The distinction assigned to Joseph, is that of peculiar fruit- fulness: and to him it eminently belonged. All his brethren indeed were honoured with being heads of distinct tribes : but Joseph had both his sons chosen of God, and appointed to be heads of separate tribes; and thus two tribes sprang from him, while one tribe only sprang from any of his brethren.]
To our Lord also is a similar title frequently
ascribed —
[Jesus was that " beautiful and glorious branch," which was in due time to spring from the stem of Jesse a, the fruit whereof was to fill the whole earth b. It was not one tribe only, or two, that was to acknowledge him as their head, but all the tribes ; yea, Gentiles as well as Jews, even all the ends of the earth : his fruit was to shake like the woods of Lebanon, and they, who should spring from him, were to be numerous as the piles of grass c, the stars of heaven d, and the sands upon the sea-shore e. And so abundantly has this pre- diction been already verified, that we may say of this Branch as the Psalmist did of that which typically represented it, " It has taken deep root, and filled the land : the hills are covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are like the goodly cedars ; it has sent forth its boughs unto the sea, and its branches unto the river V]
But the resemblance will more fully appear, while we consider, II. His grievous sufferings —
Joseph was for many years very grievously afflicted —
[He was eminently the beloved of Iris father g; and, being utterly averse to sin himself, he would reprove, and lay before his father, the misconduct of his brethren11 : he also, unreservedly, communicated to them all the repeated intima- tions, which he had had in dreams, respecting Iris future exaltation above his whole family '. For these reasons he was envied, hated, and persecuted by his brethren k. And when he came to them from his father, upon an errand of love, they conspired against him to kill him \ An opportunity offering at the moment, they sold him into the hands of strangers for twenty pieces of silver"1. After that, he was accused of a crime he utterly abhorred, and, without any one to plead his cause, was cast into prison n, where, for a time at least, " he was laid
a Isai. iv. 2. and xi. 1. b Isai. xxvii. G. c Ps. lxxii. 16.
d Gen. xv. 5. e Gen.xxii. 17. f Ps. lxxx. 9 — 11.
s Gen. xxxvii. 3. h Gen. xxxvii. 2. ' Gen. xxxvii. 5, 9.
k Gen. xxxvii. 4, 11. ] Gen. xxxvii. 18 — 20.
m Gen. xxxvii. 28. " Gen. xxxix. 12 — 20.