"From this rottenness, these worms, this foulness, and this dust I will raise you."

Genesis 41:52. "The name of the second he called Ephraim. For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

AELW 7210-211

"this is the meaning of the word עָנְיִי. It is employed in the same meaning in Is. 53:3. “I was,” says Joseph, “a captive in prison, where I had given up all hope of life and liberation, so that I could have been called a dead trunk and log which would never sprout.” But just as Isaiah speaks of the branch that will come forth from the root of Jesse, so Joseph says of himself that descendants are arising from a sterile and dead trunk, and from an Egyptian woman at that. This is a wonderful God.

These examples serve to buoy up and strengthen faith. For if we, too, could persevere in trials, then we would certainly learn to know the name and nature of God, namely, that He not only brings it about that we forget our troubles but that those who have been reduced to nothing even grow and are multiplied.

And this was outstanding praise and glorification of God, whereby Joseph praised the wonderful works of God, namely, that He makes all things out of nothing. We should also acknowledge these works and exercise ourselves in them. For we must be humiliated and mortified, and the grain of wheat that has been thrown into the ground must die and rise again with manifold fruits (John 12:24). For He is the God of אֶפְרַיִם, that is, of fruits, but in the land of עָנְיִי, that is, of mortifications. And it is a perpetual and unparalleled rule of the works of God to make all things out of nothing.

For we are buried and committed to the earth, to rottenness and worms. We are sown (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–44) in weakness, corruption, dishonor, and foulness, in such a mean and disgraceful form that it is almost more desirable not to have been born than to be gnawed and consumed so ignominiously by worms and rottenness. Thus we are reduced to nothing. But God says: “From this nothing and עָנְיִי, from this rottenness, these worms, this foulness, and this dust I will raise you and make you not only a Manasseh but also an Ephraim brighter than the sun.” Thus this will finally come about, for we have a most certain promise. Accordingly, although all things in this life do not flow according to our will and good pleasure, nevertheless in the future life we, too, will declare: “God has made me forget my father’s house and all my trouble.”

This forgetting should gradually come upon us even in this life. For although at the present time, while worms and rottenness are before our eyes, we cannot be unmindful of them, nevertheless there will be a time when God will wipe away every tear, as is stated in Rev. 7:17. Therefore faith should begin to forget tears and dishonor which it does not see. Although the eyes see the rottenness, the ears hear the complaints and sobs, and the noses smell the stench of the corpses, nevertheless it is the part of faith to say: “I do not know this. I see nothing. Indeed, I see a multiplication and a brightness surpassing the sun itself and the stars.”

Therefore such examples are set before us in order that we may learn that God is the Creator of all things, restores the dead to life and glorifies worms and the foulest rottenness. And He wants this to be acknowledged and celebrated by us in this life in faith. Later, however, in the future life, we shall experience it in actual fact."