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Patriarchs and Prophets
Joseph, through his bondage in Egypt, became a savior to his
father’s family; yet this fact did not lessen the guilt of his brothers.
So the crucifixion of Christ by His enemies made Him the Redeemer
of mankind, the Saviour of the fallen race, and Ruler over the whole
world; but the crime of His murderers was just as heinous as though
God’s providential hand had not controlled events for His own glory
and the good of man.
As Joseph was sold to the heathen by his own brothers, so Christ
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was sold to His bitterest enemies by one of His disciples. Joseph
was falsely accused and thrust into prison because of his virtue; so
Christ was despised and rejected because His righteous, self-denying
life was a rebuke to sin; and though guilty of no wrong, He was con-
demned upon the testimony of false witnesses. And Joseph’s patience
and meekness under injustice and oppression, his ready forgiveness
and noble benevolence toward his unnatural brothers, represent the
Saviour’s uncomplaining endurance of the malice and abuse of wicked
men, and His forgiveness, not only of His murderers, but of all who
have come to Him confessing their sins and seeking pardon.
Joseph outlived his father fifty-four years. He lived to see
“Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir
the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.” He wit-
nessed the increase and prosperity of his people, and through all the
years his faith in God’s restoration of Israel to the Land of Promise
was unshaken.
When he saw that his end was near, he summoned his kinsmen
about him. Honored as he had been in the land of the Pharaohs, Egypt
was to him but the place of his exile; his last act was to signify that his
lot was cast with Israel. His last words were, “God will surely visit
you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He sware to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” And he took a solemn oath of the
children of Israel that they would carry up his bones with them to the
land of Canaan. “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old:
and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” And
through the centuries of toil which followed, the coffin, a reminder
of the dying words of Joseph, testified to Israel that they were only
sojourners in Egypt, and bade them keep their hopes fixed upon the
Land of Promise, for the time of deliverance would surely come.
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