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Title: Joseph and his Brethren
Author: W. K. Tweedie
Release Date: December 7, 2021 [eBook #66884]
Language: English
Produced by: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN ***
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN
BY
W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D.,
AUTHOR OF “SEED-TIME AND HARVEST,” “THE EARLY CHOICE,”
“PARABLES OF OUR LORD,” ETC.
See the wan victim of his brethren’s scorn,
In Pharaoh’s dungeon, drooping, abject, lone!
But God is there, the friend of the forlorn,
And Joseph’s prison opes beside the throne.
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1872.
PREFACE.
The story of Joseph is at once so simple that childhood is arrested and
rivetted by it, and so profound that sages may deepen their wisdom by
meditating on the truths which it embodies. An attempt is here made to
point out some of the more important lessons which the narrative
teaches,—to manifest the wisdom and the watchfulness of Providence,—and
show how God on high exercises his prerogative of educing good from
what we are often tempted to regard as only and hopelessly evil. While
man displays his wickedness by committing sin, the Holy One displays
his goodness by restraining it; and though his ways are confessedly “a
great deep,” we get glimpses through the gloom,—we catch echoes amid
the silence, which enable us to know, that when the tangled web of
providence shall have been unrolled in light, it will be seen that he
“has done all things well.” As the bones of Joseph were carried before
the Hebrews during all their wanderings, from Egypt to Canaan, till
they found a resting-place in that land of promise, the truth of God
here goes before us still, a very pillar of cloud and of fire.
CONTENTS.
I. JOSEPH CAST INTO THE PIT, 9
II. JOSEPH SOLD TO THE ISHMAELITES, 15
III. JOSEPH IN PRISON, 21
IV. JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH’S DREAMS, 31
V. JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT, 41
VI. “YE ARE SPIES,” 48
VII. THE CUP IN BENJAMIN’S SACK, 57
VIII. THE MEETING OF JOSEPH AND BENJAMIN, 65
IX. THE MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH, 73
X. JACOB IN THE PRESENCE OF PHARAOH, 79
XI. THE DEATH OF JACOB, 85
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.
CHAPTER I.
JOSEPH CAST INTO THE PIT.
When Jesus would inculcate some of the deepest lessons which he ever
taught, he took a little child and set him in the midst of his
disciples (Matt. xviii. 2–4), and made that child his text. Truth thus
found an inlet into the mind which even the Great Teacher might have
attempted in vain to impress, without some material illustration of his
spiritual lessons.—Let us endeavour to imitate the Saviour’s wisdom,
and seek some lessons to guide us in the touching history of Joseph.
It is well known, then, that on a certain occasion that youth obtained
permission to visit his brothers at a part of Canaan somewhat distant
from their father’s home. But, previous to that time, he had given them
great offence; and their anger only waited for a fit occasion to break
forth in violence against him. And we should not fail to notice what
caused that anger. First, Joseph was a great favourite with his father,
who testified his partiality to the boy by the gift of a coat of many
colours, and thus unwisely laid a foundation for feuds and divisions in
his family (Gen. xxxvii. 3, 4). Moreover, Joseph had dreamed certain
dreams which gave great offence to his brothers; for they indicated
that the time would come when the other children of Jacob would do
homage to Joseph, who was one of the youngest (Gen. xxxvii. 5–11). The
feelings which rankled in the bosoms of his brothers before, now
rankled more and more, and were ripened by irritation for a violent
outbreak at last. It appears, further, that Joseph had, at least on one
occasion (ver. 2), complained to his father regarding the misdeeds of
his brothers; and all these things made him “hated by them, so that
they could not speak peaceably to him.”—All this suggests to us the
strange lesson, that there are some men who “hate him that rebuketh
them, and abhor him that speaketh uprightly” (Amos v. 10). Men are so
wedded to their own ways, even when they lead down to death, that we
become their enemy if we tell them the truth. How often did scribe,
Pharisee, priest, and people break out in violence against Jesus for
his truthful warnings!
No sooner, then, did they see Joseph approaching Dothan, where they fed
their flocks, than his brothers thought the time had come at length for
humbling their father’s favourite. The first proposal was to put him
instantly to death; but Reuben interposed, and their sentence was, to
throw Joseph into a pit, and leave him to perish unpitied there!
Blinded by envy, or goaded by rage, they trampled on every tender
feeling, and evil became their chief good.
In the good providence of God, however, the youth was taken from that
pit, in which he was to have been buried alive, and sent to a distant
country, there to be the saviour of not a few, in a temporal sense. To
cover their wickedness, his brothers next resolved to show to their
father Joseph’s coat of tartan, dipped in the blood of a kid, as if he
had been devoured by ravenous beasts.—Their brother might become a
slave; their father’s heart might be torn with anguish; their own souls
might be deeply stained with sin piled above sin;—but what of all
these, when men are bent on indulging their evil and malignant
passions? Let misery be heaped upon misery, yet men will not be
diverted from their iniquity.
But wicked as their deeds were, and an outrage at once against a father
and a brother, and, above all, against their God, he who makes the
wrath of man to praise him employed that wrath remarkably to work out
his purposes in this case. And he is doing the same at this hour. Think
of the miseries, spread over many years of agony, inflicted by fierce
persecutors on the Christians of Madagascar in our day, and then mark
how they increase in number notwithstanding. Think of the bloody
massacres in India, the martyrdoms of native Christians there, with the
butchery of all who wear the Christian name; and yet mark how that is
overruled to rouse the churches to spread the truth in that dark-souled
land. Think, above all, of the Cross of Jesus,—of the woes which were
there endured, with all the malignant passions which nailed the
Redeemer to the tree; and then see how God can make our wickedness
promote his own glory,—can bring joy out of anguish, and life out of
death, and blessings unutterable out of the very curse (Gal. iii. 13).
CHAPTER II.
JOSEPH SOLD TO THE ISHMAELITES.
We have just seen that Joseph’s brethren, moved by envy, sold him to
some Ishmaelite merchants, by whom he was carried into Egypt, and there
sold as a slave. Regardless of their brother’s cries, and deaf to all
that affection might whisper, the future patriarchs would make him the
victim of their hatred; and it is deeply instructive to notice how many
sins are contained in this one transaction.
1. There was a sin committed by brothers against a brother. The ties of
nature were outraged. Affection was trampled in the dust,—it was in
truth cast into the pit beside Joseph,—it had no power in the hearts of
those hating and hateful men. Surely such a case occurring in the Bible
so soon after the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, was designed by
God to show us the terrible ravages wrought by sin in the soul. Just as
war, with its bloody work, has often deflowered the fairest regions of
the earth, does fierce passion waste the soul of man.
2. There was sin committed against their father. What although the
patriarch should suffer uttermost woe when bereft of his favourite son!
or what although his heart should break when the tidings reached him
that Joseph had been cruelly devoured by a wild beast! It was not to
such things that those men would listen: it was to their own malicious
hearts; and, cost what it might to their father, their brother must
either die or become a slave. You may assure the sinner that the wages
of sin is death,—you may tell him that agony for ever is attached to
guilt by God’s decree; but all that will not turn the wicked from his
way. God must turn us, or we rush unchecked upon ruin.
3. In the sin of Joseph’s brethren there was falsehood, and that to a
parent. Those men deliberately plotted to deceive Jacob, by showing him
the coat of Joseph dipped in the blood of a kid. They utterly forgot
that God saw them; they listened only to their own hearts; and sin was
added to sin, that their passion might be indulged. To the crime of
murder—the murder of a brother—which some of them were willing to
perpetrate, they added that of deception, deep in itself and sad in all
its results. Now in all this they were just showing us more and more
clearly what iniquity lurks or reigns in the heart of man, till the
Almighty Spirit make all things new.
4. In that sin there was spite, and that against a brother. We have
seen that there is reason to believe (Gen. xxxvii. 2) that Joseph had
formerly blamed some of the practices in which his brethren indulged
while they were from under their parent’s eye, and that had provoked
their antipathy: “They hated him” when they saw that his father loved
him. And here again we see one reason why men have always ranked envy
among the vilest and the meanest of the sins.
5. It need scarcely be added that there was cruelty in that crime.
Those brothers were deaf to the cries of the stripling; the majority of
them were not unwilling to put him to death amid lingering
agonies,—that is, to leave him to die of hunger in a pit, unheeded and
unrelieved. When we see fools making a mock at sin, and multitudes
seeking in it the only pleasure or the only gratification which they
know, surely that is because they do not know the dark depths into
which it sinks them!
6. And, to name no more, there was in that sin the love of money, which
is the root of all evil. Those unnatural brothers, blinded by hatred,
and eager to get the offender out of the way, actually sold him for a
slave. They valued gold or silver more than their brother’s life, his
happiness, or his affection. He might have to wear chains, or carry
burdens heavier than he could bear; but what of all that, if their
hatred was indulged, and Joseph put out of their sight! Till then they
could not be at ease. His deportment was a rebuke to them. He seemed
holier than they, and because of that he must suffer; they must
contract guilt upon guilt. Now, is not this, in spirit, the very same
kind of sin as that which led Satan to tempt and ruin man?
Such are some of the views suggested by this sad transaction—the
selling of Joseph. But little did his brothers know that these sins
would find them out. Little did they expect that even upon earth they
would see in Joseph all that his dreams had predicted,—themselves at
his feet, and doing him obeisance with all their heart. And little did
they know that God was to be with their brother of a truth, to bless
him and make him a blessing. But so it was; and Joseph became a type of
Jesus, persecuted by his brothers, but exalted by his God; buried out
of sight, yet raised to a throne; the victim of malignity at man’s
hand, but beloved of God, and therefore set on high.
CHAPTER III.
JOSEPH IN PRISON.
God has, in his holy providence, made great use of his people in
prison. Jeremiah, Daniel, Paul, Silas, and Peter, were all honoured by
him in such a place. Luther, while a captive in Wartburg Castle,
translated a large portion of Scripture, and promoted the spiritual
emancipation of millions in Christendom. Bunyan in his prison, where
blinded persecutors had immured him, wrote a book, second to no human
production in its knowledge of the heart and its delineations of truth.
And so of many more. Joseph’s name is to be added to this list. Having
been basely accused of a foul crime which he refused to commit, he was
cast into prison, and pined there for years, the victim of
malignity,—or apparently forgotten. Now this seemed the completion and
the cope-stone of the machinations of Joseph’s brethren. When he was
immured in that dungeon at On, in Memphis, in Thebes, or some other of
the royal cities of ancient Egypt, it might appear as if all hope
concerning him were gone: his aspirations, whatever they were, now
seemed to be blighted for ever. It was with him, to mortal eye, as it
was with Jesus when he was crucified, dead, and buried,—when a stone
was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,—when the entrance was sealed
with a seal, and a guard of Roman soldiers set, as if they could baffle
Omnipotence, and make all escape hopeless.
In truth, however, the imprisonment of Joseph was meant and used by God
as a step to his exaltation. If he was for a season like one entombed,
he had a resurrection at last by the mighty power of Him who sees the
end from the beginning. It was like the planting of an acorn soon to
become an oak, or like the bubbling up of a little stream from the
depths of the earth soon to become a mighty river, while all around
exclaimed,—
“The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.”
His God was with Joseph, then, as his sun and shield, even in the
prison-house of Pharaoh, and friends were soon raised up to the Hebrew
lad; he was even advanced to a degree of honour akin to royalty itself.
There was no Bible then to embody the mind of God to man, such as it is
now our most blessed privilege to enjoy; and in the absence of such a
book, knowledge was sometimes mysteriously imparted by dreams. We are
not able to explain how that took place; but He who made the mind can
impress it as he wills, and he often impressed it by dreams, by
visions, or by voices. For his companions in prison, Joseph had the
chief butler and the chief baker of Pharaoh’s household; and as they
dreamed dreams which he was enabled to interpret, that, in the
providence of God, led to his liberation. The chief butler was restored
to his former place in the royal household, as Joseph had foretold; and
though he forgot for a time his companion in prison, yet when the king
in his turn was troubled by certain dreams, the butler remembered
Joseph, pointed him out to Pharaoh, and the captive slave was summoned
into the monarch’s presence.
There for the present we leave him, and observe that Joseph is now on
the high road to dignity and honour. By one of those sudden transitions
far from being uncommon in the East, where impulse often takes the
place of principle, or where what appears to be caprice does the work
of system, the prison door is shut behind Joseph, and that of the
palace is opened: he is soon to become the grand vizier of an Oriental
potentate. His brethren had sought to bury him out of sight; for, to
their mind, selling him into Egypt was equivalent to that doom. They
had no design but to get rid of a troublesome or an offensive brother;
but as God had restrained the remainder of their wrath, and in his
providence prevented the perpetration of fratricide, so he had further
purposes to serve by that remarkable youth; and Jehovah accordingly hid
him in the hollow of his hand; he was with Joseph when he went out, and
when he came in.
From this time forward, then, all went well with Joseph. He had refused
to yield to temptation to sin. By the help of God, he was steadfast and
immovable; he became, as we shall see, the recognized benefactor of
millions. And what was the secret of all this? The Bible explains it,
in one brief clause: “The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous
man” (Gen. xxxix. 2). That is the basis of all true prosperity. With
that, we need not fear the face of man. “The Lord will provide,” may
then become our assured confidence. In youth and in age, in sorrow and
in joy, in temptation and in safety, in life and at death, all will be
well, all will prosper, if “the Lord be with us.” Some, indeed, try to
prosper without the Lord’s guidance. They attempt by fraud what they
can accomplish only by the Lord’s blessing upon honesty. Deception is
systematized, and iniquity is drawn “as with a cart rope.” But all is
like a building upon the sand, or worse,—upon a sea-wave, unless the
Lord be with us. The whole is found at last to be a mockery, like the
mirage of the desert.
But what were Joseph’s prison thoughts? Perhaps hope deferred made the
heart sick. Perhaps he sometimes desponded, and because the chief
butler long forgot his promise, the prisoner might fear that God had
also forgotten to be gracious. As year passed after year, till about
thirteen had rolled away, who will wonder though his heart sometimes
failed! But after all the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. A
thousand years are with him as one day. Joseph was liberated precisely
at the moment best for him and for all Egypt; and it is ever so with
those who wait upon the Lord.
Now, in connection with these events, it may be observed that we often
hear of representative men—these are men who represent some great
interest, or who are the champions of some great cause. One man, for
example, is the representative of great learning; and we cannot hear
him named without thinking of great scholarship, or all varied lore.
Another man represents the cause of the people—not as a demagogue does,
for selfish or for turbulent ends, but for man’s social improvement or
social elevation—for man’s happiness, in short, in time and for ever.
Knox, for example, or Chalmers—what intelligent Christian, with the
open Bible for his standard, can hear these names without feeling that
these were representative men? Or a third man represents the martial
spirit. We cannot hear his name without thinking of wars, and battles,
and victory, and fame—that poor shadow which men pursue, and blindly
speak of as glory. Or a fourth man is the representative of science;
his name almost means science itself. And yet another may be the
representative of ferocity unmatched—of blood-thirstiness which only a
Feejee cannibal could surpass.
Now we find the same thing in the Bible,—it is there in singular
prominence and vigour. Abraham was one representative man; David was
another; Isaiah, and Paul, and John, were others; and we need not
scruple to place Joseph among the rest. He was the representative of a
class upon whom Jehovah smiles while mortals frown—whom the Most High
exalts, while his creatures persecute, imprison, or destroy them—whom
he crowns with prosperity, while men would plunge them in misery here,
and doom them to endless endurance hereafter. By Joseph’s case we are
taught that there is a God that judgeth in the earth, and encouraged to
commit ourselves in well-doing to him, assured that, though villany may
seem to prosper, there is a curse in it—though God’s people be cast
down, they cannot be destroyed: His right hand will lift them up.
CHAPTER IV.
JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH’s DREAMS.
“Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before kings: he
shall not stand before mean men” (Prov. xxii. 29). Such is one of the
sayings of the wisest man, and we see it fulfilled to the letter in
Joseph’s case. In the house of Potiphar, in the prison where he was
unjustly immured, and everywhere, he did what was just and right, and
now we see him (in our Engraving) literally standing before a king. In
many a passage of Scripture God is urgent with us to do with diligence
what he appoints us to do; and he makes it plain that in every
case—without exception, in every case—the path to true honour, true
promotion and prosperity, is the path of duty. For a time, men may get
success in iniquity; but their fall and their crash are the greater.
Witness the penury and the shame of the fraudulent bankrupt—the lordly
oppressor—the unjust dealer of every name. The history before us
illustrates all this.
Pharaoh’s rest had been troubled by dreams, and when summoned, as we
have just seen, into the royal presence, Joseph was able to read
them—his God was with him, and he prospered even in that. He foretold
seven years of plenty, to be followed by seven years of scarcity,
according to a twofold emblem seen in the royal visions; and counselled
the king to provide for the evil of famine by treasuring up the produce
of the years of abundance. The lean kine and the well-favoured, the
good ears of corn and the bad, helped him to avert a dire calamity. He
became the benefactor of millions; and, according to some, Joseph
introduced a practice into Egypt regarding the tenure of land of which
there are vestiges to this day.
But be that as it may, we see here how Joseph’s advancement begins, and
is promoted. He had honoured God, and is honoured by him. He had held
fast his integrity, and now found that to be the path of peace as well
as of prosperity; his equity is brought forth as the noon-day. His ways
pleased the Lord, and even Joseph’s enemies were all at peace with him.
He had been in the furnace, and came forth pure. He had been tempted,
bribed, allured to sin; but his God made him steadfast and immovable;
and we are now to see the result. Let us, then, look at some details.
It seems to be a law in God’s world, that wherever good is to be done,
it must be accomplished by woe. Think again of the highest good ever
wrought out upon earth—the redemption of man by Jesus Christ—and how
was that accomplished? By tears, by agonies, and cries; by a death
whose horrors have never yet been told! Or, when Paul would spread the
blessings of redemption, how was that accomplished? By endurance at
every step, by buffetings, stripes, and persecutions! And when Luther
would sweep away some part of the rubbish which had been heaped upon
the truth, had he not to take his life in his hand, and clear his way
amid a thousand obstructions and tens of thousands of enemies, ere he
could advance that work? Or, once more, when God would make known his
truth in heathen lands, how is it done? As we have already seen, it is
amid throes, and persecutions, massacres, mutinies, and fiendish
cruelties.
Now, Joseph’s case comes under this general rule. He was to become in
God’s hand the instrument of preserving millions from a terrible death;
but, to achieve that result, he must surmount obstruction after
obstruction, and rise from a pit into which his brothers threw him, and
a dungeon to which false accusation led. He was to turn famine into
plenty, and dearth into comparative cheapness; and how was it done? He
must first be hated by his brethren; and then he must be sold as a
slave; then he must be cast into a prison, and disciplined there for
thirteen years; and only after all these things is he permitted to work
the work which God had given him to do. Satan’s malice, and man’s
waywardness, impeded Joseph’s way; and only because the Lord was with
him did he prosper in the end against such combined opponents. Now,
just in proportion to the difficulties encountered and surmounted by
him, are we called to recognize the hand of God in what befell. When he
has a work to do, none can hinder; instruments will be found, and his
purposes on earth will be promoted, in spite of all that can resist or
gainsay. As well may we expect to roll back the flowing tide by a word,
or make some mighty river like the Amazon or the St. Lawrence run
upward to its fountain, as check, divert, or even retard the purposes
of the Eternal. He will work, and none can hinder: and the grand moral
of Joseph’s touching story is just this,—Man and devils may combine to
oppose the cause of God, but on that cause advances, resistless because
he is the Almighty.
But while we glance at Joseph’s promotion thus far, we cannot help
adverting to the state of his unnatural brothers. No doubt they thought
that their wicked device had succeeded; they tried to be at peace, and
rejoice in their form of prosperity. They might see their aged father
pining nearer and nearer to the grave from day to day, on account of
the loss of Joseph. They might have some compunctions, and we can
scarcely suppose that conscience would be altogether silent; it would
be a rare case, indeed, had they succeeded in stifling entirely the
voice within. But we are told of no repentance, no confession of sin,
no humiliation for murder designed, for falsehood told, for a brother
hated, and a father, reduced to life-long anguish, passing on unsoothed
to the grave! Oh, the power of sin! How it perverts man’s nature! how
it hardens his heart into stone! how surely is the power of an Almighty
Spirit needed to renew it! and how blessed when that Spirit has come to
make us one spirit with that Living One of whom Joseph was a
type—Jesus, the Son of God!
We say Joseph was a type of Jesus; at least the life of the one
strangely resembled that of the other. Such resemblances are sometimes
fanciful, and pushed further than sober judgment can sanction, yet in
many respects they are striking. Was Joseph, for example, hated by his
brethren? Jesus also came to his own, and his own received him not. Was
Joseph the favourite of his father? In like manner Jehovah proclaimed
concerning Jesus, “This is my beloved Son.” Was Joseph sold by his
brethren? So was Jesus. Was the former falsely accused? So was the
latter. Was Joseph the saviour of many from death by starvation? Jesus
was the saviour of a multitude, whom no man can number, from sin. Was
Joseph first degraded or dishonoured, and then highly exalted? The
history of the Redeemer’s earthly sojourn tells how wicked men
dishonoured or derided him; but the Scriptures also tell that God
highly exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name. Was
it a proclamation made before Joseph, “Bow the knee”? (Gen. xli. 43).
In like manner, “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.” Did Joseph
feed multitudes? In like manner Jesus gives us the bread which comes
down from heaven. Did Joseph forgive his unnatural brethren at last?
The dying Saviour prayed for his crucifiers: “Father, forgive them; for
they know not what they do.”
We would not carry out this parallel, we repeat, to any fanciful
extent; but the coincidences now mentioned, and many more, are often
pointed out. In the estimation of some, they furnish a proof that the
sufferings of the Saviour were prefigured, or predicted, by those of
Joseph; which at least show this—that he that will live righteously
must suffer persecution, whether he be one of the sons of men, or the
only Son of God.
CHAPTER V.
JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT.
It is instructive to notice how many things were combined, by the
providential care of God, to promote the advancement of Joseph: 1. He
dreamed; 2. He told his dreams to his brethren; 3. He went and visited
them at a distance from their father’s home—and, prior to that, he had
been envied by them on account of his father’s partiality; 4. Reuben
and Judah interposed to prevent his being murdered; 5. The Ishmaelites
passed opportunely through Dothan; 6. They bought him; 7. They carried
him into Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar—not a person of minor
influence; 8. Joseph was tempted to sin, but resisted the temptation,
and was thrown into prison on a false accusation; 9. He had for his
fellow-prisoners two of Pharaoh’s household; 10. They dreamed dreams;
11. Pharaoh did the same; 12. A former fellow-prisoner of the Hebrew
lad was at hand, to remind the troubled king of that lad’s power. And
only at the end of this long chain—to which still other links might
have been added—was Joseph raised from his degradation; only then did
it appear that he who chooses weak things to confound the mighty had a
great work to accomplish in Egypt by the instrumentality of that man.
It seemed darkness without one ray of light when Joseph was torn from
his father and his father’s country, and made not merely a slave, but a
close prisoner for several years. But he who makes the wrath of man to
praise him, needed Joseph in Egypt; and by terrible things in
righteousness the purposes of the Eternal were wrought out.
Now this finely illustrates the exquisite adaptations of the providence
of God to accomplish his designs. The links, how delicate and manifold,
yet how firm! The agents, how free, yet how perfectly controlled! The
devices, how deep in some cases, how simple in others; yet how
beautifully all conspire to promote the desired end! Is not this the
finger of God? Does he not vivify all, or restrain all, ever one in
purpose as he is one in essence; and making all advance his glory?
Contemplate Joseph now, then. He is at the right hand of Pharaoh; for
that monarch has said to him, “See, I have set thee over all the land
of Egypt. Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word
shall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than
thou.” Joseph had power now to “bind even princes at his pleasure;” and
we cannot help contrasting the recent slave and prisoner with the
friend and counsellor of royalty, united in the same person. He is
adorned with Pharaoh’s ring, and with a chain of gold. If he has lost
his coat of many colours, he wears the royal raiment of Egypt in its
stead. He rides, moreover, in a chariot of state; and men, as we have
seen, now cry before him, “Bow the knee.” Joseph is, in truth, all but
royal; and though such things would not much affect him, if he was what
we believe him to have been—that is, righteous before God—yet they do
furnish a vivid contrast to Joseph’s recent condition. They show us
that when God over all has work to do, he will both find agents and
gift them with the means of accomplishing his purposes. Man seeks to
withdraw himself and his affairs entirely from the control of the
Supreme; but he bridles, fetters, or gives liberty, according to his
pleasure; and blessed are they who are his willing people.
And who could not quote a hundred such examples as that of Joseph from
the history of the past? Nay, may not every man who has had wisdom to
watch the ways of God in dealing with his own soul, single out examples
of similar wisdom in the providence of the Holy One? It may be for
retribution on the guilty, or for encouragement to the men who fear
God; but whatever be the design, many signal examples are recorded, to
show that God watches over all human plans, guiding and controlling
them, so as to promote the good pleasure of his will. Man proposes, but
God disposes; and he that is wise to mark the wisdom of the Supreme in
such things, will not want for proof of the loving-kindness of the
Lord. During a recent memorable siege in the East, for example, it was
the design of hordes of dark-souled men to explode a mine, and blow
their beleaguered victims into the air; but that mine was prematurely
fired, and destroyed only those emissaries of evil who dug it. Now,
this is only a specimen of what takes place in the providence of God;
at least that mine at Lucknow was morally anticipated in the selling of
Joseph by his brethren, and his exaltation to the right hand of Pharaoh
by God, compared with their humiliation before him at last.
Further: we need only to look forward to the closing scene of all, the
last and great Assize, to see examples countless of this general law!
What multitudes then will be seen to have been caught in their own
pitfall! How manifest will it then become that God was over all, even
when men were asking, like Pharaoh of old, “Who is the Lord, that I
should fear him?” Now, this may well supply strength to every tried
one. God may permit sorrow to assail; but do we, in godly sincerity,
commit our way to him? Then glory will emerge from that threatened
shame; and grief, as in Joseph’s case, will be found the precursor of
joy everlasting.
CHAPTER VI.
“YE ARE SPIES.”
The history of Joseph now becomes more and more a history of the
triumph of faith over sight, or holiness over sin. Hitherto
transgressors have seemed to prosper in their way, and only the godly
were depressed. But now we are to see the Holy One vindicating the
rights of injured innocence, and more and more plainly proclaiming that
the Judge of all the earth will do right. May we not exclaim, then,—
“Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law,
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.”
“Be sure your sins will find you out,” is the fixed decree of God; and
in the case of Joseph’s brethren the day of retribution now begins to
dawn. If hitherto conscience had been at ease, or oblivious of their
brother, it is now to be roused, and to speak out for the Holy One who
is the Lord of conscience—the just Judge of the skies. The great white
throne and its work are now to be anticipated.
From the narrative in Genesis we know that a famine had arisen in
Egypt, as Joseph had predicted. Its influence spread from that land
into the adjacent countries, and the sons of Jacob went thither to
profit by the stores which the wisdom of that brother whom they had
hated and sold had amassed. “All countries came into Egypt to Joseph,
for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands:” and
among the rest, the future patriarchs came, and “bowed down themselves
before him with their faces to the earth.”
In other words, Joseph’s dream is now fulfilled,—his brethren do
obeisance to him—they are prostrate in the Oriental manner at his
footstool! All their machinations could not turn aside the purposes of
Jehovah; and neither their projected murder of Joseph, nor his being
sold into Egypt, nor his being a prisoner for years, could interfere
with the onward march or the ceaseless flow of purposes formed in
heaven. It cannot be too strenuously enforced, for it is the burden of
the whole Bible, that every wish of man, every word and deed of the
creature, must bend before the will of God. Joseph’s whole history is a
proof; and the history of the whole world, when read in the light of
eternity, will further demonstrate the same truth. “Be still, and know
that I am God,” is the profound but simple lesson which all must
learn,—on earth, or in agony hereafter for ever.
All obstructions, then, are made to promote the designs of the Eternal;
and the sons of Jacob are therefore now at the feet of their hated
younger brother. For their trial, he spoke roughly unto them, and said,
“Ye are spies.” They were thus compelled to defend themselves in the
presence of him whom they had thrown into a pit, and plead for their
lives before one for whom they had no better portion than slavery and
exile. Again and again was the charge, “Ye are spies,” produced against
them; and again and again had they to declare that they were true men,
though Joseph knew that they were not. In short, they begin to discover
that the way of transgressors is hard; and to be assured that though
hand join in hand, sin shall not escape under the government of the
Holy One.
It is sometimes not easy to speak or to act towards sinners under the
influence of that pity which their sad case requires. The cutting
sarcasm of Elijah to the priests of Baal, and the irony of Isaiah to
the idolaters of his day, appear to be the right weapons to be used in
such a case. Oh, how has reason been dethroned by sin! how has even
conscience been warped and blinded, when men can hope to cope with
Omnipotence and triumph—to plot against Omniscience and escape—to rebel
against Love and be happy!
And the scriptural narrative is full upon this point, for it is one of
the main designs of the Bible to restore conscience to its place of
power. When tribulation came upon those men—when their sins began to
compass them about with sorrows—it was then that conscience spoke out:
“They said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother,
in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we
would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben
answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against
the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is
required” (Gen. xlii. 21, 22). Their injured brother wept aside while
they thus conferred; but, meanwhile, conviction of sin has been
wrought; and, in one point of view, these guilty men are twice in the
dust;—once before God, as detected in their iniquity; and again before
their brother, fulfilling the word of God upon their very knees.
And this may vividly remind us of what awaits the guilty at the last.
Self-detected, they will also be self-condemned. They will anticipate
the verdict of the Judge, and call on the mountains to fall on them ere
ever his sentence be uttered. But were it not well to anticipate all
this at an earlier stage? Were it not well to write bitter things
against ourselves now, and not wait to be condemned with the wicked—to
listen to the voice of a condemning conscience, and so escape the
condemnation of God?
“His blood is required of us,” then,—such was the confession of those
men; and, in confessing that fact, they bowed before the majesty of
conscience, as the trees of the forest bow before the storm. Now, it
were well could the men of every name, and class, and age, be brought
to recognize that majesty, and in time to do obeisance before it. It
were well were it written up in every place of business, in every
church, in every home, nay, in every heart,—“There is a God that
judgeth in the earth;” “He will bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thought.” Were that remembered, surely it would tend to
check man’s proneness to sin, unless he were prepared openly to
conflict with Omnipotence. True, nothing but God’s almighty grace can
subdue our wayward hearts, or make his will our law; yet could we
remember Joseph’s brethren, as we are directed to remember Lot’s wife,
it would be well with us: the Spirit of God would bless it for our
good; and both young and old—both viceroys like Joseph and shepherds
like his brethren—would be wiser and happier men.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CUP IN BENJAMIN’S SACK.
There can be little doubt that the events recorded in Scripture are
designed to illustrate its moral maxims and its religious principles.
Distinguishing aright between what the God of the Bible approves and
what he condemns, we find much light shed upon his truth by the conduct
of those whose lives are recorded there. Truth is never presented in
abstract forms, such as only the studious or the learned can
comprehend. On the contrary, it is embodied in life, now to awe us, and
anon to allure; at one time a beacon to warn, at another a signal to
encourage or guide.
But there are many facts mentioned, or customs referred to, in
Scripture, with which we are now but little acquainted. The next
incident in Joseph’s history to which we refer belongs to this class.
His brethren were returning the second time from Egypt with sacks of
corn; but in order to stay, or to test them further, he ordered the cup
“whereby he divined” (Gen. xliv. 5) to be privately deposited in the
sack of Benjamin, who had been sent by his father with extreme
reluctance to Egypt, at the imperative demand of Joseph. His steward
was then ordered to follow them, and seize the party in whose sack the
drinking-cup was found. It was discovered, of course, in Benjamin’s;
and now began consternation to the uttermost among the sons of Jacob.
“They rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to
the city.” They had hoped to escape from the effects of a sin committed
many years ago, but now they must suffer and be in great trepidation
for a sin which they did not commit at all. If conscience has hitherto
been dormant or dead, it is about to be roused to a terrible activity.
It is soon to be with them as with the thief who “dreads an officer in
every bush.”
The first thing that the guilty brothers did, when they reached the
abode of Joseph, was to “fall before him on the ground,” and so fulfil
once more that prediction concerning them and their doing obeisance
which had at first excited their enmity or their envy. They had to
plead their cause with all the force of Eastern pathos before Pharaoh’s
viceroy—their own brother; and their pleading contains some exquisitely
tender appeals, thoroughly Eastern in their style, but as thoroughly
human in their nature. Their father’s grief now occupied their
thoughts: they were not heartless as before; for when the conscience
was once roused it began to stir the better feelings of the heart. Days
of adversity and trial have at length accomplished some favourable
results. As the great I AM had work for Joseph in the world, he had
also work for his brethren to do, and they are reclaimed from their
self-inflicted degradation.
But what is meant by Joseph’s divining cup? When his brethren appeared
before him to answer for the theft alleged against them, the ruler of
Egypt said, “Know ye not that such a man as I am can certainly divine?”
And does that mean that Joseph had adopted the practices of heathen
priests, pretending to forecast the future, and so far usurp the
prerogative of God?
Without going further, the margin of our Bibles may help us to reply to
that question. The word “divine,” in Gen. xliv. 5 and 15, is translated
on the margin “make trial;” and we are thus, perhaps, referred to some
method adopted in Egypt for testing doubtful cases, by some peculiar
use of a cup. According to others, the word means no more than that
Joseph would make strict scrutiny upon such a point. He would sift and
test the character of the men before him. He would not let them go as
innocent, when he had tried them and found them criminal. By such an
announcement Joseph would re-enforce the claims of conscience; he would
deepen the alarms that had already risen in their minds; he was in
God’s hands to work out God’s purposes in those long dormant hearts;
for if Joseph could make strict inquiry, those men knew of One who
could make stricter still—the God who looks upon the heart, whose eyes
are as a flame of fire, and who cannot look on sin without abhorrence.
But however we may interpret what our Bible calls Joseph’s power to
divine, we have no difficulty in understanding the moral lessons of
such events, or tracing the hand of heavenly wisdom, “from seeming evil
still educing good.” When Joseph demanded Benjamin to be brought down,
and when that was reported to his father, we know how he was affected.
Joseph, he believed, was lost; Simeon was detained in Egypt as an
hostage; Benjamin is now demanded; and the patriarch exclaimed, “Me
have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and
ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me” (Gen.
xlii. 36). Now, little did the man who made that sore complaint
understand the ways of God, even after all the experience he had had:
he judged like a short-sighted mortal, as we are ever prone to do, and
not as a believer in “the mighty God of Jacob.” He took counsel of
flesh and blood, and not of the God of all grace. He listened to the
whispers of his own heart; and what can follow such a course but woe?
The patriarch would have been nearer the truth—he would have uttered
the very truth—had he said the reverse of what he here declares. And
the same is true of us all. We are ever prone to misinterpret the ways
of God. We put false constructions upon his most wise and loving
providences: we judge by sense, and not by faith. When he chastens for
our profit, we think that it is for our ruin; we conclude that we are
to be destroyed, when we are only corrected: and thus live in misery
when we might joy in God, as David did when he said, “In very
faithfulness doth he afflict me.” Conscience whispers to many a soul
what we deserve from God; and when sorrows come, conscience generally
concludes that they are the first drops of the vials of wrath.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEETING OF JOSEPH AND BENJAMIN.
“Joseph fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept; and Benjamin
wept upon his neck” (Gen. xlv. 14). Such is the word-picture of which
one of our Engravings is a copy. There is much that is lovely and of
good report as between man and man in our natures, notwithstanding of
the fall, and one of the fountains of the heart is here broken open. We
see how brother loves brother, and, by contrast with that scene, are
enabled to understand how far the minds of Joseph’s brethren must have
been warped and deadened by hatred or envy, when they could trample as
they did upon the affection which should knit brother to brother. Such
beautiful displays of brotherly love were perhaps made in this case
just to show more clearly by contrast the hateful nature of envy in
every case, but most of all among brothers.
Prior to this stage of these proceedings, indeed, Joseph had given some
manifestations of his affection to Benjamin. He showed that his
elevation to the right hand of a throne had neither alienated nor
chilled his love; and the fivefold mess which he sent to Benjamin (Gen.
xliii. 34), according to the Eastern mode of showing affection, made it
plain that the external change in Joseph’s position had not altered his
heart. When he first set eyes on Benjamin, he could not refrain his
tears, but “sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and
wept there” (verses 29–31). According to the calmer temperament of
Western nations, where self-command in such cases is more studied, such
affection may appear excessive in a high and mighty ruler; it may seem
weak or womanish thus to dissolve into tears, even in the retirement of
one’s chamber. But in less phlegmatic temperaments, and especially
among Orientals, nature takes its own mode of expression—at once the
most pathetic and the most powerful; and the gushings of natural
affection, its tenderness, its beauty, and its force, rank among the
finest portions of the Word of God. Jesus wept because Jerusalem would
none of him: it would rather rush upon ruin. The deep yearnings of his
loving heart were outraged, and he wept in anguish there, as in
Gethsemane his sweat was as it were great drops of blood. Again, Paul
could tell, even weeping, of some who were the enemies of the cross of
Christ, who gloried in their shame, and drew forth pity for men who had
no pity on themselves. In short, wherever man is not hardened into
callousness by the power of the world, or chilled by conventional
usage, he will be as prompt to weep with them that weep as to rejoice
with them that rejoice. It is true, whether poetry record it or not,
that—
“Not the bright stars which night’s blue arch adorn,
Nor rising sun which gilds the vernal morn,
Shines with such lustre as the tears that break,
For other’s woes, down Virtue’s manly cheek.”
But the scene at which Joseph made himself known to his brethren
deserves our closer attention. He wept sore, and so loudly that the
Egyptians heard him. A strange thing that day had happened in their
land; and it is not easy to conceive of the feelings of those brethren
when the ruler, so royal-like, beside them, exclaimed, “I am Joseph!”
Surely no lightning flash ever startled more. The words of Nathan to
David, “Thou art the man!” could produce no profounder emotion. In that
one clause the memory of years long past was awakened; and surely the
consciences of those men were busier now than they had ever been
before: surely the blush of confusion might well crimson their cheeks,
and the recollection of all their baseness—their cruelty to their
father, their brother, and their own souls—would rush upon their minds
with the vividness of a yesterday’s event. “They were troubled at his
presence”—the margin says “terrified.” And well they might; it was as
if one had risen from the dead, or as if a miracle had been wrought to
confront them with their sin. When he said, “I am Joseph your brother,
whom ye sold into Egypt!” would not the words sound like the first
portion of a sentence of death and execution? But he hastened to
relieve their fears. “Be not grieved,” he said, “nor angry with
yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to
preserve life.” And when he “kissed all his brethren, and wept over
them,” they no doubt felt a mountain-load lifted from their minds.
Joseph had forgiven them; nay, more, he had found an excuse or
palliation for their sin. But could they forgive themselves? If they
were not utterly abandoned to guilt—and we know that they were
not—could they find rest anywhere but in the dust at that solemn,
searching moment? Oh, how would many, now undone and beyond hope for
ever, rejoice could such an hour of contrition be granted to them here!
Here, then, we may contemplate the state of these detected men, when
their sin was pressed upon their notice by their brother, all kind and
forgiving as were his words. The chief sin of all—the sale into
slavery—had been committed many years before: it seemed over and
forgotten, like a thing buried and out of sight. But no; sin has a
vitality in it which defies alike oblivion and death; it is enduring,
as the nature of God is unchanging; and the guilty brothers are thus
confronted with their sin, fresh and vigorous, as if yesterday had seen
it perpetrated. And is not this but a rehearsal or a foreshadowing of
the great and final day, when the Judge of the quick and the dead is to
set our sins in array against us, or when it will seem a relief if the
mountains would fall on us and cover us from the wrath of the Lamb?
Happy the man who has his soul washed in the Lamb’s blood preparatory
to that day! We should never forget that there is to be a resurrection
of our deeds as well as of our bodies, and should live so as to be
ready to render our account with joy.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH.
If we have witnessed one scene of affection when Joseph embraced his
brother Benjamin, we are now to behold another, when the patriarch
Jacob meets with his long lost son. We are often permitted, even in
this life, to see joy and gladness according to the days in which we
have seen grief; and an example of that is at hand.
After the interview between Joseph and his brethren, matters were soon
arranged for transferring them and all their retinue to Egypt,—another
important stage in the development of God’s plans with our world.
Pharaoh confirmed the request of his viceroy to that effect, so that
the patriarchs and their father with them were invited to settle in one
of the richest portions of Egypt. Among these migratory tribes of
herdsmen—who literally had no continuing city—such a removal was not so
remarkable as a similar thing would be in our country of more fixed
habits; and the whole house of Jacob was accordingly soon in motion
toward Egypt. “It is enough,” he exclaimed, when the invitation reached
him; “Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die;”
and the threescore and six souls, who composed his household, of course
followed in his train.
Now, had we been there to witness that migration, it would never have
occurred to us to think that the future history of the sons of men
would be largely affected by the movement; yet it was so. That was no
ordinary change of abode: God was in it of a truth; and, blind or dark
as man might be, God was there in the act of “calling things that are
not as though they were.”
As he journeyed toward Egypt, Jacob met with much to gladden him by the
way. In a vision of the night, he was encouraged from on high to go
fearlessly forward, for blessings great and manifold awaited him and
his descendants in the future. But our present topic leads us past the
different stages of the journey, to the meeting of the father and the
son. When Joseph learned that his parent was approaching, he hastened
forth to meet him, and, with the ardent affection, as well as the
profound respect, of the East, welcomed the aged man to Egypt. He did
not think it beneath his dignity, as vice-king of that country, to
offer lowly reverence to his father, shepherd or husbandman as he was,
and following a profession which made him “an abomination unto the
Egyptians.” Nay, when Joseph met his father in the land of Goshen, we
read that “he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while”
(Gen. xlvi. 29); while the father exclaimed, “Now, let me die, since I
have seen thy face, because thou art still alive.”—It was an interview
and an hour which compensated, in a great measure, for the sorrows and
separation of years; it was one of the scenes by which God, in his holy
providence, foreshows how intense will be the joy when the great family
are all gathered home, from every country, and tribe, and tongue, to
their Father’s house on high. The exile returning to the home of his
fathers, or the soldier revisiting the scenes of his boyhood after many
a bloody field, may understand such emotions in some degree. They are
green spots in the desert of life—a Tadmor in the wilderness—a lily
among thorns.
Yet there, also, the feelings would be of a mixed nature, like all
things human. Scarcely any of the parties present—Jacob, Joseph, or his
brethren—could fail to glance in thought at the strange proceedings
which had separated them so long. There might be neither envy nor
hatred now—neither spite upon the one side, nor a desire of retaliation
on the other. The dealings of Providence had been too remarkable to
admit of such feelings; and we rather suppose that they were all
suppressed, as much as possible, amid the general joy. But be that as
it may, we see the patriarch happy for a season. His children, who were
really the hope of the world (strange as the remark may seem when
applied to such men), were now gathered around him; and as it then
appeared that he had little to do but to die, he might at length put a
different construction on his own words: “All these things are against
me.” He had providence now interpreted to him by its God, and saw with
his bodily eyes, as all the ransomed will yet see in glory, that “all
things work together for good to them that love God, and that are the
called according to his purpose.” Flesh and blood may fear and quake
under trial, but faith rises to a higher level, and walks with a firmer
step,—it can endure as seeing him who is invisible.
CHAPTER X.
JACOB IN THE PRESENCE OF PHARAOH.
We have seen that the son stood before kings, and the father is now to
do the same. If we have beheld not a little in former scenes to commend
Joseph to our love, we are here to see yet more. As soon as he met his
father, he communicated his purpose to apply to Pharaoh to sanction the
sojourn of the patriarch and his tribe in Egypt. This was easily
arranged; and at the close of the proceedings, Joseph “brought in Jacob
his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh”
(Gen. xlvii. 7). When this was accomplished, we can suppose that the
highest wishes of one so affectionate as Joseph were gratified. For
about seventeen years his parent lived to bless him with his company
and his counsel; and though we have not many details of their
intercourse during that period, we may easily imagine that the
tenderness of those seventeen years largely compensated for the long
and violent separation which had kept the father and the son so far
apart, and even made them the citizens of different kingdoms.
But we may notice here, in passing, the question of Pharaoh, and the
answer of Jacob, at their interview. “How old art thou?” was the
monarch’s inquiry; and Jacob’s reply was a picture in words of the
weary life of man: “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an
hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my
life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life
of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage” (Gen. xlvii. 9). Few
and evil! Behold the history of a life whose days were protracted even
beyond the ordinary span! Few and evil, because man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward. Few and evil, because it is written, “Dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Few and evil, because, in
this special case, there had been more than common grief endured, where
those who should have been a solace or a stay were transformed by sin
into causes of anguish, first to their aged parent, and at last also to
themselves.
And how sad must the reply of Jacob have sounded in the ears of the
king! It rarely happens that monarchs are permitted to hear unpleasant
truths. Everything around them seems to proclaim or to whisper that
to-morrow will be as to-day; or if different, only more joyous and more
thoughtless still! For once, however, the hoary-headed patriarch tells
the monarch the truth, and indirectly reminds him, Thou, too, must die.
There was another king, the King of Terrors, mightier than Pharaoh, and
slowly approaching to lay him in the dust.
And perhaps there is nothing in all the history or the life of man
which shows more clearly the effects of sin, or the ruin of the fall,
than his wilful ignorance, or at least his want of feeling, on the
great subject of his mortality. Of no truth is it possible for man to
be more convinced than this—I must die. It is not so absolutely certain
that the sun will rise on any given day, as that man may die any moment
or any breath. Yet who is moved by that conviction to prepare for
dying? Who is stirred up by all the funerals which he sees, or all the
open graves which he visits, to prepare for meeting God? Not one. It is
not that kind of influence: it is the grace and the Spirit of God that
make man wise to consider his latter end. For example, the plaintive
sentiment, “Few and evil,” uttered by the patriarch, most probably
passed through the monarch’s mind like water through a sieve. A sigh,
or a wish, or a hope, perhaps, and all was over! The thought was dashed
aside as an unwelcome intruder amid the gorgeous scenes of a palace.
And if that was the case, Pharaoh was only a specimen of the universal
race of man. The fleeting nature of life is forgotten amid its cares,
its engrossments, and trifles. But happy they whom the Spirit of God
makes wise in this and other respects! Happy they who cling, as Jacob
did, to Him who is the life, and over whom death has no power for ever!
In the African desert there is a bird, known as the honey-guide, which
often conducts the traveller to some hive, whose sweet stores form a
staple article of food in those dreary parts. By a peculiar instinct,
provision is thus made to supply the wayfarer’s wants; or, in some
cases, to rescue him from death. Now God has yet more wisely and surely
provided for our escape from the second death, if we listen to the
warnings of his Word or the guidance of his Spirit; and happy are they
who are thus guided! They are led to a portion sweeter far than honey
from the honey-comb. The few and weary days of our earthly pilgrimage
then conduct us to the house of the Lord—the city of the Great King—the
abode to which the palace of Pharaoh was as a dungeon or a cell.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DEATH OF JACOB.
We have now reached the closing stage of all. For about seventeen years
Jacob sojourned in Egypt, and about one hundred and forty-seven here
below; but the “evil” of which he complained to Pharaoh is drawing to
an end. The patriarch is about to die. Joseph was summoned into his
father’s presence, along with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who
were adopted as his own by the dying patriarch; they received his
blessing along with their father (Gen. xlviii.); and after the aged man
had prophetically sketched the history or character of each of the
future patriarchs, “he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded
up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.”
And in concluding these sketches, we may glance again at the mode in
which the mighty God brought good to all nations and all times out of
the misdeeds of the sons of Jacob. In our world there is much to
perplex and bewilder us in studying the ways of Providence, and it is
not always easy—for us, at least—to “justify the ways of God to man;”
but he will sooner or later justify them himself, and make it plain to
all that his ways, like his Word, are pure.
For example, we have already seen what benefits accrued to Joseph
himself from the cruelty of his brethren, and how fully he recognized
the hand of God in all that had befallen him. Just as Jehovah will make
it plain at last, before the assembled world, that the very wrath of
man has praised him, in the present instance he made the evil passions
of those brothers remarkably advance the eternal purposes of the God of
heaven. The promises made to Adam and to Abraham are here helped a
stage forward to their fulfilment in spite of all that seems to oppose.
Somehow or other, though we cannot see it, or explain it at all, even
sin—the abominable thing which God hates—will be made to promote his
glory; and of that result we have a specimen in the events of this
remarkable family.
To Jacob, also, as well as to the land of Egypt, we see what benefits
resulted from the sin of his sons. All the guilt of that sin lay upon
them, and was not in the least jot mitigated by the manner in which God
overruled it for good; but it is full of encouragement to a child of
God, to see it working out the purposes of his Father. Jacob was saved
from death by starvation; his family, and myriads besides, were the
same: and thus he who sought only to do evil by stirring up the envy of
Joseph’s brethren, was compelled to do good thereby again and again.
THE END
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