Joseph Hall’s Contemplations . Daily Devotions (Issue 2)
Bishop Joseph Hall (1574 – 1656) was a prolific writer, penning many volumes of devotional works as well as poetry and satire. His Contemplations on the Historical Passages of the Old and New Testaments provide rich devotional material as he meditates on the work of Creation, the Fall, and the providence of God revealed through His dealings with His people.
Day 1 . Tuesday
Escape for Thy Life
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 19, verses 15–30
Genesis chapter 19, verse 17
And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
The messengers of God not only hasten Lot, but pull him by a gracious violence out of that impure city. They thirst at once for vengeance upon Sodom and for Lot’s safety. They knew that God could not strike Sodom until Lot had gone out, and that Lot could not be safe within its walls.
We are naturally in Sodom. If God did not drag us out while we linger, we would be condemned with the world.
If God encounters a very good field, He pulls up the weeds and lets the corn grow. If the field is mixed, He lets the corn and weeds grow together. If it is very bad, He gathers the few ears of corn and burns the weeds.
Oh, the great bounty of God, which reaches not only to us but also to those who belong to us! God saves Lot for Abraham’s sake, and Zoar for Lot’s sake. If Sodom had not been too wicked, it would have escaped.
Were it not for God’s dear children who are intermingled with the world, it could not stand. The wicked owe their lives to those few good people whom they hate and persecute.
Now, at once, the sun rises upon Zoar and fire falls upon Sodom. Abraham stands upon the hill and sees the cities burning. It is fair weather with God’s children when it is foulest with the wicked.
Those who burned with the fire of lust are now consumed with the fire of vengeance. They sinned against nature, and now, contrary to the course of nature, fire descends from Heaven and consumes them.
Lot may not even look at the flames, whether because it would delay his journey, because of the horror of the sight, as a trial of his faith, or for fear of pity. Small precepts from God are important. Obedience is as truly tried, and disobedience as truly punished, in little things as in great ones.
His wife merely turns her head back—whether from curiosity, unbelief, or love and compassion for the place—and she is turned into a monument of disobedience.
What does it profit her not to be turned into ashes in Sodom when she is turned into a pillar of salt upon the plain? Lot, who saved a whole city, cannot save his own wife. God cannot endure small sins in those whom He has greatly favoured. If we displease Him, God can meet with us just as well outside Sodom.
Lot, now come into Zoar, wonders at the delay of her whom he had not been allowed to look back and call. Soon afterwards, returning to seek her, he beholds this change with wonder and grief.
He finds salt instead of flesh, a pillar instead of a wife. He finds Sodom consumed and her still standing; and he is the more amazed because this was both nearer to him and less expected.
When God delivers us from destruction, He does not secure us from every affliction. Lot has lost his wife, his relatives and his possessions, and now withdraws into bleak solitude.
Yet though he fled from company, he could not flee from sin. He who could not be tainted with uncleanness in Sodom is overtaken by drunkenness and incest in a cave. Rather than Satan lack bait, Lot’s own daughters will prove Sodomites. Those who should have comforted him betrayed him.
How little some hearts are moved by judgements! The ashes of Sodom and the pillar of salt were not yet out of their sight when they dared think of lying with their own father.
They knew that while Lot was sober he could not be unchaste. Drunkenness is the way to all bestial affections and acts. Wine knows no distinction either of persons or sins.
No doubt Lot was afterwards ashamed of his incestuous offspring and wished he had come alone out of Sodom. Yet even this unnatural union was blessed with increase, and one of our Saviour’s worthy ancestors later sprang from this line. God’s election is not bound to our means, nor are blessings or curses necessarily inherited.
The chaste bed of holy parents has often produced a monstrous generation. Conversely, God has sometimes raised a holy seed from the drunken bed of incest or fornication.
It has been seen that weighty ears of corn have grown beyond the bounds of the cultivated field. Thus God will magnify the freedom of His own choice and let us know that we are not born good, but made good.
Day 2 – Wednesday
Jacob Receives the Blessing
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 27, verses 1–29
Genesis chapter 27, verse 29
Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.
Of all the patriarchs none made so little noise in the world as Isaac; none lived either so privately, or so innocently: neither know I whether he approved himself a better son or a husband.
For the one, he gave himself over to the knife of his father, and mourned three years for his mother; for the other, he sought not to any handmaid’s bed, but in a chaste forbearance, reserved himself for twenty years’ space, and prayed. Rebecca was so long barren. His prayers proved more effectual than his seed.
At last she conceived, as if she had been more than the daughter-in-law to Sarah, whose son was given her, not out of the power of nature, but of her husband’s faith.
God is often better to us than we expect. Isaac prays for a son, God gives him two at once. Now she is no less troubled with the strife of the children in her womb, than before with the want of children.
We know not when we are pleased. That which we desire often discontents us more in the fruition: we are ready to complain both full and fasting. Before Rebecca conceived, she was at ease. Before spiritual regeneration there is all peace in the soul: but no sooner is the new man formed in us, than the flesh conflicts with the spirit.
‘There is no grace where is no unquietness. Esau alone would not have striven. Nature will ever agree with itself. Never any Rebecca conceived only an Esau; or was so happy as to conceive none but a Jacob: she must be the mother of both, that she may have both joy and exercise.
This strife began early. Every true Israelite begins his war with his being. How many actions, which we know not of, are not without presage and signification!
These two were the champions of two nations: the field was their mother’s womb; their quarrel, precedency and superiority. Esau got the right of nature, Jacob of grace: yet that there might be some pretence of equality, in case Esau should outrun his brother into the world, Jacob holds him fast by the heel; so his hand was born before the other’s foot.
But, because Esau was some minutes the elder, that the younger might have better claim to that which God had promised, he buys that which he could not win. If either by strife, or purchase, or suit, we can attain spiritual blessings, we are happy. If Jacob had come forth first, he had not known how much he was bound to God for the favour of his advancement.
There was never any meat, except the forbidden fruit, so dear bought as this broth of Jacob: in both, the receiver and the eater is accursed. Every true son of Israel will be content to purchase spiritual favours with earthly: and that man has in him too much of the blood of Esau, who will not rather die than forego his birthright.
But what has careless Esau lost, if, having sold his birthright, he may obtain the blessing? Or what has Jacob gained, if his brother’s venison may countervail his pottage? Yet thus has old Isaac decreed, who was not now more blind in his eyes, than in his affections. God had forewarned him, that the elder should serve the younger, yet Isaac goes about to bless Esau.
It was not so hard for Abraham to reconcile God’s promise and Isaac’s sacrifice, as for Isaac to reconcile the superiority of Jacob with Esau’s benediction; for God’s hand was in that, in this none but his own. The dearest of God’s saints have been sometimes transported with natural affections.
He saw himself preferred to Ishmael, though the elder. He saw his father wilfully forgetting nature at God’s command, in binding him for sacrifice. He saw Esau lewdly matched with Heathens; and yet he will remember nothing, but, Esau is my first-born.
But how gracious is God, that when we would, will not let us sin! And so orders our actions, that we do not what we will, but what we ought.
That God, which had ordained the lordship to the younger, will also contrive for him the blessing; what he will have effected, shall not want means. The mother shall rather defeat the son, and beguile the father, than the father shall beguile the chosen son of his blessing.
What was Jacob to Rebecca more than Esau? or what mother does not more affect the elder? But now God inclines the love of the mother to the younger, against the custom of nature, because the father loves the elder, against the promise.
The affections of the parents are divided; that the promise might be fulfilled, Rebecca’s craft shall answer Isaac’s partiality: Isaac would unjustly turn Esau into Jacob, Rebecca does as cunningly turn Jacob into Esau: her desire was good; her means were unlawful.
God does often effect his just will by our weaknesses; yet neither by it justifying our infirmities, nor blemishing his own actions.
Here was nothing but counterfeiting; a feigned person, a feigned name, feigned venison, a feigned answer, and yet behold a true blessing; but to the man, not to the means. Those were so unsound, that Jacob himself does more fear their curse, than hope for their success.
Isaac was now both simple and old; yet if he had perceived the fraud, Jacob had been more sure of a curse, than he could be sure that he should not be perceived.
Those which are plain-hearted in themselves, are the bitterest enemies to deceit in others. Rebecca presuming upon the oracle of God, and her husband’s simplicity, dare be his surety for the danger, his counsellor for the carriage of the business, his cook for the diet, yea dresses both the meat and the man.
And now puts words into his mouth, the dish into his hand, the garments upon his back, the goat’s hair upon the open parts of his body, and sends him in thus furnished for the blessing, standing, no doubt at the door, to see how well her lesson was learned, how well her device succeeded.
And if old Isaac should by any of his senses have discerned the guile, she had soon stepped in and undertaken the blame, and urged him with that known will of God concerning Jacob’s dominion, and Esau’s servitude, which either age or affection had made him forget.
And now she wishes she could borrow Esau’s tongue as well as his garments, that she might securely deceive all the senses of him, which had suffered himself to be more dangerously deceived with his affection. But this is past her remedy: her son must name himself Esau with the voice of Jacob.
It is hard if our tongue do not betray what we are, in spite of our habit. This was enough to work Isaac to a suspicion, to an inquiry, not to an incredulity. He that is good of himself, will hardly believe evil of another; and will rather distrust his own sense, than the fidelity of those he trusted.
All the senses are set to examine: none sticks at the judgment, but the ear: to deceive that, Jacob must second his dissimulation with three lies at one breath: I am Esau; as you bade me; my venison.
One sin entertained fetches in another; and if it be forced to lodge alone, either departs, or dies. I love Jacob’s blessing, but I hate his lie. I would not do that wilfully, which Jacob did weakly, upon condition of a blessing. He that pardoned his infirmity, would curse my obstinateness.
Good Isaac sets his hands to try, whether his ears informed him aright; he feels the hands of him whose voice he suspected: that honest heart could not think, that the skin might more easily be counterfeited, than the lungs.
A small satisfaction contents those whom guiltiness has not made scrupulous. Isaac believes, and blesses the younger son in the garments of the elder. If our heavenly Father smell upon our backs the savour of our elder brother’s robes, we cannot depart from him unblessed.
Day 3 – Thursday
Esau’s Lost Blessing
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 27, verses 30–41
Genesis chapter 27, verse 38
And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.
No sooner is Jacob gone away, full of the joy of his blessing, than Esau comes in, full of the hope of the blessing: and now he cannot repent him to have sold that in his hunger for pottage, which in his pleasure he shall buy again with venison.
The hopes of the wicked fail them when they are at highest; whereas God’s children find those comforts in extremity, which they dared not expect.
Now he comes in blowing and sweating for his reward, and finds nothing but a repulse. Lewd men, when they think they have earned of God, and come proudly to challenge favour, receive no answer, but, “Who are you?”
Both the father and the son wonder at each other; the one with fear, the other with grief. Isaac trembled, and Esau wept; the one upon conscience, the other upon envy.
Isaac’s heart now told him, that he should not have purposed the blessing where he did; and that it was due to him to whom it was given, and not purposed. Hence he dared not reverse that which he had done with God’s will; besides his own: for now he saw that he had done unwilling justice.
God will find both time and means to reclaim his own, to prevent their sins, to manifest and reform their errors. Who would have looked for tears from Esau? Or who dare trust tears, when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes?
It was a good word, “Bless me also, my father.” Every miscreant can wish himself well: no man would be miserable, if it were enough to desire happiness.
Why did he not rather weep to his brother for the pottage, than to Isaac for a blessing? If he had not then sold, he had not needed now to beg. It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping, and which we undervalued in enjoying.
Esau’s tears find no place for Isaac’s repentance; except it were that he has done that by wile, which he should have done upon duty.
No motive can cause a good heart to repent that he has done well. How happy a thing it is to know the seasons of grace, and not to neglect them! How desperate to have known and neglected them!
These tears were both late and false, the tears of rage, of envy, of carnal desire. Worldly sorrow causes death.
Yet while Esau howls out thus for a blessing, I hear him cry out, of his father’s store, “Have you but one blessing, my father?” Of his brother’s subtlety, “‘Was he not rightly called Jacob?” I do not hear him blame his own deserts.
He did not see, while his father was deceived, and his brother crafty, that God was just, and himself incapable. He knew himself profane, and yet claims a blessing.
Those that care not to please God, yet care for the outward favours of God, and are ready to murmur if they want them; as if God were bound to them, and they free.
And yet so merciful is God, that he has second blessings for those that love him not, and gives them all they care for. That one blessing of special love is for none but Israel; but those of common kindness are for them that can sell their birthright: this blessing was more than Esau could be worthy of; yet like a second Cain, he resolves to kill his brother, because he was more accepted.
I know not, whether he were a worse son, or brother: he hopes for his father’s death, and purposes his brother’s, and vows to shed blood instead of tears.
But wicked men cannot be so ill as they would; that strong wrestler against whom Jacob prevailed, prevailed with Esau, and turned his wounds into kisses. A host of men came with Esau; an army of angels met Jacob. Esau threatened, Jacob prayed: his prayers and presents have melted the heart of Esau into love.
And now, instead of the grim and stern countenance of an executioner, Jacob sees the face of Esau, as the face of God.
Both men and devils are stinted, the stoutest heart cannot stand out against God. He that can wrestle earnestly with God, is secure from the harms of men.
Those minds which are exasperated with violence, and cannot be broken with fear, yet are bowed with love: when the ways of a man please God, he will make his enemies at peace with him.
Day 4 – Friday
Jacob’s Years of Service
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 29, verses 15–30
Genesis chapter 29, verse 20
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
Isaac’s life was not more retired and quiet, than Jacob’s was busy and troublesome. In the one I see the image of contemplation, of action in the other. None of the patriarchs saw so evil days as he; from whom justly has the church of God therefore taken her name. Neither were the faithful ever since called Abrahamites, but Israelites.
That no time might be lost, he began his strife in the womb; after that, he flies for his life from a cruel brother to a cruel uncle. With a staff goes he over Jordan alone, doubtful and comfortless, not like the son of Isaac.
In the way the earth is his bed, and the stone his pillow; yet even there he sees a vision of angels. Jacob’s heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest. God is most present with us in our greatest dejection, and loves to give comfort to those that are forsaken of their hopes.
He came far to find out a hard friend; and of a nephew becomes a servant. No doubt when Laban heard of his sister’s son, he looked for the camels, and attendance that came to fetch his sister Rebecca. Not thinking that Abraham’s servant could come better furnished than Isaac’s son: but now when he saw nothing but a staff, he looks upon him not as an uncle, but a master.
And, while he pretends to offer him a wife as the reward of his service, he craftily requires his service as the dowry of his wife.
After the service of a hard apprenticeship has earned her whom he loved, his wife is changed, and he is in a sort forced to an unwilling adultery. His mother had before, in a cunning disguise, substituted him, who was the younger son, for the elder; and now, not long after, his father-in-law, by a like fraud, substitutes to him the elder daughter for the younger.
God comes oftentimes home to us in our own kind; and even by the sin of others pays us our own, when we look not for it. It is doubtful whether it were a greater cross to marry whom he would not, or to be disappointed of her whom he desired.
And now he must begin a new hope, where he made account of fruition. To raise up an expectation once frustrate, is more difficult than to continue a long hope drawn on with likelihoods of performance: yet, thus dear, is Jacob content to pay for Rachel fourteen years’ servitude.
Commonly God’s children come not easily by their pleasures. What miseries will not love digest and overcome! And if Jacob were willingly consumed with heat in the day, and frost in the night, to become the son-in-law to Laban, what should we refuse to be the sons of God?
Rachel whom he loved, is barren: Leah, who was despised, is fruitful. How wisely God weighs out to us our favours and crosses in an equal balance; so tempering our sorrows that they may not oppress, and our joys that they may not transport us! each one has some matter of envy to others, and of grief to himself.
Leah envies Rachel’s beauty and love: Rachel envies Leah’s fruitfulness: yet Leah would not be barren, nor Rachel blear-eyed. I see in Rachel the very image of her grandmother Sarah, both in her beauty of person, in her actions, in her success. She also will needs suborn her handmaid to make her a mother, and at last, beyond hope, herself conceives.
It is a weak greediness in us to affect God’s blessings by unlawful means. What a proof and praise had it been of her faith, if she had staid God’s leisure, and would rather have endured her barrenness, than her husband’s polygamy!
Now she shows herself the daughter of Laban: the father for covetousness, the daughters for emulation, have drawn sin into Jacob’s bed: he offended in yielding, but they more in soliciting him, and therefore the fact is not imputed to Jacob, but to them.
In those sins which Satan draws us into, the blame is ours: in those which we move each other to, the most fault and punishment lies upon the tempter. None of the patriarchs divided his seed into so many wombs as Jacob; none was so much crossed in his seed.
Day 5 – Saturday
The Troubles of Israel
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 31, verses 1–18
Genesis chapter 31, verse 3
And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.
Thus, rich in nothing but wives and children, was he now returning to his father’s house, accounting his charge his wealth. But God meant him yet more good. Laban sees that both his family and his flocks were well increased by Jacob’s service. Not his love therefore, but his gain makes him loth to part. Even Laban’s covetousness is made by God the means to enrich Jacob.
Behold, his strait master entreats him to that recompense, which made his nephew mighty, and himself envious. God, considering his hard service, paid him wages out of Laban’s folds.
Those flocks and herds had but few spotted sheep and goats, until Jacob’s covenant; then as if the fashion had been altered, they all ran into party-colours. The most and best (as if they had been weary of their former owner) changed the colours of their young that they might change their master.
In the very shapes and colours of brute creatures there is a Divine hand, which disposes them to his own ends. Small and unlikely means shall prevail where God intends an effect. Little peeled sticks of hazel or poplar laid in the troughs, shall enrich Jacob with an increase of his spotted flocks; Laban’s sons might have tried the same means, and failed.
God would have Laban know, that he put a difference between Jacob and him; that as for fourteen years he had multiplied Jacob’s charge of cattle to Laban, so now, for the last six years, he would multiply Laban’s flock to Jacob: and if Laban had the more, yet the better were Jacob’s. Even in these outward things, God’s children have many times sensible tastes of his favours above the wicked.
I know not whether Laban were a worse uncle, or father, or master: he can like well Jacob’s service, not his wealth. As the wicked have no peace with God, so the godly have no peace with men; for if they prosper not, they are despised; if they prosper, they are envied.
This uncle, whom his service had made his father, must now, upon his wealth, be fled from as an enemy, and like an enemy pursues him: if Laban had meant to have taken a peaceable leave, he had never spent seven days’ journey in following his innocent son.
Jacob knew his churlishness, and therefore resolved rather to be unmannerly than injured. Well might he think, that he, whose oppression changed his wages so often in his stay, would also abridge his wages in the parting; now therefore he wisely prefers his own estate to Laban’s love.
It is not good to regard too much the unjust discontentment of worldly men, and to purchase unprofitable favour with too great loss.
Behold, Laban follows Jacob with one troop, Esau meets him with another, both with hostile intentions: both go on to the utmost point of their execution: both are prevented before the execution. God makes fools of the enemies of his church; he lets them proceed, that they may be frustrated, and when they are gone to the utmost reach of their tether, he pulls them back to their task with shame.
Lo now, Laban leaves Jacob with a kiss. Esau meets him with a kiss: of the one he has an oath, tears of the other, peace with both. Who shall need to fear man that is in league with God?
But what a wonder is this! Jacob received not so much hurt from all his enemies, as from his best friend. Not one of his hairs perished by Laban or Esau, yet he lost a joint by the angel, and was sent halting to his grave. He that knows our strength, yet will wrestle with us for our exercise, and loves our violence and importunity.
O happy loss of Jacob! he lost a joint, and won a blessing. It is a favour to halt from God, yet this favour is seconded with a greater. He is blessed, because he would rather halt, than leave before he was blessed. If he had left sooner, he had not halted, but he had not prospered.
That man shall go away sound, but miserable, that loves a limb more than a blessing. Surely, if Jacob had not wrestled with God, he had been foiled with evils. How many are the troubles of the righteous!
Not long after, Rachel, the comfort of his life, dies. And when, but in her travail, and in his travel to his father! When he had now before digested in his thoughts the joy and gratulation of his aged father, for so welcome a burden, his children (the staff of his age) wound his soul to the death.
Reuben proves incestuous, Judah adulterous, Dinah ravished, Simeon and Levi murderous, Er and Onan stricken dead, Joseph lost, Simeon imprisoned, Benjamin the death of his mother, the father’s right hand endangered. Himself driven by famine, in his old age, to die among the Egyptians, a people that held it abomination to eat with him.
If that angel, with whom he strove, and who therefore strove for him, had not delivered his soul out of all adversity, he had been supplanted with evils, and had been so far from gaining the name of Israel, that he had lost the name of Jacob.
Now, what son of Israel can hope for good days, when he hears his father’s were so evil? It is enough for us, if, when we are dead, we can rest with him in the land of promise. If the angel of the covenant once bless us, no pain, no sorrows, can make us miserable.
Day 6 – Sunday
Dinah and the Shechemites
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 34, verses 1–31
Genesis chapter 34, verse 30
And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
I find but one only daughter of Jacob, who must needs therefore be a great darling to her father; and she so miscarries, that she causes her father’s grief to be more than his love. As her mother Leah, so she has a fault in her eyes, which was curiosity. She will needs see, and be seen; and while she does vainly see, she is seen lustfully.
It is not enough for us to look to our own thoughts, except we beware of the provocations of others. If we once wander out of the lists that God has set us in our callings, there is nothing but danger. Her virginity had been safe, if she had kept home; or if Shechem had forced her in her mother’s tent, this loss of her virginity had been without her sin; now she is not innocent that gave the occasion.
Her eyes were guilty of the temptation; only to see, is an insufficient warrant to draw us into places of spiritual hazard. If Shechem had seen her busy at home, his love had been free from outrage; now the lightness of her presence gave encouragement to his inordinate desires.
Immodesty of behaviour makes way to lust, and gives life to wicked hopes: yet Shechem betrays a good nature, even in filthiness. He loves Dinah after his sin, and will needs marry her whom he had defiled.
Commonly lust ends in loathing. Amnon abhors Tamar as much after his act, as before he loved her; and beat her out of doors whom he was sick to bring in. But Shechem would not let Dinah fare the worse for his sin.
And now he goes about to entertain her with honest love, whom the rage of his lust had dishonestly abused. Her deflowering shall be no prejudice to her, since her shame shall redound to none but him; and he will hide her dishonour with the name of a husband.
What could he now do but sue to his father, to her’s, to herself, to her brethren; entreating that, with humble submission, which he might have obtained by violence? Those actions which are ill begun, can hardly be salved up with late satisfactions; whereas good entrances give strength to the proceedings, and success to the end.
The young man’s father does not only consent, but solicit; and is ready to purchase a daughter either with substance or pain. The two old men would have ended the matter peaceably; but youth commonly undertakes rashly, and performs with passion.
The sons of Jacob think of nothing but revenge, and (which is worst of all) begin their cruelty with craft, and hide their craft with religion. A smiling malice is most deadly; and hatred does most rankle the heart, when it is kept in and dissembled.
“We cannot give our sister to an uncircumcised man.” Here was God in the mouth, and Satan in the heart. The bloodiest of all projects have ever wont to be coloured with religion; because the worse any thing is, the better show it desires to make.
And, contrarily, the better colour is put upon any vice, the more odious it is; for as every simulation adds to an evil, so the best adds most evil. Themselves had taken the daughters and sisters of uncircumcised men; yea Jacob himself did so, why might not an uncircumcised man obtain their sister?
Or, if there be a difference of giving and taking, it had been well, if it had not been only pretended. It had been a happy ravishment of Dinah, that should have drawn a whole country into the bosom of the church. But here was a sacrament intended, not to the good of the soul, but to the murder of the body.
It was a hard task for Hamor and Shechem, not only to put the knife to their own foreskins, but to persuade a multitude to so painful a condition.
The sons of Jacob dissemble with them, they with the people. ‘Shall not their flocks and substance be ours?” Common profit is pretended; whereas only Shechem’s pleasure is meant.
No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort, as the name of commodity: the hope of this makes them prodigal of their skin and blood; not the love to the sacrament, not the love to Shechem: sinister respects draw more to the profession of religion than conscience.
If it were not for the loaves and fishes, the train of Christ would be less. But the sacraments of God, misreceived, never prosper in the end. These men are content to smart, so they may gain.
And now that every man lies sore of his own wound, Simeon and Levi rush in armed, and wound all the males to death: ” Cursed be their wrath, for it was fierce; and their rage, for it was cruel.”
Indeed, filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel. Yet murder should not have been wrought by Israel: if they had been fit judges, which were but bloody executioners, how far does the punishment exceed the fault!
‘To punish above the offence, is no less injustice, than to offend. One offends, and all feel the revenge: yea all (though innocent) suffer that revenge, which he that offends deserved not.
Shechem sins, but Dinah tempted him. She that was so light, as to wander abroad alone, only to gaze, I fear was not over-difficult to yield. And if, having wrought her shame, he had driven her home with disgrace to her father’s tent, such tyrannous lust had justly called for blood: but now he craves, and offers, and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction.
To execute rigour upon a submissive offender, is more merciless than just. Or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another, yet from them which had vowed peace and affinity, it was shamefully unjust.
‘To disappoint the trust of another, and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes, adds faithlessness to our cruelty. That they were impotent, it was through their circumcision: what impiety was this, instead of honouring an holy sign to take advantage by it!
What shrieking was there now in the streets of the city of the Hivites! And how did the beguiled Shechemites, when they saw the swords of the two brethren, die cursing the sacrament in their hearts, which had betrayed them!
Even their curses were the sins of Simeon and Levi, whose fact, though it were abhorred by their father, yet it was seconded by their brethren. Their spoil makes good the other’s slaughter.
Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the family of Jacob? How did that good patriarch, when he saw Dinah come home blubbered and wringing her hands, Simeon and Levi sprinkled with blood, wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel!
Good parents have grief enough (though they sustain no blame) for their children’s sins. What great evils arise from small beginnings! The idle curiosity of Dinah has bred all this mischief; ravishment follows upon her wandering; upon her ravishment, murder; upon the murder, spoil.
It is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil, either done or suffered.
Day 7 – Monday
Judah and Tamar
Bible Reading: Genesis chapter 38, verses 1–30
Genesis chapter 38, verse 26
And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.
I find not many of Jacob’s sons more faulty than Judah; who yet is singled out from all the rest, to be the royal progenitor of Christ, and to be honoured with the dignity of the birth-right, that God’s election might not be of merit, but of grace: else, however he might have sped alone, Tamar had never been joined with him in this line.
Even Judah marries a Canaanite; it is no marvel though his seed prospered not. And yet, that good children may not be too much discouraged with their unlawful propagation, the fathers of the promised seed are raised from an incestuous bed.
Judah was very young, scarcely from under the rod of his father, yet takes no other counsel for his marriage, but from his own eyes, which were like his sister Dinah’s, roving and wanton. What better issue could be expected from such beginnings?
Those proud Jews, that glory so much of their pedigree and name from this patriarch, may now choose whether they will have their mother a Canaanite, or a harlot; even in these things often the birth follows the belly.
His eldest son Err is too wicked to live; God strikes him dead before he can leave any issue, not abiding any scions to grow out of so bad a stock. Notorious sinners God reserves to his own vengeance.
He does not inflict sensible judgments upon all his enemies, in case the wicked should think there were no punishment abiding for them elsewhere. He does inflict such judgments upon some, in case he should seem careless of evil.
It were as easy for him to strike all dead, as one; but he had rather all should be warned by one; and would have his enemies find him merciful, as well as his children just.
His brother Onan sees the judgment, and yet follows his sins. Every little thing discourages us from good: nothing can alter the heart that is set upon evil.
Err was not worthy of any love; but, though he were a miscreant, yet he was a brother. Seed should have been raised to him: Onan justly loses his life with his seed, which he would rather spill, than lend to a wicked brother.
Some duties we owe to humanity, more to nearness of blood. Ill deserving of others can be no excuse for our injustice, for our uncharitableness.
That which Tamar required, Moses afterward, as from God, commanded, the succession of brothers into the barren bed. Some laws God spoke to his church, long before he wrote them: while the author is certainly known, the voice and the finger of God are worthy of equal respect.
Judah has lost two sons, and now does but promise the third, whom he sins in not giving. It is weakness of nature, rather to hazard a sin than a danger, and to neglect our own duty, for wrongful suspicion of others: though he had lost his son in giving him, yet he should have given him.
A faithful man’s promise is his debt, which no fear of damage can dispense with.
But whereupon was this slackness? Judah feared that some unhappiness in the bed of Tamar was the cause of his son’s miscarriage; whereas it was their fault, that Tamar was both a widow and childless.
Those that are but the patients of evil, are many times burdened with suspicions; and therefore are ill thought of, because they fare ill. Afflictions would not be so heavy, if they did not lay us open to uncharitable conceits.
What difference God puts between sins of wilfulness and infirmity! The son’s pollution is punished with present death, the father’s incest is pardoned, and in a sort prospers.
Now Tamar seeks by subtlety, that which she could not have by award of justice. The neglect of due retributions drives men to indirect courses; neither know I whether they sin more in righting themselves wrongfully, or the other in not righting them.
She therefore takes upon her the habit of a harlot, that she might perform the act: if she had not wished to seem a whore, she had not worn that attire, nor chosen that place. Immodesty of outward fashion or gesture betrays evil desires.
The heart that means well, will never wish to seem ill; for commonly we affect to show better than we are. Many harlots will put on the semblances of chastity, of modesty: never the contrary. It is no trusting those, who do not wish to appear good.
Judah esteems her by her habit; and now the sight of a harlot has stirred up in him a thought of lust. Satan finds well, that a fit object is half a victory.
Who would not be ashamed to see a son of Jacob thus transported with filthy affections? At the first sight he is inflamed; neither yet did he see the face of her whom he lusted after: it was enough motive to him that she was a woman; neither could the presence of his neighbour, the Adullamite, compose those wicked thoughts, or hinder his unchaste acts.
That sin must needs be impudent which can abide a witness: yea, so has his lust besotted him, that he cannot discern the voice of Tamar, that he cannot foresee the danger of his shame in parting with such pledges.
There is no passion which does not for the time bereave a man of himself.
Tamar had learned not to trust him without a pawn: he had promised his son to her as a daughter, and failed; now he promised a kid to her, as a harlot, and performs it. Whether his pledge constrained him, or the power of his word, I inquire not.
Many are faithful in all things, save those which are the greatest, and dearest. If his credit had been as much endangered in the former promise, he had kept it.
Now has Tamar requited him. She expected long the enjoying of his promised son, and he performed not. But here he performs the promise of the kid, and she stays not to expect it.
Judah is sorry that he cannot pay the hire of his lust, and now fears in case he shall be beaten with his own staff, in case his signet shall be used to confirm and seal his reproach; resolving not to know them, and wishing they were unknown of others.
Shame is the easiest wages of sin, and the surest, which ever begins first in ourselves. Nature is not more forward to commit sin, than willing to hide it.
I hear as yet of no remorse in Judah but fear of shame. Three months has his sin slept; and now, when he is securest, it awakes and baits him.
News is brought him that Tamar begins to swell with her conception, and now he swells with rage, and calls her forth to the flame like a rigorous judge, without so much as staying for the time of her deliverance, that his cruelty, in this justice, should be no less ill, than the injustice of occasioning it.
If Judah had not forgotten his sin, his pity had been more than his hatred to this of his daughter’s. How easy is it to detest those sins in others, which we flatter in ourselves!
Tamar does not deny the sin, nor refuse punishment; but calls for that partner in her punishment, which was her partner in the sin.
The staff, the signet, the handkerchief accuse and convince Judah, and now he blushes at his own sentence, much more at his act, and cries out, “She is more righteous than I.”
God will find a time to bring his children upon their knees, and to wring from them penitent confessions. And, rather than he will not have them soundly ashamed, he will make them the trumpets of their own reproach.
Yet he does not offer himself to the flame with her, but rather excuses her by himself. This relenting in his own case, shamed his former zeal. Even in the best men nature is partial to itself.
It is good, so to sentence other’s frailties, that yet we remember our own, whether those that have been, or may be.
With what shame, yea with what horror, must Judah needs look upon the great belly of Tamar, and on her two sons, the monuments of his filthiness!
How must it needs wound his soul, to hear them call him both father and grand-father; to call her mother and sister!
If this had not cost him many a sigh, he had no more escaped his father’s curse, than Reuben did: I see the difference, not of sins, but of men.
Remission goes not by the measure of the sin, but the quality of the sinner; yea, rather the mercy of the Forgiver. “Blessed is the man (not that sins not, but) to whom the Lord imputes not his sin.”
Day 8 – Tuesday
Joseph Hated by His Brothers
Genesis chapter 37, verse 4
“And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.”
I marvel not that Joseph had the double portion of Jacob’s land, who had more than two parts of his sorrows. None of his sons did so truly inherit his afflictions; none of them was either so miserable, or so great: suffering is the way to glory.
I see in him not a clearer type of Christ than of every Christian. Because we are dear to our Father, and complain of sins, therefore are we hated of our carnal brethren. If Joseph had not meddled with his brothers’ faults, yet he had been envied for his father’s affection; but now malice is met with envy.
There is nothing more thankless or dangerous than to stand in the way of a resolute sinner. That which corrects and obliges the penitent makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful.
All the spite of his brethren cannot make Joseph cast off the livery of his father’s love. What need we care for the censures of men, if our hearts can tell us that we are in favour with God?
God works by contraries.
The main quarrel was, “Behold, this dreamer cometh.” Had it not been for his dreams, he had not been sold; if he had not been sold, he had not been exalted. So Joseph’s state had not deserved envy if his dreams had not caused him to be envied.
Full little did Joseph think, when he went to seek his brethren, that this was the last time he should see his father’s house. Full little did his brethren think, when they sold him naked to the Ishmaelites, to have once seen him on the throne of Egypt.
God’s decree runs on; and, while we either think not of it or oppose it, it is performed.
In an honest and obedient simplicity, Joseph comes to inquire of his brethren’s health, and now may not return to carry news of his own misery. While he thinks of their welfare, they are plotting his destruction: “Come, let us slay him.”
Who would have expected this cruelty in them, which should be the fathers of God’s Church?
It was thought a favour, that Reuben’s entreaty obtained for him, that he might be cast into the pit alive, to die there. He looked for brethren, and beheld murderers: every man’s tongue, every man’s fist, was bent against him.
Each one strives who shall lay the first hand upon that changeable coat which was dyed with their father’s love, and their envy. Now they have stripped him naked, and, haling him both arms as it were, cast him alive into his grave.
So, in pretence of forbearance, they resolve to torment him with a lingering death. The savagest robbers could not have been more merciless; for now, besides what in them lay to destroy him, they add the cruelty of neglect.
What stranger can think of poor innocent Joseph, crying naked in that desolate and dry pit (only saying that he moistened it with tears), and not be moved?
Yet his hard-hearted brethren sit them down carelessly, with the noise of his lamentation in their ears, to eat bread; not one thinking, by their own hunger, what it was for Joseph to be famished to death.
Whatever they thought, God never meant that Joseph should perish in that pit; and therefore He sends very Ishmaelites to ransom him from his brethren.
The seed of him that persecuted his brother Isaac shall now redeem Joseph from his brethren’s persecution.
When they came to fetch him out of the pit, he now hoped for a speedy despatch; that, since they seemed not to have so much mercy as to prolong his life, they would not continue so much cruelty as to prolong his death.
And now, when he hath comforted himself with hope of the favour of dying, behold death exchanged for bondage.
How much is servitude to an ingenuous nature worse than death! For this is common to all; that, to none but the miserable. Judah meant this well, but God better. Reuben saved him from the sword; Judah from famishing.
God will ever raise up some secret favourers to His own, amongst those that are most malicious.
How well was this favour bestowed! If Joseph had died for hunger in the pit, one sin is commonly used for the veil of another. Joseph’s coat is sent home dipped in blood, that, while they should hide their own cruelty, they might afflict their father no less than their brother.
They have devised this real lie, to punish their old father for his love, with so grievous a monument of his sorrow.
He that is mourned for in Canaan, as dead, prospers in Egypt under Potiphar; and, of a slave, is made ruler. Thus God meant to prepare him for a greater charge.
He must first rule Potiphar’s house, then Pharaoh’s kingdom. His own service is his least good, for his very presence procures a common blessing: a whole family shall fare the better for one Joseph.
Virtue is not looked upon alike with all eyes. His fellow praises him, his master trusts him, his mistress affects him too much.
All the spite of his brethren was not so great a cross to him as the inordinate affection of his mistress. Temptations on the right hand are now more perilous and hard to resist than those on the left.
But God knows how to walk the heart that is bent upon Him steadily and indifferently betwixt the pleasures of sin and fears of evil.
He saw this pleasure would advance him: he knew what it was to be a minion of one of the greatest ladies in Egypt; yet resolves to contemn.
A good heart will rather lie in the dust than rise by wickedness.
“How shall I do this, and sin against God?” He knew that all the honours of Egypt could not buy off the guilt of one sin, and therefore abhors not only her bed, but her company.
He that will be safe from the acts of evil must wisely avoid the occasions.
May the Lord give us the grace to value His favour above the approval of men, to trust His providence when we cannot understand His ways, and to choose holiness rather than advancement. As Joseph suffered before he was exalted, so God’s people may rest assured that every trial is ordered by infinite wisdom, and that no act of malice can overturn the gracious purposes of God.
Day 9 – Wednesday
Joseph’s Purity in Temptation
Genesis chapter 39, verse 9
“How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
This second time is Joseph stripped of his garment; before, in the violence of envy, now in the violence of lust; before, of necessity, now of choice; before, to deceive his father, now his master. For behold, the pledge of his fidelity, which he left in those wicked hands, is made an evidence against him, of that which he refused to do.
Therefore did he leave his cloak, because he would not leave that of which he is accused and condemned, because he left it. What safety is there against great adversaries, when even arguments of innocence are used to convince of evil?
Lust yielded unto is a pleasant madness, but is a desperate madness when it is opposed. No hatred burns so furiously as that which arises from the quenched coals of love.
Malice is witty to devise accusations of others, out of their virtue, and our own guiltiness. Joseph either pleads not, or is not heard.
Doubtless he denied the fact, but he dared not accuse the offender. There is not only the praise of patience, but oft-times of wisdom, even in unjust sufferings. He knew that God would find a time to clear his innocence, and to regard his chaste faithfulness.
No prison would serve him, but Pharaoh’s. Joseph had lain obscure, and not been known to Pharaoh, if he had not been cast into Pharaoh’s dungeon. The afflictions of God’s children turn ever to their advantage.
No sooner is Joseph a prisoner than a way is prepared for him to come forth to honour. The cup-bearer admires him in the jail, but forgets him in the court.
How easily doth our own prosperity make us either forget the deservings, or the miseries of others! But as God chastened Joseph, so He chastened the chief butler with forgetfulness, until the appointed time.
After two years more of Joseph’s patience, that God which caused him to be lifted out of the former pit, to be sold, now calls him out of the dungeon to honour.
He now puts a dream into the head of Pharaoh; He puts the remembrance of Joseph’s skill into the head of the cup-bearer, who, to pleasure Pharaoh, not to requite Joseph, commends the prisoner for an interpreter.
He puts an interpretation into the mouth of Joseph. He puts this choice into the heart of Pharaoh, of a miserable prisoner, to make him ruler of Egypt.
Behold one hour had changed his fetters into a chain of gold; his rags into fine linen; his stocks into a chariot; his jail into a palace; Potiphar’s captive into his master’s lord; the noise of his chains into Abrech.
He, whose chastity refused the wanton allurements of the wife of Potiphar, had now given him to be the husband of Potipherah’s daughter. Humility goes before honour; suffering after well-doing before government.
How well are God’s children paid for their patience! How happy are the issues of the faithful! Never any man repented him of the advancement of a good man.
Pharaoh hath not more preferred Joseph than Joseph hath enriched Pharaoh. If Joseph had not ruled, Egypt and all the bordering nations had perished. The providence of so faithful an officer hath seven years of famine, Egypt had corn when they wanted.
See the difference betwixt a wise, prudent frugality, and a vain, ignorant expense of the benefits of God. The sparing hand is both full and beneficial; whereas the lavish is not only empty, but injurious. Good Jacob is pinched with the common famine.
No piety can exempt us from the evils of neighbourhood. No man can tell, by outward event, which is the patriarch, and which the Canaanite.
Neither doth his profession lead him to the hope of a miraculous preservation.
It is a vain tempting of God, to cast ourselves upon an immediate provision, with neglect of common means. His ten sons must now leave their flocks, and go down into Egypt, to be their father’s purveyors.
And now they go to buy of him whom they had sold; and bow their knees to him, for his relief, which had bowed to them before for his own life.
His age, his habit, the place, the language, kept Joseph from their knowledge; neither had they called off their minds from their idols, to inquire of matters of foreign state, or to hear that a Hebrew was advanced to the highest honour of Egypt.
But he cannot but know them, whom he left at their full growth, whose tongue, habit, and number were all one, whose faces had left so deep an impression in his mind, at their unkind parting.
It is wisdom sometimes to conceal our knowledge, that we may not prejudice truth.
He that was hated of his brethren, for being his father’s spy, now accuses his brethren for common intelligence, which they could proceed in little could they suspect, thus both could proceed from the son of him, which strove by the fear of his father Isaac!
How oft have sinister respects drawn weak goodness to disguise itself, even with sins!
It was no small joy to Joseph, to see this late accomplishment of his ancient dream; to see these suppliants (I know not whether more brethren or enemies) grovelling before him in an unknown submission; and now it doth him good to seem merciless to them, whom he had found wilfully cruel; to hide his love from them which had showed their hate to him; and to think how much he favoured them, and how little they knew it.
As sporting himself in their seeming misery, he pleasantly imitates all those accusations reciprocally unto them, which they in despite and earnest had done formerly to him.
He speaks roughly, rejects their persuasions, puts them in hold, and one of them in bonds.
The mind must not always be judged by the outward face of the actions.
God’s countenance is oft-times as severe, and His hand as heavy, to them whom He best loveth.
Many a one, under the habit of an Egyptian, hath the heart of an Israelite.
No song could be so delightful to him as to hear them, in a late remorse, condemn themselves before him for their old cruelty towards him, who was now their unknown witness and judge.
May the Lord grant us the grace of Joseph: to choose holiness above advancement, patience above self-vindication, and confidence in His providence above the desire for immediate deliverance. May we remember that God often prepares His servants for greater usefulness through hidden years of faithfulness and suffering, and that He never forgets those who honour Him.
Day 10 – Thursday
Joseph Exalted and Reconciled
Genesis chapter 45, verse 5
“Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.”
The wisdom of God had now raised Joseph above all the princes of Egypt; yet the greatness of his place altered neither the humility of his spirit nor the tenderness of his heart.
The honour was great, but the charge greater. He knew that kingdoms are preserved, not by pomp, but by prudent government. Therefore, while others admired his advancement, Joseph laboured in his office.
The years of plenty passed not away in ease or luxury. Every season found him diligent. He gathered while God gave abundance, that he might have wherewith to relieve the years of want. Thus His providence taught men, by Joseph’s hand, to prepare in peace for adversity.
Happy is that wisdom which can foresee evil before it comes. They provide best for future necessities who thankfully improve present mercies.
At length the famine stretched beyond the borders of Egypt. Those countries which had laughed at Joseph’s careful providence were now compelled to seek relief from it.
Amongst the rest came the sons of Jacob. How strange are the works of God! They come to beg their lives from him whose life they had sold. They bow before him whom once they cast into the pit. They seek bread from him whom they had deprived of liberty.
The dreams which seemed so impossible in Dothan are fulfilled before their eyes; yet they know not that they are fulfilling them. Thus the counsel of God stands, though men strive against it. His decrees need not our help, neither can they be hindered by our opposition.
Joseph knew them immediately. Time had changed himself more than them. Their faces were grown older, but not strange; while the Egyptian habit, the language, the dignity of the governor, concealed the shepherd whom they had sold.
Love long remembers what hatred would willingly forget.
Yet Joseph discovers not himself. It was neither revenge nor cruelty that made him conceal his affection, but wisdom. He would first search whether the hearts of his brethren were changed. The surgeon wounds before he heals. Mercy itself sometimes wears a severe countenance.
He speaks roughly. He questions them sharply. He casts them into ward. He requires Benjamin to be brought. Every action seems harsh; every purpose is gracious.
God Himself often deals thus with His children. He frowns when He loves. He wounds when He means to cure. He humbles before He comforts.
No music could have delighted Joseph so much as that which now sounded from the mouths of his brethren: “We are verily guilty concerning our brother.” Their own consciences become their accusers.
More than twenty years had passed, yet sin had not lost its voice. Time may wear out the memory of men, but never the remembrance of conscience until mercy quiets it. The affliction which they accounted chance they now interpret as judgment.
Blessed is that sorrow which leads the sinner back to his forgotten offences, and from them unto God.
Joseph understood every word, though they imagined him ignorant. He turned himself aside and wept. His tears witnessed that love which his wisdom concealed. How difficult it is for true affection to disguise itself! The heart overflows when the tongue is silent.
Still he continues the trial. Simeon remains bound. Benjamin must come. The silver is secretly restored into their sacks.
Every mercy is clothed with suspicion. Guilty minds fear favours no less than punishments. So the troubled conscience often trembles most at those blessings which should lead it to thankfulness.
Meanwhile Jacob mourns. He thinks everything against him, while indeed everything is working together for the preservation of his house. How often do we complain of those providences which are secretly labouring for our greatest good!
At length Benjamin stands before Joseph. Now the governor beholds the only brother who had shared none of the guilt of Dothan. His affection can scarcely contain itself. Again he withdraws to weep. Love is stronger than disguise.
Yet one trial still remains. The silver cup is hidden in Benjamin’s sack. The brethren return in amazement. Now shall it appear whether envy still reigns amongst them; whether they will once again purchase their own safety by sacrificing a brother.
Here the grace of God shines brightly. Judah, who once advised that Joseph should be sold, now offers himself to become a bondman in Benjamin’s place. He pleads, not for himself, but for his father. He had once been hard-hearted towards Jacob’s grief; now no man feels it more deeply.
How powerful is true repentance! It changes not only the actions, but the very disposition of the soul.
Joseph can restrain himself no longer. He commands every Egyptian to depart. He will reveal himself where no stranger shall witness either his tears or his brethren’s shame.
“I am Joseph.”
What words ever struck more deeply upon guilty hearts? Those whom fear had taught to reverence the governor now behold in him the brother whom they had betrayed. No wonder they were troubled at his presence. Guilt cannot suddenly persuade itself that mercy is sincere.
But Joseph hastens to comfort them. “Come near to me, I pray you.” He draws them near whom fear had driven back.
Neither doth he dwell upon their cruelty, but upon God’s providence. “Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves… for God did send me before you to preserve life.” He excuses what he condemns not. He magnifies God’s wisdom above man’s wickedness. He forgets the injury in the blessing which God had brought from it.
How glorious a pattern of forgiveness! It is a noble victory when a man overcomes evil with good; when he remembers not what he hath suffered, but what God hath wrought.
May the Lord teach us to submit to His wise providence, to receive His fatherly chastisements without murmuring, and to forgive others as freely as we ourselves have been forgiven. May we learn, with Joseph, to see the hand of God above the hands of men, and to confess with humble confidence that what others intend for evil, God is able to overrule for everlasting good.
Day 11 – Friday
Joseph’s Father’s Joy and Joseph’s Last Forgiveness
Genesis chapter 45 verse 28
And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.
That good old man Jacob could never have hoped that Egypt would provide him with news such as this—”Joseph is yet alive.” This was not food to him, but life.
Benjamin’s return was a comfort. But to learn that the son he had mourned as dead was still alive after so many years was almost too happy to believe. Such news was enough, through excess of joy, to endanger the very life it renewed.
Extraordinary blessings can be dangerous when suddenly apprehended. One grain of that joy would safely have cheered him; a full measure overwhelmed his heart with sweetness. There is no earthly pleasure on which we may not surfeit, but we can never have enough of spiritual joy.
Yet his eyes revive the mind that his ears had astonished. When he saw his son’s chariots, he believed that Joseph lived, and his own life was refreshed. He had heard too much before and could not enjoy it. Now he says, “I have enough; Joseph my son is yet alive.”
They told him of Joseph’s honour; he spoke only of his life. Life is better than honour. To hear that Joseph lived as a servant would have brought him more joy than to hear that he had died honourably. The greater blessing obscures the less. He is not worthy of honour who is not thankful for life.
Yet Joseph’s life did not satisfy Jacob without his presence: “I will go down and see him, ere I die.” The sight of the eye is better than walking in desires. Good things please us not merely because they exist, but because we enjoy them.
The height of all earthly contentment appeared in the meeting of these two, whom their mutual loss had endeared still more to each other. The interruption of our comforts has this advantage: their return sweetens our delight more than their absence diminished it.
God often hides our Joseph from us for a time, so that we may be more joyful and thankful at his recovery. This was the purest pleasure Jacob ever knew, and God therefore reserved it for his old age.
If the meeting of earthly friends is so unspeakably comforting, how happy shall we be in the sight of the glorious face of God our heavenly Father! How happy in the sight of our blessed Redeemer, whom our sins sold to death, and who now, after that noble triumph, has been given all power in heaven and earth!
Thus Jacob rejoiced, though he was about to leave the land of promise for a foreign nation for Joseph’s sake. He was glad to lose his country for his son.
What, then, shall our joy be? We must leave this foreign land of our pilgrimage for the home of our glorious inheritance. There we shall dwell with none but our own, in that better and brighter Goshen, free from all the burdens of this Egypt and full of all the riches and delights of God!
The guilty conscience can never think itself safe. So many years’ experience of Joseph’s love could not persuade his brothers that they were forgiven.
Those who know they have deserved ill are apt to misinterpret favours and think they cannot be loved. All that time, Joseph’s goodness seemed to them merely a concealed and sleeping malice. They feared it would awake at their father’s last sleep and betray itself in revenge. Therefore they still plead their father’s name, though he is dead, not daring to use their own.
Good intentions cannot be more deeply wronged than by suspicion. It grieves Joseph to see their fear, to find that they have not forgotten their sin, and to hear them so passionately beg for what they already possess.
“Forgive the trespass of the servants of thy father’s God.” What an appeal for pardon this was! What wound could be so deep or festered that this healing plaster could not cure it?
They do not say, the sons of thy father, for they knew Jacob was dead and that they had degenerated. Instead, they say, the servants of thy father’s God. How much stronger are the bonds of religion than those of nature!
If Joseph had been rancorous, this plea might have charmed him. Instead, it dissolves him into tears. They are not so ready to acknowledge their old offence as he is to declare his love.
If he reproves them for anything, it is for thinking they needed to entreat him. They should have known that, as a fellow servant of their father’s God, he could not harbour malice or plan revenge.
“Am not I under God?” To assure them fully, he turns their eyes from themselves to the decree of God, and from the action to its outcome. It is as though he would have them think there was no cause to repent of that which proved so successful.
Even a late confession finds forgiveness. Joseph had seen their sorrow long before, but only now heard their humble acknowledgment. Mercy does not wait for outward solemnities. How much more will that infinite goodness pardon our sins when he finds our repentance true!
Day 12 – Saturday
Prosperity Through Affliction
Exodus chapter 1, verse 12
“But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.”
Egypt was long a harbour to the Israelites; now it proves a jail. The posterity of Jacob finds too late what it was for their forefathers to sell Joseph as a slave into Egypt. Those whom the Egyptians honoured before as lords, now they contemn as drudges. One Pharaoh advances, whom another labours to depress.
Not seldom the same man changes copies; but if favours outlive one age, they prove decrepit and heartless. It is a rare thing to find posterity heirs of their fathers’ love. How should men’s favour be but like themselves, variable and inconstant? There is no certainty but in the favour of God, in whom can be no change, whose love is entailed upon a thousand generations.
Yet, if the Israelites had been treacherous to Pharaoh, if disobedient, this great change of countenance had been just. Now the only offence of Israel is that he prospers. That which should be the motive of their congratulation and friendship is the cause of their malice.
There is no more hateful sight to a wicked man than the prosperity of the conscientious. None but the spirit of that true harbinger of Christ can teach us to say with contentment, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
And what if Israel be mighty and rich? “If there be war, they may join with our enemies, and get them out of the land.” Behold, they are afraid to part with those whom they are grieved to entertain. Either staying or going is offence enough to those that seek quarrels.
There were no wars, and yet they say, “If there be wars.” The Israelites had never given cause of fear of revolt, and yet they say, “Lest they join with our enemies”—with those enemies which we may have. So they make their certain friends slaves for fear of uncertain enemies.
Wickedness is ever cowardly and full of unjust suspicions. It makes a man fear where no fear is; fly when none pursues him. What difference there is between David and Pharaoh! The faith of the one says, “I will not be afraid for ten thousand that should beset me.” The fear of the other says, “Lest, if there be war, they join with our enemies.”
Therefore should he have made much of the Israelites, that they might be his. His favour might have made them firm. Why might they not as well draw their swords for him?
Weak and base minds ever incline to the worse, and seek safety rather in an impossibility of hurt than in the likelihood of just advantage. Favours had been more binding than cruelties; yet the foolish Egyptian had rather have impotent servants than able friends. For their welfare alone, Pharaoh owes Israel a mischief; and how will he pay it?
“Come, let us work wisely.” Lewd men call wicked policies wisdom, and their success happiness. Herein Satan is wiser than they, who both lays the plot and makes them such fools as to mistake villainy and madness for the best virtue.
Injustice is upheld by violence, whereas just governments are maintained by love. Taskmasters must be set over Israel. They should not be the true seed of Israel if they were not still to wrestle with God in afflictions. Heavy burdens must be laid upon them.
Israel is never but loaded. The destiny of one of Jacob’s sons is common to all: to lie down between their burdens. If they had seemed to breathe in Goshen sometimes, yet even there it was no small misery to be foreigners and to live among idolaters. But now the name of a slave is added to the name of a stranger.
Israel had gathered some rust in idolatrous Egypt, and now he must be scoured. They had borne the burden of God’s anger if they had not borne the burdens of the Egyptians.
As God afflicted them with another mind than the Egyptians—God to exercise them, the Egyptians to suppress them—so He causes the event to differ. Who would not have thought, with these Egyptians, that so extreme misery should not have made the Israelites unfit both for generation and resistance? Moderate exercise strengthens; extreme exercise destroys nature.
That God, who many times works by contrary means, caused them to grow with depression, with persecution to multiply. How can God’s church but fare well, since the very malice of their enemies benefits them? Oh, the sovereign goodness of our God, who turns all our poisons into cordials! God’s vine bears the better with bleeding.
Day 13 – Sunday
The Fear of God Defies Cruelty
Exodus chapter 1, verse 17
“But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.”
And now the Egyptians could be angry with their own maliciousness, since this was the occasion of multiplying those whom they hated and feared. They saw that this service gained more for the workmen than for their masters. The stronger, therefore, the Israelites grew, the more impotent grew the malice of their persecutors.
And since their own labour strengthens them, now tyranny will try what can be done by the violence of others. Since the present strength cannot be subdued, the hopes of succession must be prevented. Women must be suborned to be murderers; and those whose office is to help the birth must destroy it.
There was less suspicion of cruelty in that sex, and more opportunity of doing mischief. The male children must be born and die at once. What can be more innocent than the child that has not lived so much as to cry or to see light? It is fault enough to be the son of an Israelite. The daughters may live for bondage, for lust—a condition so much, at the least, worse than death as their sex was weaker.
O marvellous cruelty, that a man should kill a man for his sex’s sake! Whoever has loosed the reins unto cruelty is easily carried into incredible extremities.
From burdens, they proceed to bondage, and from bondage to blood; from an unjust vexation of their body to an inhuman destruction of the fruit of their body. As the sins of the concupiscible part, from slight motions, grow on to foul executions, so do those of the irascible. There is no sin whose harbour is more unsafe than that of malice; but often the power of tyrants answers not their will. Evil commanders cannot always meet with equally mischievous agents.
The fear of God teaches the midwives to disobey an unjust command. They well knew how no excuse it is for evil, “I was bidden.” God said to their hearts, “You shall not kill.” This voice was louder than Pharaoh’s. I commend their obedience in disobeying; I dare not commend their excuse.
There was as much weakness in their answer as strength in their practice. As they feared God in not killing, so they feared Pharaoh in dissembling. Often those who make conscience of greater sins are overtaken with less. It is well and rare if we can come forth of a dangerous action without any foil; and, if we have escaped the storm, that some after-drops do not wet us.
Who would not have expected that the midwives should be murdered for not murdering? Pharaoh could not be so simple as to think these women trusty; yet his indignation had no power to reach their punishment. God prospered the midwives: who can harm them? Even the not doing of evil is rewarded with good.
And why did they prosper? Because they feared God—not for their dissimulation, but their piety. So did God regard their mercy that He regards not their infirmity. How fondly do men lay the thanks upon the sin which is due to the virtue!
True wisdom teaches us to distinguish God’s actions and to ascribe them to the right causes. Pardon belongs to the lie of the midwives, and remuneration to their goodness; prosperity to their fear of God.
But that which the midwives will not do, the multitude shall. It were strange if wicked rulers should not find some or other instruments of violence. All the people must drown those whom the women saved.
Cruelty has but smoked before; now it flames up. Secret practising has made it shameless, so that now it dares proclaim tyranny. It is a miserable state where every man is made an executioner. There can be no greater argument of an ill cause than a bloody persecution; whereas truth upholds herself by mildness and is promoted by patience.
This is their act; what was their issue? The people must drown their males; they themselves are drowned. They died by the same means by which they caused the poor Israelite infants to die.
That law of retaliation which God will not allow to us, because we are fellow-creatures, He justly practises upon us. God would have us read our sins in our judgements, that we might both repent of our sins and give glory to His justice.
Pharaoh raged before; much more now that he received a message of dismissal. The admonitions of God make ill men worse. The waves do not beat or roar anywhere so much as at the bank which restrains them.
Corruption, when it is checked, grows mad with rage; as the vapour in a cloud would not make that fearful report if it met not with opposition. A good heart yields at the stillest voice of God; but the most gracious motions of God harden the wicked. Many would not be so desperately settled in their sins if the world had not controlled them.
How mild a message was this to Pharaoh, and yet how galling! “We pray you, let us go.” God commands him that which he feared. He took pleasure in the present servitude of Israel; God calls for a release.
If the suit had been for mitigation of labour, for preservation of their children, it might have carried some hope and found some favour. But now God requires that which He knows will as much discontent Pharaoh as Pharaoh’s cruelty could discontent the Israelites: “Let us go.”
How contrary are God’s precepts to natural minds! And indeed, as they love to cross Him in their practice, so He loves to cross them in His commands before, and His punishments afterwards. It is a dangerous sign of an ill heart to feel God’s yoke heavy.
Moses talks of sacrifice; Pharaoh talks of work. Anything seems due work to a carnal mind, except God’s service; nothing superfluous but religious duties. Christ tells us there is but one thing necessary; nature tells us there is nothing but that needless.
Moses speaks of devotion; Pharaoh of idleness. It has been an old practice, as to cast fair colours upon our own vicious actions, so to cast evil aspersions upon the good actions of others. The same devil who spoke in Pharaoh speaks still in our scoffers, and calls religion hypocrisy, conscientious care singularity. Every vice has a title, and every virtue a disgrace.
Yet while possible tasks were imposed, there was some comfort: their diligence might save their backs from stripes. The conceit of a benefit to the commander, and hope of impunity to the labourer, might give a good pretence to great difficulties. But to require tasks not feasible is tyrannical, and serves only to pick a quarrel to punish.
They could neither make straw nor find it, yet they must have it. “Do what may be” is tolerable; but “Do what cannot be” is cruel. Those who are above others in place must measure their commands, not by their own wills, but by the strength of their inferiors. To require more of a beast than he can do is inhuman.
The task is not done; the taskmasters are beaten. The punishment lies where the charge is. They must exact it of the people; Pharaoh of them. It is the misery of those who are trusted with authority that their inferiors’ faults are beaten upon their backs.
This was not the fault—to require it of the taskmasters—but to require it, by the taskmasters, of the people. Public persons do either good or ill with a thousand hands, and with no fewer shall receive it.
Day 14 – Monday
The Child Preserved by Providence
Exodus chapter 2, verse 10
“And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.”
It is a wonder that Amram, the father of Moses, would think of the marriage-bed in so troublesome a time, when he knew he should beget children either to slavery or slaughter. Yet even now, in the heat of this bondage, he marries Jochebed.
The drowning of his sons was not so great an evil as his own burning; the thraldom of his daughters not so great an evil as the subjection unto sinful desires. He therefore uses God’s remedy for his sin, and refers the sequel of his danger to God.
How necessary is this imitation for those which have not the power of containing! Perhaps we would have thought it better to live childless: but Amram and Jochebed dared not incur the danger of a sin, to avoid the danger of a mischief.
No doubt when Jochebed, the mother of Moses, saw a man-child born of her, and him beautiful and comely, she fell into extreme passion, to think that the executioner’s hand should succeed the midwife’s.
All the time of her conception, she could not but fear a son; now she sees him, and thinks of his birth and death at once; her second throes are more grievous than her first. The pains of travail in others are somewhat mitigated with hope, and countervailed with joy, that a man-child is born; in her they are doubled with fear. The remedy of others is her complaint.
Still she looks when some fierce Egyptian would come in, and snatch her new-born infant out of her bosom, whose comeliness had now added to her affection.
Many times God writes passages of majesty and honour, even in the faces of children. Little did she think that she held in her lap the deliverer of Israel.
It is good to hazard in greatest appearances of danger. If Jochebed had said, If I bear a son, they will kill him; where had been the great rescuer of Israel? Happy is that resolution which can follow God hoodwinked, and let Him dispose of the event.
When she can no longer hide him in her womb, she hides him in her house, afraid lest every of his cryings should guide the executioners to his cradle. And now she sees her treasure can be no longer hid, she ships him in a bark of bulrushes, and commits him to the mercy of the waves, and (which was more merciless) to the danger of an Egyptian passenger; yet does she not leave him without a guardian.
No tyranny can forbid her to love him, whom she is forbidden to keep. Her daughter’s eyes must supply the place of her arms.
And if the weak affection of a mother were thus effectually careful, what shall we think of Him whose love, whose compassion is (as Himself) infinite? His eye, His hand, cannot but be with us, even when we forsake ourselves.
Moses had never a stronger protection about him, no, not when all his Israelites were pitched about his tent in the wilderness, than now when he lay sprawling alone upon the waves: no water, no Egyptian can hurt him. Neither friend nor mother dare own him, and now God challenges his custody.
When we seem most neglected and forlorn in ourselves, then is God most present, most vigilant.
His providence brings Pharaoh’s daughter thither to wash herself. Those times looked for no great state: a princess comes to bathe herself in the open stream. She meant only to wash herself: God fetches her thither to deliver the deliverer of His people.
His designs go beyond ours. We know not (when we set our foot over our threshold) what He has to do with us. This event seemed casual to this princess, but predetermined and provided by God, before she was.
How wisely and sweetly God brings to pass His own purpose in our ignorance and regardlessness! She saw the ark, opens it, finds the child weeping: his beauty and his tears had God provided for the strong persuasions of mercy. This young and lively oratory prevailed. Her heart is struck with compassion, and yet her tongue could say, “It is a Hebrew child.”
See here the merciful daughter of a cruel father. It is an uncharitable and injurious ground, to judge of the child’s disposition by the parent’s.
How well does pity beseem great personages, and most in extremities. It had been death to another to rescue the child of a Hebrew; in her it was safe and noble. It is a happy thing, when great ones improve their places to so much more charity, as their liberty is more.
Moses’s sister, finding the princess compassionate, offers to procure a nurse, and fetches the mother: and who can be so fit a nurse as a mother? She now with glad hands receives her child, both with authority and reward.
She would have given all her substance for the life of her son: and now she has a reward to nurse him. The exchange of the name of a mother, for the name of a nurse, has gained her both her son, and his education, and with both, a recompense.
Religion does not call us to a weak simplicity, but allows us as much of the serpent as of the dove. Lawful policies have from God both liberty in the use, and blessing in the success.
The good lady did not breed him as some child of alms, or as some wretched outcast, for whom it might be favour enough to live: but as her own son, in all the delicacies, in all the learning of Egypt. Whatever the court, or the school could put into him, he wanted not; yet all this could not make him forget that he was a Hebrew.
Education works wondrous changes, and is of great force either way. A little advancement has so puffed some up above themselves, that they have not only forgotten their friends, but scorned their parents.
All the honours of Egypt could not win Moses, not to call his nurse mother, or wean him from a willing misery with the Israelites. If we had Moses’s faith we could not but make his choice.
It is only our infidelity that binds us so to the world, and makes us prefer the momentary pleasures of sin, unto that everlasting recompense of reward.
Audio digitally generated, using the voice of Robert Aboagye. All rights reserved.