The Vision (10.17.25): What is this that God hath done unto us?

 

Image: Nandina, North Garden, Virginia, October 2025.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 42.

And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? (Genesis 42:28).

Genesis 42 introduces yet another spiritual theme that is present in the Joseph record of Genesis. This is the theme of repentance and even reconciliation. It involves reconciliation on the horizontal level, especially centered on Joseph’s relationship with the brothers, but also upon the vertical level between all these men and the Lord.

Joseph meets his brothers when they come to Egypt, but they do not recognize him. He overhears his brothers acknowledging their sin again the brother they sold into slavery (Joseph himself!) and connecting it to their chastisement: “We are verily guilty concerning our brother… therefore is this distress come upon us” (Gen 42:21).

Though Joseph might have done his brothers great harm, he sends them home with food and money in their sacks. God is working reconciliation.

What spiritual applications might we draw from Genesis 42?

First, we can look at the brothers, and by looking at them we are looking in a mirror.

We have sinned against God. We might think we can hide and obfuscate this, but one day our sin will find us out (Num 32:23), if not in this world, then before the judgement seat of Christ at the end of the ages.

We are not “true men” (Gen 42:11). We have broken God’s law, including bearing false witness, and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).

The Lord in his mercy makes this known to us. We know we are “verily guilty” and deserving of God’s wrath and punishment, and so we have anguish of soul.

Even as believers we can backslide. And when the Father lovingly brings corrective chastisement, we might ask, as did the brothers of Joseph, “What is this that God hath done unto us?” If we are not feeling it now, we likely will one day.

Might we see this as the Lord preparing us for reconciliation with men, and, most importantly, with God himself?

Second, we can look at Joseph as a type or anticipation of Christ.

Joseph suffered on account of his brethren. Christ suffered on account of our sin, but he still works to do us good.

Joseph gave liberally to his brothers. Christ supplies us with an outrageous generosity.

Joseph fed his brethren. Christ taught that we should love and even feed our enemies (Matt 5:44; Rom 12:20).

No payment can ever be made for the salvation that comes from Christ. It is a free gift, so the money is always left, as it were, at the mouth of the sack.

Salvation by grace is a one-way transaction. We do nothing to deserve it. He does everything to provide it. Thus, we exclaim, What is this that God hath done unto us!

If Joseph acted in a generous and forgiving way toward his brethren, how much more has Christ done for us!

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle