‘…and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.’ (v. 4b)
God is a good God.
The Lord shows great mercy here that recognizes and even affirms (it at least does not deny) the special affection of Jacob for Joseph. With this promise, God in some way mitigates the pain of the years of supposed loss and real separation. Clearly Jacob hears it this way, as his response to seeing Joseph once again, reported in v. 30, attests (“Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.”).
There is a stream of thought which says that God strips away everything in order that we might come to know him. One powerful statement of this is found in John Newton’s hymn, “I asked the Lord…”, in which the Lord replies:
[I] break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou may’st find thy all in me
But that isn’t quite the whole story. God is the greatest good, our highest goal, our deepest and eternal joy. And he has made us, we are his creatures.
Having broken Jacob’s “scheme of earthly joy”, and weaned him of his idolatrous love and false hope, the Lord is able to give back the son who was lost. There is real resurrection here.
