Expositor's Dictionary of Texts And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. Joseph's FaithGenesis 50:25 Taking this incident, with the New Testament commentary upon it, it leads us to a truth which we often lose sight of, but which is indispensable if we would understand the relations of the earlier and the later days. I. Faith is always the same though knowledge varies. There is a vast difference between a man's creed and a man's faith. The one may vary, does vary within very wide limits; the other remains the same. It is difficult to decide how much Joseph's gospel contained. Even taking the widest possible view of the patriarchal creed, what a crude outline it looks beside ours! Can there be anything in common between us? Yes, as I said, faith is one thing, creed is another. Joseph and his ancestors were joined to God by the very same bond that unites us to Him. There has never been but one path of life: 'They trusted God and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed'. In that old covenant the one thing needful was trust in the living Jehovah. In the new the one thing needful is the very same emotion, directed to the very same Lord manifested now and incarnate in the Divine Son, our Saviour. II. Faith has its noblest office in detaching from the present. All his life long from the day of his captivity Joseph was an Egyptian in outward seeming. He filled his place at Pharaoh's court, but his dying words open a window in his soul, and betray how little he had felt that he belonged to the order of things in the midst of which he had been content to live. Dying, he said, 'Carry my bones up from hence'. Therefore we may be sure that, living, the hope of the inheritance must have been buried in his heart as a hidden light and made him an alien everywhere but on its blessed soil. And faith will always produce just such effects. If the unseen is ever to rule in men's lives, it must become not only an object for certain knowledge, but also for ardent wishes. It must cease to be doubtful, and must seem infinitely desirable. III. Faith makes men energetic in the duties of the present. Take this story of Joseph as giving us a true view of the effect on present action of faith in, and longing for, God's future. He was, as I said, a true Hebrew all his days. But that did not make him run away from Pharaoh's service. He lived by hope, and that made him the better worker in the passing moment, and kept him tugging away all his life at the oar. IV. The one thing which saves this life from being contemptible is the thought of another. It is the horizon that gives dignity to the foreground. A picture without sky has no glory. This present, unless we see gleaming beyond it the eternal calm of the heavens, above the tossing tree-tops with withering leaves, and the smoky chimneys, is a poor thing for our eyes to gaze at, or our hearts to love, or our hands to toil on. But when we see that all paths lead to heaven, and that our eternity is affected by our acts in time, then it is blessed to gaze, it is possible to love the earthly shadows of the uncreated beauty, it is worth while to work. —A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, p. 130. References.—L. 25.—A. Maclaren, Exposition of Holy Scripture—Genesis, p. 311. L. 25.—A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, p. 130. L. 26.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 370. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—Genesis, p. 328. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.
And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.
And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.
And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.
And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,
And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.
And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.
And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.
And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.
And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, 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 of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
And Joseph said unto them, 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 day, to save much people alive.
Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.
And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees.
And 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 an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Nicoll - Expositor's Dictionary of Texts Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission. Bible Hub |
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