Joseph is a well-known type of Christ, in aspects differing from the preceding types, and chiefly in these features: he is especially beloved by his father; hated by his brethren, “hated without a cause” hated yet the more for his dreams, the righteous witness of his life and words for God and against them; he is sent a long journey to see after the welfare of his brethren, whom he finds removed from their original position; he follows them, and they seeing him afar off, conspire against him; he is sold for a few pieces of silver by Judah, as the Antitype was by Judas (the same name and descendant of the same man): they kill him (“in a figure”); he passes to the Gentiles, where he is tempted, calumniated, and numbered with transgressors; he is found between “two malefactors,” one of whom is saved and one lost; there he suffers on account of the sin of another; but God exalts him to be a prince and a savior, giving him a new name, Zaphnath-paaneah; he is made head over all, and receives a Gentile bride; after which, his Jewish brethren are brought to him, and he grants repentance to Israel, forgives them their sins, rescues them, and shares with them his honors and wealth. In general he represented the sufferings of Christ and the glories which follow: in particular he foreshadowed the moral beauty and dignity of character which caused him to be “separated from his brethren.”
That Danish parable is pathetic: One day there was noticed in the farm-yard an ugly duckling that seemed quite out of place. Of course the other vulgar little ducklings and goslings pecked and persecuted it; it was so absurdly clumsy, and had such a preposterously long neck—besides they thought it gave itself airs. It was finally excommunicated and driven to wandering about, everywhere ill-used, nowhere at home, nowhere welcome, but somehow battling along, getting bigger, clumsier, and longer necked. At last it wanders in sight of a silver lake, embosomed amongst emerald and sapphire mountains. Suddenly a new impulse carries it striding and struggling to the water. Behold it then, seated upon its liquid throne: the long neck arched in regal dignity, the glittering wings fringed with glistening spray! It was not a duckling at all, but a cygnet, and had become a swan.
And this is all too apt to occur: all human records are full of it—how that, when large and noble natures have arisen amongst smaller and meaner ones, they have been hated for their very characteristics of promise and power; they have been hissed, and pecked, and driven out—not always, alas! to find the placid lake, at least in this life. It was thus that the Greeks poisoned Socrates; the Romans stabbed Caesar; the Israelites drove out Joseph, Moses, David; flogged Paul, stoned Stephen, sawed Isaiah asunder, imprisoned Jeremiah, and exiled those valiant men “who wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins: being desolate, afflicted, tormented." How many of the world's greatest leaders have been mocked by “Luke's iron crown and Damien's bed of steel!” Thus the Italians cried, “The Christians to the lions"; the Austrians burnt Huss and Jerome; the English drove away or slew the pilgrim fathers and Scotch covenanters; the French expelled or slaughtered the Huguenots and Waldenses; and the Spaniards killed three millions by the Inquisition. It is a melancholy and instructive record: “they wandered in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth—of whom the world was not worthy.” And yet some of us are surprised and dismayed when we find ourselves a little slandered or isolated on account of standing for the truth, as though it were not the customary thing.
A man like Joseph is under the disadvantage that very, few can appreciate his character; and therefore we find the prevailing idea of him seems to be that while every body would now say that he was a good young man, they would mean that he was rather a “goody” young man, and somewhat effeminate. But if the history be read with ordinary attention, we can trace a character that, so far from being goody and effeminate, is essentially strong, wise, noble, generous, manly and magnanimous. It is true that he weeps frequently, but in one whose affections were so strong and so violently disturbed, there was nothing unmanly in that. Wherever he was found, God was in all his thoughts: when tempted, he said, “How can I......sin against God?” When brought to Pharaoh, his first words are, “God shall give......... “; when disclosing himself to his brothers, he says, “Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, for God did send me before you “: when they distrust him, “Fear not, for am I in the place of God?” When he is punished for his honorable conduct by being thrust into the dungeon, his words to the fellow-prisoners are, “Interpretations belong to God.” He did not repine under that great calamity, but looks about to see what he can do to help others, even his jailors: he cannot see his companions in misery desponding, without asking, “Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day?”
“The archers sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength.” His confidence and energy were not weakened in adversity; and, on the other hand, when he has overcome all his enemies and difficulties, then we see how powerful a restraint he could put upon himself. He does not disclose himself to his family through weary years, much as he longed to do, until the right time comes. Instead of upbraiding them, he tempers their own sense of abasement; he never says, “I told you so,” or, “A just judgment on you,” or those other “faithful” sayings, which are so unlike the “faithful sayings” of the New Testament (his was not that kind of “faithfulness” which consists in saying disagreeable things to others). He was brave in adversity, and moderate in prosperity: undaunted as Ulysses in defeat; magnanimous as Caesar in victory.