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 [10]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 [11]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 [12]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, [13]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 [14]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).

[15]

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 [16]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 [17]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 [18]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 [19]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 [20]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. [21]

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. [22]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. [23]

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,—

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 [24]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 [25]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 [26]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, [27]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 [28]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 [29]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 [30]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.

[31]

“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 [32]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 [33]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; [34]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, [35]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 [36]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 [37]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 [38]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 [39]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: [40]“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.

[41]

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; [42]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 [43]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.

JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT.

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 [44]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 [45]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 [46]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. [47]

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.

[48]

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,—

“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 [50]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 [51]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 [52]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! [53]

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 [54]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 [55]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 [56]good; and both young and old—both viceroys like Joseph and shepherds like his brethren—would be wiser and happier men.

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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; [58]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 [59]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 [60]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, [61]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 [62]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. [63]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; [64]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.

[65]

“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 [66]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 [67]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, [68]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—

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. [69]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 [70]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 [71]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 [72]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.

[73]

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 [74]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 [75]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 [76]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, [77]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 [78]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.

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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” [80](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 [81]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 [82]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 [83]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, [84]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. [85]

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 [86]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 [87]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 [88]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