The School of Hard Providence Text: Psalm 105:16-22
Introduction: God Draws Straight with Crooked Lines
We live in a sentimental age, an age that wants a God made in our own image. We want a God who is nice, a God who would never do anything unsettling, a God who is, in effect, a slightly more powerful version of a benevolent grandfather. But the God of the Scriptures is not safe; He is, however, good. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, and His purposes are high and unsearchable. As He Himself tells us, His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways.
This psalm, Psalm 105, is a history lesson set to music. It is a recital of God's covenant faithfulness to Israel, from Abraham to the Exodus. And right in the middle of this celebration of God's goodness, we find this section concerning Joseph. And it is a stark and rugged account. There are no soft edges here. We are told that God called for a famine, that God sent a man to be sold as a slave, and that this man was afflicted and laid in irons. This is what we might call "hard providence." It is the doctrine of God's sovereignty with the bark on.
Our natural inclination, when faced with such things, is to either accuse God or to excuse Him. We either want to say that God is unjust for allowing such suffering, or we want to say that God wasn't really in control of the details, He was just reacting to the sinful choices of Joseph's brothers. But the psalmist will have none of that. This passage is a frontal assault on our flimsy, man-centered views of how the world works. It insists that we see God's hand, not just in the final deliverance, but in the entire messy, painful, and crooked process. You have heard it said, and you will hear it again, that God draws straight with crooked lines. The story of Joseph is perhaps the clearest illustration of this glorious truth in all of Scripture.
We must understand that God is not the author of sin, but He is the author of a story in which sin occurs. And He uses it. He governs it. He directs it to His own good and holy ends, without Himself being tainted by the evil that men intend. If we do not grasp this, we will never be able to give thanks in all things, because we will always be looking at a universe full of rogue molecules and meaningless tragedies. But if we see that God is God, then even the darkest chapters of our lives are pregnant with divine purpose.
The Text
And He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters, He himself was laid in irons; Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of Yahweh refined him. The king sent and released him, The ruler of peoples sent and set him free. He set him up as lord of his house And ruler over all his possessions, To imprison his princes at will, And that he might teach his elders wisdom.
(Psalm 105:16-22 LSB)
The Divine Summons (v. 16)
The story begins not with the jealousy of brothers, but with a sovereign decree from heaven.
"And He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread." (Psalm 105:16)
Notice the active, personal language. God "called for" a famine. A famine is not some random, meteorological event. It is a servant that comes when it is called by its master. God summons it. He is the one who "broke the whole staff of bread." The "staff of bread" is a powerful Hebrew idiom for the basic sustenance of life, the very thing people lean on for survival. God is the one who broke it. He did this. The psalmist does not flinch from this reality, and neither should we.
This is the grand backdrop of the story. God is setting the stage. He is creating the problem for which He has already prepared the solution. He is writing a story of deliverance, which first requires that His people be in a jam. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. God leads His people to the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army behind them. He allows Daniel to be thrown into the lions' den. He allows the three young men to be thrown into the furnace. God is not a cosmic firefighter, rushing around putting out fires started by others. He is the author, and the plot, including the conflict, is His own.
This is a hard truth, but it is the foundation of all true comfort. If famines and disasters are outside of God's control, then we are truly at the mercy of a chaotic and meaningless universe. But if God calls for the famine, then He has a purpose in it. And if He has a purpose in it, we can trust Him through it, even when we cannot see the reason. The story is going somewhere.
The Sent Man and the Crooked Path (v. 17-18)
Next, the psalmist reveals the centerpiece of God's solution, a man sent on a very strange errand.
"He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters, He himself was laid in irons;" (Psalm 105:17-18 LSB)
Again, the direct agency of God is front and center. "He sent a man before them." Who sent him? God did. How did He send him? Through the wicked, envious, and sinful actions of his brothers. The text doesn't shy away from the means: "who was sold as a slave." Joseph himself would later say to his brothers, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). This is the biblical doctrine of concurrence, where two different intentions are at work in the same event. The brothers intended evil, driven by their sin. God intended good, driven by His sovereign plan of salvation.
The psalmist does not sanitize the experience. This "sent man" was not sent on a comfortable diplomatic mission. "They afflicted his feet with fetters, He himself was laid in irons." The Hebrew for that last phrase is literally "his soul came into iron." This was not just a physical affliction; it was a soul-crushing experience. The iron entered him. He was in the dark, in the pit, forgotten, betrayed, and falsely accused. This was the path God ordained for the savior of His people. This is the school of hard providence.
This is a direct foreshadowing of a greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ. He too was sent by the Father. He too was betrayed by His brothers for pieces of silver. He too was afflicted, bound, and treated as a criminal. He too suffered unjustly so that He might become the bread of life for a world starving in the famine of sin. The path to glory is always through suffering. The way up is down.
The Divine Crucible (v. 19)
Verse 19 gives us the duration and the purpose of Joseph's suffering. It was not arbitrary, and it was not pointless.
"Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of Yahweh refined him." (Psalm 105:19 LSB)
His suffering had a set time limit: "Until the time that his word came to pass." This refers to both Joseph's own prophetic word, his dreams of the sun, moon, and stars bowing down to him, and God's ultimate purpose. God's promises have an appointed time, an expiration date for the trial. The suffering was not forever. It was a parenthesis in the larger sentence of God's faithfulness.
But during that time, something crucial was happening. "The word of Yahweh refined him." The suffering was a crucible. The promises of God, which Joseph had to cling to in the darkness of the pit and the prison, were the very instrument God used to test and purify him. The word "refined" is the same word used for smelting metal, for burning away the dross to get to the pure silver or gold. God was not just killing time while Joseph sat in prison. He was forging a prime minister. He was burning away the youthful pride, the arrogance of the favorite son, and producing the humble, wise, and godly statesman who could be entrusted with the salvation of a nation.
This is what God does with His people. He gives us promises, and then He often puts us in situations where those promises seem impossible. And in that tension, as we are forced to trust His word over our circumstances, He refines us. He is making us into men and women He can use for His glory. Your affliction is not random; it is a refinery.
The Sovereign Release and Exaltation (v. 20-22)
When God's appointed time arrives, the reversal is swift and absolute.
"The king sent and released him, The ruler of peoples sent and set him free. He set him up as lord of his house And ruler over all his possessions, To imprison his princes at will, And that he might teach his elders wisdom." (Psalm 105:20-22 LSB)
When the time came, nothing could stop it. The most powerful man in the world, Pharaoh, becomes an errand boy for the purposes of Yahweh. "The king sent and released him." Just as God had used the sinful hands of the brothers to imprison Joseph, He now uses the pagan hands of a king to release him. God is the master chess player, moving all the pieces on the board, whether they know it or not, to accomplish His will.
And the exaltation is as total as the humiliation was deep. He is made "lord of his house and ruler over all his possessions." The prisoner becomes the prime minister. The slave becomes the sovereign, second only to Pharaoh. And notice the authority he is given: "To imprison his princes at will, And that he might teach his elders wisdom." The one who was unjustly bound now has the authority to bind others justly. The one who was refined by the word of God in the crucible of suffering is now qualified to teach wisdom to the most powerful men in the empire.
This is the pattern of God's kingdom. Humility precedes honor. The cross comes before the crown. Joseph was brought low so that he could be raised high. And in this, he is a magnificent type of Christ, who humbled Himself, even to the point of death on a cross. "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name" (Philippians 2:9). Jesus descended into the ultimate pit so that He could be raised to the ultimate throne, with all authority in heaven and on earth.
Conclusion: Your Story in His Story
The story of Joseph is not just an interesting historical account. It is written for our instruction, for our encouragement, and for our hope. It is a paradigm for how God works in the lives of all His people.
You may be in a pit. You may feel that the iron has entered your soul. You may have been betrayed, forgotten, or falsely accused. You may look at your circumstances and see only a tangled mess of crooked lines. But this passage demands that you lift your eyes higher. Your story is a subplot in a much larger story, a story written and directed by a sovereign and good God.
The famine in your life was called for by Him. The difficult path you are on was ordained by Him. And the trial you are enduring is a refinery, designed by a master craftsman to purify you and fit you for His purposes. The word of God is testing you, proving you, so that you might be a vessel of honor.
And the time is coming. The "until" of verse 19 applies to you as well. Until God's appointed time, you are to hold fast to His promises. And when that time comes, He will act. He will send the king to release you. He will turn your humiliation into exaltation. The wisdom you are learning in the darkness, He will use in the light. Your suffering is not meaningless. It is the school of hard providence, and the graduation ceremony will be glorious. Because of the greater Joseph, Jesus Christ, who went into the ultimate prison of death for you, you can know that your story, no matter how dark it seems now, will end in resurrection and glory.