The Story of Joseph and His Brethren/Part 2/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
BESIDES considering Joseph in relation to his father, we have to consider him in relation to his brethren, whose conduct towards him comes now to be noticed. As Leah represented the Jewish church, Joseph's elder brethren, who were the sons of Leah and of the handmaids, represented the Jewish people. The Lord resembled Joseph even in this,—that the Jews were His brethren according to the flesh. In the Gospels we read of the Lord's brethren in particular, who were His near relations by His mother Mary; and they shared in the general unbelief in Jesus, for of them it is recorded—"Neither did His brethren believe on Him." (John vii. 5.) But the Jews, generally, hated and persecuted Jesus, as Joseph's brethren hated and persecuted him. Jesus Himself testified of the Jews—"They have both seen and hated both Me and my Father." (John xv. 24.) And not only had the Jews hated Jesus, but they hated Him without a cause. Speaking of their hatred, the Lord said—"This cometh to pass, that the Word might be fulfilled, they hated Me without a cause." (25.)
While the brethren of Joseph represented the Jewish people in general, they represented the rulers among the Jews in particular; for the twelve sons of Jacob represented the same as the twelve apostles—the leaders and teachers of the people. Hence the sons of Jacob are spoken of as feeding their father s flock; and you know that in the divine Word the Lord's people are often called His sheep and His flock, and their ministers and teachers are called shepherds; and among us it is common to call ministers pastors, that is, shepherds.
When Joseph was sent by his father to see his brethren, they had gone to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And when Jacob sent his son away he said to him—"Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and with the flocks." And so Joseph went with a message of peace, on an errand of love
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prophecies of the Lord being cast into the pit. As in Lamentations iv. 20—"The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits." Before Joseph's brethren cast him into a pit, they stript him of his coat. The Jews literally stript Jesus of His coat before His crucifixion. In the fifteenth chapter of Mark we find that, when Pilate had delivered Jesus into the hands of the people to be scourged and crucified, they put a purple robe on Him, and a crown of thorns on His head, and in profane mockery saluted Him, saying—"Hail, King of the Jews." It is not said that they stript Jesus of His own raiment, for this is implied by their scourging Him; but when we read at the twentieth verse that they took off the purple robe and put His own clothes on Him, we learn that they had previously taken His own clothes off. This was done again at His crucifixion, when they parted His outer garments and cast lots on His vesture, which was his inner garment The outer garment of Jesus was a similar one to the coat of Joseph. This garment, too, like the coat of Joseph, was of several pieces, while His vesture was of one piece, without seam, woven from the top throughout. (John xix. 23.) Applied to the Word, we know that the inner garment represented the internal sense of the Word, which is wrought by infinite wisdom into one seamless vesture of perfect truth and loveliness. But the outer garment of the letter, though perfectly adapted to its purpose, is less perfect in itself, less perfect in unity; it is not seamless, but is made of pieces, yet exquisitely joined together so as to form one garment According to the figure already employed, the internal sense is like white light which includes all colours blended in one. God is said to be clothed with light as with a garment; and this is the seamless vesture with which the Lord is clothed. But the external sense of the Word is like the white light when it falls upon a cloud descending in drops of rain, where it is divided or broken into the many colours of the glorious arch that spans the heavens—the beautiful rainbow. The natural sense of the divine Word is indeed the pure light of the internal sense broken into its many colours, when it falls upon the cloud of the letter; and so the Word in the letter compared in Scripture both to the rainbow and the cloud. When the soldiers at the Lord's crucifixion rent the Lord's garments in pieces they represented what the Jewish church has done with the Word of the Lord, for they divided and dissipated its divine truths, and so destroyed it in and among themselves.
It is not, however, said of Joseph's brethren when they stript him of his coat, that they rent or divided it; but they did what expressed a still greater malignity, and which had a still worse meaning. "They killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood." The killing the kid was a figurative killing of Joseph himself. Their first design was to imbrue their hands in their brother's blood, and to take his blood-stained garments to their father; and the blood of the kid was but a substitute for that of his son. Blood-stained garments are mentioned in the Word; in one striking instance in reference to the Lord Jesus Himself. In the nineteenth chapter of Revelation, where the second coming of the Lord is predicted and figuratively described. He is represented as coming riding on a white horse, "clothed with a vesture dipped in blood" What this vesture means we can be at no loss to understand; for it is there said that His name is called "the Word of God." The Lord came as the Word, that is. He came spiritually by opening His Word, enabling men to see, and know, and receive Him. Now if, as we have seen, the literal sense of the Word is meant by the Lord's garment, then some particular condition of the Word must be meant to be described, when the Lord, as the Word, is said to be clothed in a garment dipped in blood. This representation means, that at the end of the church, when the Lord should come to raise up a new church. His Word would have suffered violence. Bloody men are spoken of in the Word in the strongest terms of condemnation and abhorrence, and it is even said that "the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." (Psa. v.6.) When, therefore, it is recorded that Joseph's brethren dipped his coat in blood, we have a representation of what the Jews did to the Lord and His Word; they did violence to them, even to the shedding of blood, to the destruction in themselves of all the blessed truths which the Lord had taught them, and which His word revealed.