The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 521

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Cb. xli.-The tried man is now made ready' by long experience for his poSition of responsibility e.nd honour. He is thirty years old. He can commence hie public ministry for the people of God and the world. Pharaoh'e dreams, the kine and the ears of corn, like those of the butler and baker, have their natural elem~nt in them; but apart from the Spirit of God Joseph would not have dared to give them such au interpretation. Even had his intelligence penetrated the secret, he would not have ventured on a prophecy without God. Pharaoh himself acknowledged that the Spirit of God was manifestly in Joseph. We may bo sure there was evidence of Divine authority in his words and manner, As a testimony to the existence of a spirit of reverence for Divine teaching, and a reference of all great and good things to God as their source, even in the minds of the Egyptians, such facts show that God had not left the world without light. The farther we go back in human history, the more simple and unsophisticated we find the minds of men, pointing to a primitive revelation, to the religious beginning of the human race, and to their corruption being the result of a fall, and not a mere negative state, the state of undeveloped reason. Joseph is lifted up out of the dungeon and made to sit among princes. He submits to the providential ap- pointment, doubtless, under the guidance of the same Spirit which bad given him bis superiority. Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter because at that time to be so was to be separated from bis people. Joseph the slave, already far from his home, is willing to be Pharaob's prime minister that he may be the fore- runner of his people's exaltation. The opportunity was not to be lost. "God," he said, "bath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house." 11 God he.th caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction." The very names given to Manasseh and Ephraim were a testimony to his faith. His forgetting was only to a better remembering. We must sometimes hide power for the sake of its m::mifesta- tion. "All countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn.'' "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." As n type of the Lord Jesus Christ, tho Hebrew slave exalted to the rule of the world and the saving of the world, from the cross to the throne. The whole story is full of analogies. He that distributes the bread of life to a perishing race was himself taken from prison, was treated as a male- factor, was declared the Ruler and Saviour because the Spirit of God was upon him, was King of kings and Lord of lords. Hie benefits and blessings distributed to the world are immediately identified with his kingdom. He gathers in that he may give out. He is first the all-wise and all-powerful ruler of the seven years of plenty, and then the nil-merciful helper and redeemer in the seven years of famine. "Joseph is 11 fruitful bough."-R. Ver. 14.-The blessing of suJfering wrongfully. Joseph had probably been three yoars in prison (cf. ver. 1 with xl. 4). Sorely must his faith have been tried. His brothers, who had plotted his death, prosperous; himself 11 slave, spending the best years of his life in prison ; and that because be had been faithful to God and to his master. \Ve know tlrn end, and therefore hardly realise his desolate condition when no sign of anything but that he should live and die uncared for and forgotten. But the trial comes more home to ua when some one for whom we care, or perhaps our- selves, " endure grief, suffering wrongfully;" when unsuspecting frunkness has been overreached, or trust betrayed, or feebleness oppressed. We feel not only that wrong he.a been done, but as if there had been a failure in God's care. It is one thing to acknowledge the doctrine of God'.e providence, and quito another to feel it under pressure of trouble. A frequent miste.ke to think of suffering as calling for imme- diate restitution. Since God beholds the wrong, should there not be some speedy token that he does so? The tmth which faith he.a to grasp is that God is carrying out 11 plan, for which all these things are 11 preparation. We may not be able tu trace it; but it is eo. Thus it was with Joseph. All through these sad yenrs God was guiding him. It wnR not merely thnt in time the cloud we.s removed ; every un2 468 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [err. XLI. 1-45,