CHAPTER IX.
THE MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH.
If we have witnessed one scene of affection when Joseph embraced his brother Benjamin, we are now to behold another, when the patriarch Jacob meets with his long lost son. We are often permitted, even in this life, to see joy and gladness according to the days in which we have seen grief; and an example of that is at hand.
After the interview between Joseph and his brethren, matters were soon arranged for transferring them and all their retinue to Egypt,—another important stage in the development of God’s plans with our world. Pharaoh confirmed the request of his viceroy to that effect, so that the patriarchs and their father with them were invited to settle in one of the richest portions of Egypt. Among these migratory tribes of herdsmen—who literally had no continuing city—such a removal was not so remarkable as a similar thing would be in our country of more fixed habits; and the whole house of Jacob was accordingly soon in motion toward Egypt. “It is enough,” he exclaimed, when the invitation reached him; “Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die;” and the threescore and six souls, who composed his household, of course followed in his train.
Now, had we been there to witness that migration, it would never have occurred to us to think that the future history of the sons of men would be largely affected by the movement; yet it was so. That was no ordinary change of abode: God was in it of a truth; and, blind or dark as man might be, God was there in the act of “calling things that are not as though they were.”
As he journeyed toward Egypt, Jacob met with much to gladden him by the way. In a vision of the night, he was encouraged from on high to go fearlessly forward, for blessings great and manifold awaited him and his descendants in the future. But our present topic leads us past the different stages of the journey, to the meeting of the father and the son. When Joseph learned that his parent was approaching, he hastened forth to meet him, and, with the ardent affection, as well as the profound respect, of the East, welcomed the aged man to Egypt. He did not think it beneath his dignity, as vice-king of that country, to offer lowly reverence to his father, shepherd or husbandman as he was, and following a profession which made him “an abomination unto the Egyptians.” Nay, when Joseph met his father in the land of Goshen, we read that “he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while” (Gen. xlvi. 29); while the father exclaimed, “Now, let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art still alive.”—It was an interview and an hour which compensated, in a great measure, for the sorrows and separation of years; it was one of the scenes by which God, in his holy providence, foreshows how intense will be the joy when the great family are all gathered home, from every country, and tribe, and tongue, to their Father’s house on high. The exile returning to the home of his fathers, or the soldier revisiting the scenes of his boyhood after many a bloody field, may understand such emotions in some degree. They are green spots in the desert of life—a Tadmor in the wilderness—a lily among thorns.
Yet there, also, the feelings would be of a mixed nature, like all things human. Scarcely any of the parties present—Jacob, Joseph, or his brethren—could fail to glance in thought at the strange proceedings which had separated them so long. There might be neither envy nor hatred now—neither spite upon the one side, nor a desire of retaliation on the other. The dealings of Providence had been too remarkable to admit of such feelings; and we rather suppose that they were all suppressed, as much as possible, amid the general joy. But be that as it may, we see the patriarch happy for a season. His children, who were really the hope of the world (strange as the remark may seem when applied to such men), were now gathered around him; and as it then appeared that he had little to do but to die, he might at length put a different construction on his own words: “All these things are against me.” He had providence now interpreted to him by its God, and saw with his bodily eyes, as all the ransomed will yet see in glory, that “all things work together for good to them that love God, and that are the called according to his purpose.” Flesh and blood may fear and quake under trial, but faith rises to a higher level, and walks with a firmer step,—it can endure as seeing him who is invisible.
