(vv. 1-28) Then Joseph could not refrain himself from all that stood round about, and he cried unto every man, Depart from me: and there stood no man with him, when Joseph confessed himself with his brethren. And he cried with a loud voice, so that the Egyptians and Pharaoh's servants heard him, and said to his brothers: I am Joseph, is my father still alive? And his brethren could not answer him; so they were afraid before his face. And he said unto his brethren: Come near me. 1) And they came near. And he said: I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold in Egypt. And now be not grieved, neither think that there is wrath, 2) because ye have sold me hither: for for your life's sake God hath sent me before you. For these are two years that it is dear in the land, and there are yet five years that there shall be no plowing nor reaping. But God sent me before you, that he might leave you on earth, and preserve your life, by a great salvation. And now, you did not send me here, but God, he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord over all his house, and a ruler in all the land of Egypt. Now therefore make haste, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Joseph thy son saith unto thee, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and be near me, you and your children and your children's children,
1) Marginal gloss: To me. These are the few words of the Gospel; thus Christ speaks to the soul in faith, after it has been humbled and troubled by the conscience of sin.
2) In the Bible: that I may be angry.
Your flocks and your herds, and all that is yours, I will provide for you there. For there are yet five years of theuration, lest thou perish with thy house, and with all that is thine. Behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that I speak unto you verbally. Declare unto my father all my glory in Egypt, and all that ye have seen; make haste, and come down hither with my father. And he fell on the neck of Benjamin his brother, and wept; and Benjamin also wept on his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept over them. After that his brothers talked with him. And when the cry came to Pharaoh's ears, that Joseph's brethren were come, it pleased Pharaoh well, and all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Tell thy brethren: Do so to him, load your animals, go, and when you come to the land of Canaan, take your father and your servants and come to me, and I will give you goods in the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the marrow of the land. And give unto them: Do to him thus, take unto you out of the land of Egypt chariots for your children and your wives, and bring your father, and come. And spare not your household goods: for the goods of all the land of Egypt shall be yours. So the children of Israel did. And Joseph gave them chariots, according to Pharaoh's commandment, and victuals for the way, and gave them all, every one a garment of feasting: but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver, and five garments of feasting. But to his father he sent ten asses laden with goods from Egypt, and ten asses laden with grain, and bread and food to his father on the way. So he sent his brothers [and they
He said to them: Do not quarrel on the way. So they went up from Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And they told him, saying: Thy son Joseph is yet alive, and is a ruler in all the land of Egypt. But his heart cast it to [the] winds, because he believed them not. Then they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had spoken unto them. And when he saw the chariots which Joseph had sent to drive him, his spirit was quickened. And [Israel] said: I am satisfied that my son Joseph is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.
These four chapters are all related to each other, so we will go over them together. So far we have heard how Joseph came to great honor through the word of God, that he became a sovereign, and Egypt was saved through him; and not only Egypt, but also many other people; so that God testifies and proves how he is the right Father and Lord, who takes care of the whole world. Thus the history is more lovely in itself than anyone can say and emphasize; therefore everyone may grasp and consider it for himself.
2) In sum, we see here once again how God leads His saints so strangely. First of all, in that he leaves the old father Jacob sitting so long, that is, thirteen whole years, in great gloom and sorrow, and Joseph also, that they do not think otherwise, that it is over with them; and then suddenly brings about such great joy that even those who hear it must rejoice that the two are so heartily well.
This is the point that the Scripture holds up to us everywhere: What God wants to make honorable, he puts to shame beforehand; whom he wants to please to the highest degree, he makes full of sorrow and heartache beforehand. So that he would like to bring us with so many examples, so that he would shower us, that we would also once learn to know his way, how he acts in all creatures, especially with the elect. The deeper he humbles them, presses them down and lets them sink, the higher he wants to raise them and set them on high.
4. so from this history are a lot of sayings
The fathers therefore took it and learned it. Therefore we should also learn it once; but nature is too weak, it cannot judge differently than it feels. If Joseph should have followed this, as he lay in prison, and his honor and reputation were taken from him, that he had to suffer two kinds of misfortune at once, punishment and shame, and both innocently; for it is still gentle when one suffers in such a way that people know how to mourn him, and have compassion that he is wronged; but when one stands innocent with all disgraces, that is only bitter: if 1) he should now (I say) have judged according to this, he would have had to despair a hundred times. Again, if he had intended that he should come to such great honors, he would gladly have suffered ten times as much. Who wants to praise and exalt that it happens to him that God honors him temporally and eternally, spiritually and physically, that he becomes a lord over all the goods of Egypt, and lasts not ten or twenty, but seventy, yes, almost eighty years!
5 Now count them against each other: Thirteen years he suffers shame, disgrace and guilt; the time has become very long for him, flesh and blood could not sustain it so long; after that he becomes a lord, not only over the woman who must fall at his feet and beg mercy, but over the whole land.
Therefore, God cannot refrain from humiliating us and throwing us down, so He will lift us up all the more joyfully. This is what he wants us to think, if only we can persevere and have patience. This is also what Paul means in 2 Cor. 4:17; that we suffer here is a short moment, but it creates so much the richer glory that is to be revealed in us, if we do not look at the visible, but at the invisible.
7 Thus God wants to comfort us, as if he wanted to say: "Behold, how I am minded, take Joseph before you; as I have dealt with him, 3) so will I deal with you. Thirteen years have I made him suffer, but much more abundantly have I recompensed him with bodily honor, and much more with spiritual honor and goods; that he might
1) Erlanger: shall. Wittenberger and Jenaer: "shall". 2) Wittenberger: "nu" instead of: es.
3) "with him" is missing in the Erlanger.
the Savior and angel sent by God would be of all who are there to enlighten the people and convert them to God.
This is the first and best part, the sum of the whole history, how he becomes at the same time a temporal lord and a spiritual governor of souls, and a right bishop over everything that strikes the land; for without a doubt, his doctrine has spread very far. So he did not celebrate, because he had everything in his hand and ruled, that the right doctrine went strong. Then you can think what fruit he has produced by teaching people to know God, as the Psalter says [Psalm 32:8]. But it did not come to that, it must have been broken before.
(9) Above this there is another great thing, as I have said, the third, that he became an everlasting lord, that is, that he became the chief of the people of Israel. For Israel had twelve sons, of whom God set apart one, Levi, for the priesthood, and he remained there. Then God took the two sons of Joseph and made the number full again, giving him two tribes before the other brothers, and also the kingdom of Israel, as long as it had stood; so that the man was not only blessed temporally and spiritually, but also his family and the people remained after his life so long that they did excellent deeds, and often brought honor against their enemies, and had great prophets, so that no people was so blessed with his blood and flesh as this one. If he had seen all this before, he would gladly have suffered a hundred years of death, and would still have been too small compared to the abundant good, so that he would be praised with his people. For there was no nation on earth that had such men, prophets, kings and princes as the nation of Israel, especially Ephraim, except the tribe of Judah.
10 God has done all this for the sake of our future comfort when we suffer, when we could only stand still and hold our ground, and gladly suffer more. But we are too soft, only want to see it beforehand, thus preventing his counsel. Who then is not moved by the example, what should move him? How are we so flesh
1) Wittenberger: the.
and blood against them! Therefore, because we cannot wait and wait, we will never see how he comforts and blesses his own. It hurt him that he had to suffer the shame; but if he had seen what God had in mind, he would have gladly let a thousand adulteries pass over him; but because he perseveres, he experiences how abundantly God can repay.
This is what Paul says [2 Cor. 4, 17]: "Suffering is small and easy compared to the glory that God wants to give us" when we believe. But when the suffering is there, it seems so great that no one thinks that there is any consolation, so that it also pleased the saints here; as also St. Job, as he says [Cap. 6, 2. 3.]: "If my wrath were weighed, and my suffering put together in a balance, it would be heavier than sand on the sea." But he who is able to repay God sees that where he can suffer one thing, all heaven is full of consolation; as Christ says in the Gospel [Matth. 19, 29.]: "Every one that shall save houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or child, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive it an hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life."
12 Then you see how it is true; he leaves Jacob with eleven brothers, and wins the whole land of Egypt, and after that eternal life. We cannot do that. That is why we only want to have our fist full beforehand and not believe; however, we will never come to that. So now understand this story, so that you know what God means by it, and learn how we should conduct ourselves when he deals with us in this way: so that we can draw comfort from it when things go badly for us. This is the first, most noble part.
(13) After this is also how God governs His saints so strangely that He does not take away the nature and inclination that is innate in us. This I do not preach so often for nothing, for it will certainly come again; as one already finds some such saints as those who have run into the deserts of people, and as the monks and nuns have made people to be wood and stones, thinking to come so high in virtue and holiness, that they have
would be like the angels. This is not seen of any saint in all the Scriptures; for the same natural inclinations are God's creatures, which they have denied and want to make for holiness, that we are neither blood nor flesh. I think Jacob is as holy as any pope, even St. Peter and Paul, and all the apostles, should do him honor and call him dear father, for he is exceedingly highly and richly graced by God: yet behold how God makes him weep and wail, and lament over the son, as if he were 1) all flesh. Joseph, now that he has suffered so much, is full of the Holy Spirit and of all goods; but behold how he softens, and the heart in him warms over his brother Benjamin in the flesh, that he must depart from him and weep. This is a natural inclination, implanted by God, which He does not want to condemn. So the brothers also become happy when they recognize him, and he, the father, then becomes completely alive again, as if he had awakened from a deep sleep.
(14) I say all this so that the rich work of God may be known, for it is not in his opinion to break nature. He created the eyes to see, the hands to work, the stomach to digest; every creature as he has made it, so he leaves his work; so he has given women a mother's heart to care for children, which no one can hinder or prevent.
(15) Therefore, let his kingdom remain so that it does not break nature, that it does not again make such mad saints who want to take away their very heart. This is what God does well, that he tempts the natural movement, and tugs with it, and resists it or stops it. So it was natural that Jacob would have liked to keep his son; but God snatches him away, yet does not take away the father's inclination; does not do what he would like, but does not take away his will. So he does not forbid to love this or that, but he often prevents that what we would like to happen does not happen; as that one is rightly scolded and promised, 2) whom I would like to hear praised; or a good friend dies, whom I would not like to lose, and the like.
1) Jenaer and Erlanger: es.
2) promise - to speak ill of someone.
(16) But the clever think that everything must be removed, that one must be free of the thing, and have such an opinion, [they] want to drive it away with works. He created it that it should be and must be; so we want to make it better, to fight it with commandments and to tear it away. [It is as much as if I said, The eye shall not be the eye, the belly shall not be the belly; yet hungers my belly when it is time, and bids it and forbids it as one pleases. So do all the natural works that are implanted; he leaves them, but he tortures them to try us. Therefore, beware of the same great saints who arose soon after the time of the apostles; as one reads of some of them in vitis patrum. If God did not take away the nature of the saints, whom he had shouted and described in the world as the best that he could find, and if he had had them better, had also had them written, and had preferred them as a paragon and his dearest children, then let us also leave it at that, and not become more holy.
But this we must expect and consider, that he tries and armors them, 3) to test how we want to hold in such a being, whether we can forgive ourselves all things for his sake. For this reason he gives us life, which is the most precious thing we have on earth, but often throws us into danger of death; at last he even takes it from us, so that it may be seen whether we can let it go for the sake of him who gave it. Should it therefore be wrong to love life? His gifts are not rejected, but only tried to see if they could be left; as he tried Jacob to see if he could leave his son for his own sake. He did so, but it hurt him. For it is impossible that nature should not be hurt when the implanted movement is broken.
18 These are the most noble pieces in history. For the fact that Joseph acts and disputes with the brothers in this way, and tortures and stretches them, 4) all this serves so that God's works may always be seen. He wants to make them happy,
3) armor sweep - clean, policies, rub, martyr. - to pardon oneself to renounce a thing.
4) stretch - torture. The term is taken from torture.
and prepare a good meal, therefore he tributes them well. So that one can feel and be sure when God starts to torture us, that he then has it well in mind; there he is before the door, as he also speaks in the Revelation of John [Cap. 3, 20]: "I stand before the door"; but the knocking hurts us. But behold how Joseph holds his peace, and opens to him, and lets him go in. Thus he prepares the wedding feast. That is enough of the story. We cannot cover all the points so that it does not become too long; if we want to save some points for the mystery, we will cut them out.
(19) This Joseph, as we have heard above [Cap. 37, ยง 10], is a figure of our Lord Christ; therefore he also has the name. For Joseph is called an increaser, that he always grows and increases, and becomes more and more, accumulates and piles up. God also fulfilled the name to him temporally, as we have heard, that he heaped and showered him with temporal, 1) worldly goods.
Now Joseph had a colorful coat, and was the right, dear child of the father, to whom also the regiment belonged, as also his dreams show; but his brothers become hostile to him, take him away, and sell him in Egypt, so that he comes to a strange place, and must serve the strangers there, and a strange woman disgraces him, seizes him once by his coat, which he leaves in her hand, and flees away 2c. The Holy Spirit has played with the figure before of the passion and resurrection of Christ. For that he comes in Egypt, is that he became man on earth; there he becomes a servant and serves, has no more than body need of it.
021 Then his wife cast her eyes upon him, and would have wooed him: but he would not, and she took him by the cloak, and accused him before her lord. This is what happened to him on earth. The synagogue, or Jewish people, is this harlot, the wife of Moses his master, who is the master of this people, and rules them as a man rules a woman; under whom Christ served, as Paul says, Galatians 3:13, 4:4, and gave and kept himself under the law.
1) Erlanger: Temporal.
Even though he did not need it. For he came in a stranger, and listened to him nothing, but serves him so that he puts all things under his hands, and himself knows not what he hath. This is that Christ has done enough for the law and fulfilled everything, so that no more can be required.
22 And the woman, seeing that he was handsome and fair of face, took pleasure in him, and loved him, and daily tempted him with words, that he should sleep with her; but he would not, so much so that he fled to be with her, until she caught him unawares in secret. This is the figure, when the Pharisees and scribes saw his examples and miracles, how the people clung to him and had great clamor, they could not punish his conduct and behavior. Therefore they would have gladly courted him, that is, they would have drawn him to them, and preached as they wished, and let their thing be right; as is finely indicated in the Gospel of John, how they would have gladly drawn him to them. But nothing came of it, he saw their deception well. No matter how often they tried, it did not help; so he remained innocent of them.
023 And at the last they caught him, and laid hold on him by the cloak. This happened when they captured him and accused him of being a seducer, of stirring up the people and hanging on them, and of preaching against the law. Then they condemned him as an adulterer with all shame. That he should be cast into [the] dungeon, that is, put away, dead, and buried; then he left the mantle in their hand, which they kept, that is, they have the writing still, which he left behind him; but he is of it, that they catch him not. And as the harlot put and kept the cloak for a witness against him, so they put the writing, which was against themselves, for a witness against him, as when they said in John [Cap. 19:7], "We have a law, and by the law he shall die." So he must die most infamously, and lies in the grave.
(24) Then come the prophets, that is, the dreamers, the tavern keepers, and the bakers; that is, that all the sayings of the prophets rhyme here, how his kingdom is, to judge the whole world, to condemn the unbelievers, and to save the faithful. But there comes Pha-
rao with his dream; then Christ comes forth and becomes a Lord of his enemies and of all the world, who has in his hands and rules all that God has created in heaven and on earth, so that all the world must bow the knee 1) before him.
(25) There the resurrection and the kingdom of Christ are most delicately portrayed. For as Joseph reigns in the temporal, so he reigns in the spiritual, that he feedeth all souls with his word, and divideth out the gifts of the Spirit, and maketh the whole land full and full, and increaseth his name and family, that kings and prophets arise among his people; so that his humility and affliction are abundantly paid for above all measure, as Paul saith in Phil.
2, 8-11. says: "He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Christ every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father." He acquired all these things through his suffering, but all of them for our service, just as Joseph alone was sent by God for this purpose in Egypt, so that many people were helped through him.
26 I will leave the secret or spiritual interpretation of the other chapters for the sake of brevity, because they are easy to find from the previous interpretations, so that others may also have something to do.