The history of Joseph now becomes more and more a history of the triumph of faith over sight, or holiness over sin. Hitherto transgressors have seemed to prosper in their way, and only the godly were depressed. But now we are to see the Holy One vindicating the rights of injured innocence, and more and more plainly proclaiming that the Judge of all the earth will do right. May we not exclaim, then,—
“Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law,
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.”
“Be sure your sins will find you out,” is the fixed decree of God; and in the case of Joseph’s brethren the day of retribution now begins to dawn. If hitherto conscience had been at ease, or oblivious of their brother, it is now to be roused, and to speak out for the Holy One who is the Lord of conscience—the just Judge of the skies. The great white throne and its work are now to be anticipated.
From the narrative in Genesis we know that a famine had arisen in Egypt, as Joseph had predicted. Its influence spread from that land into the adjacent countries, and the sons of Jacob went thither to profit by the stores which the wisdom of that brother whom they had hated and sold had amassed. “All countries came into Egypt to Joseph, for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands:” and among the rest, the future patriarchs came, and “bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.”
In other words, Joseph’s dream is now fulfilled,—his brethren do obeisance to him—they are prostrate in the Oriental manner at his footstool! All their machinations could not turn aside the purposes of Jehovah; and neither their projected murder of Joseph, nor his being sold into Egypt, nor his being a prisoner for years, could interfere with the onward march or the ceaseless flow of purposes formed in heaven. It cannot be too strenuously enforced, for it is the burden of the whole Bible, that every wish of man, every word and deed of the creature, must bend before the will of God. Joseph’s whole history is a proof; and the history of the whole world, when read in the light of eternity, will further demonstrate the same truth. “Be still, and know that I am God,” is the profound but simple lesson which all must learn,—on earth, or in agony hereafter for ever.
All obstructions, then, are made to promote the designs of the Eternal; and the sons of Jacob are therefore now at the feet of their hated younger brother. For their trial, he spoke roughly unto them, and said, “Ye are spies.” They were thus compelled to defend themselves in the presence of him whom they had thrown into a pit, and plead for their lives before one for whom they had no better portion than slavery and exile. Again and again was the charge, “Ye are spies,” produced against them; and again and again had they to declare that they were true men, though Joseph knew that they were not. In short, they begin to discover that the way of transgressors is hard; and to be assured that though hand join in hand, sin shall not escape under the government of the Holy One.
It is sometimes not easy to speak or to act towards sinners under the influence of that pity which their sad case requires. The cutting sarcasm of Elijah to the priests of Baal, and the irony of Isaiah to the idolaters of his day, appear to be the right weapons to be used in such a case. Oh, how has reason been dethroned by sin! how has even conscience been warped and blinded, when men can hope to cope with Omnipotence and triumph—to plot against Omniscience and escape—to rebel against Love and be happy!
And the scriptural narrative is full upon this point, for it is one of the main designs of the Bible to restore conscience to its place of power. When tribulation came upon those men—when their sins began to compass them about with sorrows—it was then that conscience spoke out: “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. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required” (Gen. xlii. 21, 22). Their injured brother wept aside while they thus conferred; but, meanwhile, conviction of sin has been wrought; and, in one point of view, these guilty men are twice in the dust;—once before God, as detected in their iniquity; and again before their brother, fulfilling the word of God upon their very knees.
And this may vividly remind us of what awaits the guilty at the last. Self-detected, they will also be self-condemned. They will anticipate the verdict of the Judge, and call on the mountains to fall on them ere ever his sentence be uttered. But were it not well to anticipate all this at an earlier stage? Were it not well to write bitter things against ourselves now, and not wait to be condemned with the wicked—to listen to the voice of a condemning conscience, and so escape the condemnation of God?
“His blood is required of us,” then,—such was the confession of those men; and, in confessing that fact, they bowed before the majesty of conscience, as the trees of the forest bow before the storm. Now, it were well could the men of every name, and class, and age, be brought to recognize that majesty, and in time to do obeisance before it. It were well were it written up in every place of business, in every church, in every home, nay, in every heart,—“There is a God that judgeth in the earth;” “He will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thought.” Were that remembered, surely it would tend to check man’s proneness to sin, unless he were prepared openly to conflict with Omnipotence. True, nothing but God’s almighty grace can subdue our wayward hearts, or make his will our law; yet could we remember Joseph’s brethren, as we are directed to remember Lot’s wife, it would be well with us: the Spirit of God would bless it for our good; and both young and old—both viceroys like Joseph and shepherds like his brethren—would be wiser and happier men.
