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JOSEPH

THE PRIME-MINISTER

BY
The Rev. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D.
MINISTER OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, N. Y. CITY

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1886

_ — *

THE REV. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR'S WORKS.

i2mo, Cloth, $i 50 a volume.

Daniel the Beloved.

Moses the Law-Giver.

David, King of Israel.

Paul the Missionary.

Elijah the Prophet.

Peter the Apostle.

Joseph the Prime-Minister.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

B3?~ A ny of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part
of the United States or Canada, on receipt of tlie price.

S't

Copyright, 1886, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

PREFACE.

THE general acceptance with which my former volumes
of this class have met, and the numero^ testimonies
^to their usefulness with which I have been favored, have
induced me to add another to the series.
The story of Joseph is one of the first favorites of our
childhood ; and if, in the following pages, I have succeeded
in turning it to useful account for the inspiration of the
young^ the support of those who are bearing the burden
and heat of the meridian of life, or the solace of the aged,
I shall be deeply grateful.
Wm. M. Taylor.
5 West Thirty-fifth Street,
ATew York City. _

CONTENTS,

Page
I. Tlie Fathers Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. . 7
II. Sold to the Ishmaelites  20
III. Sold into Slavery  33
IV. Tempted but Triumphant  48
V. The Two Frisoners  61
VI. Elevation at Length  76
VII. Public Administration  91
VIII. The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt  108
IX. The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt  122
X. The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. . . 137
XI. Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father  153
XII. Jacob's Dying Prophecies  171
XIII. Jacob's Funeral  190
XIV. Joseph's Death  206
XV. The Character and Cai-eer of Joseph  222

JOSEPH THE PRIME-MINISTER.

i.
THE FATHER'S FA VORITE AND THE BROTHERS'
CENSOR.
Gen. xxxvii., i-ii.
THE influence of Jacob's experience at Peniel was not
limited to the brief time of its actual existence. That
night was the water-shed of his life, marking the "hence
forth" from which he became another man. Till then he had
been, in nature as well as in name, Jacob the Supplanter.
While yet in his father's house he had taken a mean ad
vantage of Esau's necessity to get possession of the birth
right; and notwithstanding the Bethel vision, the same dis
position had re-appeared in his dealings with Laban. He
had, indeed, many good things about him, notably a rapid
intelligence, great capacity for work, ready resourcefulness,
and steady perseverance ; yet these were greatly vitiated by
the cunning and unscrupulous selfishness to which they
were all made to minister. He was markedly deficient in
those qualities which give attractiveness to character, and
we cannot see that he was animated by any great religious
principle for at least the larger portion of his residence at
Padan-aram. But the new name given to him by the angel at Peniel

8 Joseph the Prime-minister.
was given to a new man, and for the remaining fifty years
of his life the Supplanter in him disappears and the Prince
of God comes into view. Henceforth he is guileless as Na
thaniel. Deceit in him gives place to truth, and duplicity
to singleness of mind. As one has very well expressed it,
" Spiritually he halts when before he would have put down
his foot unfaltering. He hears of the indignity done to
Dinah, and ' holds his peace.' Simeon and Levi avenge the
wrong by a deed of shameless deceit and cruelty, and he
says to them, ' Ye have troubled me to make me to stink
among the inhabitants of the land.' A still more shameless
deed than the one clone at Shechem is committed in his own
household, and all that is said of him is that 'he heard it.'
Trial follows trial, bereavement succeeds bereavement; un
der severe and protracted discipline the higher spiritual nat
ure grows and ripens till at the close the piety of Abraham
and Isaac — their faith in God and in his special promises —
shines forth in Jacob in unclouded beauty."*
From Peniel, after his reconciliation to Esau and peaceful
parting from him, Jacob went to Succoth, and thence to She
chem, where Abraham reared his first altar in the land of
promise. Here, as it would seem, he meant to take up his
permanent abode, for he bought a piece of ground and dug
in it that well which is now imperishably associated with one
of the sweetest incidents in the life of our Saviour, and
which remains till this day an object of deepest interest to
every traveller in the Holy Land. But the treacherous treat
ment of the sons of Shechem by Simeon and Levi in the
matter of Dinah drove him from that beautiful valley, and
under the direction of God he went first to Bethel, where
Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin, and afterwards to
Hebron, where his father Isaac was still living.
* Dr. William Hanna in " The Patriarchs," p. 16.

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. 9
It is at this point we take up the story in the chapter now
before us, and begin the life of Joseph ; and it may surprise
some of you that I should speak of Isaac as surviving till
this date, inasmuch as the account .of his death and burial
is given at the close of the thirty-fifth chapter, and so pre
cedes the narrative on which we are now entering. But in
reality the death of Isaac did not take place until twelve
years after Joseph was sold into slavery, and the account of
it is inserted where we find it, in order to give completeness
to that section or subdivision of the history which treats
especially of Isaac. If you examine the book cf Genesis
with care you will discover that it consists of eleven sections,
nine of which begin with the phrase " These are the genera
tions of," and one with the words " This is the book of the
generations of." These may have been — indeed probably
were — ancient documents, existing long before the book
itself was put together by Moses ; but he, under divine guid
ance, used them and endorsed them, so that we may rely on
their veracity. Now the book about Isaac begins with the
19th verse of the 25th chapter, and ends with the 29th verse
of the 35th chapter. Naturally, therefore, it includes the ac
count of his death and burial, and concludes with it. It is
followed, in the 36th chapter, with the generations of Ish
mael, and in the 37th with those of Jacob, who, now that he
has returned to Canaan and has become a son of Abraham,
not according to the flesh merely, but in faith and character,
is for the first time recognized in this formal way as the
head ofthe covenant people. But in giving the needful de
tails about Jacob, the chronicler goes back to things which
occurred before the death of Isaac, and, therefore, to avoid
confusion, as well as to get a clear idea of the circumstances
of Joseph's boyhood, it may be well for us to go a little into
detail. According, then, to the commonly received chronology,
1*

10 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Jacob was 97 years old when he returned from Padan-
aram, and Isaac was 157. At the same date Joseph was a
boy of six. When our story opens he was a lad of 17. Isaac
was 168, and Jacob 108. Now, when Isaac died his days
were an hundred and fourscore years, so that he must have
lived at Hebron twelve years after Joseph was sold into
slavery by his brethren. If, then, we allow six years for the
sojourn of Jacob at Shechem and Bethel before he came to
Hebron, we will get the result, conjectural, indeed, but still
probable, that Joseph lost his mother Rachel before he was
twelve years old, and that he lived for at least five years in
Hebron in the neighborhood of his grandfather Isaac.
These facts will help us to reproduce in our imagination
the early years of that wonderful boy whose history has
charmed every reader — 'the oldest as well as the youngest —
by its simple naturalness, its undying interest, and its "pen
etrating pathos." At the head of one encampment was the
venerable Isaac, quiet, retiring, unobtrusive in his disposition
as of yore, withal frail with age and enfeebled by disease,
and so not able to take much active part in the arrangement
of affairs ; but all the more at leisure, because of that, to give
some affectionate attention to the motherless boy, in whom
he recognized the heir of the birthright which Reuben had
forfeited, and to whom, therefore, he would be drawn by a
peculiar attraction. Who can tell how much Joseph received
of religious instruction and of never-to-be-forgotten truth'
from the lips of his meditative grandsire ? Is it a mere
fancy which supposes that in. these early years Joseph
learned from Isaac the wonderful story of Moriah, and so
had begotten in him that faith in the covenant of his God,
and in the nearness of Jehovah to him in every time of trial
and temptation, by which he was sustained in later life ? I
am no painter, but if I were I should like to try my hand at
the portrayal of the young Joseph sitting at the feet of the

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor, ii
blind old Isaac, and listening with wonder to the recital of
his experience on that eventful clay when he was rescued
from sacrifice by the angel's interference, and had his first
insight into the world beyond.
At the head of the other encampment was Jacob, with the
Peniel glow still upon his character, if not also on his face,
and his heart chastened and saddened by the death of his
beloved Rachel, yet finding a sweet solace in the baby Ben
jamin, whom she -had left behind, and even more in her el
dest son, to whom the birthright now legitimately belonged.
That fact gave him at first, as I suppose, importance in his
father's eyes, and out of that and the winsomeness and in
telligence of the boy himself grew the partiality which he so
unwisely manifested for him.
But in the one encampment of Jacob there were four
divisions, forming not separate households, indeed, but yet
far more dangerous, so far as the preservation of harmony
was concerned, than if they had been entirely distinct.
These were composed of Leah and her sons, Zilpah and
her sons, Bilhah and her sons, and the sons of Rachel; and
from what we learn elsewhere of Joseph's ten half-brothers/
we may be sure that they had little scruple in riding rough
shod over the feelings and wishes of any one who seemed in
the least degree to stand in their way. This disposition of
his brethren, added to his own motherless condition, would
send Joseph much in upon himself, and make him, from his
precocity in his experience of adversity, a welcome compan
ion to his father. And little harm might have come of that
if Jacob had not been unwise in the manifestation of his
preference. One would have thought that the recollection
of his own experience might have prevented him from falling
into such a mistake. He might have asked himself how he
had liked the favoritism of his father for Esau, or what good
had come out of Rebekah's preference for himself above

12 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Esau. But, untaught by the consequences of the folly of
his own parents, he repeats the same himself; for he set
Joseph over the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, giv
ing him the charge of them in their daily labor, whether as
shepherds or as agriculturists. No doubt Joseph was par
ticularly wise for his years ; for that, according to some, is
the meaning of the phrase, "a son ofthe old ones," here
translated " a son of old age ;" but still, to put the younger
over the older was pre-eminently foolish, and could tend
only to provoke enmity in those who were thus humiliated.
This feeling would be intensified by his giving to Jo
seph a peculiar dress which was intended to mark his
superiority. In our version it is called "a coat of many
colors," as if its peculiarity consisted in its variegated ap
pearance. But modern scholars are of opinion that the
words describe " a tunic reaching to the extremities," or, as
in the margin of the Revised Version, "a long garment with
sleeves," and so refer to the shape rather than to the fabric ;
though from the fact that on one of the Egyptian tombs at
Beni Hassan there is a representation of a train of captives
who are clad in party-colored garments, it is not impossible
that the tunic here specified was ornamented with many-col
ored stripes. In any case it was meant as a badge of dis
tinction and superiority for Joseph as the heir of the birth
right and the favorite of his father, and so the very sight of
it imbittered the hearts of his brethren against him.
The evil was aggravated, also, by the conduct of Joseph
himself, "for. he brought unto his father their evil report."
This has generally been understood as implying that Joseph
was n petty tale-bearer, and carried to his father accounts of
the doings of his brethren, which were designed by him to
get them into trouble. But I cannot quite accept that view
of the case. My reading of the history is that Jacob, set
Joseph over the sons of the handmaids, and that the report

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. 13
which he carried was that which was required of him in his
capacity of overseer. It was a most unwise thing in Jacob
to put Joseph into such a position ; but, being in it, he had
to be faithful and give an account of the manner in which
each performed his duties, and that irritated his brethren
and stirred them up to intense hatred of him.
Then matters were made still worse by his dreams. He
told them with the utmost simplicity, but they carried their
interpretation on their face, and the repetition ofthe same
forecast, under different symbolism, intensified the provoca
tion. His brethren were in no mood to do obeisance to
him, and even his father, though he resolved to keep watch
and see if God had really been revealing tbe future to his
son, blamed him for what seemed to be his pride.
It is not said in the record that his dreams were prophet
ic, and some have preferred to believe that they came like
any ordinary visions, taking their shape from the general
current of Joseph's thoughts when he was awake. If that
be the correct view of the case, then Joseph must have been
of a most ambitious nature, and the knowledge that he was
now the heir of the birthright must have so filled his imag
ination as to give definiteness and coherence even to his
dreams. That is not an impossibility — and if any one
chooses to accept such an account of the matter, I see noth
ing either rationalistic or unbelieving in his doing so. But
still, that view scarcely seems to me to be in harmony with
the beautiful humility which comes out in Joseph's charac
ter, and appears to be inconsistent with the simple naivete
manifested by him in telling his dreams to his brethren.
The ambitious man is invariably a silent man. He keeps
his own forecasts to himself. He does not make common
talk of his schemes and his dreams. He will not "shew
his hand " in the game, lest he should give another the
means of defeating that for which he designs to play.

14 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Therefore the fact that Joseph told his dreams to his breth
ren is an indication to me that there was no ambition in his
soul. They were not the crystallization into the symbols of
visions, of the thoughts which were filling his mind all
through his waking hours, but came, as I believe, in the way
of divine revelation, and were among the early links in that
chain. of providences which ultimately led the family of
Jacob to Egypt, where they could better grow into a nation
than they could among the Canaanites. But however that
may have been, the very telling of them inflamed the hatred
of his brethren against him, and moved them to take meas
ures to put him out ofthe way.
Before we follow them in the carrying out of their mali
cious intentions, however, let us pause here, and glean a few
of the lessons which we may learn from this narrative for
our daily guidance.
In the first place, then, we are taught here the evil of fa
voritism in the family. The balance, as between the differ
ent children in the same household, must be held evenly by
the parents. They may have different dispositions, and there
may be that in one which is more attractive than anything
in another. One may be brighter, or more amiable, or more
companionable than another, but before the discipline ofthe
family they ought to be all on a level. They are all alike
the children of the father, and should be dealt with by him
on principles of the strictest equity. It is true that in some
respects their differences of disposition will require differ
ences of treatment, but they should be all kept on an' equal
ity. No one ought to be the "pet" of either father or
mother, for the " pet " is apt to become petted, haughty, and
arrogant towards the others ; while the showing of constant
favor to him alienates the affections of the rest, both from
him and from the parents. "Ts that you, Pet ?" said a father
from his bedroom to a little one who stood at the door in

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. 15
the early morning knocking for admission. " No, it isn't
Pet, it's only me" replied a sorrowful little voice ; and that
was the last of "pet" in that family. See what mischief it
occasioned here in Jacob's household ! No doubt there
were special dangers in such a case as his, for there were
four families in one, and it must have been hard to preserve
harmony at all ; but that only made it the more important
that every irritating influence should be, as far as possible,
removed, and it was the greatest folly in Jacob to make
such a display of his preference for Joseph. We see the
same thing in even a worse form in the household of Isaac,
where each parent had a favorite, and both worked at cross-
purposes. Such a system of partiality usually ends in the
"spoiling" — to use the common but expressive word — of
the favorite himself; and even where, as in Joseph's case,
that danger is escaped, it alienates from him the other mem
bers of the family, and provokes them to insubordination.
Above and beyond most other things, therefore, family gov
ernment must be just, and the balance must be held by the
parent with the most unswerving impartiality.
But, in the second place, we may learn from this narrative
how bitter is the antagonism of the wicked to the righteous
in the world. The partiality of Jacob for Joseph furnished
the occasion for the hatred of his brethren, and is to be un
hesitatingly condemned ; but the real root of it was deeper,
and is to be traced to the fact that Joseph would not consent
to be one of them, and join them in the doing of things
which they knew that their father would condemn. He
held himself aloof from their wickednesses. His conscience
was tender, his heart was pure, his will was firm. He was
a Puritan and they were regardless, and they chose to set
down his non-conformity to pride rather than to principle,
and persecuted him accordingly. They supposed that his-
refusal to identify himself with them was caused by his think-

1 6 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ing himself superior to them, and they retaliated by break
ing off all intercourse with him ; for when it is said that
"they could not speak peaceably unto him," or, as the
phrase literally is, " they could not say salaam to him," the
meaning virtually is, in modern parlance, that they "cut"
him, and treated him most disrespectfully and discourte
ously. (But have we nothing like this in our modern life ? It
may not be very common between brothers, though, alas !
it is not quite unknown even between them ; but go into our
schools, our colleges, our stores, or our workshops, and you
may frequently find that the most unpopular scholars or
students or clerks or artisans are those who hold them
selves aloof from the excesses, the follies, or the sins of the
rest. Their presence is a constant protest against the do
ings of the others ; their conduct is a continuous condemna
tion of that of the others, and they are hated simply because
of that. The Athenians became tired of hearing Aristides
called " the just," and they banished him to get rid of that
which was disagreeable ; so those who are unprincipled be
come intolerant of the integrity ofthe upright who are work
ing at their side, and do everything in their power to make
them uncomfortable. There is an immense amount of petty
persecution of this sort going on in all our colleges, commer
cial establishments, and factories, of which the principals
and the great world seldom hear, but which shows us that
the human nature of to-day is in its great features identical
with that which existed many centuries ago in the family of
Jacob. What then ? Are the upright to yield ? are they to
abate their protest ? are they to become even as the others ?
No ; for that would be to take the leaven out of the mass ;
that would be to let evil become triumphant, and so that
must never be thought of. Let the persecuted in these ways
hold out. Let them neither retaliate, nor recriminate, nor

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. 17
carry evil reports, but let them simply hold on, believing
that "he that endureth overcometh." Having clone all
things, let them "stand," and in the end those who now de
cry them will be compelled to do them honor. Yes, these
two dreams of Joseph are here for just such as those whom
I have been now describing, and they tell them as they told
him, that by-and-by — it may be after long suffering and
much privation, but yet ultimately — the sheaves of their
persecutors will make obeisance to their sheaves, and those
who now "send them to Coventry" will yet be glad to do
homage at their feet)
But now, in the last place, the case of Joseph here brings
up the whole question of our responsibility in regard to
what we see or hear that is evil in other people, and it may
be well to say a few words concerning that. I have come
to the conclusion that Joseph was by his father placed in
formal charge of his brothers, and that it was his duty to
give a truthful report concerning them, even as to-day an
overseer is bound in justice to his employer to state pre
cisely the kind of service which those under him are render
ing. That is no tale-bearing; that is simple duty. But
now, suppose we are invested with no such charge over
another, and yet we see him do something that is deplorably
wrong, what is our duty in such a case ? Are we bound to
carry the report to his father or to his employer, or must we
leave things alone and let them take their course? The
question so put is a delicate one and very difficult to handle.
But I think I see two or three things that cast some little
light upon it.
In the first place we are not bound by any law, human or
divine, to act the part of a detective on our neighbor and
lay ourselves out for the discovery of that in him which is
disreputable or dishonest. We must have detectives in the
department of police, and they are very serv/ceable there ;

18 Joseph the Prime-minister.
but that every one of us should be closely watching every
other to see what evil he can discover in him is intolerable,
and we should discourage in all young people every tend
ency to such peering Paul-pryism.
Then, in the second place, when, without any such delib
erate inspection on our part, we happen to see that which is
wrong, we should, in the way in which we treat the case,
make a distinction between a crime and a vice. A crime is
that which is a violation of the civil law ; a vice is that
which, without violating the civil law, is a sin against God.
Now suppose that what we see is a crime — the man, let us
say, is robbing his employer- — then my clear duty, if I would
not be a pariiceps criminis, is to give information to his mas
ter, and let him deal with the case as he sees fit. On the
other hand, if the evil is a vice — say, for example, sensuality
or the like, which does not, directly at least, interfere with
his efficiency as a servant — then I must deal with himself
alone. My duty in such a case is to hold my peace to oth
ers, and to speak faithfully to the man himself. If he hear
me, then I have gained him ; but if he refuse to hear me,
then I may say to him that, as he has chosen to pay no heed
to my expostulation, I shall feel it my duty to inform his
father of the matter ; and then, having acted out that deter
mination, I may consider that my responsibility in regard to
him is at an end, unless, in God's providence, there is given
me some other opening through which to approach him.
These principles seem to me to be very plain and very
practicable ; but I can go no further in the matter, and must
say that, for the rest, each should do as occasion serves.
We cannot do wrong, however, to follow the wise advice of
Lawson, as thus given in connection with the passage on
which we have been commenting : " When we see any man's
children disgracing and hurting themselves, if we cannot by
our own influence persuade them to refrain, we will deserve

The Father's Favorite and the Brothers' Censor. 19
the thanks of their parents by letting them know how much
they are dishonored, and what grief is likely to be brought
upon them by their children if they are not checked. If
parents are to admonish or to correct their children for bad
behavior, it is necessary for them to inspect their conduct ;
but they cannot be always under their own eyes, and there
fore they ought to reckon themselves indebted to the persons
who assist them, by prudent and seasonable information,
in this part of their duty. Yet great caution must be used
in this office of love that we may not bring upon ourselves
the guilt and reproach of officious interference in other men's
matters."* The whole thing lies in that phrase, "this office of love."
It is to be performed in affection, not to make mischief, but
to save a soul ; and if we keep that motive uppermost we
shall not be likely to go far astray. " Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such an one
in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also
be tempted." Take the gospel principles underlying that
command and apply them to the case which we have sup
posed, then you will reach its true solution.
* "Lectures on the History of Joseph," by George Lawson, D.D., p. 3.

II.
SOLD TO THE ISHMAELITES.
Gen. xxxvii., 12-35.
WHEN envy has fully formed its purpose of cruelty,
it very speedily sees and seizes an opportunity for
carrying it through. The great dramatist, indeed, has rep
resented one of the most unscrupulous of his characters as
excusing himself after this fashion : " How oft the sight of
means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds clone ;" but then it is
only the envious and malicious man who is on the outlook
for means to do ill deeds, and therefore it is to him only
that the perception of them offers a temptation. If King
John had not been wishing to make away with Arthur, the
presence of Hubert would not have suggested to him that
he had found a fit instrument to do what he desired. Just
as love keens the vision to such a degree that it sees ways
of service that are invisible to others, so hate quickens the
perception, and finds an occasion for its gratification in
things that would have passed unnoticed by others. The
brothers of Joseph, therefore, being filled with envy towards
him, soon had an opportunity of working their will upon
him, and they seized it with an eagerness which showed
how iutensely they hated him.
They had gone with their flocks to Shechem, where, as we
saw in our last discourse, their father had purchased a par
cel of ground, in which he had digged a well. This place,
now known as the valley of Nablus, is perhaps the most
fertile as well as the most beautiful in all Palestine. It was

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 21
more than two days' journey north from Hebron, where Ja
cob now had his abode ; and perhaps the recent feud be
tween the Shechemites and his sons, in the matter of Dinah,
made the patriarch somewhat anxious as to their welfare.
He' had already had bitter experience of the hasty and vin
dictive disposition of some of the members of his family,
and it is quite likely that he feared lest they should become
again embroiled with the inhabitants of Shechem. There
fore he sent Joseph, saying, " Go, I pray thee, see whether
it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks, and
bring me word again." Such a mission seems to us, on the
first blush of it, at once too important and too dangerous for
so young a man. But Joseph had already manifested great
ability, and secured his father's confidence ; and Dr. Thom
son tells us that among the modern Arab tribes it is not un
usual for individuals to go a long way " from their encamp
ments on errands often perilous."* Perhaps Joseph had
been sent forth on similar commissions more than once be
fore, and so there would be on this occasion the less misgiv
ing, either on Jacob's part to bid him go, or on Joseph's to
set out. But, in any case, though their parting seemed a
commonplace matter, and they expected to be reunited in
a few clays at the longest, yet they did not look upon each
others' faces again for more than twenty years. Could they
have foreseen all that was before them in that long interval,
with what different emotions would they have bidden each
other farewell ! But for them, as it is still for us, the future
was mercifully concealed, and they had to go forward into it
only one step at a time.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem he discovered that his
brethren had gone from their usual pasturage with their
flocks ; and when he was wandering about in search of them,
* "The Land and the Book : Central Palestine and Phoenicia," p. 169.

22 Joseph the Prime-minister.
uncertain what he should do, he was found by an obliging
stranger, who told him that he had heard his brethren say,
"Let us go to Dothan." Therefore he went some twelve
miles farther after them, and came to that place the name
of which signifies " two wells," and the situation of which is
marked by Eusebius as twelve miles to the north of Samaria.
It has been discovered in modern times by Van de Velde
and Dr. Robinson, still bearing its ancient name, and it is
described as located at the south end of a plain of the rich
est pasturage, four or five miles south-west of Jenin, and sep
arated only by a swell or tier of hills from the plain of Es-
draelon. Near it are now large under-ground cisterns, such
as in that country are apt to become dry, and these are of
the same sort as the pit into which, as we shall by-and-by see,
Joseph was put. Even to this day it has the best pasturage
in all the region, and in that fact, though the narrative is si
lent upon the point, we have probably the reason why the
sons of Jacob came to it at this time ; for, as Hackett sug
gests, " it is the very place which herdsmen, such as they
were, would naturally seek, after having exhausted the sup
plies of their previous pasture-ground."* But perhaps most
interesting of all, this Dothan is on the present line of travel
between the country to the east of the Jordan and Egypt :
and Mr. Tristram speaks of having met there '' a long cara
van of mules and asses, laden, on their way from Damascus
to Egypt," so that the whole story is confirmed by most mi
nute correspondencies between the ancient record and the
modern locality.
In the immediate neighborhood there, is a fountain, and
Thomson suggests that- the brothers might have watered
their flocks thereat, or might have been seated round it
on the grass when they caught their first glimpse of Joseph
* See American Edition of Smith's " Dictionary," art. Dothan.

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 23
from afar. But the sight only crystallized their envy into
purpose, and determined them to wreak their vengeance on
him. They were far from home. There was no one to in
terfere with them, or to bear testimony against them. They
would never have a better opportunity of putting him out of
the way, and no one would be the wiser. Therefore they
said one to another — that is, the suggestion sprung up, as it
were, simultaneously among them, and was not due to any
one more than another, but was the spontaneous ejaculation
of all at once — "Behold, this dreamer cometh ! Come now,
therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit;
and we will say, ' Some evil beast hath devoured him ; and
we shall see what will become of his dreams !' " Still harp
ing on his dreams ! But why should they thus stultify them
selves ? If there was nothing in the dreams, they were ut
terly beneath their notice; but if God's revelation was in
them, it was beyond their power to frustrate them. Thus in
either case it was useless for them to attempt to do anything
about them. But their blood was up. Joseph had been
put over them, and had humiliated them with their father,
and he must be got rid of. So they said, " Let us slay him !"
How true the words of the Apostle : " He that hateth his
brother, is a murderer !" and how natural for an infuriated
and selfish man it is to take "the way of Cain," and travel
along it to the bitter end !
But in the present instance there was one honest effort
made to prevent mischief, and it was made by him from
whom it might have been least expected. For Reuben had,
as a punishment for his grievous and revolting sin, been de
prived of the birthright, and it might have been supposed
that he would have been the most implacable of them all
towards Joseph, who had been put into his place. But his
was a better nature, with all its faults, than that evinced by
Simeon and Levi, and before the history closes we shall

24 Joseph the Prime-minister.
have again occasion to remark on the chivalry which he
showed. Yet the good in him was spasmodic and intermit
tent. He was too much a creature of mere impulse, and so
he came in at last for the characterization from his father,
" Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." In the present
emergency he showed his prudence by seeming to fall in
with the general sentiment of his brethren, while at the same
time he sought to keep it from doing mischief. He boarded
the train which he could not arrest, but he boarded it with
the purpose of ultimately controlling it and so preventing a
catastrophe. The motive was good, but I am not quite so
sure about the policy. It savors a little too much of worldly
wisdom for me, and little good came out of it in the end.
We have seen it tried here often enough in politics, and al
most always with this result, that the well-meaning men who
have gone into a questionable movement under the idea that
they could thereby guide it into something that would be at
least harmless, have been themselves outwitted and befooled.
It would have been just about as easy for Reuben to have
stood out against the persecution of Joseph altogether as it
was for him to protest against the shedding of his blood, and
it might have been equally efficacious. At any rate it would
have exonerated him from the guilt which they all alike ulti
mately incurred.
His plan was to deliver Joseph, but in a way that was it
self deceptive, for he seemed to be doing one thing while he
was really seeking another. His proposal was that they
should put Joseph into a pit. That to them looked to be a
refinement on their cruelty, for it left him to starve to death,
while they had meant that he should be slain out of hand.
As such, therefore, it commended itself to their acceptance.
But his secret intention was to come back by himself when
the others should be out of the way, and then take him out
and return with him to his father. It was well meant, and

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 25
not very badly planned either ; but then it required that a
very careful watch should be maintained, and just there the
instability of Reuben's character came in to mar it all ; for,
thinking that now the crisis was past, he went away, and took
no further oversight ofthe matter, and in his absence it was
all upset. For the moment, however, it looked as if he had
succeeded, for the others accepted his suggestion, and after
stripping Joseph of his hated coat, they put him into one of
those cisterns which were so common in Palestine, and which,
when dry, were sometimes, as in the case of Jeremiah, used
as a prison. Lieutenant Anderson, of the Palestine Explo
ration Enterprise, thus writes regarding them : "The numer
ous rock-hewn cisterns that are found everywhere would fur
nish a suitable pit in which they might have thrust him ; and
as these cisterns are shaped like a bottle, with a narrow
mouth, it would-be impossible for any one imprisoned within
it to extricate himself without assistance. These cisterns are
now all cracked and useless ; they are, however, the most
undoubted evidences that exist of the handiwork of the in
habitants in ancient times."*
But what of Joseph all this time ? There is no word in
the n,arrative here to tell us how he felt. Only one glimpse
of him do we get, and that is long afterwards, when his
brothers were in the Egyptian prison, and 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."t But what a glimpse that is, and
how much it reveals ! First, when they proposed to slay
him, we can see him mutely appeal, with all his heart in his
face, for mercy ; then, when they yielded to Reuben's sug
gestion, we can hear his piercing and passionate cry as the

* "The Land and the Book : Central Palestine and Phoenicia," p. 168.
t Gen. xiii., 21. 2

26 Joseph the Prime-minister.
prospect of his being left there all alone to perish of hunger
grows definite and distinct before him ; and then, when they-
lowered him into his dark and dank and dreary prison-house,
and the memory of his father rushes in upon his spirit, the
tears, till then pent up, begin to flow, and the big, bursting sobs
convulse his frame. But by-and-by there comes a calm, for
he is in no greater extremity than his grandsire was that clay
when he was delivered by the beneficent angel, and was con
strained to say, " Jehovah-Jireh — the Lord will provide."
He is no more hardly bestead than his father had been
when he feared to meet with Esau, and, haply for him, too,
the angel of Peniel might have a blessing! Was not God
as near to him as he had been to them ? So, after the par
oxysm came the faith, for the pit was not hidden from Jeho
vah, and in some way there would be an outlet. Thus I
please myself with the persuasion that Joseph, though in the
pit, was still a prisoner of hope, and that after the first spasm
of his grief was passed he could and did turn to Him from
whom his dreams had come, and who would yet in some
way, for his own glory, bring them to pass.
But while he was thus wrestling with his great affliction
his brethren sat clown to eat. It was heartless work, and
one wonders how they could take any enjoyment in their food
when they had thus consigned their brother to a lingering
death ; but there are depths of depravity in human nature
which are absolutely appalling, and this is one of them.
Alas ! what possibilities of evil there are in us all unless
we are restrained by God's grace or regenerated by God's
spirit ! But while they were eating, a caravan of merchants
journeying along that route from Gilead to Egypt, of which
we have already spoken as passing by Dothan, made their
appearance, and Judah at once conceived the idea of getting
a profit out of the business, and ridding themselves of their
brother, too, by selling him into slavery. They immediately

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 27
agreed to this new proposal, and so for twenty pieces of
silver — about fifteen dollars of our money — they sold him
to the traders, who are here called Ishmaelites and Midian
ites, either because these had already become the generic
names for merchants, or because they were the descendants
of those sons of Abraham who, nearly two hundred years be
fore, had gone out to make their own way in the world.
The sequel is soon told. Reuben, returning to the pit,
was grievously disappointed, and rent his clothes with a
grief as violent as it was short-lived. The others, feeling it
necessary to give some account of Joseph's disappearance
to their father, took the exasperating coat and dipped it in
the blood of a kid and brought it to Jacob, and said, "This
have we found : know now whether it be thy son's coat or
no." The effect was terrible ; the patriarch was over
whelmed with sorrow, for he knew the coat perfectly, and
the story seemed to be so well confirmed that he said, "Jo
seph is without doubt rent in pieces." They tried to com
fort him, but it was all in vain, and no wonder, considering
who the consolers were. Reuben could have told him all
the truth, but that would only have put him into the deeper
agony of suspense ; and therefore, perhaps out of kindness,
he preferred to let his father rest in the false certainty that
Joseph was dead. Or it may be that in putting the matter
thus we are doing Reuben too much honor, for it is possible
that he feared for his own safety if he should do as Joseph
had done and tell his brothers' evil report. But surely this
was a case in which it was a clear duty to tell all the truth,
no matter whom it shamed.
Now, leaving Joseph for the time in the hands of the
slave-merchants, let us lift out of this narrative, with which
we have all been familiar from our childhood, some impor
tant lessons for the regulation of our manhood. And in the
first place we may be reminded by it of the uncertainties

28 Joseph the Prime-minister.
that characterize our human existence. How true it is that
we know not what a day may bring forth ! Joseph goes out
on his father's errand and never more returns to his father's
house — does not see his father again, in fact, for twenty-two
years. Of course the crime of his brothers was the cause of
this long separation between him and his venerable parent.
But how often similar things occur even among ourselves !
Some years ago a little boy was stolen from his home in Phil
adelphia, and though every means that affection could suggest
or professional skill could devise have been used for his dis
cover)', the mystery has never been cleared up, so that to this
hour his parents are in most horrible suspense. In our own
city, too, scarcely a week elapses without the announcement
that some one has disappeared from home and business, and
very frequently nothing more is heard of him. But, apart
from such occurrences, which may be traced to the cunning
and malignity of wicked men, and which are a disgrace to
our much boasted civilization, how often it happens, in the
simple providence of God, and without blame to any one,
that those who part in the morning with the hope of meeting
again in a very short while never see each other more on
earth ! The street accident causes death ; or the sudden
outbreak of fire in the building in which their office hours
are spent cuts off all possibility of escape, and they are
burned to ashes; or a panic in a crowded place of amuse
ment which they visited has caused a great loss of life, and
they are numbered among the victims; or a railroad col
lision has smashed the train in which they were passengers,
and they are reported among the dead ; or, without any such
catastrophe, they have simply yielded to a sudden paroxysm
of illness and passed within the veil. Who knows not how
frequently such things are occurring in the midst of us, so
that, as we have lately had occasion again and again to say,
the proverb is verified that it is "the unexpected that hap-

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 29
pens." What then ? Are we to have our hearts forever
darkened with the shadow of the possibility of such things
coming to us ? No ; for that would be to make our lives
continually miserable ; but the lesson is that we should be
ever ready to respond to the call of God, and should take
short views of things by living, as nearly as possible, a day
at a time. We need not borrow trouble on the strength of
the uncertainty to which I have referred, for "sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof;" but we ought to be taught by
it to finish every clay's work in its own clay, since its lesson
is, " Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not
what a day may bring forth."
But, in the second place, we may see from this narrative
that the beginning of sin is like the letting out of water.
The aperture is small at first, but the force of the current in
creases the size of the outlet, and that in its turn makes the
stream larger and stronger ; or, to put it in language without
any figure, one sin begets another, so that what began in
envy leads to murder, and that again gives birth to false
hood. Sin thus multiplies as rapidly as the Colorado beetle,
and no matter what may be the first one, you may always
call its name Gad, for you may surely say, " a troop cometh."
Therefore, if we would successfully resist it, we must with
stand its beginnings. This is true of every sin, but it is
more especially so of envy, which, as Tayler Lewis has re
marked in connection with this very history, has in it some
thing very peculiar, fully justifying the calling of it diabolical.
For it is a purely soul sin, not traceable at all to the body,
or in any way connected with it ; not having in it anything
that has any resemblance to good, but being only unmingled
evil. It is the hatred of a man for the good that is in him,
and so, to use Dr. Lewis's language, " It is the breath of the
old serpent. It is pure devil, as it is also purely spiritual.
It needs no body, no concupiscent organization, no appetites

3o Joseph the Prime-minister.
or fleshly motions, no nerves even, for the exercise of its dev
ilish energies. It is a soul-poison, yet acting fearfully upon
the body itself, bringing more death into it than seemingly
stronger and more tumultuous passions that have their nearer
seat in the fleshly nature. It is " rottenness in the bones."*
Be on your guard, then, against yielding to any one sin, for it
will speedily open the door of your heart to many others ;
and be specially on your guard against the satanic mother-
sin of envy.
But mere negative measures here will not suffice. The
hatred of a man for the good that is in him must be sup
planted by the love of Christ, and then what Chalmers calls
" the expulsive power of a new affection " will come into op
eration. You expel darkness with light, and you shut evil
out ofthe heart by the admission into it of Christ.
But, in the third place, we may learn that in seeking to de
feat God's purposes we are all the while unconsciously help
ing on their fulfilment. These brothers of Joseph were bent
on making the realization of his dreams impossible, and yet
the thing which they did was one step towards the bringing
about of the elevation of their brother. They were ignorant
of that at the time, but they were made to see it after
wards ; and I specially call your attention lo the fact that
here they were working under no constraint. Nobody com
pelled them to give up their first idea of putting Joseph to
death. The proposal to put him into a pit was purely spon
taneous with Reuben, and they were at liberty to act upon
it or not as they chose. The same thing was true of the
suggestion of Judah about selling him to the Ishmaelites ;
and yet thus freely working, as they thought, for the falsifica
tion of his dreams, they were, after all, only helping to bring
them to pass. Here is the whole of God's providence in
* See note in Lange's " Genesis," p. 589.

Sold to the Ishmaelites. 31
miniature — the Ishmaelites came past in the very nick of
time, just at the moment when Joseph was in the pit ; their
presence suggested to Judah the idea of selling Joseph to
them, and the rest of the brothers fell in with the proposal.
Each party was seeking its own ends, and yet they were all
contributing to bring about the purpose of God concerning
Joseph. We cannot explain the " law " of it, but we clearly
see the fact. Oh the marvellous wisdom of that providence
of God which thus, without doing violence to the will of any
human being, lays all their actions under tribute for the fur
therance of its designs ! And what is the use of a man's try
ing to thwart God's purposes when, whether he will or not,
every thing he does only helps them forward ? Surely it is
better far to acquiesce in them, and find our happiness in
the doing of his will !
But, in the fourth place, I note from this narrative that
we do not get rid of a responsibility by putting it out of
sight. Joseph's brethren sold him into Egypt, and thought
they were finally done with him. We shall see by-and-by
how grievously they misjudged. They had to confront him
again, and they were held accountable for disposing of him
as they did here. But how many people among ourselves
act precisely as they did ? They have, let us say, a trouble
some son in the family, who is unsteady and unreliable in
his habits, and they send him away — it makes no matter
where, if only he is out of their sight and does not disturb
their peace. Scarcely a week elapses that does not see some
young man landed on these shores who has been sent away
thus from his father's house on the other side of the Atlan
tic ; and many of the families of well-to-do people in these
Eastern cities have similar representatives in some of the
new settlements in the West. They are sent away just to
get rid of them. Ah ! but that does not send away the re
sponsibility, and I fear that there is a sad reckoning at last

32 Joseph the Prime-minister.
for many who have thus cut their own children adrift, and
taken measures simply that they might be sent out of their
sight. " Where is thy son ?" may then be as hard for them
to answer as Cain found that other question : " Where is
thy brother ?"
Finally, we may see here that there is a retributive ele
ment in our troubles. Jacob in his earlier clays had deceived
his father Isaac, and now his children conspire to impose
upon him. He did not know at the time that they were
lying to him, but when it all came out at the last, he would,
I doubt not, recognize that God in his providence was pun
ishing him for deceiving Isaac, by letting his children de
ceive himself. This was one of his "chickens" that came
home "to roost," and very bitter was the experience. So
let us remember that we are sowing seeds in our conduct
now which shall spring up and bring forth fruit after their
kind in our later lives. What says the Lord Jesus ? " With
what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
Therefore take care now how you treat other people, for you
may be sure that before you get through some one else will
treat you in the same way. God's providence has a retribu
tive element in it. That is what the Psalmist refers to when
he says, " With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful ;
with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright ; with the
pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou
wilt shew thyself froward." Take care, therefore, how you
treat others, and to this end get from Jesus Christ the spirit
to act upon the golden rule, "All things whatsoever ye would
that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them ; for
this is the Law and the Prophets."

III.
SOLD INTO SLAVERY.
Gen. xxxix., 1-7.
THE Ishmaelites carried Joseph with them into Egypt,
and sold him there into slavery. But as so much de
pends, both for the understanding of the narrative and for
the vindication of its credibility, on a knowledge of the char
acteristics, history, and antiquities of that remarkable coun
try, it may be well, before we follow farther the career of the
young captive, that we should have some definite ideas on
these important particulars. The name Egypt, in its strict
est significance, belongs to the valley of the Nile from the
first cataract to the Mediterranean — that is to say, be
tween 240 6' and 310 36' of north latitude. The average
breadth of the valley up to the bifurcation of the river
at the apex of the delta is about six miles, although at cer
tain places it widens to about sixteen. It was divided into
three portions — Upper, Middle, and Lower, the Upper lying
farthest to the south, the Lower to the north, and the Middle
between. But the dual form of the Hebrew word which sig
nifies Egypt seems to indicate that originally there were only
two divisions, the Upper and the Lower. Bounded on the
north by the sea, and on all other sides by immense des
erts, the land is an oasis which depends for its fertility en
tirely on the annual overflow of the river ; for except in the
region which borders on the Mediterranean, there is no rain
fall worth mentioning, and in the southern district not a
2*

34 Joseph the Prime-minister.
cloud is seen in the sky all the year round. In these cir
cumstances the extent and utilization of the yearly flood of
the Nile involve in them the prosperity — one might almost
say the very life — of the people ; and long before the origin
of the wonderful phenomenon was known, they had learned
to turn it to the greatest advantage. For many centuries —
indeed one may say for more "than three millenniums — a
mystery enshrouded this periodical inundation, and the
source of the Nile was regarded as one of those secrets
which Nature refused to reveal. Somewhere about a hundred
and twenty years ago the intrepid traveller Bruce thought
that he had succeeded in discovering it, but though the ac
count of his adventures was singularly interesting, and later
investigators have confirmed even the most startling of his
statements, it was ultimately found that he had mistaken one
of the tributaries of the river for its main stream, and only
very recently have the real facts in regard to the matter
been brought to light by the labors of Burton, Speke, Grant,
and Livingstone, supplemented by those of Stanley and
Baker. We now know that it is formed by the junction, at
Khartoum, in latitude 150 35' north, of the White Nile with
the Blue Nile. The White Nile comes from the Victoria
Nyanza, a large lake situated under the equator. The Blue
Nile rises in the alpine regions of Abyssinia. After the
junction of those two main branches the river receives, in
latitude 170 45' north, the Atbara or Black Nile, and for the
remainder of its course it runs without the addition of an
other tributary. From the equatorial source of the Nile to
its mouth at the Mediterranean the length of its course is,
according to Baker, about three thousand four hundred
miles, and he says that " it may be divided into two portions
by almost halving the thirty-two degrees of latitude in a
direct line. Fifteen will include the rainy zone north of the
equator, and the remaining seventeen to Alexandria com-

Sold into Slavery. 35
prise the vast deserts which are devoid of water."* Now the
explanation of the inundation is as follows : The White Nile,
fed by the immense equatorial lakes, which are themselves
supported by a rainfall lasting for more than nine months
out of the twelve, and which constitute great natural reser
voirs, sends down a constant, vast, and only slightly varying
stream of water to the sea. Unlike it, howev.er, the Blue and
the Black tributaries are largely intermittent, and in the dry
season would fail, without the White River, to reach the Med
iterranean at all. On the other hand, without these two
affluents the Nile would have no flood, and, even if it had,
would leave little or no alluvial deposit. But the heavy
summer rains in Abyssinia, which fall between May and
September, wash down the rich lands of that country by the
Blue Nile and the Atbara, and these, added to the ordinary
current of the White Nile, increase its volume so as to cause
the periodical overflow, and at the same time to charge its
waters with red argillaceous mud to such an extent that
when spread over a wide surface, and allowed sufficient
slackness of current for the purpose, they precipitate over
the land that rich alluvial dressing which enables it to pro
duce a constant series of the most abundant harvests. Thus,
roughly speaking, the White Nile supplies the unfailing vol
ume of water, and the Abyssinian tributaries give the annual
inundation. The river begins to rise at Cairo about the end
of June, and goes on increasing until the end of September,
then, after remaining at the same level for a few days, it
commences to fall, and continues to do so until about the
middle of the following May. If the rise be less than twen
ty-four feet there will be a scanty harvest, and if less than
twenty there will be a famine ; but if it exceed thirty, the
villages will be flooded, and great damage will be the result.
* See article on the Soudan in The Independent, January 17, 1884.

36 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Thus in a very literal sense Egypt is as it was anciently said
to be, " the gift of the Nile ;" for everything in the land
depends, directly or indirectly, on the river, and we cannot
wonder that it became an object of reverence, if not of wor
ship, among the people.
The inhabitants of this remarkable country very early at
tained to a high degree of civilization. They were the old
est of the nations, and the first in most of the liberal arts.
Jealous as the modern Chinese and Coreans of all foreign
ers, they had little or nothing of the stationariness by which
these hermit peoples have been distinguished, but had made
great advancement in many directions. At the time of
Abraham's sojourn among them they had a settled govern
ment and established laws. They had built cities and prac
tised agriculture, and when the wealth of neighboring com
munities consisted in flocks and herds, they had found out
the value of real estate, and reverenced a landmark as a
god. Even at that early date the great Pyramid was in ex
istence to attest their proficiency in mechanics; and the
monuments which have been disentombed in recent years,
and whose inscriptions have been deciphered by modern
scholars, prove that they had invented hieroglyphic writing,
and were gradually advancing towards an alphabet. From
the same source we learn many particulars of their manners
and customs in common life, and it is interesting to note, as
we shall have to do in the further consideration of the life
of Joseph, the exact harmony of the descriptions given in
the narrative with the delineations found upon the monu
ments. Their early history is quite uncertain, and it would serve
no good purpose to enter here into a detailed account of the
thirty or thirty-one dynasties of kings enumerated by Mane
tho, or to explain the various theories which have been ad
vanced regarding them by such men as Bunsen, Lane, Lep-

Sold into Slavery. 37
sius, and others. It may be enough to say that all agree in
considering that one great landmark in Egyptian history is
the invasion and dominion of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings,
and that another is the overthrow and expulsion of these
usurpers. The most eminent authorities designate the fif
teenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties as those of the
Shepherds. With the eighteenth a new epoch was inaugu
rated ; and as the Pharaoh of the time of the Exodus is now
by most identified with Menepthath, son of Rameses II.,
of the nineteenth dynasty, the Pharaoh of Joseph is sup
posed to be one of the kings of the seventeenth dynasty,
whose date is in the later part of the Shepherd dominion,
and somewhat before B.C. 1700. Joseph would thus be
raised to his position as governor of Egypt by a king who,
though himself a foreigner, and able to appreciate foreign
merit, was one of those who had, as the result of the long
sojourn of his people in the land, adopted Egyptian titles
and usages, and the king, " who knew not Joseph," may have
belonged to the new dynasty by whom the Shepherds were
expelled. This is the view — in the main, at least — adopted
by Poole, who thus writes : " The story of Joseph is illus
trated step by step from the Egyptian texts. The ' Tale of
the Two Brothers,' the earliest known of Egyptian fictions,
was no sooner read than it was seen to relate, in its turning-
point, an incident identical with the trial of Joseph. Pha
raoh's dream of the kine describes the years of plenty and
famine under the usual type of the inundation, as Dr. Birch
has shown. The installation of Joseph has its parallel in
the case of an Egyptian governor of the age of the eigh
teenth dynasty, who received exactly the same office, ' Lord
of all Egypt,'* in the Egyptian record a ' lord of the whole
land,' the word lord being 'adon ' in both cases, f The term

* Gen. xiv., 9. t Brugsch, " History," i., 269, 270.

38 Joseph the Prime-minister.
in Hebrew means ' ruler ;' in Egyptian its sense is more spe
cial, and the whole title of Joseph may best be rendered
' regent.'* Two circumstances ofthe narrative bring us very
near Egyptian official usages. ' By the life of Pharaoh ' is
used as a strong asseveration by Joseph,! and when he [has]
had sworn to his father, after the Hebrew manner, that he
will not bury him in Egypt, then ' Israel bowed himself upon
the head of his staff.' t Both the expression ' by the life of
Pharaoh ' and the custom of bowing upon the staff of an
officer are traced by M. Chabas in his interesting essays on
Egyptian judicial proceedings, where he cites the following
passage describing the taking an oath by a witness in a trial
at Thebes : ' He made a life of the royal lord, striking his
nose and his ears, and placing himself on the head of the
staff,'§ the ordinary oath when the witness bowed himself
on the magistrate's staff of office. He well remarks that
this explains the passage in Genesis quoted as above, as a
recognition by Jacob of his son's authority.! This illustra
tion shows the Septuagint is right in reading hamatteh staff,
in agreement with Hebrews xi., 71, where the Masoretes read
hamittah bed, and a question of controversy disappears."
Then, after a most interesting series of paragraphs on the
oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and their exodus out
of it, he proceeds in this wise : " The date of the Hebrew
documents in general has been here assumed to be that as
signed to them by the older scholars. This position is justi
fied by the Egyptian evidence. German and Dutch critics
have labored with extraordinary acuteness and skill upon the
Mosaic docutnents alone,\ with such illustrations as they could
obtain from collateral records, using, be it remembered, such

*" Brugsch,'' /. c. t Gen. xiii., 15, 16. $ Gen. xlvii., 29-31.
§ "Melange's Egyptologiques," iii., I. 80.
II Ibid., 91, 92. T The italics are ours.

Sold into Slavery. 30
records as all the older and too many of the later classical
scholars out of Germany and France have used coins and
inscriptions, not as independent sources but as mere illustra
tions. The work has been that of great literary critics, not
of archaeologists. The result has been to reduce the date of
the documents, except a few fragments, by many centuries.
[But] the Egyptian documents emphatically call for a recon
sideration of the whole question of the date of the Penta
teuch.* It is now certain that the narrative of the history
of Joseph and the sojourn and.exodus of the Israelites — that
is to say, the portion from Genesis xxxix. to Exodus xv. — so
far as it relates to Egypt, is substantially not much later than
B.C. 1300 ; in other words, was written while the memory of
the events was fresh. The minute accuracy of the text is
inconsistent with any later date. It is not merely that it
shows knowledge of Egypt, but knowledge of Egypt under
the Ramessides and yet earlier. The condition of the coun
try, the chief cities of the frontier, the composition of the
army, are true of the age of the Ramessides, and not true
of the age of the Pharaohs, contemporary with Solomon and
his successors. If the Hebrew documents are of the close
of the . period of the kings of Judah, how is it that they
are true of the earlier condition, not of that which was
contemporary with those kings ? Why is the Egypt of the
law markedly different from the Egypt of the prophets, each
condition being described consistently with its Egyptian rec
ords, themselves contemporary with the events ? Why is
Egypt described in the Law as one kingdom, and no hint
given of the break-up of the Empire into the small princi
palities mentioned by Isaiah (xix., 2) ? Why do the proper
names belong to the Ramesside and earlier age, without a

* That is, a reconsideration of the date as supposed to be settled by
the "Higher criticism" alone.

40 Joseph the Prime-minister.
single instance of those Semitic names which came into
fashion with the Bubastic line in Solomon's time ? Why
do Zoan- Rameses and Zoar take the places of Migdol
and Tahpanhes ? Why are the foreign mercenaries, such
as the Lubrin, spoken of in the constitution of Egyp
tian armies in the time of the kingdom of Judah, wholly
unmentioned ? The relations of Egypt with foreign coun
tries are not less characteristic. The kingdom of Ethi
opia, which overshadowed Egypt from before Hezekiah's
time and throughout his reign, is unmentioned in the
earlier documents. The earlier Assyrian Empire, which
rose for a time on the fall of the Egyptian, nowhere ap
pears. " These agreements have not failed to strike foreign Egyp
tologists who have no theological bias. These independent
scholars, without actually formulating any view of the date
of the greater part of the Pentateuch, appear uniformly to
treat its text as an authority to be cited side by side with
the Egyptian monuments. So Lepsius, in his researches on
the date of the Exodus, and Brugsch, in his discussion of the
route, and Chabas, in his paper on Rameses and Pithan.
Of course it would be unfair to implicate any one of these
scholars in the inferences expressed above ; but, at the same
time, it is impossible that they can, for instance, hold Kuen
en's theories of the date of the Pentateuch, so far as the part
relating to Egypt is concerned. They have taken the two
sets of documents — Hebrew and Egyptian — side by side, and
in the working of elaborate problems found everything con
sistent with accuracy on both sides ; and of course accuracy
would not be maintained in a tradition handed down through'
several centuries. If the large portion of the Pentateuch
relating to the Egyptian period of Hebrew history, including
as it does Elohistic as well as Jehovistic sections, is of the
remote antiquity here claimed for it, no one can doubt that

Sold into Slavery. 41
the first four books of Moses are substantially of the same
age."* I make no apology for the length of this quotation ; its
own excellence is my best defence. But I wish you to bear
in mind in connection with it the following particulars : In
the first place, it is the deliberate judgment, given not much
more than six years ago in the pages of the Contemporary Re
view, of one who is regarded as a competent authority on the
matters to which he refers. He was selected to write the ar
ticle on Egypt in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible." He is
joint author with a coadjutor of his own name ofthe article on
Egypt in the new edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica ;"
so that what he says on Egyptology must command respect
ful attention. In the second place, he is of necessity also a
good scholar in Hebrew and the cognate languages, able to
appreciate and to weigh in the balance of an independent
and well-informed judgment the statements of the Higher
Critics in their own department. In Ihe third place, he has
no prejudice against the Higher Critics as such. So far
from that being the case, he speaks of them in terms of the
greatest respect, and rightly warns those who accept his con
clusions from rushing to the extreme of denying altogether
the value of criticism ; while at the same time he clearly
sees that, as presently cultivated, its excellences in analysis
are marred by its defects in constructive skill. He thus
occupies impartial ground, being neither trammelled by au
thority nor enslaved by specialism. Then, in the fourth
place, his judgment is given without any hesitation in behalf
of the received date of the first four books of the Penta
teuch and their historical credibility.
It has come to be regarded, I know not why, that scholar-
* Reginald Stuart Poole, art. Modern Egypt, in Contemporary Re
view, March, 1879, pp. 752, 753, 757~59-

42 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ship is altogether on the side of those who would have us to
look upon the earliest books of Scripture as so many collec
tions of myths, or sagas, or the like ; and every one who
raises his voice against such opinions is held, ipso facto, to be
an ignoramus, altogether incompetent to pronounce an opin
ion on the subject. Moreover, they who advocate the theo
ries of Kuenen, and others of the same school, are heralded
as reformers, new Martin Luthers, who have come to usher
in a grander liberty than the great German dreamed of; and
their words are caught by the swift fingers of the reporters
for the press, and sent all over the land, while utterances
like those which I have just quoted are allowed to fall to the
ground unheeded ; though perhaps it may be found that in
the end liberty will be better served by adhering to the old
than by following the new. But new or old is not the ques
tion ; liberty or not is not the question. The question is,
True or nott and on that issue I would give a thousand times
more weight to the judgment of a competent and candid
expert like Reginald Stuart Poole, than to that of a mere
retailer of the destructive conclusions of the most recent
rationalistic critics.
And now, having once for all disposed of this subject, let
us look very briefly at Joseph's first position in Egypt. It
was that of a slave exposed for sale in the open market. God
be thanked, we can now repeat these words in this land with
out the humiliating consciousness that a similar sight might
still be seen within our own borders ! It was a pitiful plight
to be in — to have to face the peering looks of possible pur
chasers, as they scanned the special " points " that were note
worthy in him ; to hear the tones of criticisms that were other
wise unintelligible ; and to be led away at length by one who
called him his property. Oh, it is too horrible to think of!
One's whole manhood rises up in rebellion against the very
idea ; and we would have excused Joseph if he had mani-

Sold into Slavery. 43
fested some resistance on the occasion. For God has given
me to myself, and no mortal has a right to me as a chattel.
If Tell was a hero because he fought against the tyranny of
Austria ; and Bruce because he struggled against the oppres
sion of England ; and Washington because he rebelled against
the injustice of Great Britain — is not the slave also a hero
who struggles for his personal liberty? What right has a
nation to its autonomy more than a man has to his freedom ?
And if we honor the soldier who helps an oppressed people
to independence, shall we not honor, also, him who helps a
slave to freedom ? These were the sentiments that animated
John Brown in his famous expedition ; and though it was at
first a failure, it proved in the end to have been a splendid
success. But there was no one near poor Joseph to help him into
liberty, and so he was bought and led away by Potiphar,
an officer of Pharaoh and " captain of the guard." He is
called an Egyptian, probably to mark that while his master
was one of the Shepherd kings, he himself belonged to a
native family ; and this view is supported by the fact that
his name contains that of an Egyptian divinity. He is styled
"the captain of the guard," or, as the original may. be more
literally rendered, " chief of the executioners." It is not
easy to say what office that title specially designated. Some
would make it " chief-marshal," others, " provost-marshal,"
and others " master of the horse." Dr. Kitto considers it
to be "chief of the royal police." He writes as follows:
" Potiphar was undoubtedly the chief of the executioners ;
but this is a high office in the East as a court office, for such
executioners have nothing to do with the execution of the
awards of the law, in its ordinary course, but only with those
of the king. It is thus an office of great responsibility ; and
to insure its proper, and, if need be, prompt execution, it is
intrusted to an officer of the court, who has necessarily un-

44 Joseph the Prime-minister.
der his command a body of men whose duty it is to preserve
the order and peace ofthe palace and its precincts, to attend
and guard the royal person on public occasions, and under
the direction of their chief to inflict such punishment as the
king awards upon those who incur his displeasure. He there
fore, in this sense, may be called 'captain of the guard' or
'chief- marshal.' Further, it appears that this officer had,
adjoining to or connected with his house, a round building
in which the king's prisoners — those who had incurred the
royal suspicion or displeasure — were detained in custody till
their doom should be determined. A functionary who com
bined these various duties in his person cannot perhaps be
better described than by the title, 'chief of the royal police.'"*
When he saw his destination, Joseph, rightly believing that
he was still the ward of Jehovah, determined to accept the
situation, and adjust himself to his environment. Therefore
he did willingly, and with his best skill, everything that was
required at his hands ; so that he soon secured the confi
dence of his master, who found it to be to his interest to in
trust everything in his establishment to Joseph's care. " He
left all that he had in Joseph's hand ; and he knew not aught
he had, save the bread which he did eat." This is quite in
harmony with what we know otherwise of the custom of the
time; for the Egyptian monuments frequently represent
scribes or stewards as superintending the property of rich
men, and carefully registering all the operations of the house
hold, the garden, the field, etc. Joseph did all this so well that
everything went on with harmony and turned out profitably,
and Potiphar congratulated himself that he had got a treas
ure in his slave. Joseph, too, might be rejoicing within
himself that the lines had fallen unto him in such pleasant
* Kitto's " Bible History of the Holy Land," quoted in Fairbairn's
"Imperial Bible Dictionary," art. Potiphar.

Sold into Slavery. 45
places, and contrasting his lot with that of many a poor
slave in the land, when, through the very loyalty of his heart
to his master, and the very strictness of his adherence to
the course of purity and rectitude, he found himself at length
consigned as a criminal to prison. How all that came
about, and what ultimately resulted from it, will appear as
we proceed. Meanwhile we must here break off, and linger
only long enough to take with us two or three practical les
sons, which may help us under and through the captivities
of our lives.
(_We have all our captivities at some time or other in our
experience. The essence of Joseph's trial here was that he
was taken whither he had no wish to go, and was prevent
ed from going back again to the home in which his father
was sitting mourning for his loss. But is not interference
with our comfort or our liberty still the bitter element in all
our afflictions ? Take bodily illness, for example, and when
you get at the root ofthe discomfort of it, you find it in the
union of these two things : you are where you do not want
to be — where you would never have thought of putting your
self — and you are held there, whether you will or not, by a
Power that is stronger than your own. No external force
constrains you, no fetters are on your limbs, yet you are held
where you are against your own liking, and you do not relish
the situation — you are a captive. But the same thing comes
out in almost every sort of trial. You are, let me sup
pose, in business perplexity. But that is not of your own
choosing ; if you could have managed it, you would have
been in quite different circumstances. Yet, in spite of you,
things have gone against you. Men whom you had implicit
ly trusted, and whom you would have had no more thought
of doubting than you would think now of doubting your
mother's love, have proved deceitful; or the course of trade
has gone against you, and you are brought to a stand. You

46 Joseph the Prime-minister.
have been carried away perhaps by brothers, perhaps by
Ishmaelites — for the race is not yet extinct — from the Ca
naan of comfort to the Egypt of captivity, and you are now
in helpless perplexity. It may be standing, not like Joseph,
in the slave-pen, but in the market-place of labor, and con
demned to do nothing, because " no man hath hired " you.
Ah ! there are many, too many always, in a large city like
this who are in just such circumstances. What then ? Let
them learn from Joseph here that the first thing to do in a
captivity is to acquiesce in it as the will of God concerning
them. The young Israelite did not lose time or strength by
struggling unwisely against a higher might than his own ;
he bowed to the inevitable, and adjusted himself to it, be
cause he had learned, from his talks with his good old grand
father Isaac and his father Jacob, that God was in it, and
had a watchful eye over his history. So in a trial we have,
first of all, to accept it as the will of God in Christ Jesus con
cerning us, and to say regarding it, "This also cometh from
the Lord, who is wonderful in council and excellent in work
ing." Fretting over that from which we have been removed,
or which has been taken away from us, will not make things
better, but it will prevent us from improving those which re
main. The bond is only tightened by our stretching it to
the uttermost. The impatient horse which will not quietly
endure his halter only strangles himself in his stall. The
high-mettled animal that is restive in the yoke only galls his
shoulders ; and every one will understand the difference be
tween the. restless starling of which Sterne has written, break
ing its wings against the bars of its cage, and crying, " I can't
get out! I can't get out!" and the docile canary that sits upon
its perch and sings as if it would outrival the lark at heav
en's own gate, so moving its mistress to open the door of its
prison - house and give it the full range of the room. He
who is constantly looking back and bewailing what he has

Sold into Slavery. 47
lost, does only thereby unfit himself for improving in any way
the discipline to which God has subjected him ; whereas the
man who brings his mind clown to his lower lot, and de
liberately examines how he can serve God best in that, is
already on his way to better things. Thus, paradoxical as it
may seem, acquiescence in an affliction is the first step in
the way out of it.)
But then, in the second place, we must learn from Joseph
to make the best of our remaining opportunities in our cap
tivity. If he was to be a slave, Joseph was determined he
would be the best of slaves, and what he was required to do
he would do with his might and with his heart. This is a
most important consideration, and it may, perhaps, help to
explain why similar trials have had such different results in
different persons. One has been bemoaning that it is not
with him as it used to be, while the other has discovered
that some talents have been still left him, and he has set to
work with these. One has been saying, "If I had only the
resources which I once possessed I could do something; but
now they have gone, I am helpless." But the other has
been soliloquizing thus : " If I can do nothing else I can at
least do this, little as it is ; and if I put it into the hand of
Christ, he can make it great;" and so we account for the
unhappiness and uselessness of the one, and for the happi
ness and usefulness ofthe other. Nor will it do to say that
this difference is a mere thing of temperament. It is a thing
of character. The one acts in faith, recognizing God's hand
in his affliction, the other acts in unbelief, seeing nothing but
his own calamity, and that only increases his affliction. So (
we come to this: keep fast hold of God's hand in your cap-}
tivity, and do your best in that which is open to you. That]
will ultimately bring you out of it ; but if you lose that you -
will lose everything.

IV.
TEMPTED BUT TRIUMPHANT.
Gen. xxxix., 7-23.
WE have no absolutely certain data from which to make
a calculation ; but as Joseph is said to have been
thirty years of age when he first stood before Pharaoh ;* as
two years elapsed after his interpretation of the dreams of
the chief butler and the chief baker, before he was sent for
to explain those of the king;f and as some little time must
be allowed, say at least one year, for his rise from a prisoner
to the office of chief warden in the prison, this would make
him twenty- seven at the beginning of his imprisonment.
Now he was seventeen when he was first sold into the hands
of the Ishmaelites, % and so we get the result, conjectural in
deed, but yet probable, that he served in the house of Poti
phar for ten years. During all that time he had given the
highest satisfaction to his master, and, at length, had so
grown into his confidence that, except in tbe preparation of
his food — a matter which no Egyptian would intrust to a for
eigner — Potiphar had left the management of his affairs en
tirely in his hands. But now there came a terrible trial, be
fore which multitudes would have fallen, but out of which he
came blighted, indeed, for a season in reputation, but strength
ened and ennobled in character, and so the better fitted for
the performance of the work which he had still to do. The
particulars of that trial are set forth with sufficient distinct-
* Gen. xii., 46. t Gen. xii., 1. } Gen. xxxvii., 2.

Tempted but Triumphant. 49
ness in the narrative, and need not be dwelt on here. Suf
fice it to say that the wife of his master sought to make him
partner with herself in a guilty intrigue, which had in it some
strong elements of allurement to a young man of his age and
in his circumstances. I say nothing now of the shameless
immorality of his temptress, except to remark that it is quite
in keeping with some representations of Egyptian women
which have been found upon the recently discovered frescoes.
For though now, in all Eastern lands, women are secluded
and kept in harems by themselves, the Egyptian females of
these early times were not only under no particular restraint,
but were sometimes addicted to excesses. Thus, Wilkinson
tells us that they were not restricted in the use of wine and
in the enjoyment of other luxuries, and that " the painters, in
illustrating this fact, have sometimes sacrificed their gallant
ry to a love of caricature. Some call the servants to support
them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent themselves
from falling on those behind them; a basin is brought too
late by a reluctant servant ; and the faded flower which is
ready to drop from their heated hands is intended to be
characteristic of their own sensations."* A description like
that may enable us, perhaps, the better to understand the
statements made in the sacred history.
But leaving such gross and repulsive things, let us look at
the magnitude of this temptation. It came on Joseph when
he was dwelling among a nation of idolaters, away from the
restraints of home and the influence of his father and grand
father, by which he had been accustomed to be regulated.
If, therefore, his piety had been a mere conventional thing,
he would certainly have yielded, as many others in like cir
cumstances have done. Which of us has not known cases
* " The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," by Sir J. G.
Wilkinson, vol. i., p. 393. American Edition, 1883.
3

So Joseph the Prime-minister.
of youths who at home were reputable and well behaved,
but who, when they have gone to another city or another
land, where they were entirely unknown to those by whom
they were surrounded, have run riot in iniquity, and excused
themselves by quoting the debasing proverb that " when we
are in Rome we must do as they do at Rome ?" But Joseph
was not a youth of that sort. His piety was not a matter of
longitude and latitude. He believed in God, and sought to
serve him in all places and in all cases ; and he did in Egypt
precisely as he would have done, in like circumstances, in
Canaan. Again, this temptation which came upon him thus, when
he was away from all external support, took him in two
points of his nature at one and the same time. It appealed
to appetite ; and if Paul thought it needful to say to Timothy,
who was a young man of rather ascetic habits, devoted to
the ministry of the gospel, and surrounded by all wholesome
influences, "flee also youthful lusts," we may well believe
that Joseph was not insensible to its force in that particular.
But that was not its most seductive aspect, as I believe, to
him. For the entering into this intrigue meant also for him
the putting of Potiphar ultimately out of the way, and his
own elevation, in an easy and speedy fashion, to his master's
place. That must be clear to all acquainted with Eastern
life. Now see what all that implied. Joseph had not for
gotten his early dreams. There still hovered before him a
vision of the time when his brothers should make obeisance
to him, and he should rise to some post of dignity and influ
ence on the earth — the hope of attaining that upheld him all
those years — and lo ! here is a short and alluring pathway to
what seemed to promise that very thing. Might he not take
it, therefore, without reluctance or compunction ? Thus there
came upon him at once two of the very allurements which
Satan put, one after the other, before the Lord Jesus in the

Tempted but Triumphant. 51
wilderness. You remember that to the hungry Son of Man
the tempter said, " If thou be the son of God, command that
these stones be made bread," thereby opening the door for
the satisfaction of appetite in a forbidden way ; and again,
that to him who came into the world to be a king whose do
minion should be universal, he said on the mountain-top,
after he had shown him all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them, " All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall
down and worship me," thus offering him the crown without
the cross, and the long and arduous journey- that led up
thereto. Now, precisely these were the temptations that
Joseph here had to face. They took the Lord, as I have
said, one after the other; but they came upon him both at
once, and he had to meet them without having the advan
tage of the armory of the written word wherein Jesus found
the weapons with which he repulsed his adversary. But just
as little would he yield as did the Lord. It was not that
there was in him no fleshly appetite, but that he had learned
to keep that in its place, and to make it subservient to the
service of his God. It was not that he had no ambition, but
that he was content to wait for its gratification until that
could be secured in a manner worthy of his God's approval.
And so he put them both from him with no half-hearted op
position, but in a decided and determined manner. There
was no "yes" in the "no" which he uttered, and when he
was assailed with repeated importunity, he only repeated
more emphatically his refusal.
Nor can we help remarking on the grounds whereon he
based his conduct, for they show as really his fidelity to man
as his loyalty to God. He could not be guilty of treachery
against Potiphar, or of sin against God. His own pleasure
or elevation would be too dearly purchased by ingratitude to
one who had placed such unlimited confidence in him, and no
gratification could to him be lasting which dishonored God.

52 Joseph the Prime-minister.
But after he had taken that stand, and by the very taking
of it, he made an implacable enemy of his mistress. One
of our greatest poets has spoken of "lust hard by hate," and
another has affirmed that
" Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,"
so that we do not wonder at the course which she followed.
She was determined to ruin him, one way or another, and
therefore when, to get rid of her solicitations, he fled from
her, leaving his garment in her hand, she immediately saw
her opportunity for revenge, and went to her husband with
the cunningly woven story which is thus given in the record :
"The Hebrew servant which thou hast brought unto us,
came in unto me to mock me ; and it came to pass, as I lifted
up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me and
fled out." The result was that Potiphar, without giving Jo
seph an opportunity to vindicate himself, put him at once
into the king's prison ; or, as the words literally rendered
are, " the house of roundness," " the round house where the
king's prisoners were bound." This is described by Kitto as
"an edifice or portion ofthe official mansion, mostly subter
ranean, of which the roof or vault, rising immediately from
the surface of the ground, was round or shaped like an in
verted bowl. That it was of this nature may be inferred from
its being cailed in chapter xii., 15, the ' dungeon.' " He adds
that "such dungeons are still, under similar circumstances,
used in the East, and they have usually an aperture at the
top by which some light and air are admitted, and through
which the prisoners are let down. They are always upon
the premises ofthe chief of the guard or ofthe magistrate."*
Into such a place, then, Joseph was thrust ; and it is probable
that at first he was treated with much harshness, for we are
* " Daily Bible Illustrations," vol. i., p. 382.

Tempted but Triumphant. 53
told in the hundred and fifth Psalm* that "they hurt his feet
with fetters, and laid him in irons." It was very sad, but it
might have been worse ; and it would have been worse if he
had been there and guilty ; but as he was there and guiltless,
he could still look up to God, and take a silent appeal to
him. For a time, indeed, he may have been utterly cast
clown ; but at length he found his old consolation in his re
ligious faith, and by his demeanor he so won upon his jailer
that the rigor of his confinement was relaxed, and he became
the trusted servant of the keeper ofthe prison, who commit
ted to him the care of all who had been intrusted to his
custody. But here we must leave him for a while, and turn aside
from the course of the history to gather up some wholesome
lessons from the portion of it which has at this time been
under our review.
We may learn, then, in the first place, that when we have
unusual blessing we may look for severe temptation. Jo
seph had been preferred to great honor. His master in
trusted everything to his care, and he had reached a position
of ease and comfort and respectability. There was much in
all this prosperity to lull him into sleep, as if now he had
passed through the dangerous stage in his career; yet out of
that very prosperity came this fiew peril, and it was the great
est which he had yet encountered. For though his brothers
had sold him into slavery, they could not and did not dis
pose of his soul; but this was a temptation to sell his soul
into the slavery of sin. It is sometimes suggested, by the
way in which men speak of affliction and adversity, that these
are the only experiences which are fraught with peril to
the character. But I believe that there is more real risk
in prosperity than in either of the others, and I know that in
* Verse 1 8.

54 Joseph the Prime-minister.
the Scriptures this is very strikingly illustrated by many sad
examples. David stood well all the tests of privation and
persecution when he was on the way to the throne, but after
he had reached it, and had surmounted all his difficulties, he
fell into heinous sin. And if we care to look around us, we
shall discover that the critical times in the history of many
men have not been while they were struggling up the hill in
self-help, but after they had reached the summit. It takes a
steady hand to carry a full cup ; it requires a good head to
stand upon a lofty height ; and those who have got as high
as they can reach — who are, as we say, at the top of the tree
— had need be on their guard lest some Delilah should come
to worm out of them the secret of their strength, and deliver
them over as captives to the prince of darkness. The more
prosperous you are, therefore, the nearer you are to the top
in your profession or business, seek to be the more watchful,
for in the spiritual warfare, as in that of earth, "eternal vigi
lance is the price of safety."
But we may learn from this history, in the second place,
that when temptation takes us we must resist it with a strong
and decided No, and carefully take ourselves out of its range.
Joseph put the matter on the highest ground when he said,
"How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"
and he held no parley with his temptress, but steadily re
fused her importunity, and finally ran away from her pres
ence. This course, though it roused her indignation, yet
kept himself from defilement, and stands in striking contrast
to that followed, for example, by Samson. If that singularly
weak man, for all so strong as he was, had never entered
into conversation with Delilah about his strength, he had
never lost it and fallen a victim to the Philistines. If he
had not allowed her to weave the seven locks of his hair
into a web, he had not ultimately told her wherein his strength
did really lie. But by little and little, through his parley

Tempted but Triumphant. 55
with her, he gave himself into her power. So, again, when
Balaam said " no " to Balak, he did so in such a half-hearted
way as to reveal that he would much rather have said " yes,"
and therefore, when the application was renewed, he went on
in that way Which ended in destruction. Now, there must
be no such half-heartedness with us. Let us say "no" to
sin as if we meant it — not rudely, indeed, for there is no
need for rudeness, but distinctly and decidedly, like those
whose minds have been made up to the course to which
they mean to adhere. And if the application be repeated,
let us repeat our refusal, if possible, more emphatically than
ever. When Nehemiah was assailed by his adversaries, who
sought to beguile him into the plain of Ono, that they might
there assassinate him, he replied, " I am doing a great work,
and I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while
I leave it and come down to you ?" And when they sent to
him four times after this sort, he answered them as many
times after the same manner. So let it be with us. Let our
" nay " here be unmistakable, without any qualification or
reservation or apology, and then, if after all it is not thor
oughly understood, let us run away, as Joseph did, even
though we should leave our raiment behind us, believing, as
Matthew Henry quaintly says, that " it is better to lose a
good coat than a good, conscience." Ah! how many there
are who go out to court a temptation. Heedless ofthe com
mand of Christ, " Watch and pray, lest ye enter into tempta
tion," they deliberately put themselves in its way, and of
course they fall before it. That result is just about as cer
tain as it is that there will be an explosion if, with an open
barrel of gunpowder in your arms, you go into a smithy
where the sparks are flying all around. " Can a man take
fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned ? Can one
go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned ?" No more
can you put yourself into the way of temptation without in-

56 Joseph the Prime-minister.
juring your souls. It would be perilous to do so, even if you
were innocent and holy ; how much more so, considering the
inherent depravity by which we are all characterized ! It is
dangerous to drive restive horses near the edge of a preci
pice ; it is dangerous to bring gunpowder near the fire ; it is
dangerous to come near an adder's fangs ; and it is equally
so with these fallen natures of ours to approach temptation.
Therefore "avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass
away." But the merely negative attitude will, after all, be weak,
and so I stay here a moment longer to add that the best
means of saying '' no " to sin is to say " yes " with the whole
heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you wish to dispel the
darkness you will bring in a light ; if you desire to kill
weeds most effectively you will sow the ground with whole
some grass; and in like manner, if you would keep evil out
of your hearts you must get the Lord Jesus Christ into
them. You all know what affection for and trust in a per
son have done in common life to produce prompt decision
and persistent action. Every scholar remembers the in
stance of that true wife, Penelope, who for long years turned
away suitors for her hand, and was ultimately rewarded by
the return of Ulysses, who had manifested a constancy and
affection that were equal to her own. Now, if in domestic
life such effects are produced by these two principles, love
and trust — which are not so much two as one working in
two different ways — may we not believe that by the grace of
the Holy Spirit, personal attachment to the Lord Jesus Christ
and implicit trust in him, will give us quickness of sight to
see what he would have us to do, and firmness of purpose to
do that with our might ? Nothing is so clear-sighted as love.
It is on the alert at the approach ofthe slightest danger; and
if only we take care to continue in the love of Christ, that
will keep us right, for it will reveal the tempter to us even

Tempted but Triumphant. 57
under his most cunning disguise, and give us courage and
firmness to withstand him. Nay, more, let us but have the
love of Christ strong within us, and we shall not think that
there is anything like a sacrifice or a hardship in saying " no ''
to sin, for we shall have no hankering after that which he
disapproves. Our refusal to sin will be, then, only the out
working of our satisfaction with him ; the consequence of our
delight in him, and not the result of any outward compul
sion. Here, young man, is the key to the whole position :
fill the heart with Christ, and when the tempter comes he
will find it so preoccupied that there is no room in it for
him and his seduction.
But we may learn, in the third place, from this history,
that we should not be surprised to find that our adherence
to the right is followed at first by great hardship. Poor
Joseph ! what must he have thought when he found him
self in the dungeon? Had God forgotten him? If not,
how came he to be in such a miserable plight ? Was there
any Gocl at all ? If so, how was such treatment of an in
nocent man consistent with rectitude? Would it not have
been better for him to have yielded and taken the short cut
to affluence and ease ? To what end should he make a
point of resisting temptation if the temptress continues to
enjoy her luxury, and the innocent resister of her will is cast
into a dungeon? Ah! this is the very trial in a trial when
it tempts us to distrust God, or to think that he has forsaken
us ; and it may be that Joseph felt it keenly for a season,
even as it was felt by the author of the 73d Psalm and the
sweet singer ofthe 37th. Admirably has one said here, "It
is this which has made the world seem so terrible a place to
many — that the innocent must so often suffer for the guilty,
and that without appeal the pure and loving must lie in
chains and bitterness, while the wicked live and see good
days. It is this that has made men most despairingly ques-

58 Joseph the Prime-minister.
tion whether there be, indeed, a God in heaven who knows
who the real culprit is, and yet suffers a terrible doom slowly
to close around the innocent; who sees where the guilt lies,
and yet moves no finger nor speaks the word that would
bring justice to light, shaming the secure triumph of the
wrong-doer, and saving the bleeding spirit from its agony.
It was this that came as the last stroke of the passion of our
Lord that he was numbered among the transgressors ; it
was this that caused, or materially increased, the feeling that
God had deserted him ; and it was this that wrung from
him the cry which once was wrung from David, and may
well have been wrung from Joseph, when, cast into the
dungeon as a mean and treacherous villain, whose freedom
was the peril of domestic peace and honor, he found hinv
self again helpless and forlorn, regarded now not as a mere
worthless lad, but as a criminal of the lowest type. And as
there always recur cases in which exculpation is impossible,
just in proportion as the party accused is possessed of hon
orable feeling, and where silent acceptance of doom is the
result, not of convicted guilt, but of the very triumph of self-
sacrifice, we must beware of over-suspicion and injustice."*
But when we find ourselves in such circumstances, what
is to be done ? Nothing, but wait God's time and persevere
in our integrity. We must not judge God for what we see of
his providence on a small scale. We must take wide views
of it, and when we do that we shall find that in the long run
he brings forth men's righteousness as the light and their
judgment as the noonday, so that the evil-doer is punished
and the virtuous man rewarded. And even if in some cases
we should not see that, we must widen our view still further
and take in eternity; then, understanding the end of the
wicked, we shall not begrudge them the little time during
* Marcus Dods, D. D. : " Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph," pp. 176, 177.

Tempted but Triumphant. 59
which on earth they enjoy their good things. But more than
all we must get above the merely utilitarian view of things,
and adhere to the right because it is the right, not simply
because it is the profitable. I desire to give especial em
phasis to this last consideration, since, as it seems to me,
there is a strong disposition among many in these clays to
test everything by profit. Thus we have the question pressed
on our attention, "Is life worth living ?" as if it were a mere
question of gain ; whereas the right is an eternal and im
mutable thing, and is to be adhered to at whatsoever sac
rifice, just because it is right. There is no profit like a
good conscience, and no reward equal to the approbation of
God. It were well, therefore, if some of our would-be mor
alists to-day had as much clearness of perception on these
subjects as the great Scottish novelist, who thus writes in
his final introduction to " Ivanhoe :" " The character of the
fair Jewess found so much favor in the eyes of some fair
readers that the writer was censured because, when arranging
the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned
the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less inter
esting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of
the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the au
thor may, in passing, observe that he thinks a character of a
highly virtuous nature degraded rather than exalted by an
attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is
not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy
of suffering merit; and it is a fatal doctrine to teach young
persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude
of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with,
or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions
or the attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous
and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth,
greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly-formed
passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be

60 Joseph the Prime-minister.
apt to sa)', verily virtue has had its reward. But a glance on
the great picture of life will show that the duties of self-de
nial and the sacrifice of passion to principle are seldom thus
remunerated, and that the internal consciousness of their
high-minded discharge of duty produces on their own re
flections a more adequate recompense in the form of that
peace which the world cannot give or take away." The up
shot of it all, then, is that we must adhere to the right for its
own sake, irrespective of what may be the consequence of
our doing so ; that, as Faber says, we should be willing " to
lose with God," because we can see that " he is on the field
when he is most invisible," and that we should still hold fast
our conviction that" Right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win ;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
v Not for what we can make by it, or for what it is worth, but
for what it is, and for its relationship to God, let us do the
right, and we may rest assured, however it may be now, that
in the end we shall be on the winning side. We may have
to go through a prison to the final issue, or we may need to
step up to it from a cross, but we shall be on the winning side,
for character is success — not position, not prosperity, not
reputation — but character, and it is made and hardened and
tempered in the fire of trial. When Joseph stepped out of
the prison into the chariot of the ruler over all the land of
Egypt, it seemed a sudden rise, but it was in reality only a
revelation of the greatness which had already shown itself
in his inflexible adherence to purity before the severest temp
tation. Leave the reputation and the success, then, to look
after themselves, and be not disconcerted if they should both
be for a time under a cloud ; but look well to the charac
ter, for that is the main thing, and the life that secures that
for Christ is always worth living^)

V.
THE TWO PRISONERS.
Gen. xl.
WHILE Joseph was in charge of the royal prison, un
der the direction of its principal keeper, two officers
of the court were consigned to his custody by the captain of
the guard. This last named dignitary was either Potiphar
or his successor in office. We have, however, no hint of any
change, and so, perhaps, we may conclude that Joseph's mas
ter had come to look more favorably upon him, and was glad
of an opportunity of showing that he had confidence in him.
One is almost inclined to believe that he had become con
vinced of his servant's innocence of the offence with which
he had been charged; and though, in that case, it would
have been simply right for Potiphar to have set him at lib
erty, we can well understand how the exposure which such
an act would have made kept him from taking any steps in
that direction; while he might be well enough pleased at
seeing the mitigation of his sufferings, which had resulted
from his elevation to a wardenship.
The court officials who were intrusted to his care are called
in the authorized version " the chief butler " and " the chief
baker," but these titles give us no adequate idea of the dig
nity ofthe positions which they occupied. Literally rendered,
the phrases are, " the chief of the cup-bearers " and " the
chief of the cooks." The first of these held an office of great
importance, which gave him the ear of the monarch even in
his most unbending moments, and thus enabled him to ex-

62 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ercise great influence with him. We see something of its
value at a later date in the case of Nehemiah, who held a
similar position in the palace of Artaxerxes ; and in that of
Rabshakeh, whose very name implies that he stood in the
same relation to the King of Assyria. The duty of this offi
cer was to present the cup to the king after having tasted a
portion of its contents, and so made sure that they were
not poisoned ; but his facilities for intercourse with the mon
arch made him particularly sought after by interested parties
as a mediator between them and the king, and so he was apt
to be mixed up with all manner of cabals and intrigues.
The " chief of the cooks," again, superintended the prepara
tion of the king's food. We saw that Potiphar, much as he
had trusted Joseph, would not allow even him to meddle
with his food, and from that little incident we may learn
how implicit must have been the confidence ofthe monarch
in this official. Wilkinson has given a long and elaborate
account of the preparation and serving of an Egyptian din
ner, gleaned from the paintings on the monuments, but it
would serve no good purpose to reproduce it here. Suffice
it to say, that the kitchen in all its departments was directly
and immediately under the care of him who is called in this
history " the chief baker."
The particular crime which was laid to the charge of these
two officials is not specified, though some have conjectured
that it was an attempt to poison the king , and the fact that
they had both to do with the supply of his table, gives at
least plausibility to the opinion. But from the punishment
which ultimately fell upon the chief baker, we may be sure
-that it was of an aggravated character, and probably it in
volved an attempt of some description on the monarch's life.
In any case, they were in such suspense as to their fate that
their anxiety gave a direction to their dreams; and one morn
ing both of them awoke with a peculiarly vivid recollection

The Two Prisoners. 65
of what they had seen in their dreams, and a profound im
pression that there was some special significance in their
visions. Indeed, they had the feeling thatif they could only
get the interpretation of them, they would have in that the
revelation of what was before them. Nor was this idea al
together unnatural, for among all nations at that time, and
for long after, it was generally believed that dreams were
media through which divine communications were made,
and in all great centres of influence there were men of rec
ognized learning, whose special office it was to explain the
meaning of such visions. Homer, in a well-known passage,
says that a dream is from Jupiter ; and elsewhere he relates
how the mind of Jove was communicated to Agamemnon in
a vision. I do not imagine, indeed, that every dream was
counted worthy of attention, but when the impression pro
duced by a dream was one that could not be shaken off, we
can readily understand that some special significance would
be connected with it, and that it would be regarded as a
divine revelation. We cannot affirm that this view was al
ways right, but that it was sometimes correct is evident from
the cases before us, as well as from those of Pharaoh and
Nebuchadnezzar; and even yet it is a question very difficult
to answer in a definite manner, whether any significance, or
if any, how much is to be attributed to any of the visions
of the night. We all allow that God may and does influ
ence the workings of our minds through the operation of the
laws of suggestion or association while we are awake ; for it
is impossible to hold in any intelligible fashion the doctrine
of the agency of the Holy Spirit unless we make such an
admission. But if Gocl can thus influence our minds when
we are awake, it is equally easy for him to do so while we
are asleep, so that there is no antecedent impossibility
against the view that he may speak to men in and through
the visions of the night.

64 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Again, the providence of God must take cognizance of
our dreams as well as of our waking thoughts, and must be
equally in and over both, otherwise it is not really universal.
Hence there is nothing either absurd or unphilosophical or
impious in supposing that God may avail himself of the
phenomena of dreams for the purpose of turning the mind
to his truth, or leading it into some particular direction.
How he does that it is impossible to say. Sleep is a mys
tery, and dreams are a mystery, and to them both we may
apply the words of Hamlet, "There are more things in
heaven and earth than have been dreamed of in philoso
phy;" while, whatever may be said of dreams in general, we
are probably not wrong in believing that the visions here
recorded were from the Lord.
The chief butler and the chief baker, at least, had the
conviction that their dreams were prophetic, and therefore
we cannot wonder that when Joseph came to them in the
morning he found them looking sad; and, acquainted as
he was with sorrow in his own experience, it was quite nat
ural for him to express his sympathy by asking, "Where
fore look ye so sadly to-day ?" In response to his inquiry
they said, " We have dreamed a dream, and there is no in
terpreter of it;" and he answered, "Do not interpretations
belong to Gocl ? Tell me them, I pray you." Not that he
claimed to be God, but that he had within him the con
sciousness that now his opportunity had come, and that God
would enable him to take advantage of it by giving him the
insight for the exposition of their visions. And we cannot
but feel that in this faith of his we have the secret of Jo
seph's greatness. Many a man, having had his experience
of dreams, would have said to these prisoners, " Think no
more about them; they are mere delusions. I too have had
my dreams ; and once they seemed to me prophetic, but they
have only mocked me, and it will be the same with you."

The Two Prisoners. 65
But no, he was holding himself up by his faith in God's rev
elation to himself, made long ago through the bowing sheaves
and the reverential stars, and he would not make light of
what had been similarly revealed to other men. With far-
reaching suggestiveness, a thoughtful preacher has here said,*
"Joseph's willingness to interpret the dreams of his fel
low-prisoners proves that he still believed in his own; that
among his other qualities he had this characteristic also of
ia steadfast and profound soul, that he 'reverenced as a man
the dreams of his youth.' Had he not done so, and had he
not yet hoped that somehow God would bring truth out of
them, he would surely have said, 'Don't you believe in
dreams ; they will only get you into difficulties.' He would
have said, what some of us could dictate from our own
thoughts, ' I won't meddle with dreams any more; I am not
so young as I once was; doctrines and principles that served
for fervent romantic youth seem puerile now, when I have
learned what human life actually is. I can't ask this man, who
knows the world, and has held the cup for Pharaoh, and is
aware what a practical shape the king's anger takes, to cher
ish hopes similar to those which often seem so remote and
doubtful to myself. My religion has brought me into trou
ble ; it has lost me my situation ; it has kept me poor ; it
has made me despised ; it has debarred me from enjoyment.
Can I ask this man to trust to inward whisperings which
have so misled me ? No ! no ! let every man bear his own
burden. If he wishes to become religious, let not me bear
the responsibility; if he will dream, let him find some other
interpreter." But not thus did he speak to the two heart-
stricken captives; and in offering to become the interpreter
of their dreams he takes another step towards the fulfilment
of his own. Had he ridiculed their visions, then, so far as
* Dr. Marcus Dod's " Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph," pp. 180, 181.

66 Joseph the Prime-minister.
we can see, he might have remained in the prison till his
death; but by the course he took, inspired as that was by
faith in God, he showed that he still regarded his own vis
ions as full of Divine significance, and took the way that led
to their verification.
When they heard his words of sympathy, the dreamers
told him their visions. We need not go into them in detail,
save to show how the dream of each rooted itself in and
grew out of his former occupation, and how they are illus
trated in almost every particular by the representations
found in these later years on the Egyptian monuments.
Thus Wilkinson tells us that the tombs at the Pyramids
show us pictures delineating grapes in the process of being
picked from the vines and put into baskets, and letting us
see the preparation ofthe grape-juice, from its being pressed
out of the clusters to its being stored in jars. That ferment
ed wine was drunk is evident from the paintings of feasts, as
also from the condition of the women, to the representation
of whom I referred in my last lecture; while, that I may not
seem to be ungallant, it must be added that portraitures of
men in a state of helpless intoxication are not unknown.
The kings, however, who were under the special regulation
of the priests, had their allowance fixed, and the kind of
wine they were to drink prescribed; and the representation
in the dream is literally in accord with a text "discovered
by Ebers in the inscriptions of the Temple of the Edfu, in
which the king is seen standing, cup in hand, while. under
neath are the words, ' They press grapes into the water and
the king drinks.'"*
In the dream of the chief baker, we have similar resem
blances to what we find on the monuments. Even so tri
fling a detail as the baked meats being said to be carried
* Geike's " Hours with the Bible," vol. i., p. 465.

The Two Prisoners. 67
on the head is true to Egyptian life ; for while men generally
carried their burdens less often on their heads than other
wise, bakers were a marked exception, and there are actual
instances in which confectioners are portrayed with baskets
on their heads. A papyrus of the age when the Hebrews
were in Egypt names four of Pharaoh's bakers, of whom one
is always called ' the chief,' and the importance of his office
may be judged from the fact that no fewer than 114,064
loaves are said to have been delivered by him at a particu
lar time to the royal store-rooms."*
The dream of the cup-bearer was interpreted by Joseph to
mean that within three days he would be restored to his
office; and, showing the implicitness of his faith in the truth
of the revelation, he accompanied his explanation with this
pathetic statement and wistful request — " But think on me
when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray
thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and
bring me out of this house ; for indeed I was stolen away
out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done
nothing that they should put me into the dungeon." Ah !
yes, captivity is still captivity, though the slave be set over
other slaves; a prison is still a prison, though the prisoner
be intrusted in it with the charge of others ; and this plaintive
appeal lets us see deep down in Joseph's heart to the very
quick of his distress.
The dream ofthe chief cook, to-his great disappointment
— for his expectations were raised by the good things fore
told to his companion — was explained by Joseph to mean
"that in three days he should be hanged upon a tree, and
his body left to be eaten by the birds." And both proved
to be prophetic ; for the third day was Pharaoh's birthday,
and that was always celebrated among the Egyptians with
* Geike, ubi snpra, vol. i. p. 467.

68 Joseph the Prime-minister.
great festivity. Thus we learn from Geike that " an inscrip
tion of the time of the Exodus tells us of Rameses II. that
his birthday caused joy in heaven. The priests of every
class assembled in the temples, an amnesty was granted to
prisoners, and a great feast was held worthy of a monarch
who was worshipped by his subjects. Under color of re
calling the glories of the past year, the priesthood took the
opportunity of renewing their hold on him by flattering but
significant addresses; after which, surrounded by all his
court and the dignitaries of the temples, he dispensed his
grace or favors as he thought fit." *
The punishment dealt out to the chief baker was very se
vere. He was first beheaded, and then his body was gibbet
ed upon a pole and left to be devoured by the birds. The
terror of this to an Egyptian was tremendous ; for in his be
lief, as, indeed, is manifest from the embalming of the dead,
the preservation of the body was essential to continued ex
istence after death, and the leaving of it to be destroyed was,
therefore, fatal to all hopes of a happy eternity. As Geike
says, " Beheading, preceded by beating with sticks, was a
common punishment, but refusal of embalmment was only
pronounced against extraordinary offenders. To leave the
body to be eaten by the dogs was the most terrible item in
the punishment ofthe treacherous wife in the 'Tale ofthe
Two Brothers.'" t
So the two men passed out on the third morning from the
prison, one to the palace and the other to the gibbet, and
Joseph remained behind, waiting in the heart -sickness of
"hope deferred "for some result from the intercession ofthe
chief cup-bearer with Pharaoh on his behalf. But alas for
the ingratitude of men ! the chapter ends with these doleful

* Geike's " Hours with the Bible," vol. i., p. 468.
t Geike, ibid., p. 487.

The Two Prisoners. 69
words, " Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph but
forgat him."
Now, in seeking to turn the incidents of this portion of
the narrative to profitable account, we find some important
truths suggested for our consideration.
In the first place, we cannot but be struck with the minute
particularity of the providence of God. Indeed, this is the
one great truth which, as we shall see, runs like a thread
through the whole of this history, and on which all its inci
dents are strung; so that we might use Joseph's own words
as a motto for it all — " Ye thought evil against me, but God
meant it unto good." Think ofthe coincidence which brought
the Ishmaelites to the spot at which his brothers were feast
ing, at the very moment when he was in the pit hard by.
Think, again, of his being bought, of all people in Egypt, by
Potiphar, the captain of the guard, and of his being cast into
the prison, for no fault of his own, but on a false accusation,
and of his being still there at the very time when these two
high officials of the court were consigned by Pharaoh to the
same place of confinement. Behold at how many critical
points his life touches the lives of others, and is, thereby,
carried so much the farther forward towards the attainment
by him of the place which God was preparing for him. Sup
pose we found these things in a novel, we should say that
they were all designed by its author for the development and
unravelment of what he calls his plot. Very well. But is
there.no plot in a human life? How else shall we account
for the appearance of a plot in fiction — which is meant to be
a delineation of life — and which, wherever it is a work of true
genius, is a delineation of life, if there be not in every hu
man life that which corresponds to a plot ? Is it not true,
as Dr. Bushnell has said in one of his wonderful sermons,
that "every man's life is a plan of God ?" and if one were
to say to you that such coincidences are only found in nov-

70 Joseph the Prime-minister.
els, could you not say to him, " It is not so, for I have met
them in my own career?" I know, at least, that I have
had as wonderful things in that way in my own experience
as I ever read of in fiction ; and if in the fiction I must trace
them to the plan of the author, why must I be debarred in
real life from tracing them to the plan of God? When I get
to a great railway junction, and find trains coming in togeth
er from the east, and the north, and the south, just in time
to join another that is starting from that point for the west,
I should be regarded as a simpleton if I spoke of that as a
wonderful coincidence. And yet, on the great Railroad of
Life, when I come to such a junction, and meet there a train
that leads me on to some significant sphere of service, I am
supposed to be a simpleton if I refer that to the overruling
providence of God. But I am not a simpleton — I am only
reasoning in that department as I would in the domain of
literature or daily travelling; and he who repudiates God's
providence is the fool, according to that scathing utterance
ofthe Psalmist — "The fool hath said in his heart there is no
God." But, in the second place, we are reminded by this history
also that the character of the individual has as much to do
with what I have called the development of the plot of his
life as the plan or purpose of God has. Providence is not
fatalism. Joseph, if he had chosen to act otherwise than he
did, might have thrown away all the opportunities which these
places of junction in his life afforded him. If he had stormed
against his brothers with violent resistance, they might have
been provoked to slay him out of hand ; but his demeanor
of patience and meekness moved Reuben to seek to save his
life. If, again, in the house of Potiphar, he had been, as we
phrase it, "ugly" and ill-tempered, determined, because he
was a slave, and unjustly deprived of his liberty, that he
would make everybody uncomfortable around him, he would

The Two Prisoners. 71
never have risen to any honor or eminence in his master's
house, but would have been set to do the lowest and most
degrading menial work. If, again, when his temptation came
to him, he had sinfully yielded, he never would have been
consigned to the prison, and would have had no opportunity
of serving the cup-bearer. Nay, if he had not made himself
useful and agreeable in the prison, he would have had no
chance of rendering the service which is here recorded — a
service which, as Joseph himself seemed to feel, and which,
as we know from the subsequent history, had so much to do
with his ultimate elevation to the second place in the king
dom. Thus, the character of Joseph was here a coworker
with the providence of Gocl. He fell in with God's plan.
He had educated himself so that he could see the chance —
speaking after the manner of men — when it came, and could
use it to the highest advantage. And by all this he was
steadily preparing himself for the place which Gocl in his
plan was preparing for him. Again then, I say, providence
is not fatalism, and if you would avail yourself of the oppor
tunities which God furnishes you at the critical turnings of
your history, you must watch your character, and seek so to
meet everything as from him, and so to serve him in every
thing, that when the important time arrives you can recog
nize its value, and improve it for his glory in your own ad
vancement. The men that fail in life do not fail for want
of such opportunities as Joseph had, but for want of the
character to see these opportunities, and the ability to use
them. Keep near to Gocl, therefore, form your character
according to his principles, and then, even though you may
be in a prison, you will find a way to serve him, and will feel
that somehow you are on the road to your success, and in
training for your sphere.
But, in the third place, we may learn that those who have
been themselves upheld in trouble, are the most efficient

72 Joseph the Prime-minister.
helpers of others when they are in trial. Young as Joseph
was, he had seen enough of sorrow to dispose him to sym
pathize with others in their affliction. And in the suggestive
question which he put to his fellow-prisoners, " Do not inter
pretations belong to God?" he not only expresses his own
faith, but in the most delicate and skilful manner indicates
to them the source whence alone true consolation comes.
His faith in God bad been grievously tried. He had been
plunged into affliction, and as the direct and immediate re
sult of his adherence to the course of purity and rectitude,
he had been cast into a prison. Yet he still held fast his
confidence in Jehovah, and it was that faith which made him
such a cheerful comforter of others. There was a great sor
row in his heart, but his firm conviction that God was order
ing his life, made him outwardly happy in spite of that; and
only on such an occasion as that of his appeal to the cup
bearer was any reference made to it by him. But the con
sciousness that it was there, opened his ear in compassion
for the reception of the story of another's woe. Yes, it is
only through suffering that we learn to sympathize, and that,
I think, is what the sacred writer specially refers to when he
says even of Christ that "he was made perfect through suf
fering." " The Lord God gave him the tongue of the learned
that he might know to speak a word in season to him that is
weary." But he gave it to him not as a ready-made endow
ment. He gave it to him through days of exhaustive manual
labor at Nazareth ; through privations as he went over Pal
estine with nowhere to lay his head ; through satanic temp
tations in the wilderness ; through the bitter ingratitude and
malicious attacks of men ; through the agony of the garden
and the ignominy of the cross — so that it could be said re
garding him, "In that he himself hath suffered being tempt
ed, or tried, he is able to succor them that are tried." And
it is with the disciples as it was with the master. The great-

The Two Prisoners. 73
est sufferers among them are those best qualified to sympa
thize. More than thirty years ago, just at the beginning of my
ministry, I was in the house of a beloved pastor, when he
was called to pass through the greatest trial that a man
can know, in the death of a truly good and noble wife. Two
mornings after, the postman brought in a sheaf of letters.
I think there were more than twenty of them, but each was
from a brother minister who had been led through the same dark
valley, and who was seeking to comfort him with the comfort
wherewith himself had been comforted of God. Only a few
evenings ago I met a Christian lady, with whom I was com
paring notes regarding the experience of the loss of little
children, and she said to me, " I never see the death of a lit
tle child announced in the newspaper but I have an impulse
to write to the parents and speak comfortably to them."
Thus we may console ourselves under our own trials with
the thought that God is endowing us thereby with the gift of
sympathy, and fitting us to become " sons of consolation" to
others in affliction. You wonder, perhaps, at the tenderness
of sympathy which some friend evinces ; you are astonished
how he should know to speak just the right things to you in
your trial, but if you were familiar with his history, you would
cease to be surprised, for he is only repeating to you what
God wrote upon his own heart in the day when he was him
self in trouble.
But that thought reminds me to add that mere suffering
will not give us the gift of consolation unless we have our
selves been sustained by Gocl through our affliction. We
can say, then, that the anchor which held us in the storm
will hold others, and that saying has more staying power in
it than if we were merely to direct the troubled one to use
an anchor which we had never proved. When you are in
the prison, therefore, remember that you are there not sim-
4

74 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ply for your own sake, to prepare you for the post that you
are yet to fill, but for the sake of others, that you may learn
to speak a word in season to those who shall be in it after
you. In the Tower of London the walls of some of its cham
bers are all written over with inscriptions made by prisoners,
and some of these are of the most touching character, such
as I doubt not gave much comfort to those who read them
just before their own execution. And so it seems to me
that in our trials God leads us through experiences which
shall enable us, by their mere rehearsal, to uphold others
when they come to be in like circumstances. The price is
costly, but the learning is precious.
- ^finally, we are reminded that those whom we benefit have
often very poor remembrance cf our kindness. Men too
often write the record of grudges in marble and of favors in
water. If one has done us an injury we do not easily for
get that, but if we have received a benefit we let the remem
brance of that slip out of our minds. Nay, such is the per
versity of human nature, that not unfrequently men return
evil for the good which has been done them. One spoke to
an English statesman of the violent enmity which another
evinced towards him. "Yes," was the reply, "and I cannot
understand it, for I never did him any kindness that I can
remember." The sarcasm was bitter, but there was enough
of truth in it to give it point ; and every one who seeks to be
a helper of others learns, sooner or later, to give over look
ing for human gratitude, and to think mainly ofthe Lord
Jesus Christ and his appreciation. If you tread upon a ten
der toe you will be sure to hear of that; but if you have been
helpful to another, if you have been the means of giving him
hope and joy and inspiration, if you have lifted him out of
the slough of despondency and sent him on his way, you may
never know anything about that until it be revealed to you
at last by the Lord. Ah ! this chief butler has had too many

The Two Prisoners. 75
like him in all ages. The return of prosperity makes men
forget the benefactors of their adversity. What then ? Why
should we whimper over that ? — the more especially as there
is one, and he the Best and Highest of all, who stands out in
striking contrast to all such as this cup-bearer represents.
Elevation has changed many a man's heart and turned many
a man's head. But "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to
day, and forever ;" the same on the throne of glory that he
was on earth eighteen hundred years ago. He will remem
ber us, and whatsoever we do for him in the service of our
fellow-men, however they may forget it, will be acknowledged
by him. He remembers us now, for he is making interces
sion for us ; and he will recognize us at the last, for " the cup
of cold water given to a disciple in the name of a disciple
shall in no wise lose its reward." What matters human in
gratitude, then, when we have divine recognition ? Endure
the prison a little longer. The chariot and the throne will
be here erelongA

VI.
ELEVATION AT LENGTH.
Gen. xii., 1-46.
FOR two full years after the restoration of the cup-bearer
to his office Joseph remained in the prison, occupying
the position to which, for his trustworthiness and integrity,
he had been raised. But although this delay was due to
the ungrateful forgetfulness of the man to whom he had
shown so much kindness, and for whose intercession with
the monarch he had so touchingly made request; and al
though that official was really blameworthy for his neglect ;
yet the overruling providence of God is clearly seen, both
in the occasion on which, and the time at which Joseph's
services were recalled to the remembrance of the butler,
and brought by him to the notice of the king. For if im
mediately after his own release, and apart from the pros
pect of Joseph's being able to render his majesty a service,
in a time of great anxiety, which no one else could perform,
the cup-bearer had reported Joseph's case to the king, it does
not seem that Pharaoh would have done more for him than
transfer him to some other department in which he would
have been still a slave, or at the most give him liberty to re
turn to Canaan, to his father's house and the persecution of
his brothers, and in either case he would have gone forth to
obscurity. As it was, however, when the door of the prison
opened for him, he went straight out to that opportunity, by
the improvement of which he rose at once to the second

Elevation at Length. 77
place in the greatest kingdom which was then upon the earth.
Thus, through the apparently long delay, he got all the soon
er to his destination in the end ; and that which seemed to
hold him back a dreary while from his promotion really ex
pedited his elevation. Now, in all this we have a lesson
which is especially valuable to you, young men. You may
be conscious that you have it in you to do great things in the
world. You also may have had your dreams of rising to
some post of honor and usefulness in the city or in the land,
and you may have the assurance that these are prophetic of
what you are yet to become. But just at present you may
be in a position in which it is impossible for you to take any
steps for your advancement. You, too, have been disap
pointed in finding that those whom you have served, and on
whose influence you had counted for the securing of some
thing nobler, have entirely forgotten you. You are longing
for an opportunity to better yourself, but there is no appar
ent outlet for you. Without being immured in a dungeon,
you are yet virtually in a prison; for you are hemmed in by
circumstances, and chained by limitations. You are as high
as you can ever reach where you are, and you cannot change
your place. What then ? Learn from Joseph here to bide
your time, or, rather, to wait God's time. Serve him a little
longer where you are, and by-and-by he will set before you
" an open door " which no man can shut, and through which
you will pass at once to the place which is emphatically and
peculiarly your own. Your strength meanwhile, therefore, is
-to sit still. Be patient until it is God's time for you to rise,
and when that comes no power will be able to hold you
down. As the Prayer-book version of the old Psalm has it,
"Tarry the Lord's leisure." Make haste slowly. Do the
duties of your present sphere. Remember that " all things
come to the feet of him who waits," provided only he works
and prays while he waits. Ambition pants for greatness;

78 Joseph the Prime-minister.
but piety sanctifies ambition, so that it is content to wait
until it can rise in God's time and by God's way.
Nor must we lose sight of the fact that by those years of
prison life, as well as by the temptation and privations by
which they were preceded, Joseph's character was steadied
into strength and ripened into maturit)', so that when his
opportunity came he used it with splendid effect. They did
for him what his forty years in Midian did for Moses, and
his eighteen months in Arabia did for Paul. They threw
him in upon himself, and back upon God. They disci
plined him into calm self-possession, because they gave him
a strong hold upon Jehovah. The forgetfulness of men led
him to rely all the more implicitly on the memory of God.
It might be a trial to him — it no doubt was at first — to see
the man whose dream he had interpreted go out at once to
its fulfilment, while he had waited many long years for the
realization of his own, and seemed as far from it as ever,
nay, farther than ever. But however much he might yield
to such feelings for a time, the sequel proves that he had
ultimately risen above them. Abraham had to wait long for
Isaac; Isaac had to wait long for the birth of his sons; Ja
cob had to spend twenty years in Padan-aram before the
coming of that Peniel night which secured him in the cove
nant inheritance. What was he better than they, that he
should have an immediate fulfilment of the promise made
to him ? So his knowledge of the experience of his ances
tors came now to his assistance, and long before Isaiah's
day he found out for himself Isaiah's principle, " He that
believeth shall not make haste." Many a man in his cir
cumstances would have become cynical and misanthropic,
saying, " To what purpose do I serve others if they so forget
my service?" but his suffering sent him to Jehovah, and in
fellowship with him he not only retained that disposition to
help others, which was so distinct a feature of his earlier

Elevation at Length. 79
days, but also acquired that calm, resolute equipoise of spirit
which he so conspicuously manifested in his later life. They
say that the palm-tree grows stronger the heavier the weight
that is put upon it; so, when a man cleaves to God, diffi
culty only disciplines him into greatness, and imprisonment
only teaches him how to make the best of his liberty.
Remark, too, that all this was the result of God's over
ruling the sinful forgetfulness of a man. Many would limit
God's providence to things which come directly from his
hand. Only the other day a sufferer, to my surprise, de
clined my offer to pray with him, because his suffering, as he
said, was the result of a human blunder, and was to be got
rid of simply by rectifying that. But here God's providence
both overruled a human sin and brought good out of it; and
the Lord is always working yet in the same way. I have
heard, too, of one reproving a servant after this fashion : " If
it were a dispensation of Providence, I could bear it; but I
can have no patience with your stupidity " — as if there had
been no providence in his having such a servant, and there
were no duty devolving on him in consequence. But all
such views are reproved by the history before us, in which
we see that in some inscrutable but real way God brings
good out of evil, and makes even the mistakes and sins of
men to work out his will in the disciplining and elevating
of his people. Ah ! it is a wonderful thing, this providence
of God, and if we only fully believed in it we should know
a little more of what Paul means when he speaks of " the
peace of God that passeth all understanding " keeping our
hearts and minds.
But now came the time for the revelation of Joseph's great
ness. Nothing unusual seemed to herald its approach, and
for all that appears to the contrary, Joseph was taken una
wares. But that only made the test of his character the more
searching, for it showed him as he really was, and he did

80 Joseph the Prime-minister.
not suffer from the manifestation. All the officials about
the household of the captain of the guard might be excited
by the hasty appearance of messengers from Pharaoh. There
might be a flutter among the prisoners, as each one thought
that the summons might be for him, and knew not whether
it might mean that he should be restored to liberty or be
put to death. But Joseph was all himself; and though " the
king's business required haste," he took time to prepare him
self by observing the proprieties which he knew to be re
quired of all who went in before the monarch. They were
little things, and it might have been supposed that in the
circumstances Pharaoh would have overlooked any breach
of etiquette concerning them ; but Joseph did not neglect
them, and by his attention to them he showed his real great
ness. For while it is the mark of a small mind to give its
entire thought to such matters, it is by no means an indi
cation of superior intelligence to ignore them altogether;
and few incidents in this entire history give us such a clear
insight into the wisdom and self-possession, or what we may
call presence of mind of Joseph, as the little thing here re
corded regarding him — that "he shaved himself and changed
his raiment" before he went into the presence ofthe king.
In regard to this matter of the toilet, the better classes of
Egyptians were exceedingly punctilious. I quote the follow
ing sentences from Wilkinson* in illustration. " ' The Egyp
tians,' says Herodotus, 'only let the hair of their head and
beard grow in mourning, being at all other times shaved ;'
which agrees perfectly with the authority of the Bible, and
of the sculptures. So particular, indeed, were they on this
point, that to have neglected it was a subject of reproach and
ridicule ; and whenever they intended to convey the idea of
a man of low condition, or a slovenly person, the artists rep-
* "Ancient Egyptians," vol. ii., pp. 330, 331.

Elevation at Length. 8i
resented him with a beard. It is amusing to find that their
love of caricature was not confined to the lower orders, but
extended even to the king; and the negligent habits of Ra
meses VII. are indicated on his tomb at Thebes by the ap
pearance of his chin, blackened by an unshorn beard of two
or three days' growth. The same habits of cleanliness are
also indicated by the changes of raiment given by Joseph to
his brethren when they set out to bring their father to Egypt."
By his attention to these matters, therefore, Joseph proved
himself to be, in the true sense ofthe word, a "gentleman,"
who was willing in all minor things to conform to the usages
of the society into which he was about to enter.
But while he is thus preparing himself for standing before
Pharaoh, we may take the opportunity of explaining why he
came to be sent for in such haste. The case was this : The
king in the same night had dreamed two dreams of such a
peculiar sort that they filled his mind with anxiety as to the
prosperity of the land over which he was the ruler. And
any one in the least degree acquainted with the symbolism
and sentiments of the ancient Egyptians will understand at
once how he came to be so much excited by his visions. In
the first he saw seven kine coming up out of the Nile in
splendid condition, and feeding on the soft, succulent grass
which grew in abundance on the margin of the river ; but
after them came up other seven lean and ill-favored kine,
which actually ate up the others. In the second he saw sev
en ears of corn, large and good, which again were devoured
by seven thin and blasted ears. Now here was the river
which was recognized by them all as the great source of the
fertility of the country ; here were cows which, in the mythol
ogy of the people, were the symbols of the productive power
of the earth ; here also were ears of corn, themselves the
fruits of that productive power ; evidently, therefore, the
dreams were such as not only concerned the welfare of the
4*

82 Joseph the Prime-minister.
country, but were also intimately related to each other; while
the similar feature in each of them, that the one of the two
groups of animals and ears was devoured by the other, might
not obscurely indicate that they both referred to one and the
same thing. Indeed, as with Joseph's interpretation of them
before us we now read the account of these visions, we rather
wonder that the magicians and the wise men should have
been baffled by what seems to us so plain. But it is only
another illustration of the truth so humorously enforced in
the well-known story of Columbus and the egg. It is easy
to open a lock when you have found the key, but to find the
key, or to make it, is the difficulty ; and by that difficulty, in
this case, the learned men of the court were overcome.
They could not tell the king the meaning of his visions.
Naturally, that would only make his anxiety the greater;
and every one who came into personal contact with him
would be as troubled as he was himself. So the chief butler
came to know of his perplexity, and immediately the similar
ity of the case to that of the chief baker and himself in the
prison, recalled Joseph to his thoughts, so that he was moved
to tell the king of his experience. The manner in which that
was done by him is exceedingly adroit. He treads very
lightly over the fact of his having been in prison at all, and
he finishes his story without making any suggestion, leaving
Pharaoh to draw his own inference and come to his own de
termination. But the effect was precisely that which he had
anticipated, for the king sent at once for Joseph ; and the
haste with which his servants acted on his commission is
but an incidental corroboration ofthe fact that he was eager
ly impatient for the appearance of the man of whom he had
just heard such a wonderful story.
Behold, then, Joseph before the king ! He has just touched
his thirtieth year, and the alertness of youth is still in his
eyes and in his frame, but over his face there is " the pale

Elevation at Length. 83
cast of thought," and on his brow the development of a ma
turity beyond his age. Thirteen years have gone since that
day when, in his gay apparel, he left his father's tent at He
bron, little more than a boy; but each of these cycles has
left its own deposit of experience on his character, and given
him a better knowledge at once of his God and of himself,
so that he stands now unabashed before the majesty of
Egypt. Pharaoh states the case to him, and says, " I have
heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to in
terpret it," and he at once replied, "It is not in me; God
shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." He would have
no honor that did not belong to him, and he has one mes
sage both to the servants and the master. To them he had
said — and that part of the conversation the chief butler had
forgotten to report — " Do not interpretations belong to God ?"
and to him he answers, " It is not in me ; God shall give
Pharaoh an answer of peace." On the one hand humility, -
on the other faith. These two should always go together,
and the union ofthe two secures the co-operation of Jehovah.
After hearing the dreams, Joseph read at once the meaning
ofthe symbols, and declared that the country was about to
enjoy seven good years, during which the land would yield
unusually abundant crops, but that they would be. followed
by seven consecutive years of exceptional scarcity, amount
ing even, as they advanced, to actual famine, during which
the superabundance of the preceding time of plenty would
be entirely consumed. He added that the doubling of the
dream was "because the thing was established by God, and
God would shortly bring it to pass."* Then showing how
thoroughly he believed in the truth of his own interpretation
— which, indeed, must have at once commended itself to the
acceptance of all who heard it — he went on to advise that
* Verse 32.

84 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Pharaoh should immediately take measures to provide against
the danger of which he had been thus supernaturally warned.
He suggested that the land should be divided into districts,
and that over each of these a trusty officer should be placed,
who should receive the fifth part of each year's produce,
which was the government's portion, and should store that
up in granaries in the cities against the coming time of fam
ine. There was so much practical wisdom evinced in the
suggestion, and so much executive ability manifested in the
manner in which it was proposed to carry it out, that Pha
raoh came to the conclusion that no time was fitter for ac
tion than the present, and no man better qualified to super
intend the whole business than Joseph himself. There and
then, therefore, he raised Joseph lo the second place in the
kingdom, invested him with insignia appropriate to the office
to which he had appointed him, made him ride in the, sec
ond chariot which he had, sent him to make a formal tour
of inspection over all the land, and caused everywhere a
proclamation to be made before him to the effect that he
should "rejoice greatly," or that he was a "pure prince :" for
there is some difference of opinion as to the meaning ofthe
Egyptian word here wrongly translated, " Bow the knee ;" and
while some would make it signify " rejoice thou," others
would interpret it as " pure prince." To complete his exal
tation, he was entered into the caste of the priests, and re
ceived in marriage Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, the
priest of the great Temple of the Sun at On in Heliopolis, a
city which stood on the eastern bank ofthe Nile, a few miles
from Memphis, where there still exists an obelisk of red
granite, with a dedication sculptured by a monarch belong
ing to the twelfth dynasty, which must, therefore, have been
seen by Joseph on the occasion of his marriage, and by
Moses when, as a student at the great seminary there, he
was educated in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians.

Elevation at Length. ' 85
Besides these marks of honor, Joseph received a new name
from the king — analogous to those which Daniel and his
friends received, in a later age, from Nebuchadnezzar, and
having some special appropriateness to the work which he
was to perform. Different explanations have been given of
its meaning. Some, like those who drew up the marginal
readings of our Bible, understand by it " a revealer of secrets,"
but others, viewing the term as really an Egyptian word in
Hebrew letters, have put it back again into its Egyptian form,
getting, according to Brugsch, the meaning, " the governor of
the abode of him who lives ;" or, according to Canon Cooke,
whose dissertation in the " Speaker's Commentary " on the
Egyptian words in the Pentateuch is of very great value,
"the food of life," or "the food of the living." I am, of
course, incompetent to judge between these scholars, but I
wish you to note, as a mark of the age of this history, that
we have here embedded in the Hebrew text Egyptian words
in Hebrew letters, to which, in this late day, our Egyptolo
gists, who have learned the language from the inscriptions
on the monuments, are able to give very definite and intelli
gible translations — a fact which scarcely comports with the
notion now so popular with some, that this book is only a
production of a very late date, composed, perhaps, eight hun
dred years after the events. But similar conformation ofthe
age of this record may be found in the description of Jo
seph's investiture with office as compared with the represent
ation of such ceremonies found upon the monuments. The
history before us says, "And Pharaoh took off his ring from
his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in
vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck."
Now hear what Wilkinson tells us ofthe testimony of the
monuments: "The investiture of a chief was a ceremony of
considerable importance, when the post conferred was con
nected with any high dignity about the person of the mon-

86 Joseph the Prime-minister.
arch, in the army or the priesthood. It took place in the
presence of the sovereign seated on his throne; and two
priests having arrayed the candidate in a long, loose vest
ure, placed necklaces around the neck of the person thus
honored by the royal favor. One of these ceremonies fre
quently occurs in the monuments, which was sometimes
performed immediately after a victory ; in which case we
may conclude that the honor was granted in return for dis
tinguished services in the field ; and as the individual on
all occasions holds the flabella, crook, and other insignia
of the office of fan-bearer, it appears to have been either the
appointment to that post, or to some high command in the
army. On receiving this honorable distinction he held forth
his hands in token of respect, and raising the emblems of
his newly acquired office above his head, he expressed his
fidelity to his king, and his desire to prove himself worthy
of the favor he had received. A similar mode of investiture
appears to have been adopted in all appointments to the
high offices of state, both of a civil and military kind. In
this, as in many customs detailed in the sculptures, we find
an interesting illustration of a ceremony mentioned in the
Bible which describes Pharaoh taking a ring from his hand
and putting it on Joseph's hand, arraying him in vestures of
fine linen, and putting a gold chain about his neck."* And
in another placet he says, "The immense difference of rank
between the king and the highest nobles of the land is shown
by their all walking on foot in attendance on the chariot of
the king. And part of the great honor conferred on Joseph
was his being placed in the second chariot that the king
had; giving him, in fact, the attendance of a king, as no
one had a chariot or car while attending on a kins;."

* Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii., pp. 370, 371.
t Ibid., vol. i., p.- 160.

Elevation at Length. 87
Two difficulties are apt to strike the common reader. He
is prone to consider it either unnatural or improbable that
Joseph should be thus suddenly elevated, and that he should
consent in this matter-of-course way to marry a wife who
had been selected for him by the monarch. But as to the
first of these, it may be said that cases of unexpected eleva
tion are by no means uncommon in the East. We have
other Scriptural illustrations of the same thing in the biogra
phies of Daniel and Mordecai; and even recent history is
not without what may almost be called romantic instances
of a similar sort. Thus Jamieson tells us* that in 1852 the
Prime-minister of Persia "was the son of a donkey driver,
who rose, by the strength and energy of his character, to be
the second man in rank, but really the first in power." Then,
as to the marriage, Bishop Browne is right when he sayst
that " neither the Egyptians nor the Hebrews were at this
time as exclusive as they became afterwards;" and we may
add that we must not judge the conduct of Joseph in a case
like this by the principles of the New Testament as now
understood; though, putting even the lowest construction on
Joseph's conduct in the matter, it would not be difficult to
find many parallels to it in this age of boasted enlighten
ment, and this land of Bibles and churches.
But now, leaving mere exposition, let us turn to matters
of personal concernment. Contrary to my usual custom, I
have to-night begun my discourse with the practical, but I
have left one subject comparatively untouched, and that is
the secret of Joseph's elevation. To that, therefore, let me
turn your thoughts for a few moments now. Let me say,
then, that the way of preferment is never permanently closed
against any man. If one does not — as the phrase is — get
* " Critical and Experimental Commentary," vol. i., p. 244.
t " Speaker's Commentary," in loco.

88 Joseph the Prime-minister.
on in life, it is not his circumstances but himself that is to
blame. Occasionally, indeed, there may come reverses of
fortune for which he cannot be held responsible, but the
man who is always out at elbows and unfortunate must have
something amiss in himself. Either he has not fitted him
self to take advantage of his opportunities, or there is a leak
somewhere in his character, through which his energies and
abilities are drained off into useless or expensive directions.
In the England of to-day, and especially in these United
States, no man needs be forever a hewer of wood or a
drawer of water ; and though sudden elevations like this of
Joseph are not common in these days, yet there are men
continually appearing among us who have come up from an
obscurity as great as Joseph's to a position just as exalted
as that which he ultimately reached. Both of our martyr-
Presidents may be referred to as cases in point. Let young
men, therefore, be encouraged. Do not sink into despair;
do not imagine that the world is in league against you;
but "learn to labor and to wait." Two things especially
you ought to bear in mind : first, that the true way to rise to
a higher position is to fill well the lower which you already
occupy. To borrow here from Thomas Binney, "Remem
ber that to do as well as ever you can what happens to be
the only thing within your power to do, is the best and surest
preparation for higher service. Should things go against
you, never give way to debilitating depression, but be hope
ful, brave, courageous, careful not to waste in vain and un
availing regret the power you will need for endurance and
endeavor. Learn well your business, whatever it be; make
the best of every opportunity for acquiring any sort of
knowledge that may enlarge your acquaintance with the
business in general, and enable you to take advantage of
any offer or opening that may come."* Then, again, take
* " From Seventeen to Thirty," p. 86.

Elevation at Length. 89
note that piety is no hinderance to the right sort of success.
Joseph did not hide his allegiance to God or his faith in
God, and these even commended him to Pharaoh. So there
are many heads of great establishments or corporations in
the world who, though they care nothing for religion them
selves, would prefer that their trusted servants should be
godly men. Sometimes, no doubt, inflexible adherence to
the right and the true may cost a man his place, even as
here resistance to temptation sent Joseph for a while to
prison; but in the end I do not think that any man ever lost
by his religion, provided his religion was the real thing, and
not a make-believe. It may lengthen the road a little; it
may add to the difficulties of the journey; it may take him
through some very dark passages, but it will lead him gen
erally at last to honor and influence; for "godliness is prof
itable unto all things, having the promise of the life that
now is and of that which is to come."
But there is a success higher and better than that of out
ward position and wealth, and even when riches are not
gained that is always attainable. You cannot all become
millionaires, or merchant princes, or political leaders, or gov
ernors of States, or presidents of the Republic — that is an
impossibility ; but you can all be good and noble men, if
you will. As I have often said, good character is the true
success of life, and " that character is the best which is real
and thorough — true and genuine to the core — which has
nothing underlying it of the consciousness of secret sin,
which is as pure and unspotted as it is thought to be, and
the moral and manly virtues of which are based upon, and
inspired by, religious faith, by that love and fear of God
which at once preserve from 'great transgressions' and
prompt to the cultivation of every personal and social vir
tue."* Get a character like that. To that end begin by

* Binney's " From Seventeen to Thirty," p. 87.

90 Joseph the Prime-minister.
laying as its foundation-stone faith in Jesus Christ; then go
on, according to Peter's plan, by adding "to your faith cour
age, and to courage knowledge, and to knowledge temper
ance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness,
and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kind
ness love; for if ye do these things ye shall never fall, for so
an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into
the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ." Such an entrance is life's true success, and that is
attainable by every one of you if you choose to work for it
in the way that the Apostle prescribes.

VII.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.
Gen. xii., 47-52 ; xlvii., 13-26.
DURING the seven years of plenty, which began with
the elevation of Joseph to the second position in the
Land of Egypt, there were born to him two sons, to whom
he gave Hebrew names, from the significance of which we
may learn something of the deepest feelings of his heart.
He called the eldest Manasseh, which means "forgetting;"
"for," said he, "God hath made me forget all my toil, and
all my father's house." Not that he had ceased, or that he
ever could cease, to look back with delight on the home at
Hebron, where he had enjoyed so much of his father's af
fection, and had received those principles of religion and
morality which he had so firmly held and so faithfully fol
lowed all through his life. Only the most slavish literalism,
which loses sight of the real sentiment in its microscopic
analysis of the words in which it is expressed, could bring
any such meaning out of his language. It partakes of the
hyperbolical character of the saying of our Lord, "If any
man come to me, and hate not his father and mother ... he
cannot be my disciple;"* and it has its exact parallel in
the words of the Psalm, which represents the suitor as say
ing to her whom he desires to make his spouse, "Hearken,
O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also
thine own people, and thy father's house." t Joseph was
* Luke xiv., 26. t Ps. xiv., 10.

92 Joseph the Prime-minister.
very far indeed from having lost his interest in Jacob, or
from seeking to cut himself off from the blessings of the cov
enant to whose birthright he had succeeded. That is made
very clear in the subsequent history, not only by his inqui
ries after his father when his brothers came to buy food, and
by his reception ofthe old patriarch himself when he came to
Egypt, but also by his dying request that when his descend
ants should leave that land on their return to Canaan they
should carry thither with them his remains. What his words
here imply, therefore, is that now, for the first time since he
was sold to the Arabian traders, he had a home of his own,
which was the earthly centre of his heart, and which ever at
tracted him back to its happiness from all his journeyings
hither and thither in his official capacity. He was no more
a mere unit in the vast population of a foreign land, but he
had become the head of a household which gathered into it
the holiest joys of his life, and the father of a son on whom
he might lavish affection of a sort which his heart had not
known in all his Egyptian experiences. Now, for the first
time, he had found a home, and by that he was reconciled to
his absence from his kindred.
To his second son he gave the name Ephraim, which sig
nifies "fruitful;" for he said, "God hath caused me to be
fruitful in the land of my affliction." If anything were need
ed to prove the correctness of the explanation which I have
just offered of the meaning of Manasseh, it is the fact that
here Joseph speaks of Egypt as " the land of his affliction,"
betokening that, with all its compensations, which went so
far to reconcile him to his lot in it, that country was still to
him a land of affliction ; and that, like the patriarchs in Ca
naan, he was still looking for " a better country, that is, the
heavenly." But most interesting of all it is to mark how he
steadily recognizes the hand of God in all the circumstances
of his life. " God hath made me to forget my toil." " God

Public Administration. 93
hath made me fruitful." This was the faith that kept him
from despair when he was in the pit and in the dungeon,
and now it preserves him from pride when, as the second
ruler in the kingdom, he is rejoicing over the little ones in
his home. It sanctified to him his prosperity as well as his
adversity, and allowed neither of them to hurt him. The
triumph of the horologist is seen in the construction of that
compensation balance which gives an equable movement to
the chronometer, undisturbed either by the cold ofthe arc
tic regions or the heat of the torrid zone ; and the power of
faith in God is manifested by the evenliness of disposition
which it enables the believer to maintain alike in trouble and
in joy. Nothing so strikes us in the character of Joseph all
through his history as what I may call the "stable equilib
rium " which he invariably preserved ; and here we see the
foundation on which it rested — in his faith in Gocl.
But while he is to be highly commended in that particular,
it must, I think, be confessed that in his neglect to commu
nicate with his father, especially after his elevation to his
dignity, we have what appears to be a serious fault in his
conduct. For at least twenty-one years he allowed Jacob to
remain in utter ignorance of his existence. Perhaps some
excuse might be given for him while he was a slave in the
house of Potiphar, and it was clearly impossible for him
to convey any message to Canaan when he was a prisoner.
But after his exaltation one would have expected that he
would have attempted in some way to open up communica
tion with his father. It may be said, indeed, that in those
days there were no such means of intercourse between dis
tant places as we now so fully enjoy ; but still, for one in
Joseph's high position, we may be sure that if the will had
been very strong, the way would very easily have been found.
Others may suggest that the knowledge of all that had been
done to him might only have made matters worse between

94 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Jacob and his sons, and might have turned the brothers in
exasperation against Benjamin ; and that because ofthe fear
of these consequences, Joseph chose rather to keep silent and
wait until God in his own way should bring about the fulfil
ment of the dream which promised that the father and the
brothers together should do homage at his feet. And if any
choose to rest in these explanations they may do so, but for
my own part I cannot acquit Joseph here of unfilial conduct.
To me it seems that so soon as he was a free man, and had
the means at his disposal, he ought to have sent a messenger
to tell his father that he was alive and well, and that Gocl
had raised him to an exalted position in the land of Egypt,
And I cannot help pausing here for a moment to enforce
upon young men residing in the great city and away from
home, the duty of maintaining a regular correspondence with
their parents. Is it not too true that there are many who
let long intervals elapse without writing home, and whose
letters, when they do write, are of the most unsatisfactory
sort, containing little or nothing but excuses for not having
written sooner, and apologies for having so little to say.
But, as Mr. Binney says, "the value of a letter from a young
man in the city to the far-off town or village home consists
in its little details — its affectionate gossip, its account of any
circumstance or incident that may have promise in it of ad
vantage, its story of hopeful struggle, of dawning success, or
its references to new -formed friendships; to books read,
churches attended, lectures listened to, with a thousand things
besides, which may be small in themselves, but which show
an interest in the home circle, and manifest the beating of
'the child's heart within the man's.'"* You are perhaps
so occupied day after day and week after week that you may
have little leisure to think of those in the old homestead. In
* " From Seventeen lo Thirty," p. 89.

Public Administration. 95
the bustle ofthe workshop, or the store, or the counting-room,
many things force themselves upon your attention, and you
do not miss your relations. But your parents, having no
such multiplicity of things to divert their minds, are continu
ally thinking about you ; and as, morning after morning, no
letter comes from you, the effect is disappointing and depress
ing. They are apt to think that you have forgotten them,
and the neglect chills their hearts. Do not, I beseech you,
let this occur with you ; and if you have been guilty of such
thoughtlessness in the past, take the earliest opportunity of
repairing the evil ; yea, before you sleep to-night, sit down
and write a hearty, cheery letter to them, and tell them, if
you like, how you came to think of doing so ; thereby you
will warm their spirits by the assurance of your continued
love, and benefit your own souls by the doing of a filial deed;
for thus it is written in the royal law, " Honor thy father
and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee." And should there be
t— who knoweth? I have had stranger coincidences many
times in the course of my ministry — should there be here
this evening some youth who has run away from home, and
left his parents in cruel ignorance as to whether he is alive
or dead, or, if alive, what his condition may be, let me take
this opportunity to urge such an one, whatever the conse
quence may be, to send at once and let the sad ones know
where he is, and how it is with him. Think of it ! Since
you left, every night on which the wind has howled loud, or
the rain has brattled noisily on the window-panes, or the snow
has fallen thick and blinding through the darkness, these old
people have said one to another, " Where can that poor boy
be in such a storm ? God help him !" And you, in thought
less indifference, are. leaving them in that dark suspense
which is always worse than the most terrible of certainties.
Shame on you for your selfish and inconsiderate harshness

96 Joseph the Prime-minister.
to those whom you ought to love best in all the world ! Go
at once and telegraph to them that you are here, that they
may with gladdened hearts be brought to say, " This our son
was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."
But now, leaving Joseph's domestic history, let us examine
his public administration. In order to get a complete view
of that, it will be necessary to take into consideration certain
particulars which are detailed* in a later section ofthe nar
rative, but it will be convenient to group them together here,
and so to dispose ofthe matter once for all. As soon as he
was appointed to his office, Joseph made a tour throughout
the land, and had storehouses erected in all the cities. Dur
ing the seven years of plenty, which came according to his
prediction, the crops were exceedingly abundant; and of
these he either took or bought for the king a fifth part, which
he stored in the granaries — " the food of the field, which was
round about every city, laid he up in the same." For a time
a strict account was kept of all that was stored in each build
ing, according to a fashion found illustrated quite frequently
on the monuments ; but at length the quantity became so
great that they gave up trying to keep a formal register.
This went on through the years of plenty. But when those
of scarcity began, the face of things was changed ; for the
people, though apparently warned of what was coming, had
not followed Joseph's example, and had made, of themselves,
no preparation to meet the evil. The consequence was that
they speedily exhausted all their available resources, and
came to him for food. Here it is well to note that in the
records of Egypt there is mention made of at least one
other period of famine which lasted for seven years, and
from the account of the sufferings which the people then en
dured, we may have some little idea ofthe terrible privations
* Chap, xlvii., 13-26.

Public Administration. 97
from which Joseph's contemporaries were saved through his
instrumentality. It occurred in the years a.d. 1064-107 r,
and I take the following account of it from an article in
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible." " Vehement drought and
pestilence continued for seven consecutive years, so that the
people ate corpses, and animals that died of themselves;
the cattle perished ; a dog was sold for five deenars, and a
cat for three deenars ; and an ardebb (about five bushels) of
wheat for one hundred deenars, and then it failed altogether."
The author from whom these details are taken (Es-Suyootee,
in his Hosn el Mohadarah MS.) adds that " all the horses of
the Khaleefeh save three perished, and gives numerous in
stances of the straits to which the wretched inhabitants were
driven, and of. the organized bands of kidnappers who in
fested Cairo, and caught passengers in the streets by ropes
furnished with hooks and let down from the houses. This
account is confirmed by El-Makreezee (in his Khitat), from
which we further learn that the family and even the women
of the Khaleefeh fled, by the way of Syria, on foot, to escape
the peril that threatened all ranks ofthe population."* So
again, Hengstenberg, quoting from Abdollatiph, has the fol
lowing concerning another Egyptian famine: "In the year
1 199 the height of the flood was small, almost without ex
ample. The consequence was a terrible famine, accompanied
by indescribable enormities. Parents consumed their chil
dren ; human flesh was, in fact, a very common article of
food ; they contrived various ways of preparing it. They
spoke of it, and heard it spoken of, as an indifferent affair.
Man-eating became a regular business. The greater part of
the population was swept away by death. In the following
year, also, the inundation did not reach the proper height,
and only the low lands were overflowed. Also, much of that
* Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," art. Famine.
5

98 Joseph the Prime-minister.
which was inundated could not be sown for want of laborers
and seed-corn ; also of the seed which escaped this destruc
tion, a great part produced only meagre shoots, which per
ished."* These things might have been suffered in the case
before us even to a more frightful extent, but for the policy
that Joseph inaugurated and carried through ; and in judg
ing that policy, that fact ought to be taken into account. It
is interesting also to know that the good work which he per
formed receives illustration, and perhaps corroboration, from
the monuments and inscriptions. Thus, in the tombs of Beni
Hassan, Ameni, a high officer of King Osirtasin I. of the
twelfth dynasty, supposed to have been contemporary with
Abraham, records this of himself: "For years I exercised
my power as governor in the name of Mali. The hungry
did not exist in my time even when there were years of fam
ine." And Brugsch tells us that on the tomb of Baba the
following words are found : " I collected the harvest, a friend
of the harvest god. I was watchful at the time of saving ;
and now, when a famine arose, lasting many years, I issued
out corn to the city at each famine." Nay, more, after hav
ing given some good arguments in support of his opinion,
that eminent Egyptologist affirms that "the only just conclu
sion is that the many years of famine in the time of Baba
must precisely correspond with the seven years of famine
under Joseph's Pharaoh, one ofthe Shepherd kings." t
But Joseph did not give the grain to the people for noth
ing. Such a practice carried on for seven years would only
have demoralized them. So he sold it to them first for their
money; then, when that was exhausted, for their cattle ; then,
when their cattle had been all transferred into the royal
hands, he, at their own suggestion, and in accordance with
their own urgent request, bought their lands. Thus, from
• Quoted in "Joseph and his Times," by Thornley Smith, pp. 106, 107.
t Brugsch's "True Story ofthe Exodus of Israel, etc.," pp. 131, 132.

Public Administration. go
being peasant proprietors ofthe soil they became tenants in
fee to the government, and bound themselves to pay as a
rental the fifth part of the increase of their fields year by
year continually. It is even said that he bought the people
as well as their lands ; but that does not mean that they be
came slaves, for there is not a word concerning enforced
labor, and the sole change was that the government became
the owner of the soil, and the people the tenants, with this
exception, that in the case of the priests, for whom a royal
provision had been already made, there was no interference
with their lands, and no exaction required from them. At
the same time that this alteration was made in the tenure
of the land, the people, perhaps at first for reasons of simple
convenience, that they might be the more easily supplied
from the granaries, were brought into the cities, but after
wards, probably from motives of state policy, and with a view
to the securing of greater centralization, they were kept in
their city homes, and that, so far as appears, was the sole per
manent interference with their personal liberty. Now, here
again it is remarkable that the statements of the sacred nar
rative are confirmed by those of secular historians. Thus
Herodotus says that Sesostris divided the soil among the
inhabitants, assigning square plots of land of equal size to
all, and obtained his revenue from a rent paid annually by
the holders. Strabo affirms that the occupiers of land held
it subject to a rent; and Diodorus represents the land as
possessed only by the priests, the king, and the warriors.
There is in Genesis no mention ofthe army, the arrange
ment for them having been probably entered into at a date
subsequent to the time of Joseph, but in regard to the other
points there is entire harmony between the sacred and secu
lar historians.* As to the state of things existing until very
* See " Speaker's Commentary," in loco.

ioo Joseph the Prime-minister.
recent times in Egypt, the late Dr. Edward Robinson, of this
c'ty> gives the result of his observation in the early part of
1838, in a passage from which I quote the following sen
tences, that I may point the contrast between the policy of
Joseph and that of Mohammed Ali. He says, " By a single
decree the pasha declared himself to be the sole owner of
all the lands in Egypt, and the people of course became his
tenants-at-will, or rather his slaves. It is interesting to com
pare this proceeding with a similar event in the ancient his
tory of Egypt under the Pharaohs. At the entreaty of the
people themselves, Joseph bought them and their land for
Pharaoh, so that 'the land became Pharaoh's;' but he gave
them bread in return to sustain them and their families in
time of famine. ' Only the land of the priests bought he
not;' but the modern Pharaoh made no exception, and
stripped the mosques and other religious and charitable in
stitutions of their landed endowments as mercilessly as the
rest. Joseph also gave the people seed to sow, and re
quired for. the king only a fifth ofthe produce, leaving four-
fifths to them as their own property; but now, though seed
is in like manner given out, yet every village is compelled to
cultivate two-thirds of its lands with cotton and other arti
cles solely for the pasha, and also to render back to him, in
the form of taxes and exactions in kind, a large proportion
of the produce of the remaining third." * The end of such
a state of matters could only be a collapse like that which
this generation has seen, and what may be the outcome of
the present anomalous strife we may not foretell. This only
we can say, things may be better, but they could hardly be
worse. The result, then, of Joseph's prudence was, that the
people were saved from such terrible decimation as would
inevitably have been caused by famine, but that their lands
* " Biblical Researches," vol. i., p. 29.

Public Administration. ioi
were transferred to the ownership of the government, and
held by them as tenants subject to an annual rental of one-
fifth part of the increase.
But now the inquiry suggests itself whether such a policy
was not oppressive and injurious, and on both sides of that
question much has been written, with great ability, by differ
ent authors. In such a discussion, however, certain very im
portant things have to be borne in mind. In the first place,
the believer in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is not
bound to vindicate the policy of Joseph in every particular.
The fact that a thing is recorded in the Bible does not com
mit the author of the Scriptures to its approval. Many things
are narrated, even regarding the servants of God, that are
not endorsed. We need not specify examples, for they are
so numerous that pertinent illustrations will readily suggest
themselves to your remembrance ; but the existence of such
cases elsewhere relieves us from all anxiety as to the conclu
sion which may be arrived at regarding Joseph's administra
tion here. It may be a matter of curious history, but even
if it were proved to be unjust no good argument could be
drawn against the Bible because of that.
In the second place, it would be manifestly unfair to judge
Joseph's policy by the principles of modern political econo
my or by those of New Testament enforcement and obliga
tion. We must put him in the environment of his age, and
we have no right to expect from him conformity to a stan
dard which was not at that time in existence.
In the third place, the policy itself was approved by those
who had the best means of judging of its character, and who,
as being directly and immediately concerned, would have felt
its hardships, if there had been any in the case. But, so far
from regarding him as an oppressor, the people hailed him as
a benefactor, and said to him, "Thou hast saved our lives."
In the fourth place, it must not be forgotten that Egypt is

102 Joseph the Prime-minister.
an exceptional country, and that, from the constant depend
ence of the people on the irrigation of their fields, and the
continual changes made in the surface of the country by the
annual inundation of the river, in the way of obliterating
landmarks, and removing part of the soil from the one side
of the Nile to the other, the holding of all the lands by the
crown would have special public advantages which could
not well be either enjoyed or appreciated by the inhabitants
of other territories. In conversation upon this subject the
other day with the venerable author of " The Land and the
Book," I discovered that he was inclined to find the expla
nation of Joseph's settlement with the people for their lands
in the unusual character ofthe country itself; and from what
he then said I gathered that he would fully agree with Bishop
Browne, when, in the " Speaker's Commentary " he alleges,
" The peculiar nature of the land, its dependence on the
overflow of the Nile, and the unthrifty habits of the cultiva
tors, made it desirable to establish a system of centralization,
perhaps to introduce some general principle of irrigation, in
modern phraseology, to promote the prosperity of the coun
try by great government works, in preference to leaving all
to the uncertainty of individual enterprise. If this were so,
then the saying ' Thou hast saved our lives' was no language
of Eastern adulation, but the verdict of a grateful people."
For the rest, this policy of Joseph's did not create a
scarcity for the advantage either of himself or of the mon
arch, but it provided the means of meeting a scarcity; it
did not withhold corn, and so earn the curse of the people,
but it frankly brought it out as it was required, and sold it
at a price that was mutually agreed upon ; it did not insist on
everything in the bond, no matter what hardship might be
thereby occasioned, for, so far as appears, Joseph not only
gave the people seed for their fields, but also gave them back
their cattle, which he had meanwhile preserved to them ;

Public Administration. 103
above all, it neither bought what was not in existence, nor
sold what was not in actual possession, and so it had in it
nothing which makes it in any respect a parallel case to those
speculative combinations among ourselves with which some
have sought to classify it. True, it left the government own
ers of the land, but, as we have seen, that was the most con
venient settlement both for the carrying out of systematic
works for the prevention of similar national calamities in the
future, and for the stoppage of all litigation over matters of
boundary ; and one-fifth part of the produce, considering the
fertility of the soil, was not an exorbitant rental, especially
if it included all government imposts of every sort. Indeed,
that was the proportion required of the Israelites by law at
a later date in Canaan, for they had to give one tithe to the
Levites, and another to the sacrificial feasts, and when they
were foolish enough to set up a king, they had to give still a
third tithe to him, but they never until after Solomon's day
complained of hardship on that score ; therefore, all things
considered, the arrangement made by Joseph with the Egyp
tians cannot be called either unjust, oppressive, or in any
way unstatesmanlike ; and in the Old World I have known
many farmers who would have desired nothing better than a
long lease on such terms as he granted the land to the peo
ple with whom he had to do.
I have left myself but little time for any practical applica
tion of the principles illustrated in this interesting history.
But I must linger long enough to make at least two remarks.
Let us see, in the first place, how much we have to be thank
ful for, in that for so many years we have enjoyed the bless
ing of seed-time and harvest, and have been preserved from
perils whether by fire or flood. These things are in the
providence of God. Some will tell us, indeed, that it is all
a matter of law, and that, if we will only conform to the re
quirements or conditions in each case, we shall always have

104 Joseph the Prime-minister.
similar protection from the ravages of famine or of flood ;
but they who reason in that way fail to take note of the fact
that there is always a region of uncertainty beyond the range
of human foresight, which God keeps entirely in his own
hand, and out of which there may come at any moment some
agency that may upset all our calculations, and derange all
our plans ; and that, after all, because of that, God is still
supreme. Nay, more, as we saw in a former discourse, the
providence of God is over human actions as well as over
physical laws ; and so, look at it in any way we may, we
must still come to the conclusion that Jehovah has been the
author of our blessings. How important a good harvest over
all our country is to every branch of trade and commerce in
the land ! and yet how seldom we, especially we in the cities,
think of recognizing God's hand in it! To be sure we have
our annual Thanksgiving-day, but that is rapidly losing its
religious significance and becoming a mere day of pleasure
among us ; and it is only when some plague of grasshoppers
or some long-continued drought is over some large section
of the West, that we have the matter forced upon our atten
tion. But have you thought of this, that it was a series of
good harvests that brought up our paper money to par value
with gold ? and if we were to have a succession of bad ones,
which may God prevent, who knows to what straits we might
be again reduced ; and what confusion might be caused in
our financial system — if system that can be called which goes
on blindly in a course that must end in catastrophe — if some
new Joseph among our statesmen does not arise to prevent
it? Then as to local matters in the city; if we exclude our
municipal government, which is about as bad as it is possible
to conceive a government to be, how much we have in other
respects to be thankful for ? During the last twelve or thir
teen years* we have seen other cities desolated by fire ; and
* This was written in March, 1884.

Public Administration. 105
now for two consecutive years we have had to read sad ac
counts of the cities in the valley of the Ohio which have
been visited with fearful inundation. But we here have
been spared from all such things ; we ought, therefore, to
thank God for our preservation, and our thanksgiving ought
to take the form of a thank-offering for the relief of those
who are overwhelmed by the calamity which I have men
tioned last. When one member of the body suffers, all the
others suffer with it, and our sympathy should take the prac
tical form of rendering all needed assistance. Glad am I to
know that this has been so largely the case, and that such
prompt responses were sent from our exchanges to the cries
for help. "With such sacrifices Gocl is well pleased;" and
at this particular time it is well to remember that the fast
which God has chosen "is to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free ;
to break every yoke, to deal bread to the hungry, to bring
the poor that are cast out to thy house, and to cover the
naked." That is practical gratitude to God shown by kind
ness to our fellow - men, and that is the sort of Lent and
Thanksgiving we should keep all the round year, for the
goodness of God in preserving us here from fire and flood
and famine.
But, finally, we see how important it is to husband our re
sources in prosperity against the time of adversity. Joseph
kept the surplus of the years of plenty and made it useful
both to Pharaoh and his people in the years of famine ; and
if the Egyptians generally had believed his warning and fol
lowed his example, they might not, indeed we may say with
all confidence they would not, have been reduced to such
straits as they were before the famine ended. Now we ought
to learn for ourselves to lay up in store against the time to
come. I know that the Saviour says we are to " take no
thought for the morrow," but he means that we should not
5*

106 Joseph the Prime-minister.
worry about to-morrow. He never designed to rebuke pru
dence ; and, indeed, if there were more true prudence about
the future with many, there would be less cause for anxiety
in regard to it in their hearts. To be prudent or provident,
therefore, in saving from our surplus in time of plenty to meet
a possible scarcity, is one of the best ways of obeying the
Lord's command, " Be not anxious for the morrow." Of
course I admit that the passion for hoarding is one of the
most contemptible that can take possession of a human
heart ; but I am not advocating hoarding. For of his surplus
the wise man will give a goodly proportion to God and his
cause and to public charities, but he will be careful, also, to
lay past a little for any contingency of sickness or loss, or
whatever else. He who lives quite up to his income when
that is at the largest, must suffer when, for any reason, it is
lessened or entirely stopped. It is wise, therefore, always to
live within one's means, so as to provide for what is popular
ly called " a rainy clay." And when any exceptional prosperi
ty comes we ought not to use that all up at once, but should
store some of it, as Joseph did a portion of the harvests in
the years of plenty. There is an old Scotch saying concern
ing those who, when a windfall comes, consume all the pro
ceeds of it right off, and are reduced again straightway to
poverty, that " it is either a hunger or a burst with them."
And there are many among working-men, and young men
beginning life, of whom I fear that is the truth. When they
have it they make it go, and when they haven't it they have
nothing. But God has no blessing for such improvidence.
Look you ahead ! and that you may meet the future better,
save a little in the present.
i And surely you will forgive me if, as I conclude, I beseech
you in your outlook to take in eternity as well as time, and
urge you to make some provision for that. Remember you
have to pass away from earth ; how important, therefore, it

Public Administration. 107
is, while you are on earth, to send something on before you !
"Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven," and seek to
have there in store the true riches ; or, as Paul has phrased
it, " Do good, be rich in good works, ready to distribute, will
ing to communicate ; laying up in store for yourselves a good
foundation against the time to come, that ye may lay hold
on eternal life." And as the beginning and root of all that,
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and build your life after his
principles. You remember the story of the good old court-
jester and his dying master. After some more than usually
ridiculous outburst of his humor, the king had given hiiri a
beautiful staff, telling him to keep it until he found a greater
fool than himself, and then to hand it to him. For years he
carried the staff wherever he went, until it came to be re
garded as his badge of office. But now the king was dying,
and his affectionate old servant went in to visit him. The
monarch said, "I am going a long journey ;" whereupon the
jester asked, "Has your majesty made any provision for the
way?" to which the king replied, "No." "Does your maj
esty know where you are going ? or have you made any ar
rangements for your reception at your destination ?" " No,"
was still the answer. "Then," said the faithful old raan,|
with tears in his eyes and his voice quivering with emotion,!
" take back this staff, for in you I have found a greater foolj
than myself, since I have cared for all these things in refer-/
ence to my own departure." It rs a simple story, and car-'
ries its own application — let not the force of it be lost on
any one of us^)

VIII.
THE BROTHERS' FIRST VISIT TO EGYPT.
Gen. xiii., 1-38.
THE famine which pressed so sorely upon Egypt seems
to have extended to some ofthe neighboring countries.
But though in the land of the Pharaohs its proximate cause
was the failure of the Nile to rise to its accustomed height
in its time of flood, we need not be surprised to find that it
was felt in some surrounding districts which were not direct
ly irrigated by the water of that river. For, as we saw in a
former lecture, the annual inundations of the Nile are due
to the swelling of its volume by the heavy summer rains
among the mountains of Abyssinia, which wash down the
rich lands of that region by the Blue Nile and the Atbara.
Now, as these rains themselves are mainly the result of evap
oration from the Mediterranean, the failure of that would
equally affect the territories of Nubia, Arabia, and Canaan,
which depend on the same thing for their water supply. And
Dr. Kitto, in the " Pictorial Bible," tells us that " there are
not wanting historical instances of years of dearth which were
common to Egypt with the adjoining countries. Thus the
historian Makrisi describes a famine which took place in
Egypt on account of a deficiency in the increase of the Nile,
in the year of the Hejira 444, which at the -same time ex
tended over Syria, and even to Bagdad."* A similar state
of things existed in the case before us, and so the sufferers
* Quoted in "Joseph and his Times," by Thornley Smith, p. 115.

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 109
flocked to Egypt, that they might obtain relief by purchasing
some of the stores which had been laid up there through
the forethought of Joseph.
From some of these parties who had returned with their
supplies to Canaan, Jacob, who had begun to feel the press
ure ofthe general calamity, heard that there was "corn in
Egypt," and, as the result of a family consultation, he sent
his ten sons to that land, that they might obtain the food for
the lack of which they were languishing — his ten sons, for he
would not trust Benjamin to the care of the others. Not
that Benjamin was still a child, for he must now have been
between twenty and thirty years of age; but he was the son
of his beloved Rachel, and since the disappearance, or, as
Jacob had been led to believe, the death of Joseph, he had
succeeded to the favored place in his father's affections. He
feared, therefore, lest some mischief should befall him, and
so he determined to keep him by his side. Perhaps there
had been through all these years a lingering suspicion in his
mind that Joseph had met with some foul play at the hands
of his brothers, and he did not choose to put Benjamin simi
larly in their power ; or perhaps it was only the weak but
pardonable partiality of a somewhat broken-hearted old man
who had seen sore sorrow, and who clung to the presence of
his youngest son because of the associations with " the days
which were no more " that were so largely centred in him.
But in any case he would not let Benjamin go. So the ten
brothers set out from Hebron without him, and in due sea
son arrived in Egypt, where they were ushered into the pres
ence of the lord of the country. For though Joseph did not
himself attend to the supply of the people of Egypt, it would
appear that all applicants from other lands had to be sub
jected to his personal cross-examination. This is to be ac
counted for by the extreme jealousy which the Egyptians had
of all foreigners, and which would naturally be stronger than

no Joseph the Prime-minister.
usual at a time when all the energies of the nation were
strained to the uttermost to meet the evil which was then
upon the people.
When Joseph saw the ten brothers he knew them in a
moment, but they did not recognize him. That was perfect
ly natural, for when he was sold by them to the Ishmaelites
they had all attained to the maturity of manhood, and the
twenty years or so which had intervened would not have
made much change on them, since from thirty-five to fifty or
fifty-five the alteration in a person's appearance is not so
great as that which occurs in the same interval, either before
or after these two limits. Besides, the ten were together,
dressed in the same fashion as of yore, and speaking the old
mother-tongue. But he had broadened out from the youth
of seventeen to the man of eight-and-thirty, was shaven after
the manner of the Egyptians, ahd was arrayed most likely in
some official robe, while he spoke to them through the me
dium of an interpreter.
- ("As they entered into his presence "they bowed them
selves before him with their faces to the earth;" and we can
more easily imagine than describe- the thrill that tingled
through his frame as now at length, in this marvellous man
ner, he saw the fulfilment of his early dream. How near he
must have felt God to be in that supreme moment ! and yet
to the on-looker how commonplace the whole scene appear
ed ! How unconscious, too, at the time, these ten men were
that they were doing anything to verify their brother's dreams !
and what a commentary it all was on their mocking and ma
licious words of long ago — "Behold! this dreamer cometh.
Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into
a pit, and we will say an evil beast hath devoured him; and
we shall see what will become of his dreams !" And they did
see, but the sight was very different from that which they
had planned to make it. "Man proposes, but God disposes."

The .Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. hi
He is always as near to us as he was to Joseph at this long-
anticipated moment, and the commonplace, if we had but
the eyes to see, is as bright with his presence as is the un
usual or the marvellous; while, through our own free agency,
we are all the time unconsciously working out his purposes;
for, as Isaac Taylor suggestively remarks, "This is the very
miracle of Providence, that no miracles are needed for the
carrying out of its designs." Every actor in this life-drama
is seen working according to his own character, and acting
according to his own unfettered will. No violence is done
to the free agency of any one of them, and yet, in some in
scrutable way, they all carry forward one great purpose, and
the word of God is fulfilled. Thus God was in and over this
history from first to last. But in that it was not in the least
degree exceptional, for he is as really in each of our lives,
and we shall miss the great moral of the story if we do not
come to a clear recognition of that fact?)
But now let us look for a little at Joseph's treatment of
his brethren. As we have seen, he had them at a great dis
advantage, for he knew them, but they did not know him,
and he determined to avail himself of that for the testing of
their characters. He had not yet formed any definite pur
pose as to his future disposal of them; there was, so far as
appears, no idea in his mind at this time of bringing them
all to reside permanently in Egypt; he simply wanted to find
out what sort of men they now were, and whether they had
anything like regret or repentance for their cruel treatment
of himself. For this purpose he determined to preserve his
incognito a little longer, and to act a part before them, or to
wards them, which might bring their sin to remembrance.
You may remember how the great dramatist represents
Hamlet as seeking " to catch the conscience of the king "
by engaging the players to act in the royal presence a trag
edy which should portray a murder, while he determined to

ii2 Joseph the Prime-minister.
watch the effect on his uncle. Now, much in the same way
here Joseph decided to be himself an actor, and to treat his
brothers not according to his real nature, but in such a way
as would particularly remind them of their conduct towards
himself. Then, from the result he would form his opinion
of their characters, and decide what he should do with them.
Some may think that he was blameworthy in all this, but
so far as the mere representation "of himself as being other
than he really was is concerned, I cannot think of con
demning him; for there was no malice in his heart, and his
purpose was of the highest sort ; nor can I forget that the
Lord himself did something of the same kind in his inter
view with the Syro-Phcenician woman. I cannot find great
fault with Joseph, therefore, for seeking on this occasion to
act a part which was not really natural to him, and if in one
or two points he rather overdid it, we must not set that clown
to harshness, or anything like revenge, but rather to his in
experience as a hypocrite; for the transparentness of his dis
position made it difficult for him to wear a disguise, and the
very tenderness of his heart, strange as it may appear, con
tributed to the vehemence of his speech, for he had to make
his manner rougher and his words coarser, just that he might
be the better able to choke back his tears.
They had justified their cruelty to him by alleging that he
had been a spy on their conduct, and had reported their evil
deeds to their father; and so now, after asking whence they
were, and receiving for answer that they had come from the
land of Canaan to buy food, he most abruptly and sternly
accused them of having come to Egypt on a hostile mission,
to spy out the defenceless character of the country on its
north-eastern boundary, and to carry back such a report as
might tempt the Canaanites to make an invasion at the time
when the people were suffering such privation from famine.
But they indignantly and honestly repelled the charge, say-

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 113
ing, " We are all one man's sons ; we are true men ; thy serv
ants are no spies." This was a good and sufficient answer,
for it showed that their mission was one of family necessity,
and not of national ambition. But he reiterated his accusa
tion, and they replied with more explicitness, "Thy servants
are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Ca
naan ; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father,
and one is not." Ah ! what subtle suggestiveness is in these
words, and how must they have gone to the very depths of
Joseph's heart long before the interpreter had finished turn
ing them into the language of Egypt ! " One is not." So
they thought him dead ; and the very idea must have made
" a lump in his throat." But stay ! what have we here ?
"Thy servants are twelve brethren, but one is not." Is not
that the very thought with which Wordsworth has made us
all so familiar in his little ballad, " We are Seven ?" Was it,
therefore, that in the Hebron home they still thought the
family unbroken, though they had given him up for dead?
Could it be possible, in spite of all that had come and gone,
that he had such a place in their thoughts and in their hearts ?
Then, " the youngest is this day with our father ;" and so
Jacob was yet alive, and Benjamin was at home with him.
The news made a flutter at his heart, and in that way we
explain the broken, hurried impatience of his rejoinder, and
the assumed and exaggerated emphasis of his words, which
he had to help out with an Egyptian asseveration, not once
only but twice, making a show of force, as many a general
has done, simply to hide his weakness. "That is it that I
spake unto you, saying, ye are spies : hereby ye shall be
proved. By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence,
except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you,
and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison,
that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth
in you : or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies."

114 Joseph the Prime-minister.
And So he abruptly closed the interview by ordering them
to be put all together into prison until they should accede to
his terms.
They had put him into a pit, and now he put them into
prison, and awaited the result. He allowed them to be thus
shut up by themselves for three days, and then summoning
them to his presence once more, he relented so far as to re
verse his former proposal, and gave as the reason for his
change of plan the fact that he feared God. This must have
seemed a little strange to them, especially as he appeared to
recognize their religious belief, and to place himself in the
same category with them in that matter ; but the terms which
he now offered were so much better than those which he had
at first laid down, that they lost sight of everything else for
the moment, in their eagerness to accept his new proposal.
Instead of insisting on sending only one of them to Canaan,
and keeping the other nine as hostages for his return with
Benjamin, he is willing now to Jet nine go and carry corn for
the famine of their houses, while he kept one of them bound
in prison as a pledge for their coming again with their young
est brother ! It was hard enough still, but it was better than
before, and making a virtue of necessity they agreed to do
as he had said.
But which of them should be thus retained as a hostage
for the rest? That was now the distressing question ; and it
was while they were still in suspense concerning it that they
began to say one to another, " We are verily guilty concern
ing our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when
he besought us, and we would not hear ; therefore is this dis
tress come upon us." Now, when they are each facing lia
bility to that isolation and loss of liberty to which they had
consigned Joseph, their sin against him is brought to their
remembrance, and by a simultaneous impulse they begin to
speak to each other of their guilt. They had shown no mer-

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 115
cy to him, and they need not be surprised, therefore, if now
no consideration should be had for them. But there was
one ej\ception to this chorus of confession, for Reuben had
tried honestly, though perhaps not as watchfully and persist
ently as he might, to save Joseph from his brothers' rage ;
and so, while vindicating himself, he only put another thorn
into the consciences ofthe rest when he said, "Spake I not
unto you, saying, do not sin against the child ; and ye would
not hear ? therefore, behold, also his blood is required."
All this conversation was carried on by them in a sort of
" aside " and in the presence of Joseph, without the least
suspicion on their part that he understood every word they
said. The effect on him was so great that he could not re
strain his tears, and went away for a little to conceal his
emotion; for it was not time yet to declare himself unto them,
since he wanted still to see how they treated Benjamin, and
to that end it was needful that he should maintain for some
time longer the character which he had assumed. So he
took Simeon, perhaps because he knew the harshness of his
disposition as manifested at Shechem, or, possibly, because
Simeon might have been the ringleader of the brothers in
their persecution of himself, and after binding him before
their eyes, gave orders that he should be taken to prison.
Then, commanding the servants in the granaries to give the
rest all the corn they desired, together with smaller haver
sacks filled with provisions for the way, and to restore every
man's money, into his sack, he sent them back to Hebron.
On their arrival at their first resting-place for the night,
one of them having occasion to open his sack of corn — not
his travelling sack, but the larger bag which had not been
designed to be disturbed until he reached home — found his
money returned, and this discovery added greatly to their
dismay. They feared that they were the victims of some
conspiracy, and could not contemplate going back to Egypt

116 Joseph the Prime-minister.
without trepidation; but one good symptom in them was
that now they began to think of the overruling Providence
which before they had so greatly slighted; for they said,
" What is this that God hath done unto us ?"
On their arrival at Hebron, where perhaps they had been
eagerly expected, not only because of the pressure of the
famine, but also because of the delay in their return, they
told their father all that had occurred between them and the
lord — or Adon — of the land and how they had been com
pelled to leave Simeon behind them, with the assurance that
his liberty could be secured only by their taking Benjamin
with them when next they went for food. This was heavy
news for Jacob ; and when, on opening up their sacks, each
one found that it was with him as with the brother at their
first halting-place, and every man's bundle of money was re
stored, they were all alarmed. Joseph had meant it in kind
ness, but the sternness of his manner made his very kind
ness be suspected, and they thought it only some new trap
for their ensnaring. It was on Jacob, however, that the blow
fell with most severity, and lie could think of nothing but his
sons. So he sent forth this wail of sadness — " Me have ye
bereaved of my children : Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and
ye will take Benjamin away : all these things are against
me." It was a bitter cry, not to be stayed by Reuben's im
pulsive words of promise to bring Benjamin back. Poor
Jacob ! how he would smile in after-years at this unneces
sary anxiety! But it was very real to him then; and as he
thought of his long-lost Joseph and the missing Simeon, we
cannot wonder that he should say, with something of pas
sionate vehemence concerning Benjamin, " My son shall not
go down with you ; for his brother is dead, and he is left
alone : if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go,
then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave." What a mixed condition of affairs we often find on

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 117
earth, and how many tears are shed that would never have
wet our cheeks if we had known the true state of the case !
Yet they are not useless tears because of that. Joseph weeps
at the discovery of his brethren's penitence, and his heart is
relieved by the vent thus given to his emotion; for it is more
dangerous to restrain tears of joy than those of sorrow. Ja
cob weeps over the occurrence of an event which never hap
pened, and the anticipation of an evil that never came; yet
the sorrow in the end was salutary, for, like the shrinking
of his limb at Peniel beneath the angel's touch, it threw his
entire weight upon God, and he was upborne in the ever
lasting arms.
But now, leaving the deeply interesting narrative, and con
centrating our attention for a little on this lamentation of
Jacob, let us see what we may learn for ourselves from its
consideration. It was very natural for the patriarch to speak in this way;
and though we may not vindicate him for murmuring, we un
derstand his state of heart too well to think of upbraiding
him for giving way so far to the bitterness of his grief. " He
that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at
him." I cannot. My heart is too full of pity for him, and
I have too often been just like him, so I dare not chide his
tears. But one thing surprises me in his ejaculation, and
that is that he makes no mention of God. He speaks to his
sons as if they had done it all, but he makes no reference
to Him who said to him, on the memorable night at Bethel,
"I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither
thou goest." For the moment he has forgotten how the
Lord had led him at first to Laban's house, and had given
him prosperity during his twenty-one years' sojourn in Pa-
dan-aram ; how he had cared for him when he left his father-
in-law; how he had mollified for him the anger of Esau;
how he had blessed him at Peniel after the night-long wres-

i.i 8 Joseph the Prime-minister.
tie; and how he had protected him at the time when the
violence of some of his sons might have drawn upon him
the vengeance of the Shechemites. Now God was in this
new trial as much and as really as he was in these old ones,
and if Jacob had remembered that, he would not have spoken
as he did. We shall see, indeed, that after a while, when
his sons were bidding him farewell on their departure for
Egypt for more food, he came back to his old trustfulness,
and offered for them this prayer: "God Almighty give you
mercy before the man, that he may send away your other
brother, and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I
am bereaved." But at the first, when the full shadow of his
trouble passed over him, God was to him, for the moment,
eclipsed, and that only made his trial heavier.
Then, besides being thus practically atheistic, this declara
tion of Jacob was ultimately found to be untrue. All these
things were not against him. They were really working to
gether for his good. They were onward steps in that process
by which he was to recover his long-lost son, and was to
have conferred upon him those years of happiness that, as
we read the history, seem to us to be like the Sabbath of his
earthly life, which, after the labor and sorrow of the week, he
was enabled to spend in rest, in thankfulness, and in joy.
How he would blame himself for these hasty words in those
latter days, when he went to see Joseph in his palace, and
took his grandsons between his knees; and I can imagine
him saying to the God of his fathers, after all the riddle of
his life had been unfolded to him, " Now I know the thoughts
of thy heart towards me, and I bless thee that they were
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give me this delight
ful end."
Now, from this analysis of Jacob's experience, we may
learn, in the first place, that God is in all the events of our
lives. Many of us are ready enough to admit that he is in

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 119
the prosperous things, but when trouble comes upon us we
attribute that solely to others, and in that way we lose the
comfort which otherwise we might have enjoyed under its
endurance. The mercies of a lifetime are often ignored by
us under the bitterness of a single trial; and God, who has
been our friend for years, is forgotten altogether, while we pas
sionately condemn some others as the authors of our afflic
tion. But we shall never find consolation that way. The
first thing we ought to say regarding every trial is, " It is the
Lord." No matter what may have been the human instru
mentality through which we may think our trouble has come
upon us ; no matter what may have been the material causes
which have apparently operated against us — in and over .all
human actions and all material operations there is Gocl. His
providence is universal and supreme, and the first thought
of our spirits should be, " It is the Lord." Then that will
steady us ; for did he not give his own Son to death for us
on the cross? Has he not shown his kindness to us in mul
titudinous and unmistakable ways throughout our lives ? Can
it be, therefore, that he means anything but good to us in
anything, even though it should be a terrible affliction? Thus,
so soon as we trace a trial up to God, we are on the way to
comfort and support under it. For there are not two Gods
—one of providence, and one of redemption. Jehovah is
one, and he who " so loved the world that he gave his only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life," is at the same time he
who orders our lives and sends and superintends our afflic
tion. We may, therefore, have absolute faith in his good
ness, not only in spite of trial, but through trial. You re
member how, after Manoah's sacrifice, when, as the angel of
the Lord did wondrously, the conviction forced itself upon
him that it was the Lord himself, and he said to his wife,
" We shall surely die, because we have seen the Lord," she

120 Joseph the Prime-minister.
reassured him with these words : "If the Lord were pleased
to kill us he would not have received a burnt-offering at our
hands, neither would he have shown us all these things ; nor
would he, as at this time, have told us such things as these."*
Now, the argument I raise from tbe cross of Christ here is
similar to that. If God had wished our destruction, or any
absolute evil to befall us, he needed not have sent his Son
to make atonement for our sins. But the very fact that he
has done that proves that he desires our highest welfare,
and will make all things subservient to our everlasting good.
Therefore, if 'we would not fall into despair under our trials,
let us recognize God's hand in them, and let us think of
him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
cross of Christ is thus the healing tree which, cast into the
bitter waters of our trials, makes them sweet and whole
some. If, instead of turning on his sons, Jacob had only
turned to his God, he would have been sustained; and we
may be sure of this, that trouble never yet overwhelmed a
man so long as he could see God in it.
Then, again, from our analysis of Jacob's case, we ought
to learn to-pass no sentence of condemnation on God's work
until it is completed. "Judge nothing before the time." We
must not argue, from the pain of a. part of the process, that
there is evil intended to us in the result of the whole. The
surgeon has a stern aspect, and apparently an unfeeling
hand, when he cuts into the diseased organ or amputates the
broken limb, but he is working towards healing all the time.
And so it is with God and the discipline of his children.
Wait until he finish his work before you condemn it. Wait
until he finish his work, and when you can see tbe end from
the beginning, as he has done all along, when you can look
back upon the beginning from the end,- and see his plan as
* Judges xiii., 22, 23.

The Brothers' First Visit to Egypt. 121
a whole, you will not need that any one should vindicate his
ways to you.
Finally, if these two things be true, that God is in our
trials, and that the outcome of them all under his supervision
will be good, we may surely stay ourselves in trouble by
earnest prayer. " Is any among you afflicted, let him pray."
We have to deal with no blind, remorseless law. The Lord
Jesus has taught us to say " Our Father," and when we
enter fully into the meaning of these words, and recognize
clearly that his providence is universal, we shall have no
difficulty in saying " thy will be done ;" for the father's will
is always love to his own children. That will sustain us
while we are on earth. Then when we have passed from
earth to heaven, and look back from the side of the throne
above on all the way by which we were led here below, we
shall feel much as Jacob must have felt in Egypt when he
reviewed the incidents in his career, but only more intensely,
and we shall be constrained to say, not " all these things
were against me," but rather, " Now I know that all things
wrought together for my good. My light afflictions, which
were but for a moment, have wrought out for me a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
6

IX.
THE SECOND VISIT OF THE BROTHERS TO EGYPT.
Gen. xliii.-xlv., 15.
AS the story advances towards its climax of interest in
Joseph's revelation of himself to his brethren, it grows
in simplicity and pathos, so that one fears to touch it, lest
he should mar its beauty by any attempt at paraphrase. It
is, withal, so perfectly familiar to every reader of the Script
ures that little more is needed on our part than to mark the
several steps in its ascent to that family reunion in which it
culminates, and to account for which it has been introduced
into the sacred narrative. Canaan was not yet ripe for the
inheritance of the tribes, and the tribes had not yet that im
portance in numbers and resources which was needed for
their entering upon its possession. They required time and
opportunity for growth, and even after that they had to he
put into the fire of trial, that they might be fused into a na
tion. For these purposes it was necessary that they should
go down into Egypt and dwell there for many generations.
The history of Joseph tells how that was brought about, and
so it has its place in the Hebrew annals; while in itself it
possesses, as we have seen, a thrilling interest of its own,
and is fraught with lessons of great value for our modern
life. But to get at these it is not needful to go into a minute
recapitulation of its details, and we may, therefore, content
ourselves with describing the different scenes, if so we may
call them, in that act of the drama which forms the special
subject for this evening's discourse.

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 123
The first is in the Hebron home of Jacob and his sons.
The pressure of famine is again upon the encampment, and
Jacob says to his sons, " Go again, buy us a little food."
This is only what his sons have waited for. They knew that
necessity would soon constrain him to accede to Joseph's
terms, and therefore, after his first outburst of impatient op
position, they left him to his own reflections, and allowed him
to take the initiative. But so soon as he opened up the sub
ject again, Judah, who comes now to the front, and manifests
the highest wisdom, and the greatest consideration for all
parties concerned, took speech in hand. He reminded his
father that it would be only making matters worse for them
if they should return to Egypt without Benjamin, since that
would be interpreted by the Egyptian lord as an evidence
that they had spoken untruly on their former visit, and would
probably end in the imprisonment of them all along with
Simeon ; so that, as the result, he would have neither food
nor sons, save Benjamin only. And when his father petu
lantly asked why they had told the great man that they had
another brother, he defended their conduct by describing how
the information had, as it were, been forced out of them by
the accusation that they were spies, and by the repeated
interrogations of their questioner, consequent upon their
statement that they were all sons of one man. This account
seems at first slightly inconsistent with that given in the nar
rative of their first visit, but all discrepancy is removed by
the remembrance of the fact that the history does not pre
tend to give a full report of all that passed at their interview
with Joseph, so that there is no need to impute to Judah any
falsification of the facts of the case.
There was no resisting the force of his words when he
asked, " Could we certainly know that he would say, Bring
your brother down ?" But the power of his appeal, great as
it was, was strengthened when, with a noble spirit of self-sac-

124 Joseph the Prime-minister.
rifice, he offered to become surety for Benjamin's safety, and
added, "except we had lingered, surely now we had returned
this second time." It is curious to note how here the differ
ent individualities of Reuben and Judah come out in their
methods of dealing with their father. Reuben, in his impet
uous way, not meaning the half of what he said, exclaimed,
" Slay my two sons if I bring him not to thee; deliver him
into my hand, and I will bring him to thee ;" a perfectly pre
posterous proposition, the very extravagance of which be
tokened that he who made it was not to be trusted for con
stancy, since such ardor could not last. Judah, however, put
not his sons but himself in the gap ; and in that Jacob saw
the pledge not only of his sincerity, but also of his deter
mination at all hazards to make good his promise. To him,
therefore, his father yielded ; and mindful of what gifts had
formerly done to mollify his brother Esau, Jacob recom
mended his sons to take with them a present of such things
as they had, and carry it down to him whom they were all so
desirous to propitiate. This present consisted of some of
the most famous productions of their country, such as the
famine had still left to them ; and in the description here
given of their gift there is incidental evidence of the straits
to which they were reduced — " a little balm, and a little honey,
spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds." Besides these things
Jacob commanded his sons to take with them not only money
enough for their new purchase, but also that which had for
merly been restored to them, lest there should have been
some mistake about it which might lead to unpleasant con
sequences. Then, as they were starting, with the son of
Rachel under their care, the old piety of Israel came out, as
he looked reverently up and said, in mingled faith and res
ignation, " God Almighty give you mercy before the man,
that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin.
If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 125
The scene now changes to Egypt. The brothers have ar
rived- at the public storehouse to make their application for
supplies. Joseph is in his office attending to his wonted
business, and sees them in the street. With eager eye he
scans the company, and discovers, with a palpitating heart,
that Benjamin is with them. So, without waiting to converse
with them, or even to receive them, he sends out his steward
to take them to his house, and make all preparations for their
dining with him at noon. It has been objected here that the
narrator must be in error in representing Joseph as giving
orders for the slaughter of animals for food, since that must
have been contrary to the customs of the Egyptians ; but
Wilkinson, in describing preparations for dinner, says,* " an
ox, kid, wild-goat, gazelle, or oryx, and a quantity of geese,
widgeons, quails, or other birds were obtained for the occa
sion ;" and Kalisch alleges f that " though there was scarce
ly an animal which was not held sacred in some province,
there was, perhaps, with the only exception of the cow, none
which was not eaten in other parts of the land ;" so that the
description here is in perfect harmony with what we now
know to have been the habit of the people.
But the taking of the sons of Jacob to the house of Jo
seph was, at first, a source of perplexity to them. They
could not understand for what purpose they were conducted
thither. They were not informed of his hospitable intent,
and imagined that they were to be called in question about
the money which they had found in their sacks on their re
turn from their former visit; therefore they took the oppor
tunity, as they were approaching the palace, to make the
steward acquainted with the true state of the case. But as
soon as he understood the nature of their anxiety, he reas-

* " Ancient Egyptians," vol. ii., p. 22.
t Quoted in " Pulpit Commentary," vol. i., p. 484.

126 Joseph the Prime-minister.
sured them by telling them in the kindest manner that he
had received their money and knew all about it, and by
bringing Simeon out to them that they might be all united
once again. One cannot but marvel at the spirit manifested
by this servant. He seems, indeed, to have been taken by
his master into his confidence for the occasion, and the
words which he uses would indicate either that Joseph had
told him precisely what to say, or that he was himself, under
the influence and example of Joseph, a believer in Jehovah ;
for thus he speaks : " Peace be to you, fear not : your God,
and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your
sacks : I had your money." Surely now, therefore, they
would be set at rest, for was not this an answer to their fa
ther's prayer, " God Almighty give you mercy before the
man ?" That impression would be deepened when they saw
that the steward treated them as his master's guests, and
gave them water for their feet and provender for their asses,
telling them at the same time that they should eat bread
there. So they got their present ready, and when Joseph
came they put it into his hands and bowed themselves to
the earth, thus once again fulfilling the dream of his youth.
Then came the question, " Is your father well, the old man
of whom ye spake ? Is he yet alive ?" and once more they
made obeisance with the answer, "Thy servant our father is
in good health, he is yet alive," thus uniting their father in
their homage at his feet. But when he saw Benjamin, it was
a little more than he could do to keep up the part which he
had been studiously acting, and without waiting for an an
swer to his inquiry, " Is this your younger brother, of whom
ye spake unto me?" he said, with the deepest feeling, "Gocl
be gracious unto thee, my son," and hastened into his cham
ber to hide the tears which he could no longer restrain.
Then, after having given way for a season to his uncontrol
lable emotion, he washed his face to remove all traces of his

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 127
weeping, and went back to preside over the banquet which
he had caused to be prepared for them.
The next scene, therefore, is in the dining-hall. Joseph
sits by himself; the Egyptians of his household are seated
by themselves ; and the eleven brothers by themselves, yet
not indiscriminately; for somewhat to their amazement, and
tending, no doubt, to deepen the mystery of their reception,
he caused them to be placed in the order of their age — " the
first-born according to his birthright, and the youngest ac
cording to his youth." And now he begins that testing or
deal to which, all unknown to them, he designed to submit
his half-brothers. They had been jealous of him in the old
en time because his father had shown a partiality for him,
and they had preferred their own indulgence to his welfare,
selling him into slavery rather than give up their evil courses.
He determines now, therefore, to see whether they have the
same disposition towards Benjamin. If they have, he will
keep Benjamin in Egypt along with himself; but if they have
not, then the door may be opened for bringing all his breth
ren and his father with them, to sojourn in the land of plen
ty. That, as it seems to me, is the key to the explanation
of all his after-dealings with them. He commences by send
ing to Benjamin a portion from that which was before him,
five times larger than that which he had sent to any of the
others. That was a mark of his preference, almost as great
as his father had shown him in giving him the coat of many
colors ; and from what happened when Elkanah gave to Han
nah " a worthy portion," thereby provoking Peninnah to jeal
ousy,* we may be sure that if they had been envious of Ben
jamin they would have revealed it by their remarks upon
his procedure. But no such manifestation was made by
them, and the feast was one of harmonious gladness, be-
* 1 Sam. i., 4-8.

128 Joseph the Prime-minister.
tokening that all were delighted with his hospitality, "for
they drank and were merry with him."
But now the scene changes once again. It is the early
morning, and they are all up and eager to start for home.
Before they had arisen, the steward, by Joseph's orders, had
filled their sacks with corn, and had put every man's money
into his sack's mouth, and along with that a silver cup of a
peculiar description in the sack of Benjamin. And now ev
erything being ready for their departure, they set out upon
their asses, Judah's heart beating with especial joy that Ben
jamin was riding by his side. But they had scarcely cleared
the city when they were overtaken by the steward, who ac
cused them of having stolen a valuable cup. " Wherefore,"
said he, "have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in
which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth?"
A great deal has been made of this expression, and of Jo
seph's own words later, " Wot ye not that such a man as I
can certainly divine?" but the sum of the matter seems to
be this : the Egyptians did practise divination by cups.
How that was done is not now certainly known, but accord
ing to some authorities a liquid was poured into a saucer-
shaped vase, and from the reflections on its surface various
conclusions were drawn. Now, from what Joseph said lo
Pharaoh about the interpretation of his dreams, we have not
only no reason to believe that he was guilty of any such de
ceit as to attempt to foretell the future, or to reveal the un
known by any such means, but, rather, every reason to believe
that he would have repudiated such folly. Just now, how
ever, he is acting a part, and he adapts himself and his lan
guage to the character which he has assumed. That he was
perfectly justified in preserving his incognito I have little
doubt, but whether or not he here rather overdid his acting
may be a matter of question. Still, that he might do even that
without giving countenance to divination is abundantly clear.

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 129
When the steward thus intercepted the brothers they were
greatly disconcerted, and, conscious of their innocence, they
offered to submit themselves to search, saying, " With whom
soever of thy servants the cup is found, both let him die,
and we also will be my lord's bondmen." But with great
apparent fairness he replied, " He with whom it is found shall
be my servant : and ye shall be blameless." So the search
proceeded, and, to their dismay, " the cup was found in Ben
jamin's sack." But they would not give him up alone, and
returned with him to Joseph's house, with their clothes rent
and their hearts heavy, to see what could be done. When
Joseph upbraided them for their ingratitude, Judah, unable
to contradict the evidence which had been brought against
them, and with no word of blame for Benjamin — a thing
which in the circumstances was most remarkable, and speaks
much for his confidence in his younger brother — said, with
great simplicity, " What shall we say unto my lord ? what shall
we speak ? or how shall we clear ourselves ? God hath found
out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord's
servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found."
But Joseph would not hear of any such injustice. The rest
might go home, and the guilty one alone should be retained.
That was his decision. Then Judah stood forward and plead
ed the cause of Benjamin, in an appeal which for simple pa
thos, and that natural eloquence which " when unadorned "
is "adorned the most," is unsurpassed either in sacred or
secular literature, whether of ancient or modern times. No
summary can do it justice, and every variation from it would
only mar its beauty; therefore I will simply read it, that you
may feel its force :
" O my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's
ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant : for thou art even
as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a
brother ? And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and
6*

130 Joseph the Prime-minister.
a child of his old age, a little one ; and his brother is dead, and he alone
is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. And thou saidst unto
thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon
him. And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father : for if
he should leave his father, his father would die. And thou saidst unto
thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall
see my face no more. And it came to pass when we came, up unto thy
servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father
said, Go again, and buy us a little food. And we said, We cannot go
down : if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down : for we
may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us. And
thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two
sons : And the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in
pieces; and I saw him not since : And if ye take this also from me, and
mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to
the grave. Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and
the lad be not with us ; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life ;
It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with ns, that he
will die : and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant
our father with sorrow to the grave, For thy servant became surety
for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then
I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray
thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord ;
and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to
my father, and the lad be not with me ? lest peradventure I see the
evil that shall come on .my father." *

Even if Joseph had been only an Egyptian magnate such
an intercession must have gained its end, but, being the man
he was, it moved his soul to the very depths. It showed
him that his brothers were not only sorry for what they had
done to him, but were so changed that now they could be
trusted by him implicitly. Their penitence had been proved
to be sincere by their conduct. Therefore, there and then,
he gave up all idea of detaining Benjamin, and resolved to
make himself known to them, and invite them and their fam-
* Gen. xliv., 18-34.

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 131
ilies and his father to take up their abode in Egypt. So with
a full heart he caused every one to leave his presence save
themselves, and then, with no spectators to mar the confi
dences of the interview, he told them who he was, and how
it had been with him. He asked again after his father; and
when he saw that they were troubled lest he should seek to
punish them for their unkindness to him, he led their thoughts
up to the Providence which had overruled their evil for the
good of a whole nation, and for the welfare of their father's
house. Then, after sending a warm request to Jacob to
come and see all his glory in Egypt, he turned to Benjamin,
and fell upon his neck and wept. "Moreover, he kissed all
his brethren, and wept upon them, and after that his brethren
talked with him." How natural it all is ! How exquisitely
told ! and how remarkable that there should be no effort on
the part ofthe narrator to describe the surprise ofthe broth
ers at the unexpected revelation, or to recount the conversa
tion which followed on the reconciliation !
And this is the sort of narrative which we are to believe
is a poetic fable, with no more foundation on fact than one
of the myths of Grecian literature, or the prehistoric stories
that are told about the founders of ancient Rome ! I am
willing to put the two side by side, and await the verdict of
any candid investigator as to the internal evidence of their
relative veracity. But I must leave the sequel of the recog
nition, and the details of the message to Jacob, for another
discourse, while I turn now to pick up a few lessons from
the interesting chapters over which we have come.
We may see then, in the first place, that fear misinterprets
kindness. When the brothers were taken to Joseph's house,
they at once concluded that some evil was intended for them,
and began to excuse themselves to the steward about the
money which they had found in their sacks, telling him at
the same time that they had brought it with them again, and

132 Joseph the Prime-minister.
were ready to restore it to Joseph, to whom it rightfully be
longed. But how were all such suspicions rebuked when
they learned that they were to dine at his house ! and how
utterly ridiculous they would seem, at length, when they
found out that he was their brother ! But is it not just simi
lar with the sinner and his God ? He is afraid of the Lord,
and that leads him to misinterpret all his dealings with him.
When he is asked into God's house, he supposes it must be
just that he may be made miserable; and when the Lord
makes to him overtures of love, they seem to him to be but
the precursors of punishment. All this is because he has
not yet discovered that God is his father and Christ his elder
brother. When the day comes that Jehovah shall thus re
veal himself to him, there will be a weeping like that of Jo
seph here, but it will be all on his side ; and the fear which
persistently made him misunderstand God's dealings will be
cast out by perfect love. My hearers, the Gospel feast is
prepared. All things are ready; and as one ofthe stewards
of my Lord's house, I am come to lead you to his palace,
that you may feast with him. Be not afraid. He is your
father, and Christ is your brother ; therefore, stand not hesi
tatingly andtremblingly without, but take your places at his
banquet, and rejoice in his salvation.
We may see here, in the second place, that we are often
being tested while we are unconscious of the fact that we are
so. The whole treatment of his brothers by Joseph was meant
to prove their characters, and see whether they had or had not
repented of their sin against him, and whether they had or
had not changed their disposition and mode of life. They did
not know that he was thus experimenting on them, but the re
sult satisfied him, and led to his revelation of himself to them.
Now, it is. often similar with men and their fellows. When
Gideon led his army to the brook, and saw his soldiers drink,
they had no idea that he was picking out his three hundred

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 133
for his midnight attack on the Midianitish camp. But so it
was; for those who did not care luxuriously to go down on
hands and knees to put their mouths to the stream, but who
simply lapped the water up with their hands as a clog laps
with his tongue, showed thereby that they had the qualities
of rapidity, dash, and hardihood which were specially need
ed for the service on which he was bent, and, therefore, they
were selected for it. Even so men have been watched by
others when they were not thinking of anything ofthe kind,
and the diligence, energy, integrity, and amiability which
they have shown has commended them to those interested
for some situation of trust, honor, and emolument. Young
man, your employer is testing you when you do not know it,
therefore see that you are faithful and obliging even in that
which is least, that you may approve yourself worthy of some
thing greater. Many incidents might here be narrated to
prove that men have risen from comparative obscurity to
eminence simply because they had been tested, unwittingly
to themselves, by others who were on the outlook for the
agents that would most effectually serve their purpose. When
they rose, envious people prated about "luck," but they
who knew best spoke about character manifested by faithful
ness in that which was least, and saw in their promotion the
earthly miniature of the doing of the last Judge, who shall
say to him whom he approves, "Thou hast been faithful over
a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord." Nay, does not the very
quotation which I have just made remind us that it is in the
same way, and while we are unconscious of it, that the Lord
tests those who are to come before him at the last. He will
say to those on his right hand, " I was an hungered and ye
gave me meat;" and they will exclaim in astonishment, "Lord,
when saw we thee an hungered and gave thee meat ?" He
will say to those on his left hand, "I was an hungered and

134 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ye gave me no meat ;" and they will cry out amazed, " When
saw we thee an hungered and gave thee no meat ?" They
had not been conscious that they were undergoing a testing
process, and yet by that their characters were judged, even
as here Joseph gauges the feelings of the brothers towards
Benjamin, by the little thing of sending to him a portion five
times larger than each of theirs. Oh, my hearers, we are
being tested when we know not of it ! how important, there
fore, that we do everything, small as well as great, in the
name of the Lord Jesus.
vBut we have in this history, in the third place, an illustra
tion of the difference between the outer appearance and the
inner life of a man. Joseph externally was a stranger to his
brothers, but internally his heart, latterly at least, was yearn
ing over them, and he had once and again to retire to his
chamber to give vent to his tears. But is he not herein
very like most men at some time or other in their lives ? Go
down to-morrow to the stores and examine the faces of those
whom you find in them. Some will look calm and com
posed, almost marbly in their impassivity. Others may look
jovial — ever and anon a ringing laugh comes from the cor
ner where their desks are, and you call them cheerful. Yes;
but that is only the outward appearance. Suppose you could
uncover the heart of each, what a contrast to the calmness,
in the one case, and the joyousness, in the other, you might
discover! Suppose you knew the entire life of each, how
often you might find them both retiring to their chambers to
weep ! The proverb says that " there is a skeleton in every
house," and it is equally true that there is a secret chamber
in every heart where the soul keeps its skeleton, and to which,
when it can no longer control itself, it retires to weep. What
is in that secret chamber ? It may be the memory of some
sin; it may be a hidden cross of such a nature that it can be
described to no mortal; it may be — but why should I probe

The Second Visit of the Brothers to Egypt. 135
into those things with which a stranger may not intermed
dle ? Each of you knows his own, and whatever yours may
be, my friend, take it to Christ. Give him your confidence,
and you will find how true the exquisite hymn of Horatius
Bonar is when it says,
" I lay my griefs on Jesus,
My burdens and my cares ;
He from them all releases,
He all my sorrow bears.",)
(But I must not be one-sided here. There is a joy which
is a secret in the heart as well as a sorrow, and the Christian
knows something of that. Externally his life may be dull,
commonplace, routine. There may seem nothing very par
ticular about himself, but there is hidden sweetness in his
soul. He is at peace with God, and that takes him every
now and then into his chamber, not to weep, but to sing.
He "carries music in his heart," and no matter how prosaic
or humdrum to outward appearance his life may be, that
gives it a poetry that is peculiarly its own. Do you know
anything of such an experience as that ? If you do, it is a
foretaste and earnest of the " white-stone," with the new
name written in it, "which no man knoweth save he that
receiveth it." It is the beginning of your heavenT)
Finally, how can we read this touching appeal of Judah for
Benjamin without being reminded of Christ's intercession for
us ? The Lord Jesus not only offered to become our surety,
but was accepted as such, and now, having offered himself in
sacrifice in the tabernacle court — which is this lower world
— he has entered through the veil into the heavenly holy of
holies, where he maketh intercession for us. His intercession
takes in all who come unto God by him, and yet it takes in
everything about each of them. Judah's plea had a powerful
ally in Joseph's love, and in the same way the intercession of

136 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Jesus is sure of success for us, for the love of God is already
on our side ; therefore let us have perfect confidence that he
will "bring to pass that which is good for us, and make perfect
that which concerneth us." O sinner, arraigned before God's
bar, and conscious of your guilt, commit your case to this
surety, sacrifice, and advocate all in one, and he will secure
not only your acquittal but your acceptance — your salvation.

X.
THE REMOVAL OF JACOB AND HIS SONS TO
EGYPT.
Gen. xiv., 16 ; xlvi., 1-6, 28-34 ; xlvii., 1-10.
IN the interests of brevity we were constrained, in our last
discourse, to pass very lightly over two things that came
out in Joseph's interview of reconciliation with his brethren,
and it may be well to go back upon them for a few moments
now. The first is his magnanimity towards them. He saw
that they had fully repented of their sin against him, and
therefore, when he observed that they were troubled at his
presence, he said to them, " Be not grieved, nor angry with
yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me be
fore you to preserve life. For these two years hath the fam
ine been in the land : and yet there are five years, in the which
there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me
before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to
save your lives by a great deliverance." (.Had they not been
really penitent it might have been dangerous to preach such
doctrine to them. But they had come to hate their sin, and
were now in such a state of mind regarding it as to be verg
ing towards despair, so that they required to be encouraged
and comforted. And nothing could have been better calcu
lated to lift them out of their despondency than the presen
tation of this aspect of the divine providence. It did not
make their guilt less serious, but it did make God.more at.
tractive^) As one has very epigrammatically expressed it,
"God does not need our sins to work out his good inten-

138 Joseph the Prime-minister.
tions, but we give him little other material ; and the discovery
that through our evil purposes and injurious deeds God has
worked out his beneficent will, is certainly not calculated to
make us think more lightly of our sins, or more highly of
ourselves."* It only shows that a holy and loving God has
been watching over us, and, therefore, strengthens the new
bond between us and him which our penitence has made.
To say to a hardened, reckless man that Gocl will ever rule
his sin for some good end, will only make him more regard
less than ever. But when a man is truly penitent, and seems
almost paralyzed by the perception of his guilt, to show him
that God has brought good out of his evil will exalt God's
grace and wisdom in his eyes, and lead him more implicitly
to cling to him. It is a comforting thought, that while we
cannot undo the sin, God has kept it from undoing us, and
has overruled it for greater good to ourselves and greater
blessing to others than, perhaps, might otherwise have been
attained. We can never be as we were before we committed
it. Always there will be some sadness in our hearts and
lives connected with it, and springing out of it. But still, if
we really repent of it and return to God, there may come to
us " meat out of the eater, and sweet out of the bitter." It
may give us sympathy with others, and fit us for being help
ful to others, so that, though we may be sadly conscious of
the evil of our course, we may yet see that through it all God
was preparing us for the saving of those who, humanly speak
ing, but for our instrumentality would have gone down to per
dition. But mark the condition — if we truly repent. There
is no comfort otherwise ; but that being secured, then the
penitent may take the consolation, that out of his worst sin
God can and may bring good both to himself and others,
and he ought to look for the means of bringing that about.
* Dods's " Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph," p. 245.

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 139
But the second thing in this interview on which I wish
now to remark, is the tender regard of Joseph for his father.
Whatever may have been the reason for his not communi
cating with Jacob for so many years, we see that now there
is no lack of filial affection in his heart. It was the pathetic
reference of Judah to the probable result of Benjamin's de
tention on his father that fairly broke him down and opened
up the fountain of his tears. Again and again he inquired
after the old man's welfare. He seemed impatient now to
see his face again, and urged his brothers to hasten home
and tell the tidings " that he is alive and well, and lord over
all Egypt." He sent also a very pressing and affectionate
invitation to his father to come and sojourn near him ; and
with the absolute assurance that Pharaoh would give him
everything he chose to ask for his kindred, as well as with a
view to their happiness and prosperity, he promised that they
should dwell in the land of Goshen. It would seem, there
fore, that the love which had been so long pent up had only
gathered strength by being repressed, so that when it found
vent again it flowed forth with more fervor and intensity than
ever. Across the gulf of many years memory leaped as with
a bound, and he was once more a boy again, basking in his
father's affection. Then he was the ward of his parent, but
now he would repay the kindness by becoming Jacob's pro
tector ; and no difference in rank or station between them
would keep him from enjoying the privileges and performing
the duties of a son. A ruler to the Egyptians, he was and
would still be a son to Jacob ; for he carried to his throne,
unsophisticated and unaltered, the heart that beat beneath
the coat of many colors. He was not ashamed of his father,
but the greatest joy of his exaltation was that he was there
by enabled to make provision for the wants of Jacob's declin
ing years. There is a worthy example, young men, for you.
Never lose your pride in your parents or your love for them.

140 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Never think of slighting their poverty in the days of your
prosperity; but share your honors with them, and give theiri
if you can the pride of seeing you in " all your glory."
But now resuming the narrative, we need not wonder that
the recognition of his brothers by Joseph became speedily
known to those who were about him. Oriental emotion is
demonstrative, and the sounds of weeping coming from the
chamber in which they were would lead to curious inquiries
as to its cause. Very soon, therefore, the news reached the
ears of Pharaoh that Joseph's brethren were come, and the
monarch gave such orders as showed how highly he valued
his servant, and how glad he was of the opportunity of doing
him a kindness. After consultation, as we may presume,
with Joseph himself, he bade the brothers lade their beasts
and return at once to Canaan ; he invited their father, them
selves, and their households to return and sojourn in Egypt ;
he promised that they should eat the fat ofthe land ; he gave
them wagons for the removal of their belongings ; and to all
these gifts Joseph added changes of raiment -for each of his
half-brothers, but five changes of raiment and three hundred
pieces of silver for Benjamin. Then "to his father he sent
ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she
asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by
the way." So he despatched them on their journey, giving
them this parting admonition, " See that ye fall not out by
the way."
How well he knew human nature ! They were going home
with news which would reveal to their father that they had
been the cause of their brother's disappearance, and had im
posed on him with a deliberate falsehood; and for anything
they knew, he might turn upon them and upbraid them with
their cruelty and deceit. What so likely, therefore, as that
they should begin to accuse each other — that crimination
should lead to recrimination, and words to blows ? Reuben

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 141
might say again, "It was_ not my fault, for I sought to save
his life, and I went back to the pit hoping to find him and
restore him to our father." Judah might respond, " But for
me he would have died, and it is to my happy suggestion to
sell him to the Ishmaelites that we are indebted for all the
good fortune that seems now to be coming to us ;" while
the rest, conscious of their share in the nefarious transac
tion, might have sought to still the upbraidings of their con
sciences by uttering bitter things against each other. All
that might have happened on their journey home, and so
Joseph was not giving unnecessary counsel when he said,
" See that ye fall not out by the way." And they heeded his
advice, for they reached home in peace; and it may be that,
so fair from quarrelling, they spent some of their time as they
rode in conversing on the marvellous manner in which, in
spite of their antagonism, and without their consciousness of
anything in the least degree out ofthe way, the dreams of
their brother had been fulfilled, and they had done obeisance
at his feet.
When they arrived at Hebron and told the news to their
father, he was utterly overwhelmed. He could not believe
their words. On their own showing, they had deceived him
before; what ground had he for assurance that they were not
deceiving him again ? It was a strange experience. He was
in a place where two seas met, and he was wellnigh sub
merged by. the violence of the waves. If they spoke truly,
then he might yet see his long-lost son; but all these years
his other children had been guilty ofthe blackest deceit, and
was he to lose them in the finding of their brother ? or was
he to haVe them all thoroughly restored to him as brothers
indeed ? Surely they could not wantonly play with his feel^
ings a second time ? And yet, were not their tidings too
good to be true ? In this uncertainty — just as when a bal
ance is on the turn a very little thing will give it impulse —

142 Joseph the Prime-minister.
the sight of the wagons gave the relief he needed, and the
old Israel energy flamed forth, so that he said, " It is enough ;
Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go and see him before I
die." But what was there in the sight of the wagons to cor
roborate their tidings ? The answer may be given in the
words of Thornley Smith:* "It is probable that wagons
were at that time not known in Palestine, whence Jacob in
ferred that these wagons had been sent from Egypt, where
his sons could not have obtained them but in the manner
they stated. A common kind of wagon having two wheels
has been found depicted on some of the monuments ; but
these were no doubt of a superior description, and being
covered to screen the travellers from the sun, as we may pre
sume they were, would be somewhat similar to the tilted
wagons of modern times."
Convinced thus ofthe good faith of his sons, Jacob speedi
ly made all preparations, and set out with his whole encamp
ment from Hebron for the land of Egypt. But it was not
without misgivings that he was taking this important step.
He had a peculiar interest in the land of Canaan. It had
been promised to him and to his children by God in cove
nant. Twenty-one years of his life had been spent outside
of its borders, and he had come back to it again with new
assurances that it was yet to be his own. It was therefore,
in spite of the attraction that he was going to meet Joseph,
a great trial to him to leave the Land of Promise. Besides,
it had in it the Cave of Machpelah, where the bodies of his
father and his grandfather had been laid, and he felt it hard
to leave them behind. Nor was this all. Egypt had been
an unpropitious place, apparently, both to Isaac and to Abra
ham, for each of them, during a brief sojourn there, had
come into collision with its king, and it seemed almost as
* "Joseph and his Times," p. 167.

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 143
if it would not be safe for him — even with Joseph so near
the throne — to venture within its borders. It was, we may
suppose, with such feelings as these that Jacob found him
self, in the course of his journey, at Beersheba. That was a
well on the very edge of Canaan, just where it merges into
the desert, and the place was dear to Jacob for its associa
tions both with his father and with Abraham. There Abra
ham had planted a grove, and called upon the name of the
Lord, the Everlasting Gocl, and there Isaac had his encamp
ment for many years; thence, too, it was that Jacob went
out to begin his wanderings on the morning of that day
whose evening was brightened for him at Bethel by the vis
ion of the ladder and the angels. Naturally, therefore, his
thoughts at that place were with his fathers and his fathers'
God; and considering the nature of the journey which he
was taking, we are not surprised to learn that there "he of
fered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac." He made
supplication to the Lord through sacrifice, and with special
reference to the circumstances in which he was at the mo
ment placed. Nor did he consult God in vain; for in the
visions of the night the Lord said to him, " I am God, the
God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I
will there make of thee a great nation. I will go down with
thee into Egypt ; and I will also surely bring thee up again :
and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes." Thus re
assured, he rose and resumed his journey, and when they
drew nigh to their destination he sent Judah on before to
apprise Joseph of their arrival, and to ask for instructions
from his lips.
But when Joseph heard of his father's approach he went
out himself to meet him, and when they saw each other " he
fell on his father's neck, and wept on his neck a good while."
Joseph's heart was too full for words, and when at length his
father could command himself sufficiently for speech, it was

144 Joseph the Prime-minister.
but to say, "It is enough; now let me die, since I have seen
thy face, because thou art yet alive." After these salutations
Joseph gave his brothers plain directions as to what they
should say to Pharaoh on their introduction to the monarch.
He anticipated that the king would ask them what their oc
cupation was, and he told them to reply that they were shep
herds, because that was true and because he knew that such
a confession would secure them a settlement away from the
other inhabitants, in a district in which they could hold them
selves aloof, not only from entangling alliances with the peo
ple, but also from contamination by the idolatries ofthe land :
for " every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians."
This prejudice, however, was not owing to any hatred of the
Hyksos or shepherd dynasty that was now upon the throne,
but rather to a deep-rooted spirit of caste among the people
themselves. Herodotus tells us that the swine-herds — one of
the seven classes into which the Egyptians were divided — were
regarded with such abhorrence that they were not allowed
to enter a temple or contract marriage with any others of
their countrymen, and Wilkinson* testifies that pastors and
shepherds were a class apart from the peasantry, and were
held in such disrepute that the artists, as if to show their
contempt, have represented them upon the monuments as
lame or deformed, as dirty and unshaven, and sometimes of
a most ludicrous appearance. From the very character of
their country the Egyptians were essentially an agricultural
people, and as such they associated ideas of rudeness and
barbarism with those who, like shepherds, followed a wan
dering life. It may be, also, that part of their prejudice was
due to the fact that shepherds were accustomed to kill ani
mals that were regarded as sacred by other classes of the
community. But whatever may have been the reason for
* " The Ancient Egyptians," vol. i., p. 2S9, and vol. iii., p. 444.

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 145
such sentiments, Joseph did not wish his brethren to be ex
posed to the contempt with which he knew the Egyptians
would treat them as shepherds, and he sought at the same
time to turn their occupation to their advantage by securing
for them the very eligible territory of the land of Goshen.
That vvas a region lying to the north-east of Lower Egypt,
bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east by
the desert, on the west by the Tanitic branch of the Nile,
and probably extending on the south as far as to the head of
the Red Sea. It was under the dominion of the Pharaohs,
and therefore in Egypt, though it was scarcely of it, for it
was little more than on the confines of the country. It is
called elsewhere the land of Rameses, and under the Pha
raoh of the oppression the Israelites built in it the treasure-
cities of Pithom and Rameses. It was a land of pasturage,
suitable for the feeding of flocks, and both for that reason
and because it was nearest to Palestine, and yet not far from
his own residence, Joseph regarded it as most advantageous
for the members of his father's family.
When, therefore, he took some of his brothers and pre
sented them to Pharaoh, they followed closely his instruc
tions, and went so far as to ask that because of their occupa
tion and for the sake of their flocks they might be permitted
to settle in Goshen. This request was instantly granted, and
Joseph was commanded, if he should see fit, and if he knew
that any of them were qualified for the office, to give them
the charge of the royal herds.
Then, after their audience was over, he led his venerable
father, with pride and affection, into the royal presence, and
presented him to Pharaoh. It was a memorable interview.
The greatest monarch of the time, the ablest statesman of
his age, who was steadily steering Egypt through the fearful
calamity of famine, and the oldest saint then upon the earth,
heir to the promises made by Gocl to Abraham and Isaac,
7

146 Joseph the Prime-minister.
were here brought into closest contact. Never before or
since has such a trio met, and we cannot read the account
ofthe interview without remarking how true religion glorifies
the commonplace and lifts it up into a region that is literally
sublime. One sees something of the same thing in what
have been called the familiar personal epistles of the New
Testament, namely, the letter of Paul to Philemon, and those
of John to Gaius and the Elect Lady ; for in the former the
sending of a request for favor to Onesimus, and in the latter
the transmission of an ordinary friendly communication, are
made vital and luminous both with faith and holiness. They
all conform to the common forms of epistolary correspond
ence that were in use at the time, and yet they all fill these
forms with living Christianity. So here Jacob comes before
Pharaoh with the respect that was ordinarily given to a mon
arch ; but how differently does that respect express itself in
his case from those of ordinary presentations at court. He
begins and ends the interview with a benediction. He does
not hide his faith from the king, but he manifests it in such
a way as to make it minister to the royal welfare by asking
for him the favor of the Most High. He who had seen
God face to face, and who had come to Egypt with the as
surance that God would accompany him, is not abashed be
fore royalty; but he does not presume, either, because of
that, and therefore he shows his piety, not by admonition, but
by benediction. Then when the monarch asked the ques
tion most natural in the circumstances, " How old art thou?"
he made this most significant reply : " The days ofthe years
of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years : few and
evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not
attained unto the clays of the years of the life of my fathers
in the days of their pilgrimage." This was one ofthe occa
sions referred to by the author ofthe Epistle to the Hebrews,
in which the patriarchs "confessed that they were strangers

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 147
and pilgrims." It was very true ofthe past of Jacob's life
that it had been a pilgrimage, for he had been twenty-one
years a stranger in the land of Padan-aram, and even after
his return to Canaan he had not dwelt continuously in one
place. For years, indeed, he had been at Hebron, near the
Machpelah cave, where the ashes of his fathers were en
tombed ; but now again he was away from the only spots of
earth in Shechem and in Hebron which legally he could call
his own. So with literal exactness he could say that his life
had been a pilgrimage. But the expression had a forward
as well as a backward look. It told that he was seeking a
home beyond the grave, that he was desiring the better coun
try, " even the heavenly," and that his hopes were anchored
there. It indicated that his feelings regarding his fathers
were not so distinct and definite indeed, but of the same
kind as those of Baxter when he wrote concerning a venera
ble relative who died at the age of a hundred years : " She
is gone after many of my choicest friends, and I am follow
ing even at the door. Had I been to enjoy them only here,
it would have been but a short comfort mixed with many
troubles which all our failings and sins, and some degree of
unsuitableness between the nearest and dearest, cause. But
I am going after them, to that blessed society where life and
light and love, and therefore harmony, concord, and joy are
perfect and everlasting." Thrice happy they who can look
forward to such an end of their pilgrimage !
Then with what artless simplicity Jacob describes the char
acter of his life — "Few and evil have the days of the years
of my life been." Few ? Yes, in the retrospect, the longest
life appears but brief. " We spend our years as a tale that is
told." Evil ? Yes, for he had done much evil, and he had
suffered much. They had not been only evil, for there were
lines of light shot often through the gloom, but evil now
preponderated in this view. "Alas ! for life, if this were all

148 Joseph the Prime-minister.
and naught beyond! O earth!" There is no answering the
Psalmist's question, " Wherefore hast thou made all men in
vain?" unless we take immortality into the account; and if
we did not believe in God, as the God and Father of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the life and immortality which our
Saviour has brought fo light, it would be hard to solve the
question, " Is life worth living ?" But take it as a pilgrimage
to the better land beyond, and the journey will be held as
more than compensated by the destination. Take it as a
voyage " to the land immortal, the beautiful of lands," and
the hardships of the passage will be as nothing compared
with the glory to which it bears us, for
" When the shore is won at last
Who will count the billows past ?"
But now we must once more break off the interesting nar
rative, to gather up two or three valuable lessons.
We may learn, then, in the first place, that in changing our
residence, and going from one place to another, it is of the
last importance that we secure that God shall go with us.
One cannot read these chapters without thinking of the ex
periences of those who emigrate from the Old World to this
new land, and of those who remove from our own Eastern
districts to the new settlements in the West. How often it
is almost literally repeated ! First there comes one of the
sons of the household ; it may be, forced to leave his home
¦by the envies and jealousies of those around him. On his
arrival he has difficulties to contend with, and he has many
alternations of fortune. Sometimes he is as prosperous ap
parently as Joseph was in the house of Potiphar, and some
times almost as far down as Joseph was when he was in
prison. But at length he finds his sphere, and makes such
good use of his opportunities that he attains to competence
and comfort, even, it may be, to affluence. Then he sends

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 149
for his parents, and the tie to the living, more strong than
that to the dead, brings them across to enjoy in their latest
days the tender nourishing of their long absent boy. Or
again, it is in the far West, whither the young adventurer
goes out to make his way in the world. He has had to en
dure many hardships, much that is little better than drudg
ery, and much that makes him often sigh for the home which
he has left. But prosperity comes at last, and it will be
robbed of half its joy to him if his parents cannot share it
with him. So at his bidding they arise and go. Thus his
tory repeats itself, and this old story fits into multitudinous
modern instances. But not always is sufficient heed given
to the sacrificing at Beersheba ; and the point I make now
is, that in all such changes we should seek, above all things
else, the companionship of Gocl. Nothing will harm us any
where if Gocl is with us, and we cannot have the highest
good if we go even into the fairest Goshen on the continent
without him. Horace Greeley, long ago, set the fashion of
saying, " Go West, young man, go West ;" and there is wis
dom in the advice, provided it be conjoined with the admo
nition, "But don't go without your God." Perhaps some
here are meditating on the propriety of their pushing away
into the places where the labor market is not overstocked,
and the opportunities are far better than they are in a com
paratively crowded city such as this. Nor do we say a word
against the project. Go, by all means, if you are not afraid
to work ; but remember the sacrifice at Beersheba, and don't
go without your God. Too many have clone that, and have
gone to ruin. But take him with you, and he will be "your
shield and your exceeding great reward."
But, in the second place, learn from this narrative never
to be ashamed of any honest calling. Joseph's brothers
were to tell Pharaoh frankly that they were shepherds, and
that led to their settlement in Goshen. So, if you can work

150 Joseph the Prime-minister.
at a good trade, never think such handicraft beneath you.
Paul was a tent-maker, and a greater than Paul wrought at
the carpenter's bench in Nazareth. I emphasize this, be
cause in these days there is a growing disposition among
many to look down on trades and tradesmen. There is a
spirit of caste among us, for all our boasted republicanism,
as really as there was in Egypt. Every kind of handicraft is
regarded by many as menial, and when you call a thing by
that name men and women flee from it as from a pestilence.
A young woman will reject comfort and safety in the situa
tion of a domestic assistant, and long for a place in a public
store, because the one is menial and the other not. And so
many evils are created among us. A young man with mark
ed mechanical ability will not go into the machine -shop
because that makes him a workman, but he wants to go
into an office or a store because that makes him a clerk —
for "every tradesman is an abomination to our modern ex
quisites." Hence good, honest, skilled artisans are hard to
get, and so we have too much bad workmanship. Hence,
too, the supply of clerks is far ahead of the demand ; many
are not employed at all, and those who are do not receive
anything like an adequate salary, because their places can
be supplied any day by others who will take less than they
are receiving. It was a wise law among the Jews that every
boy should learn a trade. He might follow it afterwards, or
not, as he chose, but he had to learn one. It would be im
practicable to have any such law here; but I know that
much misery would be prevented, and great good accom
plished if there were less caste among us in this matter of
handicraft, and young men were more willing to work at the
bench or at the forge. There is no disgrace in honest la
bor; nay, since Jesus lived at Nazareth it has become divine.
Read such a life as that of George Stephenson, or James
Nasmyth, or Ichabod Washburn, and see how the branch of

The Removal of Jacob and his Sons to Egypt. 151
opulence springs often out ofthe trunk ofthe tree of a com
mon handicraft. The labor may be common, but show you
that the laborer is uncommon, and remember well that
" Honor and shame from no condition rise ;
Act well your part — there all the honor lies."
Finally, remember that life at the longest is very short.
Therefore, do at once that which you feel you ought to do
at all. Yea, do first that which is most important. Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Young
man, do not leave it to a future day, but do it now, that all
your life may be one of usefulness and enjoyment. Man of
middle-age, you have a vivid sense of the rapidity with which
your years have gone, but they will go just as rapidly in the
future as in the past, and you will be on your death-bed be
fore you know it ; therefore, " what thy hands find to do, do
it with thy might." Man of old-age, you have to make haste,
for you have no time to lose. The ancient law said kindly
as to the sale of an estate, " according to the number of the
years thou shalt diminish the price ;" the nearer they were to
the Jubilee, the cheaper were they to sell their land. So
the nearer you come to the end of your days, you ought to
hold earthly things more loosely, and prize heavenly things
more highly. When your business day is drawing to a close,
you hasten to finish your work, and sometimes you do more
in the last hour than in all that went before. As your paper
becomes more filled you write more closely, to get all in that
you want to say. And in the same way, the older you grow,
you should become the more earnest in the service of your
God in Christ. And if you have not yet begun to serve him,
I beseech you to begin now ! When Napoleon came on the
field of Marengo, it was late in the afternoon, and he saw
that the battle was really lost. But looking at the western
sun, he said, " There is just time to recover the day !" and

152 Joseph the Prime-minister.
giving out his orders with that rapid energy for which, com
bined with quick perception of what an emergency needed,
he was so remarkable, he turned a defeat into a victory.. So
your sun is nearing its setting, but there is time, in the pres
ent opportunity, to "recover the day." Avail yourself of it,
therefore, at once, lest your life should end in utter, blank,
eternal failure.

XI.
JOSEPH'S TWO VISITS TO. HIS AGED FATHER.
Gen. xlvii., 27 ; xlviii., 22.
IT would be observed by those who were closely following
us in our last discourse, that we made no mention what
ever of the genealogical list of the family of Jacob which is.
given in connection with the migration of the patriarch from
Canaan to Egypt.* We took that course deliberately, in
order that nothing of a merely formal sort might come in to
break the continuity of our narrative, and no discussion ofa
question of difficulty might divert our attention from the
practical lessons which the history suggested. But' as the
list to which I have referred has been a favorite armory
whence antagonists have drawn weapons for attacking the
truthfulness of the book of Genesis, and has been the 00
casion of much perplexity to many candid students of the
Scriptures, it may be well to devote a little time now to its
elucidation. The first thing that strikes the careful reader of this table
is, that it contains the names of some who were not born at
the date when Jacob went down to the land of Goshen.
Thus, to say nothing of Hezron and Hamul, the grandsons
of Judah, there are ten sons of Benjamin in the list; now, as
Benjamin was a comparatively young man, somewhere be
tween twenty and thirty, at the time of his removal to Egypt,
it is at least highly improbable that he should have had so

* Gen. xlvi., 8-27.
7*

154 Joseph the Prime-minister.
large a family at that early age. These and other anomalies
in the table, therefore, compel us to seek for the principle
of its construction ; and when we discover the purpose which
it was designed to serve, we have at once the key to its
explanation. In the after-history of the Hebrew nation we find that it
was divided into twelve tribes, and that the tribes were ranged
under different families. The tribes, of course, took their
names from the twelve sons of Jacob, with the exception that,
as we shall see in a later part of this evening's lecture, Ma
nasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph, were reckoned as
heads of tribes, precisely as if they had been the sons and
not merely the grandsons of Jacob. In each tribe, again,
the families into which it was divided took their names from
the grandsons of Jacob, and in some cases — that of the tribe
of Asher, for example — from those of his great-grandsons.
Now, the object of this list is to. give the names ofthe heads
of the tribes, and those of the subordinate families of each
tribe in the nation. Hence it belongs to a date slightly later
than that of the removal to Egypt, and is inserted here as
the most convenient place for its preservation, although it
undoubtedly contains the names of some who were not born
at the time ofthe emigration from Canaan, and who are here
said to have gone clown into Egypt, simply on the principle
that, to use the language of the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, "they were then in the loins of their fathers."
This may seem to some as if it were merely a violent cutting
of the knot, rather than a patient untying of it; but, as one
has said, " There is a marked difference in certain respects
between genealogical and historical records, and particularly
in the mode of clubbing together parent and offspring, or
of giving sway to some regulating principle."* They were
* Fairbairn's "Imperial Bible Dictionary," art. Jacob.

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 155
very often constructed on some artificial principle. We can
not read the table with which Matthew begins his gospel
without remarking that there other things are made to bend
to the securing of fourteen generations between each of the
different landing-places in the document. Now, in the list
more immediately before us, the principle of construction was
to include all the heads of families in the different tribes,
whether these were grandsons or great-grandsons of Jacob,
and whether they were born in Egypt or not ; for as one is
an American citizen who is born of American parents any
where, so these were Hebrews though they were born in
Egypt. Dean Payne Smith has put the matter very clearly
and succinctly in these sentences: "This document is one
that would be of the highest importance to the Israelites
when taking possession of Canaan, being, as it were, their
title-deed to the land. Accordingly we find that it is drawn
up in legal manner, representing as sons some who were re
ally grandsons, but who took as heads of families the place
usually held by sons. We next find that it represents them
all as born in Canaan, not in a natural sense, but as the
rightful heirs of the country. Technically every head of a
family was born in Canaan, and thus the clanger was obviated
of an objection to the possession of this rank being accorded
to one born in Egypt." *
But there are difficulties also as to the numbers. The
classification is arranged under the headings of Jacob's wives;
and it is said, verse fifteenth, " These be the sons of Leah,
which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter
Dinah : all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty
and three." But when we add up the several items we get
only thirty-two. This sets us to a closer inspection of the
* Ellicott's " Old Testament Commentary for English Readers," vol. i.,
p. 159.

156 Joseph the Prime-minister.
wording ofthe document, and looking back to verse eighth we
find, " These are the names of the children of Israel, which
came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons." So, however strange
it may seem, we must include Jacob himself in the enumer
ation, and that makes thirty-three.
Again, in the twenty-sixth verse, it is said, " All the souls
that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins,
besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and
six ; and the sons of Joseph, which were borne him in Egypt,
were two souls : all the souls of the house of Jacob, which
came into Egypt, were threescore and ten." Now, how shall
we explain these statements ? If we add the totals for the
sons of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah as they are here
given, we get the sum of seventy. But how shall we make
out that of sixty-six ? Thus : drop the name of Jacob from
the sons of Leah and you have, including Dinah, thirty-two.
Drop also Joseph and his two sons from the list of Rachel's
descendants and you have for them eleven. This will give
32 + 16 + 11 + 7=66. Then, if to these sixty-six thus ac
counted for you add Jacob, Joseph and his two sons — four —
you have seventy, the second number specified.
But some of you may remember that Stephen, in his ad
dress before the Jewish council, spoke thus : " Then sent
Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kin
dred, threescore and fifteen souls." How now shall we ex
plain that discrepancy? Some have accounted for it by sup
posing that Stephen quoted from the Septuagint, which in
cludes in its genealogical list five descendants of Joseph who
are not mentioned in the Hebrew text ; while others have
held that the eloquent deacon proceeded on the principle of
excluding from the list all who were not actually born in
Canaan, and including the eleven wives of Jacob's sons.
Thus, Dr. Lee in his "Lectures on Inspiration," says, "Mo
ses tells us how many Jacob and his seed amounted to, omit-

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged JFather. 157
ting his sons' wives. Stephen tells us how many they were
that Joseph called into Egypt. Some, therefore, in the list
of Moses must be left out of the number given by Stephen.
Joseph and his two sons could not be said to be called into
Egypt, still less could Hezron and Hamul, the sons of Pharez,
who were not yet born. Besides, Jacob, too, must be consid
ered apart. Hence six persons are to be deducted from the
number of Moses, in order to find those who are reckoned
by Stephen, and sixty-four only are common to both. Add
now the eleven wives of the sons of Jacob, and we get the
number, seventy-five, given by Stephen."* This seems plau
sible, but the plausibility disappears when we go a little into
detail ; for if we must deduct Hezron and Hamul as not then
born, plainly we must deduct, for the same reason, some of
the sons of Benjamin, and probably also the grandsons of
Asher; so that, in spite of its ingenuity, this explanation of
Dr. Lee's must be given up, and we fall back on the other
as entirely natural and satisfactory, namely, that Stephen,
speaking to Hellenistic Jews, was quoting from the Greek
version of the Old Testament current in his day, which in
cluded five descendants of Joseph, to wit, three grandsons
and two great-grandsons, who are not spoken of in the He
brew text, and only the sticklers for a mechanical and utter
ly untenable theory of inspiration will be troubled by. such
an explanation.
But, leaving now these matters of detail and difficulty, let
us take up the thread of the history at the point at which we
left it in our last discourse. Jacob resided in the land of
Goshen for seventeen years, and as he removed from Ca
naan to Egypt in the second year: of the great famine, he
must have seen the land in its usual productiveness for
twelve years. How it fared with Joseph all that while the
*¦ " Donellan Lectures on Inspiration," p. 454. - ...

158 Joseph the Prime-minister.
narrative does not inform us, but there seems to be little
doubt that he retained his exalted position in the country,
even though the immediate occasion for his special services
had passed away. He was still a great lord in the land, and
his kinsmen were sharers in his prosperity, and continued to
dwell in the district of Goshen. Only three incidents be
longing to these seventeen years are recorded, and all of
them cluster about the close of Jacob's life; but, whatever
else may have marked the tenor of this last seventh portion
of the pilgrimage of the aged patriarch — the Sabbath of his
life, as we may call it — we may be sure that it was brighten
ed for him by the fellowship, and lightened for him by the
kindness of his beloved Joseph. Indeed, two out of the
three incidents to which I have referred both illustrate and
confirm that assertion.
The first was an interview between Jacob and Joseph
themselves alone. The old man felt that his days on earth
were drawing to a close. The frailties of age were upon him.
He does not appear, indeed, to have been confined constant
ly to his couch, but his thoughts were much on his departure,
and, in the course of nature, he knew that he must soon " be
gathered to his fathers." But he saw no indication of the
immediate return of his family to Canaan. Joseph most evi
dently had still work to do in Egypt, and Jacob's other sons
were too comfortable under the shield of their brother's pro
tection to desire to go elsewhere. As far, therefore, as he
couJd forecast, Jacob felt that he should die in Egypt, and
he began to ponder on the effect which that event would
have upon the faith and character of his descendants. If
he were to be buried in that land without giving any testi
mony to God's covenant, which had pledged Jehovah to
grant Canaan to his posterity, it would seem like throwing
up his claim to the Land of Promise altogether, and might
reconcile his descendants to remain forever where they then

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 159
were. But from that Jacob revolted with all his heart. j\c-
cordingly, he sent specially for Joseph, on whose truth and
loyalty he could implicitly depend, and required him to
promise, with an oath administered after the fashion of his
fathers, that his remains should not be buried in Egypt, but
should be laid in the Cave of Machpelah, beside those of
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and his own Leah.
This request was thus rooted in something deeper than
the merely natural desire of a man to have his body laid be
side those of his nearest kindred. Under the New Testa
ment dispensation, indeed, we have learned that it makes no
matter where our bodies are buried, for by his brief occu
pancy of the tomb of Joseph the Lord Jesus Christ has con
secrated the whole earth as a cemetery for his people; and
by his resurrection from the grave he has given us the as
surance that they that, sleep in him, wheresoever their rest
ing-places are, shall hear his voice at the last great day, and
shall come forth in spiritual and incorruptible forms to meet
him in the skies.. The mere locality of our grave, therefore,
is of comparatively small importance, whether we are laid
away under the arctic snows, like the brave explorers who
accompanied the dauntless Franklin, or beneath the shade
of tropical shrubs on the rim of the Dark Continent, like
those missionary martyrs who by their sepulchres have taken
possession of the Machpelah in that new Land of Promise,
or in the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean, with the white
foam of the waves for our shroud, and the whistling of the
winds for our requiem. It is all one to the Christian where
his body is laid. And yet even the Christian has the natural
desire to be laid beside his kindred; so that in all our cem
eteries we have family lots, and in many of our old country
homesteads we come yet upon the quiet and secluded en
closure where the ashes of the first settlers and those of
their successors lie. But Jacob's desire that his body should

160 Joseph the Prime-minister.
be laid in Machpelah had a deeper root than nature. The
land of Canaan was his by God's covenant. He had not
yet obtained it. For aught that he could see, he was to die
without entering on its possession; but even in his death he
would show that he still believed that his children would
have its ownership, and therefore he made Joseph swear
that he would bury him in the sepulchre of his fathers.
Nor was this all. He wanted his sons and his descend
ants to know that Egypt was not their rest. He desired to.
fix their minds on Canaan, and to fan in their hearts the de
sire to return thither when God should open up the way.
There was to be nothing, as far as he was concerned, to an
chor them in Egypt, but everything to incite them to go
back to Palestine ; therefore, knowing how much there is in~
the sepulchres of our fathers to gather round them interest
and enthusiasm, and to evoke the desire on our part to be in
their immediate neighborhood, he said to Joseph, " Bury me.
in the burying-place of my fathers."
Joseph took the required oath, saying, "I. will do as thou
hast said ;" and thereupon the anxiety of his father was. en
tirely removed. - And we read that " Israel bowed himself
upon the bed's head." But the Septuagint translation gives
the phrase thus, " Israel bowed himself, or worshipped, upon
the top of his staff;" and the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews quotes it, according to our authorized version, thus,
"Jacob worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." It
may appear strange that two such diverse translations should
be given of the same Hebrew word, but an illustration will
make it plain. Originally the Hebrew was written without
vowels, and these were supplied by the reader. Latterly,
however, and indeed centuries after the Christian era began,
the Masoretes supplied the vowels, putting them in the shape
of points under and in the consonants, very much as they
are put in our modern phonographic short-hand. The same

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 161
consonants, therefore, according as they were differently vow
elled, might mean different things; just as in our own lan
guage the same consonants written in short-hand will signify
trouble, or terrible, or treble, according as they are pointed.
So here the same word in Hebrew vowelled one way means
bed, and vowelled another means staff; and as the Greek
translators were nearer the era when Hebrew was a spoken
language, we prefer their rendering as the better.
But even with that translation, what is the meaning of the
clause ? It has been commonly interpreted as a manifesta
tion of Jacob's thankfulness to God for the ready acquies
cence of Joseph in his request, and thus understood it har
monizes well with the whole surroundings of the story and
with all that we know of Jacob's own character. But Mr.
Stuart Poole, in an article in the Contemporary Review for
March, 1879, already referred to by me in these discourses,*
has suggested another, and perhaps a better explanation.
He says, speaking of the conformity of the narrative of Jo
seph to the Egypt ofthe time as revealed by the monuments,
" Two circumstances bring us very near Egyptian official
usages. ' By the life of Pharaoh ' is used as a strong assev
eration by Joseph ;f and when he has sworn to his father,
after the Hebrew manner, that he will not bury him in Egypt,
then Israel ' bowed himself upon the head of his staff' "
Both the expression "by the life of Pharaoh" and the cus
tom of bowing upon the staff of an officer are traced by M.
Chabas in his interesting essays on Egyptian judicial pro
ceedings, where he cites the following passage describing the
taking of an oath by a witness in Thebes : " ' He made a life
of the royal lord, striking his nose and his ears, and placing
himself on the head ofthe staff' — the ordinary oath when
the witness bowed himself on the magistrate's staff of office.
* See p. 38. t Gen. xliii., 15, 16.

1 62 Joseph the Prime-minister.
He well remarks that this explains the passage in Genesis
quoted above, as a recognition by Jacob of his son's author
ity." According to this interesting interpretation, then, the
staff here is not that of Jacob, but the official staff of Joseph,
and Jacob shows his gratitude to his son by rendering to
• him, after the Egyptian manner, the respect which he was
accustomed to receive from the subjects of Pharaoh. This,
too, is a simple, natural, and every way appropriate exer
cise for Jacob in the circumstances ; and if I must choose be
tween the two explanations, I express my preference for the
second, as harmonizing the Hebrew with the Septuagint,
the Old Testament with the New, and both with the com
mon custom of ancient Egypt.
The second incident which is recorded as having occurred
shortly before the death of Jacob, is an interview between
him and Joseph, in the presence of Ephraim and Manasseh,
and having special reference to them. In response to a mes
sage telling him that his father was sick, Joseph, accompa
nied by his two sons, hastened to Jacob's bedside. When
the old man heard of his approach he summoned all his
strength, and, rising to a sitting posture, prepared himself for
the discharge of an important duty. After the usual greet
ing, of which here we have no account, the venerable patri
arch, looking far back in his history to God's two appearances
to him at Bethel, repeated to Joseph the substance of the
promises which the Lord had there made to him, and for
mally adopted Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons, put
ting them, so far as tribal prominence was concerned, on an
equality with Joseph's own brethren. Thus he spoke : "Now
thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto
thee in the land of Egypt, before I came unto thee into Egypt,
are mine ; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. And
thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine,
and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 163
inheritance." Then there comes into the narrative a touch
of nature which is exceedingly affecting. He has been put
ting Ephraim and Manasseh into the birthright place for
feited by Reuben, because to them, as the sons of Joseph
who was the first-born of Rachel, after its forfeiture by the
first-born of Leah, it rightfully belonged; and that suggests
to him his first, his early, his constant, his supreme love for
Rachel, so that he goes on to speak of her — of the time,
place, and manner of her death, and of her lonely grave, pre
cisely as if the incidents had happened only a short while
before. It is so like an old man in the apparent abruptness
of the transition from his grandsons to Rachel, and in the
fond circumstantiality of his references to his well-beloved ;
and those who have had most to do with the aged will be
the first to recognize the truthful naturalness of the whole
description. But now, for the first time, the dying man, whose eyes were
dimmed with years, perceived that Joseph was not alone.
There were two others with him, but he could not clearly
identify them, and he asked, " Who are these i" This led to
Joseph's introduction of his sons to their grandfather, who
instantly said, "Bring them, I pray thee, to me, and I will
bless them ;" and when he had kissed and embraced them he
said to their father, in a parenthesis of grateful love, " I had
not thought to see thy face : and, lo, God hath shewed me
also thy seed." Then, when they were kneeling before him,
Manasseh the elder on the left, where Jacob's right hand
would come most naturally to his head, and Ephraim the
younger on the right, where Jacob's left hand would most
naturally find his head, the old man crossed his hands, so
that his right hand was on the head of Ephraim and his
left on that of Manasseh, and in this attitude he repeated
these beautiful words : " God, before whom my fathers Abra
ham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life

164 Joseph the Prime-minister.
long unto this clay, the Angel which redeemed me from
all evil, bless the lads ; and let my name be named on them,
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac ; and let
them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." It
was the experience of a lifetime condensed into a sentence
and breathed into a prayer. The home of Beersheba, the
vision of Bethel, the protection experienced in Padan-aram,
the blessing of the new name from the angel that wrestled
with bim at Peniel — all are brought into review before us as
we hear these words, and it seems as if all were said that
could be said by Jacob when he exclaimed, " The Angel which
redeemed me " — no created angel that, but the only-begotten
son who has redeemed us also, so that across the chasm of
mrlleniums our hands meet those of Jacob, as we cling to
Christ, and hear him saying, " the Angel which redeemed me
from all evil, bless the lads."
But Joseph was slightly discomposed by the position of
his father's hands. He recognized that, like Isaac in similar
circumstances, Jacob was speaking under special divine guid
ance, and he would make sure that there was no mistake.
So he drew his father's attention to what he had done, and
received for answer, "I know it, my son, I know it," with
which he was content; for to both the boys Jacob had spo
ken as representing their descendants, in words which truth
fully describe the relative position of the tribes of Ephraim
and Manasseh in after days to each other and to the rest of
the nation.
Then, this interesting duty done, Jacob' said to his son,
" Behold, I die ; but God shall be with you, and bring you
again unto the land of your fathers ;" and to give him yet an
other proof of the firmness of his faith in the divine promise,
he added, "Moreover I have given to thee one portion above
thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite
with my sword and with my bow." The word here rendered

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 165
u portion" is " Shechem," and that, together with the decla
ration of the. fourth Evangelist, that Jacob's well was "near
to the parcel of^ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph,"
fixes the locality near the modern Nablus, in that valley
which is described by modern travellers as being the most
beautiful place in all Palestine. But when did Jacob take
that out of the hands ofthe Amorite with his sword and with
his bow? Some have replied that it was when Simeon and
Levi treacherously warred with the men of Shechem ; but
that can hardly be, for Jacob was grievously ashamed of their
conduct, and emphatically condemned it, so that here he
cannot be understood as appropriating and endorsing it.
But there is no mention of any other strife with sword and
bow in which Jacob was personally engaged, and therefore
the common opinion now is, that he here spoke prophetical
ly, and already saw the time in vision when his tribal de
scendants should conquer the Land of Promise, and Joseph's
body should be laid in that portion of ground which, though
it was his by inheritance, had to be taken again by Israel
out ofthe hands of the Canaanites by force.
Thus far for the history. Now let us see what we can
learn from it, that our exposition may be not merely for the
•satisfaction of the intellect, but also for the profit of the life.
I mention only three things.
First, how delightful it is to see the intercourse between
an' aged father and a full-grown son, when it is what it ought
to be on both sides. Joseph's greatest ambition was to pro
mote Jacob's welfare, and Jacob's heart rejoiced in every
honor which Joseph enjoyed. The Grand Vizier of Egypt
held himself at the proper call of his father, but knowing
how much he was engaged with public and pressing affairs
his father made demands upon him only for necessary things.
Joseph brought Jacob to Egypt that he might nourish him,
and he thought it no hardship to have to provide for him as

1 66 Joseph the Prime-minister.
long as it was necessary to do so; but Jacob, having brought
his flocks and herds with him, would not need such provis
ion after the famine ended, and would rejoice in his latest
years in a virtual independence. Joseph placed his father
near himself, that he might easily and often visit him ; but
Jacob still kept up his own house, that he might not inter
fere with the comfort of others, and they might not mar the
peace of his own heart. All this is very interesting, and not
without its suggestive hints to us. It tells those among us
who have to provide for aged parents to regard that as one
of the highest honors of their lives. An aged mother or a
venerable father is the greatest treasure that a son or a
daughter can possess; and far from counting their support
a burden, their children should regard it as a pleasure. But
even where no pecuniary support is needed by them, their
sons ought to go and see them often, and cheer them by
their conversation and fellowship. The aged are lonely.
They have survived most of the companions of their youth
and middle age, and depend for many of their joys upon
those younger than themselves, especially upon their sons
and daughters. So go and see your father and mother when
you can ; let nothing, if possible, keep you away when they
send for you, and when they are sick your fitting place is by
their bed. Sacredly cherish their requests, and take upon
you every responsibility that will ease their hearts. They
will not be with you long ; and when you lay their ashes
in the dust, you will not be upbraided by the reproach of
conscience that you did not honor and nourish them as
you ought to have done.
But while in this fellowship there is an obligation resting
on the son or daughter, there is a corresponding one devolv
ing on the parent. He is to be considerate also of his son's
or daughter's circumstances and duties, and is to remember
that with advancing years on both sides the relative position

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 167
of the one to the other has considerably changed. He can
not expect that he can be to his son or daughter as he was
in the days of their minority, or that they can be to him
precisely as they were when they were children; and he must
not murmur if other duties keep them from being with him
as much as otherwise they would desire. The words of
Lawson here are exceedingly judicious, and may be com
mended to the attentive consideration of those to whom
they refer: "Children should obey and honor their parents
as long as they-live. But parents are not to expect the same
degree of obedience from them in every part of life, be
cause, in the progress of reason and of human affairs, chil
dren are entitled to new privileges, and laid under obliga
tions to new duties. They have a right, when they come to
the years of maturity, to judge for themselves concerning
matters in which they were formerly bound to acquiesce in
the judgment of their parents. They enter into new con
nections, the duties of which are not less sacred than those
which they owed to their parents;"* and nothing inconsistent
with the performance of the duties of these relationships
ought to be required even by their parents. These are val
uable principles, and if they were better understood among
us there might be fewer family feuds or domestic misunder
standings. Second, let us learn from this narrative that if we have
any important business to transact before we die we should
set about it betimes, and not leave it to be done in haste at
the last. Jacob's end was drawing near, and he sent for Jo
seph, as it would appear, before even his last illness had set
in, and ere yet he was laid upon his couch, to give him com
mandment concerning his burial. Now this may suggest, to
* " Lectures on the History of Joseph," by George Lawson, D.D.,
P-390.

1 68 Joseph the Prime-minister.
those who have family arrangements to make, that they should
not defer the making of them until they come to be in the
article of death, but should settle their affairs while yet they
are in full health, in the possession of a sound mind, and in
calm, unbiassed spirit. If, for example, a will has to be
made by a man — and every man, if he have anything to
leave, both for his own sake and for the sake of those who
are most nearly related to him, should make a will — why
should he postpone the making of it until he come to die?
It will not bring death any sooner if he should make it at
once, and it may prevent many evils if it is made now.
Then, if God should greatly prosper him in future years,
and should thus alter his circumstances, let him destroy the
former will and make another, lest terrible injustice and bard-
ship be done to the survivors by putting them back into a
scale of living to which they have not for long been accus
tomed, and leaving them with a pitiful provision instead of
an ample sustenance such as could easily have been pro
vided. I have known cases of great suffering just from this
cause. Let every man keep his affairs well in hand, so that
those around him shall have to mourn only his departure
when he dies, and shall have no cause to blame him for
want of thought for his nearest and his dearest relations.
If there is anything that you feel you ought to do in the way
of settling your affairs, so as to secure peace and comfort
among the members of your family when you die, do it at
once, for the uncertainty of life is proverbial, and you know
not what a day may bring forth. You cannot read the news
papers for a week together without discovering that many
unseemly squabbles over the division of property might have
been prevented if those who in business were so energetic in
the making of money had possessed only the foresight to ar
range calmly, and in circumstances in which there could be
no ground for the insinuation either of undue influence on

Joseph's Two Visits to his Aged Father. 169
the part of others, or of incompetence on their own, for its
division. If there is anything you feel impelled to say or do
before you die, then say or do it now, and the older you are,
let the now be only the more emphatic.
Finally, what a happy thing it is to have faith when we
come to die. Jacob says, " I die, but God shall be with you."
That was his legacy to Joseph and his other sons. He had
no misgivings about them. They were in Egypt, no doubt,
and he saw no present prospect of their return to Canaan,
but he was sure that God would arrange all that, and he felt
so confident about it that he gave commandment concern
ing his burial. He died away from the Land of Promise, but
he "greeted it from afar," and on his death-bed reaffirmed
his faith that his children would possess it. " God will be
with you ;" yes, and on the other side of it " He would be
with God," in the true land of promise, the Canaan of the
skies ; for that, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
assures us, was at the moment in his desire. But what was
seen by him only through type becomes a direct object of
faith to the Christian. Dying he leaves the Lord with his
friends, and goes himself to be with the Lord. So he has
calmness and peace like that which Michael Bruce has ex
pressed in the beautiful hymn with which every Scotchman
is familiar, as forming the last in the old Psalmody of his
fatherland : "The hour of my departure's come,
I hear the voice that calls me .home.
At last, O Lord, let trouble cease,
And let thy servant die in peace.
"The race appointed I have run;
The combat's o'er, the prize is won ;
And now my witness is on high,
And now my record 's in the sky.
8

170 Joseph the Prime-minister.
" Not in mine innocence I trust,
I bow before thee in the dust;
And through my Saviour's blood alone
I look for mercy at thy throne.
"I leave the world without a tear,
Save for the friends I held so dear.
To heal their sorrows, Lord, descend,
And to the friendless prove a friend."
Oh, for such faith in Christ through life, that we may have
this calmness and peace in the hour of our departure. Amen.

XII.
JACOB'S DYING PROPHECIES.
Gen. xlix., 1-27.
THE last ofthe three incidents in the life of Jacob which
are recorded as having place between the migration
of that patriarch to Egypt and his death, is the assembling
by him of his sons around his death-bed, that he might tell
them what should befall their posterity in the latter days.
It is commonly spoken of as his " blessing " of his children,
but it would be more accurately described as his prophetic
forecast of the future character, position, and history of each
of the tribes which were to be named after each of his sons.
The aged patriarch speaks throughout as one gifted for the
occasion with divine inspiration. His words are not mere
wishes, nor are they simple prayers ; but they are actual pre
dictions. He addresses his sons not merely as one who could
say like the Highland chieftain,
"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before,"*
but as the heir of the covenant blessing to whom a special
revelation had been made, and who had received along with
that the inspiration which was needed for its correct trans
mission to those for whom it was intended. Accordingly, by
such as deny the possibility of prophecy, it has been indus
triously asserted that these patriarchal predictions must have
* Thomas Campbell.

172 Joseph the Prime-minister.
been written after the occurrence of the things which they
foretell, and that they are here fictitiously put into the mouth
of Jacob. The very presence of such vaticinations in the doc
ument has been held by many as proving that it belongs to
the date of David or of Solomon, and that it was written by
one looking back upon the past, rather than spoken by one
who was foretelling the future. Now it would be quite out
of place to enter here on an elaborate reply to the a priori
objection that prophecy is impossible, since that is only an
inference from the assertion that all miracles are impossible,
and such an assertion, as we have elsewhere shown,* amounts
to a virtual denial of the personal existence of God himself.
But in. rebuttal of the affirmation that these predictions
must have been written after the occurrence of the things
which they foretell, we may point to the fact that in the por
tion which refers to Levi, no mention is made ofthe conse
cration of the members of his tribe to the special service of
God ; and it is utterly inconceivable that one writing at any
date subsequent to the erection of the Tabernacle should
have passed that peculiar office of the Levites in silence.
This prophecy, therefore, must have been given before the
Exodus, and if that be so, no more fitting occasion for its
enunciation can be suggested than that on which it is here
said to have been uttered. Again, in the oracle which is
addressed to Judah, there is, as we shall presently see, a ref
erence to the time of the appearance of the Messiah on the
earth ; and even if the date of its production be put as far
clown as David's day, nothing would be gained in the inter
ests of rationalism by that, since a difference of a few hun
dred years in the date of a prediction, which is still acknowl
edged to be a thousand years in advance of what we shall
* See " The Gospel Miracles in their Relation to Christ and Christi
anity," by W. M. Taylor, D.D. Lecture I.

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 173
show to have been its fulfilment, does not at all invalidate
the supernatural character of the prophecy. We take this
chapter, therefore, as we find it, and we regard it as being
what it purports to be, the dying utterance of the last of the
three great patriarchs.
Now, in carefully considering the separate oracles of which
it consists, we find two things specially characteristic of the
whole series. In the first place the tribes are regarded as
individuals, and the future of each is indicated in an address
to its head. Just as, among ourselves, a nation is often
viewed as a person, and its history as a lifetime, having its
birth, infancy, youth, manhood, old age, and death, so each
tribe here is personified in, or represented by, its progenitor,
and his life is spoken of as continued or prolonged in the
existence of his posterity. Ih the second place, each pre
diction is rooted in the character or name ofthe individual
addressed, and is shown to be a development of some germ
which had already manifested its existence in him. In the
vegetable and animal kingdoms we find fixity of type main
tained by different species through long series of years, and
the same thing may be observed in the several tribes of men.
Here and there we may come upon individual exceptions,
but in the main the principle of heredity holds good, and
the descendants of the same progenitor have the qualities of
their sire. The Gauls of modern times have many of the
same characteristics which Paul attributes to the Galatians
of old, and they both come from the same stock. Hence,
Jacob here unconsciously proceeds on what is now recognized
as a law of nature, while at the same time his allusions to
the individual characters and actions of his sons as they
stood round his bed, must have had a particularly wholesome
effect upon themselves, leading some of them to the deepest
penitence, and stimulating others to the devoutest praise.
We attempt no description of the scene. That which is

174 Joseph the Prime-minister.
not depicted is often, thereby, only the more effectively de
lineated. We leave you therefore to imagine the picture for
yourselves, while we go on to give in the briefest form a clear
presentation of the meaning of the different oracles.
Jacob begins with Reuben, whom he thus addresses :
" Reuben, my firstborn, thou,
My might, and the beginning of my strength ;
The excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.
Boiling over like water, thou shalt not excel ;
Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed :
Then defiledst thou it : he went up to my couch."
Here there is a reference to the forfeiture of the birthright
by Reuben, and the sin of which that was the punishment.
Its commission is traced to the geyser-like quality of Reuben's
character, which burst forth intermittently, now boiling up in
a sudden surge, and now receding out of sight. Of this pe
culiarity we have instances in his spasmodic and therefore
unsuccessful attempt to save the life of Joseph by getting him
put into the pit, and then leaving him, and in his altogether
extravagant offer to allow his two sons to be slain if he did
not bring Benjamin safely back. Now, such a temperament
never achieves excellence. It lacks perseverance and steadi
ness of application, and Jacob affirms that Reuben's posteri
ty, taking after their father in this respect, would never rise
to any eminence in the nation. Nor did they; for it is re
markable that no one of the Judges belonged to this tribe.
It gave no great captain to the armies of Israel, and no name
to the goodly fellowship of the prophets in the land. In the
song of Deborah it is mentioned with disapprobation among
those who came not up to the help of the Lord ; and the un-
reliableness of its members may be referred to in the words,
" For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of
heart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds to hear the
bleatings ofthe flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 175
were great searchings of heart." So it passes down into the
region that is below mediocrity, and becomes the type of
superficial and short-lived impulse that dies away into inac
tivity and inefficiency.
Simeon and Levi come next. They are addressed togeth
er as having been the actors in that attack upon the She
chemites which overwhelmed Jacob with shame, and to which
there is unmistakable allusion in these scorching words :
" Simeon and Levi are brethren ;
Instruments of cruelty are their swords.
O my soul, come not thou into their secret ;
Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united ;
For in their anger they slew a man,
And in their selfwill they houghed oxen.
Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce;
And their wrath, for it was cruel :
I will divide them in Jacob,
And scatter them in Israel."
They had conspired with each other for evil, and as a pun
ishment they would be scattered over the Land of Promise.
As Bishop Andrewes has quaintly put it, " Their fault was a
bad union ; their punishment is a just division. Their fault
was 'hand-in-hand;' they were too near; their punishment
is, they shall be set far enough asunder. So whom the devil
hath joined God puts insunder, and a righteous thing it is it
should be so." Now observe the fulfilment. After the con
quest of Canaan the Simeonites were not important enough
to have an allotment of their own,* and had a portion out of
the inheritance of Judah; and in the subsequent history of
the nation it is difficult to discover even the name of Sim
eon, or any trace of influence exerted by the tribe. Of the
Levites we read again and again that they had "no inher-
* Josh, xix., 1-9.

176 Joseph the Prime-minister.
itance save God," and that their dwellings were assigned
them in different cities far from each other, and scattered
over the territories of all the tribes. But there is this strik
ing feature in their case, namely, that what in Jacob's proph
ecy was a curse, was turned, by the noble conduct of Moses
and the splendid loyalty ofthe Levites in a time of peril,
into a blessing. So that, while the letter of the prediction
was fulfilled, the penitence of the Levites had power, through
the grace of God, to change the spirit of it into a benedic
tion. The truth of the prophecy was kept, but in the way
of blessing rather than of punishment; and few things are
more interesting and suggestive in this regard than the com
parison of these words of Jacob concerning Levi with the
blessing which Moses pronounced upon the same tribe.
Next comes Judah, to whom Jacob said,
"Judah, thou, thy brethren shall praise thee:
•Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies ;
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp ;
From the prey, my son, thou art gone up :
lie stooped clown, he crouched as a. lion,
And as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up ?
A sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a law-giver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh come ;
And unto him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Binding his foal unto the vine,
And his ass's colt unto the choice vine ;
He washed his garments in wine,
And his clothes in the blood of grapes:
His eyes shall be red with wine,
And his teeth white with milk."
The first words of this oracle refer to the derivation of the
name Judah, which signifies praise, and declare that he shall
be the object of reverence among his brethren. The next

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 177
verses depict his supremacy among the tribes as giving to
them a king, and inaugurating a government which, in one
form or other, should exist until the coming of Shiloh ; while
the closing verses describe the rich beauty and luxuriant
productiveness of his tribal inheritance in the land of Ca
naan. But naturally we are most deeply interested in the
portion which refers to the coming of Shiloh. Now here it
is to be remarked that the translation which we have given
is that which the majority of Hebrew scholars have sanc
tioned. The variation suggested by some, " until he come
to Shiloh," finds little favor either on grammatical or histori
cal grounds, and has been very generally discarded. The
term Shiloh has been variously understood, but now the best
scholars are divided between these two significations, "the
Peaceful " and " He whose it is " — the one referring to the
character of the Messiah, and the other to his right to the
sceptre of Judah; but as the latter would require a con
siderable change in the Hebrew word, involving even the
leaving out of one of its letters, I prefer the former, corre
sponding as it does with Isaiah's designation of the coming
deliverer as " the prince of Peace." Now this prediction of
Jacob is a distinct step forward in the march of prophecy.
First, Messiah was to be the seed of the woman ; then of the
family of Shem, then ofthe seed of Abraham; then Jacob
was designated as his progenitor, and now Judah. But along
with that indication of his tribal ancestry we have now also
this description of his character, the Peaceful, and this iden
tification of the time of his appearance, namely, just before
the sceptre shall depart from Judah. Now of these the first
two need not detain us long, for "it is evident that our Lord
sprang out of Judah ;"* and every one recognizes the fitness
of Shiloh, the peaceful, as the name of him on whose birth-
* Hebrews vii., 14.
8*

178 Joseph the Prime-minister.
night the heavenly host sang " Glory to God in the highest,
peace on earth, good-will to men." But more difficulty has
been felt about the date, as here described, and yet even
here we have no need to shrink from the strictest scrutiny.
I cannot put the truth about it into briefer or clearer sen
tences than the following, taken from a valuable work by one
of the office-bearers of this church :* " The figures used de
note a continued national existence on the part of Judah. . . .
The sceptre is emblematic of an actual executive authority,
whether king or magistrate, bearing sway over some definite
territory or country, rather than over a scattered race. . . .
The law-giver denotes that other indispensable adjunct to a
real nation, namely, the possession of its own legal courts
and institutions. [Now] over against this ancient prophecy
stands this fact in history, that, with the brief exception of
the stay in Babylon, . . . the tribe of Judah maintained its
specific existence from the beginning of Hebrew history
down to the overthrow by Titus, a nation in the strict sense
of the term where that is used in distinction from a race or
people." Under the Persians; in the years of its indepen
dence after its successful conflict with a portion ofthe empire
left by Alexander; and under the Roman power, the Jewish
nation preserved these badges of its existence, and lost them
only after that memorable siege which Josephus has de
scribed, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the people scat
tered over all lands. Since then the Jews have been a race
or people, but not a nation, the sceptre has departed, the
law-giver has gone, because Shiloh has come; and so in this
prophecy, thus understood, we have a wonderful identification
of Jesus of Nazareth as the true Messiah, for, as the annota
tion on Genesis in the "Speaker's Commentary" has said,
* " The Great Argument," by W. H. Thomson, M.D., LL.D., pp. 104,
105.

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 179
" All Jewish antiquity referred this prophecy to Messiah,"
and only since they have been pressed by the argument
that, if that be so, the time appointed for his coming must
have passed, have the Jews taken to interpreting the pas
sage of David and others. Here, therefore, we feel as former
ly we did when expounding the seventy sevens of Daniel.*
We survey an arch of prophecy that spans eighteen hun
dred years, and as we behold the correspondence between
the event and the prediction we ask who built that arch ?
But if the Shiloh has come, shall we not render to him our
obedience ? For the last clause of this verse is, " to him
shall be the obedience ofthe peoples," that is, the nations of
the earth; and we have here the repetition in another form
of the promise to Abraham, that " in him and in his seed all
the nations of the earth should be blessed." The Messiah
was to be of the Jews, yet not for the Jews alone, but for
men as men ; and the day is coming when " all nations shall
adore him, and his praise all people sing."
But we must hasten. Zebulon comes next, and to him
Jacob says, " Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea ;
And he shall be for an haven of ships ;
And his border shall be towards Zidon."
This is a description ofthe tribal territory of Zebulon, which
stretched nearly, though not quite, across the country from
the Sea of Galilee in the east to the maritime plane of Phoe
nicia in the west, and which gave the people not only a
portion of very fertile land, but great facilities for trade and
commerce with surrounding districts.
To Issachar, who follows next in order, the patriarch says,
" Issachar is a strong ass,
Lying between the hurdles or sheepfolds ;
* See "Daniel the Beloved," pp. 176-179.

180 Joseph the PrimetMinister.
And he saw that rest was good,
And the land that it was pleasant ;
And he bowed his shoulder to bear,
And became a servant unto tribute."
This also refers to the position of the inheritance of the
tribe of Issachar, which was one of the noblest in all Pal
estine, consisting as it did almost exactly of the plain of
Esdraelon or Jezreel. Hence, as the years revolved, all that
the people inhabiting that region wished was to be let alone.
They had their joy and their reward in their daily work, and
so, rather than be interrupted ih that, they submitted to ex
actions by the marauding tribes who surrounded them, in
stead of.manfully resisting their incursions and driving them
away. They were too comfortable and lymphatic to with
stand wrongs, and yet, when they were roused, they sent to
the front good men and true — "men that had understanding
of the times, who knew what Israel ought to do."* Not
out of disrespect, therefore — for the ass was regarded as
noble in the East in Jacob's da)', and for long after — but as
the best possible description of the character of his tribe,
Issachar is portrayed as the big-boned, patient, strong, plod
ding ass, willingly submitting to the burden of tribute, if only
he may have the present enjoyment of his good things — a
type surviving still among us in the persons of those citizens
who are too busy minding their own affairs to be disturbed
with public matters, and who will rather endure injustice
than put themselves to trouble in removing the wrong-doers.
Following Issachar is Dan, the first of the sons of the
concubines on the list, and to him the patriarch exclaims,
" Dan shall judge his people,
As one of the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path,
* i Chron. xii., 32.

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 181
That biteth the heels of the horse,
So that his rider shall fall backward."
The meaning is, that, though the son of Bilhah the concu
bine, Dan should have a tribal existence and inheritance
equally with Reuben and the other sons of Leah, and that
in his warring with others he would manifest the qualities
of the serpent in the cunning of his attacks and the venom
of his bite. Of this mode of assault we have illustrations in
the history of Samson, who belonged to this tribe, and in
the conduct of those colonists who robbed Micah of his Le
vite and his gods, and went to wrest a settlement out of the
hands of the quiet and secure inhabitants of Laish.* And
the same qualities appear in those among the Mormons who
have either taken to themselves or been given the name
Danites, suggested, as some think, by this reference to Dan
as a serpent, and the connection of that animal with the
primal promise.
At this point in his address Jacob pauses a moment to
refresh his spirit by communion with his God, and gives ut
terance to the pious ejaculation, " I have waited for thy sal
vation, O Lord " — as if he had said, " I have waited long,
but it is coming now. Soon shall I know thy salvation fully,
and see thy face in righteousness. The sooner the better;
only give me strength to finish the work in which I am en
gaged." Then, thus refreshed in spirit, he resumed his pro
phetic utterances, and addressed Gad, saying,
"Gad, a troop shall overcome him :
But he shall overcome at the last,"
or perhaps " troops shall press on him, but he shall press
upon their rear." There is here an allusion to the mean
ing ofthe word Gad, which signifies a troop,t and perhaps
* Judges xviii.
t There is, besides, a humorous play on the words in the Hebrew,

182 Joseph the Prime-minister.
also to the exposed position of his territory on the east of
Jordan, where he would be constantly open to attack by
robbing tribes, who should often overcome him, but should
also be harassed by him in return. A case of this kind is
recorded in i Chron. v., 18-22, where the victory was given
to the Gadites and their neighbors of Reuben and Manas
seh, because " they cried to God in the battle, and he was
entreated of them, because'they put their trust in him."
Asher occupies the next place, and to him it is said,
" Out of Asher his bread shall be fat,
And he shall yield royal dainties."
This refers to the fertility of the portion which fell to the lot
of the tribe of Asher. That portion stretched along the
coast of Sidonia, from Mount Carmel nearly to Mount Leb
anon, and was specially rich in corn, wine, and oil. But
there is no allusion to the character of the people, who seem
to have had the indolence of those who dwell in a land that
is spontaneously fertile, for they could not drive out the in
habitants of Achzib.* They gave no judge or warrior to
Israel, and the only name which redeems the tribe from ob
scurity is that of the aged widow — Anna the prophetess —
who received the infant Saviour in her arms, and of whom it
is recorded that " she departed not from the Temple at Je
rusalem, but served Gocl with prayers and fastings night and
day." Naphtali is thus spoken of:
" Naphtali is a hind let loose :
He giveth goodly words."
This has been variously explained. Some have taken it as
which is thus rendered by Bishop Browne : " Troops shall troop against
him, but he shall troop on their retreat."
* Judges i. 31.

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 183
meaning " Naphtali is a swift messenger, like a hind that
runneth on the mountains, bringing good tidings." Others
regard it as describing a warrior of a free and independent
spirit, combining with his martial qualities those of poetry
and eloquence ; and they find the verification of their theory
in the deeds of Barak and the song of Deborah, since both
of these worthies belonged to the tribe of Naphtali. Others
see an allusion in the words to the apostles who, "let loose"
from Galilee, of which Naphtali's inheritance was a portion,
brought to their fellow-men the "good news" of salvation
through Jesus Christ. While still others, with an alteration
merely of the vowel points, make it read thus : " Naphtali is
a spreading terebinth-tree which puts forth goodly branches,"
and refer it simply to the increase of the tribe.
And now we come to Joseph, and we shall find that, al
though the venerable patriarch could not give to his well-
beloved son the coveted distinction of being the progenitor
of the Messiah, he yet labored to heap up blessings on his
head, and showed even in this his latest utterance that his
early preference for his favorite son remained with him to
the end. Its language is more poetic than that of any of
the other oracles, and its length contrasts especially with the
curt and hurried brevity of those which immediately precede
it, as if, the nearer the venerable speaker came to Joseph,
he was the more impatient to reach him, and as if, when he
had reached him, he hardly knew how to tear himself away
from blessing him. It is as follows:
"Joseph is a fruitful bough,
A fruitful bough by a well;
Whose branches run over the wall :
The archers sorely grieved him,
They shot at him, and hated him :
But his bow abode in strength,
And the arms of his hands were made strong,
By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob ;

184 Joseph the Prime-minister.
(From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel ;)
From the God of thy father, and he shall help thee,
And with the Almighty, even he shall bless thee with blessings of
heaven above,
Blessings of the deep that lieth under,
Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.
The blessings of thy father prevail over the blessings of the eternal
mountains,
Even the glory of the everlasting hills ;
They shall be on the head of Joseph,
And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his
brethren."
The first sentence of this oracle refers to the general pros
perity of the house of Joseph, and the spreading of the
branches of the tree over the wall may point to the fact that
he alone ofthe twelve sons of Jacob was to be the progenitor
of two tribes. The next verses may allude to the treatment
of Joseph by his brethren and by Potiphar, and may take
that as typical of the history of his tribes in after-days, and
of the help which they were to receive of the Lord. In the
phrase "from thence is the shepherd the stone of Israel,"
some see a prophecy of Joshua, the great captain who came
of the tribe of Ephraim, while others refer -it to Joseph him
self, and make it mean that he was so strengthened by God
as to become " the shepherd of Israel," the sustainer of the
whole of his family as well as of all Egypt in the time of fam
ine and distress. The blessings promised are in the main
of a temporal sort. If we adhere to the authorized version
of a passage which in the Hebrew is exceedingly obscure,
these blessings were greater than those which Abraham and
Isaac had pronounced upon their -sons ; while if we follow
the Septuagint, as we have clone, the meaning is that the
blessings of Joseph are greater than those of the mountains.
But in any case we hear a quiver in the old man's voice as,
after this iteration and reiteration of benediction, he says,

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 185
" Let them come on the head of Joseph and on the crown
of the head of him who was separated from his brethren."
Last of all comes Benjamin, who is thus spoken of:
"Benjamin shall raven as a wolf:
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
And at night he shall divide the spoil."
The allusion in these words is clearly to the warlike charac
ter of the tribe of Benjamin, and, to borrow from an author
already quoted this evening, " it is interesting in its indica
tion of his restless and insatiable temperament. Although
not a large tribe, as the wolf is less than the lion, yet 'little
Benjamin' made comparatively more mark in history than
any of the others. At one time, by a foolhardy but charac
teristic opposition to the united will of the nation, the Ben
jamites were nearly exterminated by their brethren.* Sub
sequently to that, besides Ehud the Judge, Benjamin gave
the first king to the nation in the person of Saul, whose hero
ic son Jonathan was a typical Benjamite. The occurrence
of men of this small tribe either as warriors, champions, or
rebels, rendered it particularly famous for its hot blood and
adventurous spirit, characteristics which, in the New Testa
ment, found their highest exponent in the great apostle, who
was of the tribe of Benjamin, and who never rested or was
satisfied in his labors." t
Thus far we have followed closely the utterances of the
dying Jacob, and by doing so have left ourselves little time
for anything in the way of practical application. But, in con
cluding, we may fall back upon three thoughts which have
been already suggested in the course of our exposition, and
may seek to give them greater prominence and force.

* Judges xix., xx., xxi.
f " The Great Argument," by W. H. Thomson, M.D., LL.D., p. 101.

1 86 Joseph the Prime-minister.
First, I would remind you of the different histories of the
tribes of Simeon and Levi, as being alike fulfilments of one
and the same prophecy. That was not because the predic
tion itself was, like some of the heathen oracles, so vague or
so ambiguous that it could not be falsified by any event,
for the phrases, "I will divide them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel," are both definite and clear. But the expla
nation is to be found in the subsequent conduct of the men
of Levi, as contrasted with that ofthe men of Simeon, where
by in the one case the prophecy took the ultimate character
of a blessing, and in the other it kept that of a curse. Now
this was in the lifetime of a tribe which extended over hun
dreds of years, but something not dissimilar may occur in
the lifetime of an individual. Let us suppose that two men
have been guilty of the same sin, and that as the penal con
sequence they have both had to bear the same thing, name
ly, separation from their native land and virtual transporta
tion to a new and strange country. But the one, unwarned
thereby, continues in his wicked ways, and goes down and
down in iniquity, until he ceases to be recognizable even by
those who look for him ; while the other, moved to penitence,
begins a new career, earns an honorable independence, gives
himself to public affairs, and becomes a benefactor to the
colony or the state, so that at length his name is every
where mentioned with gratitude and respect. Here the prox
imate results in both cases were the same, but the ultimate
how different! and all owing to the different dispositions of
the two men. Nor is this an improbable supposition ; you
may have come on many cases like it, and they are full of
warning to some and encouragement to others, not only for
the present life, but also for that which is to come. Up to
a certain point we have power, by our penitence, to make
blessing for ourselves for the life that now is and for that
which is to come ; nay, even after we have lost the first op-

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 187
portunity, there may come another on a lower plane ; but at
length there is a limit, beyond which all such opportunities
cease, and we must " dree our weird " eternally. Brethren
and friends, we are all like Simeon and Levi, under one and
the same condemnation — under a curse — but any one of us
may, like Levi, through his penitence, turn the curse into a
blessing, and become a priest of God ; and if we do not, we
must bear our own iniquity. Levi after his penitence be
came the teacher of the nation, and the sinner after his res
toration may, just through his peculiar experience, be all the
better fitted for helping other men. He can never be as he
might have been if he had not sinned, but still his very sin
may be so overruled that he may thereby acquire a special
fitness for a special work. It all depends, however, upon
his penitence. Therefore, let the sinner hearing me, whoever
he may be, and whatever may have been the consequence of
his sin, take heart and return to God in obedience and peni
tence rooted in and springing out of faith, and God may yet
make out of him a Levite consecrated for some holy service.
Reverting again to the prophecy concerning Judah, how
pleasant it is to observe that we have so many means of
identifying the Messiah as the sent of God ! Any one proph
ecy clearly fulfilled would be enough, but we have the con
verging lines of almost all the predictions in the Old Testa
ment uniting ultimately in him. The very first one, which
names him as the seed of the woman, has in it such peculiar
significance that we cannot help seeing at once its interpre
tation and fulfilment in the manner of his birth. And in this
utterance of Jacob, what could be more specific than his
character as Shiloh, the Peaceful ? or more definite than the
date of his appearance before the close of the existence of
the nation of the Jews ? But these are only specimens of
all the rest. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of proph
ecy." Each of the ancient seers stands like another John

1 88 Joseph the Prime-minister.
the Baptist, pointing to the Messiah and saying, in his own
distinctive way, in one form or another, "Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world." I do not see
how it is possible to resist the force of the argument which
may be drawn to show that Christ, and Christ alone, meets
and fulfils all the ancient oracles in the Old Testament
scriptures. It proves that God was in the prophecies; it
makes it clear that God was in the history, and it makes it
certain that "God is in Christ." Shall we not then receive
him, and rest upon him, as our Redeemer? Shall we not
submit to him and obey him as our law-giver and king?
Shall not we, too, be among the peoples that " come bend
ing before him ?"
Finally, looking again at the characterization of Issachar,
we may see the enervating influence of too comfortable cir
cumstances on a man or on a people. The inheritance of
Issachar was pleasant, fertile, easily cultivated, and exceed
ingly remunerative. So his descendants came at length,
for the most part, to take things easy, and submitted to
outrages which those in poorer circumstances must have re
sisted even to the death. They grew indolent and luxuri
ous, caring for little or nothing but their own ease, and sink
ing at last into mere tribute-payers. Now all this reminds
us ofthe truth that conflict is absolutely necessary to strength
of character. He who has no difficulties to contend with
has therein the great misfortune of his life ; for he Jias little
or no motive for exertion, and without exertion he will be
nothing in particular. It is a serious affliction to a man to
be too well off, and many a son has been ruined because he
inherited a fortune from his father. Unvarying prosperity is
not by any means an unmingled blessing, and may be often
a great evil. In the struggle for existence which adversity
causes many may sink, but the "survival " is always "ofthe
fittest," for it is of those who have been made by the strug-

Jacob's Dying Prophecies. 189
gle into manly, earnest, strong, heroic souls. Do not plume
yourself, therefore, on your easy circumstances, for they may
make you only selfish, indolent, and lacking in public spirit,
like that son of Jacob who had his fitting symbol in the
contented, because well-fed and not overloaded, ass.
But, on the other hand, do not whimper over your pover
ty, for, bravely wrestled with and nobly overcome, that may
be the very making of you. Too much money has undone
many a youth; too little has been the spur that has urged
on many another to put forth all his strength, and so has
developed and increased that strength. When you are get
ting comfortable and easy, therefore, suspect yourselves, and
watch lest your patriotism should grow languid, your activity
disappear, and self-sacrifice drop entirely out of your life.
The mill-wheel stands still when there is too much water as
well as when there is too little, and Agur's prayer is always
safe — though not many New Yorkers offer it — "Give me
neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient
for me : Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the
Lord ? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my
God in vain."* * Proverbs xxx., 8, 9.

XIII.
JACOB'S FUNERAL.
Gen. xlix., 28 ; 1., 14.
THE sons of Jacob were still around their father's bed.
His prophetic utterances had ceased, and silence too
sacred to be broken by any one of them had settled down
upon the group of brothers. Their father was dying. They
were with him on the very confines of the other world, and
their souls were hushed into solemnity. It was no time for
words of theirs, and so they waited speechless for the end.
But Jacob had not yet finished his work. He had already,
indeed, required Joseph to promise with an oath that he
would bury him in Canaan, but there must be no unseemly
dispute on such a matter among them after he was gone, and
therefore he gave to them all the same charges concerning
his funeral that he had laid on Joseph, dwelling with affec
tionate detail on all the particulars concerning Machpelah,
and the loved ones whose remains were laid within its cave.
Then, having "now nothing to do but to die," "he gathered
up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was
gathered unto his fathers."
This last expression is a historical reduplication of Jacob's
own words, for he had just before said, " I am to be gathered
unto my people," and it strikes the reader as a little remark
able. It might, perhaps, be too much to allege that there
was in it, on Jacob's part, a recognition of the immortality

Jacob's Funeral. 191
of the soul, and the communion of the blessed in the disem
bodied state, and yet it does seem to me to be something
more than a mere euphemism for death. (It is true, indeed,
that the patriarch had not such a clear revelation of the fut
ure life as Christ has now given to us, and therefore we
are not warranted to put into this language, as it came from
Jacob's lips, all that it would imply in those of a dying Chris
tian. But still I cannot help thinking that there was in it an
expression of Jacob's confidence that when he died he would
consciously join Isaac and Abraham in the fellowship of
the immortals. Somewhere these fathers of his were still in
individual spiritual existence, and thither death would take
him to share their happiness. Thus, in parting from his sons
his comfort was that he himself was going to his fathers, to
enjoy with them nobler communion with their covenant Gocl
than earth could ever afford. They were in the better Ca
naan, and he was about to join them there, so he went in
peace, like one who fell asleep. And yet what a change ! A
little while ago and the intellect was bright and clear, the
voice was strong, and the mind all aglow with a divine in
spiration which was bodying for the distinct description of
the wondrous symbols under. which the future of the tribes
had been revealed to him ; and now there is nothing but a
lifeless form, an empty house, whose great inhabitant has
gone. It is a dreadful mystery; one moment the father
speaks in love and tenderness, the next you speak to him
and he is not there, but has gone by a door you have not
seen, into a realm so near that there is but a thin veil be
tween you and it, and yet so far that the separation of a con
tinent is not so thorough.
"Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide.
Careless tenants they ! ~ 

192 Joseph the Prime-minister.
_- "AU within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.
" Close the door, the shutters close,
Or thro' the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the dark deserted house." *__,)
So, perhaps, Joseph felt when he advanced, according to the
promise that went before concerning him, and put his hand
upon his father's eyes to shut their lids for the last time, and
hide their soullessness from view. But he could not perform
that office of affection without the deepest emotion, for, as
he did it, all the past would come rushing back upon him,
and give intensity to the pang ofthe present. The early love
that clothed him in the costly robe, combined with the later
pride that rejoiced so unfeignedly in his Egyptian greatness
to move him into tears. It was the first time since he knew
its meaning that death had come so near himself. He was
too young to realize all his loss when his mother Rachel had
been taken. But now, after those seventeen years of unal
loyed delight in each other, which they had been permitted
to enjoy as the sequel to the varied experiences through which
they had both been brought; after they had come really
to know and appreciate each other in that endearing inter
course in which the fatherhood of the one and the sonship
of the other had risen into the noblest sort of brotherhood,
his father is laid low, and he feels the blow most keen
ly. True, Jacob was an old man, but, strange as it may seem
to some, that only made him dearer, and, most of all, he was
his father once before lost, and only recently restored ; and
the thought of that so overpowered him " that he fell upon
his face, and wept upon him, and kissed him."
* Tennyson.

Jacob's Funeral. 193
But even such grief as that must not hinder him from car
rying out his father's commands, and so, as representing his
brothers, he took upon himself all the arrangements for the
funeral. But while complying with the wish of his parent,
he at the same time conformed, as far as it was possible or
practicable, to the customs of the country with which he was
himself so prominently identified. It will contribute, there
fore, to a better understanding of the narrative, if we should
give you here, as succinctly as possible, an account of the
Egyptian manner of disposing of the dead. It was part of
the creed of these ancient people that at death the soul of a
man entered into the body of an animal, and passed from that
through a series of such transmigrations until it was thorough
ly purified, when it returned to that to which it had originally
belonged. They believed thus in what was known among
the Greeks as " metempsychosis," and also in the resump
tion of the body by the soul after the appointed circle of
transmigrations had been finished. Their doctrine thus was
not that of the resurrection of the body, as Paul teaches it,
but rather that of the actual resumption by the soul of the
identical, body which it had left at first, and faith in that led
them to take means for the preservation of the body " in or
der to keep it in a fit state to receive the soul which once
inhabited it; and the various occupations followed by the
Egyptians during the lifetime of the deceased, which were
represented in the sculptures, as well as his arms, the imple
ments he used, or whatever was most precious to him, which
were deposited in the tomb with his coffin, might be intended
for his benefit at the time of this reunion, which at the least
possible period was fixed at three thousand years."* The
* Wilkinson, " Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii., p. 465. But Wilkinson
does not speak with absolute decision on this point, and the para
graph immediately following that from which the above extract is
taken begins thus : " We are, therefore, still in uncertainty respecting
9

194 Joseph the Prime-minister.
process which they followed for this preservation of the body
was that which we now know as embalming, and which has
been minutely described by such ancient writers as Herodo
tus and Diodorus. There were three different methods, va
rying in the extent of the operations performed and in the
amount of expense incurred. The most costly process,
which was most likely that adopted in the case of Jacob,
and- which required an outlay of one thousand two hundred
and fifty dollars, consisted in the removal of the brain and
the viscera, the washing of the cavities thus made with cer
tain fragrant liquors, the filling of these with powder of
myrrh, cassia, and other spices, and then the placing of the
whole body thus prepared in a solution of natron, i.e., salt
petre, for a certain specified number of days.* When these

the actual intentions of the Egyptians in thus preserving the body and
ornamenting their sepulchres at so great expense ; nor is there any de
cided proof that the resurrection of the body was a tenet of their religion.
It is, however, highly probable that such was their belief, since no other
satisfactory reason can be given for the great care of the body after
death." For resurrection we should read resumption of the body, since
the former term ought now to be restricted to such a passing on to a
higher human life as Paul has described.
* It has, however, been doubted whether these ancient authors give
all the secret of the embalming process. Thornley Smith has the follow
ing in a note in his volume on Joseph, p. 259 :" It has been found that the
process described by Herodotus and Diodorus is not effectual in preserv
ing bodies long, so that it is supposed by some that there was a secret in
the art with which they were not acquainted ;" and a writer in the Athe-
nceum for June, 1850, states it as his opinion : " 1. That an essential part
ofthe mummifying process was the application of heat to the body, pre
viously filled with tarry substances and securely wrapped in a dense
layer of bandages ; and 2. That, of necessity, in bodies so treated must be
formed by the two (as a product of its decomposition by heat) that sub
stance to which the name of creosote has been given, from its flesh-pre
serving properties (Kpewc and awrnp), and which was first obtained as a
separate substance by Reechenbach."

Jacob's Funeral. 195
were fulfilled, the body was washed, and wrapped up in bands
of fine linen, which were fastened on the inner side with gum,
and which often extended to the length of a thousand yards.
After all this, which required forty days, the body was de
livered over to the relatives, who placed it in a stone or
wooden coffin; and then the proper family mourning began.
That lasted for thirty days, and at the close of these came
the funeral services which are thus described by Wilkinson,
who quotes mainly from Diodorus.
But before I give his statements, permit me to premise
that every large city — such as Thebes, Memphis, and other
places — had its sacred lake, on the farther shore of which
were the tombs in which the cases or coffins containing the
embalmed bodies were buried. When the tomb was ready,
and all the necessary preparations had been made, "the cof
fin, or mummy-case, was carried forth and deposited in the
hearse, drawn upon a sledge, to the sacred lake ofthe Nome "
(department or district), " notice having been previously giv
en to the judges, and a public announcement made of the
appointed day. Forty-two judges having been summoned
and placed in a semicircle near the banks of the lake, a boat
was brought up, provided expressly for the occasion, under
the direction of a boatman, called in the Egyptian language
Charon, and it is from hence that the fable is said to be
derived which Orpheus introduced into Greece. For while
in Egypt he had witnessed this ceremony, and he imitated a
portion of it, and supplied the rest from his own imagina
tion. When the boat was ready for the reception of the
coffin, it was lawful for any person who thought proper to
bring forward his accusation against the deceased. If it
could be proved that he had led an evil life, the judges de
clared accordingly, and the body was deprived of the accus
tomed sepulture; but if the accuser failed to establish what
he advanced, he was subject to the heaviest penalties. When

196 Joseph the Prime-minister.
there was no accuser, or when the accusation had been dis
proved, the relations ceased from their lamentations, and
pronounced encomiums on the deceased. They did not
enlarge upon his descent, as is usual among the Greeks —
for they held that all the Egyptians are equally noble — but
they related his early education and the course of his stud
ies, and then, praising his piety and justice in manhood, his
temperance, and the other virtues he possessed, they suppli
cated the gods below to receive him as a companion of the
pious. This announcement was received by the assembled
multitude with acclamations, and they joined in extolling the
glory of the deceased, who was about to remain forever with
the virtuous in the regions of Hades. The body was then
taken by those who had family catacombs already prepared,
and placed in the repository allotted to it."*
This description, abundantly interesting and deeply sug
gestive in itself, will enable us at once to see in how far Jo
seph observed, and in how far he deviated from, the customs
of Egypt in arranging for the funeral of his father. We read
that "he commanded his servants the physicians to embalm
his father " — a statement which seems to our modern ears a
little peculiar. But it has to be borne in mind that in the
Egypt of that day every physician confined himself to the
study and treatment of one disease, or of the diseases of one
organ of the body ; so that the medical men then were all
what we should now call specialists, and a grandee like Jo
seph would require in his establishment a whole faculty of
doctors.f It was thus the most natural thing in the world
that the embalming arrangements should be put under the
direction of these professional men, though the actual carry
ing of them out might be left to the class of persons who
* Wilkinson's "The Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii., pp. 453, 454.
f On this point see Wilkinson, vol. ii., pp. 355, 356 ; vol. iii., p. 477.

Jacob's Funeral. 197
were known as embalmers, and who devoted themselves ex
clusively to that particular work. This filled up forty days.
Then came the thirty days of mourning, during which the
custom of the Egyptians was, that "the family mourned at
home, singing the funeral dirge, and all the time they abstain
ed from the bath, wine, the delicacies of the table, and rich
clothing. On the death in any house of a person of conse
quence, forthwith the women beplastered their heads, and
sometimes even their faces, with mud, and sallied forth, wan
dering through the city with their dresses fastened with a
band and their bosoms bare, beating themselves as they
walked. The men, similarly begirt, beat their breasts sepa
rately."* Joseph, therefore, with his brethren, sat in seclu
sion, unshaven and unwashed; while without, in token of
honor to his father for his sake, the people, after their own
custom, would do as Herodotus, in the words I have just
quoted, has described; for this was a public mourning, and
the public arrangements, therefore, were not in Joseph's
hands. But now the time for the removing of the remains of his
father to Canaan drew nigh. He could not do that, how
ever, without the permission of Pharaoh, and in his mourn
ing undress, unshaven and unwashed, he could not go per
sonally to the monarch. Therefore he sought the mediation
of others, and through those already in the house of Pharaoh
he presented his request that he might be permitted to take
Jacob's remains to Canaan, giving natural, and perhaps also
politic, prominence to the fact that he was seeking to carry
out a promise which, under solemn oath, he had made to his
father. The permission asked was granted, and the twelve
brothers and their families, with but the exception of the lit
tle ones, and accompanied by a goodly array of chariots and
* Rawlinson's " Herodotus," as quoted by Jamieson. Comm. ;'/; toco.

198 Joseph the Prime-minister.
horsemen from among the Egyptians, set out from Goshen
for the land of Canaan. We have no particulars about the
route which they followed, nor can we certainly identify the
threshing-floor of Atad, where they halted for seven clays for
the completion of the mourning services, though there is no
trace of any such judgment ordeal as that which the Egyptians
held on the margin of their sacred lake. All we know is
that the lamentations were so great as to attract the attention
of the inhabitants, who named the place always afterwards
Abel-Mizraim — the field or mourning of the Egyptians. It
has not yet been discovered, and there is some doubt about
its site, but taking the phrase, " which is beyond Jordan," as
written by one still on its eastern shore, we incline to the
belief that we are to look for Abel-Mizraim on the western
side of that river; and perhaps they may not be far out ofthe
way who put it in the neighborhood of Hebron. At that
place, wherever it was, the children of the patriarch left their
Egyptian convoy for the time, while they took the remains
of their father and reverently laid them in the Cave of Mach
pelah beside those of his kindred.
What an interesting place that Hebron cave must be !
Unlike many of the so-called sacred sites now pointed out
to travellers in Palestine, this one is authentic and undoubt
ed. In the name ofthe city El Khulil — the Friend — there is
a striking memorial of Abraham himself, " the friend of God,"
and the field which he bought from Ephron the Hittite is
still identified. It is occupied now by a great mosque, whose
external wall forms a parallelogram one hundred and nine
ty-eight feet long by one hundred and thirteen and a half
broad. The height of the wall is forty-eight feet, and the
masonry of which it is composed is so massive as to recall
to the traveller that of the Temple walls at the Jew's wailing-
place in Jerusalem. Entrance into this mosque has been so
sacredly guarded that no one not a Mohammedan gained

Jacob's Funeral. 199
admission into it for, I suppose, centuries, until the Prince
of Wales, accompanied by Dean Stanley, General Bruce, and
Dr. Rosen, were permitted to go in on the occasion of the
visit to Palestine made by the heir to the British throne in
1862. Since then a like privilege has been accorded to
Mr. Fergusson the architect, tlie Marquis of Bute, M. Pierotti,
and the Crown Prince of Prussia. Dean Stanley has given
a most interesting description, both ofthe diplomatic means
which were used for gaining admission and of the interior
of the mosque itself, in the appendix to the first volume of
his " Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church," from
which I take the following extracts : " With regard to the
building itself, two points at once became apparent. First,
it was clear that it had been originally a Byzantine church ; . . .
second, it was clear that it had been converted at a much
later period into a mosque. The tombs of the Patriarchs
do not profess to be the actual places of sepulture, but are
merely monuments or cenotaphs in honor of the dead who
lie beneath. Each is enclosed within a separate chapel or
shrine, closed with gates or railings similar to those which
surround or enclose the special chapels or royal tombs in
Westminster Abbey. The two first of these are contained
in the inner portico or narthex before the entrance into the
actual building ofthe mosque. In the recess on the right is
the shrine of Abraham ; in the recess on the left that of Sa
rah, each guarded by silver gates. The shrine of Sarah we
were requested not to enter, as being that of a woman  With
in the area of the church or mosque were shown the tombs
of Isaac and Rebekah. They are placed under separate
chapels, in the walls of which are windows, and of which the
gates are grated not with silver but iron bars. . . . The shrines
of Jacob and Leah were shown in recesses corresponding to
those of Abraham and Sarah, but in a separate cloister op
posite to the entrance ofthe mosque. Against Leah's tomb,

200 Joseph the Prime-minister,
as seen through the iron grate, two green banners reclined,
the origin and meaning of which were unknown." Another
tomb shown is that of Joseph, who, however, was buried at
Shechem ; and on the outside of the mosque are two shrines
which are said to be merely ornamental. The clean proceeds :
(j'One indication alone of the cavern beneath was visible.
In the interior of the mosque, at the corner of the shrine of
Abraham, was a small circular hole, about eight inches across,
of which one foot above the pavement was built of strong
masonry, but of which the lower part, as far as we could see
and feel, was of the living rock. This cavity appeared to open
into a dark space beneath, and that space (which the guardi
ans of the mosque believed to extend under the whole plat
form) can hardly be anything else than the ancient cavern of
Machpelah. This was the only aperture which the guardians
recognized. 'Once,' they said, 'two thousand five hundred
years ago, a servant of a great king had penetrated through
some other entrance. He descended in full possession of his
faculties and of remarkable corpulence; he returned blind,
deaf, withered and crippled.' Since then the entrance was
closed, and this aperture alone was left — partly for the sake
of suffering the holy air of the cave to escape into the mosque
and be scented by the faithful, partly for the sake of allow
ing a lamp to be let down by a chain which we saw suspend
ed at the mouth, to burn upon the sacred grave. We asked
whether it could not be lighted now ? ' No,' they said ; ' the
saint likes to have a lamp at night, but not in the full day
light.' With that glimpse into the dark void we and the
world without must for the present be satisfied. Whether
any other entrance is known to the Mussulmans themselves
must be a matter of doubt. The original entrance to the
cave, if it is now to be found at all, must probably be on the
southern face ofthe hill, between the mosque and the gallery
containing the shrine of Joseph, and entirely obstructed by

Jacob's Funeral. 201
the ancient Jewish wall probably built across it for this very
purpose."* Such, up to the present date, is all that is
known of Machpelah ; but we may hope that, as Turkish
power wanes in the East, and Mussulman exclusiveness gives
way before the inevitable influence ofthe modern intercourse
of nation with nation, the cave itself will be explored, and
the veritable mummy of Jacob be exhumed to bear its irre
futable testimony to the truthfulness of this ancient history^)
We read of no services at the place of burial, and we may
not presume to conjecture what was said or done at the
grave. All we know is that the twelve brothers left the re
mains of their venerable father there, and turned away, no
doubt, in pensive mood, to go back to their children and
their flocks, and their common occupations in the land of
Goshen. All of us have experienced how hard a thing it is
to take up the cares and work of our common lives, after
their paltriness has been seen by us at the tomb of a beloved
one, and without the solace and joy which we were wont to
receive from his fellowship and encouragement. But yet it
has to be done, and in the doing of it there is, in God's
good providence, a compensation of comfort ; for every mourn
er will tell you that his consolation has come to him most
richly when, looking up to God for support, he has set him
self to the discharge of daily duty, and forgotten himself in
the service of his master, in the sphere of his appointment.
But now, as we take leave of Jacob, we cannot but be re
minded of the great lesson of his life. A strangely check
ered career it was which ended in this great funeral at
Machpelah; but it is clearly divided into two portions, both
of which are alike instructive to the Bible student. In the
outset we find in him little attractiveness. True, even from
the first, there must have been in him a winsome affection-

* Stanley's "Jewish Church," vol. i., pp. 43'"442-
r,*

202 Joseph the Prime-minister.
ateness of disposition which gained for him his mother's
partiality. But he was by nature, then, as well as by name,
the supplanter, a master of intrigue, who once and again
outwitted his rough, blunt, and bold Bedouin brother Esau.
Yet withal, unscrupulous as he was, let us not forget to note
that from the first his eye was on the future, and that he
lived for that. Therein lay the great difference between him
and his brother. Esau cared for nothing but the present.
Give him the pleasures of the chase, the gratification of ap
petite, and the enjoyment of the moment, and he was con
tent. But Jacob had the consciousness that there was a
future before him. He knew that the mysterious birthright
was to be his ; to that his mother had taught him always to
look forward ; and though he had little idea then of all that
was involved in it, and had not enough faith in God to leave
the time and manner of his getting it entirely to him, yet he
did subordinate to its attainment many things in the pres
ent. Still, even to get that good, he did the evil of deceit, and
so, up to his departure from his father's house, we have little
genuine admiration for his character or conduct. But with
the Bethel vision his new life began. Then for the first time
he came face to face with God, and from that hour the divine
training of the heir to the covenant commenced. He was
sent to Laban's house, that there, from his own practical ex
perience, he might learn what an evil and a bitter thing it is
to be deceived; and though there remained, after all the
discipline of these twenty years, some of his old self-trusting
subtlety, which led to his stealthy flight, all that was ultimate
ly dislodged from him by the Peniel wrestling. He went over
the Jabbok that night to pray earnestly for placability to
wards him in the heart of Esau, and there he was again con
fronted by the covenant angel, who virtually said to him,
" It is not Esau that you have to fear. The greatest evil
for you is the enmity of God, and if you can secure deliver-

Jacob's Funeral. 203
ance from that all else will soon be well. Right with God,
you may trust him to set you right with your brother." This
led him to forget his first errand across the ford, so that,
instead of crying for the appeasement of Esau, he exclaimed,
"Tell me Thy name, thou great unknown;" and with the
revelation of that Love which is the nature and the name of
God, there came to him, as with the same revelation there
comes yet to every man the new name and the new nature,
Israel. Thenceforward he is all that we could desire him
to be. His trials, indeed, continue; for, as Wilberforce* re
marks, "The punishment ofthe 'supplanter's ' subtlety last
ed on after its sin had been forgiven to the Prince of God ;"
but through all these trials — the folly of Reuben, the dis
honor of Dinah, the cruelty of Simeon and Levi, the deceit
of his sons, the loss of Joseph — we see the chastened spirit
of a saint, and in the end he goes down, like the sun in the
summer sky, through banks of glory clouds, leaving a trail
of radiant purple behind him that ravishes the eye of every
beholder. Thus a career that began in deceit was closed in
excellence. (Now, with such a history contrast that of a man, say, like
King Saul. We are attracted to him from the very first.
We do not wonder that the people, when they saw him f on
his election-day, raised the glad shout, " Long live the king !"
We admire the promptitude, the energy, and the bravery of
his conduct in his deliverance of the men of Jabesh Gilead ;
and even after his sin in the matter bf the Amalekites, we
are not surprised that Samuel should have so clung to him
and loved him ; indeed, we rather agree with the old prophet
in the sentiment. But as his life course goes on, there is a
constant deterioration in his character. His envy of David
comes out. His cruelty, his cunning, his vindictiveness,
* "Heroes of Hebrew History," p. 51. t * Sam. x., 24.

204 Joseph the Prime-minister.
make their appearance, and we follow him down and down
and down until we find him at the door of the Endor cave,
committing what one has described as "probably as nearly
the sin against the Holy Ghost as it was possible for one
under the old covenant, and before the day of Pentecost,*
to commit." Here, therefore, there was just the opposite
of that which we have seen in Jacob. Here was a career
opening with splendid promise and with much attractive
ness, but closed in uttermost dishonor. And what we have
marked in these two contrasted histories we may see —
some of us, perhaps, have often seen— in the careers of mod
ern men. Now how shall we explain the difference ? Thus,
— all Jacob's trials sent him to God, and shook him out of
himself; all those of Saul drove him away from Gocl, and
rooted him more firmly in himself. And in that explanation
lies the lesson of Jacob's life. No matter what your past
career may have had in it of what was evil, supplanting, dis
honorable, there is hope for you, if you will go to God and
ask him to reveal his name to you. There is a door-way in
that out into a new and nobler self for you. But, on the
other hand, no matter how much there has been of promise
and apparent prophecy of good in your past career, it will
surely end in blackest disappointment to you and all around
you if you attempt to build your future simply on yourselves.
Your relation to God will ultimately determine everything
about you — of character and real success in life. If thus
far you have failed, betake yourself lo God in" Christ, and
that will be your Bethel, or Peniel, the turning-point of your
history, the water-shed of your life. And again, whatever
of loveliness there may have been thus far about you, that is
enduring only in as far as you connect it with God in Christ.
Young men, take this lesson with you from the contrast be-
* Trench's " Shipwrecks of Faith," p. 45.

Jacob's Funeral. 205
tween the Machpelah funeral of Jacob and the dark ending
of that royal life on Mount Gilboa, and that it may have all
the more power with you, let me give it in the words of Arch
bishop Trench : " Build on no good thing which you find
within yourselves. Humane, generous, high-minded, brave
you may be, cherishing large purposes for the welfare of
others, willing to devote yourselves in a spirit of earnest self-
sacrifice to their good. But life is strong — how strong none
can guess till they have tried to abate the edge of high res
olutions, to dwarf, to stunt, and at last to strangle the nobler
growths of the soul, to lead men to forget, sometimes, alas !
to despise the loftier dreams and purer aspirations of their
youth. There is only one pledge for the permanence of any
good thing that is in you, namely, that you bring it to God,
and that you reserve it for God with that higher consecra
tion which he only can give it — not now any more a virtue
of this world, but a grace ofthe kingdom of heaven ; and that
you bring it to him again and again, for indeed all your fresh
springs must be in him; and they that wait on him, they, and
they only, renew their strength, run and are not weary, walk
and are not faint ; they, and they only, bring forth fruit in old
age to show that the Lord is upright, and that there is no
unrighteousness in him/j)
* Trench's " Shipwrecks of Faith," pp. 55, 56.

XIV.
JOSEPH'S DEATH.
Gen. 1., 15-26.
FROM Machpelah the brothers returned to Egypt to re
sume their usual work. But the absence of Jacob re
awakened in the hearts of ten of them the sense of their
ill-desert for their treatment of Joseph long ago, and made
them fear that now he might visit them with the punishment
which their cruelty had merited. They supposed that their
brother's kindness to them had been shown simply for their
father's sake, and that it was Jacob's presence alone that
secured their immunity. They knew Joseph so imperfectly
that they judged him to have a disposition like that of Esau,
who threatened his brother after this fashion : " The days
of mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay my
brother Jacob ;"* and they were afraid lest now he should be
moved, either to put them to death, or to subject them to
some most ignominious treatment. But it was not the pres
ence of Jacob that had moved Joseph to his clemency. Had
that been all that held him from revenge they might well
have trembled; for he had the power of Egypt at his back,
and there was no one in the kingdom who would have called
him to account either for its use or its abuse. But that
which weighed with Joseph was his experience of the near
ness and the goodness of his God. Jacob might die, but
Gen. xxvii., 41.

Joseph's Death. 207
God remained, and that God had been with him and made
him prosperous in everything he did. It would have been
a poor return, therefore, for his goodness, if he had dealt
sternly and implacably with his own brothers. His gratitude
for the divine favor thus showed itself in his tenderness to
wards them after he was fully convinced that they had truly
acknowledged their guilt, and heartily repented of their sin.
He put them to a severe test, in order to find out how they
felt about their conduct towards himself, but when once he
was satisfied on that point he frankly, fully, and permanently
forgave them.
It is a hard thing to forgive those who have done us griev
ous injury. We may, perhaps, without much difficulty, come
so far as to refrain from visiting them with positive punish
ment. But to be to them as we would have been if they
had never wronged us ; to have no constraint in our inter
course with them from our remembrance of their attempt to
do us harm ; to take them back into our confidence again,
and trust them as if nothing had occurred — that is hard in
deed. Yet, if we are thoroughly persuaded ofthe genuine
ness of their repentance, and have, ourselves^ a deep sense
of gratitude to God for his remission of our own sins against
him, we may be enabled by his grace and spirit to deal with
others as he has dealt with ourselves.
^But hard as it is to forgive, it is a yet more difficult thing
for human nature, unaided by divine grace, frankly and un
suspectingly to accept forgiveness. The wrong-doer meas
ures others by himself, and therefore he is always suspi
cious that there is some lurking treachery in the overtures
of reconciliation that are made to him by the man whom he
has injured. He cannot believe in disinterested generosity
or undesigning goodness, and therefore he is apt to treat all
offers of forgiveness as snares which have been set in order
the more effectually to catch him for punishment. This is

208 Joseph the Prime-minister.
the reason why men so generally reject the message of the
Gospel itself; and it furnishes the explanation of the well-
known fact that he who does the wrong is always harder to
be won to reconciliation than he who received the injury.
Indeed to such an extent is this the case, that only when the
hearts of both are softened by a sense of their obligation to
God for his forgiveness, can there be anything like a perma
nent or unsuspicious healing of the breach between them.
To be able to forgive, one must first himself have received
forgiveness from God ; and he who has tasted the divine fa
vor, and knows how the reception of that disposes the heart
to the love of others, will be the frankest also in his accept
ance of forgiveness at the hands of him whom he has in
jured. The closer a man's walk with God is, the more will
he be disposed to deal forgivingly with those who wrong
him ; but human magnanimity will always be suspected by
those who have not yet appreciated the divine. The men
who believe most thoroughly in human depravity, and, along
with that, in divine mercy, are those who are most tender in
their dealings with wrong-doers; while those who have great
est faith in what they call the dignity of human nature, and
have not learned the meaning of the cross, are always the
most suspicious of their fellows. It seems to be a strange
paradox, and yet it is the simple truth)
The brothers here could not understand, as they certainly
did not appreciate, the character of Joseph. But though
they erred in that, they took the proper course in making im
mediate application to himself on the subject. They did not
go to him directly, but approached him at first, at least, through
the medium of another — most probably, perhaps, Benjamin —
who said, in their behalf, " Thy father did command before
he died, saying, so shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray
thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin ; for they
did unto thee evil : and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass

Joseph's Death. 209
of the servants of the God of thy father." Some have in
sinuated that in causing their advocate to speak thus they
were guilty of falsehood, since there is no mention in the
narrative of Jacob's saying anything of this sort to them.
But that only shows to what ridiculous lengths the argument
from silence, never very satisfactory at the best, may be
driven ; for we have in this history, interesting as it is, the
merest outline of the lives of those to whom it refers, and in
two of the verses of this chapter we have the events of sixty
years summarized. How absurd, therefore, it is to argue that
because in such an epitome as this record is we have no ac
count of Jacob's ever saying this to his sons, therefore he
never said it ! Besides, on an occasion like this, the broth
ers were not likely to go to Joseph with a falsehood in their
mouths. It is quite probable, therefore, that in the antici
pation of their father's death they had spoken to him of their
fear lest, after his departure, Joseph might punish them for
their sin, and that he had advised or commanded them to
take the course which they were now following. Moreover,
they knew that the fact that their father had so counselled
them would have immense weight with Joseph, and therefore
they made distinct mention of it in their plea. Nor did they
use that name in vain, for "Joseph wept when they spake
unto him." Their words opened up again a painful chapter
in his history, and brought to bear upon that the memory of
the grief which had convulsed his heart at the death of his
father, while at the same time they revealed that he was
even yet an object of suspicion and distrust to his brothers.
" Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not
known me, Philip?" said the Lord to his disciple, in answer
to a question which indicated the spiritual obtuseness of the
apostle ; and similarly here Joseph might have said, " Have
you been so long time with me, the sharers of my prosperity,
and the objects of my constant care, and yet do you not

210 Joseph the Prime-minister.
know me better than to have such unworthy thoughts con
cerning me ? When have I given you any ground for cher
ishing such unworthy sentiments regarding me?" But there
were no words of objurgation. The only reproof he addressed
to them was in his tears ; and as they — once again uncon
sciously fulfilling the old dream — fell down before his face,
he reassured them with these words, " Fear not : for am I in
the place of God ? But as for you, ye thought evil against
me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is
this clay, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye
not : I will nourish you and your little ones." Joseph re
garded it as the special prerogative of God to punish iniquity,
and he would not attempt to take the divine law into his own
hands. It was not his, either to punish or to forgive wrong
so far as it was sin. Instead, therefore, of coming to him
they ought to go to God. Then, so far as the injury to him
self was concerned, it was, to be sure, hard enough to bear
at the time, but then God had brought so much good out of
it both to himself and to others, that he had come now to
look upon it as only a needed step towards the great honor
of his life, and therefore he cherished no enmity towards
them because of it, and they need have no fear whatever of
his dealing harshly with them. He would continue to do as
he had done ever since their removal to Egypt, and would
nourish them and their little ones with all tenderness and
affection. "Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto
good" — that is the golden lesson that comes out of this whole
history. The Providence of God was in and over every in
cident in it, making them all co-operate for the bringing
about of the great design which he had for the deliverance
ofthe people in famine, for the education ofthe children of
Israel in Egypt, and for the unification of them at length
into a nation capable of taking possession of the Land of

Joseph's Death. 211
Promise. We have had occasion frequently to mark how
the superintendence of God regulates the events of nature,
even without any miraculous intervention with what are
called natural laws, and repeatedly in this history we have
noticed how the common and ordinary operations of these
laws have been so adjusted and combined as to bring out
results that were clearly designed, the supernatural thus
working in and through the natural. But the special point
in Joseph's words here is, that the same control is exercised
by God in and over the actions of men. They are free
agents, conscious of no constraint, and seeking only their
own things, yet through the prosecution by them of their
own selfish and sinful ends God works out at length his own
holy and benevolent purposes. These brothers were eager
only to get rid of Joseph, and at first thought to kill him;
but one of their number persuaded them to put him into a
pit, and another, having the thing apparently suggested to
him at the moment, by what seemed the accidental presence
of the trading Ishmaelites, proposed to sell him to them.
This was agreed to by the rest and consented to by the Ish
maelites, and so he was taken to Egypt. Now see how many
wills — all of them free — were concerned in this matter, and
how at length, through the' evil intentions and actions of his
brothers, and the selfish gain-seeking of the Ishmaelites,
God carried forward his purpose for Joseph's elevation, and
the emigration of Jacob and his sons to Egypt. The same
thing comes out in connection with his imprisonment in
Egypt. Potiphar's wife was seeking only to gratify her re
venge when she concocted the lie with which she imposed
upon her husband, and Potiphar himself was taking means
for the wreaking out of his anger when he sent him to the
dungeon. Yet here again, through all these self-seeking ac
tions of theirs, God was bringing Joseph only so much the
nearer to Pharaoh and his ultimate position by the monarch's

212 Joseph the Prime-minister.
side. Once more the chief butler and chief baker were work
ing for their own ends when they did what offended their mas
ter, and he was only thinking of their punishment when he
put them into the prison ; yet in the conjunction of their
presence there with that of Joseph we see one of the critical
hinges on which the history turns, and can perceive the pur
pose of God working itself out through the agency of men.
If you ask me how this is done without infringing on human
freedom, I frankly answer that I cannot tell ; but that it was
done in this history is abundantly plain. And this history
is not by any means exceptional in that regard, Assyria, as
we read in Isaiah,* was employed by Jehovah as his instru
ment for the punishment of Israel ; yet it is said concerning
him, " Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart
think so-; but it is in his heart lo destroy and cut off nations
not a few." But perhaps in no one event in human history
is this truth so clearly illustrated as in the crucifixion of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thus Peter speaks in his
Pentecostal sermon : "Him, being delivered by the determi
nate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and
by wicked hands have crucified and slain." t Now, if these
words have any meaning at all, they assert that all the events
connected with the crucifixion of the Lord were foreplanned
and foretold, and that God was in them, controlling" them so
as to make them work together for a certain result, while
yet the agents in them were acting freely from their own mo
tives, and therefore wickedly. Now, although I cannot ex
plain how this is secured, and will not be enticed into any
attempt to do so, I have been the more particular to bring
out the fact that the actions of men are under the control of
God, because it is in this department that our faith in Provi
dence is weakest. When a fellow-man injures us we are apt
* Isaiah x., 5-7. t Acts ii., 23.

Joseph's Death. 213
to say, that if it had been a dispensation of Providence we
could have borne it, but that this is beyond endurance. Now
of course there is an immense difference between what God
does directly and what he simply permits others to do ; yet
the fact that the actions 'so permitted are wrought into his
plan of our lives, and made to help it forward to its fulfilment,
ought surely to have some importance in our view, and ought
to lead us at once to humble resignation to God's will, and
hearty forgiveness of those who may have injured us. This
was the view of David when Shimei cursed him ; for he said,
" Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him."* This also
was the view of the Christians at Cesarea; for, after they
had heard the prophecy of Agabus, and had in vain impor
tuned Paul not to go to Jerusalem, it is written, " And when
he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will
ofthe Lord be done."f That is to say, they recognized the
Providence and will of God in the Apostle's unyielding de
termination, and submitted to it as such. The same princi
ple is acknowledged in the common proverb, to the effect
that "man proposes, but God disposes;" and it seems to me
that if we were more constantly to remember it, we should
find it easier to possess our souls in patience and in peace,
even under the ill-treatment to which men may subject us.
It does not diminish the guilt of those who wrong us, but it
does give us a staff to support us under the wrong ; for it re
minds us that God is over all, and it leads us to look for
some result of good from our present humiliation.
Now if these things are true, it follows that nothing in our
lives is really untoward, but that everything gives its own
quotum towards the good result that God has planned for us.
Here is the "open secret" of that marvellous equanimity
which is so characteristic of Joseph from first to last. We
* 2 Sam. xv., 1 1. t Acts xx'-> «4-

214 Joseph the Prime-minister.
understand now why he was neither overwhelmed by the ca
lamities of his youthful years, nor made giddy by the great
ness to which in his latter clays he was exalted. Wherever
he was, and whatever happened to him, he had the unfalter
ing conviction that " God meant it unto good ;" and if we
had the same trust in the wise and loving arrangements of
an all-superintending God, we, too, might continue peace
ful amid all the changes and surprises of our earthly lives.
Whoso has this faith may sing with tranquil heart these sim
ple lines : " Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out by thee ;
And the changes that are sure to come
I do not fear to see ;
But I ask thee for a present mind
Intent on pleasing thee."
And now we leap over an interval of sixty-one years, dur
ing which all we know of Joseph and his brethren is com
prised in these two verses : " And Joseph dwelt in Egypt,
he, and his father's house : and Joseph lived a hundred and
ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third
generation " — that is, as it seems to me, Ephraim's great-grand
children — "tbe children also of Machirthe son of Manasseh"
— that is, Manasseh's grandchildren — " were brought up upon
Joseph's knees." He lived ninety-three years in Egypt, and
eighty of these were subsequent to his elevation to the sec
ond place in the kingdom. There were, probably, a succes
sion of Pharaohs on the throne, after the passing away of
the monarch whom he had first served so signally during the
time of famine ; and it is likely that to the last he retained
the confidence and affection both of the royal family and of
the people at large. But in the absence of any particulars
we may not attempt to make history by conjecture.
But the. time drew nigh when he, too, must die, and this

Joseph's Death. 215
is the last record concerning him: "Joseph said unto his
brethren, I die ; and God will surely visit you, and bring you
out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham,
to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the
children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye
shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being
a hundred and ten years old : and they embalmed him, and
he was put in a coffin in Egypt." Not buried, as I judge,
but embalmed and put into a mummy-case, which was kept
in some one of the homes of his kindred.
Now here we are struck at once with the resemblance of
Joseph's words to those of Jacob in one part, and their dif
ference from them in another. Jacob said, "Behold, I die;
but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land
of your fathers," just as Joseph said, "I die; and God will
surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land
which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." But
while Jacob requested that his body should be at once buried
in Machpelah, Joseph required that his bones should remain
among the Israelites, and be taken with them when they
should go to Canaan. Both alike were animated by faith in
the covenant and oath of God, that their descendants should
possess the Promised Land, but Jacob showed his faith by ask
ing to be immediately buried in the sepulchre of his fathers,
while Joseph manifested his by leaving his bones among his
people, and giving commandment that they should be carried
up with them out of Egypt. And if you will look at the dif
ference of situation between the two, you will find the expla
nation of the difference between the two requests. For Ja
cob and his sons had been already long in Canaan. It was
natural for them, therefore, to dwell on the memories of the
past ; and Jacob, by asking to be buried immediately in Mach
pelah, virtually said to his sons, " Do not forget Canaan in
Egypt. Let not the prosperity of the present drown out of

216 Joseph the Prime-minister.
your heart all love for the past, or all longing for a return to
its happiness. Keep alive the memory ofthe good land that
is for the moment behind you ;" and for that purpose, know
ing how affection clusters round the sepulchre of a father, he
had his body taken at once to Hebron. But when Joseph
came to die, the majority of the descendants of Jacob had
never seen Canaan. They had grown up in Egypt, and their
danger was that of settling down there in contentment, with
out having any desire to go to the land of their fathers.
Therefore, to keep alive among them the truth that they
were yet to go to Canaan, and to preserve in the midst of
them the evidence of his faith that they should ultimately
possess that land, he left his body, embalmed, yet unburied,
among them, with the instruction that when they did go, they
should take it along With them. They say that at the feasts
of Egypt it was usual to bring a mummy to the table, that
tlie guests might be reminded thereby of their mortality.
But Joseph here left his coffined body to his people, that by
its presence among them, and preservation by them, they
might never forget that Egypt was not their final resting-
place — their national home — and might be stimulated to hold
themselves in constant readiness to arise and go to their own
land. Thus, though the expression of the faith in the two
cases was different, it was in each appropriate to the circum
stances of those to whom it was made.
And now, how was this request of Joseph's fulfilled ? Read
with me these two passages, and you will see : "And Moses
took the bones of Joseph with him : for he had straitly sworn
the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you ; and
ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you."* It was
a terrible night. The destroying angel had passed through
Egypt and laid low the first-born in every household. The
* Exodus xiii., 19.

Joseph's Death. 217
panic-stricken Pharaoh had ordered the Israelites away at
once, and they started in great haste. Yet even in that
crisis they did not forget the descending obligation of the
oath which their fathers had sworn to Joseph, and they took
time to carry with them his remains. Read again: "And
the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up
out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground
which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of
Shechem for a hundred pieces of silver; and it became the
inheritance of the children of Joseph."* Thus, between the
death and burial of Joseph an interval of probably from
three to four hundred years elapsed, during all of which his
remains were kept by the children of Israel, a witness to the
faith by which he was animated, and a prophecy of their
ultimate possession of the land of Canaan, so that the au
thor of the Epistle to the Hebrews had a right to say, "By
faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing
ofthe children of Israel; and gave commandment concern
ing his bones." t
And now, leaving the character and career of Joseph to
form the subject of a separate discourse, let us conclude by
giving prominence to the lesson conveyed to us in these
parting words, "T die, and God will surely visit you." They
bring before us the contrast between the mortality of men
and the eternity of God. They die, but he abides " the King
eternal, immortal, the only wise God." Very strikingly is
this fact illustrated in the sacred Scriptures, in which there
is only one name that keeps its place in the forefront from
the beginning to the end. For a time we read of Adam ;
then of Noah ; then of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob ;
then of Joseph ; then of Moses ; then of Joshua. After that
we have the age of the Judges ; then that of the Kings and
* Joshua xxiv., 32. t Hebrews xi., 22.
10

218 Joseph the Prime-minister.
Prophets; then that ofthe Captivity; then that ofthe Res
toration, under Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal
achi. Then in the New Testament we have Apostles and
Evangelists. v^But throughout we have over all the Living and
Eternal God. One generation goeth and another cometh,
but he abideth forever. This great man or that may give
his name to an epoch, but God's providence is over all alike.
He is in the Bible, as he is in the universe, omnipresent, giv
ing its unity to the Book, as he does to human history as a
whole, and rounding it all out into that great circle whose
ample circumference sweeps from " Paradise Lost " to " Par
adise Regained." If, therefore, as we read these pages, we
are continually oppressed with the mortality of man, and re
minded ofthe dirge of Moses — " Thou earnest them away as
with a flood : they are as a sleep ; in the morning they are
as grass that growelh up : in the morning it flourisheth and
groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth."
"We spend our years as a tale that is told" — we are comfort
ed also with the great consolation, " Lord, thou hast been our
dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains.were
brought forth, or even thou hadst formed the earth and the
world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art Gocl."
Nay more, by the course of the Bible history he lets us see
that an individual life, however fragmentary or incomplete it
may seem to be to human view, fits into his comprehensive
plan and is not lived in vain. As we pass from one to an
other, and stand now by the dying Abraham, again by the
departing Jacob, and still again by Joseph as he. is passing
away, we are not permitted to think of anyone man as indis
pensable ; but neither, on the other hand, are we allowed to
suppose that their work has been in vain, for God is in and
over all, and the life of every good man becomes a part of
that great whole which is to be, at last, the revelation and
vindication, as well as the consummation, of the mystery of

Joseph's Death. 219
Providence. We may have some little difficulty in seeing
this in regard to ourselves, because the microscopic minute
ness of our individual parts does not give us a good oppor
tunity of observing their relation to other and larger inter
ests ; but we have no such perplexity in reference to those
whose biographies are set before us in the Scriptures ; and
standing as we do to-night beside the coffin of him whose
history we have been studying, it is fitting that we should
recognize the comforting fact that each one leaves his own
little bit of work on the great edifice which Gocl is rearing
through the centuries, and which is to be at last for his own
habitation through the Spirit. We lose sight of that amid
the trivialities, as we account them, of our personal histories,
and so God has put the lives of other men here, as it were,
under the magnifying-glass of an inspired record, that from
the very largeness of the scale we may be at no loss to dis
cover the point and value of the lesson J)
Now this truth is full of comfort, on the one hand to the
dying servant of God, and on the other to the bereaved who
are called to mourn his loss. It is full of comfort to the
dying, for whatever of good he has done in the world shall
not be lost when he is gone. In the words of the appro
priate inscription on the monument to the Wesleys in West
minster Abbe)', "God buries the workers, but he carries on
the work." When Moses dies, God has Joshua fully trained
to take his place. When Elijah steps into the chariot that
is to take him to glory, God has Elisha there in readiness to
receive his falling mantle. When Stephen is stoned to death,
Paul is prepared by God to take up his mission. Thus,
though the man disappears, his work is carried forward and
is, through the energizing influence of God's spirit, made
operative all through the ages. , The sower may die, but the
seed which fell from his hands matures into a harvest which
is reaped by others, and becomes in its turn the food of mul-

220 Joseph the Prime-minister.
titudes and the germ of many harvests more. I stood once
on a Highland hill in my native land, and marked a spot
upon the landscape greener than all else around. When I
inquired into the reason, I learned that for many, many years
there had been a village there, and that the gardens of the
villagers so long under cultivation kept unwonted verdure
still. So, through the operations of God's grace, the earth
is greener where his servants have been at work, though
the servants themselves have long since passed away. The
operations of grace, like those of Nature, go on after men
have died, because God lives to maintain them, and nothing
done for him is ever allowed by him to come to nothing. So
when we are called to leave the earth, the work in which we
delighted shall not be lost. We die, but Gocl lives; and we
may be sure that under his care it will flourish. Ay, perhaps
the handful of corn which we have cast on the top of the
mountains, amid many discouragements, and apparently on
a barren soil, may spring up, so that " the fruit thereof shall
shake like Lebanon." And the same thing holds true ofthe
loved ones whom we are called to leave on earth. God re
mains to take care of them, so that we may say to them as
Joseph did to his kinsmen, " I die, but God will surely visit
you." Though he have no other legacy to leave them, the
dying Christian can leave his God to his children, and is
not that enough ? Earthly guardians may prove unfaithful
to their trust, and may, through covetousness, rob the widow
and the orphans who have been committed to their care ;
but " the Lord is mindful of his own," and they who are
his wards are always under his protection. They may have
many hardships, and it may seem for a while as if he had
forgotten them, just as the Israelites had hard bondage in
the land of Egypt; but when "the tale of bricks is doubled
then comes Moses," and he will not suffer them always to
be oppressed. Therefore, when we are in departing, let us

Joseph's Death. 221
take comfort in the thought that the covenant of Jehovah is
with us and with our children, and that he remains to keep
that covenant with those whom we leave behind us.
Then what consolation comes from the eternity of God to
those who are bereaved? I have quoted already from the
ninetieth Psalm, but its significance in this relation is too
marked to be left out of sight. It was written by Moses in
the wilderness, when he was depressed by the death of those
who had reached man's estate when he led them out of
Egypt. There came a time when he was left wellnigh alone
of all his generation ; and then he took his comfort out of
the permanence of God, singing, "Lord thou hast been our
dwelling-place in all generations ; from everlasting to ever
lasting thou art God," and by that he was upheld. We see
the same thing in David's case; for not far from the close of
his life, and when many of his early companions had gone
into " the silent land," he wrote the eighteenth Psalm, in which
he said, " The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock ; and let
the Gocl of my salvation be exalted." Yes, " the Lord liveth,"
therefore let us not refuse to be comforted when dear ones
are taken from our side. He can sustain us and he will.
He is as near us as he was when they were with us, and they
were but the agents whom he used for our welfare. But he
is not tied to any instrumentality, and he can guide, uphold,
and bless by one as well as by another. He takes away the
earthly prop that we may learn to lean the more thoroughly
on himself. " He will surely visit us ;" yea, he will be ever
with us, and when our death-hour comes we shall be with
him. " Happy are the people who are in such a case ; yea,
happy is the people whose God is the Lord." With these
feelings in our hearts, we can surely give our hearty Amen
to Paul's doxology, " Now unto the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise Gocl, be honor and glory for ever
and ever. Amen."

XV.
THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF JOSEPH.
Gen. xiv., 8.
THE history of Joseph, on the consideration of which we
have been so long engaged, differs from all the others
which are given at any length in the book of Genesis, in
that we are permitted to follow it almost uninterruptedly
from boyhood to old age. This is one secret of its charm,
especially for young readers ; the rather, because the quali
ties which appear in him at first are seen only to grow with
his growth and to strengthen with his strength. In him the
adage was pre-eminently true that "the boy is father of the
man ;" and though his life had its trials and discouragements,
the conflicts which he had to wage were all external. There
was little in him of that antagonism between the spirit and
the flesh of which the Christian apostle speaks. From the
very first he seems to have been whole-heartedly on the side
of God, and his struggles were not with himself in order to
maintain that undivided allegiance, so much as they were
with others because he was determined to preserve it. His
character, indeed, was not perfect, but there was less of alloy
in it than in that of most men. We see in it less of the al.
ternation between good and evil, between strength and weak
ness, than there is in the majority of those whose biographies
are given us in this honest book. There is no wavering ir
resolution, no petulant impatience, no unscrupulous self-
seeking ; and if he never rose to those heights of spiritual

The Character and Career of Joseph. 223
communion with his God to which Abraham and Jacob were
exalted, he never sank to the depths of deceit into which
both of these patriarchs sometimes descended. His career
is uniquely interesting as that of a good boy who was not a
weakling ; that of a pious man who was not a business fail
ure ; and that of a great man who, in the glory of his exalta
tion, did not outgrow the simplicity of his youth.
In many of its features it bears a striking resemblance to
that of Daniel at a later day. As Auberkn has said, " The
one stands at the commencement, the other at the end of
the Jewish history of revelation; they were both representa
tives of the true Gocl and his people at heathen courts; both
were exemplary in their pure walk before the Lord; both
were endowed with the gift of bringing into clear light the
dim presentiments of truth which express themselves among
the heathen in God-sent dreams; both were gifted with mar
vellous wisdom and insight, and for this reason highly hon
ored among the nations." * But with this general resem
blance there were specific differences ; and it may be profit
able, in drawing this series of discourses to a close, to spend
a little time in the attempt to analyze the character of Jo
seph, and unfold, so far as we may, the secret both of its
goodness and its greatness.
Beginning at the beginning, we are at once impressed
with his devotion to his father. The boy, early motherless,
was taken, not for that reason alone, but also for the sake
of Rachel herself, to his father's heart, and the intercourse
between them seems to have been of the closest and most
confidential kind ; indeed, there is something of idyllic beau
ty in the companionship of the two. We find the boy at
home with his father when all his half-brothers were absent,
* " Daniel and the Revelation," by C. A. Auberlen. Translated by
Rev. A. Saphir, D.D., pp. 23, 24.

224 Joseph the Prime-minister.
and the coat of distinction which his father unwisely gave
him was an indication of the love he bore him ; while the
commission to proceed to Shechem may be taken as an illus
tration of the kind of confidence which his father placed in
him. Then, in the frank rehearsal of his dreams we have
an exemplification, on the other hand, of the open and un
checked freedom with which Joseph was accustomed to
deal with his father. Now, if we may regard these as typi
cal instances, they suggest a great deal more that is not re
corded. They permit us to believe that in their familiar fel
lowship Jacob would tell Joseph the chief events in his'own
personal history, and specially those chapters in it of which
Bethel and Peniel were the scenes. We are sure, too, that
when the conversation on these subjects was exhausted the
father and son would adjourn together to the tent of Isaac,
to hear again from the lips of the blind old grandfather the
story of that terrible experience on Moriah, when, through
the arrested sacrifice of his own son, Abraham saw down
through the ages into the mystery of Calvary. Revelation,
then, was a personal privilege which he who received could
share with others only through oral communication ; and so
these stories heard by Joseph from the lips of Isaac and of
Jacob were to him what the Bible now is to our children.
Through them he learned to know of God, and so the thought
of God became in his mind inseparably associated with his
father. His father was all the dearer to him because of the
revelation of God which he received through him, and he
saw all the dearer to his father because ofthe readiness with
which he accepted the truth thus communicated, and obeyed
the Lord thus made known to him. Thus natural affection
was sweetened, elevated, and purified by spiritual commun
ion, and it may be that the two were drawn together all the
more closely by the fact that the other members of the fami
ly at that time seemed to care for none of these things. In

The Character and Career of Joseph. 225
any case, they were more to each other than either of them
was to any of the rest. And when, after a long interval of
separation, they were brought together again, the old footing
between them was at once restored. We cannot quite un
derstand, indeed, the unbroken silence maintained by Joseph
towards his father for so many years; but, whatever caused
that, we are sure that it was no estrangement of heart from
him, for when they saw each other again they rushed at once
into each other's arms, and all the old tenderness came out
between them.
No matter how old a man he may be, the true son is al
ways a boy again when he is beside his father; and no mat
ter how venerable a man the son may be to others, his aged
father still regards him as his boy. That is true to-day, and,
thank God, it is a familiar truth to many of us ; but just be
cause of that we are all the more delighted to find an exem
plification of it here, in those visits paid by Joseph, when he
was an Egyptian grandee, to his venerable sire. It is a beau
tiful trait, this filial devotion, as honorable to the father as it
is to the son, and regarded, too, by God with benignant com
placency, for the precept " Honor thy father and thy mother "
is "the first commandment with promise." Let this then be
the first of our lessons from the career of Joseph. Fathers,
take your sons into friendly, confidential, religious fellow
ship with yourselves. Sons, cultivate companionship with
your fathers, that you may learn what God has been to them,
and he may become doubly precious to you as "your fa
ther's God." The covenant holds yet, and it counts for
something to be a covenant child.
/^But now, as the result of this fellowship with his father,
and this reception of God's revelation through him, we mark
next in Joseph a constant recognition of the presence of
God with him. That, indeed, seems to me to be the one
great, all-dominating consciousness of his life. He believed
10*

226 Joseph the Prime-minister.
in God, not as afar off, but as always near ; not as sitting
aloof from all the actions of men, but as overruling and con
trolling them ; not as an enemy to be feared, but as a friend
to be loved and trusted and served. No persecution could
keep him from realizing that God was with him, and no pros
perity could blind him to the fact that it was to God he owed
it all. It seems to me, as I read his history, that it was a con
stant "walk with God." His faith had almost the strength
of sight. That which his father wrestled for as a great priv
ilege, and enjoyed for but a brief season, in a special theoph-
any, he seemed constantly to realize by faith, so that he
could say, " I see God face to face and my life is preserved."
Or if such a description appears extravagant, we may at least.
declare that what was true of Moses was true also of him,
and that he not only "endured," but lived "as seeing him
who is invisible." He felt that the Lord was round about
him, and whatever men might intend he knew that God al
ways "meant it unto good." Now this faith in the constant
presence of God with him enabled him to maintain that
evenliness of disposition on which again and again we have
remarked. It kept him from being either very much de
pressed by adversity, or exceedingly elated by prosperity.
He did not indeed stoically take things good and bad as they
came, neither did he accept them thoughtlessly as matters
of course, but he received them as from the hand of God,
and was confident that he would yet reveal to him the pur
pose for which he sent them. Hence, though his heart was
wrung with anguish when he was cast into the pit, he did not
indulge in unavailing regrets; and though "the iron entered
into his soul " when he was in the dungeon, he was able pa
tiently to wait for God's time for his deliverancej
But neither did he forget the Lord's hand in his prosperity.
That was as undeserved by him as his adversity had been.
Both alike came from the Most High, and in both alike God

The Character and Career of Joseph. 227
"meant it unto good." So, while he was kept from despon
dency in the one experience, he was preserved from pride in
the other. He was not self-poised but God-poised. The bal
ance of his nature was Gocl. That kept him always in equi-
librio, so that he was still the same man in simplicity, humil
ity, and calmness, whether he was ministering to the prison
ers in the round-house or riding in the second chariot of the
king. God was with him in the dungeon, and that kept him
from over-estimating its hardships ; God was with him in the
chariot, and that kept him from over-estimating its honor.
The affliction did not sour his heart, and the prosperity did
not turn his head, because in both he felt that God was near
him ; and when we get to such a faith as he had in the pres
ence and protection of a covenant, God, we shall be able to
preserve an equanimity like his.
Nor must I forget to add here that this sense of the near
ness of God to him lay at the root of that moral courage
with which he was endowed. He did not fear to tell of his
brother's misdeeds, no matter how they might threaten him,
for God was on his side; and when temptation assailed him
he had no difficulty in resisting it, because he felt that God
was near. " How shall I do this great wickedness and siii
against God ?" these were his words ; and the sin was felt
to be so heinous, not because God was present to take note
of it, but because the God who was present had been his
constant friend, and was his omnipotent protector.
So again he could enter in before Pharaoh without trepi
dation, because he was always consciously in the presence
of the King of kings; and he had no misgivings about un
dertaking the management of public affairs during the years
of plenty and of famine, because he knew that the Lord would
"stand by him and strengthen him." Brethren, there is
nothing that so largely contributes to what is commonly
called "presence of mind" in clanger or in difficulty as this

228 Joseph the Prime-minister.
sense of the constant nearness of God to us. He who pos
sesses that" faith has always God in reserve, and therefore
he is always as calm as Elisha was in Dothan, and as cour
ageous as Daniel was before Darius.
Still farther, Joseph's constant recognition of the presence
of God with him gave him patience to wait God's time, and
piety to take God's way for his promotion in life. Very early
in life there came to him the divine premonition that there
was a great future before him. It was not simply the con
sciousness that he had it " in him " to do something noble,
and attain to something exalted in the world. I acknowl
edge, indeed, that such feelings in many have been the proph
ecies of exaltation, and have so fired ambition that they have,
so to say, become the means of their own fulfilment at a later
date. But Joseph's early visions came to him directly from
God. They were the same in kind as the divine communi
cations that were made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
and they were given to him in a manner that was special,
and distinct from all ordinary forecasts of the future. But
he did not try to help on their attainment by improper means,
neither was he in eager haste to have them fulfilled. He
let God take his time, and he did not seek, like Rebekah, to
help him out in a sinful way. He " waited " on the Lord,
and while he waited he worked just at what his hand found
to do, and in a manner that was strictly irreproachable and
upright. He would take no " short cuts " to success. He
knew nothing of vaulting into greatness by some sudden and
spasmodic leap, to be just as suddenly overturned because
•he was not fitted for the work to which he had aspired.
But he kept plodding on, always doing his best, whether as a
shepherd, or as a household steward, or as a prison warden ;
and so when he was called to be the Grand Vizier, he did
his best there too, and it was such a "best" as piloted the
country safely through a crisis which else might have re-

The Character and Career of Joseph. 229
suited in general starvation or in the wildest anarchy and
confusion. Q3ut why was he always doing his best ? Because, as you
may clearly see if you care to read between the lines of the
record, he was always working for Gocl. That kept him
from indolence; that prevented him from indulging in mur
muring impatience ; that preserved him from staining his
record with anything like dishonesty or iniquity. To him,
indeed, as to a greater than he or than all of us, long after
wards, the devil came and offered the kingdom and the glory
if he would but fall down and worship him ; for the strength
of the temptation presented by Potiphar's wife, to such an
one as he, lay not in its appeal to fleshly appetite so much
as in the fact that it opened up a way by which he might
speedily reach the summit of his ambition, while yet the thing
required of him was not regarded in Egypt as any great
enormity. But he spurned it from him, saying in another
form, yet virtually what the Saviour said, " Get thee behind
me, Satan, for I shall worship the Lord my God, and him
only shall I serve ;" and he went back, to go a long way
round, a way which led through a prison, and which took
him years to traverse, but a way that led at length to unsul
lied greatness, which, once attained, was kept by him for life.
Oh, young men, what an example there is here for you !
It tells you to keep ever alive within you the consciousness
that God is at your side. It bids you remember that it is
with God you have to do. It urges you to "make haste
slowly;" that is, to make haste in God's way, and never to
be guilty of doing evil that good may come. " Strait is the
gate and narrow is the way " to the greatness that God con
fers. His path to honor and influence and power is still
steep and arduous and rugged, and evermore, as you toil
on and up, some emissary of the devil will come and sug
gest to you a shorter and easier way; but believe him not,

230 Joseph the Prime-minister.
for he will lead you through a swamp, in which it will go
hard if you do not sink and disappear; or, if he give you
what he promises, he will give it but for a little season, after
which will come a sudden and irremediable collapse. You
do not need to do more than read the newspapers of last
week to see how true that is. Oh, that you would lay it to
heart, and be content in your business as in your closet to
" wait upon the Lord." " He that believeth " will make no
such "haste" as that — he will bide God's time; and if he
can rise only by using the devil's means, he will be content
to remain forever as he is and where he is ; for, after all,
character is the real success, and the man who can say "no''
to the devil is a hero, even if the saying of it should send
him, in the first instance, to a jail. But commonly God does
not leave such heroes in the dungeon, for after the prison
comes the royal chariot, and it comes to stay, or, if it do not
come on earth, there is in heaven a crown that fadeth not
away. Serve God, then, where you are with constant dili
gence and unswerving loyalty, and leave all else to hini^
But, as another result of this constant sense of God's
presence which Joseph cherished, I name his forgiving spir
it. He had come to see that through all the evil that men
intended to do him, God was working towards his great good
end, of setting him near the throne of Egypt, and saving
much people alive, and so that made him ready to pardon
his brothers for their cruel treatment of him in his early life.
True, he took means to satisfy himself of their repentance,
but when he was convinced of that he at once made himself
known to them, and took them again to his heart. Now I
verily believe that if we had anything like Joseph's faith in
the universality of God's providence we should find it more
easy to forgive those who have done us wrong; and as that
is one of the hardest things to do, it might be well for us to"
cultivate the faith which makes it easy. We are too ready

The Character and Career of Joseph. 231
to forgive with reservation. If, like David, we consent to
Absalom's recall, we add the condition that he shall not look
upon our face; and there is too much in us of the spirit of
the Highland-man who, having been brought, on what was
supposed to be his death-bed, to forgive a neighbor with
whom he had a feud, and who had been led into his cham
ber for a formal reconciliation, called after him as he was
leaving the room, " Mind, if I get better this will be all off!"
But Joseph forgave right out, and he did so because he
knew that God had made the cruelty of his brothers to work
out his good, and because he felt that God was a witness to
his forgiving act. Now, when to these considerations we
add this other — more clearly revealed to us than it was to
Joseph — that God has forgiven us freely and fully all our
sins, we ought to find it more blessed to give forgiveness
than it is to receive it, and should have our delight in deal
ing with others as our God has dealt with us.
Thus regarded, we see that the character of Joseph was in
every particular the evolution of his realization of the near
ness of God and his faith in the universality of his provi
dence, and that for these he was indebted to the revelation
that came to him in early life through Jacob and Isaac.
I conclude with drawing attention to two points to which
I gave prominence some years ago when I was speaking of
the character of Daniel. The first is that Joseph's early
piety was not incompatible with strength and manliness of
character. I am particular to set that clearly before you,
for it has come to be believed by the young people of these
days that piety is a simpering, sentimental thing, betokening
the existence both of physical and mental weakness in him
by whom it is manifested. Something of this impression per
haps may be due to the influence of those books for juve
niles which tell of " good boys " who had Jittle or nothing of
boyhood about them, and dropped into early graves. Thus

232 Joseph the Prime-minister.
the idea is fostered that when one becomes an earnest Chris
tian in the years of his boyhood, he is " too good for this
world," and is removed as soon as may be to a better. Now
such books are unhealthy, because they are untrue ; and the
mischief is that they tend to repel their readers from religion
altogether. Young people do not want to become Christians
if their histories are to be of that sort. They are conscious
of the possession of overflowing vitality, and they have, be
sides, the natural and laudable ambition to do something to
purpose in the world. They shrink, therefore, from a life of
physical weakness and from an early death, and they should
be told of the early piety of those who have lived to a good
old age, and who were honored to do good and noble service
for God and their generation. Now that is what they find
in the biography of Joseph, for he gave himself to God as a
boy, but lived to be an hundred and ten years old, and for
more than three-fourths of his days he occupied the second
place in the land of Egypt. There was no element of fee
bleness about him. He was healthy alike in body and in
mind. He had the courage not only to have convictions,
but also to act upon them. He was a manly boy, and, as we
have seen, there was to the last also much ofthe boy even in
his manhood. Now I am anxious that the young people of
my audience should take heed to these things. You will
make a tremendous mistake if you suppose that piety unfits
you for life, or imagine that its existence in youth is an ab
normal thing which indicates the presence of disease. Be
lieve me, there is nothing so wholesome for you as to give
yourselves early to the Lord. It will lay in you the founda
tion of a vigorous and energetic character. It will bring the
highest and holiest of all motives to bear alike on education,
recreation, and business, and enable you to make the very
best of yourselves for God and for your fellow-men. From
every point of view, therefore, such a history as this of Jo-

The Character and Career of Joseph. 233
seph should encourage you to early piety. It bids you con
secrate yourselves to the Saviour ere yet " the cares of the
world" or "the deceitfulness of riches" have stolen away
your hearts. It proves to you that piety is by no means
incompatible with manliness. It gives you the promise of
many days of usefulness and honor in the world, and illus
trates how truly Paul did write when he said, "Godliness is
profitable unto all things, having the promise both of the
life that now is, and also of that which is to come.''
Finally, I desire to place fully in your view this other fact,
namely, that Joseph, even in the world's sense of the word,
was a successful man. He had his struggles and his trials,
but still, at the early age of thirty, he reached a position of
honor and emolument which was second only to that of the
Egyptian monarch, and he retained that, so far as appears,
to the end. Now, of course, his was in some respects an
exceptional case. But it was not exceptional in this, that
though a good man, he became a successful man, for in the
word of God we have similar instances in the lives of Daniel
and Nehemiah ; and in our own day and in our own land
we can point to not a few who are equally remarkable for
their Christian character and their business eminence. It
is, I know, a common idea among many that religion and
success, commercial or professional, are incompatible. If
one have the reputation of being a godly man, he is by mul
titudes written down as unfitted for attaining the highest kind
of commercial success ; and, on the other hand, if one have
risen to eminence as a merchant or a statesman, it is sup
posed that he cannot be a very devout man. But I cannot
admit that either of these imputations is true. Why should
the cultivation of the heart be inconsistent with eminence in
commerce or in public life, any more than the gratification
of a taste for literature ? Yet how many men are equally

234 Joseph the Prime-minister.
eminent in both departments. The noblest statesman that
Great Britain has seen for more than a generation has been
able, without detracting from his influence either as a finan
cial reformer or as a prime-minister, to cultivate Homeric
studies and enrich literature by many valuable essays. Nay,
I will add that he is as eminent as a Christian as he is in
either ofthe other two respects, so that in his case also the
cultivation ofthe heart has been as little incompatible with
his greatness as his devotion to literature.
But, more than this, the very duties of business furnish an
opportunity for the fostering of religion. For what is religion?
Is it not, above all other things, the science of character?
Is it not the process of self-formation according to the purest
model, from the loftiest motives, and with the best assistance?
And if that be so, does not public life give the noblest op
portunities for its prosecution? Whatever we do, and wher
ever we are, we are either making or manifesting character,
and we must do so either in the right way or in the wrong.
Religion is the doing of this in the right way, and if that be
incompatible with success in business, then all I have to say
is, so much the worse for business. But it is not incompati
ble with business success. It may not give a rapid fortune,
indeed, but that is not a misfortune, for these rapid fortunes
often end in prison or in exile. But it has often given, and
it will give again, solid, substantial, enduring prosperity,
which no panic can sweep away. Nor is this all. Consider
what religion does for a man. It brings him under the in
fluence of the most powerful motives ; it opens his eyes to
the sight of the invisible ; it leads him to work, as Joseph
did all through, with the consciousness that God is at his
side. But is there anything in that to paralyze industry or
to overlay diligence ? Nay, verily, for he who is doing busi
ness for God will always be in earnest. His diligence in

The Character and Career of Joseph. 235
business will be a part of his religion, and he will enjoy the
fulfilment of the promise, " the hand of the diligent maketh
rich." True, his religion will keep him from all double deal
ing and dishonesty, and so he may not rise as rapidly as the
wicked sometimes do, but then neither will he fall so igno-
miniously as they.
Believe not, therefore, my young friends, that your alle
giance to God will interfere with true, abiding, commercial
success. Even if it were to do so, it would still be your duty
to be true to God. But it will not. God's providence is
moral, and if you make a fair induction of facts, you will find
that, other things being equal, the religious man is all in all,
and, in the long-run, the most prosperous as well as the hap
piest of merchants. I know that this is a low view of the
matter, but I know, also, that the insinuations to which I
have referred are made by those who would seduce you from
the paths of integrity, and therefore I have taken the trouble
to refute their reasoning. Do not allow yourselves to be led
away by their plausibilities. Probe them to the bottom and
you will see their falsity; and remain true to him who has
said, not only, " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall
see Gocl," but also, "Blessed are the meek for they shall in
herit the earth."
And now I conclude. When I began these discourses I
was afraid to touch that exquisite story which was the favorite
of our childhood, lest I should dim its beauty or destroy its
charm. But it has become only the more interesting as we
have examined it the more minutely ; and the lessons which
we have found in it have been so important that I am not
without the hope that multitudes among us have been per
manently benefited by their consideration. In such a case
the profit is yours, the joy is mine, and the praise is God's.
Two things I trust we have learned. These are, to value
above all others this ancient book, which, given by inspira-

236 Joseph the Prime-minister.
tion of God, has been found to be "profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"
and to resolve that we will suffer no mousing criticism to
nibble away from us the precious histories which are therein
recorded.

INDEX.

Affliction disposes to sympathy, 72.
Anderson, Lieutenant, quoted, 25.
Andrews, Bishop, quoted, 175.
Asher, blessing of, 182.
Auberlen, C. A., quoted, 223.
Baker, chief, 62 ; dream of, 66 ; execution of, 68.
Baker, Sir Samuel, quoted, 34.
Beginning of sin, 29.
Beheading, death by, 68.
Beneficiaries, short memories of, 74.
Beni Hassan, representation on one of the tombs at, 12.
Benjamin not sent with his brothers to Egypt at first, 109 ; presence of,
insisted on by Joseph, 113 ; received by Joseph, 126; Joseph's cup
found in sack of, 129; intercession of Judah for, 129, 135; blessing
of, by Jacob, 185.
Binney, Rev. Thomas, quoted, 88, 89, 94.
Birthday celebrations among the Egyptians, 69.
Browne, Bishop, quoted, 182.
Bruce, Michael, quoted, 169.
Brugsch, quoted or referred to, 38, 40, 85, 98.
Burial, Egyptian, manner of, 195.
Bushnell, Horace, D.D., quoted, 69.
Business, important, should be done at once, 167.
Butler, chief, dream of, 61; dream of, and its fulfilment, 66; forgets Jo
seph, 68; speaks of Joseph to Pharaoh, 82.
Calling, an honest, not a thing to be ashamed of, 149.
Campbell, Thomas, quoted, 171.
Captain of the guard, 43, 61.
Captivities, various kinds of, 45 ; what to do in, 47.
Chabas, M., quoted, 37, 40, 161.
Charon, origin of fable of, 195.
Character the true success in life, 60; relation of, to God's providence,
70, 71 ; often tested when we do not know it, 132.
Cisterns in Palestine, 25.

238 Index.
Commentary, Bishop Ellicott's, quoted, 155.
 Pulpit, 125 ; Jamieson, Fausset, and Browne, quoted, 87, 197.
"Commentary, Speaker's," quoted, 85, 87, 89, 102, 178, 179.
Contemporary Review quoted, 37-40, 161.
Cooke, Canon, quoted, 85.
Corn policy of Joseph, 98-103.
Dan, blessing of, by Jacob, 180.
Diodorus referred to, 99, 195.
Devotion of Joseph to his father, 213.
Dods, Marcus, D.D., quoted, 58, 65, 138.
Donellan Lectures, by William Lee, D.D., quoted, 155, 156.
Dothan, 22.
Dreams, 63.
Ebers referred to, 66.
Egypt, extent of, 33 ; name of, 33 ; inhabitants of, 36 ; early history of,
36 ; manners and customs of, 49, 66, 80, 86, 125, 144.
Egyptian wagons, 142.
Egyptian words in Genesis, 85.
Envy, course of, 20 ; nature of, 29.
Ephraim, birth of, 92 ; blessed by Jacob, 162.
Eternity of God a comfort in bereavement, 217-221.
Faber, F. W., quoted, 60.
Fairbairn's " Imperial Bible Dictionary " quoted, 44, 154.
Faith, importance of, in death, 169.
Famines in Egypt, 96-98 ; causes of, 108.
Father and son, intercourse between, 224.
Favoritism, evil of, in the family, 14.
Forgiveness, difficulty of, 207.
Forgiving spirit of Joseph, 230.
Gad, blessing of, 181.
Gathered to his fathers, meaning of, 190.
Geike, Cunningham, D.D., quoted, 66, 67, 68.
Genesis, different sections in the book of, 9 ; Egyptian words in, 85.
Goshen, Land of, 145.
Grave, locality of the, unimportant, 159.
Greeley, Horace, advice of, 149.
Hanna, Dr. William, quoted, 8.
Henry, Matthew, quoted, 55.
Herodotus referred to, 99.
" Herodotus," Rawlinson's, quoted, 197.
Hyksos, or Shepherd kings of Egypt, 37.

Index. 239
Intercession of Judah for Benjamin, 129, 135.
Intercourse between a father and a grown-up son, 165, 167.
Interpretation of the dream of the chief butler and chief baker, 67 ; of
the dreams of Pharaoh, 83.
Inundation of the Nile, 34.
Isaac some years contemporary with Joseph, 9 ; probable effect of inter
course with, on Joseph, 10 ; encampment of, at Hebron, 10.
Issachar, blessing of, 179, 188.
Jacob, effect of Peniel upon, 7 ; goes to Shechem, 8 ; encampment of, at
Hebron, 11 ; gives a peculiar dress to Joseph, 12; sends Joseph to
seek his brothers, 21 ; sends his ten sons to Egypt for food, 109 ; la
ments over the absence of Simeon, 1 16 ; sends his sons a second
time to Egypt, 123 ; removal of, with his family, to Egypt, 142 ; halt
of, at Beersheba, 143 ; met by Joseph, 143 ; interview of, with Pha
raoh, 145, 147 ; visited by Joseph alone, 158 ; requests to be buried in
Machpelah, 159; reasons of, for this request, 160; takes an oath of
Joseph, 160 ; blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, 162 ; faith of, 164, 169 ;
blesses his sons, 171-189 ; death of, 190 ; embalmment ofthe body of,
196; burial of, 201; character of, 201; contrasted with that of King
Saul, 203.
Joseph contemporary with Isaac for some years, 10; receives a peculiar
coat from Jacob, 12 ; brings to his father the evil report of his broth
ers, 12; dreams of, 13; antagonism of his brothers to, 15; sent to
seek his brothers, 21 ; reception of, by his brothers, 23; put into a
pit, 25; sold to the Ishmaelites, 26; first position of, in Egypt, 42;
purchased by Potiphar, 43 ; time of service with Potiphar, 48 ; tempta
tion of, 49-51; triumph of, 51; in the prison, 52; interprets the
dreams of the chief butler and the chief baker, 67 ; waiting in the
prison, 76-79 ; sent for, by Pharaoh, 80 ; in the presence of the king,
83 ; interprets Pharaoh's dreams, 83 ; promoted to the second place
in the kingdom, 84 ; receives a new name, 85 ; feelings of, at the birth
of his children, 91, 92 ; forgetfulness of his father by, 93 ; corn policy
of, 98-103; reception of his brothers by, no; conceals his relation
ship from his brothers, 111—114 ; keeps Simeon as a hostage, 115;
receives his brothers on their second visit, 125 ; explanation of his
conduct to his brothers, m, 127; divining cup of, 128; tender re
gard of, for Jacob, 139 ; makes himself known to his brothers, 140 ;
sends his brothers back to Canaan, 140 ; receives his father in Egypt,
114; visits his father alone, 158; visits his father with his two sons,
132; receives a special portion from his father, 165; blessing of, by
Jacob, 183 ; buries his father at Machpelah, 201 ; returns to Egypt,
206; character of, not understood by his brothers, 208; equanimity
of, 213; gives commandment concerning his remains, 215; charac
ter and career of, 222 ; devotion of, to his father, 223 ; recognition
ofthe constant presence of God by, 225 ; moral courage of, 227;

240 Index.
patience of, 228; forgiving spirit of, 230; piety of, 231; success
of, 233.
Kalisch quoted, 125.
Kitto, Dr. John, quoted, 43, 52, 108.
Lake, sacred, 195.
Lange's Genesis quoted, 29.
Lawson, George, D.D., quoted, 19.
Lee, Dr. W., Donellan Lectures quoted, 156, 157.
Lepsius referred to, 40.
Levi, blessing of, 175.
Lewis, Tayler, quoted, 29.
Life, brevity of, 151.
Life, outer, different from inner, 134.
Manasseh, birth of, 9 ; blessed by Jacob, 162.
Machpelah, Cave of, request of Jacob to be buried in, 159; description
of mosque above, 198 ; burial of Jacob in, 198.
Moral courage of Joseph, 227.
Mourning, Egyptian, 197.
Nablus, 20, 165.
Naphtali, blessing of, 182.
Nile, sources of the, 34 ; inundation of the, explained, 35 ; importance
of the, to Egypt, 36, 81.
Nile, the Black, 34 ; the Blue, 34 ; the White, 34.
Patience of Joseph, 228.
Peniel, effect of night at, upon Jacob, 7.
Pharaoh sends for Joseph, 80 ; dreams of, 81; exalts Joseph to the sec
ond place, 84 ; receives Jacob, 145.
Piety of Joseph not incompatible with strength and manliness, 23i.^_^
Plan of God in every man's life, 69, 70.
Poole, R. S., quoted, 37-40.
Potiphar purchases Joseph, 43 ; captain of the guard, 43.
Fotiphar's wife the temptress of Joseph, 49 ; falsely accuses Joseph, 52.
Prayer a support in trial, 121.
Providence, minute particularity of, 69, 210; relation of character to, 70,
71,186; works through men's sins, 79, 211; and through trial, 119;
is not to be judged of before the time, 120.
Public administration of Joseph, 98-103.
Purposes of God helped towards fulfilment by men's efforts to defeat
them, 30.
Rachel, reference of Jacob to, on his death-bed, 163.

Index. 241
Recognition of God's presence by Joseph, 225.
Residence, change of, to be made with the sanction of God, 148.
Responsibility for what we see and hear in others, 17; not got rid of by
putting the trust out of sight, 31.
Reuben, effort of, to save Joseph, 23 ; grief of, at the failure of his plan,
27, 115 ; offer of, to bring Benjamin back, 124; blessing of, 174.
Right to be done irrespective of consequences, 60.
Robinson, Rev. Dr. Edward, quoted, 100.
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 59.
Shakespeare quoted, 20, 64, in.
Shechem described, 8, 20.
Shepherds, Egyptian, prejudice against, 144.
Shiloh, meaning of, 177.
Simeon retained by Joseph, 114; restored, 126; blessing of, 175, 186.
Sin, beginning of, 29.
Slave market, Joseph in the, 42.
Smith's "Dictionary ofthe Bible" quoted, 22, 41,97.
Smith, Rev. Thornley, 98, 108, 142, 194.
"Speaker's Commentary" quoted, 85, 87, 99, 102, 178, 179.
Staff, bowing on the, meaning of, 38, 161, 162.
Stanley, Dean, 199.
Success in life, true, 60, 89 ; way to, not closed against any man, 87.
Table, genealogical, in Gen. xlvi., 8-27, 153.
Taylor, Isaac, quoted, in.
Temptation, how to meet, 54.
Temptation of Joseph, 49-5 <; general lessons from the, 53-60.
Tennyson quoted, 191, 192.
Thomson, W. H., M.D., LL.D., quoted, 178, 185.
Thomson, W. M., D.D., quoted, 21, 22, 25.
Tower of London, illustration from, 74.
Trench, Archbishop, quoted, 204, 205.
Uncertainties of human existence, 28.
Wagons, Egyptian, 142.
Wilberforce, Bishop, quoted, 203.
Wilkinson, Sir J. G., quoted, 49, 66, So, 86, 125, 144, 193, 194. IQ5.
Will, importance of making a, 168.
Words, Egyptian, in Genesis, 85.
ZAPHNATH-rAANEAH, meaning of, 85.
Zebulon, blessing of, 179. THE END.

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THOMSON'S GREAT ARGUMENT. The Great Argument ; or, Jesus
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