The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 70

premonition of the eufforings his seed were destined to rass through in the dark land of Egypt (see Gesenius, under en). 2. So i1 it seen in their ruwmplishment. (1) Joseph's dreams were prophetic sketches of what afterwards became history. (2) The folfil- ment of the dreams of Joseph was also the e.ccomplishment of the presages of Abram. 'l'he famine in Syria. The provision of plenty in Egypt In connection with which Joseph, by the good he.nd of God upon him, came into power. The settlement of Israel in Egypt. Hie sufferings there when the services of Joseph were forgotten. The plaguing of Pharaoh. 'fhe Exodus. III. THAT GoD BROUGIIT CHRIST LITERAL OUT OF EoYPT. 1. Correspondence,s are seen in the agents. (1) We note a correspondence of names. In each case we have a "Joseph,"and moreovera"Joseph the son of Jacob." (2) We have also a corre- spondence of character. '£he son of Rachel was eminently a righteous man, and so likewise was the husband of Mary. Both were alike distinguished for their unswerv- ing loyalty and obedience to God. (3) There is, moreover, a correspondence of dreams. God honours those who honour him. (a) As the latter Joseph by his alliance with Christ came to converse with angels, so have all who are spiritually related to Christ inter- course with Heaven (cf. Heb. i. 14; :xii. 22). (b) If the reason of God's communicating with men in dreams be that in sleep men's minds are disengaged from the world, the lesson is that if we would come under special heavenly influences we must call off our affections frorn earthly things. 2. Correspondences are seen in the accidents. (1) "Flee into Egypt." God can make the worst places serve the best purposes (of. Rev. xii. 16). (2) Jesus, like Israel of old, was in Egypt for asylum. "For Herod will seek the young Child to destroy him.n God knows the purposes of his enemies (cf. Isa. x.xxvii. 28). (3) Jesus was nourished there evidently by the hand of God, as Israel was in the days of the earlier Joseph. The carpenter was so poor that Mary had to offer doves instead of a lamb (cf. Lev. xii. 8 with Luke ii. 24). He had no difficulty in gathering up his effects to set off for Egypt the same night in which he had bis orders. "If rich people have the advantage of the poor while they possess what they have, the poor have the advantage of the rich when they are called to part with it" (Henry). But how, then, could this Joseph subsist his sacred Charge in a strange land? He who gave the years of plenty to the ancient Joseph for the nourishment of his typical son, placed the gold of the Magi in the hand of his namesake for the preservation of the Son of his love. (4) There was in. the days of Israel's sojourn in Egypt a slaughter of the male children of that people by order of Pharaoh, from which Moses, the future redeemer of the nation, wns wonderfully spared. Who does not see in this a prophecy of the deliverance of Jesus from Herod's slaughter of the innocents? (6) The retribution for this came upon Pharaoh in the death of bis firstborn when the fi.rstborn of Israel was spared, and eventually upon himself also in the destruction at the Red Sea. So Herod's death followed quickly upon his massacre of the innocents. .And as the overthrow of Pharaoh was coincident with the escape of Israel, for on the other shore of the Red Sea he was out of Egypt; so the death of Herod was the signal for the calling out of Egypt of the true Son of God. The end of the wicked is death. They have everything to fear from time. The good have everything to hope from it. IV. THAT Go» WILL BRING CHRIST MYSTICAL OUT OF EGYPT. 1. The Church of true believers is the mystical Christ. (l) So Paul describes the Church as the body of which Christ is the Head (Rom. :xii. 4, 5 ; 1 Cor. x. 16, 17; Eph, i. 22, 23; iv. 15, 16; v. 23, 30; Col. i. 18, 24). The head and the body make up one Christ. (2) Hence the Church is called Christ (1 Cor. viii. 12 ; Gal. iii. 16 with ver. 29). (3) .Agreeably t~ this "Israel after the flesh," which we have seen to have been a type of Christ, is often macle a type also of the "Israel of God," or true Christian Church. 2. What iJ predicated of Christ is mystically predicable of his Church. (1) The mystical Egypt is that state of moral darkness and bondage in which we are by nature and former practice. (2) The mystical Pharaoh, or Herod, is Satan, who is the tyrant of the moral house of bondage. So the persecuting powers of the world, which have ever been instinct with the spirit of the old serpent, are described under the figure of a dragon-a monster whose zoological type is the crocodile of the Nile (Rev. xii.); fit- tingly so, since the Egyptian was the first really formid1\ble political incarnation of -Satan. (3) Deliverance through Christ from the bondage cif sin and tyranny of Satan •Is compared to that of Israel from Egypt. It is also compared to the coming up o{  68 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [en. 11, 1-23.