WE can never know Asenath unless we know Joseph, to whom she was united. It is by the charm which is thrown over him―his sufferings and his dignities―that we can see the place which was given to her. The materials of Joseph’s history are all simple―lovely as a dream. Truly we may say, no child even can read them without tears―the injuries he endured, the veiling of himself before his brethren, and then the unveiling of himself. The tears he wept; the trials and tears of his brethren; the means he used to bring on their repentance; his own self-denial in not as yet hastening the moment of forgiveness for which his soul must have yearned; the deep love of his heart towards his own; and then, following upon his sufferings, the glory―his own glory and that of Asenath, who at the time of the glory comes to be united to him―are they not all of deepest interest as setting forth divine mysteries made good in their great original, in His special relation to ourselves, to Israel, and the nations?
Asenath comes in after the sufferings have passed away; she owns him lord, and knows only the sweetness of espousals, and the glory of his rule. A mirror truly in which to see the glory which will yet follow the sufferings of Christ! Surely none ever reflected Him as did Joseph.
First, as beloved by his father. We read: “Israel loved Joseph more than all his children” (Gen. 37:33Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. (Genesis 37:3)). Was not Christ the true Beloved of His Father? At the Jordan, on His baptism, was there not a voice from heaven, saying “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?” (2 Peter 1:1717For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (2 Peter 1:17)). Was not Joseph sent by his father to inquire after the welfare of his brethren; and did they not despise and reject him? Yea, was there not a spirit of envy and murder raised in their hearts against him? reminding us of Him, the Sent of the Father, who “came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:1111He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:11)). And why was he rejected? He had dreamed two dreams. These we find in chapter 37, where the sheaves made obeisance to his sheaf, which stood upright; and the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars made their obeisance to him; all other luminaries revolved round him. We are told his brethren envied him, “they could not speak peaceably unto him.” Thus was it with the blessed Lord. He said He was the Son of God; He said He was the Christ, the promised One whom all nations were to call blessed; He said He was a King; therefore they hated Him.
And was not Joseph cast into a pit, and did not his brethren stand by and see the anguish of his soul? In vain he besought them; for they would not hear.
And what was it that sustained him? Did he think of his dreams? And were his dreams equal to prophecy? It was the certainty of the joy that was set before Christ which led Him to endure the cross and despise the shame.
Jew and Egyptian alike displayed their hatred to Joseph; both shot their arrows, and pierced him.
“He was sorely hit by the archers” (1 Sam. 31:33And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. (1 Samuel 31:3)), wounded in the house of his friends. Both Jew and Gentile crucified Christ. Cæsar crucified Him; Pontius Pilate crucified Him; His own kindred crucified Him.
It was not until as one raised from the dead that Joseph showed himself to his brethren. It was then a day of grace, so that, notwithstanding their sin, they could come to him. It is just the same now. There is nothing to hinder us from coming to be saved, and to be fed by Christ, risen from the dead, as were these sinful brethren.
In his first interview we have the hidden, reserved love of Joseph’s heart yearning over his brethren.
How would he gather them as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings! But the time is not come; they have not as yet really returned. They are under guilt, but they do not know it.
But sin will work a conscience in them yet, as it will in Israel in the latter day. Gen. 42:2121And 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; therefore is this distress come upon us. (Genesis 42:21) is a touching story. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother,” say these men, self-convicted! Mark their language to each other as they call to mind the anguish of their brother―how that in his soul’s agony he besought, and they refused to hear. But Joseph himself is still hidden from them. They little thought that he who was now before them was their brother. Mark the tenderness of Reuben as he rehearsed his words to them, uttered on that day, the event of which they said, was the cause of their present distress. “Therefore his blood be upon us.” It is well to have a conscience of sin, miserable though it be.
Thus was Joseph reminded of his sorrow; but was it the remembrance of his own sorrow that made him turn from them and weep? Verily no; it was their sorrow, the sight he now had of them, their deep contrition, when he heard the heartfelt confession of their sinfulness, “We are verily guilty.” Oh, inimitable picture! Let us turn with him for a moment as he withdraws into an anteroom, and see him there letting out the pent-up feelings of his full heart. See that outburst of tender compassionating tears. He could not but weep; he was touched with the feeling of their sorrows; the tears of his deep love would come; and “he turned himself about from them and wept.”
Have we not here another of those lattices of Scripture through which we see a greater than Joseph? How that “God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us?” (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)). Now as these brethren will yet look upon Joseph when he reveals himself with mingled sorrow and joy, saying, “I am Joseph,” so Israel in the latter day will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and hear Him say, “Fear not; I am Jesus whom ye crucified.”
In Gen. 43:2727And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive? (Genesis 43:27) Joseph asks, “Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?” How nature comes out; he could not forget his father. For how had they loved! Years of separation had passed since the one had seen the other; Joseph was as good as dead to Jacob, and Jacob as good as dead to Joseph; but love was not dead. One of Joseph’s first words to his brethren was for his father’s welfare. What a picture! He had heard them rehearse how that their father had mourned for him many days, and his whole soul was set yearning as he said, “Is he yet alive?” See how the sheaves are bending! “Thy servant, our father,” they say. See how the stars are making obeisance. What! “Thy servant, our father, is in good health; he is yet alive.” And they bowed their heads, and did homage to the lord of Egypt.
We should never doubt a single word of God.
Joseph dreamed; and his dreams, as we have seen, were equal to prophecy, and were fulfilled.
Jacob’s lamentation over Joseph’s supposed death tells of his great love for his son. Oh, if we loved our heavenly Father as we feel our children ought to love us, because of our love to them, our love would be great indeed! Jairus, in his earnest resort to Jesus for his one only daughter at the point of death, and the Syrophœnician woman in her entreaty for her daughter, both tell what the heart of a parent is towards a child. God has revealed Himself in the endearing relationship of Father; and I have found it sweet to think if we feel, as we do inexpressibly, for our children, how much more, in depth of tenderness and compassion and love does He feel for His.
In verse 29 we read: “He lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin, his mother’s son.” The sight was too much for him; he yearned over him; and, making haste, he sought again where to weep. Touching scene! God bless thee, my son! were his words. Benjamin was the only one not guilty of his blood; reminding us of the ten tribes who were not in the land, and therefore not with those who crucified Christ, and did not utter, “His blood be on us and on our children,” but who will be revealed in that day when all Israel will be saved, and when His love for them will show itself, as Joseph’s did for Benjamin, to have been a deep, unchanging love.
And what is so interesting is, that these brethren, all the while of their sin and their separation, though ignorant of it, were in the love of Joseph. As sinners we were ever in the love of God, and we knew it not. He loved, without our knowledge or our sense of His love. Blessed gospel this―that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)) to die for us! But what a time was it ere some of us knew this. Yet God gave us to know it even as these brethren got to know the unchanged love of Joseph. “And Joseph could not refrain himself; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me.” He wanted nothing to come between him and his brethren; no reserve, nothing to hinder a full unburdening of their sin and of his love.
Matchless Saviour! This is, how it was in the unveiling of Thyself to us! Ours were the sins; Thine the love. And there were none with us; we were alone with Thee to tell what never was, and never will be, told to another. We had the blessedness of those in whose spirit there was no reserve, nothing kept back or excused, but mourned over and confessed. How precious! Thus in Psa. 32 “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” and to “whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” God requires a full disclosure of our guilt, that, having confessed all, He may forgive all, and forget all. Forgiven and forgotten. This is what God says. Blessed thought! With not a cloud between God who judged our sins, and Christ who bore them; not one between us and God. As children of God, do we understand this? At the cross God showed Christ our sins; He now shows us Christ’s death, which has put them away. What a making of Himself known to the sinner is this. How sweet is dying love; how full and final our forgiveness.
Angels have no such intimacies; only poor repenting sinners have such errands. “And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known to his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.” But the perfect love had not as yet cast out fear. They were troubled at his presence, “terrified” as the word is. He had said, “I am Joseph; be not grieved nor angry with yourselves.” Still their fear will be cast out. Isa. 53 is the language of Israel in the latter days, typified by these brethren. Truly they will say, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: we hid as it were our faces from Him; we esteemed Him not” (Isa. 53:33He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)). They will own that He had “done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.” “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” And, as Joseph said, “God did send me before you—to preserve life.” God sent me “to save your lives by a great deliverance;” so the prophet concerning Christ, “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” The Lord it was who “put Him to grief,” who made “His soul an offering for sin;” and truly He, as Joseph, “shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” (Isa. 53:1010Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10)).
That pleasure will be the salvation of all Israel, and that in their own true “Goshen” of the millennial age, in which they and the nations will reap the fruit and own the glory of the King and Lord of all the earth.
Compare this picture with the preceding ones. Then there was reserve―and sorrow; a veil was over his love; he hid himself from their knowledge. But here sorrow fades away before his unveiled love! There he wept alone; here he wept on his brethren. Nothing to interrupt communion; no distance between them; no stranger to mar the joy of this his deep love to his own. Thus is it with us, on having confessed our sin―the blessedness of restored communion. But we cannot have this blessedness if sin be on our consciences. When confessed, it is gone. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive u our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Mark, there is no need for an interpreter now, for perfect love has cast out fear. What a moment for these sons of Jacob―in the embrace of him whom they had despised and hated, and acknowledging him lord! They are at rest now; and he is at rest. Rest will be the eternal lot of redeemed sinners. “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” Satisfied at the joy, the glory, emanating from that day when He was in the pit, crucified and slain. Satisfied when He has “divided His portion with the great, and His spoil with the strong;” and when He shall “see His seed, and prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.”
In chap. 46:29 we read, “Joseph went to meet Israel, and he fell on his neck and wept a good while.” No marvel! It was no cold love this which he had for his father. The fact is, Joseph, who in time past was as good as dead to Jacob, was now meeting him again, as if in resurrection! Surely there will be joy in heaven over those whom we have loved, and in our ignorance or fear mourned over as dead in sins. What wonder and what joy should we see such again, living and glorious, amidst the surprise of the resurrection! However, it may be with such we know there will be a mutual recognition of the redeemed when in their heavenly glory. Luther said: “Eve being known at once by Adam on his awakening from sleep, shows with what knowledge we shall awake and arise on the morning from the dead.” David, speaking of his child, comforts himself thus: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” Notably the Lord gave the son whom He had raised from the dead at Nain to his mother. Suggestive as to how He may restore to us our loved ones in the resurrection. On the holy mount the disciples knew Moses and Elias, those whom they had not previously seen, who appeared in glory. The Lord Himself has said that we are to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of His Father. Sit down with them of course as knowing them. Paul, writing to his beloved Thessalonians, asks, “For what is our hope, or joy, crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?” (1 Thess. 2:1919For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? (1 Thessalonians 2:19)). Thus the apostle foresaw the joy that would be his to know those whom the Lord had given him in the Gospel. Not to know would imply an imperfection of our joy, and of that faculty whose special office it is to remember.
I do believe that the light of the glory will dissipate the fears and griefs of many who now mourn over some who seem to them as lost, and who are dear to them as Joseph was to Jacob. Even now faith in God (for He is faithful who hath promised) is what should sustain us in the darkest day of unanswered prayers. “Thou and thy house” was what was said to the jailer at Philippi. “Thou and thy house” is what the Lord is now saying to us. Similar comfort shines from that word, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:66Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)). May the Lord give obedience and faith and comfort to the heart of anyone who is saying with tears, “Oh that my children may live before Thee!” (Gen. 17:1818And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! (Genesis 17:18)).
In chap. 49:29, quite a different scene opens. We have seen, as it were, resurrection; but here it is death. Joseph kisses his father. It is the time of Jacob’s death; an evening without the mists and clouds which had attended his long vicissitous day. The sun setting in his western dominions, lighting up with glory those very clouds which in the day had hindered his brightness, is the fitting image of this sweet close of Jacob’s earthly life. The serving and the sorrowing, the fearing and the sinning, are all over; and full of blessings and dignities he passes away in faith, waiting for the salvation of God. Night dews fall not more softly, or worn-out winds retire more gently, than sank to rest his heaven-born spirit.
Jacob died in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection unto eternal life. I have often thought how much sweeter it is to read of the deathbed departures of the saints in Scripture than of those of the biographer now. “I have waited for Thy salvation” ―how beautiful! Nothing of mere excitement―divine faith being uppermost. Uniformly calm were the leave-takings of all the patriarchs; of Stephen also, and of Simeon, and all those whose end is recorded in the Word.
Chap. 50 shows us Joseph weeping over his dead. He kisses his father, and weeps. Some would chide these tears―would even sing, and not sorrow. I have never thought singing the natural expression of the heart at the deathbed or the grave. Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made “lamentation.” What a loss to the eleventh of John were there no tears in it! It is at once a “Bochim” and an “Achor;” a valley of tears, and a door of hope―of life and resurrection. No, we need refrain no tears when we are in sorrow. The Patriarchs wept; “Jesus wept.” How He adorned those sorrows of His on Olivet and in Bethany by His consecrated tears! There was reason truly. Sin, death, and the enemy were all seen as doing their strange work. The marred Countenance never perhaps had such charm of sympathy with our woes as when beheld in Bethany. What a mockery death made of Bethany; for Bethany means house of song. But soon from deepest sorrow it was turned into the joy of resurrection.
Theology, as I have said, would put death first, and resurrection after. It is over Jacob in death we now see the sorrows of Joseph. There is no return affection here as in the last scene we witnessed, when the twain were reunited; no words of mutual joy now; no sweet responsive kiss; no look of love. No; nothing remains of Jacob now but the closed eyes, the still cold lip, the chill face and lifeless form of the servant of Padan-aram―the prince with God. Our God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; and we shall meet with Jacob again, sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac in the kingdom of the Father in the heavens. Oh, hope of Israel! hope of glorious Christianity! divine hope of the Church to be forever with such, and like Him who is the resurrection and the life. What, instead of this, has infidelity to offer?
But to return to his brethren. Alas! they are not yet established in grace. No. They know, indeed, their sin, but they do not know grace. “And when Joseph’s brethren saw their father was dead, they said, Joseph peradventure will hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.” Thus, if we look only on our sins, or the sin that is in us, we shall be still in fear of judgment; but if we look at sin as having been once on Christ who bore it for us, our souls may well be established in grace. It will never assure our hearts to tell us there is no sin in us, for we find enough; but what will assure our hearts is to know that, since Christ took it away, there is no more sin on us. Joseph had dealt with them in grace; and with the full knowledge of what they were. “Grace in God begins at the very lowest point.” It takes up man as he is (vile, sinful from first to last), and deals with him in the full intelligence of what, in all his sinfulness, he is. It is of the utmost importance to understand this feature of grace at one’s first starting; it enables us to bear with steadiness of heart the after discoveries of personal vileness which so frequently shake the confidence and disturb the peace of the children of God.
These brethren reasoned from what they were, and not from what Joseph was. They were in bondage to themselves. But whatever they were, he was only grace, only love. Alas, how soon may we lose the sweet sense of the grace in which we stand! Our hearts must be occupied not with what we are, but with what Christ is, or we shall never be long happy. God has taken up all our sins—past, present, and future, and has made an end of them in Christ. “Your sins and your iniquities,” He says, “will I remember no more forever” (Heb. 8:1212For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 8:12)). Dark or bright with us, it is still I will remember “no more.”
But the rebuke which Joseph gave them, did it put them at any greater distance from him? No, indeed. Thus with a greater than Joseph. Rebuke with Him did not mean denial. It was after Simon’s rebuke, Peter, James, and John went up the hill of glory with Jesus. The disciples had all been rebuked when He said to His Father in the 17th of John’s gospel, “They have kept Thy word.” No; Joseph took his rebuked ones, and made them rich in the land of Goshen. Truly, it is grace which humbles us. It was grace which humbled them. They fell down before his face, and said, “Behold, we be thy servants.” As we have been reminded, it was not so much the forgiveness as the graciousness of the heart of Joseph that affected these brethren. It was that which overwhelmed and comforted them. He never upbraided them. He never seems to have told Pharaoh or any of the Egyptians of their sin. Hence it is just here that we feel so in company with a greater than Joseph! In that long “forever” with Him and each other, it will not be the forgiveness we had so often experienced that will be most precious to remember, though we shall remember them, but the character of that heart of His which we shall adore and love as being so gracious.
All this may find a counterpart in Israel in the latter day; they will know and feel their sins. And when He whom they had crucified shows them He knew all, and had dealt with all their sins in righteousness, that He may deal in graciousness, then they will rest before Him, and will say, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)).
Why do we dwell thus on Joseph, but that knowing him we may know Asenath, who is now a sharer with him of his great honor and glory. She was already daughter of a Prince, but is now united to one to whom Jew and Gentile must bow the knee. For it is here, in the midst of his glory, and not in his sorrow, that her relationship with him appears. Their joy surely was something of Eden-joy. It seemed to say―
“The voice that breathed o’er Eden,
That earliest wedding day,
The primal marriage blessing,
It hath not passed away.”
Already had Pharaoh put on him the name of Zaphnath-paaneah, which we are told in the ancient Egyptian signifies “Saviour of the World;” but in Hebrew, “Revealer of Secrets.” Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in a vesture of fine linen, and put a chain of gold about his neck. Can we conceive of more special honor? It is in the light of this we see how favored was Asenath. And they cried before him, “Bow the knee.” Joseph is lord of all. Jew and Gentile bow to him. He and his brethren are the center of blessing.
Thus in Psa. 73, after the glory, or on the ascension of Messiah to His glory, will Israel be received. And as with Israel in Goshen, so will it be in the latter day with Israel and the earth under the divine Joseph, who with those glorified with Him, will reign over them. In that day Israel will be the center of blessing, as in Ezek. 34. How the Lord will receive them we read in Jer. 31:3, 43The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. 4Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. (Jeremiah 31:3‑4): “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.” And again: “He that scattered. Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.” Also Hos. 2: 21, 22: “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.”
As we have seen it was all sufferings once with Joseph. It is all glory with Asenath, who foreshadows what will be the glory of Christ and His own in the day of their espousals. The true Bride of Christ will never undergo, she will only remember, as Asenath from the glory, the sufferings which He bore, ―that once suffering but glorified Lamb! She will be received not immediately after the sufferings, but after there has come the glory.
It will be then, amid the glory, she will see in Him eyes that will weep no more, a head and brow to droop no more, hands and feet to be pierced no more. She will see the earthly nation in the millennial Goshen as sheaves bowing to Him, the great sheaf. She will enjoy with Him the riches of the earth. She will see Him Lord and King. She will not be the nation, as Asenath was not the nation; the glory of the terrestrial is one, but the glory of the celestial is another. She will reign with Him over the nation, and will share with Him the full glory of all the nations of the earth. Her first knowledge of Him in her espousals will be that of glory. But the celestial, the glory, will be first; then the terrestrial―her Lord having come from heaven to His full inheritance amid abounding millennial blessedness on earth. The sunny season, the age of millennial brightness, will have come, and the sorrows, all the preceding trials answering to the fig leaves of Matt. 24 issuing in the brightness, will have been forgotten.
Hence Ephraim and Manasseh were the children of the espousals. Their names, “forgetfulness and fruitfulness,” suggestively point to the long eternal time in which God will have wiped away all tears from off all faces; and when the Tree of Life in the midst of the eternal Salem will bear its fruit, the leaves thereof shall be for the healing of the nations.
But the welcome at the palaces of Egypt, with the constant access to the groves and gardens of Goshen; the streets where the knee was bowed to Joseph, and the presence chamber of his more private joys, are images of those palaces of splendor and homes of love to be enjoyed in the heavenly city of the Lamb, or in the Jerusalem of the millennial Israel. Here we find it needful again to remind ourselves that the Church, as one with Christ, will be always with Him and like Him forever. This is our great hope, to be “forever” with Him. What is all else compared with this hope, and in prospect of this city of the Lamb, and its connection with a redeemed earth? In the midst of earth’s greatest millennial splendor, or heaven’s greatest eternal glory, it is ours to be as He is―one with Him in His inheritance―one with Him in His joys, His rest, and His glory forever.
Let us note, ere we bid farewell to this history of Joseph, that in all his sufferings no murmuring word ever escaped him. This is of present value truly. “Grace was poured into his lips.” What an example for us in this age, when pride in Christians allows of so little of confession when obviously wrong, or of forgiveness when wronged! ―so unlike Him of whom Joseph in this respect was a type, as in his glory he was so striking a foreshadow!