Why Did This Happen to Me? (Genesis 50:20)

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
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James J. Tissot, 'Joseph Maketh Himself Known to His Brothers' (1896-1901)
James J. Tissot, 'Joseph Maketh Himself Known to His Brothers' (1896-1901), gouache on board, 8.8 x 11.4 in., The Jewish Museum, New York. Larger image.

There's a pious saying that really bothers me! In the movie or TV show, someone has suffered a horrible tragedy. In order to provide comfort, a priest says, "It must have been God's will, dear." How cruel! How trite! God isn't the cause of evil, but of good!

And yet, when I think about it, God is indeed at work in and through some of the most horrible circumstances you can imagine.

Joseph the Slave and Prison Inmate

If anyone has a right to complain, it is Joseph in the Bible (Genesis 37-50). Granted, he is a pompous jerk of a brother. But nothing justifies his brothers trafficking him for a handful of silver coins, deporting him to a foreign land forever. Young Joseph must have cried out: Why is this happening to me? God, where are you?

He ends up sold as a house slave -- and a handsome slave at that. He is gifted and eventually comes to manage his master's entire estate. But when his master's wife tries to seduce him and he refuses, she is enraged and slanders him. Since her husband is captain of the king's guard, Joseph is thrown into the royal prison. God, I was righteous. Why did this happen? No answer.

Joseph prospers in jail, if that is any consolation. He ends up managing the prison for the warden, but remains incarcerated. God enables him to interpret dreams for a pair of royal officials, in prison because they have fallen out of favor. His words come to pass. Pharoah's own cupbearer is recalled to service by the king. Joseph's last words to him as he leaves the prison are, "Mention me to Pharaoh." But the cupbearer forgets him. Two full years go by. Why, God? Will this injustice never end?

Finally, Pharoah has a troubling dream. The cupbearer remembers Joseph and he is sent for. By the Spirit of God, Joseph interprets Pharoah's dream about abundant years followed by leanness. At once, Joseph is raised to become over all the land of Egypt, tasked with preparing the land for a future famine. His God-given managerial skills, developed as a slave and honed as a prisoner, are put to use. He devises and oversees a nationwide strategy of grain storage responsible for saving millions of people from starvation. His journey goes from being a slave to prisoner to the top national leader -- it just takes a long, long time and is fraught with a good deal of pain.

Man's Evil, God's Good

You know the rest of the story. In due course, Joseph's brothers come to Egypt seeking grain. Joseph recognizes them, and is eventually reunited with his father Jacob. Joseph's whole extended family moves to Egypt.

When old Jacob finally dies, the brothers are terrified of retribution. They invent a story about "our father's last words" and throw themselves on Joseph's mercy. But Joseph has begun to understand what God has been doing all these years.

"You intended1 to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish2 what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20)

In slavery, God is there. In prison, God is at work. God is molding Joseph's faith and character, and preparing him for special service.

We could multiply Bible examples of people who suffer unspeakable evils as God works in them -- Esther and David, Daniel and Job, and countless others.3 The list continues today.

The Mysteries of Predestination and Man's Evil

But why is life so hard! We find only partial answers. We crash into what philosophers call "the problem of evil." Why does a righteous, all-powerful God even allow evil to exist? How can a good and loving God allow his beloved servants to suffer so?4 Even when we specify that God "allows" evil and rather than "causes" evil, it is still confusing. It can seem capricious, arbitrary -- at least, to us mere humans.

Another element we often forget is the largely invisible war going on in the spiritual realm between God and Satan. You see hints of this battle in Revelation 12 using figures of a dragon, a "woman clothed with the sun," a man child, and "the rest of her offspring." The devil's final judgment is being thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). Much more is going on than what we can see.

In the Bible are allow to glimpse God engineering events, hardening hearts, softening hearts, even employing a kind of spiritual jujitsu to use man's evil to accomplish good and bring about his will. Theologians use words like "foreknowledge" and "predestination" to describe it. Paul puts it this way:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good5 of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose ... to be conformed to the likeness of his Son" (Romans 8:28-29a, NIV)

God is always at work. My dad used to say, "God never does just one thing." Beyond big events like saving Egypt from famine, God is working to "conform us to the likeness of his Son." It is a process -- often a painful one.

Ultimately, whether or not we figure in some big event like Joseph did, we are promised that when Christ returns, he will right all wrongs, heal all hurts, and bring peace on earth.

The Cross

We witness the ultimate injustice in Jesus. God sends his own Son to lead his people to abundant life. But leaders feel threatened -- as we feel threatened when God begins to convict us. So they slander him, arrest him, humiliate and mock him, judge and scourge him, and finally execute him using one of the cruelest deaths humans have ever invented -- crucifixion.

"This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge;6 and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. (Acts 2:23)

So stupid. So evil. So unjust. Jesus could have been delivered by a battalion of angels,7 but he refuses. Why? Because the Father has a plan and that plan was yet unfinished.

Jesus enters the Garden of Gethsemane in deep distress. He is struggling, sweating profusely. He calls out to God: Father, you can do anything! If there is any way possible, please deliver me from this cup, this painful, lonely path that I know is before me. Please! But, not my will. It is your will, Father, that I really desire.

Trust

Why does the Father allow his own Son to suffer so? Why does he allow us to suffer? It is not for lack of love, I can guarantee you that!

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

We know of God's marvelous plan by hindsight. But in the midst of Jesus' agony in the Garden, he says: Not my will, but yours be done. He trusts.

The long answer to our pain is glory, but the day-to-day answer to suffering is trust -- and this should be the essence of our daily prayers. I don't know what is going on, Lord, but I am trusting you through it. I know you are walking with me, and that we will come out the other side, you and I together. I don't know why this is happening, but I love and trust you.

A song from a previous century sums it up:

"Many things about tomorrow,
I don't seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow,
And I know who holds my hand."8

Trust. That is how Jesus lived his life, and that is the way forward for you and me. Lord, lead on today. We trust you and we follow.

End Notes

References and Abbreviations

[1] "Intended" (NIV, NRSV), "meant" (ESV), "thought" (KJV) is the Qal of ḥāšab, "plan, devise," here "plan against" in the first part of the verse (Holladay, p. 118, Qal 5a), and as "reckon" in the second part of the verse (Holladay, p. 118, Qal 4).

[2] "Accomplish" (NIV), "bring it about that" (ESV), "in order to" (NRSV), "to bring to pass" (KJV) two words: (1) the conjunction lĕmaʿan, "in order that" (Leonard J. Coppes, TWOT #1650g), "(in order) to" (such as Genesis 37:22; Ex 10:1; 11:9; Holladay, p. 207, 2a); and (2) the Qal infinitive construct of ʿāsâ, "do, fashion, accomplish."

[3] Judges 14:4; Joshua 11:20; 1 Kings 12:15 = 2 Chronicles 10:15; 2 Chronicles 25:20; Proverbs 21:1, etc.

[4] One partial answer is that for God to allow real freedom of will, then he must allow evil to exist. Only in a land of robots is there no rebellion or evil.

[5] Several translations (NASB, NIV, and NLT) have God as the subject ("God works..."), along with some early Greek manuscripts (𝔓46 A B 80 copsa). Most, however (ESV, NRSV, KJV, etc.), follow the much more diverse support of Greek manuscripts (א C D G K P ψ etc.) for the shorter reading that leaves out the subject of the clause. Metzger (Textual Commentary, p. 518) gives the shorter reading a {C}, "considerable degree of doubt" probability, and explains. "Since synergei ["works"] may be taken to imply a personal subject, ho theos ["God"] seems to have been a natural explanatory addition made by an Alexandrian editor."

[6] "Set" (NIV), "definite" (ESV) is the perfect passive participle of horizō, "to make a determination about an entity, determine, appoint, fix, set" (BDAG 723, 2aα). "Purpose" (NIV) is the noun boulē, "that which one decides, resolution, decision" (BDAG 181, 2b). "Foreknowledge" (NIV) is the noun prognōsis, literally, "foreknowledge," from pro-, "before" + gnosis, "knowledge" (BDAG 866). I believe BDAG's definition as "predetermination" over translates the word. Better, "forethought, pre-arrangement" (Thayer 538, 2), "foreknowledge" (Liddell-Scott 1473, I).

[7] Matthew 26:53.

[8] Ira Stamphill (1914-1993), singing evangelist: "I Don't Know about Tomorrow," 1950.

Discipleship Lessons from the Life of Jacob the Patriarch (Genesis 25-49)

Copyright © 2025, Ralph F. Wilson. <pastor@joyfulheart.com> All rights reserved. A single copy of this article is free. Do not put this on a website. See legal, copyright, and reprint information.

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