where secular
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scholars tried to claim that the early books of the Bible were
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completely fabricated. Right.
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They argued that Genesis was written centuries later, maybe
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during the Babylonian exile, around 500 BC.
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By people just making up a fake back story for their nation to
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boost their own morale. But a later author writing in
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500 BC wouldn't know the precise price of a slave from 1000 years
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prior. If they made-up the story, they
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would have used the going rate of their own day.
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Which would have been closer to 90 or 100 shekels by that.
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Well, I mean absolutely. The 20 Shekel detail proves the
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authenticity of the text. It grounds the narrative in
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concrete reality. And, you know, another major
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geopolitical reality of this era was the constant threat of
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localized famines. Oh yeah, In the ancient world,
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if it didn't rain, you didn't have irrigation systems to save
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you, You just starved. But the analysis we are
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reviewing points out that this specific famine in the Joseph
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narrative wasn't a random meteorological anomaly.
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Famines were common, yes, but this specific famine was a
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decreed instrument by God. It was not an accident of
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climate patterns over the Mediterranean.
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It was a sovereign tool used to relocate 70 souls, Jacob's
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entire family, down into Egypt, specifically to the region of
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Goshen. But why?
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Move them out of Canaan at all When Canaan is the promised
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land. Why would God use a catastrophe
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weather event to force the covenant family into a foreign
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country? To protect the covenant lineage
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from cultural assimilation, if Jacob's family had stayed in
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Canaan, they were in grave danger of intermarrying and
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blending in with the wicked Canaanite culture.
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Which we actually see starting to happen to the chapters right
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before the Joseph story, right? With characters like Judah
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behaving just like the Canaanites.
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Yeah, they were losing their distinct identity.
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Egypt, and specifically the region of Goshen, functioned as
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a cultural incubator. Now, Goshen was a lush, fertile
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area in the eastern part of the Nile Delta, perfect for grazing
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livestock. But the Egyptians had a massive
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cultural prejudice against shepherds.
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They absolutely despised them. The Egyptians viewed shepherds
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as culturally backwards and unclean.
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Wow. And because of that prejudice,
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they left the Israelites completely alone in Goshen.
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They didn't want to intermarry with them or socialize with
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them. So the Israelites were able to
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multiply from a family of 70 people into a nation of millions
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over several centuries without their religion and lineage being
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swallowed up by Pagan neighbors. God used the Egyptians own
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prejudice to create a secure wall around his people.
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That is incredible. We see God orchestrating macro
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politics with empires and microeconomics with things like
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the ancient spice trade. Yeah, think about when the
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brothers throw Joseph into the pit at Dothan.
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They happen to look up and see a caravan.
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Just at that moment. Just at that moment they see
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Ishmaelites and Midianites carrying gum, balm and myrrh
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down to Egypt. Which is a historically verified
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by trade Rd. known as the Via Maris or the Way of the Sea.
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Connecting Mesopotamia to Egypt, right?
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And the irony is thick here. What are gum balm and myrrh used
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for in Egypt? Embalming.
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Yes, they are the specific spices used for embalming the
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dead. Oh man, so Joseph is being
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carried down to Egypt with the tools of death, entering into a
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living death as a slave. If God is orchestrating macro
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politics and microeconomics like a nomadic spice caravan
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intersecting with a family betrayal at the precise minute
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necessary to move one boy to Egypt, how does that alter how
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you view your Daily News feed? I mean, it changes your entire
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perspective on history. God used the ordinary, mundane
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trade routes of the ancient world to execute his redemptive
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plan. He placed a Hebrew slave in the
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most powerful nation on earth, raising him to the position of
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his ear, second only to Pharaoh at the very moment the known
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world would face starvation. God is directing the massive
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global events and the tiny, seemingly insignificant details
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simultaneously. There are no rogue molecules in
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the universe. And that reality forces us to
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look at the specific grammar of Genesis 50.12.
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We need to understand the mechanics of how God interacts
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with human choices within that history.
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Which brings us to the actual words Joseph speaks to his
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terrified brothers years later. This is where the theology gets
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intensely heavy. The text hinges on one specific
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Hebrew verb. Yeah, it carries the meaning of
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calculating, plotting, devising or intending.
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It involves A deliberate, thoughtful plan.
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The staggering thing is that this specific verb is used for
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both the brothers and God in the very same sentence.
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The syntax of the clause is striking, Joseph says As for
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you, you meant Shashab evil against me, but God meant
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shashabet for good. There is an absolute
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juxtaposition there, and the Hebrew syntax does not give us a
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softening conjunction. It doesn't say, you know, you
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meant evil against me. And then later God figured out a
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way to turn it around for good. No.
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The contrast is absolute, and the most critical grammatical
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feature here is a feminine suffix attached to the second
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use of the verb. OK, I'm back then.
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So the text literally reads God meant it.
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The Hebrew word is hashaba. The antecedent of it is the
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feminine noun or rah, which translates to evil.
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Wait, so God meant the evil itself?
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That is, is the literal reading of the text God intended the
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very thing the brothers did. This is the doctrine of
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compatibilism. OK, that is a huge concept.
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It is the truth that divine determinism and human moral
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responsibility intersect perfectly in space and time
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without contradicting each other.
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So the very historical event that the brothers intended for
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destruction, God intended for salvation.
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Yes, this is a massive claim. The theologists who wrote the
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material we are studying vigorously reject other
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theological frameworks. Here they put out how this text
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refutes systems like Open Theism and Arminianism.
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Right. And we need to explain what
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those terms mean, because they represent how a lot of modern
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people naturally think about God.
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Let's do it. What is open theism?
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Open theism is a theological belief system asserting that God
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does not know the future choices of free creatures.
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So God is just guessing. Basically, yeah.
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In this view, God is essentially guessing what humans will do and
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reacting to their choices as they happen.
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It presents God as a cosmic risk taker who learns as history
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unfolds. And what about Arminianism?
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Because that's quite different. Arminianism is different.
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Yes, it affirms that God knows all future events perfectly.
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However, it argues that God merely foresees human choices
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and permits them to happen passively, without actively
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decreeing or intending them. So Arminianism tries to protect
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God from being associated with evil by making his relationship
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to human sin entirely passive. Yes, that's the goal of that
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system. But the text in Genesis
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completely shatters both of those frameworks.
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God is not an emergency worker reacting to human autonomy.
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He is not looking down at the pit and Dothan saying Oh no,
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what are they doing to Joseph? I better scramble and come up
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with a backup plan to salvage this.
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No, The authors argue against the idea that God simply foresaw
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the brothers doing something terrible and then reacted.
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They also reject the idea that God passively permitted the
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evil. Because of that active verb
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cheshub. Right.
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The active verb proves that God actively intended the very same
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event for a righteous end, while the brothers intended it for
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destruction out of their own total depravity.
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I like to think about it like 2 authors writing the very same
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scene in a play, but with totally opposed motives for the
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characters. That's a good way to look at it.
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The characters are acting freely according to their own desires
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within the scene. They are not being forced
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against their wills. But the overarching author has a
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completely different, grander purpose for why that scene is
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taking place. That is a really helpful way to
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conceptualize the doctrine of concurrence.
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Concurrent. Yeah, Concurrence is the
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theological concept that God cooperates with created things
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in every action. He directs their distinctive
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properties to cause them to act as they do.
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Yet he does this in a way that God remains perfectly holy and
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man remains completely culpable. Yes.
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God uses the wicked desires of the brothers own hearts to
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accomplish His purpose without ever putting that wickedness
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into their hearts. But I want to push back on this
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because I know what a listener is thinking right now.
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You are saying God intended the evil.
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If God intended the evil action, and the brothers couldn't have
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done otherwise because it was decreed, how is God not just a
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puppet master? Yeah, that's the tension.
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And how on earth can you hold the brothers guilty for an
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action God planned? Doesn't this make God the author
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of sin? That is the most common
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objection, and it is a necessary one to address.
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The answer lies in focusing on intention and nature.
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God's intention in the sinful selling of Joseph was not
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sinful, it was saving. While the brothers willing was
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driven by malice, envy, and a lust for silver.
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Right. God's willing of the very same
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event was driven by covenant love for His chosen people to
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preserve them from a deadly famine.
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The physical action is the same. The moral quality of the
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intention behind the action is infinitely different.
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The brothers are acting out of pure spite, but God is acting
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out of pure preservation. The hands of the brothers are
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filthy, but God's hands remain completely clean.
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And Scripture does not try to fully resolve the mechanical
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mystery of how 2 acts of willing, one human and sinful,
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the other, divine and righteous, work together.
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So Florida State. Because we cannot fully
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comprehend how an infinite God interacts with finite creature.
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Well, absolutely. But the text demands we believe
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both truths simultaneously. Man is fully responsible and God
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is fully sovereign. The grammar proves God's active
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holy intention behind the evil. This forces us to look at how
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humans react to this reality on an emotional and psychological
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level. Which brings us to the
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psychology of guilt and the posture of mercy we see in
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Joseph. Let's set the scene for Genesis
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chapter 50. Jacob the patriarch has just
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died. 17 years have passed since Jacob moved his family down to
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Egypt. 17 years. During all those years, the
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brothers have been living in safety, sustained by Joseph's
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authority and generosity. But their conscience has never
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been cleared. No, they have been sweating out
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those 17 years, burdened by decades of unresolved guilt.
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So they panic. They assume that Joseph was only
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being nice to them while their dad was alive to keep the peace.
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They project their own vindictive nature onto Joseph.
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They operate on the law of retribution and eye for an eye.
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Dad is gone. And now Joseph is finally going
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to pay us back. They operate purely on a
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horizontal human plane. They don't have the theological
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framework Joseph has. So what do they do?
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They fabricate A posthumous message.
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They send messengers to Joseph, claiming that Jacob, right
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before he died, commanded Joseph to forgive them.
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It is a desperate, pathetic manipulation.
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They are essentially using their dead father as a human shield.
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Yeah, but notice what they say in that fabricated message.
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They fully admit their actions. They use the words
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transgression, sin, and evil. They're not minimizing what they
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did. They know they deserve death.
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And how does Joseph respond to this paranoid lie?
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The text says he weeps. He doesn't puff up his chest.
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He doesn't Lord his authority over them or enjoy watching them
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squirm. He weeps because it breaks his
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heart that they still don't understand grace.
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They still think like Pagan transactionalists.
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Then he asks A rhetorical question of jurisdiction.
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Am I in the place of God? He refuses to seize the divine
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prerogative. Vengeance belongs to the Lord,
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and Joseph knows he is not the judge of their eternal souls.
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Understanding God's sovereign decree over all things does not
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lead to cold fatalism. Right, because many people
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assume that believing God controls everything turns you
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into an emotionless robot. But it is actually the very
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fountain of tender mercy. Joseph can forgive his brothers
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because his robust theology liberates him from the prison of
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personal vengeance. He doesn't have to carry the
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burden of getting even. How does this apply to you, the
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listener, when someone genuinely wrongs you?
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Because it is very easy to listen to this and think, OK, I
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just need to pretend the hurt didn't happen, sweep it under
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the rug and move on. But Joseph doesn't do that.
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No, he is incredibly honest about the offense.
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Earlier in the narrative, when he first reveals his identity to
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them, he identifies the wound plainly.
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He says I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold.
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He doesn't psychologize their sin away.
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He doesn't say you guys were just having a bad day.
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No big deal, He names the abuse. Grace does not require amnesia.
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You do not have to pretend that the sin wasn't horrific to
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forgive it. Does robust theology actually
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make you more compassionate? Because in the real world,
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sometimes people who study heavy doctrines become very cold,
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rigid and argumentative. They use their theology as a
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club to win debates, not as a tool to heal relationships.
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That happens when people learn the vocabulary of theology
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without grasping the reality of it.
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The literary structure of Genesis answers your question
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well. This entire narrative is part of
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the totally dot, the generations or the history of Jacob.
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Throughout this narrative, we see the brothers acting out of
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intense pride and arrogance, but here in chapter 50, they
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physically fall down on the ground before Joseph, offering
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themselves as his slaves. Oh wow, they are fulfilling the
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very dreams from Genesis 37 that triggered their murderous plot
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in the first place. The sheaves of wheat bowing
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down. The stars bowing down.
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God's Providence forces humility.
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Joseph's high theology allows him to look at these men
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cowering on the floor and realize God sent me here to save
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you. I don't need to punish you.
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God has already broken your pride and He used my suffering
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to secure your lives. The theology creates the
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compassion. He doesn't just tolerate them,
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he actively promises to provide food for them and their little
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ones. And seeing Joseph's staggering
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act of mercy forces us to look for a broader fulfillment.
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The authors of the theological essays are adamant that Joseph
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is not the end of the story. Right.
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His life is a shadow pointing to a much larger reality.
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We are moving from the historical sandbox to the
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ultimate typology. Teaching the Joseph narrative as
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a moral lesson on forgiveness is theological malpractice.
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That's a strong statement, but true.
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If all you get out of this text is try to be a forgiving person,
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you have missed the central message of Scripture.
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The entire Old Testament is a grand unfolding drama pointing
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to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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And typology is the study of how Old Testament historical events,
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persons, or institutions act as predictive patterns or shadows
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for the realities found in Christ.
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Yes, and Joseph is one of the most vivid, redemptive,
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historical types of Christ in the Bible.
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Let's walk through those typological parallels because
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when you stack them up, it is breathtaking.
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Joseph was the beloved son of his father.
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He was sent to seek the welfare of his brothers.
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When he came to his own, his own received him not.
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They hated him without a 'cause. He was stripped of his glorious
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robe. He was conspired against by his
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own family. He was sold into the hands of
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Gentiles for the precise price of a slave.
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He was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, just as Jesus
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was falsely accused by the Sanhedrin.
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Joseph was numbered with transgressors in a dungeon.
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He was placed between two criminals, Baker and the
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cupbearer, and one was saved while the other was condemned,
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just like Jesus on the cross between two thieves.
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And yet, he emerged from the pit of death to be exalted to the
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right hand of the supreme Ruler of the world.
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From that throne of exaltation, Joseph became the savior of the
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world, distributing the bread of Life to starving, guilty men,
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including the very ones who sought to destroy him.
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The Christological climax of Genesis 50.7 goes far beyond
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simple typology. It establishes the theological
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framework for understanding the cross itself.
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How does the New Testament connect to this?
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The essays point us to the New Testament equivalent of Genesis
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50.20, which is Acts 4.2728. OK, let me pull that up.
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The believers in the early Church are praying and they say
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for truly in this city they were gathered together against your
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holy servant Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with
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the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand
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and your plan had predestined to take place.
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That prayer in Acts 4 is the supreme act of compatibilism.
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Think about the crucifixion. It was the greatest sin ever
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committed in human history. Wicked men murdered the sinless
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Son of God. Herod Pilot, the Roman soldiers,
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the religious leaders, they all meant the cross for evil.
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They intended to crush a political and religious threat,
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but God predestined that specific event for the highest
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good. He used their wicked actions to
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satisfy divine justice. The theological term is
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propitiation, which means to offer a sacrifice that turns
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away wrath and satisfies the demands of justice.
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And the cross proves that God's good meaning in a sinful act is
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not wishful thinking. No, it's historical reality.
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If God can Florida State govern the most heinous sin ever
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committed, the brutal torture and execution of His own Son,
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and use it to bring about eternal salvation, it means
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means He can govern anything. If we read Genesis as an
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instruction manual telling us to be a good forgiver, we turn
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revelation of divine triumph into a self help seminar.
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How does seeing Jesus as the greater Joseph alter the way a
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person approaches the Old Testament?
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It changes how we view the worst atrocities in history.
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It proves that human evil, no matter how chaotic it seems, can
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never derail God's sovereign plan.
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Evil is real and it is horrifying, but it is on a
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leash. God uses it to display His own
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glory and secure the salvation of His people.
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Taking this massive theological framework of the cross in God's
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Providence, we must apply it to modern life.
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We have to use this robust theology to correct popular yet
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false teachings circulating today.
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For instance, this text actively refutes the prosperity gospel.
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The prosperity gospel is a false teaching that promises immediate
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health, wealth, and a life free from severe hardship if you just
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have enough faith. But such a theology cannot
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possibly account for the 13 years of slavery and
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imprisonment that God actively decreed for Joseph.
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Not at all. If Joseph had believed the
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prosperity gospel, his faith would have shattered in the pit
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at Dothan. He would have assumed God hated
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him or that he didn't pray hard enough.
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The prosperity gospel tells you that the pit is a sign of God's
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absence. The biblical theology of
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Providence tells you that the pit is the very path to the
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palace. We also see a strong critique of
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the seeker sensitive movement, which often attempts to market a
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domesticated, highly sanitized deity.
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Yeah, they want to, buddy Jesus, a life coach who was just
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waiting for you to invite him into your plans to make you a
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better version of yourself. But the God of the Bible is the
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King, who, as Psalm one, O 5 says regarding the Joseph's
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story, summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of
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bread. He orchestrates empires and
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famines. We have to understand the
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original audience context here. Who originally read Genesis?
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Moses wrote this account for the Israelites wandering in the
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wilderness, having recently left Egypt.
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What were the Israelites doing in the wilderness?
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They were complaining constantly.
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They were highly pragmatic. They judged God's goodness
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entirely by their immediate temporal comfort.
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If they didn't have water, God was bad.
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If they didn't have meat, God had abandoned them.
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If the road was too difficult, they wanted to go back to
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slavery in Egypt. So Moses was essentially
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preaching a sermon to them through the Joseph narrative.
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He was telling them look at how God brought us to Egypt in the
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1st place. He used the agonizing sins of
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our forefathers, betrayal, slavery, false imprisonment to
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orchestrate our physical salvation.
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If he can govern the malice of Joseph's brothers to save the
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world, he can certainly govern this barren wilderness to
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prepare you for the Promised Land.
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We have to turn this directly to you, the listener.
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Are you judging God's goodness entirely by your current comfort
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level? Are you assuming that because
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you were in a metaphorical pit or a prison of difficult
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circumstances, God has somehow lost control of the narrative of
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your life? True Providence requires the
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believer to trust God in the dark.
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The pit and the prison were not signs that God had abandoned
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Joseph. They were the very mechanisms by
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which God was moving him to the specific location he needed him
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to be. How does this specific, weighty
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view of sovereignty give better comfort to a suffering person
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than the modern idea that God is just doing his best to fix a
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broken world, but that tragedy sometimes slips past his guard?
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Because people say that to be comforting.
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They say God didn't want this for you, it just happened.
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But if tragedy can slip past God's guard, then your suffering
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is truly meaningless. It is just random chaos.
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There is no comfort in a God who is well-intentioned but weak.
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But if God is absolutely sovereign, then behind dark
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circumstances he is actively intending good.
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Understanding that God decrees trials for your benefit, even
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when inflicted by the sinful choices of others, is the only
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way to survive intense persecution or personal tragedy
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without losing your mind to bitterness.
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It anchors the mystery in God's care character.
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We don't have to call the evil good.
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Joseph never called the betrayal good.
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The evil action was awful. But we must learn to say that
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God is good even when men mean evil.
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The believers hope does not rest in the ability to decode every
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single event in real time. You might wait years, as Joseph
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did, before the grand design becomes visible.
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Sometimes you won't see it in this lifetime.
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Your hope rests in the God who has already decoded the central
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Providence of history in the Gospel.
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To wrap up our deep dive today, we have walked through a
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staggering reality. Human evil is real, and humans
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are entirely accountable for their wicked choices.
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Yet God's sovereign purpose arches over it all.
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Florida State governing history, always intending good for His
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people, even through their darkest trials.
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The theology of Genesis 50.20 places God securely on the
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throne of the universe, and it places us in a posture of
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humility as recipients of unmerited grace.
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We want to leave you with a final, lingering question to
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consider. Think about the 13 years Joseph
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spent in Egypt before he saw any resolution.
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He was a slave, then a prisoner, forgotten in a dungeon.
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It's a long time to wait. It really is if God was
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meticulously working through those silent, cruel and
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seemingly wasted years, what unseen, glorious good is as Him,
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He actively orchestrating in the most frustrating, unresolved
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areas of your own life right now.
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It changes the way you view the waiting periods of life.
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The silent years are never wasted years.
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive.
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Keep seeking truth, keep asking the hard questions, and we will
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see you next time.