Chapter 5

Thirteen chapters of the book of Genesis are mainly devoted to the tale of this one young man. Doubtless his father Jacob's going down into Egypt, was one of the most important events in the history of the Jews: we might expect, therefore, to hear much about it. But what need was there to spend four chapters at least in detailing Joseph's meeting with his brethren, even to minute accounts of the speeches on both sides?

Those who will may suppose that this is the effect of mere chance. Let us have no such fancy. If we believe that a Divine Providence watched over the composition of those old Scriptures; if we believe that they were meant to teach, not only the Jews but all mankind; if we believe that they reveal, not merely some special God in whom the Jews believed, but the true and only God, Maker of heaven and earth; if we believe, with St. Paul, that every book of the Old Testament is inspired by God, and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works--if we believe this, I say, it must be worth our while to look carefully and reverently at a story which takes up so large a part of the Bible, and expect to find in it something which may help to make _us_ perfect, and thoroughly furnish _us_ unto all good works.

Now, surely when we look at this history of Joseph, we ought to see at the first glance that it is not merely a story about a young man, but about the common human relations--the ties which bind any and every man to other human beings round him. For is it not a story about a brother and brothers? about a son and a father, about a master and a servant? about a husband and a wife? about a subject and a sovereign? and how they all behaved to each other--some well and some ill--in these relations?

Surely it is so, and surely this is why the story of Joseph has been always so popular among innocent children and plain honest folk of all kinds; because it is so simply human and humane; and therefore it taught them far more than they could learn from many a lofty, or seemingly lofty, book of devotion, when it spoke to them of the very duties they had to fulfil, and the very temptations they had to fight against, as members of a family or as members of society. "One touch of Nature (says the poet) makes the whole world kin;" and the touches of nature in this story of Joseph make us feel that he and his brethren, and all with whom he had to do, are indeed kin to us; that their duty is our duty too--their temptations ours--that where they fell, we may fall--where they conquered we may conquer.

For what is the story? A young lad is thrown into every temptation possible for him. Joseph is very handsome. The Bible says so expressly; so we may believe it. He has every gift of body and mind. He is, as his story proves plainly, a very clever person, with a strange power of making every one whom he deals with love him and obey him--a terrible temptation, as all God's gifts are, if abused by a man's vanity, or covetousness or ambition. He is an injured man too. He has been basely betrayed by his brothers; he is under a terrible temptation, to which ninety-nine men out of one hundred would have yielded--do yield, alas! to this day, to revenge himself if he ever has an opportunity. He is an injured man in Egypt, for he is a slave to a foreigner who has no legal or moral right over him. If ever there was a man who might be excused for cherishing a burning indignation against his oppressors, for brooding over his own wrongs, for despairing of God's providence, it is Joseph in Egypt. What could we do but pity him if he had said to himself, as thousands in his place have said since, "There is no God, or if there is, He does not care for me--He does not care what men do. He looks on unmoved at wrong and cruelty, and lets man do even as he will. Then why should not _I_ do as _I_ will? What are these laws of God of which men talk? What are these sacred bonds of family and society? Every one for himself is the rule of the world, and it shall be _my_ rule. Every man's hand has been against _me_; why should not my hand be against every man? _I_ have been betrayed; why should not _I_ betray? _I_ have been opprest; why should not _I_ oppress? I have a lucky chance, too, of enjoying and revenging myself at the same time; why should I not take my good luck, and listen to the words of the tempter?"

My dear friends, this is the way in which thousands have talked, in which thousands talk to this day. This is the spirit which ends in breaking up society, as happened in France eighty years ago, in the inward corruption of a nation, and at last, in outward revolution and anarchy, from which may God in His mercy deliver us and our fellow-countrymen, and the generations yet to come. But any nation or any man, will only be delivered from it, as Joseph was delivered from it, by saying, "I fear God." No doubt it is most natural for a man who is injured and opprest to think in that way. Most _natural_--just as it is most natural for the trapped dog to struggle vainly, and, in his blind rage, bite at everything around him, even at his own master's hand when it offers to set him free. And if men are to be mere children of nature, like the animals, and not children of grace and sons of God, like Joseph, and like one greater than Joseph, then I suppose they must needs tear each other to pieces in envy and revenge, for there is nought better to be done. But if they wish to escape from the misery and ruin which envy and revenge bring with them, then they had better recollect that they are not children of nature, but children of God--they had best follow Joseph's example, and say, "I fear God."

For this poor, betrayed, enslaved lad had got into his heart something above Nature--something which Nature cannot give, but only the inspiration of the Spirit of God gives. He had got into his heart the belief that God's laws were sacred things and must not be broken, and that whatever befel him he must fear God. However unjust and lawless the world looked, God's laws were still in it, and over it, and would avenge themselves, and he must obey them at all risks. And what were God's laws in Joseph's opinion?

These--the common relations of humanity between master to servant, and servant to master; between parent to child, and child to parent; brother to brother and sister to sister, and between the man who is trusted and the man who trusts him. These laws were sacred; and if all the rest of the world broke them, he (Joseph) must not. He was bound to his master, not only by any law of man, but by the Law of God. His master trusted him, and left all that he had in his hand, and to Joseph the law of honour was the law of God. Then he must be justly faithful to his master. A sacred trust was laid on him, and to be true to it was to fear God.

After a while his master's wife tempts him. He refuses; not merely out of honour to his master, but from fear of God. "How can I do this great wickedness," says Joseph, "and sin against God?" His master and his mistress are heathen, but their marriage is of God nevertheless; the vow is sacred, and he must deny himself anything, endure anything, dare any danger of a dreadful death, and a prison almost as horrible probably as death itself, rather than break it.

So again, in the prison. If ever man had excuse for despairing of God's providence, for believing that right-doing did _not_ pay, it was poor Joseph in that prison. But no. God is with him still. He believes still in the justice of God, the providence of God, and therefore he is cheerful, active--he can make the best even of a dungeon. He can find a duty to do even there; he can make himself useful, helpful, till the keeper of the prison too leaves everything in his hand.

What a gallant man! you say. Yes, my friends, but what makes him gallant? That which St. Paul says (in Hebrews xi.) made all the old Jewish heroes gallant--faith in God; real and living belief that God is--and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

At last Joseph's triumph comes. He has his reward. God helps him--because he will help himself. He is made a great officer of state, married to a woman of high rank, probably a princess, and he sees his brothers who betrayed him at his mercy. Their lives are in his hand at last. What will he do? Will he be a bad brother because they were bad? Or will he keep to his old watchword, "I fear God?" If he is tempted to revenge himself, he crushes the temptation down. He will bring his brothers to repentance. He will touch their inward witness, and make them feel that they have been wicked men. That is for their good. And strangely, but most naturally, their guilty consciences go back to the great sin of their lives--to Joseph's wrong, though they have no notion that Joseph is alive, much less near them. "Did I not tell you," says Reuben, "sin not against the lad, and ye would not hearken? Therefore is this distress come upon us."

Joseph punishes Simeon by imprisonment. It may be that he had reasons for it which we are not told. But when his brothers have endured the trial, and he finds that Benjamin is safe, he has nothing left but forgiveness. They are his brethren still--his own flesh and blood. And he "fears God." He dare not do anything but forgive them. He forgives them utterly, and welcomes them with an agony of happy tears. He will even put out of their minds the very memory of their baseness. "Now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, he says; for God sent me before you, to save your lives with a great deliverance."

Is not that Divine? Is not that the Spirit of God and of Christ? I say it is. For what is it but the likeness of Christ, who says for ever, out of heaven, to all mankind, "Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye crucified me. For God, my Father, sent me to save your souls by a great salvation."

My friends, learn from this story of Joseph, and the prominent place in the Bible which it occupies--learn, I say, how hateful to God are family quarrels; how pleasant to God are family unity and peace, and mutual trust, and duty, and helpfulness. And if you think that I speak too strongly on this point, recollect that I do no more than St. Paul does, when he sums up the most lofty and mystical of all his Epistles, the Epistle to the Ephesians, by simple commands to husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, as if he should say,--You wish to be holy? you wish to be spiritual? Then fulfil these plain family duties, for they, too, are sacred and divine, and he who despises them, despises the ordinances of God. And if you despise the laws of God, they will surely avenge themselves on you. If you are bad husbands or bad wives, bad parents or bad children, bad brothers or sisters, bad masters or servants, you will smart for it, according to the eternal laws of God, which are at work around you all day long, making the sinner punish himself whether he likes or not.

Examine yourselves--ask yourselves, each of you, Have I been a good brother? have I been a good son? have I been a good husband? have I been a good father? have I been a good servant? If not, all professions of religion will avail me nothing. If not, let me confess my sins to God, and repent and amend at once, whatever it may cost me. The fulfilling these plain duties is the true test of my faith, the true sign and test whether I really believe in God and in Jesus Christ our Lord. Do I believe that the world is Christ's making? and that Christ is governing it? Do I believe that these plain family relationships are Christ's sacred appointments? Do I believe that our Lord Jesus was made very man of the substance of His mother, to sanctify these family relationships, and claim them as the ordinances of God His Father?

In one word--copy Joseph; and when you are tempted say with Joseph, "Can I do this great wickedness, and sin--not against this man or this woman, but against--_God_."

Take home these plain, practical words. Take them home, and fear God at your own firesides. For at the last day, the Bible tells us, the Lord Jesus Christ will not reward you and me according to the opinions we held while in this mortal body, whether they were quite right or quite wrong, but according to the deeds which we did in the body, whether they were good or bad.

X. SLAVES OF FREE?

"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."--EXODUS xiv. 13, 14.

Why did God bring the Jews out of Egypt? God Himself told them why. To fulfil the promise which He made to Abraham, their forefather, that of his children He would make a great nation.

Now the Jews in Egypt were not a nation at all. A nation is free, governed by its own laws, one body of people, held together by one fellow feeling, one language, one blood, one religion; as we English are. We are a nation. The Jews were none in Egypt, no more than Negro slaves in America were a nation. They served a people of a different blood, as the Jews did in Egypt. They had no laws of their own; they had no fellow- feeling with each other, which enabled them to make common cause together, and help each other, and free each other.

Selfishness and cowardice make some men slaves. Above all, ungodliness makes men slaves. For when men do not fear and obey God, they are sure to obey their own lusts and passions, and become slaves to them. They become ready to sell themselves soul and body for money, or pleasure, or food. And their fleshly lusts, their animal appetites, keep them down, selfish, divided, greedy, and needy, at the mercy of those who are stronger and cunninger than themselves, just as the Jews were kept down by the strong and cunning Egyptians.

They had slavish hearts in them, and as long as they had, God could not make them into a nation. The Jews _had_ slaves' hearts in them. They were glad enough to get free out of Egypt, to escape from their heavy labour in brick and mortar, from being oppressed, beaten, killed at the will and fancy of the Egyptians, from having their male children thrown into the river as soon as they were born, to keep them from becoming too numerous. They were glad enough, poor wretches, to escape from all their misery and oppression of which we read in the first three chapters of Exodus. But if they could do that, that was all they cared for. They did not want to be made wise, righteous, strong, free-hearted--they did not care about being made into a nation. We read that when by the Red Sea shore (Exodus xiv.), they saw themselves in great danger, the army of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, following close upon them to attack them, they lost heart at once, and were sore afraid, and cried unto Moses, "Is not this the word which we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

Cowards and slaves! The thing they feared above all, you see, was death. If they could but keep the miserable life in their miserable bodies, they cared for nothing beyond. They were willing to see their children taken from them and murdered, willing to be beaten, worked like dumb beasts for other men's profit, willing to be idolaters, heathens, worshipping the false gods of Egypt, dumb beasts and stocks and stones, willing to be despised, wretched, helpless slaves--if they could but keep the dear life in them. God knows there are plenty like them now-a-days--plenty who do not care how mean, helpless, wicked, contemptible they are, if they can but get their living by their meanness.

"_But a man must live_," says some one. How often one hears that made the excuse for all sorts of meanness, dishonesty, grasping tyranny. "_A man must live_!" Who told you that? It is better to die like a man than to live like a slave, and a wretch, and a sinner. Who told you that, I ask again? Not God's Bible, surely. Not the example of great and good men. If Moses had thought that, do you think he would have gone back from Midian, when he was in safety and comfort, with a wife and home, and children at his knee, and leave all he had on earth to face Pharaoh and the Egyptians, to face danger, perhaps a cruel death in shame and torture, and all to deliver his countrymen out of Egypt? Moses would sooner die like a man helping his countrymen, than live on the fat of the land while they were slaves. And forty years before he had shown the same spirit too, when though he was rich and prosperous, and high in the world, the adopted son of King Pharaoh's daughter (Exodus ii. 11), he disdained to be a slave and to see his countrymen slaves round him. We read how he killed an Egyptian, who was ill-treating one of his brothers, the Jews--and how he then fled out of Egypt into Midian, houseless and friendless, esteeming as St. Paul says, "the reproach of Christ"--that is the affliction and ill-will which came on him for doing right, "better than all the treasures of Egypt" (Heb xi. 24-27).

_A man must live_? The valiant Tyrolese of old did not say that (more than seventy years ago), when they fought to the last drop of their blood to defend their country against the French invaders. They were not afraid to die for liberty; and therefore they won honour from all honourable men, praise from all whose praise is worth having for ever.

_A man must live_? The old Greeks and Romans, heathens though they were, were above so mean a speech as that. They used to say, it was the noblest thing that can befall a man to die--not to live in clover, eating and drinking at his ease--to die among the foremost, fighting for wife and child and home.

_A man must live_? The martyrs of old did not say that, when they endured the prison and the scourge, the sword and the fire, and chose rather to die in torments unspeakable than deny the Lord Jesus who bought them with His blood, rather than do what they knew to be _wrong_. (Hebrews xi.) They were not afraid of torture and death; but of doing wrong they were unspeakably afraid. They were _free_, those holy men of old, truly free--free from their own love of ease and cowardice and selfishness, and all that drags a man down and makes a slave of him. They knew that "life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment." What matter if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Their souls were free whatever happened to their bodies--the tormentor could not touch _them_, because they believed in God, because they did not fear those who could kill the body, and after that had no more that they could do.

And do you not see that a coward can never be free, never be godly, never be like Christ? For by a coward I mean not merely a man who is afraid of pain and trouble. Every one is that more or less. Jesus Himself was afraid when He cried in agony, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." (Luke xxii. 42.) But a coward is a man who is so much afraid that to escape pain and danger, he will do what he _ought not_--do what he is ashamed of doing--do what lowers him; and therefore our Lord Jesus had perfect courage when He tasted death for all men, and endured the very agony from which He shrank, and while He said, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass," said also, "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine, be done."

The Jews were cowards when they cried, "Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians." While a man is in that pitiful mood he cannot rise, he cannot serve God--for he must remain the slave of his own body, of which he is so mightily careful, the slave of his own fears, the slave of his own love of bodily comfort. Such a man does not _dare_ serve God. He dare not obey God, when obeying God is dangerous and unpleasant. He dare not claim his heavenly birthright, his share in God's Spirit, his share in Christ's kingdom, because that would bring discomfort on him, because he will have to give up the sins he loves, because he will have to endure the insults and ill-will of wicked men. Thus cowards can never be free, for it is only where the Spirit of God is that there is liberty.

But the Jews were not yet fit to be made soldiers of. God would not teach them at once not to be afraid of men. He did not command them to turn again and fight these Egyptians, neither did He lead them into the land of Canaan the strait and short road, through the country of the Philistines, lest they should be discouraged when they saw war.

Now what was God's plan for raising the Jews out of this cowardly, slavish state? First, and above all, to make them trust in _Him_. While they were fearing the Egyptians, they could never fear Him. While they were fearing the Egyptians, they were ready to do every base thing, to keep their masters in good humour with them. God determined to teach them to fear Him more than they feared the Egyptians. God taught them that He was stronger than the Egyptians, for all their civilisation and learning and armies, chariots and horsemen, swords and spears. He would not let the Jews fight the Egyptians. He told them by the mouth of Moses, "Stand you still, and the Lord shall fight for you," and he commanded Moses to stretch out his rod over the sea. (Exodus xiv.) The Egyptians were stronger than the Jews--they would have cut them to pieces if they had come to a battle. For free civilised men like the Egyptians are always stronger than slaves, like the Jews; they respect themselves more, they hold together better, they have order and discipline, and obedience to their generals, which slaves have not. God intended to teach the Jews that also in His good time. But not yet. They were not fit yet to be made soldiers. They were not even _men_ yet, but miserable slaves. A man is only a true man when he trusts in God, and none but God--when he fears God and nothing _but_ God. And that was the lesson which God had to teach them. That was the lesson which He taught them by bringing them up out of Egypt by signs and wonders, that _God was the Lord_, _God_ was their deliverer, _God_ was their King--that let _them_ be as weak as they might, _He_ was strong--that if they could not fight the Egyptians God could overwhelm them--that if they could not cross the sea, God could open the sea to let them pass through. If they dreaded the waste howling wilderness of sand, with its pillars of cloud and fire, its stifling winds which burn the life out of man and beast, God could make the sand storms and the fire pillars and the deadly east wind of the desert work for their deliverance. And so He taught them to fear Himself, to trust in Him, to look up to Him as their deliverer whose strength was shown most gloriously when they were weakest and most despairing.

This was the great lesson which God meant to teach the children of Israel, that the root and ground of all other lessons, is that this earth belongs to the Lord alone. That had been what God had been teaching them already, by the plagues of Egypt. The Egyptians worshipped their great river Nile, and thought it was a god, and the Lord turned the Nile water into blood, and showed that He could do what He liked with it. The Egyptians worshipped dumb beasts and insects, and fancied in their folly that they were gods. The Lord sent plagues of frogs and flies and locusts, and took them away again when He liked, to show them that the beasts and creeping things were His also.