The Patriarchs Part 18

Thus the scene opens, and Joseph's brethren come down to Egypt to buy food.

As soon as Joseph saw them, he knew them. He "remembered the dreams which he had dreamed of them." But upon this he at once set himself to the task of restoring their souls. See xlii. 9.

Strange, and yet beautiful and excellent! His dreams had merely exalted him above them. Had he sought, therefore, simply to make good those dreams when he thus remembered them, he might at once have revealed himself, and, as the favoured sheaf in the field, or as the sun, the ruling sun, in the heavens, have had them on their faces before him. But to restore their souls, instead of exalting himself, becomes at once his purpose. This was the counsel he took in his heart, as he surveyed the moment when he might have realized his own greatness and their humiliation, according to his dreams. How truly excellent and blessed is this! There was One, in after-days, who, when He took knowledge that He had come from G.o.d and went to G.o.d, and that the Father had put all things into His hands, rose and girded Himself, and began to wash His disciples' feet. The knowledge of His dignities only led Him to wait on the need of His saints. Who can speak the character of such a moment?

But Joseph here, in the far distance, reminds me of it. "He remembered his dreams," dreams which exalted him, and that only; and yet he turns himself at once to the defiled feet, the guilty hearts, the unclean consciences, of his brethren, that he might heal, and wash, and restore them.

Strange, again I say. There was no connection between such remembrance and such action, save as grace, divine grace, of which Joseph was the witness, is known; save as the Jesus of John xiii. is understood.

"Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come." This was taking them up for the good work (though the process be humbling and painful) of restoring their souls. The conscience must be faithfully dealt with, if anything be done. And Joseph aims at it at once. He makes himself strange to them. He speaks to them by an interpreter, and he speaks roughly. He must get their conscience into action, let it cost himself in personal feeling what it may. His love, for the present, must be firm; its hour for melting and tenderness is before it. It shall be _gratified_ by-and-by; it must _serve_ now. In the day of their sin they had said of him, "Behold, this dreamer cometh;" and now, in the day of their conviction, he says of them, "Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land are ye come." They had once sold their brother, when their heart knew no pity; now, with all peremptoriness which knew no reserve, one of themselves is taken and bound. But all this was only, in the purpose of grace, to fix the arrow deep in the conscience, there to spend its venom, and there to lay the sentence of death. And this is done. When G.o.d acts, the power of the Spirit waits upon the counsel of love. If they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; then He sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. Job x.x.xvi. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother," they all say as with one conscience, "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."

This was something; it was much; but Joseph has still to go on with the _service_ of love. Had he consulted his _name_ at the first, when he remembered his dreams, he would have revealed himself at once, and stood forth as the honoured one in the midst of his confounded, humbled brethren. Had he now consulted his _heart_, he would have revealed himself, and been the gratified one on the bosom of his convicted, sorrowing brethren. But he consulted neither the one nor the other.

_Love was serving_; and the husbandman of the soul has, at times, like the tiller of the ground, need of "long patience," and has to wait for the latter, as for the early rain.

This was a happy and promising, because it was a _real_ beginning. But Joseph has yet to learn whether the heart of children and of brothers were in them, or whether they were still, as once they had been, reckless of a brother's cries and of a father's grief. He therefore exercises them still. Roughness and kindness, encouragements and alarms, challenges and feasts, favours and reproaches, all are used and made to work together. Though indeed all is much the same in the reckoning of a guilty conscience. Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead in the apprehensions of it. A shaken leaf is an armed host in its presence.

Kindness and roughness alike alarm. They are afraid because they are brought into Joseph's house. They fear where no fear is. But all is working repentance not to be repented of; and the fruit meet for this is soon to be brought forth.

Joseph lays a plan for fully testing whether indeed a child's heart and a brother's heart were now in them.

As they are preparing the second time to return to Canaan with food for them and their households, Joseph's cup is put in Benjamin's sack--as we all know, for it is a favourite story--and they set out on their journey. But this, simple as it seems, is the crisis. Their own lips will now have to p.r.o.nounce the verdict; for the question is now about to be put, whether they are as once they were, or whether a heart of flesh has been given to them. Will the sorrows of Benjamin move them, as the cries of Joseph once failed to do? Will the grief of the aged father at home plead with their heart, as once it did not? This place, this moment, was the field of Dothan again. They were returning, in spirit, to the place where all their offence was committed. In the field of Dothan, in chap. x.x.xvii., they had to say, Would they sacrifice their innocent brother Joseph to their l.u.s.ts, their envy, and their malice?

Here, when Benjamin is claimed as a captive because of the cup found in his sack--claimed as one who has forfeited life and liberty to the lord of Egypt--it is in like manner put to them to say whether they would sacrifice him, and return on their way home, easy and careless and satisfied.

Nothing can excel the skill of the wisdom of Joseph in thus bringing his brethren back, morally and in spirit, to the field in Dothan. The same question is raised here as there, and put to them solemnly. Judah, he whom his brethren shall praise, gives this question its answer. They were innocent, indeed, touching the cup. But this is nothing to their consciences, and nothing on Judah's lips. Conviction loses sight of everything but sin. Its offence is its object. "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." The brethren might have spoken of their innocency, and been somewhat hurt, that, after this manner, they were again and again misunderstood and charged falsely.

They had been called spies when they were true men, and now they were handled as common thieves, though they were honest men. They might have said this was too bad. They could bear a good deal, injurious speeches and hard usage, but to be dealt with thus, was something too much for flesh and blood to put up with. But no--nothing of this--this was not Joseph's brethren now. They had once hid their guilt under the lie which they sent to their father, now they are willing to hide their innocency touching the cup under the confession they make to Joseph. Judah stands forth to represent this new mind in them. Guiltless they were indeed in all these matters, from first to last; neither spies nor rogues; but some twenty years ago they had been guilty of what this stranger in Egypt (as they must have supposed) knew nothing, but which G.o.d and their consciences knew. They may be innocent now, but they were guilty then; and their sin, and that only, was now before them. Confession, and not vindication, is their language. "What shall we speak?" says Judah. "How shall we clear ourselves? G.o.d has found out the iniquity of thy servants."

Joseph for a moment feigns as though all this was nothing to him. This may be their business, if they please, but Benjamin was his. Benjamin is the guilty one, as far as the great man in Egypt is concerned; he must remain, and the rest may take themselves home as fast as they please.

"The man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant; and as for you, get you up in peace unto your father."

What could exceed this? I ask. Did Solomon's wisdom in settling the question between the two harlots exceed it? Did he, in a spirit of judgment befitting one who sat in the place of judgment, find out the heart of a mother? and does not Joseph here, in like wisdom from G.o.d, find out the heart of his brethren? It is all beyond admiration. The heart is indeed laid open. After these words from Joseph, Judah draws near, and with the bowels of a son and a brother pleads for Jacob and for Benjamin. "The lad" and "the old man" are the burthen of his words, for they were now the fulness of his heart. He will abide a bondman to his lord, only let "the lad" go back to "his father." Let but the father's heart be comforted, and Benjamin's innocency preserve him, and Judah will be thankful, come to himself what may.

This is everything. The sequel is now reached, the sequel which had been weighed from the beginning. The goodness of G.o.d had led to repentance.

Joseph was exalted indeed; the sheaf had risen and stood upright; but "this was all the fruit, to take away their sin." So Christ is now exalted, as we read, to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Acts v. 31.

And now the veil may be rent, and it shall be rent. Joseph will be made known to his brethren.

But this was a moment hard to meet and to manage. The re-appearing of one whom they had hated and sold, and the remembrance of whom had been so deeply stirring their souls, might be overwhelming. He must attemper this light to their vision, lest it prove intolerable. But love is skilful, and has its methods and its instruments ready for occasions. "I am Joseph," he says to his brethren; but in the same breath (as the common word among us is) he adds, "Doth my father yet live?"

Exquisite indeed, in the way of grace, this was, and perfect in the skilfulness of love. Joseph could have answered this question himself.

Judah's speech (the echo of which was still in his ears, for it was too precious to allow him to part with it) had already told him, that the father was still alive. But Joseph hastened to bring a third person into the scene. He could not allow the servants or officers of the palace to be present then; for this would be to expose his brethren. And yet to be alone with himself he dreaded as enough to prove too much for them. And therefore he must bring some one in, to share that moment with them; and such an one, the very best of all, was he whom Joseph's word introduces.

Perfect indeed in its place this was. It calls to my mind the scene at the well of Sychar. "I that speak unto thee am He," says the Lord to the woman who had just by His means been discovered to herself in all her old crimson sins. It was not merely, "I am He," but "I that speak unto thee am He." In these words He reveals His glory. He stands before her as Messiah, who could, as she had said, tell all things, and who had now, as she had proved, really told all things, such things as were terrible in the hearing of an awakened conscience. But He reveals it in company with the sweet, condescending, inviting grace of one who was sitting and talking with her. And this was the t.i.tle of her soul to find freedom, where she might have expected to be overwhelmed. And she did find it.

What skilfulness in the ways of love! From its precious stores, I may say, in well-known words--

"There sparkles forth whate'er is fit For exigence of every hour."

We only want to trust it more, and a.s.sure ourselves of it.

And there is more of this in Joseph still.

Shortly after this he has to say again to them, "I am Joseph," and to add to it, "whom ye sold into Egypt." But then he goes at once through a long tale of G.o.d's purposes in all that matter, and lets them know how important to Pharaoh, to Egypt, and to the whole world, as well as to them and to their households, his ever having left home was about to be.

Love does not give them opportunity to occupy the time with thoughts of themselves. Joseph crowds a mult.i.tude of other thoughts upon their minds--and he kisses them and weeps with them.

Pharaoh's people may now, after all this, return and share the scene with them. They can now see, in these visitors from Canaan, not Joseph's persecutors, but his brethren. They are introduced to the palace only in that character. As in the parable of the prodigal. The father will see him in his misery; and, while yet in rags and hunger and shame, kiss him and welcome him; but the household shall see him as a son at the table.

"Cause every man to go out from me," had been Joseph's word, when he was going to make himself known to them; but now, the house of Pharaoh shall hear that Joseph's brethren have arrived. The spirit of that blessed One whom we learn in the Gospels breathes in all this. We are in John iv.

and in Luke xv. when in Genesis xlv.

There are occasions in the story of human life which _the heart_ claims entirely for itself. The Lord met such, as we all do at times. There was constant faithfulness in His dealing with the disciples. He did not let their mistakes pa.s.s. He was rebuking them very commonly, because He loved them very perfectly, and was training their souls rather than indulging Himself. But there did come a moment when faithfulness must yield up the place, and tenderness fill it. I mean, the hour of _parting_, as we get it in John xiv.-xvi. It was then too late to be faithful. Education of the soul under the rebukes of a pastor was not to go on then. "O ye of little faith," or "How is it that ye do not understand?" was not to be heard then. It was the hour of parting, and the heart had leave to take it entirely into its own hand.

Now a time of _reconciliation_ is, in this, like the hour of parting.

The heart claims it for itself. Tenderness alone suits it; faithfulness would be an intruder. And thus we find it with Joseph here. He wept aloud, so that the house of Pharaoh heard it. He wept on the neck of all his brethren and kissed them, fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and kissed him. And if he spoke in the midst of his tears, it was only to encourage their hearts, and give them pledges and reasons why they should be in full confidence and ease before him.

Neither Pharaoh, nor Pharaoh's house, nor any in Egypt seem ever to have been told of the sin of the brethren.

Surely I may claim these rights and privileges for the hour of _parting_, and for the hour of _reconciliation_. And this was so, as we see, in this time of Joseph's restoration to his brethren. But when all this is over, and he has introduced them to Pharaoh and the palace, and they are in readiness to return to Canaan, in full preparation to bring their aged father into Egypt to Joseph, when they are just standing, Benjamin with them, and Simeon with them, and all was the exultation of a favoured and prosperous hour, one word of warning would not be out of season, and Joseph has it for them, "See that ye fall not out by the way." "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" addressed the heart of Peter much in the same spirit, and at a kindred moment, when the reconciliation, as I may call it, had been accomplished, and Peter's unbroken net had gathered 153, and he had dined with his denied Master on the sea sh.o.r.e.

Surely the whole of this, from first to last, is perfect. There is a moral magnificence in Scripture which makes it, of a truth, the chiefest, as we may say, of the works of G.o.d. The Spirit breathes in it all. Its tenderness, its grandeur, and its depth, are alike His. In the issue of the story of Joseph and his brethren we see something that is very excellent. The rights and the wrongs of Joseph, the claims which he had made, and the injuries he had endured, were all wonderfully answered. Whatever dignities his dreams had pledged him, he gained them all in full measure. Whatever wrongs he had suffered, they were all avenged in the very way his own heart would have chosen. The judgment of their sin against him was executed in the bosoms of the brethren themselves; not a hard word touching it pa.s.sed his lips from first to last.

These were the issues of both the rights and wrongs of Joseph. "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

But I must look back at all this for another moment. Conviction of conscience may be but natural, the ordinary necessary working of the soul, the absence of which would be resented as the evidence of a seared or hardened state. But when it is more than the mere stirring of the soul under the authority of nature--when the Spirit of G.o.d has produced it--He takes His own object or instrument to work by. David, under the convicting Spirit, says to G.o.d, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." And thus will it be with Israel in the day of their conviction; for their conscience will then be linked with the once rejected, crucified Jesus. As the Lord says by the prophet, I will pour upon them the spirit of grace and of supplications: and _they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced_, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. This is conviction, when the Spirit of G.o.d takes that business out of the hand of nature into His own hand. This is conscience doing its work, as the apostle speaks, "in the Holy Ghost." In such a day, under such authority and power, Israel will address themselves directly to Jesus. Isaiah liii.

shows us the same in another form. And precious work this is in the soul--_needed_ work still in each of us.

Now this is seen in Joseph's brethren. Another has noticed it already in a general way. But it is deeply worthy of notice. It was their sin against Joseph they called to mind in the day of their distress. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother," they say, "in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear." Other sins might have been present to the conscience then. Reuben might have thought of the defilement of his father's bed, Simeon and Levi of their blood-shedding and treachery, and Judah of his marriage; but, stirred into life, not merely by the trouble which had come upon them, but by the Spirit, they are mindful of the _common_ sin, and speak, as with one conscience, of their wickedness touching Joseph. And it is this which bespeaks the Spirit's work in this conviction.

Needed work, again I say, this is in every one of us. But the _fountain_ has to do its work as well as the Spirit of grace. Joseph, as we saw, interpreted his sorrows, though at their wicked hands, very differently from what their fears and guilt had interpreted them. They said, and very rightly, "we are verily guilty concerning our brother;" he says, and very truly, "G.o.d did send me before you, to preserve life." And this is the gospel. We are convicted, but saved. We learn that we have destroyed ourselves, but that in Him is our help. The blood meets the spear. The fountain is opened in those very wounds which our own hands have inflicted. And this will be the experience of the Jewish election (whose history that of these brethren foreshadow, as we know) in the day of Isaiah liii. and Zechariah xiii. The cross is the witness. Faith stands before it, and there learns _ruin_ and _redemption_.

In the progress of this wondrous story, the reconciliation, as we have now seen, is accomplished. Joseph has received his brethren; and all is therefore ready for Israel's full blessing. Restoration must follow conversion. Times of refreshing and rest.i.tution must come upon Israel's repentance. The aged father, with his household and flocks, is brought from Canaan, and with his sons presented to Pharaoh, and they are seated in the very best of the land, the land of Goshen in Rameses.

They were told that they might leave all their own stuff _behind_ them, for all the good of the land of Egypt was _before_ them. And so it proved to be. Their empty sacks had come down to Egypt at the first to be made full, and they were still to prove that there were a heart and a hand there, both equal and ready to give without measure, and the emptier they came down the fuller they would learn this.

They were but shepherds, it is true, and such were an abomination to the Egyptians. But Joseph "is not ashamed to call them brethren." Strangers they were, and pensioners; but the man of that day, the lord of Egypt, again I say, was "not ashamed to call them brethren." He owns them in the presence of the king, of the palace, and of the nation. And the king proves to be of the same mind. That they were Joseph's brethren was enough for Pharaoh. Truly this has language in our ears. A day is at hand, when all this shall be made good in the great originals of Christ and Israel. He will return to them and say, "It is my people;" and they will say, "The Lord is my G.o.d."

But though this is great and excellent, it is not all. The earth itself has to be settled and blest, the inheritance has to be received and displayed, as the brethren, the Israel of Christ, had to be thus quickened and restored; and this we are now to see. Joseph in chapter xlvii. becomes the upholder of the world in life and order. By him life is preserved in the earth, and order maintained. And all the people are made willing in that day of his power. All is right that Joseph does, in the eyes of all the people. Their money, their cattle, their lands, and themselves, are made over to Pharaoh; and yet all pleases them, for they owe their lives to Joseph. Egypt, in those days, was a sample of the new world, the world brought back to G.o.d by _redemption_. It was a "purchased possession," just what the millennial earth is to be. Eph. i.

14. It was creation reconciled, delivered from the doom of famine, from death and the curse, by the hand of a saviour. Joseph's corn had bought the land, the cattle, and the people. All was under Pharaoh in a new character, as a purchased possession, standing in the grace of redemption. Pharaoh, who had been king of the country, is king of the country still; but he has another, a redeemer of the land and people, a.s.sociated with him now, as once he had not. As in millennial days. What a picture has the hand of G.o.d drawn for us here! what a pledge have we here, yea, what a sample of the earth in the days of the kingdom!

Pharaoh had trusted Joseph, and Joseph had pledged Pharaoh, in earlier days, when as yet nothing was done. Ere the word of Joseph began to be accomplished Pharaoh had seated him in dignity and power, given him a wife from among the daughters of the excellent of the land, and put upon him a name that told already to all who read it, what he thought of him, and how he received him. And Joseph, in the confidence that all would be according to the interpretations which G.o.d had given him to deliver, accepted all this at Pharaoh's hand; and then, but not till then, the plentiful years came, one after another, to make good the pledges of Joseph to Pharaoh, and to vindicate all the honours which had been conferred by Pharaoh on Joseph. See chap. xli.

Zaphnath-paaneah, in the old Egyptian tongue, is said to have signified "the saviour of the world"; in the Hebrew, as we understand, it might be rendered "the revealer of secrets."

Precious notices of all that which finds its originals, its counselled and eternal reality, in the secrets which have been between G.o.d and His anointed! We have only to bow and worship; and as we gather the spoils and riches of the word of G.o.d, to rejoice and be thankful. "I rejoice in thy word as one that findeth great spoil." "I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches."

It was fitting that we should have this sample of the new world, or the coming millennial condition of the earth, in the history of Joseph; for, as we said at the beginning, he is the _heir_, set to represent such an one in the grace of G.o.d, after his fathers had told out, each his several part, in the same fruitful and abounding grace. _Election_, as we have seen, we got in Abraham; _sonship_, to which election predestinates us, in Isaac; _discipline_, to which sonship introduces us, in Jacob; and now, _the heir and the inheritance_ which follows, closing the mystery which grace has counselled, and closing likewise the Book of Genesis, in Joseph.