“YE ARE SPIES.”
The history of Joseph now becomes more and more a history of the
triumph of faith over sight, or holiness over sin. Hitherto
transgressors have seemed to prosper in their way, and only the godly
were depressed. But now we are to see the Holy One vindicating the
rights of injured innocence, and more and more plainly proclaiming that
the Judge of all the earth will do right. May we not exclaim, then,—
“Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law,
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.”
“Be sure your sins will find you out,” is the fixed decree of God; and
in the case of Joseph’s brethren the day of retribution now begins to
dawn. If hitherto conscience had been at ease, or oblivious of their
brother, it is now to be roused, and to speak out for the Holy One who
is the Lord of conscience—the just Judge of the skies. The great white
throne and its work are now to be anticipated.
From the narrative in Genesis we know that a famine had arisen in
Egypt, as Joseph had predicted. Its influence spread from that land
into the adjacent countries, and the sons of Jacob went thither to
profit by the stores which the wisdom of that brother whom they had
hated and sold had amassed. “All countries came into Egypt to Joseph,
for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands:” and
among the rest, the future patriarchs came, and “bowed down themselves
before him with their faces to the earth.”
In other words, Joseph’s dream is now fulfilled,—his brethren do
obeisance to him—they are prostrate in the Oriental manner at his
footstool! All their machinations could not turn aside the purposes of
Jehovah; and neither their projected murder of Joseph, nor his being
sold into Egypt, nor his being a prisoner for years, could interfere
with the onward march or the ceaseless flow of purposes formed in
heaven. It cannot be too strenuously enforced, for it is the burden of
the whole Bible, that every wish of man, every word and deed of the
creature, must bend before the will of God. Joseph’s whole history is a
proof; and the history of the whole world, when read in the light of
eternity, will further demonstrate the same truth. “Be still, and know
that I am God,” is the profound but simple lesson which all must
learn,—on earth, or in agony hereafter for ever.
All obstructions, then, are made to promote the designs of the Eternal;
and the sons of Jacob are therefore now at the feet of their hated
younger brother. For their trial, he spoke roughly unto them, and said,
“Ye are spies.” They were thus compelled to defend themselves in the
presence of him whom they had thrown into a pit, and plead for their
lives before one for whom they had no better portion than slavery and
exile. Again and again was the charge, “Ye are spies,” produced against
them; and again and again had they to declare that they were true men,
though Joseph knew that they were not. In short, they begin to discover
that the way of transgressors is hard; and to be assured that though
hand join in hand, sin shall not escape under the government of the
Holy One.
It is sometimes not easy to speak or to act towards sinners under the
influence of that pity which their sad case requires. The cutting
sarcasm of Elijah to the priests of Baal, and the irony of Isaiah to
the idolaters of his day, appear to be the right weapons to be used in
such a case. Oh, how has reason been dethroned by sin! how has even
conscience been warped and blinded, when men can hope to cope with
Omnipotence and triumph—to plot against Omniscience and escape—to rebel
against Love and be happy!
And the scriptural narrative is full upon this point, for it is one of
the main designs of the Bible to restore conscience to its place of
power. When tribulation came upon those men—when their sins began to
compass them about with sorrows—it was then that conscience spoke out:
“They said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother,
in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we
would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben
answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against
the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is
required” (Gen. xlii. 21, 22). Their injured brother wept aside while
they thus conferred; but, meanwhile, conviction of sin has been
wrought; and, in one point of view, these guilty men are twice in the
dust;—once before God, as detected in their iniquity; and again before
their brother, fulfilling the word of God upon their very knees.
And this may vividly remind us of what awaits the guilty at the last.
Self-detected, they will also be self-condemned. They will anticipate
the verdict of the Judge, and call on the mountains to fall on them ere
ever his sentence be uttered. But were it not well to anticipate all
this at an earlier stage? Were it not well to write bitter things
against ourselves now, and not wait to be condemned with the wicked—to
listen to the voice of a condemning conscience, and so escape the
condemnation of God?
“His blood is required of us,” then,—such was the confession of those
men; and, in confessing that fact, they bowed before the majesty of
conscience, as the trees of the forest bow before the storm. Now, it
were well could the men of every name, and class, and age, be brought
to recognize that majesty, and in time to do obeisance before it. It
were well were it written up in every place of business, in every
church, in every home, nay, in every heart,—“There is a God that
judgeth in the earth;” “He will bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thought.” Were that remembered, surely it would tend to
check man’s proneness to sin, unless he were prepared openly to
conflict with Omnipotence. True, nothing but God’s almighty grace can
subdue our wayward hearts, or make his will our law; yet could we
remember Joseph’s brethren, as we are directed to remember Lot’s wife,
it would be well with us: the Spirit of God would bless it for our
good; and both young and old—both viceroys like Joseph and shepherds
like his brethren—would be wiser and happier men.