NOTES for Gen 45:1-16
1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. |
2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. |
3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. |
4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. |
5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. |
6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. |
7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. |
8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. |
9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: |
10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: |
11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. |
12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. |
13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. |
14 And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. |
15 Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him. |
16 And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. |
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So who is right, after all? Joseph's brothers, who were sure that by getting rid of their own brother and selling him into slavery they were carrying out their own plan, or Joseph, who was sure that in this way God, through Joseph's brothers, was carrying out His plan for His people? The second answer may look obvious, and a religious person will certainly choose it. Yet sometimes such a person fails to notice that here God turns out to be simply a chess player moving pieces on the board as He sees fit. And so that the pieces, which after all are aware of and understand something, will not object, He strings them along, creating an illusion of freedom. Indeed, it would then turn out that if you refuse to take God into account, you will have no real freedom: do what you want, everything will still turn out as God has decided, and you will find yourself deceived.
But on the other hand, how could it be otherwise if we are speaking about the great world, about God's world? After all, God is not going to give up His plans simply because some people He created do not like them. But what, then, becomes of the freedom of those who do not like God's plans and prefer their own plans to His?
The answer here appears to be the very infinity of the world God created, including the form of it called bad infinity. It appears that, if one wants, God's great world can be broken up into an infinite number of little worlds, each with its own master. True, the being of such a little world will be quite relative; it will exist only conditionally, insofar as its master exists. But the master himself will be absolutely free in his little world. And he will be able to carry out any plan of his own. And God will not interfere with him, though of course He will not help him either, because it is not His plan.
Of course, as soon as such a master of a little world steps beyond its borders, or as soon as God's great world breaks into the little world separated from it, it will turn out that his plan is a chimera and its fulfillment is an illusion. But nothing can be done about that: there is only one real world, God's world. And the plan being carried out in it is also one. God's, not man's.
Readings for 1 April 2026
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