We are moving into chapter 50 of Genesis with our word for today. חָשַׁב weave, respect, hold in high regard, think, account, plan, devise. It is used 112 times in the Old Testament. We see our word used to describe plans to bring about evil or harm toward someone. 1 Samuel 18:25 Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’” Saul’s חָשַׁ֔ב plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines. Nehemiah 6:2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were חֹֽשְׁבִ֔ים scheming to harm me. Psalm 10:2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the חָשָֽׁבוּ schemes he devises. Psalm 21:11 Though they plot evil against you and חָֽשְׁב֥וּ devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed. Esther 9:24-25 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had חָשַׁ֥ב plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. But when the מַחֲשַׁבְתּ֧וֹ plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil חָשַׁ֥ב scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. This is the same sense our word is used in our chapter today. Genesis 50:20 As for you, you חֲשַׁבְתֶּ֥ם meant evil against me, but God חֲשָׁבָ֣הּ meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
One of the things God does best is brining good out of bad. The best example of this is Jesus death and resurrection. Acts 3:13-15 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. I’ll close with this great passage that contrasts the plans of wicked men against God’s plan to save us. Acts 2:22-24 Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
