And it comes to nothing. The butler, as we know, forgets him, and he is left for two long years in the prison. For God will still be everything to him. Help shall come, but it shall come from Himself. With the Lord, the heaviness of the night is sure to yield to the joy of the morning; and ere this season of his separation from his brethren came to an end, Joseph is released, and blessed, and honoured. It becomes the budding-time of his glories. Excellent things indeed are found in the condition of the separated Joseph, such things as bear our thoughts to Him who is the greater than Joseph. I would just observe four of them. 1. There is great _moral beauty_ in him. He was a Nazarite then, as pure an one as Daniel in like circumstances, a captive among the uncircumcised, maintaining his circumcision, his separation to God, unspotted. 2. There is _precious spiritual gift_ in him. He was a vessel in God’s house, carrying the mind of Christ, and ministering that mind as an oracle of God; like Daniel again, interpreting dreams, and making known even to kings, though still in his day of humiliation, what was coming upon the earth. 3. There is the _right hand of power and dignity for him_. He is seated nearest the throne, and put in possession of those resources on which his own brethren, who had cast him out, and the whole world beside, are destined ere long to depend for preservation in the earth. 4. There is _joy, peculiar joy, prepared for him_. The king makes a marriage for him, and he becomes the head of a family among the Gentiles; and this is a source of such joy to him, that he can, in some sense, as the names of his children tell us, forget his kindred, and even rejoice in his affliction. Surely these are excellent things found in the condition of Joseph while separated from his brethren. And in them we see the Lord Himself in this present age, the season of His separation from Israel. A child might trace the likeness; but He, who reveals to babes and sucklings, has led the way in this. In Stephen’s wondrous word, in Acts vii., we get Joseph and others put in kindred place and circumstances with the Lord, who is there called "the Just One." And this is so full of interest, that though it be but incidental, we must turn aside for a little, and listen to that great voice of the Spirit of God. Stephen appears but for a moment in the course of the divine history; but it is to fill a very eminent and distinguished place. The occasion on which he is seen, and on which he acts, is full of meaning. Jewish enmity was again doing its dark deeds, and the God of glory was again disclosing His brighter purposes. Stephen is another witness of the Lord passing from earth to heaven, leaving the earth for a season in its unbelief and apostasy, and calling out a people for heavenly places.