They were but shepherds, it is true, and such were an abomination to the Egyptians. But Joseph "is not ashamed to call them brethren." Strangers they were, and pensioners; but the man of that day, the lord of Egypt, again I say, was "not ashamed to call them brethren." He owns them in the presence of the king, of the palace, and of the nation. And the king proves to be of the same mind. That they were Joseph’s brethren was enough for Pharaoh. Truly this has language in our ears. A day is at hand, when all this shall be made good in the great originals of Christ and Israel. He will return to them and say, "It is my people;" and they will say, "The Lord is my God." But though this is great and excellent, it is not all. The earth itself has to be settled and blest, the inheritance has to be received and displayed, as the brethren, the Israel of Christ, had to be thus quickened and restored; and this we are now to see. Joseph in chapter xlvii. becomes the upholder of the world in life and order. By him life is preserved in the earth, and order maintained. And all the people are made willing in that day of his power. All is right that Joseph does, in the eyes of all the people. Their money, their cattle, their lands, and themselves, are made over to Pharaoh; and yet all pleases them, for they owe their lives to Joseph. Egypt, in those days, was a sample of the new world, the world brought back to God by _redemption_. It was a "purchased possession," just what the millennial earth is to be. Eph. i. 14. It was creation reconciled, delivered from the doom of famine, from death and the curse, by the hand of a saviour. Joseph’s corn had bought the land, the cattle, and the people. All was under Pharaoh in a new character, as a purchased possession, standing in the grace of redemption. Pharaoh, who had been king of the country, is king of the country still; but he has another, a redeemer of the land and people, associated with him now, as once he had not. As in millennial days. What a picture has the hand of God drawn for us here! what a pledge have we here, yea, what a sample of the earth in the days of the kingdom! Pharaoh had trusted Joseph, and Joseph had pledged Pharaoh, in earlier days, when as yet nothing was done. Ere the word of Joseph began to be accomplished Pharaoh had seated him in dignity and power, given him a wife from among the daughters of the excellent of the land, and put upon him a name that told already to all who read it, what he thought of him, and how he received him.²³ And Joseph, in the confidence that all would be according to the interpretations which God had given him to deliver, accepted all this at Pharaoh’s hand; and then, but not till then, the plentiful years came, one after another, to make good the pledges of Joseph to Pharaoh, and to vindicate all the honours which had been conferred by Pharaoh on Joseph. See chap. xli.