Joseph is a well-known type of Christ; but it is not every reader of the Bible who delights to trace out the application and fulfillment of the type. Take, for example, John 4:6. Why is it mentioned, “Now Jacob’s well was there?” Surely to arrest our attention in some special way; and Genesis 49:22 discovers the secret. Joseph, we read, is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. In this wearied Man, therefore, who in that noontide heat sat by the well of Sychar, we see the true Joseph; and even while we gaze upon Him we behold His branches running over the wall of Judaism, and reaching, with their goodly fruit, this poor woman of Samaria. And if not actually, yet morally (for this characterizes this gospel), the archers had sorely grieved Him, and shot at Him, and hated Him; but His bow abode in strength, etc., as is shown by the deliverance He wrought that day for this poor captive of Satan.
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