GENESIS 40 TO 45
GENESIS 40 TO 45
Chapter 45 brings us to the point where Joseph makes himself known to his brethren. We have seen that Joseph was a type of Christ as beloved of the Father, clothed with the witness of the Father’s delight in Him, and marked out as the One destined to be supreme, but hated and rejected — in figure killed — by his brethren. The more the Lord was marked out as honoured by the Father the more distinctly the rejection of the people manifested itself. But all was overruled to bring to light the perfection of Christ, and the whole counsel of God.
In the exaltation of the true Joseph and the blessing of the Gentile world, the Lord gets a wider place. We see in Isaiah 49 how Israel is not gathered, but that opens a way for the Lord to have a wider sphere and glory, so that He is God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. Joseph went down to Egypt and was tested there; but Jehovah was with him, so that all who gave him his place benefited, and everything prospered in his hand. We get this in Isaiah 53; Christ rejected by Israel, but Jehovah’s pleasure prospering in His hand. It was a great cheer to the heart of the Lord in John 12 to hear the Greeks saying, “We would see Jesus”. It opened up to His vision that wide world of blessing which He was going to fill with fruit for God.
Joseph was tested before the fulfilment of what he said; tested by the seductive influences of the world, and then by the prison. But found equally perfect in both, like the Lord in the temptation at the beginning of His history, and then by all the exercises of the garden at the end. Testing comes before exaltation. Joseph was tested in lowly circumstances before he administered in glory, and the moral perfection and beauty that qualified him to rule were fully manifested in him. The One who is to rule has been tested. His competency and moral suitability were tested and approved before He was exalted. Faith is always tested by beguilings on one hand and buffetings on the other. We are not so much tested in public as in secret as to what motives really rule us. Joseph was found in the most humiliating position in prison, but Jehovah was with him and he prospered there. It seems to be part of God’s way to develop things in secret which will afterwards come into public view, like David first fighting with a lion and a bear before meeting Goliath. The man with whom the wisdom of God was in obscurity was quite ready to come out in public at the suited time for him to do so.
The first Psalm presents the Man who prospered in lowly circumstances, and the second gives His exaltation. The first Psalm gives His moral suitability, and in the second He is the King — Jehovah’s Anointed — He is a Man suitable to God in every way. Joseph proved himself suitable; the devil could not deflect [p. 232] him from the path of piety by seduction on the one hand, or the afflictions of the prison on the other. He felt the testing keenly; “The word of Jehovah tried him”, but he answered to the test. He never gave up what had been revealed to him when the sheaves bowed down to him; that was the word of Jehovah, and he never gave it up. The Lord never gave up His true place before God; before Pilate He witnessed a good confession. There is no failure recorded in Joseph; of all the types in Scripture of the Lord, Joseph occupies a peculiar place in that way.
Then the capability of Joseph came out in prison, just as distinctly as it came out afterwards in the administration of the kingdom. He could interpret dreams in the prison before he did so in the palace. The varied aspects of the wisdom of God in Joseph are very interesting. When he was in prison the wisdom of God came out in connection with obscure circumstances, but all the wisdom that would administrate in the kingdom was there. The circumstances were limited and obscure, but the wisdom was the same. The assembly is in circumstances of limitation and weakness here, but it is the same vessel of administration as it will be by-and-by. So Paul connects the administration of little matters with the administration of the kingdom (1 Corinthians 6: 2, 3). Then there was wonderful wisdom in Joseph in dealing with his brethren; he could not only administrate good for the world at large, but he had divine wisdom to produce exercise in the souls of his brethren.
We see Joseph’s wisdom coming out in giving Pharaoh advice: “Now let Pharaoh look himself out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt”. And in Joseph’s elevation we see a [p. 233] picture of the Lord in His present place of exaltation; He is universal Lord. Joseph gets a wonderful title; Zaphnath-paaneah means “Saviour of the world”. Or one interpretation of it is “Prince of the power of the life of the world”, a very beautiful and suggestive title. The Lord is now in exaltation and is the Saviour of the world. What a contrast to Ephesians 2 where Satan is the prince of the power of the air! The Lord is the Prince of the power of the life of the world; nothing less is in view than the world; the fullest possible provision is made for the world to come into salvation and life. Every blessing of God is administered through Him. And there is infinite fulness in it; there is provision for everybody. “Seven years of plenty” — full supply for the world famine — “Corn as the sand of the sea”.
In this type Pharaoh represents God. You cannot run one type into another; you have to see where a type begins and ends. Here Pharaoh is a type of God who has exalted the true Joseph in view of salvation, and life, and plenty being brought in for the whole world; the whole world has come into God’s view for blessing.
Chapter 45 looks on to the time when Joseph’s brethren (Israel) will be brought to recognise Him, and it shows how the remnant of Israel are brought to recognise Christ now. What is in view in the closing chapters of Genesis is Israel blessed, not in Canaan, but in Goshen; they are blessed in a place outside their own promises. The kingdom of God and its blessings are now found amongst the Gentiles; and the remnant of Israel participate in that, and in church privilege and blessing. Joseph exalted is a type of Christ’s present place as Administrator of [p. 234] world-wide blessing, and Israel, if blessed at all, must be blessed under that administration. Then we see that Joseph gets Asenath, a Gentile bride; and Manasseh — made to forget his toil and his father’s house; and Ephraim — double-fruitfulness. The Lord has now got what enables Him to forget that Israel despised and rejected him; the assembly is so much to Him that He has no sense of loss. It is like Rebecca being a comfort to Isaac after his mother’s death. The remnant of Israel was brought into blessing connected with the place which Christ has as exalted to the right hand of God; Goshen speaks of that.
The remnant of Israel are all in the assembly now; there are many of them throughout the world at this moment, for God has taken pains to preserve a remnant. God has kept alive the remnant of Israel in assembly blessing; He has always had a remnant and they are in the assembly now. And all the blessings and promises that belong to Israel are being treasured in the assembly now as nourished in Goshen. Joseph was the one by whom God preserved the life of Israel; and then there is also seen in this type the wide scope of the gospel; Christ is “The Prince of the power of the life of the world”. He is the Administrator of world-wide blessing.
Then we see the wisdom of God in Joseph in bringing about exercises in his brethren. From chapter 42 to chapter 47 we get a lovely and detailed unfolding of how his father’s house became dependent on him, and had to learn by their need to appreciate his greatness. When his greatness was presented to them in testimony they resented it; they would not have it that their sheaves were to do obeisance. But [p. 235] in their need they found there was corn in Egypt, and they went down, having learned through their necessities to appreciate Joseph’s greatness, though he was yet unknown to them.
Although coming to him, they needed exercise to know him, and that was what was in his mind to bring about; he dealt with them in wisdom to bring them into exercise as to the past; he spoke roughly to them. There was divine wisdom in that. The Lord is always bent on dealing with the true state of our souls, so that He may uncover the root of things, and bring us in uprightness to know His heart. The Lord always intends to get our souls near Him, not just to make us comfortable. We would often like Him to speak gently to us even when there are many unsettled questions, but that would result in our settling down at a distance without knowing His heart. He says, as it were, Nothing will satisfy Me but to have you near Me, and that you should know My heart; and in order that this may be truly brought about I must bring to light all that has been in your heart; so I will send you one trouble after another. He “spoke roughly to them”.
They had to be deeply exercised about their sin and guilt. The exercise as to their own state had to be gone through. We are all glad to be on the line of blessing, to get corn from Joseph; but none of us naturally like to face exercise as to our moral state. But this is a great necessity if we are to know the Lord. He cannot give the knowledge of Himself to a heart not morally right.
Joseph made all to depend on Benjamin coming. Israel will have to learn the value of Christ as the One by whom alone they can find acceptance, and be [p. 236] saved alive. They will be brought to own their guilt concerning the true Joseph (chapter 42: 21), and to see their guilt brought home in the person of Benjamin. This is a deep exercise; “We are verily guilty”; they will begin to feel how badly they have treated Christ. But it is deeper later on, when the silver cup is found in Benjamin’s sack.
This exercise has to be gone through by every Jew who is converted, and in principle by every one of us. Their guilt was brought home to them in the person of one who had no part in it at all. The Jews will learn to see it in the guilt-bearing of their Messiah — the One who never sinned. The guilt came upon the true Benjamin, as taken by Him in grace; and the Jews will learn their guilt by learning how Christ bore it sacrificially on the cross. We never learn the depths of sin except by learning how Christ took it up and bore its judgment in infinite grace. God has found out my guilt in the death of Christ in a way that humbles me to the dust. Benjamin had no part in the guilt; so the One who knew no sin, and in whom was no sin, was made sin for us. The cup was found in His sack. Judah then takes responsibility upon himself, and identifies himself with Benjamin as the guilt-bearer. What a day it will be for Judah when he does this, when he uses the language of Isaiah 53: 4 - 6! Judah’s intercession is typical of the sorrowful exercises of the remnant when the spirit of grace and supplication is poured out on them. When Judah mourned, and pleaded to be allowed to be in Benjamin’s place, the work of exercise that Joseph desired to bring about was complete. He could then make himself known to his brethren.
The two tribes who are recovered will take up the [p. 237] exercise on behalf of the nation of Israel. Judah will go through the tribulation in the coming day, and will go through deep inward exercise also, and then the true Joseph will make Himself known to them, and will comfort their hearts by showing them that God has been behind it all. What Joseph said to his brethren is like what Peter said, “I wot that through ignorance ye did it”. In Hosea 11 we find God saying that He would not give up Ephraim, and the reason is, “For I am God and not man”. What Joseph’s brethren did was meant by them for evil, but God meant it for good; and God is God, and will have His way in spite of man.
Then Jacob was sent for; he and his sons had to give up the land for the time, and go down to Egypt. Joseph was “Lord of all Egypt”, and could speak of “all my glory in Egypt”, and of “the good of all the land of Egypt”. It is not Israel’s promised blessings in the land of Canaan, but something quite apart and distinct in a peculiar moment which intervenes before they get the former. It is blessing in Goshen, which I take to be suggestive of Israel having part along with Gentiles blessed of God through the exaltation of Christ. They have to give up the land for the time that they may have all where Joseph lives. “Joseph is still alive”; “Joseph my son is yet alive” (chapter 45: 26, 28). Everything is secured in Christ risen. In that connection we get Beersheba and “the God of his father Isaac” (chapter 46: 2). The oath and promise of God are secured in Christ risen. Israel has had to leave the land for the time, but the possession of it is a certainty for faith.
The apprehension of Christ as risen prepared the remnant to move to new ground — to give up the [p. 238] earthly promises for the time, and to move into church position and blessing. Jacob saw the waggons; they were a suggestion of the necessity for movement into a new position; such a movement as we see at the end of the Gospels and the beginning of the Acts. Israel got a word from God, “Fear not to go down to Egypt”.
Then in chapter 46 we get the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt; a remnant according to the election of grace. Seventy is a complete number — 7 x 10; it speaks of the whole company of God’s elect in Israel preserved and nourished in assembly blessing instead of in Canaan, their own promised portion. And there they were shepherds. The apostles became shepherds in Goshen, tending the flock of God in church position and blessing.