Sunday, May 17, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Genesis 48-50
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 57
Key Verse
Genesis 49:19 — “Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.”
Devotional Thought
In the lengthening light of mid-May, when the earth itself seems to be straining toward summer’s fullness, we come to the end of a life that began under a stolen blessing and a fugitive’s flight. Jacob—Israel—lies dying in Egypt, and the man who once wrestled with God at Peniel now gathers his strength one last time to bless. His eyes are dim, like Isaac’s before him, but his hands know what they are doing. When Joseph brings Manasseh and Ephraim, Jacob crosses his arms deliberately, laying his right hand on the younger. Joseph protests; Jacob refuses. “I know it, my son, I know it.” Here is a man who has learned that God’s election never runs along the grooves of human expectation. The firstborn is not always first. The last may become the head. This is not caprice but providence, and Jacob, who spent a lifetime learning it the hard way, now speaks it with settled authority.
Then come the blessings of Genesis 49, spoken over twelve sons with startling honesty—Reuben’s instability named to his face, Simeon and Levi’s cruelty remembered, Judah raised to a lion’s throne with the promise that “the sceptre shall not depart from Judah… until Shiloh come.” These are not warm sentiments but prophetic words, and they shape the future of a nation. At the center stands Joseph, the fruitful bough, whose arms were made strong “by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.” The one thrown into a pit and sold into slavery receives the longest, richest blessing of all. God’s arithmetic is strange to us: the pit becomes the palace, the prisoner becomes the provider.
And then Genesis closes with a coffin in Egypt. Jacob dies, is embalmed, and carried up in a great company to the cave of Machpelah, where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah already rest. Joseph weeps on his father’s face. The brothers, their old guilt stirring, fear that Joseph will finally exact revenge now that the patriarch’s protective presence is gone. But Joseph speaks the sentence that redeems the whole story: “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.” He does not deny the evil; he refuses to let it have the final word. And he, too, dies with a promise on his lips—”God will surely visit you”—leaving his bones in Egypt as a standing pledge that the story is not over.
This is the season for such confidence. As spring greens into summer, we are reminded that God writes in long arcs. Psalm 57 sings from the same trust: “My soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” David, hiding in a cave from Saul, learned what Jacob learned and Joseph learned and what we must learn: the calamity is not the conclusion. “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” Fix your heart there today, whatever cave you find yourself in.
Reflection
- Joseph told his brothers, “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Where in your own life are you still waiting to see God’s “meant it unto good”—and can you trust Him with the unfinished story?
- Jacob crossed his hands and blessed the younger over the elder, insisting, “I know it, my son, I know it.” Where might God be working contrary to your expectations or assumptions about how things “should” go?
Prayer
Father, we come to You as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God who fed Jacob all his life long, who strengthened Joseph’s arms in the pit and the prison, and who meant evil for good. Fix our hearts as You fixed David’s in the cave. When we cannot see how the story ends, teach us to trust the Author. Let us not be overcome by the cruelty of men or the fear of what tomorrow holds, but let us rest in the shadow of Your wings until these calamities be overpast. Exalt Yourself, O God, above the heavens, and let Your glory be above all the earth. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 57:1 — “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.”