THE TRIALS AND VISIONS OF DEVOUT YOUTH
by Alexander Maclaren
'And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was
a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren;
and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his
father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now
Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of
his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. 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. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he
told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto
them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we
were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also
stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made
obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign
over us? or shalt thou Indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him
yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another
dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream
more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance
to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father
rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed?
Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the
saying.' -- GENESIS xxxvii. 1-11.
'The generations of Jacob' are mainly occupied with
the history of
Joseph, because through him mainly was the divine
purpose carried
on. Jacob is now the head of the chosen family,
since Isaac's death
(Gen. xxxv. 29), and therefore the narrative is
continued under that
new heading. There may possibly be intended a
contrast in 'dwelt'
and 'sojourned' in verse 1, the former implying a
more complete
settling down.
There are two principal points in this
narrative,--the sad insight
that it gives into the state of the household in
which so much of
the world's history and hopes was wrapped up, and
the preludings of
Joseph's future in his dreams.
As to the former, the account of it is introduced by
the statement
that Joseph, at seventeen years of age, was set to
work, according
to the wholesome Eastern usage, and so was thrown
into the company
of the sons of the two slave-women, Bilhah and
Zilpah. Delitzsch
understands 'lad' in verse 2 in the sense in which
we use 'boy,' as
meaning an attendant. Joseph was, then, told off to
be subordinate
to these two sets of his rough brothers. The
relationship was enough
to rouse hatred in such coarse souls. And, indeed,
the history of
Jacob's household strikingly illustrates the
miserable evils of
polygamy, which makes families within the family,
and turns brothers
into enemies. Bilhah's and Zilpah's sons reflected
in their hatred
of Rachel's their mothers' envy of the true wife of
Jacob's heart.
The sons of the bondwoman were sure to hate the sons
of the free.
If Joseph had been like his brothers, they would
have forgiven him
his mother. But he was horrified at his first
glimpse of
unrestrained young passions, and, in the excitement
of disgust and
surprise, 'told their evil report.' No doubt, his
brothers had been
unwilling enough to be embarrassed by his presence,
for there is
nothing that wild young men dislike more than the
constraint put on
them by the presence of an innocent youth; and when
they found out
that this 'milk-sop' of a brother was a spy and a
telltale, their
wrath blazed up. So Joseph had early experience of
the shock which
meets all young men who have been brought up in
godly households
when they come into contact with sin in
fellow-clerks, servants,
students, or the like. It is a sharp test of what a
young man is
made of, to come forth from the shelter of a
father's care and a
mother's love, and to be forced into witnessing and
hearing such
things as go on wherever a number of young men are
thrown together.
Be not 'partaker of other men's sins.' And the trial
is doubly great
when the tempters are elder brothers, and the only
way to escape
their unkindness is to do as they do. Joseph had an
early experience
of the need of resistance; and, as long as the world
is a world,
love to God will mean hatred from its worst
elements. If we are
'sons of the day,' we cannot but rebuke the
darkness.
It is an invidious office to tell other people's
evil-doing, and he
who brings evil reports of others generally and
deservedly gets one
for himself. But there are circumstances in which to
do so is plain
duty, and only a mistaken sense of honour keeps
silence. But there
must be no exaggeration, malice, or personal ends in
the informer.
Classmates in school or college, fellow-servants,
employees in great
businesses, and the like, have not only a duty of
loyalty to one
another, but of loyalty to their superior. We are
sometimes bound to
be blind to, and dumb about, our associates' evil
deeds, but
sometimes silence makes us accomplices.
Jacob had a right to know, and Joseph would have
been wrong if he
had not told him, the truth about his brothers.
Their hatred shows
that his purity had made their doing wrong more
difficult. It is a
grand thing when a young man's presence deprives the
Devil of elbow-
room for his tricks. How much restraining influence
such a one may
exert!
Jacob's somewhat foolish love, and still more
foolish way of showing
it, made matters worse. There were many excuses for
him. He
naturally clung to the son of his lost but
never-forgotten first
love, and as naturally found, in Joseph's freedom
from the vices of
his other sons, a solace and joy. It has been
suggested that the
'long garment with sleeves,' in which he decked the
lad, indicated
an intention of transferring the rights of the
first-born to him,
but in any case it meant distinguishing affection;
and the father or
mother who is weak enough to show partiality in the
treatment of
children need not wonder if their unwise love
creates bitter heart-
burnings. Perhaps, if Bilhah's and Zilpah's sons had
had a little
more sunshine of a father's love, they would have
borne brighter
flowers and sweeter fruit. It is fatal when a child
begins to
suspect that a parent is not fair.
So these surly brothers, who could not even say
'Peace be to thee!'
(the common salutation) when they came across
Joseph, had a good
deal to say for themselves. It is a sad picture of
the internal
feuds of the house from which all nations were to be
blessed. The
Bible does not idealise its characters, but lets us
see the seamy
side of the tapestry, that we may the more plainly
recognise the
Mercy which forgives, and the mighty Providence
which works through,
such imperfect men. But the great lesson for all
young people from
the picture of Joseph's early days, when his
whiteness rebuked the
soiled lives of his brothers, as new-fallen snow the
grimy cake,
hardened and soiled on the streets, is, 'My son, if
sinners entice
thee, consent thou not.' Never mind a world's
hatred, if you have a
father's love. There is one Father who can draw His
obedient
children into the deepest secrets of His heart
without withholding
their portion from the most prodigal.
Joseph's dreams are the other principal point in the
narrative. The
chief incidents of his life turn on dreams,--his
own, his fellow-
prisoners', Pharaoh's. The narrative recognises them
as divinely
sent, and no higher form of divine communication
appears to have
been made to Joseph, He received no new revelations
of religious
truth. His mission was, not to bring fresh messages
from heaven, but
to effect the transference of the nation to Egypt.
Hence the lower
form of the communications made to him.
The meaning of both dreams is the same, but the
second goes beyond
the first in the grandeur of the emblems, and in the
inclusion of
the parents in the act of obeisance. Both sets of
symbols were drawn
from familiar sights. The homeliness of the
'sheaves' is in striking
contrast with the grandeur of the 'sun, moon, and
stars.' The
interpretation of the first is ready to hand,
because the sheaves
were 'your sheaves' and 'my sheaf.' There was no
similar key
included in the second, and his brothers do not
appear to have
caught its meaning. It was Jacob who read it.
Probably Rachel was
dead when the dream came, but that need not make a
difficulty.
Note that Joseph did not tell his dreams with
elation, or with a
notion that they meant anything particular. It is
plainly the
singularity of them that makes him repeat them, as
is clearly
indicated by the repeated 'behold' in his two
reports. With perfect
innocence of intention, and as he would have told
any other strange
dream, the lad repeats them. The commentary was the
work of his
brothers, who were ready to find proofs of his being
put above them,
and of his wish to humiliate them, in anything he
said or did. They
were wiser than he was. Perhaps they suspected that
Jacob meant to
set him at the head of the clan on his decease, and
that the dreams
were trumped up and told to them to prepare them for
the decision
which the special costume may have already hinted.
At all events, hatred is very suspicious, and ready
to prick up its
ears at every syllable that seems to speak of the
advancement of its
object.
There is a world of contempt, rage, and fear in the
questions,
'Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou
indeed have dominion
over us?' The conviction that Joseph was marked out
by God for a
high position seems to have entered these rough
souls, and to have
been fuel to fire. Hatred and envy make a perilous
mixture. Any sin
can come from a heart drenched with these. Jacob
seems to have been
wise enough to make light of the dreams to the lad,
though much of
them in his heart. Youthful visions of coming
greatness are often
best discouraged. The surest way to secure their
fulfilment is to
fill the present with strenuous, humble work. 'Do
the duty that is
nearest thee.' 'The true apprenticeship for a ruler
is to serve.'
'Act, act, in the living present.' The sheaves may
come to bow down
some day, but 'my sheaf' has to be cut and bound
first, and the
sooner the sickle is among the corn, the better.
But yet, on the other hand, let young hearts be true
to their early
visions, whether they say much about them or not.
Probably it will
be wisest to keep silence. But there shine out to
many young men and
women, at their start in life, bright possibilities
of no ignoble
sort, and rising higher than personal ambition,
which it is the
misery and sin of many to see 'fade away into the
light of common
day,' or into the darkness of night. Be not
'disobedient to the
heavenly vision'; for the dreams of youth are often
the prophecies
of what God means and makes it possible for the
dreamer to be, if he
wakes to work towards that fair thing which shone on
him from afar.
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