JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN BY W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D., AUTHOR OF “SEED-TIME AND HARVEST,” “THE EARLY CHOICE,” “PARABLES OF OUR LORD,” ETC. See the wan victim of his brethren’s scorn, In Pharaoh’s dungeon, drooping, abject, lone! But God is there, the friend of the forlorn, And Joseph’s prison opes beside the throne. LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1872. PREFACE. The story of Joseph is at once so simple that childhood is arrested and rivetted by it, and so profound that sages may deepen their wisdom by meditating on the truths which it embodies. An attempt is here made to point out some of the more important lessons which the narrative teaches,—to manifest the wisdom and the watchfulness of Providence,—and show how God on high exercises his prerogative of educing good from what we are often tempted to regard as only and hopelessly evil. While man displays his wickedness by committing sin, the Holy One displays his goodness by restraining it; and though his ways are confessedly “a great deep,” we get glimpses through the gloom,—we catch echoes amid the silence, which enable us to know, that when the tangled web of providence shall have been unrolled in light, it will be seen that he “has done all things well.” As the bones of Joseph were carried before the Hebrews during all their wanderings, from Egypt to Canaan, till they found a resting-place in that land of promise, the truth of God here goes before us still, a very pillar of cloud and of fire. CONTENTS. I. JOSEPH CAST INTO THE PIT, 9 II. JOSEPH SOLD TO THE ISHMAELITES, 15 III. JOSEPH IN PRISON, 21 IV. JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH’S DREAMS, 31 V. JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT, 41 VI. “YE ARE SPIES,” 48 VII. THE CUP IN BENJAMIN’S SACK, 57 VIII. THE MEETING OF JOSEPH AND BENJAMIN, 65 IX. THE MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH, 73 X. JACOB IN THE PRESENCE OF PHARAOH, 79 XI. THE DEATH OF JACOB, 85 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. CHAPTER I. JOSEPH CAST INTO THE PIT.