Joseph Told the Brothers Who Sold Him into Slavery That God Did It

Episode 3 of the November series: Providence & Gratitude. Day 1 was God's sovereignty over the bad days. Day 2 was His rule over the "random" ones. Today is the hardest and most comforting case of all: the evil that other people do to you.

Genesis 50:20 (KJV):

"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."

The context.

Joseph's brothers hated him, threw him in a pit, and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Through a long chain of suffering — false accusation, prison, forgotten promises — God raised him to second-in-command of Egypt, where he saved the region (and his own family) from famine. After their father Jacob dies, the brothers panic, certain Joseph will finally take revenge.

Instead, Joseph speaks one of the most important sentences in the Bible.

The whole weight is in one Hebrew verb.

The word translated "thought" and "meant" is the same verb both times: chashab — to plan, intend, devise, reckon, even to weave. "You chashab evil against me; God chashab it unto good."

Same event. Same verb. Two authors, two intentions, two moral standings — and both completely true.

The brothers genuinely planned evil, and they are genuinely guilty of it. God genuinely planned good, and He is genuinely holy in it. One act; two levels.

This is the doctrine of concurrence (dual agency).

Westminster Confession 3.1: God "did... ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures."

Westminster Confession 5.4: God's providence extends even to sins, "yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin."

Hold both hands open: God sovereignly ordained and overruled the brothers' evil for good, WITHOUT doing the evil or approving it. He is great enough to rule and redeem the sin He hates, without being tainted by it.

Joseph said it three times (Genesis 45:5-8).

"It was not you that sent me hither, but God." He does not deny that they sold him — they did. He traces the deepest cause past their cruelty to God's saving purpose. Both sendings are real. One was wicked; one was redemptive.

It happened again, at the cross — the ultimate Genesis 50:20.

Acts 2:23: Jesus was "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," and "ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."

Acts 4:27-28: Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and Israel gathered "to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done."

The murder of the sinless Son of God was simultaneously the worst crime in human history AND the predetermined plan that saved the world. The perpetrators were fully responsible. God was fully sovereign. The greatest good came through the greatest evil. If the cross works this way, every lesser betrayal in your life does too.

What this does NOT mean.

— It does not mean the ends justify the means. The brothers' sin stayed sin.
— It does not mean God needs evil or does evil.
— It does not mean we may "do evil that good may come" — Romans 3:8 flatly condemns that.
— It does not mean your betrayer "didn't really hurt you." They did, and they are accountable to God for it.

Why it is the most comforting truth in Scripture.

If you have a worst chapter — a betrayal, an abandonment, a cruelty someone else wrote into your story — Genesis 50:20 says two things at once, and you need both.

First: the people who hurt you are responsible. God does not whitewash their sin, and neither do you have to.

Second: God was never absent, and He is not wasting it. He is weaving even that evil toward a good you may not see for years, or this side of heaven at all.

Your worst chapter is not the end of the story, and it is not outside His hand. They meant it for evil. God means it for good.

This is also the ground of thanksgiving for the wounded — not thanking God FOR the evil (that comes later in this series, in episode 11), but giving thanks IN it, because the God who rules it is good.

This is episode 3 of the 30-day November series. Tomorrow: Jesus says not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father.

📖 Passages: Genesis 37:18-28, 39:1-23, 45:4-8, 50:15-21, Exodus 9:16, Deuteronomy 8:2-3, Job 42:2, Psalm 76:10, 105:16-22, Proverbs 16:4, 19:21, Isaiah 10:5-15, 46:9-10, Jeremiah 29:11, Acts 2:22-23, 3:13-18, 4:27-28, 7:9-10, Romans 3:8, 8:28, 11:33-36, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Ephesians 1:11, Hebrews 12:2, 1 Peter 2:23