Jacob became aware of a fact which his brother had not cared to know a fact for himself and his seed after him. The Being who had made man in His own image told this man that he was made in His image; taught him that he was not meant, like the serpent, to go on his belly and eat dust. This is the only explanation given. It assumes that man lives because he is related to God, that when he denies that relation he chooses death; it assumes that God is continually teaching men of their relation to Him, and that they are continually flying from His voice.
I. Joseph's story is in strict accordance with these principles. He had dreams of greatness: his brothers' sheaves are to bow down before him; the sun and the moon are to pay him obeisance. In his vanity he tells the dreams, and is hated the more. His brothers plot against his life, throw him into a pit, sell him to a company of Ishmaelites. There is no description of his anguish, or of any thoughts of comfort that came to him. We are merely told that God was with him, that he found favour with Potiphar, and became the steward of his house.
II. We know that though our dreams have never told us anything about that which is to come, they have told us secrets of our own experience; they have shown how near dark, fierce thoughts, which we fancied at a great distance, were lying to us. The interpretation of dreams for us and for the old world lies in the belief that we are under a loving and Divine Teacher, who does not wish us to walk in darkness.
III. There are crises, however, in a man's life, when he is neither troubled with the dreams of the night nor of the day when he is called to act, and act at once when life and death hang on the decision of a moment. To such a crisis had Joseph come when he spoke the words, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The belief in a living, present God, was then all in all to him.
IV. Joseph's sermon to Pharaoh was a simple declaration that the Righteous Being was the Lord over Egypt, that He could set it in order. And his sermon to the Egyptians was the proof which his administration gave that he had spoken truth.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament,p. 118.
References: Genesis 42:11 J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 369. Genesis 42:13. G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 15.Genesis 42:18. J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 369; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons,p. 131.Genesis 42:21. J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Missions,p. 248; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 178.