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CHAPTER V.
JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT.
It is instructive to notice how many things were combined, by the providential care of God, to promote the advancement of Joseph: 1. He dreamed; 2. He told his dreams to his brethren; 3. He went and visited them at a distance from their father’s home—and, prior to that, he had been envied by them on account of his father’s partiality; 4. Reuben and Judah interposed to prevent his being murdered; 5. The Ishmaelites passed opportunely through Dothan; 6. They bought him; [[42]]7. They carried him into Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar—not a person of minor influence; 8. Joseph was tempted to sin, but resisted the temptation, and was thrown into prison on a false accusation; 9. He had for his fellow-prisoners two of Pharaoh’s household; 10. They dreamed dreams; 11. Pharaoh did the same; 12. A former fellow-prisoner of the Hebrew lad was at hand, to remind the troubled king of that lad’s power. And only at the end of this long chain—to which still other links might have been added—was Joseph raised from his degradation; only then did it appear that he who chooses weak things to confound the mighty had a great work to accomplish in Egypt by the instrumentality of that man. It seemed darkness without one ray of light when Joseph was torn from his father and his father’s country, and made [[43]]not merely a slave, but a close prisoner for several years. But he who makes the wrath of man to praise him, needed Joseph in Egypt; and by terrible things in righteousness the purposes of the Eternal were wrought out.
JOSEPH’S ADVANCEMENT.
Now this finely illustrates the exquisite adaptations of the providence of God to accomplish his designs. The links, how delicate and manifold, yet how firm! The agents, how free, yet how perfectly controlled! The devices, how deep in some cases, how simple in others; yet how beautifully all conspire to promote the desired end! Is not this the finger of God? Does he not vivify all, or restrain all, ever one in purpose as he is one in essence; and making all advance his glory?