A weeping God did not despise

Joseph Weeping on Their Necks

No one in Genesis weeps as often as Joseph. Sold by his brothers, imprisoned, and then raised to power, he breaks into tears again and again when he finally sees them. His are the rare tears of love restored, of forgiveness that costs and heals.

“And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.”Genesis 45:14

The tears

The heading is: The tears. Joseph wept more than any figure in the book of Genesis, and almost always over the brothers who had betrayed him. When they came for grain and did not know him, he turned aside and wept before speaking with them again (Genesis 42:24). When Benjamin stood before him, his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there (Genesis 43:30). At last, unable to hold it back, he made himself known: and he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard (Genesis 45:2). He fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck (Genesis 45:14). When his father Jacob came to Egypt, Joseph fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while (Genesis 46:29). And after Jacob died and the brothers feared revenge, Joseph wept when they spoke to him and reassured them (Genesis 50:17). These are not tears of self-pity. They are the tears of a man whose heart, though wronged for years, had not gone hard, and who longed for his family more than for revenge.

What God did with them

The heading is: What God did with them. God did not merely comfort Joseph's tears; He wove the whole long grief into a saving purpose. Standing before the brothers who sold him, Joseph said, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life (Genesis 45:5). And later, over the same wound, he spoke the words that hold the meaning of it all: But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive (Genesis 50:20). Every tear Joseph shed in prison and in that Egyptian chamber was held within a plan he could not see. God did not spare him the betrayal, the pit, the false accusation, or the years forgotten in a dungeon. But He was present in all of it, and He brought out of it the survival of a nation and the reconciliation of a family. The tears were real and the wrong was real; God's redeeming hand did not cancel the pain, but it turned even the pain toward life.