What Is the Significance of Joseph’s Bones Being Carried Out of Egypt?

Return to Eden

When considering of exile and return within the Bible, it’s essential to know that the land of Israel promised to Abraham and subsequently occupied by Joshua and Israel all through their historical past is a typological re-manifestation of the Backyard of Eden. It’s described in comparable methods, as is the Backyard of Eden.

That is very true in Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua, however you may as well see it within the e-book of Genesis. The land isn’t just a generic, geographically marked off house however serves this theological objective of remembering Eden and hoping that sometime the entire earth will return to that edenic state after a resurrection.

And that’s the place Joseph’s story is available in. He is aware of he’s about to die, however he additionally has hope for a resurrection. And so he asks the youngsters of Israel to recollect to hold him up into the land—that new typological Backyard of Eden—after they go.

And this does two issues. Not solely does it specific hope for resurrection—why else would somebody care a lot about their bones?—however particularly the place that resurrection will occur. He may very well be raised simply as nicely in Egypt or wherever else, however he needs to be raised in that house that represents the Backyard of Eden, as a result of sometime the entire earth will revert again to these edenic circumstances.

To place it in one other means, Joseph believes that when he’s raised to life, he can be raised within the Backyard of Eden, within the very presence of God. That is important for us as a result of what it teaches us is the Christian hope of resurrection isn’t just, Oh, I get to reside perpetually, however particularly, I’ll reside perpetually within the presence of God, the place there’s true fullness of pleasure and pleasures forevermore.

Nicholas G. Piotrowski is the writer of Return from Exile and the Renewal of God’s People.

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