Jacob's prophecy closes with the ultimate triumph of the divine life in Benjamin, and the judgment of its adversaries; for though Joseph may take personal wrong patiently, God cannot allow it to end there. He must, as the Supreme Ruler, intervene with a Judge and Avenger; in which sense Benjamin, “Son of my right-hand,” is a type of Christ, Who is ordained to judge the quick (“in the morning,"—the ushering of the millennial day) and the dead ("at night,” or at its close). As in Joseph, the eighth from Judah, we have the highest development of the divine nature in man; so in regard to Benjamin, the ninth, we have disclosed to us the highest revelation of the divine nature in God. Nine is the number of Deity—the triune God—the square of heavenly number 3. Multiply 4, the earthly number, by 9 and we have 36, the number of books in the Old Testament where God is administering on earth: it ends in judgment, its last word being “curse.” Then multiply 3 by 9 = 27, the number of the books of the New Testament, in which God is administering a heavenly dispensation (the church), and revealing His own nature, the character not being judgment and curse, but grace and blessing. Now in connection with Benjamin we have first the side of judgment in Genesis, for “God is light “: and then, in Deuteronomy we find the latter aspect, for “God is love.”
Hiero of Syracuse asked Simonides, “What is God?” The philosopher requested a day to consider his answer, at the end of which he asked for two days more; then for a week: finally he replied that the more he considered the subject, the more dark and unfathomable it seemed. Now, strange to say, we can see the divine nature far better in connection with a worthless creature like Benjamin than with a Joseph; just as one can see the sun better through a smoked glass than through a crystal. For when we hear “God is love,” it is no description unless we know what love really is, and how wholly it is self-sustaining, and independent of the elements of admiration or approval, or of any qualities in its object that would awaken these elements; how it is also independent of its object's gratitude, or reciprocated affection. Dwelling in the ecstasy of its own bliss, pouring forth its flood of opulent light and warmth upon that object, it irradiates it with its own splendor, as the sun's light makes a vulgar soap-bubble iridescent with beauty and glory.
The difference between admiration and love is like that between lightning and light. Lightning selects its objects, preferring bright and substantial ones; but light, while shedding its benign beams on all, appears in its greatest beauty on objects that are out of its direct range. It is beautiful all along that hemisphere which it directly illumines, but having reached the limits of the horizon, it makes the atmosphere bend its rays round, so as to touch the hidden regions beyond, and there—though it is not stronger—it appears at its greatest beauty, to “Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign dye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,” in the east; or purpling the evening sky with its gorgeous tapestry in the west. “Its holy flame forever burneth, From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.” “As strong as death: many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”
For who would expect this? “Of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in, safety by him.: and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders! “ Observe the eccentricity of love; that is its character. It moves in a peculiar orbit, amenable to no formula of line and compass, though some day, when our vision is enlarged, we may find that there are reasons for its eccentric course; as Adams and Leverrier discovered, by reasoning almost superhuman, the cause, hidden hitherto in the deepest recesses of the heavens, for the variations in the planet Uranus' course. Meanwhile we can only wonder at that love which thus selects and glorifies with its beams as worthless and troublesome a tribe as can be found. Benjamin was the spoiled child, l'enfant gate and l'enfant terrible of the family, continually a cause, whether by fault or misfortune, of distress and disaster to the rest, from the time when, in giving him birth, the poor mother dies, to the fearful calamities brought on all Israel. A modern traveler— singles out its present representatives as being specially repugnant in habit and appearance amongst the many unattractive tribes in Palestine.
“Brother, no eye of man not perfected, Nor fully ripened in the flame of love, May fathom this decree.” “Celestial love in itself. . . With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth All beauteous things eternal." It throws its own “halo o'er the loved one's head” for reasons that neither mathematician nor metaphysician can trace; nor will it pause to explain its course. Enough for us that the warmth and light of its benign beams rest upon us, and are shed abroad in our hearts. We are the objects of this divine love; and there is much blessing and power in contemplating how independent is its nature; for we are prone to think that modesty would exclaim, “Who am I that God should love me?” Consider that this ineffable grace rests upon us by reason of its own spontaneous action, like the light of heaven, without needing anything to draw it forth. She, to whom the question was contemptuously put, “And do you really think that the Almighty chose you before you were born?” replied, “Yes, I know it; for I am sure He never would have chosen me since.” No, nor before either, but that God is Love.