to be a slave. Joseph can no longer restrain himself; he embraces them with tears, and says: "I am Joseph your brother." Pharaoh sends wagons and asses, for the purpose of bringing the whole family, with their substance, to Egypt. When Jacob is convinced that the declarations of his sons are true, he says: "It is enough: Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die."

OBS. The history of Joseph is a highly expressive prefiguration of the history of the Redeemer. The relation between Christ and his brethren after the flesh, is prefigured by the relation between Joseph and his brethren; the Redeemer's humiliation and sufferings, and the exaltation and glory which followed, are represented in the corresponding events in the life of Joseph. This typical character of the history of the latter, which may be traced even in the details with remarkable distinctness, is not merely accidental, neither is it arbitrarily obtruded upon that history, but necessarily arises from the important position which Joseph occupies. He is the key-stone of the patriarchal history, as Christ is the key-stone of the entire Old Testament history. The life of the patriarchs is the first distinct and complete form assumed by the kingdom of God in Israel, and sustains the same relation to the entire Old Testament history, which the first or inner of two concentric circles bears to the second. As Joseph combines in himself the entire signification of the life of the patriarchs, so Christ presents in himself the entire signification of the life of the Old Testament. (8 7. 5.)

§ 35. The last Days of Jacob and Joseph.

1. Gen. ch. 46, 47.-The whole family of Jacob, consisting of seventy souls (exclusive of the wives of his sons, and of the servants), removes to Egypt. When he reaches the border of the country at Beer-sheba, the Lord appears to him and encourages him to proceed. The venerable man, the father of the chosen people, bestows his blessing on Pharaoh, who allots to him and his household the fertile pasture-land of Goshen; this territory, lying on the eastern side of the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, extended to Rhinokolura, or the river of Egypt (torrens Egypti), which formed the eastern boundary of Egypt. Jacob's sons are entrusted with the care of the royal cattle. (2298 years after the creation of man.)

OBS.-This emigration to Egypt was, without doubt, directed by the Lord for the purpose of guarding against the dispersion of the family, as well as against its admixture with strangers, during the important period which had arrived, in which it was appointed to be developed as a nation; neither of these unfavorable results, which would have been inevitable in Canaan, could follow in Egypt: for Goshen afforded ample room for their increasing numbers, on the one hand, while, on the other, the aversion of the Egyptians to shepherds (ch. 46: 34) effectually prevented the formation of ties between them by intermarriage. Besides, the opportunity which was furnished for becoming acquainted with the wisdom of Egypt, and also the pressure of the future bondage, may have both been designed to serve, in the hands of God, as means for training and cultivating the chosen nation. And the transition from a nomadic to an agricultural life, which was designed to constitute the foundation of the polity of Israel on acquiring independence and a home in the promised land, may also be assigned, in its incipient stages, to this period.

2. Gen. ch. 48, 49. -A short time before Jacob died, he adopted the two sons of Joseph, who had, by faith, chosen a better lot for them than posts of honor in Egypt, since he allowed them to return to the lowly pastoral life of his brethren. Jacob gathers his twelve sons around his death-bed, and announces their future condition in the promised land. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, respectively, lose the right of the first-born, on account of wicked deeds which they had committed at a former period. The double portion (Deut. 21: 17), had already been assigned to Joseph by the adoption of his two sons; the pre-eminence and the blessing of the promise, are transferred to Judah. "Judah" (that is, praise), "thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise-thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."

OBS.-According to the translation of the concluding words in Luther's Bible,* the sense of the promise is the following: Judah

* [We have given above, in place of the author's own German version, the passage as it occurs in the authorized English version, which agrees, in general, with the one found in the German Bible, to which the author

shall be the ruling tribe, until the Messiah shall come forth from it and exalt, or raise Judah's temporal dominion to one that is eternal. This interpretation of the passage is still defended by many of the most eminent theologians as the only one that is correct. Nevertheless, the translation which we give may, possibly, claim the preference, as it corresponds more fully, both to the words of the original text, and also to that precise grade in the hope or expectation of salvation which had then been reached. ["The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, the rod of the ruler (shall not depart) from the place between his feet, until he comes to (his) rest, and obtains the obedience of the nations."] It can scarcely be shown that, at that period already, the expectation of a personal Messiah existed, since the entire hope of salvation was inseparably connected with the circumstance that the family would unfold itself as a great nation, which event still belonged to a future time, and also with the possession of the promised land, which was, likewise, yet to be obtained (? 23. 2), and since, also, no point of contact or union had hitherto been presented by history, which could be met by a personal and individual Messiah (2 24. 1, OBS. 2). Nevertheless, this prediction is decidedly messianic; but the entire tribe of Judah, in its unity and totality, and not a particular individual belonging to it, appears in it as the one who brings rest, or as the bearer and medium of salvation. Judah passes through victory and dominion into his rest, and conducts his brethren also, who bow before his sovereignty, into that rest; yea, the nations also willingly obey him, and, consequently, also share in the blessings of that rest and that salvation.

3. Gen. ch. 50.- Jacob dies when he is one hundred and forty-seven years old, and, according to the desire which he expressed in faith, his body, which had been embalmed, and was honorably attended by the Egyptians, was carried to Canaan, and deposited in the family burying-place. Joseph removes the apprehensions which his brothers again entertain. "Ye thought evil against me," he said, "but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” When his refers, with the two exceptions, that Luther adopts in it the word "master" and "hero," in place of "lawgiver" and Shiloh," respectively. The author proposes, in a parenthesis, after "hero," the word "rest, that is, he who brings rest," as a substitute for it. The author's version, literally translated into English, we have transferred to the OBS. above, enclosed in brackets. — TR.]

own death approached, he took an oath (by faith, Heb. 11:22) of the children of Israel, requiring them to carry his bones with them when they returned to Canaan. (See Joshua 24 : 32.)

OBS.-We admire the firm, unshaken confidence, and the unconditional obedience of faith, as they appear in their whole power and their fulness in Abraham; and, on the other hand, in Isaac, the elasticity of faith, apparent in patient endurance and suffering, in quietness and waiting. Faith is beheld in another aspect in Jacob; it appears as a violent contest with flesh and blood, as well as with the evils of life. In the life of Joseph the fidelity or perseverance of faith is revealed, approved alike in quiet endurance and in energetic action, and ultimately crowned with salvation and victory.

§ 36. Revelation, Religion and Intellectual Culture in the Age of the Patriarchs.

1. The prevailing mode of revelation in the history of the patriarchs, agreeably to the elementary position which they occupied, was the theophany, that is, the manifestation or appearance of God either in a bodily form which the external senses could perceive (as in the case of the angel of the Lord) or in visions and dreams which the internal sense observed. The substance and the result of divine revelation may be stated thus: the divine will was manifested in the selection, calling and appointment of Abraham and his seed to be the bearers of salvation in its introductory stages the divine knowledge, in the announcement of this calling and the divine power, in the creative production of the promised seed from a body now dead (Rom. 4:19), in the removal from it of all superfluous shoots and branches, and in the gracious guidance and direction of that seed.

OBS.—It is a striking fact that the entire history of the patriarchs and of those who preceded them, does not present a single miracle wrought by man; God alone performed them, without employing man as his agent. This fact itself, which illustrates the normal progress of the history of revelation, is already sufficient to show most clearly that any interpretation which would assign a mythical character to this period is inadmissible and preposterous. What a vast cloud of miraculous deeds a fictitious story, that was founded

upon mythical or fabulous narratives, could have drawn around the heads of the revered ancestors of the nation! In reference to prophecy, also, a corresponding relation occurs; still, besides the immediate divine predictions which continue to constitute the predominant feature, predictions are already made occasionally through the instrumentality of particular individuals.

2. The religious consciousness of the patriarchs combined with itself from the beginning, probably through the medium of tradition, those religious views which were already imprinted on the earliest history (concerning the unity, personality and holiness of God, the creation from nothing, the connate image of God in man, the corruption of sin, and the hope of a future victory of mankind over the principle of temptation). When the patriarchs personally obtained revelations of God, their religious sense acquired increased vigor, greater depth and extent, and also greater distinctness. However great, wonderful and peculiar, the fulness and purity of this religious consciousness may appear, when it is compared with the worship of nature to which Paganism abandoned itself, nevertheless, when it is regarded in itself, and when the gradual progress of the history of revelation is considered, it is found, both from its nature and from necessity, to be still defective and elementary.

OBS.-No error appears in the religious consciousness of the patriarchs, but many imperfections remain. Their view of God long continued without the crown of its full development, which was incomplete until the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was revealed. The degeneracy of Paganism, in its conception of God, required that the clear view of the unity, personality and holiness of God should be, first of all, indelibly impressed on the consciousness of the people of the covenant, and serve as the basis of the continued expansion of their knowledge of God. Favorable seasons for promoting this continued expansion occurred already in the age of the patriarchs; to these belong the intimations in the history of the creation (2 9. OBS. 1), the appearance of the Angel of the Lord (? 26. 2, OBS.), and the distinction between the names of God, Elohim and Jehovah (? 3. OBS.). The doctrine of salvation is found in the elementary stages of its development; thus, the idea of a personal and theanthropic (divine and human) Messiah does not yet occur (? 24. 1, OBS. 2, and ? 35. 2, OBS.). The doctrine of eternal life is still in the period of its