Sometimes it feels difficult to trust forgiveness if we know that we have damaged our relationship with someone.
Although Joseph’s brothers have changed, consequences of their past actions remain. Conscious of the harm that they did to Joseph, they are afraid to trust him, suspecting that he has spared them only for his father’s sake (50:15). (Their term for bearing a grudge applies earlier in Genesis to Esau’s hatred of his brother Jacob for what Jacob had done to him; 27:41. Their language of repaying evil might recall Joseph’s earlier accusation in 44:5 that they had repaid evil for good, though that accusation was fictitious. It probably simply recalls their earlier action of evil, falsely attributed in 39:9 to an animal.)
Thus they fall before his face before Joseph (50:18) again (cf. 37:9-10; 42:6; 43:26, 28), only this time fully knowing his identity. They wrongly sold him into slavery; now they offer themselves to be his slaves (50:18).
Joseph, by contrast, the narrative’s more “reliable” character, has a better approach because he considers the divine perspective: without their behavior, he would not be vizier of Egypt. Apart from their action, he could not have saved their lives and the lives of others (50:20). It was all part of God’s plan.
God’s larger purpose does not excuse their guilt—that God works through human choices does not absolve humans of responsibility—but it does make their action ultimately inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. When we are tested, it is helpful to keep our focus not on human mistreatment of us, when we cannot change it, but on what we can learn from God and how we can carry out his will in the face of such situations. (Of course this does not mean that we neglect injustice when there is something we can do about it. Joseph’s only available recourse had been to cry out [42:21], but had he been able to prevent his enslavement he surely would have done so.)
Joseph comforts them (50:21), though the same term applies to their inability to comfort Jacob after they had disposed of Joseph (37:35). Far from seeking to return harm to them, Joseph promises to continue to provide for them and their children (50:21). After all, God raised him up for the purpose of keeping many alive (50:20; cf. 45:5), certainly including them (cf. 45:7). Whereas they had wanted to kill (37:20), God raised up Joseph to preserve life (45:5; 50:20); whereas they had done harm, Joseph returns to them good for evil.
As a reliable character, Joseph’s positive role model points the way toward the one who would ultimately epitomize returning good for evil and life for death to his people and others, namely Jesus. Indeed, the Joseph narrative shows us a frequent pattern in God’s way of working through weakness and suffering before exaltation. Just as God showed his longer-range plan by proving Joseph to be alive after his father assumed him dead, so more fully God would show his longer-range plan by raising Jesus from the dead. The God of the Joseph narrative is also the God and Father of Jesus Christ.