Joseph and His Brethren

JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.
DEATH OF JACOB.
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN
BY W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D., AUTHOR OF “SEED-TIME AND HARVEST,” “THE EARLY CHOICE,” “PARABLES OF OUR LORD,” ETC.
See the wan victim of his brethren’s scorn,
In Pharaoh’s dungeon, drooping, abject, lone!
But God is there, the friend of the forlorn,
And Joseph’s prison opes beside the throne.
LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1872.
No sooner, then, did they see Joseph approaching Dothan, where they fed their flocks, than his brothers thought the time had come at length for humbling their father’s favourite. The first proposal was to put him instantly to death; but Reuben interposed, and their sentence was, to throw Joseph into a pit, and leave him to perish unpitied there! Blinded by envy, or goaded by rage, they trampled on every tender feeling, and evil became their chief good.
We have just seen that Joseph’s brethren, moved by envy, sold him to some Ishmaelite merchants, by whom he was carried into Egypt, and there sold as a slave. Regardless of their brother’s cries, and deaf to all that affection might whisper, the future patriarchs would make him the victim of their hatred; and it is deeply instructive to notice how many sins are contained in this one transaction.
In truth, however, the imprisonment of Joseph was meant and used by God as a step to his exaltation. If he was for a season like one entombed, he had a resurrection at last by the mighty power of Him who sees the end from the beginning. It was like the planting of an acorn soon to become an oak, or like the bubbling up of a little stream from the depths of the earth soon to become a mighty river, while all around exclaimed,—