Genesis 50:25–26

So he speaks no longer of man and man's small world, but of God — the living God, His faithfulness, His power, and His land. "I die," says Joseph. The life of the man who had saved other lives by a great deliverance is fast slipping away. But if Joseph dies, God lives. If Joseph departs, God remains. And into the hands of the living and unchanging God he commends his brothers. Death may take him from them, yet he can say with the fullest assurance of faith, "God will surely visit you." The living God is their unfailing resource in the presence of the dying Joseph.

"By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones." He firmly charged his sons not to bury him with his fathers, as Jacob asked and received. Instead they were to embalm him, as the pledge that they would leave Egypt in God's time for the land of promise. No splendour in Egypt dimmed the light of promise to his faith. The man nearest to the throne of the world is a stranger. He looks for resurrection, and he expects Israel's return to the land, just as God swore to their fathers.

Joseph had taken an oath of the children of Israel in dependence upon God. He believed, and so he spoke. He trusted God, so he could never be ashamed. To the natural eye, when Joseph was dying, there was little chance of his people leaving Egypt. But this dying saint rested on the sure word and promise of God. So with confidence he "gave directions concerning his bones." Nearly four hundred years passed. Then God did visit His people, Israel remembered the oath, and the bones of the patriarch went with them in their exodus.

His bones are not to be left in Egypt. What a witness to the Israelites the coffin of Joseph must have been through the long centuries! It reminded them always that not even death can stop the living God from doing all He pleases and carrying out His purpose for His people. So, keeping the oath made to Joseph, when at last they leave Egypt, "Moses took the bones of Joseph with him" (Ex. 13:19). Those bones still witnessed to faith in God through the forty years in the wilderness. And when at last they reach the land of promise, they bury his body in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor (Joshua 24:32). There he sleeps in the dust of the earth until he awakes to everlasting life and stands in his lot at the end of days.

The patriarchs of the Jewish family all put special value on their dead bodies. They were laid up with great care at Machpelah. That care and zeal was their confession of a sure and certain hope of resurrection. But they connected resurrection with the land of Canaan. And so Jacob and Joseph, who died in Egypt, arranged for their bones to be carried over and laid in Canaan. This tells us that their hope of resurrection was one with their hope of finally possessing the promised land.

Now Joseph himself departs; but we have not lost him: here is an exception to everything else we have seen. He is not to be buried. Why? In this book there is no thought of burial at all. By faith he sees Israel's future departure from Egypt. When God visits them and they set out as pilgrims, they are to carry his bones with them on their pilgrimage. He is no longer dead, but living. Even so, are we not also told to be "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies"?

One cannot close the book of Genesis without being struck by the last four words. It opens with a couple created in innocence and placed in a garden of delights. It closes with a coffin in Egypt, and in that coffin a dead man, though he was an eminent saint. Sin had come in, and death by sin.

The pleasures of this world are only for a season, and all the treasures of Egypt end in a grave. Joseph found this in an earlier day, for he had occupied a great place in Egypt. Next to the king he had wielded a power that no mortal man before or since had ever wielded in this world. Still, it all ended in a coffin. The last words of the Book of Genesis are these: "Joseph died … and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." So much for Egypt's pleasures and Egypt's treasures. All the glory of this world at last sinks down to a coffin. Pharaoh's mighty empire contracts to a narrow grave.

Joseph's coffin was made in Egypt for an embalmed body, so it probably looked like the ancient mummy cases. These were ornamental cases, larger than European coffins.

He also charged his sons not to bury him with his fathers, as Jacob had asked and received. They were to embalm him instead, as the pledge that they would leave Egypt in God's time for the land of promise. No splendour in Egypt dimmed the light of promise to his faith. He stood nearest to the throne of the world, yet he is a stranger. He looks for resurrection, and he expects God to bring Israel back to the land, as He swore to their fathers.

So in the power of faith's vision of the living God he gives directions concerning his bones. They are not to be left in Egypt. What a witness to the Israelites the coffin of Joseph must have been through the long centuries! It reminded them always that not even death itself can stop the living God from doing all He pleases, and carrying out His purpose for His people. So, in keeping with the oath made to Joseph, when at last they leave the land of Egypt, "Moses took the bones of Joseph with him" (Ex. 13:19). The coffin still witnessed to faith in God through the forty years of wilderness journeys. And when at last they reach the land of promise, his body is buried in "the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor" (Joshua 24:32). There he sleeps in the dust of the earth until he awakes to everlasting life and stands in his lot at the end of days.

To the natural eye there was little likelihood, when Joseph was dying, that his people would ever leave Egypt. But this dying saint rested on the sure word and promise of God. So with confidence he "gave directions concerning his bones." Years passed away — nearly four hundred. Then God did visit His people, and they remembered the oath, so the bones of the patriarch went with them in their exodus.

No doubt he looked further ahead still. He wanted his body to be in the land of Israel, looking to the day of resurrection, and to the day when God would carry out His promises to Abraham in full. At that time the truth that resurrection happens at the coming of the Lord for His saints was not known. Christ had not yet come in flesh. But there is no doubt that Joseph believed in the God of resurrection, and in the coming of the promised Messiah.

This deeply interesting book of Genesis is the book of life and of origins. It ends in great contrast to its beginning — "in a coffin in Egypt." For it is only the beginning of God's revelation. How much more wonderful and beautiful is the last word from God in the book of Revelation: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen."