Keeping the Promise to Joseph

Exodus 13:17–18 explains that the Lord did not take Israel from Egypt to Canaan by the shortest possible route because they were unprepared for war and might flee back to the land of the Nile if they encountered battle too soon. One commentator aptly notes that this is a hint that any success that Israel found in battle depended on the Lord and His leading the people. Throughout the old covenant, Israel was frequently outnumbered and at the mercy of greater military powers. The nation succeeded in battle only when it relied wholly on the Lord (e.g., see Judg. 7; 1 Sam. 17; 2 Kings 18–19).

Moses reports that when the Israelites left Egypt, they carried with them the bones of Joseph, who centuries earlier had made the Israelites swear that they would do so (Ex. 13:19; see Gen. 50:25–26). In getting the sons of Israel to swear an oath to him, Joseph noted that the Israelites would have to depend on the Lord and wait for God to act before they could go to the land promised to Abraham and his family (see Gen. 15). Israel had to wait 430 years for the Lord to fulfill His promise to rescue them from Egypt (see Ex. 12:40–41), and there were many struggles along the way as the people doubted whether they would ever be rescued (5:20–23). Yet the Lord kept His promise, and when He did, Israel kept its promise to Joseph to carry his bones back to Canaan. Having Joseph’s bones during the wilderness journey would then encourage Israel to press on as they made their way to the promised land. Matthew Henry writes, “Carrying up his bones was not only a performance of the oath their fathers had sworn to Joseph, but an acknowledgment of the performance of God’s promise to them by Joseph that he would visit them and bring them out of the land of Egypt, and an encouragement to their faith and hope that he would fulfill the other part of the promise, which was to bring them to Canaan, in expectation of which they carried these bones with them while they wandered in the desert.”

Finally, Joseph’s desire to be buried in Canaan points to the resurrection of the dead. Joseph understood that the living God had sworn to give the land of Canaan to all His people, and there He would bless them as their God (Gen. 15; 17). To enjoy God’s blessing, Joseph knew that he had to be in the promised land. He understood that death could not keep him from sharing in what the Lord had promised to Abraham’s family, and that if he were buried there, God could raise him to give him a share in Abraham’s inheritance.