Exodus 1:5 - Homiletics

Joseph in Egypt.

Exodus here points back to Genesis. So the present is always pointing back to the past. In the life of an individual, in the life of a family, in the life of a nation, there is a continuity: no past act but affects the present—no present act but affects the future. Joseph's descent into Egypt is at the root of the whole of Exodus, underlies it, forms its substratum. Without an in-coming, no outgoing; and it was at Joseph's instance that his brethren had come into the country ( Genesis 45:9-24 ). Or our thoughts may travel further back. "Joseph in Egypt." How had he come there? Through the envy and jealousy of brethren, provoked by the favouritism of a too fond father. Here are evils to be guarded against; here are sins to be east out. And yet of the evil good had come: "Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" ( Genesis 50:20 ). "The fierceness of men he turns to his praise; and the fierceness of them he doth refrain" ( Psalms 76:10 ). The cruel wrong done to Joseph had saved from starvation his father and his father's house, had preserved the entire people of the Egyptians from extreme suffering, and had brought Joseph himself to the highest honour. "God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts." He is potent to bring good out of evil, and to turn the worst calamity into the choicest blessing.