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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Genesis 45:3
Comments
It is written in the Book of Judges, when Israel yet again brought themselves into sore distress because of their sin, that ‘[God’s] soul was grieved for the misery of Israel’ (Judges 10:16). Eventually he could bear their oppressed state no more. Joseph too, behaving as a type of Christ, cannot restrain himself any longer. ‘I am Joseph.’ This is the shocking truth that he has been longing to tell them. Several times they have spoken of Benjamin’s elder brother as dead, and for all they knew that was now true, though of course when they first said it, it was a lie.He knows the effect that this disclosure is going to have on them, and in his kindness he adds something else for them to fix their minds on to get over the shock. Joseph certainly longed to see his father, but It was also a question that showed as soon as possible that he was not going to take revenge but to be reunited with his family.They were at first troubled, afraid to be in the presence of Joseph, their younger brother. They had thought to put him to death and taken advantage of having him in their power. But God had exalted him far above them, and now their future livelihood depended on his favour towards them. They did not deserve to receive anything from him. Had he in fact been playing with them, only now to destroy them on a whim? His former powerlessness was transformed into an authority they could not resist; they were forced to re-evaluate him and abandon all former disdain. These great brothers who counted their younger brother as an upstart are now humbled before him.
Application
When Christ finally reveals himself to a soul, it is not just information that he gives us, but he gives himself to us. It is with deep emotion that he tells us that he will be our Saviour, and that his love will never depart from us. He wants us to know the strength of his love and his unchanging faithfulness. The knowledge that this was Joseph transformed their world, and the born again believer lives in a world he has not known before.
As Joseph was not ashamed to identify with these Hebrews – abhorred by the Egyptians – so Christ is not ashamed to own the poor and needy, the base things of this world, and the things that are not.
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