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Genesis Chapter
Fifty
Genesis 50
Chapter Contents
The mourning for Jacob. (1-6) His funeral. (7-14)
Joseph's brethren crave his pardon, He comforts them. (15-21) Joseph's
direction concerning his bones, His death. (22-26)
Commentary on Genesis 50:1-6
Though pious relatives and friends have lived to a good
old age, and we are confident they are gone to glory, yet we may regret our own
loss, and pay respect to their memory by lamenting them. Grace does not
destroy, but it purifies, moderates, and regulates natural affection. The
departed soul is out of the reach of any tokens of our affection; but it is
proper to show respect to the body, of which we look for a glorious and joyful
resurrection, whatever may become of its remains in this world. Thus Joseph
showed his faith in God, and love to his father. He ordered the body to be
embalmed, or wrapped up with spices, to preserve it. See how vile our bodies are,
when the soul has forsaken them; they will in a very little time become
noisome, and offensive.
Commentary on Genesis 50:7-14
Jacob's body was attended, not only by his own family,
but by the great men of Egypt. Now that they were better acquainted with the
Hebrews, they began to respect them. Professors of religion should endeavour by
wisdom and love to remove the prejudices many have against them. Standers-by
took notice of it as a grievous mourning. The death of good men is a loss to
any place, and ought to be greatly lamented.
Commentary on Genesis 50:15-21
Various motives might cause the sons of Jacob to continue
in Egypt, notwithstanding the prophetic vision Abraham had of their bondage
there. Judging of Joseph from the general temper of human nature, they thought
he would now avenge himself on those who hated and injured him without cause.
Not being able to resist, or to flee away, they attempted to soften him by
humbling themselves. They pleaded with him as the servants of Jacob's God.
Joseph was much affected at seeing this complete fulfilment of his dreams. He
directs them not to fear him, but to fear God; to humble themselves before the
Lord, and to seek the Divine forgiveness. He assures them of his own kindness
to them. See what an excellent spirit Joseph was of, and learn of him to render
good for evil. He comforted them, and, to banish all their fears, he spake
kindly to them. Broken spirits must be bound up and encouraged. Those we love
and forgive, we must not only do well for, but speak kindly to.
Commentary on Genesis 50:22-26
Joseph having honoured his father, his days were long in
the land, which, for the present, God had given him. When he saw his death
approaching, he comforted his brethren with the assurance of their return to
Canaan in due time. We must comfort others with the same comforts with which we
have been comforted of God, and encourage them to rest on the promises which
are our support. For a confession of his own faith, and a confirmation of
theirs, he charges them to keep his remains unburied till that glorious day,
when they should be settled in the land of promise. Thus Joseph, by faith in
the doctrine of the resurrection, and the promise of Canaan, gave commandment
concerning his bones. This would keep up their expectation of a speedy
departure from Egypt, and keep Canaan continually in their minds. This would
also attach Joseph's posterity to their brethren. The death, as well as the
life of this eminent saint, was truly excellent; both furnish us with strong
encouragement to persevere in the service of God. How happy to set our early in
the heavenly race, to continue stedfastly, and to finish the course with joy!
This Joseph did, this we also may do. Even when the pains of death are upon us,
if we have trusted in Him upon whom the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles
depended, we need not fear to say, "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God
is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Genesis》
Genesis 50
Verse 1
[1] And
Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.
And Joseph fell upon his father's face and
wept upon him, and kissed him — Joseph shewed his faith in God, and love
to his father, by kissing his pale and cold lips, and so giving an affectionate
farewell. Probably the rest of Jacob's sons did the same, much moved, no doubt,
with his dying words.
Verse 2
[2] And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and
the physicians embalmed Israel.
He ordered the body to be embalmed, not only
because he died in Egypt, and that was the manner of the Egyptians, but because
he was to be carried to Canaan, which would be a work of time.
Verse 3
[3] And
forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which
are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.
He observed the ceremony of solemn mourning
for him. Forty days were taken up in embalming the body, which the Egyptians
had an art of doing so curiously, as to preserve the very features of the face
unchanged. All this time, and thirty days more, seventy in all, they either
confined themselves and sat solitary, or when they went out, appeared in the habit
of close mourners, according to the decent custom of the country. Even the
Egyptians, many of them, out of the respect they had for Joseph, put themselves
into mourning for his father.
Verse 5
[5] My
father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me
in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I
pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.
He asked and obtained leave of Pharaoh to go
to Canaan, to attend the funeral of his father. It was a piece of necessary
respect to Pharaoh, that he would not go without leave; for we may suppose,
though his charge about the corn was long since over, yet he continued a prime
minister of state, and therefore would not be so long absent from his business
without license.
Verse 11
[11] And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in
the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians:
wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.
The solemn mourning for Jacob gave a name to
the place; Abel-mizraim - The mourning of the Egyptians: which served for a
testimony against the next generation of the Egyptians, who oppressed the
posterity of this Jacob, to whom their ancestors shewed such respect.
Verse 15
[15] And
when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will
peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did
unto him.
Joseph will peradventure hate us — While their father lived, they thought themselves safe under his shadow;
but now he was dead, they feared the worst. A guilty conscience exposeth men to
continual frights; those that would be fearless must keep themselves guiltless.
Verse 16
[16] And
they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he
died, saying,
Thy father did command — Thus in humbling ourselves to Christ by faith and repentance, we may
plead that it is the command of his father and our father we should do so.
Verse 17
[17] So
shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy
brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee,
forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept
when they spake unto him.
We are the servants of the God of thy father
- Not only children of the same Jacob, but worshippers of the same Jehovah.
Though we must be ready to forgive all that injure us, yet we must especially
take heed of bearing malice towards any that are the servants of the God of our
father; those we should always treat with a peculiar tenderness, for we and
they have the same master.
He wept when they spake to him — These were tears of sorrow for their suspicion of him, and tears of
tenderness upon their submission.
Verse 19
[19] And
Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Am I in the place of God? — He in his great humility thought they shewed him too much respect, and
faith to them in effect, as Peter to Cornelius, Stand up, I myself also am a
man. Make your peace with God, and then you will find it an easy matter to make
your peace with me.
Verse 20
[20] But
as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to
pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Ye thought evil, but God meant it unto good — In order to the making Joseph a greater blessing to his family than
otherwise he could have been.
Verse 21
[21] Now
therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he
comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
Fear not, I will nourish you — See what an excellent spirit Joseph was of, and learn of him to render
good for evil. He did not tell them they were upon their good behaviour, and he
would be kind to them if he saw they carried themselves well: no, he would not
thus hold them in suspence, nor seem jealous of them, though they had been
suspicious of him. He comforted them, and, to banish all their fears, he spake
kindly to them. Those we love and forgive we must not only do well for, but
speak kindly to.
Verse 24
[24] And
Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and 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.
I die, but God will surely visit you — To this purpose Jacob had spoken to him, Genesis 48:21. Thus must we comfort others with
the same comforts wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God, and
encourage them to rest on those promises which have been our support. Joseph
was, under God, both the protector and benefactor of his brethren, and what
would become of them now he was dying? Why let this be their comfort, God will
surely visit you. God's gracious visits will serve to make up the loss of our
best friends, and bring you out of this land - And therefore, they must not
hope to settle there, nor look upon it as their rest for ever; they must set
their hearts upon the land of promise, and call that their home.
Verse 25
[25] And
Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit
you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.
And ye shall carry up my bones from hence — Herein he had an eye to the promise, Genesis 15:13,14, and in God's name assures them
of the performance of it. In Egypt they buried their great men very honourably,
and with abundance of pomp; but Joseph prefers a plain burial in Canaan, and
that deferred almost two hundred years, before a magnificent one in Egypt. Thus
Joseph by faith in the doctrine of the resurrection, and the promise of Canaan,
gave commandment concerning his bones, Hebrews 11:22. He dies in Egypt; but lays his
bones at stake, that God will surely visit Israel, and bring them to Canaan.
Verse 26
[26] So
Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he
was put in a coffin in Egypt.
He was put in a coffin in Egypt — But not buried till his children had received their inheritance in
Canaan, Joshua 24:32. If the soul do but return to its
rest with God, the matter is not great, though the deserted body find not at
all, or not quickly, its rest in the grave. Yet care ought to be taken of the
dead bodies of the saints, in the belief of their resurrection; for there is a
covenant with the dust which shall be remembered, and a commandment given
concerning the bones.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on
Genesis》
50 Chapter 50
Verses 1-13
Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father
The honour paid to the departed Jacob:
I.
PRIVATE.
1. The tears of his family.
2. The respect paid to last wishes.
II. PUBLIC. (T.
H. Leale.)
Ceremonies after death:
The order of the ceremonies alluded to, and on the whole agreeing
with classical and monumental records, was as follows:
1. When the extinction of the vital breath could no longer be
doubted, the relatives began a preliminary mourning, perhaps observed during
the day of death only (Genesis 50:1), and consisting in public
lamentations, in covering the head and the face with mud (or dust), girding up
the garments, and beating the breasts.
2. Then the body was delivered up to the embalmers, who, in the case
of Jacob, completed their work in forty days (Genesis 50:3), though it more frequently
required seventy.
3. Simultaneously with the operations of embalming commenced the
chief or real mourning, which, lasting about seventy days (Genesis 50:3), usually ended together
with the process of mummification, but which, in the instance of the patriarch,
exceeded it by thirty days.
4. The body, after having been enclosed in a case of wood or stone (Genesis 50:26), was then either deposited
in the family vaults (Genesis 50:13), or placed in a sepulchral
chamber of the house of the nearest relative (Genesis 50:26). (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Three modes of embalming:
1. If the most expensive mode, estimated at one talent of silver, or
about £250, was employed, the brain was first taken out through the nostrils,
partly with an iron (or bronze) hook, and partly by the infusion of drugs; then
an appointed dissector made with a sharp Ethiopian stone, a deep incision
(generally about five inches long) in the left side, at a part before marked
out by a scribe; but having scarcely performed this operation, he hastily fled,
persecuted by those present with stones and imprecations, as one who was guilty
of the heinous crime of violently mutilating the body of a fellow-man. Then one
of the embalmers, holy men, who lived in the society of the priests, and
enjoyed unreserved access to the temples, extracted through the incision all intestines,
except the kidneys and the heart; every part of the viscera was spiced, rinsed
with palm-wine, and sprinkled with pounded perfumes. The body was next filled
with pure myrrh, cassia, and other aromatics, with the exception of
frankincense; sewed up, and steeped in natrum during seventy days, after the
expiration of which period it was washed, and wrapped in bandages of linen
cloth covered with gum. By this procedure all the parts of the body, even the
hair of the eyebrows and eyelids, were admirably preserved, and the very
features of the countenance remained unaltered.
2. The cost of the second mode of embalming amounted to twenty
mince, or about; £81. No incision was made, nor were the bowels taken out; but
the body was, by means of syringes, filled with oil of cedar at the abdomen,
and steeped in natrum for seventy days. When the oil was let out, the
intestines and vitals came out in a state of dissolution, while the natrum
consumed the flesh, so that nothing of the body remained except the skin and
the bones; and this skeleton was returned to the relatives of the deceased. The
possibility of an injection, as here described, without the aid of incisions,
has been doubted; and, in some cases, incisions have indeed been observed near
the rectum.
3. A third and very cheap method, employed for the poorer classes,
consisted merely in thoroughly rinsing the abdomen with syrmaea, a purgative
liquor (perhaps composed of an infusion of senna and cassia), and then steeping
the body in natrum for the usual seventy days. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Verses 15-19
Forgive
The message of his brethren to Joseph:
The death of great characters being often followed by great changes;
conscious guilt being always alive to fear; and the chasm which succeeds a
funeral, inviting a flood of foreboding apprehensions, they find out a new
source of trouble.
But how can they disclose their suspicions? To have done it personally would
have been too much for either him or them to bear, let him take it as he might.
So they “sent messengers unto him,” to sound him. We know not who they were;
but if Benjamin were one of them, it was no more than might be expected. Mark
the delicacy and exquisite tenderness of the message. Nothing is said of their
suspicions, only that the petition implies them; yet it is expressed in such a
manner as cannot offend, but must needs melt the heart of Joseph, even though
he had been possessed of less affection than he was.
1. They introduce themselves as acting under the direction of a
mediator, and this mediator was none other than their deceased father. He
commanded us, say they, before he died, that we should say thus and thus. And
was it possible for Joseph to be offended with them for obeying his orders? But
stop a moment. May we not make a similar use of what our Saviour said to us
before He died? He commanded us to say, “Our Father--forgive us our debts.” Can
we not make the same use of this as Jacob’ssons did of their father’s
commandment?
2. They present the petition as coming from their father: “Forgive,
I pray thee, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto
thee evil.” And was it possible to refuse complying with his father’s desire? The
intercessor, it is to be observed, does not go about to extenuate the sin of
the offenders, but frankly acknowledges it, and that, if justice were to take
its course, they must be punished. Neither does he plead their subsequent
repentance as the ground of pardon, but requests that it may be done for his
sake, or on account of the love which the offended bore to him.
3. They unite their own confession and petition to that of their
father. Moreover, though they must make no merit of anything pertaining to
themselves, yet if there be a character which the offended party is known to
esteem above all others, and they be conscious of sustaining that character, it
will be no presumption to make mention of it. And this is what they do, and
that in a manner which must make a deep impression upon a heart like that of
Joseph. “And now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God
of thy father.” It were sufficient to have gained their point, even though
Joseph had been reluctant, to have pleaded their being children of the same
father, and that father making it, as it were, his dying request; but the
consideration of their being “the servants of his father’s God” was overcoming.
But this is not all: they go in person, and “fall before his face,” and offer
to be his “servants.” This extreme abasement on their part seems to have given
a kind of gentle indignancy to Joseph’s feelings. His mind revolted at it. It
seemed to him too much. “Fear not, saith he: for am I in the place of God?” As
if he should say, “It may belong to God to take vengeance; but for a sinful
worm of the dust, who himself needs forgiveness, to do so, were highly
presumptuous: you have therefore nothing to fear from me. What farther
forgiveness you need, seek it of Him.” (A. Fuller.)
Verse 20
Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good
Good out of evil:
1.
God
permits evil, but from the evil He unceasingly causes good to proceed. If good
were not destined to conquer evil, God would be conquered, or rather God would
cease to be.
2. Since the Scriptures call us to be imitators of God, like Him we
must endeavour to draw good out of evil. For believing souls there is a Divine
alchemy. Its aim is to transform evil into good. Evil, considered as a trial,
comes from three different sources: it comes either from God, through the
afflictions of life; from men, through their animosity; from ourselves, through
our fault. We may learn Divine lessons from sorrow, and lessons of wisdom from
our enemies; we may even gather instruction from our faults. (E. Bersier, D.
D.)
Providence:
I. BY THE
PROVIDENCE OF GOD I MEAN THAT PRESERVING AND CONTROLLING SUPERINTENDENCE WHICH
HE EXERCISES OVER ALL THE OPERATIONS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, AND ALL THE
ACTIONS OF MORAL AGENTS or, as the Shorter Catechism has succinctly expressed
it, “His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His
creatures and all their actions.” That there is such a thing is clearly taught
in the Word of God, is matter of daily observation, and follows naturally and
necessarily from the very fact of creation. That which could be produced alone
by the will of the Omnipotent can be maintained and regulated only by the same
volition.
II. Advancing now
another step, it will follow from the reasoning which we have just concluded
THAT THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IS UNIVERSAL, having respect to every atom of
creation and every incident of life. Take any critical event, either in the
history of a nation or the life of an individual, and you will discover that it
has depended on the coming together and co-operation of many smaller things,
which, humanly speaking, might very easily have been, and indeed almost were,
different. Hence there can be no watchful superintendence over those things
which are confessedly important unless there be also a care over those which to
men seem trivial.
III. Advancing yet
another step, we may observe that THIS UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE IS CARRIED ON IN
HARMONY WITH, OR RATHER PERHAPS I OUGHT TO SAY BY MEANS OF, THOSE MODES OF
OPERATION WHICH WE CALL NATURAL LAWS. “This is, in fact, the great miracle of
Providence, that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes.”
IV. But taking yet
another step, we may lay it down as a further principle THAT GOD’S PROVIDENCE
IS CARRIED ON FOR MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ENDS. There is a retributive element in
the workings of Providence. We see, we cannot but see, that idleness is
followed by rags, intemperance by disease, dishonesty by suffering or
dishonour, and deceit by cruelty. One cannot take up a newspaper without having
that fact sternly confronting him from almost every column; and though the
Nemesis may be long in overtaking the guilty, sooner or later the wrong-doer is
brought low, and men are constrained to say, “Verily He is a God that judgeth
in the earth.” Thus in the universe of God the moral and the physical go hand
in hand, and still the law is vindicated in morals as in the fields of the
agriculturist: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
V. But if that be
so, we are prepared now to put the copestone on the pyramid of our discourse by
saying THAT THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD CONTEMPLATES THE HIGHEST GOOD OF THOSE WHO
ARE ON THE SIDE OF HOLINESS AND TRUTH. “All things work together for good to
them who love God.” “God meant it unto good.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Difficulties in providence mitigated by revelation
The sound of the words is comforting. They were spoken by a
brother to his brethren, in reference to events long past, yet still vivid and
present to memory and to conscience. No sorrow, and no sin, ever quite dies. No
lapse of time, no length of experience, no depth of repentance, can absolutely
divide the one life into two, while the person is the same, or cut off the
thing that was from the thing that is. But there may come a time when even
suffering--in a certain sense, when even sin--may be regarded in a light
subdued and softened; when the bitterest trial of the whole life, however
mingled and entangled (as most of life’s bitterest trials are) with human
unkindness and human sin, shall be seen to have had in it a kind as well as a
cruel intention; when the old man, or the dying man, shall be able to
distinguish in the retrospect between man’s part in it and God’s; saying, with
the noble-hearted and saintly man who speaks in the text, “As for you, ye
thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” The mind is staggered and
astounded by the sight of the prevalence of suffering amongst beings altogether
or comparatively innocent of sin. The lower you descend in the scale of being,
the more unaccountable does this suffering appear to you. That a wicked man
should find misery in his wickedness; that, even as the vultures gather to the
carcase, so sorrow and trouble should fasten upon the evil-doer--this is to be
expected, if the rule is the rule of justice. It is more difficult to
understand why this punishment should extend itself to persons not implicated
in the particular ill-doing; why, for example, a profligate spendthrift son
should be allowed to ruin his father, or why the sins of a drunken dissolute
rather should be visited upon his children (as they often are seen to be) to
the third and fourth generation. Still, in these cases, as none can plead absolute
innocence, a perfectly upright nature and an entirely sinless life, it seems
not wholly iniquitous that there should not be an exact discrimination, in
effects and consequences, between the particular sin and the general. It is
when we see the overflowing of that misery which is engendered of sin upon
whole classes and departments of being which have never sinned and never
fallen; when we see the animal world laid under the power, and subjected to the
uncontrolled tyranny, of a race called rational, but employing reason, largely
or chiefly, in ingenuity of sinning it is then that the heart revolts against
the order of things established, and finds it most of all difficult to
understand in what possible sense the text can have an application here, “But
God meant it unto good.” Now, the difficulty, though it must ever press, and
press heavily, upon thoughtful men, is evidently much lightened by the
suggestions of revelation, as to a coming time of refreshing and restoration,
when these innocent ones shall cease to suffer, and the whole creation, now
“groaning and travailing,” shall be delivered, as St. Paul writes, evidently
(to careful students of the passage) with reference not only or chiefly to the
human creation, “into the glorious liberty,” into the liberty belonging to and
accompanying the glory, “of the children of God.” There may be much that is
unexplained--a dark fringe and border of mystery must ever lie around each
revelation of the unseen--still, in so far as there is revelation, there is light
and there is reconciliation. With it we can believe at least that all shall be
well; we can wait, without credulity, for the key and for the lamp; we can
expect, and not irrationally, a day, near or far off, when the text shall
receive, in this connection, its warrant and its demonstration, “But God meant
it unto good.” There are two thoughts, besides that of the glorious rest
reserved for God’s people, which bring with them, wherever they are
entertained, harmony and reconciliation at once.
1. One of these is the length of the Divine vision. “A thousand
years are with the Lord as one day.” “He sees,” it is written again, “the end
from the beginning.” “God meant it unto good”--yea, the loftiest good and the
most durable of all--if He taught one soul, by the unroofing or the unbuilding
of its home here, the comparative, the superlative importance of a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. If when He severed from you, by death
or banishment or (sadder still) alienation, that friend who was your life, He
thus made you look onward towards heaven, or upward towards Himself; if He
strongly, sharply, roughly, rudely rebuked your tendency to make man your
trust, and to hew out for yourself broken cisterns which can hold no living
water--was it not unto good? Or if, by a more conspicuous visitation of one of
His four sore judgments, He should at last teach a frivolous though gallant
nation that by Him alone counsels are established, by Him alone republics, like
kings, govern, and that without Him there is neither strength nor permanence,
was not this too “meant unto good”? Learn of God the length of His vision;
learn not to weigh with the light weights and false balances of time, but with
that “ shekel of the sanctuary” which is the recollection of eternity, and you
will find no cause to impugn God’s wisdom or God’s justice in the arrangements
of His providence, whether as concerning men or nations. You will say, “He hath
done all things well”; and even when He seems to provoke the prophet’s
question, “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” you
will be able also to answer it in the end, out of a full heart and a firm
conviction, “But He meant it unto good.”
2. The other thought which suggests itself as tending powerfully
towards the justification of the ways of God is that of the largeness of the
Divine view. It differs in some respects from the former, as the breadth
differs from the length of the vision. It has special reference to those
dealings in which sin is concerned. No reflection, because no revelation,
reconciles the true heart to the existence of evil. That mystery lies still in
its darkness. We fret and we struggle against it in vain. But that mystery is
not one of God’s mysteries. God’s secrets are always secret’s told. You will
find no instance in Scripture of the term “mystery” applied to things
incomprehensible. God’s mysteries, indicoverable to human search, are
apprehensible, when revealed, to human faith. The existence of evil is no
mystery, because it is a fact; the origin of evil is no mystery, in God’s
sense, because it is not revealed. But, evil being recognized as a fact and
unexplained as a secret, the question which remains is all-practical, and the
text forces it upon our attention--Is there any sense in which God has to do
with it? any sense in which God, in His mercy and compassion, deigns to use it
as His instrument “unto good”? Does He merely threaten it with judgment present
and to come? Or does He, as the text seems to say, coerce and even rule it for the
welfare of His children? We would tread warily on this perilous ground; yet
firmly too, under the guidance of the Holy One. We say that even sin is made,
in some sense, to confess and to glorify God. The sin of these men addressed in
the text was made to save life. The sin of the murderers of the great Antitype
of this saint was made to save souls. Yes, we cannot evade the conclusion, “As
for you, ye thought evil, but God meant it unto good.” And it gives a very
magnificent, however incomplete, conception of the greatness and goodness of
God, that He forces even this inexplicable, this adverse existence, this sin
which He hates, into subserviency to the good of His redeemed. (Dean
Vaughan.)
God’s providence
In the ancient city of Chester, which is one of the few links
connecting the world of this nineteenth century with the age of the Roman rule
in Great Britain, there is an old building, which some of you, perhaps, have
seen, having these words engraved on the lintel of the door; “God’s providence
is mine exheritance.” It is said that when the plague last visited the city
that was the only house which escaped the visitation, and so its inmates
sculptured these words upon it as a record of their gratitude. I trust that
God’s providence was the heritage of many who died as really as of those who
were preserved. But the Christian may always adopt that inscription as his own.
God’s providence is his inheritance, and is so as much and as really when he is
suffering calamity or enduring persecution as when he is prosperous and
honoured. Friends, if we could but believe that, how much of the bitterness
would be taken out of our trials! (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
God’s providential care
In Palestine and Asia Minor the winter of 1873-4 was unusually
severe. The snow lay at one time from two to five feet deep in the streets and
on the flat roofs of the houses. Many roofs were crushed, and many houses fell
in ruins under the unwonted burden. In Bethlehem, where Jesus was born,
thirteen houses were thus prostrated. In Gaza, where of old the temple of Dagon
fell and slew Samson and three thousand of the Philistines, the following
remarkable incident occurred in connection with the great snowstorm of February
7th and 8th:--A robber during the night broke into the house. After having
collected several articles on the lower floor, he entered the chamber where the
master of the house was peacefully sleeping. His little child was also asleep
in his cradle. The robber reflected that he might be betrayed by the child, so
he took the cradle and set it outside of the house near the door. The child
began to cry. The mother hastens to the cradle, but finds it gone. The child
kept on crying. The father awoke and exclaimed, “The child is crying out of
doors. How can that be?” They both hasten to the cradle, wondering who could
have taken it out. While they are wondering and speculating on the strange
circumstance, the roof, pressed under the burden, falls, and in a moment their
house is in ruins. But they are all three unharmed. In the morning, when the
stones and lumber were taken away, a man was found dead among the ruins. The
things he had stolen were found partly sticking out of his pockets, partly tied
up in a bundle on his back. Thus God and death had overtaken him. He carried
out the child lest he should wake his father and mother by crying, and so,
without meaning it, by the wonderful providence of God, he rescued the lives of
all the family, while he himself died in his sin. How truly were the words of
Joseph to his brothers fulfilled in him--“Ye meant it for evil, but God meant
it for good.” “Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
God’s angel averted the evil which the enemy would have gladly done. It would
be difficult to find a more striking instance illustrating God’s providential
care--saving those whom He resolves to save, even by the agency of the wicked,
whose sin He condemns; and while He employs the agency of the sinner as a means
of life, visits upon him, according to his deserts, judgment and death.
Verse 21
He comforted them, and spake kindly unto them
Joseph’s last forgiveness of his brethren:
I.
THEIR
NEED OF FORGIVENESS.
II. THE PLEA ON
WHICH THEY URGE IT (Genesis 50:16-18).
1. The dying request of their father.
2. Their own free confession of guilt.
3. Their father’s influence with God.
4. Their willingness to utterly abase themselves.
III. THE
COMPLETENESS OF THEIR FORGIVENESS.
1. He speaks words of peace.
2. He will not presume to put himself judicially in the place of
God.
Verses 22-26
Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit
you
Dying Joseph:
I.
SATISFIED
WITH THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.
II. FULL OF FAITH.
1. Sure of God’s covenant.
2. Superior to the world.
3. The possessor of immortality. (T. H. Leale.)
The last days of Joseph:
I. THE REMOTE
CONSEQUENCES OF SIN (Genesis 50:15-17). To fear God and keep
His commandments, always, is the only safe way and sure way for the soul. Men
are peopling their future with calamity when they go one step out of the right
path.
II. The last days
of Joseph were an illustration of THE MYSTERIES OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE (Genesis 50:20). The strange problems of
human history should not cause us to lose faith. Behind the web into which so
much that seems chaotic and unintelligible is being wrought, God sits wise to
purpose and almighty to accomplish; and when His work is done, the assenting
acclaim of the universe will proclaim, “Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King
of Saints.” Morbid views of life are unwarranted. What God pleases is best, and
what God pleases is sure to come to pass.
III. Very
noticeable also is THE FAITH WHICH COMFORTED THE LAST DAYS OF JOSEPH (Genesis 50:24). He saw already the
blooming fields and laden vineyards which his descendants were to inherit, and
he “took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you,
and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.” That same sort of faith has a place
and power among men now. Outlook and confidence are not the peculiar privileges
of any one age. The victories of faith are world-wide and world-old.
IV. Notice also
some INCIDENTAL TEACHINGS of this passage.
1. The last days of Joseph were the natural result of his first
days. He began right.
2. Righteousness pays in the long run. Men who are tempted by the
speciousness of strong temptation do well to listen to the Saviour’s question
“What shall it profit?” God’s pay-days may be in the future, but He pays well
when the time of reckoning comes.
3. What power there is in a good life. (E. S. Atwood.)
The Israelite’s grave in a foreign land:
I. THE LIFE OF
JOSEPH.
1. Its outward circumstances.
(1) Chequered with misfortune. It is the law of our humanity, as that
of Christ, that we must be perfected through suffering. And he who has not
discerned the Divine sacredness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which is
concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is. The Cross, manifested as the
necessity of the highest life, alone interprets it.
2. The spirit of Joseph’s inner life.
II. THE DEATH OF
JOSEPH WAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS LIFE.
1. The funeral was a homage paid to goodness. Little is said in the
text of Joseph’s funeral. To know what it was, we must turn to the earlier part
of the chapter, where that of Jacob is mentioned. A mourning of seventy days; a
funeral whose imposing greatness astonished the Canaanites, they said, “This is
a grievous mourning to the Egyptians.” Seventy days were the time, or nearly
so, fixed by custom for a royal funeral; and Jacob was so honoured, not for his
own sake, but because he was Joseph’s father. We cannot suppose that Joseph’s
own obsequies were on a scale less grand. Now, weigh what is implied in this.
This was not the homage paid to talent, nor to wealth, nor to birth. Joseph was
a foreign slave, raised to eminence by the simple power of goodness. Every man
in Egypt felt, at his death, that he had lost a friend. There were thousands
whose tears would fall when they recounted the preservation of lives dear to
them in the years of famine, and felt that they owed those lives to Joseph.
Grateful Egypt mourned the good foreigner; and, for once, the honours of this
world were given to the graces of another.
2. We collect from this, besides, a hint of the resurrection of the
body. The Egyptian mode of sepulture was embalming; and the Hebrews, too,
attached much importance to the body after death. Joseph commanded his
countrymen to preserve his bones to take away with them. In this we detect that
unmistakable human craving, not only for immortality, but immortality
associated with a form. The opposite to spirituality is not materialism, but
sin. The form of matter does not degrade. For what is this world itself but the
form of Deity, whereby the manifoldness of His mind and beauty manifests, and
where in it clothes itself? It is idle to say that spirit can exist apart from
form. We do not know that it can. Perhaps even the Eternal Himself is more
closely bound to His works than our philosophical systems have conceived.
Perhaps matter is only a mode of thought. At all events, all that we know or
can know of mind exists in union with form. The resurrection of the body is the
Christian verity, which meets and satisfies those cravings of the ancient
Egyptian mind, that expressed themselves in the process of embalming, and the
religious reverence felt for the very bones of the departed by the Hebrews.
Finally, in the last will and testament of Joseph we find faith. He commanded
his brethren, and through them his nation, to carry his bones with them when
they migrated to Canaan. In the Epistle to the Hebrews that is reckoned an
evidence of faith. “By faith Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones.” How
did he know that his people would ever quit Egypt? We reply, by faith. Not
faith in a written word, for Joseph had no Bible; rather, faith in that
conviction of his own heart which is itself the substantial evidence of faith.
For religious faith ever dreams of something higher, more beautiful, more
perfect, than the state of things with which it feels itself surrounded. Ever,
a day future lies before it; the evidence for which is its own hope. (F. W.
Robertson, M. A.)
Comfort from the thought of the eternity of God:
These words bring before us the contrast between the mortality of
men and the eternity of God. They die, but He abides “the King eternal,
immortal, the only wise God.” Now this truth is full of comfort, on the one
hand, to the dying servant of God, and, on the other, to the bereaved who are
called to mourn his loss.
1. It is full of comfort to the dying, for whatever of good he has
done in the world shall not be lost when he is gone. In the words of the
appropriate inscription on the monument to the Wesleys in Westminster Abbey,
“God buries the workers, but He carries on the work.” The sower may die, but
the seed which fell from his hands matures into a harvest which is reaped by
others, and becomes in its turn the food of multitudes and the germ of many
harvests more, I stood once on a Highland hill in my native land, and marked a
spot upon the landscape greener than all else around. When I inquired into the
reason, I learned that for many, many years there had been a village there, and
that the gardens of the villagers so long under cultivation kept unwonted
verdure still. So, through the operations of God’s grace, the earth is greener
where His servants have been at work, though the servants themselves have long
since passed away. The operations of grace, like those of Nature, go on after
men have died, because God lives to maintain them, and nothing done for Him is
ever allowed by Him to come to nothing. So when we are called to leave the
earth, the work in which we delighted shall not be lost. We die, but God lives;
and we may he sure that under His care it will flourish.
2. Then what consolation comes from the eternity of God to those who
are bereaved! Look at the 90th Psalm. It was written by Moses in the
wilderness, when he was depressed by the death of those who had reached man’s
estate when he led them out of Egypt. There came a time when he was left
wellnigh alone of all his generation; and then he took his comfort out of the
permanence of God, singing, “Lord Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all
generations; from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God,” and by that he was
upheld. We see the same thing in David’s case; for not far from the close of his
life, and when many of his early companions had gone into “the silent land,” he
wrote the 18th Psalm, in which he said, “The Lord liveth, and blessed be my
Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.” Yes, “the Lord liveth,”
therefore let us not refuse to be comforted when dear ones are taken from our
side. He can sustain us and He will. He is as near us as He was when they were
with us, and they were but the agents whom He used for our welfare. But He is
not tied to any instrumentality, and He can guide, uphold, and bless by one as
well as by another. He takes away the earthly prop that we may learn to lean
the more thoroughly on Himself. “He will surely visit us”; yea, He will be ever
with us, and when our death-hour comes we shall be with Him. (W. M. Taylor,
D. D.)
All die, but God’s work proceeds
I. THAT THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SERVANTS OF GOD MUST DIE. Even the Great Master Himself died.
II. THAT THOUGH
THEY DIE, THE CAUSE IN WHICH THEY WERE ENGAGED WILL MOVE ON. (R. Stodhart.)
The death of Joseph:
I. HIS BODILY
FRAILTY. “I die.”
1. Not all his honours and dignities can exempt him. The princely
robe must be exchanged for the winding-sheet.
2. Not all his eminent piety can buy him off. It is the common lot.
No exception to this rule.
3. Will you not remember this? Is it wise to forget it, or try to
forget. The one thing that’s certain in your earthly history. Ought it to be
crowded out by a multitude utterly uncertain? There is nothing else I can
foresee. I cannot tell how long you will live. I cannot tell whether rich or
poor, strong or weak, joyful or sorrowful. No, I cannot discern anything of the
complexion of your course. But this I know, that your course will have an end.
And that the day, the hour will come, when (if syllable anything) you will say,
“I die.” That day--don’t let it take you by surprise. Don’t leave the
preparation for death until death comes. But live habitually prepared. And see
whether it is not possible to triumph over death.
II. HIS ABOUNDING
FAITH.
1. See his calmness in prospect of departure. “I die!” That’s all he
has to say about it. No fears--no doubts--of any kind whatever. No vain regrets
that his life come to an end. No painful forebodings of what may follow. It is
not everyone can meet the last messenger like that. But it is possible to do
so. His father Jacob did the same.
2. The consolation he gives those he leaves. “I die, but God will
surely visit.” Your earthly friend may be taken--your heavenly not forsake you.
Nay l more than this--“He will bring you out of this land, unto the land which
He sware to, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Nearly three hundred years had passed
away since this oath first uttered. More than one hundred must still pass
before the time for its fulfilment. How it will be fulfilled Joseph does not
know. But fulfilled it must be, for God had spoken it. Mark, brethren, this
triumphant faith. My bones (says this dying man) shall not rest in Egypt. You
may put them in sarcophagus--but label it “Passenger to Canaan.” For when the
people go to the promised land, take it with them. “Where they go, I will
go--where they rest, I will rest. And there will I be buried!”
3. I call that abounding faith. So the apostle seems to think it, in
Epistle to Hebrews. For he gives it a niche in that temple of faith, in chap.
11. By the side of Abel, and Noah, and Enoch--Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.
Figure of Joseph, with this inscription, “By faith Joseph.” And was this faith
a mere delusion?
III. A WORD OF
APPLICATION.
1. Would not such faith be precious to you? Would it not be pleasant
to be able to say, “I die!” without single fear. And to say to those we leave
behind, “God will surely?”
2. Are there no precious promises for you? You are a sinner, I
know--“If we confess our sins.” “The wages of sin is death.” “Gift of God is
eternal life.” Accept these promises--go and plead them. And all fear of death
taken away--“Have a desire.” I know you cannot take all your loved ones with
you. And you may have many a fear on their behalf. “Be careful for nothing.” “Leave
thy fatherless children, I will preserve them.” Widow’s trust.
3. Is there not precious confirmation of these? Ay! more precious
than any Joseph ever knew. He knew there should be seed of Abraham, blessing to
world--He saw bleeding lamb, emblem. But we can say the seed of Abraham has
come--Great Sacrifice offered. “Christ has died.” How all the precious promises
sealed with precious blood. “He that spared not.” (F. Tucker, B. A.)
Joseph’s dying assurance to his brethren:
I. THE REFLECTION
WHICH JOSEPH MAKES UPON HIS PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES. “I die,” or am dying.
II. THE ASSURANCE
HE GIVES THEM, THAT GOD WOULD VISIT THEM.
III. The further
assurance he gives them, THAT GOD WOULD BRING THEM INTO THE LAND OF CANAAN.
Application:
I. To aged
Christians.
1. Frequently to think and speak of dying.
2. Reflect that God will visit and take care of your posterity when
you are gone.
3. Remind your posterity of this, for their encouragement, when you
are dying and leaving the world, that “God will surely visit them.”
II. To those
descendants of good men, who are in the prime, or middle of their days.
1. Encourage yourselves with this thought, that God will surely
visit you when your parents and friends die.
2. Pray earnestly for His visits.
3. Be prepared to receive His visits. (3. Often.)
Verse 25
Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will
surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence
Joseph’s faith in God
This is the one act of Joseph’s life which the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews selects as the sign that he too lived by faith.
It was at once a proof of how entirely he believed God’s promise, and of how
earnestly he longed for its fulfilment. It was a sign of how little he felt
himself at home in Egypt, though to outward appearance he had become completely
one of its people. The ancestral spirit was in him true and strong, though he
was “ separate from his brethren.” This incident, with the New Testament
commentary on it, leads us to a truth which we often lose sight of.
I. FAITH IS
ALWAYS THE SAME, THOUGH KNOWLEDGE VARIES. There is a vast difference between a
man’s creed and a man’s faith. The one may vary-does vary within very wide
limits; the other remains the same. What makes a Christian is not theology in
the head, but faith and love in the heart. The dry light of the understanding
is of no use to anybody. Our creed must be turned into a faith before it has
power to bless and save.
II. FAITH HAS ITS
NOBLEST OFFICE IN DETACHING FROM THE PRESENT. All his life long, from the day
of his captivity, Joseph was an Egyptian in outward seeming. He filled his
place at Pharaoh’s court; but his dying words open a window into his soul, and
betray how little he had felt that he belonged to the order of things in which
he had been content to live. He too confessed that here he had no continuing
city, but sought one to come. Dying, he said, “Carry my bones up from hence.”
Living, the hope of the inheritance must have burned in his heart as a hidden
light, and made him an alien everywhere but upon its blessed soft. Faith will
produce just such effects. Does anything but Christian faith engage the heart
to love and all the longing wishes to set towards the things that are unseen
and eternal? Whatever makes a man live in the past and in the future raises
him; but high above all others stand those to whom the past is an apocalypse of
God, with Calvary for its centre, and all the future is fellowship with Christ
and joy in the heavens.
III. FAITH MAKES
MEN ENERGETIC IN THE DUTIES OF THE PRESENT. Joseph was a true Hebrew all his
days; but that did not make him run away from Pharaoh’s service. He lived by
hope, and that made him the better worker in the passing moment. True Christian
faith teaches us that this is the workshop where God makes men, and the next
the palace where He shows them. The end makes the means important. This is the
secret of doing with our might whatsoever our hand finds to do--to trust
Christ, to live with Him and by the hope of the inheritance. (A. Maclaren,
D. D.)
Joseph’s instructions as to the disposal of his body:
To keep alive among them the truth that they were yet to go to
Canaan, and to preserve in the midst of them the evidence of his faith that
they should ultimately possess that land, he left his body, embalmed, yet
unburied, among them, with the instruction that when they did go, they should
take it along with them. They say that at the feasts of Egypt it was usual to bring
a mummy to the table, that the guests might be reminded thereby of their
mortality. But Joseph here left his coffined body to his people, that by its
presence among them, and preservation by them, they might never forget that
Egypt was not their final resting-place--their national home--and might be
stimulated to hold themselves in constant readiness to arise and go to their
own land. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The fulfilment of Joseph’s request as to his body:
How was this request of Joseph’s fulfilled? Read with me these two
passages, and you will see: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for
he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit
you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you” (Exodus 13:19). It was a terrible night.
The destroying angel had passed through Egypt and laid low the first-born, in
every household. The panic-stricken Pharaoh had ordered the Israelites away at
once, and they started in great haste. Yet even in that crisis they did not
forget the descending obligation of the oath which their fathers had sworn to
Joseph, and they took time to carry with them his remains. Read again: “And the
bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried
they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor
the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of silver; and it became the
inheritance of the children of Joseph” (Joshua 24:32). Thus, between the death
and burial of Joseph an interval of probably from three to four hundred years
elapsed, during all of which his remains were kept by the children of Israel, a
witness to the faith by which he was animated, and a prophecy of their ultimate
possession of the land of Canaan, so that the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews had a right to say, “By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the
departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones”
(Hebrews 11:22). (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Dying orders:
The narrative reminds us of the memorable orders given by Lord
Nelson when dying. As his comrades raised him from the deck where he had fallen
after receiving the fatal wound, he exclaimed, “I die.” On his way to the
cabin, whither they immediately conveyed him, his observant eye perceived that
the tiller ropes had been shot away. Still interested in circumstances from
which he was soon to take a final departure, he instantly gave the order,
“Replace the ropes.” Laid upon a cot, he said to the attendant surgeon, “Leave
me; render aid to those who can be profited by it.” Entertaining the same
twofold conviction he entertained when he issued the order for battle--victory
for England, death for Nelson--he lay calmly awaiting the anticipated result.
Thinking, apparently, of the signal which for the encouragement of his soldiers
he had exhibited from the mast-head as the two fleets came within
range--“England expects every man to do his duty to-day” he whispered, I have
done my duty. As Hardy, the captain of the ship, reported, “The victory is
complete,” he slowly raised himself upon his arm to give his last order: “Bring
the fleet to anchor to-night.” When reminded that this duty would devolve upon
another, he sternly exclaimed, “Hardy, obey my order; anchor to-night.”
Obedience to that dying order might have saved many a dismantled ship and
hundreds of lives. But when the winds which scattered and nearly wrecked
England’s victorious navy were howling through the torn rigging and sinking one
disabled ship after another, the voice which gave this needed order, and could
have enforced it, was silent in death. Nelson’s last energies were expended in
giving a command in the interests of a nation whose honour he had died in
defending: a command which he hoped would be obeyed after his death, though it
might call for the surrender of present advantages in the anticipation of
future security. Believing fully that a severe storm was pending, he gave an
order which, though it could be of no value to him, might prove, if obeyed, an
inestimable blessing to those who should survive him, and might save England’s
victorious fleet. In this incident three facts are especially worthy of note,
as having a parallel in the dying words of Joseph: the conviction that he stood
by death’s river, that victory awaited his countrymen, that they needed an
order which should be obeyed after his death. (J. S. Van Dyke.)
Verse 26
So Joseph died
The death of Joseph:
I.
JOSEPH’S
DEATH WAS THAT OF EMINENTLY GOOD MAN. Perhaps the best man of the Old
Testament. He was not surprised by death, nor dismayed at its coming. He had
lived to meet it--lived for the life beyond death--not for present indulgence,
nor in heedless disregard of his highest good--but with wise and faithful
reference to the will of God and the monitions of the Holy Spirit.
II. JOSEPH’S DEATH
WAS THE DEATH OF A GREAT PROPHET. (P. Whitehead, D. D.)
Joseph died:
Joseph died! Then after all, he was but mortal, like ourselves I
It is important to remember this, lest we should let any of the great lessons
slip away under the delusion that Joseph was more than man. We have seen
fidelity so constant, heroism so enduring, magnanimity so--I had almost
said--divine, that we are apt to think there must have been something more than
human about this man. No. He was mortal, like ourselves. His days were consumed
as are our days; little by little his life ebbed out; and he was found, as we
shall be found, dead. So, then, if he was but mortal, why can’t we be as great
in our degree? If he was only a man, why can’t we emulate his virtue, so far as
our circumstances will enable us to do so? We can’t all be equally heroic and
sublime. We can all be, by the grace of God, equally holy, patient, and
trustful in our labour. Joseph died! Thus the best, wisest, and most useful men
are withdrawn from their ministry! This is always a mystery in life: That the
good man should be taken away in the very prime of his usefulness; that the
eloquent tongue should be smitten with death; that a kind father should be
withdrawn from his family circle; and that wretches who never have a noble
thought, who do not know what it is to have a brave heavenly impulse, should
seem to have a tenacity of life that is unconquerable; that drunken men and
hard-hearted individuals should live on and on--while the good, and the true,
and the wise, and the beautiful, and the tender, are snapped off in the midst
of their days and translated to higher climes. The old proverb says, “Whom the
gods love die young.” Sirs! There is another side to this life, otherwise these
things would be inexplicable--would be chief of the mysteries of God’s ways. We
must wait, therefore, until we see the circle completed before we sit in
judgment upon God. Joseph died! Then the world can get on without its greatest
and best men. This is very humiliating to some persons. Here is, for example, a
man who has never been absent from his business for twenty years. You ask him
to take a day’s holiday, go to a church opening or to a religious festival. He
says, “My dear sir! Why, the very idea! The place would go to rack and ruin if
I was away four-and-twenty hours.” It comes to pass that God sends a most
grievous disease upon the man--imprisons him in the darkened chamber for six
months. When he gets up, at the end of six months, he finds the business has
gone on pretty much as well as if he had been wearing out his body and soul for
it all the time. Very humiliating to go and find things getting on without us!
Who are we? The preacher may die, but the truth will be preached still. The
minister perishes--the ministry is immortal. This ought to teach us, therefore,
that we are not so important, after all; that our business is to work all the
little hour that we have; and to remember that God can do quite as well without
us as with us, and that He puts an honour upon us in asking us to touch the
very lowest work in any province of the infinite empire of His truth and light.
(J. Parker, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》