"There sparkles forth whate'er is fit
For exigence of every hour."
We only want to trust it more, and assure ourselves of it.
And there is more of this in Joseph still.
Shortly after this he has to say again to them, "I am Joseph," and to add to it, "whom ye sold into Egypt." But then he goes at once through a long tale of God's purposes in all that matter, and lets them know how important to Pharaoh, to Egypt, and to the whole world, as well as to them and to their households, his ever having left home was about to be. Love does not give them opportunity to occupy the time with thoughts of themselves. Joseph crowds a multitude of other thoughts upon their minds--and he kisses them and weeps with them.
Pharaoh's people may now, after all this, return and share the scene with them. They can now see, in these visitors from Canaan, not Joseph's persecutors, but his brethren. They are introduced to the palace only in that character. As in the parable of the prodigal. The father will see him in his misery; and, while yet in rags and hunger and shame, kiss him and welcome him; but the household shall see him as a son at the table. "Cause every man to go out from me," had been Joseph's word, when he was going to make himself known to them; but now, the house of Pharaoh shall hear that Joseph's brethren have arrived. The spirit of that blessed One whom we learn in the Gospels breathes in all this. We are in John iv. and in Luke xv. when in Genesis xlv.
There are occasions in the story of human life which the heart claims entirely for itself. The Lord met such, as we all do at times. There was constant faithfulness in His dealing with the disciples. He did not let their mistakes pass. He was rebuking them very commonly, because He loved them very perfectly, and was training their souls rather than indulging Himself. But there did come a moment when faithfulness must yield up the place, and tenderness fill it. I mean, the hour of parting, as we get it in John xiv.-xvi. It was then too late to be faithful. Education of the soul under the rebukes of a pastor was not to go on then. "O ye of little faith," or "How is it that ye do not understand?" was not to be heard then. It was the hour of parting, and the heart had leave to take it entirely into its own hand.
Now a time of reconciliation is, in this, like the hour of parting. The heart claims it for itself. Tenderness alone suits it; faithfulness would be an intruder. And thus we find it with Joseph here. He wept aloud, so that the house of Pharaoh heard it. He wept on the neck of all his brethren and kissed them, fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and kissed him. And if he spoke in the midst of his tears, it was only to encourage their hearts, and give them pledges and reasons why they should be in full confidence and ease before him.[22]
Surely I may claim these rights and privileges for the hour of parting, and for the hour of reconciliation. And this was so, as we see, in this time of Joseph's restoration to his brethren. But when all this is over, and he has introduced them to Pharaoh and the palace, and they are in readiness to return to Canaan, in full preparation to bring their aged father into Egypt to Joseph, when they are just standing, Benjamin with them, and Simeon with them, and all was the exultation of a favoured and prosperous hour, one word of warning would not be out of season, and Joseph has it for them, "See that ye fall not out by the way." "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" addressed the heart of Peter much in the same spirit, and at a kindred moment, when the reconciliation, as I may call it, had been accomplished, and Peter's unbroken net had gathered 153, and he had dined with his denied Master on the sea shore.
Surely the whole of this, from first to last, is perfect. There is a moral magnificence in Scripture which makes it, of a truth, the chiefest, as we may say, of the works of God. The Spirit breathes in it all. Its tenderness, its grandeur, and its depth, are alike His. In the issue of the story of Joseph and his brethren we see something that is very excellent. The rights and the wrongs of Joseph, the claims which he had made, and the injuries he had endured, were all wonderfully answered. Whatever dignities his dreams had pledged him, he gained them all in full measure. Whatever wrongs he had suffered, they were all avenged in the very way his own heart would have chosen. The judgment of their sin against him was executed in the bosoms of the brethren themselves; not a hard word touching it passed his lips from first to last.
These were the issues of both the rights and wrongs of Joseph. "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."