PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 230,719 words · 327 reading sections
Joseph, The Prime Minister
His ceremonial investiture with the insignia of office is true to Egyptian manners. The signet ring, as the emblem of full authority; the chain, as a mark of dignity; the robe of 'fine linen' (or rather of cotton), which was a priestly dress--all are illustrated by the monuments. The proclamation made before him as he …
799 wordsSECTION 122Joseph, The Prime Minister
Little need be said about the other points of the story. Joseph's naturalisation as an Egyptian was complete. His name was changed, in token that he had completely become a subject of Pharaoh's. The meaning of the formidable-looking polysyllable, which Egyptian lips found easier than 'Joseph,' is uncertain. 'At present…
748 wordsSECTION 123Recognition And Reconciliation
'Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am…
400 wordsSECTION 124I
If the writer of this inimitable scene of Joseph's reconciliation with his brethren was not simply an historian, he was one of the great dramatic geniuses of the world, master of a vivid minuteness like Defoe's, and able to touch the springs of tears by a pathetic simplicity like his who painted the death of Lear. Sure…
935 wordsSECTION 125I
3. We have encouragement and complete forgiveness. That invitation to come close up to him, with which Joseph begins the fuller disclosure of his heart, is a beautiful touch. We can fancy how tender the accents, and how, with some lightening of fear, but still hesitatingly and ashamed, the shepherds, unaccustomed to co…
964 wordsSECTION 126I
We have another instance of the difference between man's purposes and God's counsel in this message. Joseph's only thought is to afford his family temporary shelter during the coming five years of famine. Neither he nor they knew that this was the fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham, and the bringing of them into t…
425 wordsSECTION 127Ii
THE noble words in which Joseph dissipates his brothers' doubts have, as their first characteristic, the recognition of the God by whom his career had been shaped, and, for their next, the recognition of the purpose for which it had been. There is a world of tenderness and forgivingness in the addition made to his firs…
819 wordsSECTION 128Growth By Transplanting
The first overtures of reconciliation should come from the side of the injured party. That is Christ's law, and if it were Christians' practice, there would be fewer alienations among them. It is Christ's law, because it is Christ's own way of dealing with us. He, too, was envied, and sold by His brethren. His sufferin…
940 wordsSECTION 129Growth By Transplanting
2 We may note in Joseph's conduct also an instance of a man in high office and not ashamed of his humble relations. One of the great lessons meant to be taught by the whole patriarchal period was the sacredness of the family. That is, in some sense, the keynote of Joseph's history. Here we see family love, which had su…
872 wordsSECTION 130Growth By Transplanting
Life has been to him a 'pilgrimage'. He thinks of all his wanderings from that far-off day when at Bethel he received the promise of God's presence 'in all places whither thou goest,' till this last happy and yet disturbing change. But he is thinking not only, perhaps not chiefly, of the circumstances, but of the spiri…
752 wordsSECTION 131Two Retrospects Of One Life
But this shaded retrospect is one-sided. It is true, and in some moods seems all the truth; but Jacob saw more distinctly, and his name was rightly Israel, when, laying his trembling hands on the heads of Joseph's sons, he laid there the blessing of 'the God which fed me all my life long, ... 'the Angel which redeemed …
899 wordsSECTION 132Two Retrospects Of One Life
It is beautiful to see how the thought of God enters into the dying man's remembrances in the shape which was natural to him, regard being had to his own daily avocations. For the word translated 'fed' means much more than supplied with nourishment. It is the word for doing the office of shepherd, and we must not forge…
757 wordsSECTION 133Two Retrospects Of One Life
But the point which I wish to make now is that it is largely a matter for our own selection which of the two views of our lives we take. We may make our choice whether we shall fix our attention on the brighter or on the darker constituents of our past. Suppose a wall papered with paper of two colours, one black, say,…
686 wordsSECTION 134'The Hands Of The Mighty God Of Jacob'
The archers shot at him, but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.' GENESIS xlix. 23, 24. These picturesque words are part of what purports to be one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible--the dying Jacob's prophetic blessing on his sons…
1,030 wordsSECTION 135'The Hands Of The Mighty God Of Jacob'
As a father in old days might have taken his little boy out to the butts, and put a bow into his hand, and given him his first lesson in archery, directing his unsteady aim by his own firmer finger, and lending the strength of his wrist to his child's feebler pull, so God does with us. The sure, strong hand is laid on …
814 wordsSECTION 136'The Hands Of The Mighty God Of Jacob'
But the remarkable metaphor of the text not only gives the fact of divine strength being bestowed, but also the _manner_ of the gift. What a boldness of reverent familiarity there is in that symbol of the hands of God laid on the hands of the man! How strongly it puts the contact between us and Him as the condition of …
876 wordsSECTION 137The Shepherd, The Stone Of Israel
'... The mighty God of Jacob. From thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel.'--GENESIS xlix. 24. A slight alteration in the rendering will probably bring out the meaning of these words more correctly. The last two clauses should perhaps not be read as a separate sentence. Striking out the supplement 'is,' and lett…
746 wordsSECTION 138The Shepherd, The Stone Of Israel
For each of us, our own experience should be a revelation of God. The things about Him which we read in the Bible are never living and real to us till we have verified them in the facts of our own history. Many a word lies on the page, or in our memories, fully believed and utterly shadowy, until in some soul's conflic…
732 wordsSECTION 139The Shepherd, The Stone Of Israel
The dying patriarch left to his descendants the legacy of this great name, and often, in later times, it was used to quicken faith by the remembrance of the great deeds of God in the past. One instance may serve as a sample of the whole. 'The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.' The first of these…
764 wordsSECTION 140The Shepherd, The Stone Of Israel
3. _The Stone of Israel_.--Here, again, we have a name, that after-ages have caught up and cherished, used for the first time. I suppose the Stone of Israel means much the same thing as the Rock. If so, that symbol, too, which is full of such large meanings, was coined by Jacob. It is, perhaps, not fanciful to suppose …
765 wordsSECTION 141A Calm Evening, Promising A Bright Morning
'Rock of Ages! cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.' The faith is one. One will be the answer and the reward. May it be yours and mine! 'And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when Joseph's brethren saw that …
703 wordsSECTION 142A Calm Evening, Promising A Bright Morning
We note, too, the ingenious way of slipping in motives for forgiving, first in putting the mention of their relationship into Jacob's mouth, and then claiming to be worshippers of 'thy (not our) father's God.' They had proved how truly they were both, when they sold him to the Midianites! Joseph's tears were a good an…
784 wordsSECTION 143A Calm Evening, Promising A Bright Morning
His career may teach another lesson; namely, that true faith does not detach us from strenuous interest and toil in the present. Though the great hope burned in his heart, he did all his work as prime minister all the better because of it. It should always be so. Life here is not worth living if there is not another. T…
579 wordsSECTION 144Joseph'S Faith
'Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.'--GENESIS l. 25. This is the one act of Joseph's life which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews selects as the sign that he too lived by faith. 'By faith Joseph, when he died, made menti…
668 wordsSECTION 145Joseph'S Faith
1. _Faith is always the same, though knowledge varies._--There is a vast difference between a man's creed and a man's faith. The one may vary, does vary within very wide limits; the other remains the same. The things believed have been growing from the beginning--the attitude of mind and will by which they have been gr…
734 wordsSECTION 146Joseph'S Faith
But be that as it may, and even taking the widest possible view of the contents of the patriarchal creed, what a rude outline it looks beside ours! Can there be anything in common between us? Can they be in any way a pattern for us? Yes; as I said, faith is one thing, creed is another. Joseph and his ancestors were joi…
746 wordsSECTION 147Joseph'S Faith
There are hosts of so-called Christians who get no more good out of the most solemn articles of their orthodox belief than if they were heathens. What in the use of your saying that you believe in God the Father Almighty, when there is no child's love and happy confidence in your heart? What the better are you for beli…
666 wordsSECTION 148Joseph'S Faith
And faith will always produce just such effects. In exact proportion to its strength, that living trust in God will direct our thoughts and desires to the 'King in His beauty, and the land that is very far off.' In proportion as our thoughts and desires are thus directed, they will be averted from what is round about u…
883 wordsSECTION 149Joseph'S Faith
A very sharp test for us all lies in these thoughts. This change of the centre of interest from earth to heaven is the uniform effect of faith. What, then, of us? On Sundays we profess to seek for a city; but what about the week, from Monday morning to Saturday night? What difference does our faith make in the current …
656 wordsSECTION 150Joseph'S Faith
Take this story of Joseph as giving us a truer view of the effect on present action of faith in, and longing for, God's future. He was, as I said, a true Hebrew all his days. But that did not make him run away from Pharaoh's service. He lived by hope, and that made him the better worker in the passing moment, and kept …
657 wordsSECTION 151Joseph'S Faith
Then, brethren, let us see that our clearer revelation bears fruit in a faith in the great divine promises as calm and firm as this dying patriarch had. Then the same power will work not only the same detachment and energy in life, but the same calmness and solemn light of hope in death. It is very beautiful to notice …
489 wordsSECTION 152A Coffin In Egypt
'They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.' --GENESIS l. 26. So closes the book of Genesis. All its recorded dealings of God with Israel, and all the promises and the glories of the patriarchal line, end with 'a coffin in Egypt'. Such an ending is the more striking, when we remember that a space of thre…
670 wordsSECTION 153A Coffin In Egypt
So life springs side by side with death. There are cradles as well as graves. 'The individual withers, And the race is more and more.' Leaves drop and new leaves come. The April days are not darkened, and the tender green of the fresh leaf-buds is all the more vigorous and luxuriant, because it is fed from the decay…
946 wordsSECTION 154A Coffin In Egypt
There are many ways in which the apostle's great saying that 'we are saved by hope' approves itself as true. Whatever leads us to grasp the future rather than the present, even if it is but an earthly future, and to live by hope rather than by fruition, even if it is but a short-reaching hope, lifts us in the scale of …
786 wordsSECTION 155A Coffin In Egypt
Further, that 'coffin in Egypt' was a preacher of patience. As we have seen, three centuries at least, probably a somewhat longer period, passed between the time when Joseph's corpse was laid in it, and the night when it was lifted out of it by the departing Israelites. No doubt, hope deferred had made many a heart sic…
832 wordsSECTION 156The Book Of Exodus
There is no nobler example of victorious faith which prolonged confident expectation beyond the insignificant accident of death than Joseph's dying 'commandment concerning his bones.' His confidence, indeed, grasped a far lower blessing than ours should reach out to clasp. It was evoked by less clear and full promises …
495 wordsSECTION 157Four Shaping Centuries
THE BURNT OFFERING A PICTURE AND A PROPHECY (Lev. i. 1-9) STRANGE FIRE (Lev. x. 1-11) THE FIRST STAGE IN THE LEPER'S CLEANSING (Lev. xiv 1-7) THE DAY OF ATONEMENT (Lev. xvi. 1-19) 'THE SCAPEGOAT' (Lev. xvi. 22) THE CONSECRATION OF JOY (Lev. xxiii. 33-44) SOJOURNERS WITH GOD (Lev. xxv. 23) GOD'S SLAVES (Lev. xxv.…
729 wordsSECTION 158Four Shaping Centuries
That long period of growth may be regarded in two lights. It effected the conversion of a horde into a nation by numerical increase, and so was a link in the chain of the divine working. The great increase, of which the writer speaks so strongly, was, no doubt, due to the favourable circumstances of the life in Goshen,…
891 wordsSECTION 159Death And Growth
'And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. 7. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty....'--EXODUS i. 6, 7. These remarkable words occur in a short section which makes the link between the Books of Genesis and of Exodus. Th…
650 wordsSECTION 160Death And Growth
'Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel ... multiplied ... exceedingly.' But there is another thought here than that of the contemporaneousness of the two processes, and that is, as it is written on John Wesley's monument in Westminster Abbey, 'God buries the workmen and…
804 wordsSECTION 161Death And Growth
But further, let this double contemplation make us very content with doing insignificant and unfinished work. Joseph might have said, when he lay dying: 'Well! perhaps I made a mistake after all. I should not have brought this people down here, even if I have been led hither. I do not see that I have helped them one s…
698 wordsSECTION 162The Ark Among The Flags
'And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with …
808 wordsSECTION 163The Ark Among The Flags
Will it be thought too fanciful if we suggest that we are taught another lesson,--namely, that the faith which surrenders its earthly treasures to God, in confidence of His care, is generally rewarded and vindicated by receiving them back again, glorified and sanctified by the altar on which they have been laid? Jocheb…
804 wordsSECTION 164The Ark Among The Flags
And that is a force which has much like work trusted to it in modern society too. Our great cities swarm with children exposed to a worse fate than the baby among the flags. Legislation and official charity have far too rough hands and too clumsy ways to lift the little life out of the coffer, and to dry the tears. We …
770 wordsSECTION 165The Ark Among The Flags
How deeply this story had impressed on devout minds the truth of the divine protection for all who serve Him, is shown by the fact that the word employed in the last verse of our lesson, and there translated 'drawn,' of which the name 'Moses' is a form, is used on the only occasion of its occurrence in the Old Testamen…
258 wordsSECTION 166The Bush That Burned, And Did Not Burn Out
'And, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.' EXODUS iii. 1 It was a very sharp descent from Pharaoh's palace to the wilderness, and forty years of a shepherd's life were a strange contrast to the brilliant future that once seemed likely for Moses. But God tests His weapons before He uses t…
809 wordsSECTION 167The Bush That Burned, And Did Not Burn Out
Fire is the source of warmth, and so, in a sense, of life. It is full of quick energy, it transmutes all kinds of dead matter into its own ruddy likeness, sending up the fat of the sacrifices in wreathes of smoke that aspire heavenward; and changing all the gross, heavy, earthly dullness into flame, more akin to the he…
687 wordsSECTION 168The Bush That Burned, And Did Not Burn Out
It is the same truth which Jesus Christ, with a depth of interpretation that put to shame the cavilling listeners, found in the words that accompanied this vision: 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He said to the sneering Sadducees, who, like all other sneerers, saw only the surface of …
513 wordsSECTION 169The Call Of Moses
'Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel, out of Egypt. 11. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? 12. And He said, Certainly I will be with the…
816 wordsSECTION 170The Call Of Moses
Self-confidence is not the temper which God uses for His instruments. He works with 'bruised reeds,' and breathes His strength into them. It is when a man says 'I can do nothing,' that he is fit for God to employ. 'When I am weak, then I am strong.' Moses remembered enough of Egypt to know that it was no slight peril t…
708 wordsSECTION 171The Call Of Moses
This underived, independent, immutable being is a Person who can speak to men, and can say 'I am.' Being such, He has entered into close covenant relations with men, and has permitted Himself to be called 'the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' The name Jehovah lifts Him high above all creatures; the name 'the God of y…
688 wordsSECTION 172A Last Merciful Warning
The expression in verse 19, 'not by a mighty hand,' is very obscure. It may possibly mean that Pharaoh was so obstinate that no human power was strong enough to bend his will. Therefore, in contrast to the 'mighty hand' of man, which was not mighty enough for this work, God will stretch out His hand, and that will suff…
740 wordsSECTION 173A Last Merciful Warning
The same purpose of parting off the preceding plagues from the past ones explains the introduction of verses 9 and 10, which stand as a summary of the whole account of these, and, as it were, draw a line across the page, before beginning the story of that eventful day and night of Israel's deliverance. Moses' convicti…
656 wordsSECTION 174A Last Merciful Warning
The closing verses, as we have already noticed, are a kind of summing-up of the whole narrative of the plagues and their effects on Pharaoh. They open two difficult questions, as to how and why it was that the effect of the successive strokes was so slight and transient. They give the 'how' very emphatically as being t…
405 wordsSECTION 175The Passover: An Expiation And A Feast, A Memorial And A Prophecy
'And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according…
670 wordsSECTION 176The Passover: An Expiation And A Feast, A Memorial And A Prophecy
The domestic character of the rite is its first marked feature. Of course, there were neither temple nor priests then; but that does not wholly account for the provision that every household, unless too few in number to consume a whole lamb, should have its own sacrifice, slain by its head. The first purpose of the rit…
660 wordsSECTION 177The Passover: An Expiation And A Feast, A Memorial And A Prophecy
In other words, the Passover is a Gospel before the Gospel. We are sometimes told that in its sacrificial ideas Christianity is still dressing itself in 'Hebrew old clothes.' We believe, on the contrary, that the whole sacrificial system of Judaism had for its highest purpose to shadow forth the coming redemption. Chri…
729 wordsSECTION 178The Passover: An Expiation And A Feast, A Memorial And A Prophecy
The Passover as a feast is a prophecy of the great Sacrifice, by virtue of whose sprinkled blood we all may be sheltered from the sweep of the divine judgment, and on which we all have to feed if there is to be any life in us. Our propitiation is our food. 'Christ for us' must become 'Christ in us,' received and approp…
754 wordsSECTION 179Thought, Deed, Word
'It shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth.'--EXODUS xiii. 9. The question may be asked, whether this command is to be taken metaphorically or literally. No doubt the remembrance of the great deliverance was intrusted to acts. Bes…
659 wordsSECTION 180Thought, Deed, Word
All religious truth flows from and is wrapped up in that: _e.g._ theology, or the nature of God; anthropology, or the nature of man; soteriology, morality, etc. All truth for the individual and for the race has its source in God's great redeeming act. Religious emotion is best fed at this source, _e.g._ thankfulness, w…
684 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.