GENESIS 37 TO 39
GENESIS 37 TO 39
We come now to a deeply interesting type, or rather a series of types, in the history of Joseph. As we have seen already, Joseph was born of Rachel in Padan-Aram while Jacob was away from his place and his country (chapter 30: 22 - 25). This seems to speak of the fact that Christ came in at a time when Israel was not really in the possession or enjoyment of the land of their inheritance. They had lost the kingdom, and, although they were under God’s providential care, they were not in possession of the inheritance. The fact that a remnant of two tribes was in Palestine was owing providentially to the action of a Gentile monarch, and they were there as a subject people to the Roman empire. The very circumstance which providentially brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem that Christ might be born [p. 222] there was the proof that an alien power ruled in the land of Israel.
It was under such circumstances that Christ came in, and in the subsequent history of Joseph we have a striking series of types which speak of Him as loved and honoured by the Father, but found serving amongst His Jewish brethren, and hated and killed by them, and subsequently exalted amongst the Gentiles. It is there where, after repentance, they find Him to be their salvation, and are nourished by Him in the best portion He can give. This is where the Jews have to find Him today; and they do not get Canaan now, but Goshen. That is, if blessed of God at all they get blessing in the kingdom as it is known today, they get church blessing. They participate in that greater good which is known now amongst the Gentiles. So that there is added blessing (Joseph — he will add) now, though the earthly kingdom and inheritance are not restored to them. Then, of course, Joseph being made known to his brethren looks on typically to a yet future day when God’s distinctive dealings with the Jews will be resumed.
Benjamin is Christ viewed from a rather different standpoint. He is born at the royal city in the land of promise, and thus comes in with all the rights of the kingdom. But He is the Son of His mother’s sorrow, and I think this has in view the cutting off of all the hopes of Israel in His death. He was cut off and had nothing, and in His cutting off every hope that Israel cherished was forfeited according to the flesh. The fulfilment of promise was presented in Him to Israel, only to be met by the definite refusal expressed by His rejection and crucifixion. The godly remnant had to go through the profound sorrow of [p. 223] this — a sorrow set forth by the exercise of His mother Mary, “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also”. The disciples had to go through this travail of soul, as we see in John 16: 20 - 22.
But if He is the Son of His mother’s sorrow, He is the Son of His Father’s right hand. He is the Man of God’s right hand, made strong for Himself, who will yet deliver Israel from the wild boar of the wood (Psalm 80), and set up the kingdom in due time. But His power is not acting at the present time in any public way for Israel; she has died, as seen typically in Rachel, and Benjamin is hidden, as it were, for the time, at God’s right hand.
Joseph at the age of seventeen years is found feeding the flock with his brethren, and doing service with them (chapter 37: 2). But he could have no fellowship with their evil discourse, and he brought to his father an evil report of them. The true Joseph was ever here in the spirit and activity of service, and Joseph, like other types of Christ, was found feeding the flock, serving in shepherd care. Moses was a shepherd before he was king in Jeshurun, and David was taken from the sheep-folds “to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance”. It shows that the One who can care for the flock is the One competent to rule; He rules in the spirit of shepherd care, as having established His title by the service of love.
But the evil course of those around Him was ever a grief to His spirit; He was wholly apart from it morally. We see this very plainly in the Psalms personal to Christ, and also in those which give prophetically the utterance of the Spirit of Christ in the remnant; we hear Him speaking to Jehovah with [p. 224] deep sorrow of what He found in the conduct, ways, words, and spirit of those around Him. He could only bring to His Father an evil report of them. The evil report referred to Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. It is to be noted that it was the four brothers who were children of the bondmaids. It seems to be suggestive of the state in which the people were found, both morally and politically, when the Lord came to them. They were in bondage, and there were no movements of spiritual liberty amongst them.
Joseph was the peculiar object of his father’s love, and his brethren knew it; there was evidence of it in the “vest of many colours”. God clothed Jesus publicly with the witness of His delight in Him. At His baptism He said, “This is my beloved Son”; and again, on the Mount of Transfiguration, “This is my beloved Son in whom I have found my delight: hear him”. And all through how many-coloured was the witness given that He was the Object of the Father’s love! See John 10: 32; chapter 14: 11, etc. I think that what Peter refers to in Acts 2 very much answers to the “vest of many colours”. “Jesus the Nazaraean, a man borne witness to by God to you by works of power and wonders and signs, which God wrought by him in your midst, as yourselves know”. There was a public witness that He was approved of God. With what variety of witness did God clothe Him in all His service and ministry here! The “many good works” which He did were His public attestation.
But all this only brought out their enmity, as in the case of Joseph. The more God approved Him the more they hated Him. It is a sad spectacle even in the type, but it is terrible to see it as a true picture of [p. 225] the treatment accorded to the Son of God. He had to say, “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father”.
Then “Joseph dreamed a dream, and told it to his brethren, and they hated him yet the more”. The dream was a divine revelation that they would all have to own the greatness of Joseph. He was really the chief of the family. If Christ comes in He must have the first place in everything. The more God’s purpose as to this came out in testimony the more the envy and hostility of the Jews came into evidence. So the final point was reached when He said, “From henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven”, Matthew 26: 64.
What comes out in Joseph’s history is that wherever he was allowed to be supreme there was prosperity. Jehovah was with him, and whenever he was allowed to have his place everything prospered. He is a type of Christ as Lord, and of lordship in blessing which widens out far beyond Israel, and in the exercise of which He is the Saviour of the world. It is an important principle that the measure in which we give place to the Lord is the measure in which we prosper. He is the supreme One, and if we give Him His place we are sure not to be found in any evil way. Under Joseph’s hand everything prospered, whether in Potiphar’s house or in the administration of Egypt, and the secret of prosperity was revealed to Joseph’s brethren, and to his father and mother, in these dreams. Everything must bow down to Joseph!
We are brought into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in that aspect the authority would be that of love; in His kingdom love must predominate. Such [p. 226] a thought of a king seems to come very close to headship, and indeed the King is also the Head. The king of England is not only the ruler of this realm, but he is the head of the whole system of society. So that his moral character and conduct, and his way of doing things, have an influence, more or less, over all society. It is considered good form to follow the lead that he gives, so that a good king has immense influence on the line of headship as well as on that of rule. The rule and authority of God, as made known in the way of perfect grace to men, are set forth in the Lord, but Christ as Head takes the first place on our side that He may give impulse to everything for the pleasure of God.
Joseph’s brethren had to prove in the end that his dreams came true; they were actually brought to bow down to him, and as those who were indebted to him even for life. But before that their enmity came out in dreadful ways. Sent by his father to see to their welfare, when his brethren saw him from afar they conspired against him to put him to death. They would, if possible, rob him of the place which God had decreed that he should have. God took care to secure, by means of Reuben and Judah, that he should not be killed. God held everything in His hand, just as He did in the case of His beloved Son, though in the wisdom of His way in the latter case they were permitted to carry out their purpose to put Him to death. There seemed to be certain right sentiments in Reuben, certain workings of conscience or affection; his purpose was to bring Joseph to his father again. So he was a figure of those who, like Joseph of Arimathaea, did not consent to the counsel and deed of them. Or those who, like Nicodemus, attempted to speak a [p. 227] word in favour of the Lord. There were some among the Jews in whom a measure of divine exercise was found; they were not all minded to have the Lord slain. Everything moved on according to the divine plan. Reuben meant to have taken the boy out of the pit, and brought him to his father again. But that was not in the divine plan. He was to go to Egypt and be highly exalted there, so as to be a type of Christ in greatness amongst the Gentiles. The rejection of Christ by His brethren and His death — casting Joseph into the pit is His death in figure — only led in the wisdom and power of God to a wider sphere of greatness and glory for Him. He is exalted with a view to universal blessing.
In Potiphar’s house everything prospered under Joseph’s hand, and Jehovah was seen to be with him. Then he was allowed to be tested, but the test only proved his faithfulness, and that God was before him. His faithfulness and purity brought him under the hatred of the world which could not seduce him from the path of integrity. Then, as cast into prison, he was put in circumstances which tested him as to his personal confidence in what God had told him. “They afflicted his feet with fetters; his soul came into irons; until the time came when what he said came about: the word of Jehovah tried him”, Psalm 105: 18, 19. He had the trial of seeing everything contrary to what he had said come upon him. He had said certain things prophetically, understanding them to be the word of the Lord, and what he had said now put him to the test. He had spoken, in a figurative way, of his greatness and exaltation. The pit and the prison did not look much like the way to that. “The word of Jehovah tried him”. It exercised him as to whether [p. 228] he could hold to it in faith when everything was utterly contrary.
Being tried by the word of the Lord suggests being tested by the difficulties of the testimony, not merely personal circumstances. Are we prepared to hold our ground even under adverse conditions? Sometimes people take up a position in accord with the word of the Lord, and as soon as any serious difficulty arises they give it up. Such persons prove themselves to have very little value in relation to the testimony of our Lord.
The Lord had the sorrow and testing of the contradiction of sinners continually, and had even to say that He had laboured in vain, and spent His strength for nought and in vain; He had to see the cities wherein most of His mighty works had been done unmoved thereby. But “At that time, Jesus answering said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Yea, Father, for thus has it been well pleasing in thy sight”. Under the testing there was nothing found in Him but perfect confidence in the way and sovereignty of His Father.
We are told in Acts 7 that God was with Joseph. Jehovah was with him all the time, even in the most uncongenial circumstances. We need to challenge our hearts as to whether that is sufficient for us. When Joseph was tried he answered to the test, but very often when we are tried a great deal comes to light that will not stand. How often the word of the Lord tries us, and lays bare unworthy and selfish motives, for that word will search out and expose everything that is not Christ. We must not expect [p. 229] to take up any position for God, and not be tested in it. But we shall have the Lord with us if we are simple. The Lord is the sufficiency of His people, and the experience of this qualifies a man to go on. We see it in Paul in 2 Timothy when the testimony was in prison. We might say that Paul was tested by all that he had ministered, and he answered to the test by the Lord’s support in the most adverse circumstances. The Lord will be with a faithful saint when his soul comes into irons, but that does not mean that the trial is not felt.
Joseph was sustained in the prison. The word of the Lord tested but it also supported him, and prosperity was given even there. Paul in prison represents the true position of the testimony in this world. We do not expect enlargement in circumstances here, but limitation, suffering, and difficulties; it is the prison time. But Paul in prison was nevertheless the vessel of the administration of all that is blessed. The ministry of the gospel and the ministry of the assembly came out fully in Paul when personally and in circumstances he was very straitened. He was greatly enlarged morally, for he never wrote such epistles as when he was in prison.
Joseph had thirteen years of severe testing; he was seventeen when it began, and he was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh. But the Lord had been with him all through, and the man who has found the Lord with him in the worst conditions can act for the Lord in the best conditions. What we have learned in weakness and suffering will be useful to us in the reigning time. To tell a butler’s dream might seem to be a small thing, but the same wisdom of God which could interpret a butler’s dream could interpret Pharaoh’s dream, and act in universal administration. We are now learning in small circumstances the principles by which the whole universe will be administered. The spiritual problems which we have to face and solve now involve the acquisition of wisdom which will qualify saints to have the administration of the kingdom entrusted to them.
It has often been said that in Joseph we see Christ typically as the wisdom of God and the power of God.