---
title: Genesis 50:20
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-50-20/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-50-20.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Genesis 50:20
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Genesis 50:20

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Although you meant to harm me, God intended it to turn out well and to preserve many people alive, as he is doing today."

## JW Usage

Read as Jehovah overruling human wickedness for good — the brothers acted freely and wrongly, and Jehovah turned the outcome to his purpose afterwards. This fits the Watchtower's framework in which God responds to and redirects evil rather than standing behind it in any sense.

## Protestant Usage

Look at the two verbs, because they are the whole verse. You meant to harm me; God intended it to turn out well. One event, two intentions, running at the same time. Joseph does not say the brothers meant evil and God cleaned it up afterwards. He says God intended the same event they intended, and intended something else by it. That is the structure the New Testament uses at Acts 4:27-28, where what Herod and Pilate freely did was what God's hand and counsel had determined beforehand. It is also, quietly, the structure of the Watchtower's own theodicy — Jehovah intending a purpose to be served by evil he foreknew and could have prevented. And it is worth noting how the brothers are treated. They are guilty; Joseph does not pretend otherwise, and they need his forgiveness. God standing behind the outcome does not make them innocent. That asymmetry is exactly what keeps the doctrine from making God the author of evil — which is the concern the Watchtower's framework was built to address. Compare Acts 4:27, Job 1:12, Proverbs 16:4.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Permitted Issue Is Still a Decree](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/watchtower-determinism-author-of-evil.md) — When Watchtower theodicy reinvents the predestination it denies [Authority]