regarded it as a certainty, that Israel would be led out of Egypt, especially after the last wish expressed by Jacob. But this did not involve so full and clear an insight into the ways of Jehovah, as to lead Joseph to recognise in his own career a special appointment of the covenant God, and to describe it as a gracious work of Jehovah.[1]
The disappearance of the name Jehovah, therefore, is to be explained, partly from the fact that previous revelations and acts of grace had given rise to other phrases expressive of the idea of Jehovah, which not only served as substitutes for this name of the covenant God, but in certain circumstances were much more appropriate; and partly from the fact that the sons of Jacob, including Joseph, did not so distinctly recognise in their course the saving guidance of the covenant God, as to be able to describe it as the work of Jehovah. This imperfect insight, however, is intimately connected with the fact that the direct revelations of God had ceased; and that Joseph, although chosen by God to be the preserver of the house of Israel and the instrument in accomplishing His plans of salvation, was separated at a very early period from the fellowship of his father's house, and formally naturalized in Egypt, and though endowed with the supernatural power to interpret dreams, was not favoured, as Daniel afterwards was in the Chaldaean court, with visions or revelations of God. Consequently we cannot place Joseph on a level with the three patriarchs, nor assent to the statement, that “as the noblest blossom of the patriarchal life is seen in Joseph, as in him the whole meaning of the patriarchal life is summed up and fulfilled, so in Christ we see the perfect blossom and sole fulfilment of the whole of the Old Testament dispensation” (Kurtz, Old Covenant ii. 95), as being
- ↑ Note: The very fact that the author of Genesis, who wrote in the light of the further development and fuller revelation of the ways of the Lord with Joseph and the whole house of Jacob, represents the career of Joseph as a gracious interposition of Jehovah (Gen 39), ), and yet makes Joseph himself speak of Elohim as arranging the whole, is by no means an unimportant testimony to the historical fidelity and truth of the narrative; of which further proofs are to be found in the faithful and exact representation of the circumstances, manners, and customs of Egypt, as Hengstenberg has proved in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, from a comparison of these accounts of Joseph's life with ancient document and monuments connected with this land.
