for the last forty years of his life, is not seen. He appears to have
been laid aside, as a vessel unfit for use, as I have observed of him,
not _wearing_ out, as the word is, but _rusting_ out. See "Isaac," p.
185. But this was not Jacob's closing years. He was no longer a man of
business, but his retirement was not _inactive_. The richest, happiest,
and purest exercises of his soul seem to be now, and they enlarge and
deepen as they advance; chastened and disciplined as we have seen, his
soul is now rendering the fruit of divine husbandry. We cannot fully say
that Jacob ever reached the high dignity of being a _servant_ of God;
but we may say, when we have reached the end of his story, that he was
_fruitful_ to Him.
For there is a difference between _service_ and _fruitfulness_. Service
is more manifested and active, fruitfulness may be hidden. The hand or
the foot may serve, and so they should. Tipped with the blood and with
the oil, they are to be instruments in the hands of the Master of the
house; but it is in the deep, secret places of the heart that the
husbandry of the saint, in the power of the Spirit through the truth, is
to be yielding fruit to God. Fruitfulness is known in the cultivation of
those graces and virtues which give real and intrinsic character to the
people of God--those habits and tempers and properties of the inner man
which, with God, are of great price. It is within, or "out of the
heart," that those herbs, meet for Him by whom the soul is dressed, grow
fragrant and beautiful, such as bespeak the virtue of that rain from
heaven which has fallen upon it.
It is this fruitfulness, as I judge, which will be found in our Jacob,
in this last scene of his pilgrimage. We have had some fainter notice of
this, while yet he remained in Canaan, and ere he took his journey to
Egypt. But the richer harvest of this husbandry is gathered during the
seventeen years that he spent in that land, ere he himself was gathered
to his fathers. For this participation of God's holiness, this fruit of
the discipline of the Father of spirits, is commonly gradual--and we
shall find it to be so in Jacob--the light shining more and more unto
the perfect day; the last hour being the brightest.
In the course of chapter xxxvii., which I have now reached, we are told
that the brethren of Joseph were gone to feed their flocks at Shechem.
But why was this recurrence to Shechem? Was it that the purchased land,
the family estate, was there?[20] It was a dangerous place to be
connected with. It had proved a snare to the whole family, and the Lord
had called them from it. Had Jacob been as watchful as he should have
been, we might not now have heard again of Shechem and of the flocks and
the brethren there. But still, it is happy to see that there were
symptoms of uneasiness in his mind about it; for he sends Joseph to find
out how the flocks and the brethren were faring there, as though there
were some misgiving in his heart about them in so suspected a place. And
this may be received as the pulse of a quickened state of soul in our
patriarch, though that pulse be but weak.
[20] This parcel of ground, at last, becomes only a burying-place, like
Machpelah; but it had not, at first, been purchased as such, as
Machpelah was.
So afterwards in chapter xliii., when he is sending away his sons, the
second time, into Egypt to buy food, he commits them into the hand of
the Lord as "God Almighty." "God Almighty," says he, "give you mercy
before the man, that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin."
This also tells happily of Jacob's condition of soul--that in some
measure at least _he had recovered the power of that name which he had
once lost_, and which, as we saw, all the exercise through which he had
passed at Peniel had not given back to him.
From these testimonies we may say that Jacob was under godly exercise,
by the hand of the Father of his spirit, in those early days. Beyond
this I need not notice him, till we see him preparing to go down to see
his son in Egypt before he die. But that moment was a very important
moment indeed in the progress of his soul--and we must meditate on it.
On his hearing that Joseph was yet alive, and governor over all the land
of Egypt, we read that his heart fainted, for he believed it not. It was
the Lord's doing--for so the fact was--but it was marvellous in Jacob's
eyes. He "believed not for joy, and wondered;" for this was receiving
Joseph alive from the dead. At first this was too much for him; but when
he saw the waggons which king Pharaoh had sent to bear him, and all that
belonged to him, down to Egypt, his spirit revived, and he said, without
further delay, "It is enough, Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and
see him before I die."
_Nature_ thus spake at once in Jacob, as soon as the report was
believed; and without further challenge he begins his journey to Egypt.
But a calmer moment, as we shall now see, succeeds this outburst or
ebullition of nature, and then the way of nature is challenged.
"And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to
Beersheba, and offered sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac."
This is remarkable. Why these sacrifices at Beersheba? There had been
none at Mamre, ere Jacob set out. Why, then, this halt at Beersheba, and
this service to the God of Isaac?
This may at first be wondered at; but it will be found to be common
enough (I had almost said, necessary) in the ways of the people of God.
_Nature_ had acted in Jacob at Mamre, as soon as he believed the report
about Joseph, and set him at once on the road to Egypt. But now the
_spiritual sensibilities_ have waked up, and are challenging the
conclusions and ways of nature. Very common this is. The _saint_ is now
feeling reserve, where the _father_ had felt none. Jacob had not dealt
with the Lord about this journey, as he was beginning it; but the mind
of Christ in him, his conscience in the Holy Ghost, so to speak, is now
taking the lead, and the judgment of nature is reviewed, and reviewed in
the light of the Lord.
Many years before this the Lord had said to Isaac, Go not down into
Egypt (xxvi. 2); and this had been said to Isaac in a day of famine,
like the present. And this is remembered by Jacob as soon as he reaches
Beersheba, the last spot in the southern quarters of the land, which lay
in the way to Egypt, and in the view of which was stretched out that
country to which Isaac had thus been warned not to go.
All this accounts to me for Jacob's sacrifices at Beersheba to the God
of his father Isaac. And all this has great moral meaning in it. It was
a mighty stir in Jacob's soul, and it was very acceptable to the Lord.
As we find in the day of the siege of Samaria. The poor lepers outside
the city immediately feed themselves and gather for themselves among the
tents of the Syrians. It was natural, almost necessary, that they should
do so. But soon afterwards another mind begins to stir in them, as here
in our patriarch, and they say, We do not well: this day is a day of
good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light,
some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and
tell the king's household. 2 Kings vii. This was the action of a better
mind, like this present stir in Jacob's spirit. And this awakening in
Jacob is so acceptable with the Lord, that He comes at once to him with
these words of consolation, "I am God, the God of thy father: fear not
to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I
will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up
again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes."
When we consider this for a moment, we may well say, What a
communication this was! How thoroughly did it let Jacob know that the
Lord had read _all_ his heart, his present fears and his earlier
affections, the mind of the father and the mind of the saint, the
desires of nature and the sensibilities of the spirit. "Fear not to go
down into Egypt" calmed the present uneasiness of his renewed mind;
"Joseph shall surely put his hand upon thy eyes," gratified the earlier
desire of his heart over his long-lost child. How full all this was! How
perfectly did it prove the reality of the sympathy of Christ with _all_
that was stirring in His elect one! Jacob found pity in Him, and grace
for seasonable help. "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou
knewest my path," was said by David, and is here surely understood by
Jacob. The groan that was not uttered by him in man's ear, had, in _all_
its meaning, entered the ear of Him who searcheth the heart. And after
this, Jacob can no longer halt at Beersheba, or question his further
journey to Egypt.
He accomplishes it; and his first sight of Joseph, as we might have
expected, and as the Lord would have fully warranted it to be, was the
occasion of fullest joy to his long-bereaved heart. And I would here
observe, that I have felt, as to Jacob in these his last years, that he
had become a very _affectionate_ old man; and this is a happy
impression, another witness of an improved state of heart. For a
calculating man, such as he had been in the habits and activities of his
life, is commonly, and somewhat of moral necessity, wanting in
thoughtfulness and desire respecting others. He is too much, of course,
his own object. But now it is not thus with Jacob. His grief at the loss
of Joseph was intense. He bewails Simeon bitterly as well, and seems
ready to brave the horrors of famine, rather than hazard the loss of any
more of the children. And then, at the close of these years, his
adoption of the sons of Joseph, his sympathy with Joseph in his sorrow
over the preference of the younger, his reference to Rachel and her
burial at Ephrath, and his mention of Leah, and of his fathers and their
wives in connection with Machpelah, all is from a loving heart. And the
general grief which his death occasioned would tell us that he had been,
in the midst of the people, a loved, affectionate old man. It is
delightful to mark all this.
But with all this we find him, in his own person and ways, very much the
same widowed, solitary man in Egypt as we saw him to have been for years
in Canaan ere he came out. Only it was thus under very strong temptation
to be otherwise; for he maintained his strangership, though he now had
opportunity to make the earth again the scene of his efforts and
expectations. For we like _reflected_ dignity. We know the charms of it
full well. If nature were given its way, we would be making the most of
our parentage, and connections, and set off before others our alliance
with that which is honourable in our generation. Jacob, in Egypt, had
some of the very best opportunities for indulging his heart in that way.
His son was then the pride of that land. Joseph was the second man in
the kingdom, and Joseph was Jacob's son. Here was a temptation to Jacob
to come forth and show himself to the world. Joseph's father would have
been an object. Would not all eyes be upon him? Would not place be given
to him and way made for him, whenever or wherever he appeared? Nature
would have said, If Jacob had such opportunities, let him show himself
to the world. The spirit of the world must have suggested that; as long
afterwards to a greater than Jacob, who had no _reflected_ glories to
exhibit, but all _personal_ glories. "If thou do these things, shew
thyself to the world." See John vii. 4. But, in the spirit of one who,
in his way, had overcome the world, Jacob continues a retired man
through all his life of seventeen years in Egypt. He was a stranger,
where every human attraction joined in tempting him to be a citizen.
To me, I own, this is exquisite fruit of a chastened mind, fruit of
divine discipline, the witness of a large participation of the holiness
of God, the holiness that suited the calling of God, the calling that
made Jacob a stranger and pilgrim on the earth. At Shechem he reminded
us of Lot in Sodom, but here he reminds us of Abraham in his victory
over all the offers of the king of Sodom.
But with this separation from the world there is nothing of false
humility. In the midst of all this practical strangership he knows and
exercises his dignity under God. As he enters, and as he leaves the
presence of king Pharaoh (chap. xlvii.), he blesses him. This is to be
observed. As he stood there in the royal presence, he owned himself a
pilgrim on the earth, somewhat poor and weary too; but at his
introduction and on his exit he blesses him, as one who knew what he was
in the election and grace of God; for "without all contradiction the
less is blessed of the better." This is not what old Simeon did when he
had the infant of Bethlehem in his arms, but this is what old Jacob now
does, when he has the greatest man on the earth before him. He made no
requests of the king, though he might reasonably have expected whatever
he asked. He was silent as to all that Pharaoh or Egypt would do for
him, but he speaks as the better one blessing the less again and again.
This was like the chained prisoner of Rome before the dignitaries and
officers of Rome. Paul let Agrippa know--he let the Roman governor
know--that he, their prisoner, carried and owned the good thing, and
that he could wish no better wish for them all, than that they were as
he was. And this is faith that glorifies grace--the proper business of
faith--precious faith indeed, whether in a prisoner-apostle, or in an
exile stranger-patriarch. Rome and Egypt have the wealth and power of
the world, such as men will envy and praise, but Paul and Jacob carry a
secret with them that makes them speak another language.
This is all full of meaning in our Jacob. The glory is hidden in an
earthen vessel, but it is there, and the vessel knows it to be there.
Jacob does nothing in those Egypt-years of his, to make history for the
world. He takes no part in its changes; its interests and progress are
lost upon him; he is at the disposal of others, taking what they may
give him, and being what they may make him; but he knows a secret that
takes his spirit above them. Others may flourish in Egypt, he only
spends the remnant of his days there. See xlvii. 27, 28.
I own indeed that I stand in admiration of this way of the Lord, of the
Spirit of God, with Jacob. To such a life as his had been, most suited
was such an end as this now is. It is a poor thing that we should need
such a pause as this, at the end of the journey; but, if needed, it is
beautiful to see it fruitful, after this manner. During that long
husbandry of his soul under "the Father of spirits," that seventeen
years in Egypt, how commonly, I dare to suppose, did Jacob sit before
the Lord, meditating the past years, with some confusion of face; and
the fire would kindle then, and the refiner's work go on.
But when these silent and retired years are about to close, we find him,
somewhat abruptly, stirring and earnest. It is with Joseph respecting
his burial. He will have Joseph not only promise, but swear, that he
will bury him in the land of his fathers. xlvii. 30. This is also very
beautiful. We never find him urgent about the conditions of his _life_
in Egypt; he seems willing, as I said, to take what they give him and to
be what they make him; but as to his _burial_, he is, now, all urgency
and decision. He will have it confirmed to him by an oath, that his son
will take his dead body to that land which witnessed the promise of God
to him. He is earnest and peremptory now, as he was indifferent before.
For faith likes to read its title clear, full, and indefeasible. Abraham
would have the inheritance by _covenant_, as well as by _word_. Chap.
xv. Jacob now will have the burial, such a burial as is worthy of the
hopes of a child of Abraham, by _oath_, as well as by _promise_.
All this shows us another Jacob than what we once knew him to be. He is
now partaker of God's holiness; his mind and character are in
consistency with the call of God. He is a stranger with God in the
earth, but in sure and certain hope of promised inheritance. This is
fruitfulness; I say not that it is service; but it is beautiful
fruitfulness in the inner man.
In chapter xlviii. which follows, we get that one act in his life which
is signalized by the Spirit as the act of faith. See Heb. xi. 21. But
the whole chapter is beautiful. All is _grace_ on God's part, and all is
_faith_ in the heart of Jacob. For it is the proper business and duty of
_faith_ to accept the decisions of grace, and that is just what grace is
doing here. Grace adopts the sons of Joseph, who had no title in the
flesh, and takes them into the family of Abraham. Grace gives the place
and portion of the firstborn, the double portion, as though they were
Reuben and Simeon. Grace sets the younger of them above the elder. And
grace gives Joseph, or the adopted firstborn, an earnest of his coming
inheritance. To all this Jacob bows and is obedient. In faith he accepts
the decisions of grace. Nature may resent this; but Jacob is true to the
word of grace committed to him. Joseph was moved when Jacob was setting
Ephraim above Manasseh. Jacob feels for him; but he fulfils the word of
God committed to him, let nature be surprised or wounded as it may. He
does not listen to nature in his son Joseph, as he had listened to it on
a like occasion, years and years ago, in his mother Rebecca.[21]
[21] In Joseph obtaining the rights of the firstborn, there is
something besides grace; but I do not notice it here.
Surely this is beautiful: faith thus accepting the decisions of grace.
But in this, Jacob was also God's oracle. He was not only in faith
obedient to the purpose or counsel of grace, but he was used of God as a
vessel of His house, used to declare His mind, to represent and act His
purposes in these mysteries of grace, the _adoption_, and the
_inheritance_, and the _earnest_.
And as this vessel was thus so fully approving itself fit for the
Master's use, it is still used. We still see him and hear him as God's
oracle, as we enter chapter xlix. He calls his twelve sons, and blesses
them. He delivers, under the Spirit, the words and judgments of God
touching them. But this was a very trying moment to him. It exceeds all
in what it cost him. In preferring Ephraim to Manasseh, he suffered
something. But he, who did not then attend to nature in his son, will
not now attend to it in himself. He goes through this sorrowful,
humbling scene, feeling it bitterly at certain stages of it; but he
still goes on with it and through it. He had now to retrace, under the
Spirit, and as the oracle of God, and in their presence, the ways of his
sons in past days, and the fruit of these ways in days still to come. He
had to do much of this with a wounded heart, and with recollections that
might well be deeply humbling. For these words upon his sons were a kind
of judgment upon himself for his past carelessness about his children.
But still he does go on and finishes his service, as the oracle of God,
and that too with such sympathies and affections as give us some further
beautiful witnesses of his purified state of soul.
Levi's and Simeon's iniquity has to come before him. But he resents this
now in a way, no trace of which we find in him in the day when that
iniquity was perpetrated. It troubled him then because of the mischief
which it might work for him among his neighbours. "Ye have troubled me,"
said he, "to make me 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." Chap. xxxiv. 30. This was the mind he was in
when he was a citizen in Shechem. But now it is on other ground
altogether, higher and purer ground, that his soul refuses this
iniquity. It was iniquity; that is enough; and he will not let his
honour be united with it. Then he opens his eyes on the uncleanness of
Reuben, just to be shocked by it. And then, as the backsliding of Dan is
summoned up before him, his whole soul is moved, and he is cast on the
hope of God's salvation, his only escape, the only escape which he would
own, from all that was around him, behind him, or before him. "Dan shall
be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's
heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for thy
salvation, O Lord."
What affections and energies are here! How finely this vessel did its
service in the house of God! Poor David knew more than sorrow for the
loss of Absalom in the day of Absalom's fall. That slaying of his son
brought sin to remembrance. And here Jacob entered, with full personal
sympathies, into the counsels of God, and had his own part and share in
recollections that must have stirred the conscience.
He not only announced these judgments of God, but felt them. He was not
a _mere_ vessel, but a _living_ vessel. And he was faithful to Him that
appointed him, though the service was, after this manner, full of
humbling and bitterness.
We saw Jacob "dumb for a season." This we noticed as the character of
many years of our Patriarch's closing life. But his mouth had now been
opened by faith; and once opened, God uses him abundantly as His oracle.
This is like Zacharias, the Zacharias of Luke i. He also, as we know,
had been dumb for a season; but in faith he wrote his child's name upon
a writing-table, and then the Lord used him as His prophet.
Here the story ends; but I believe we have gathered the moral of it. The
Lord's hand with Jacob tells us how unwearied He is with His foolish and
wayward ones. It is _variety_, too, as well as _patience_, that we see
in this constant moral culture. Jacob had to learn different lessons;
and He, with whom he had to do, set Himself in patient grace to teach
them all to him. Bethel, Peniel, Bethel again, and Beersheba, witness
this, as we have seen. And then, throughout a changeful course, at home
and abroad, in youth and in manhood, among strangers or at the side of
his father and his mother, Jacob betrayed much that needed chastening,
and the lesson was taught him again and again.
He reminds us of the disciples in the days of the Lord. In how many ways
had the Lord to correct and instruct them! And it was the same to the
end; and the patience of their divine Teacher was the same to the end.
The ignorance, the selfishness, the constant moral mistakes they made
and betrayed, the different ways in which they crossed the mind of their
Master, all glorify the goodness that waited on them. And it may remind
us also of Him who bore with Israel's manners in the wilderness for
forty years. And it may be also a remembrancer to ourselves of much of
that patience and grace which we are daily experiencing at the same
hand.
Discipline, the discipline of a child, is illustrated in Jacob, as we
observed at the beginning, ere we began to consider his story, and as we
now have seen it to be. And discipline is healthful, and does good like
a medicine. If we need it, it is the _only_ thing for us. When in the
days of Samuel, Israel asked for a king, would it have been well for
them, if the Lord had given them David? The Lord had David in reserve
for them; but would it have been seasonable, would it have been
healthful for them, if David had been given to them at once, when with a
rebellious will they were asking for a king? Surely, they must first be
made to know the bitterness of their own way. A Saul must be given when
Israel asks a king. This was discipline, and this was the only thing
that would have been healthful for them. But when they have tasted the
bitterness of their own way, in pity of their misery, the Lord will
bring out that which He has in reserve for them, the man after His own
heart that shall fulfil all His pleasure.
How perfect was all this! Had David been given to Israel in the day of 1
Sam. xi. the whole moral of the story would have been lost to us. But
the love is the same, whether it be discipline or consolation, medicine
or food.
This is the characteristic lesson we learn from the story of our
patriarch.
With Machpelah and his burial, Jacob then _ends_ these dying
intercourses with his sons, as he had _begun_ them. xlvii. 29, xlix. 29.
He had Joseph's word and oath already on this matter, and now he must
put all of them under the same engagements to him about it. Death was
more important to him than life. Life kept him in Egypt, death would
restore him to Canaan. Death linked him with the God and the promise of
his fathers. The hopes of faith lay beyond life, and outside Egypt. In
spirit he was saying, Absent from the body, present with the Lord;
"Confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to
be present with the Lord." As far as patriarchal faith could utter this,
Jacob was uttering it. And at the very last we read, "When Jacob had
made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the
bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."