Gen. 50:20 – Did God “plan” or did he “reckon”?

Gen. 50:20 ואתם חשבתם עלי רעה אלהים חשבה לטבה

This passage is the climax of the Joseph cycle, as his brothers realize that it is their brother Joseph, whom they had sold into slavery, who is now lord in Egypt and holds their fate in his hands.

Gen. 50:18 Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? 20 Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.

This passage is often used to show that while man can devise to harm another, God is actually using it to his glory and the benefit of his people. For example, in D. A. Carson’s very good How Long, O Lord which is “reflections on suffering and evil,” he cites the cross and Joseph as an example of cases where not only can something that is “morally evil” result in a good, it may even be “God’s intent.”

In the peculiar way in which God’s sovereignty operates (discussed in chap. 11), even morally evil things may not only have a good result but may be good in God’s intent even if evil in human intent. ¹Excerpt From: D. A. Carson. “How Long, O Lord?.” iBooks.https://itun.es/us/KyIlJ.l 

I want to examine again Gen. 50:20. What is the text really saying? וְאַתֶּם חֲשַׁבְתֶּם עָלַי רָעָה אֱלֹהִים חֲשָׁבָהּ לְטֹבָה  The NRSV renders it “you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.” The author uses the same verb *חשב for both the brothers and God and ordinarily I am a strong proponent of consistent rendering of a term in translation. That is to say, if the translator has decided that translate ἀδελφοί (literally “brothers”) with the more inclusive “brothers and sisters,” as the NRSV does, then that should be the consistent translation unless context dictates otherwise. ²This is one frustration with the NRSV. See Phil. 1 where in v. 11 ἀδελφοί is translated as “beloved” while in v. 14 it is “brothers and sisters” and, to add confusion to bad translational practice, Phil. 2:12 has ἀγαπητοί which is properly rendered as “beloved.” There is nothing in the context to require the changing translation of ἀδελφοί. How is a non-Greek reader to understand that in 1:11 is not the same as 2:12? The question that is in my mind is whether or not *חשב should be rendered with “intended” in both instances in this verse. Does the context suggest a different renderin for אֱלֹהִים חֲשָׁבָהּ?

The term *חשב in the Qal does indeed mean “intend, devise, plan” ³see BDB and HALOT for all lexiacl references but it can also mean “to count, reckon,” as in “[Abram] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness” (וְהֶאֱמִן בַּיהוָה וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה׃) Gen 15:6.

In the first instance in Gen. 50:20, Joseph is referring to the brothers’s intentions and is referring to a past action. It is clear that the brothers’s planned their actions to harm Joseph and that is what initially transpired. In the second instance, Joseph is referring to how God used or manipulated what the brothers had set in motion. In English “intend” means that one plans or designs something. To render the second instance as “God intended it for good” means that God planned the brothers’ actions.

This is certainly how most commentators and preachers understand the passage. It is intended to encourage those who suffer hardship, to tell us that we may be going through a difficult time, maybe even directly inflicted by others upon us, but God has allowed/planned for this to happen so that some other greater good could result. But I am not sure that this is what the Hebrew text is telling us.

Clearly there is a wonderful symmetry to Joseph’s words, both the brothers and God “חשב.” But the fact that there is a semantic range for *חשב should cause us consider that there may be more to the verse than might at first appear. There is an kind of inversion in the use of the verb with the two subjects: the brothers “intended” with foresight and planning, but God “reckoned” by responding to their actions and transforming them (after the fact) into something good and beneficial.

This use of *חשב is in keeping with what we find in Gen. 15:6. Abram believed what God had told him and then God responded to his belief and “reckoned it to him as righteousness.” There is no suggestion that God was ordaining Abram’s belief, but once Abram did believe in God’s promises, God granted Abram’s belief a moral value, qualified it as righteousness.

Of course in the case of Joseph’s brothers their actions were clearly intended to harm and Abram’s belief was an acceptance of God’s promises, but in both cases God is responding to something they did rather than planning the prior action of the other individuals. If this reading is correct then a rendering in English of Gen. 50:20a would look like this:

Even though you intended to do me harm, God reckoned as (for?) good….

Now the term “reckoned” sounds very “King James” to me, but it is what is used in most Bibles for Gen. 15:6 so it is appropriate here. I might be tempted to render it something more like “God determined to be a good.”

This question is not merely grammatical, as I have hinted at above. All commentators on this passage that I know of read this passage as an affirmation that God intends, as in plans and/or ordains, certain events in our lives that are painful, difficult, or hurtful to bring about a greater good. As Carson said, “even morally evil things may not only have a good result but may be good in God’s intent.” This is troublesome, to say the least, in that it means that God is actively causing harm; what Carson calls “morally evil things” may themselves come directly from God.

If, on the other hand, God is responding to the actions of Joseph’s brothers then God is not initiating the evil, rather God is sanctifying the evil actions they took in order to bring about something good. This is the tension that is at the heart of the biblical teaching on suffering. ⁴I should add that I Carson addresses it quite well in this book, in most cases, acknowledging that there is much “mystery” in the biblical accounts of suffering and evil and God’s relationship to them. I am still working through how to articulate it, but I believe it is a very important distinction to make, between God’s ordaining evil actions and God’s sanctifying and transforming them into something holy and good. The latter, I believe, comes when we engage with God in our grief and response to suffering.

With these last two paragraphs we have moved into theological considerations which we can never ignored when dealing with the Bible. However, I had intended this post to focus upon the grammatical and lexical aspects of the verse and so I will close.

• 1
  Excerpt From: D. A. Carson. “How Long, O Lord?.” iBooks.https://itun.es/us/KyIlJ.l
• 2
  This is one frustration with the NRSV. See Phil. 1 where in v. 11 ἀδελφοί is translated as “beloved” while in v. 14 it is “brothers and sisters” and, to add confusion to bad translational practice, Phil. 2:12 has ἀγαπητοί which is properly rendered as “beloved.” There is nothing in the context to require the changing translation of ἀδελφοί. How is a non-Greek reader to understand that in 1:11 is not the same as 2:12?
• 3
  see BDB and HALOT for all lexiacl references
• 4
  I should add that I Carson addresses it quite well in this book, in most cases, acknowledging that there is much “mystery” in the biblical accounts of suffering and evil and God’s relationship to them.