"Judah, your brothers will praise you;Out of the seed of Judah and Tamar would come King David and then Messiah Jesus---the "Lion of Judah" (see Matthew 1:1-16). And the nation of Israel as well as the nations of the world would fall at Jesus' feet. The apostle John wrote in Revelation 5:5, 9, "See the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed...And they sang a new song:
your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;
your father's sons will bow down to you [just as they were bowing down to Joseph then].
You are a lion's cub, O Judah;
you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
like a lioness---who dares to rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
until he come to whom it belongs
and the obedience of the nations is his."
Psalm 78:65-72 gives us a commentary on this:
"...[The Lord] rejected the tents of Joseph,
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.
He built his sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that he established forever.
He chose David his servant...
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel his inheritance."
'You are worthy...
...with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.'"
(See also Isaiah 63:1-6; Revelation 19:11, 13.)
"Joseph is a fruitful vine,(See also Moses' blessings on Joseph's tribe in Deuteronomy 33:13-17.)
a fruitful vine near a spring,
whose branches climb over a wall.
With bitterness archers attacked him;
they shot at him with hostility.
But his bow remained steady,
his strong arms stayed limber ,
because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob,
because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
because of your father's God [El Shaddai], who helps you,
because of the Almighty, who blesses you
with blessings of the heavens above [rain],
blessings of the deep that lies below [springs],
blessings of the breast [flocks and herds of animals] and womb [children].
Your father's blessings are greater
than the blessings of the ancient mountains,
than the bounty of the age-old hills.
Let all these rest on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of the prince among his brothers."
Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept over him and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.Joseph, out of all the sons, threw himself on the body of his beloved father and wept over him and kissed him. More Egyptian than Jew at this time in his life, he had in his power the resources to embalm his father Jacob, and he took full advantage of this privilege. He did it not because of the Egyptian theology but to honor his father. This forty-day embalming process was followed by seventy days of national mourning to honor Joseph.
When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's court, "If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, 'My father made me swear an oath and said, "I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan." Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.'"
Pharaoh said, "Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do."
So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh's officials accompanied him---the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt---besides all the members of Joseph's household and his brothers and those belonging to his father's household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.
When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning." That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.
So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded them: They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with the field. After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob."
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept.The brothers got together and began to think over the past suffering they had caused their younger brother, and now because their father was dead they began to fear for their lives once again. What if all this love and gifting from Joseph had been to encourage the heart of their father Jacob, but now that he was dead Joseph planned to bring personal revenge against them for all the pain and suffering they had caused him? What if Joseph finally looked at their sins and wanted to settle the account with them? What if....? There was no one left on earth to guard them against this threat.
His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said.
'The Deliverer [the Redeemer] will come from Zion;
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob [the people of Israel].'
'And this is My [new] covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.'"
(Romans 11:26-36; see also Isaiah 59:21; Jeremiah 31:31-34.)
But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.Joseph was saying, "I have no revenge in my heart against you. Yes it was horrible, difficult, deadly, lonely, and unjust---but looking back now on all those years of pain and suffering and then on the years of the blessings of God through Pharaoh, my wife and children, and my rank and position, I can see that God was behind every event in my life and I am right where God has always planned for me to be! Remember, I told you when I first revealed myself to you not to become distressed because you sold me into Egypt, for '...God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.' [Genesis 45:7-8]. I take no credit, I was and I remain clay in the hands of the Master Potter. My life has never been my own. I have sought by faith to serve Yahweh in the land of many gods, and now as I look back I see that he has had his hand on me every step of the way. I could never have dreamed of a better place to be than the place of God for me in the great plan of redemption he has designed to come through our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and now through me, and in the years to come, through Messiah."
Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father's family. He lived a hundred and ten years and saw the third generation of Ephraim's children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph's knees.As you recall, Joseph arrived in Egypt in l893 BC as a seventeen-year-old slave. Either Amenemes 1-1V or Senwosret 1-III was ruling in the Twelfth Dynasty (1990-1775 BC), which was called the Strong Middle Kingdom of Egypt. And by the time Joseph was thirty years old, the Lord had placed him in the position of second in command of all of Egypt, below only Pharaoh. God blessed Joseph in many ways, but the way that is dearest to the heart of a man or woman is the joy of children and then grandchildren, and for some even great-grandchildren. Joseph and his wife had the privilege of producing some famous sons in the history of Israel: Joshua, Gideon, and Samuel to mention a few.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place."
So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
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