The Story of Joseph and His Brethren/Part 2/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE spiritual lessons which I have endeavoured to draw from the history of Joseph, may be made more clear and complete by considering the blessing which his father Jacob pronounced upon him before his death. In the forty-ninth chapter, we read that when the aged patriarch was near to die, he called his twelve sons around him, to tell them what should befall them in the last days. This was a very singular thing for Jacob to do. It is not uncommon for a father to give his dying advice to his children, exhorting them to love and unity, to virtue and piety; knowing their past character, he may even warn them of dangers to which they will be exposed, and exhort them to conduct which they will need to observe, if they would hope to prosper in this world or be happy in the next. But what human father could tell each one of a numerous family what would befall him in the future period of his life? Yet Jacob did this; but he did it because he spake from the Spirit of God, who alone knows, and therefore who alone can reveal, future events. Jacob's address to his sons was thus prophetic. And that it was divinely prophetic, appears from this, that his prediction, in some of its particulars at least, stretched far into the future, and thus related, not to his sons themselves, but to the tribes which sprang from them. For instance, he says of Zebulon, "He shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for an haven of ships, and his border shall be unto Zidon." This prediction was not fulfilled till nearly two hundred years after Jacob's death, when the children of Israel went up out of Egypt into Canaan, and when the tribe of Zebulon obtained their inheritance on the sea-shore, stretching to Zidon. But still more remarkable is the prophecy respecting Judah, which did not receive its fulfilment till the time of the Lord's coming, nearly two thousand years after it was uttered. It relates, not to the person, nor even strictly to the tribe, but to the kingdom of Judah, And Judah did not cease to be a kingdom—the sceptre did not depart from Judah, until Shiloh came in the person of Jesus, who was born King of the Jews, and who came to wield the sceptre of righteousness over those who are Jews indeed. "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; whose praise is not of men, but of God."
A prophecy which thus extends beyond the Jewish to the Christian Church, which looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of His kingdom, must treat of higher and more enduring things than those which relate to the sons of Israel. Their history was but the natural form of the history of the Christian Church, their kingdom was but the shadow of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. This being the case, Jacob's prophetic description of the future state and condition of his sons, describes the state and condition of those whom his sons represented. Those who belong to the Lord's Church are the spiritual Israel; and in the prophetic words of Jacob to his sons they may find a description of their own religious character, as revealed by light from heaven. The children of God are of various characters; some are like Issachar to serve, some like Judah to rule. But all are designed by Providence to be useful and happy. The better they become the more happy they are. The nearer they approach the character of Joseph, so loving and wise, so generous and forgiving, the more will they acquire for themselves the high character and the rich blessings which Jacob gave to this son of his old age, to whom he and all his house owed their life and prosperity. Let us look attentively at what the inspired patriarch says of him.