Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
Parallel Translations
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Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
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And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
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And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Exodus 1:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 50:26 So Joseph died, being one hundred ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
- Genesis 50:24 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am dying, but God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
- Acts 7:14-16 Joseph sent and summoned Jacob, his father, and all his relatives, seventy-five souls. Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers, and they were brought back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 1:6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren,…
Exo 1:6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
Ver. 6. And all that generation,] Ea enim lege nati sumus ut moriamur: God also maketh haste to have the number of his elect fulfilled; and, therefore, despatcheth away the generations.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Joseph died, and all his brethren,.... It is…
And Joseph died, and all his brethren,.... It is a notion of the Jews, that Joseph died before any of his brethren; see Gill on Gen 50:26 and they gather it from these words; but it does not necessarily follow from hence, they might die some before him and some after him; and as they were all born in about seven years' time, excepting Benjamin, they might all die within a little time of each other: according to the Jewish writers (d), the dates of their death were these,"Reuben lived one hundred and twenty four years, and died two years after Joseph; Simeon lived one hundred and twenty years, and died the year after Joseph; Levi lived one hundred and thirty seven years, and died twenty four years after Joseph; Judah lived one hundred and nineteen years, Issachar one hundred and twenty two, Zebulun one hundred and twenty four, and died two years after Joseph; Dan lived one hundred and twenty seven years, Asher one hundred and twenty three years, Benjamin one hundred and eleven years, and died twenty six years before Levi; Gad lived one hundred and twenty five years, and Naphtali one hundred and thirty three years;''but though this account of the Jews, of their times, and of the times of their death, is not to be depended upon, yet it is certain they all died in Egypt, though they were not buried there; but as Stephen says, Act 7:16 they were carried over to Shechem and interred there, either quickly after their decease, or, however, were taken along with the bones of Joseph by the children of Israel, when they departed out of Egypt: and it is also evident that they all died before the affliction and oppression of the children of Israel in Egypt began; and this account seems to be given on purpose to point this out unto us, being placed in the order it is. Levi lived the longest of them all, and the affliction did not begin till after his death; and the Jewish chronologers say (e) that from his death to the children of Israel's going out of Egypt were one hundred and sixteen years; and they further observe (f), that it could not last more than one hundred and sixteen years, and not less than eighty seven, according to the years of Miriam:
and all that generation; in which Joseph and his brethren had lived. These also died, Egyptians as well as Israelites, before the oppression began.
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(d) R. Bechai apud Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 3. 2. & 4. 1. (e) R. Gedaliah in Shalshalet, fol. 5. 1. Ganz. Tzemach David: par. 1. fol. 6. 1. (f) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 3. p. 9.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain All that generation by degrees wore off: perhaps all…
All that generation by degrees wore off: perhaps all Jacob's sons died much about the same time, for there was not past seven years difference in age between the eldest and the youngest of them, except Benjamin.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Joseph died, and all his brethren] That…
Verse 6. Joseph died, and all his brethren] That is, Joseph had now been some time dead, as also all his brethren, and all the Egyptians who had known Jacob and his twelve sons; and this is a sort of reason why the important services performed by Joseph were forgotten.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Exo 1:6. All that generation — By degrees wore…
Exo 1:6. All that generation — By degrees wore off. Perhaps all Jacob’s sons died much about the same time, for there was not past seven years’ difference in age between the eldest and the youngest of them, except Benjamin.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Generation, or race of mortals who had seen his…
Generation, or race of mortals who had seen his wonderful works. The tyrant, who knew not Joseph, began his reign about 58 years after that patriarch’s death. (Calmet) --- His name was Pharao Amenophis, (Perer.) or Ramesses Miamum. (Usher.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. The continuation in J of Gen_50:14, preparing partly…
6. The continuation in J of Gen_50:14, preparing partly for the notice, now preserved fragmentarily in v. 7, of the increase of the Israelites in Egypt, and partly for v. 8.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And Joseph died. Or, "So Joseph died a reference…
And Joseph died. Or, "So Joseph died a reference to Gen_1:26and all his brethren. All the other actual sons of Jacob some probably before him; some, as Levi (ch. 6:16), after him. Joseph"s "hundred and ten years" did not constitute an extreme longevity. And all that generation. All the wives of Jacob"s sons, their sister Dinah, and the full-grown members of their households who accompanied them into Egypt.
Joseph in death with all his generation.
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There are some sayings so trite that we can scarcely bring ourselves to repeat them, so vital that we do not dare to omit them. One of these is that immemorial one: "We must all die." Joseph, great as he had been, useful as his life had been to others, unspeakably precious as it had proved to his near kinsmen, when his time came, went the way of all flesh died like any common man, and "was put in a coffin" (Gen_50:26) and buried. So it must always be with every earthly support and stay; it fails us at last, and if it does not betray us, at any rate deserts us; suddenly it is gone, and its place knows it no more. This is always to be borne in mind; and no excessive reliance is to be placed on individuals. The Church is safe; for its Lord is always "with it," and so will be "even to the end of the world." But the men in whom from time to time it trusts are all mortal may at any time be lost to it may in one hour be snatched away. It is important therefore for the Church to detach itself from individuals, and to hold to two anchors Christ and the Faith of Christ which can never cease to exist, and can never fail it. For, when our Joseph dies, there die with him, or soon after him, "all his brethren, and all that generation." The great lights of an age are apt to go out at once, or if a few linger on, they burn with a dim lustre. And the generation that hung upon their words despairs, and knows not which way to turn itself, until the thought comes to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."Then, in resting upon Christ, it is well with us. Well, too, for each generation to remember, it will not long stay behind it will follow its teachers. Joseph dies his brethren die; wait a few years, and God will have taken to himself "all that generation.
An ending.
The descent into Egypt was
1. An ending.
2. A beginning.
It closed one chapter in God"s providence, and opened a new one. It terminated the sojourn in Canaan; brought to a harmonious conclusion the complicated series of events which separated Joseph from his father, raised him to power in Egypt, wrought for the purification of his brethren"s character, and prepared the way for the ultimate settlement of, the whole family in Goshen. It laid the foundation for new historical developments. There is now to be a pause, a breathing space, while the people are gradually multiplying, and exchanging the habits of nomadic life for those of agriculturists and dwellers in cities. The death of Joseph, and of his brethren, and of all that generation, is the proper close of this earlier period. Their part is played out, and the stage is cleared for new beginnings.
1. They died so must we all. The common fate, yet infinitely pathetic when reflected on.
2. They died the end of earthly greatness. Joseph had all he could wish for of earthly power and splendour, and he enjoyed it through a long lifetime. Yet he must part with it. Well for him that he had something better in prospect.
3. They diedthe end of earthly disciplines. The lives of the brethren had been singularly eventful. By painful disciplines God had moulded them for good. Life to every one is a divinely ordained discipline. The end is to bring us to repentance, and build us up in faith and holiness. With some, the discipline succeeds; with others it fails. In either case death ends it. "After this the judgment". (Heb_9:27) The fact of discipline an argument for immortality. God does not spend a lifetime in perfecting a character, that just when the finishing touches have been put upon it, he may dash it into non-existence. Death ends discipline, but we carry with us the result and the responsibility.
4. They died Joseph and his brethren happily in faith. There was a future they did not live to see; but their faith grasped God"s promise, and "Joseph, when he died, gave commandment concerning his bones". (Heb_11:22) And behind the earthly Canon loomed something better an inheritance which they and we may share together. J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Joseph died, and all his brethren.
Exo_1:6
Joseph died, and all his brethren.
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The death of a whole family
I. It was a very large family
II. It was a very diversified family.
1. They were diversified in their sympathies.
2. They were diversified in social position.
III. It was a very tried family.
IV. It was a very influential family.
V. It was a very religiously privileged family. Lessons:
1. A rebuke to family pride.
2. A warning against seeking satisfaction in family joys.
3. A lesson as to the right use of family relationships. Live together as those who must die.
4. Some strong reasons for expecting family meetings after death.
(1) Such different characters cannot admit exactly the same fate. Extinction is either too good for the sinner, or else a strange reward for the saint.
(2) Family affection seems too strong to be thus quenched. (U. R. Thomas.)
The universal characteristic
The succession of generations among the children of men has been, from Homer downwards, likened to that of the leaves among the trees of the forest. The foliage of one summer, withering gradually away, and strewing the earth with its wrecks, has its place supplied by the exuberance of the following spring. But there is one point in which the analogy does not hold,--there is one difference between the race of leaves and the race of men: between the leaves of successive summers an interval of desolation intervenes, and the bare and wintry woods emphatically mark the passage from one season to another. But there is no such pause in the succession of the generations of men. Insensibly they melt and shade into one another: an old man dies, and a child is born; daily and hourly there is a death and a birth; and imperceptibly, by slow degrees, the actors in lifes busy scene are changed. Hence the full force of this thought--One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh--is not ordinarily felt. The first view of this verse that occurs to us is its striking significance and force as a commentary on the history of which it so abruptly and emphatically announces the close. The previous narrative presents to us a busy scene--an animated picture; and here, as if by one single stroke, all is reduced to a blank. It is as if having gazed on ocean when it bears on its broad bosom a gallant and well-manned fleet--bending gracefully to its rising winds, and triumphantly stemming its swelling waves--you looked out again, and at the very next glance beheld the wide waste of waters reposing in dark and horrid peace over the deep-buried wrecks of the recent storm. And all that generation: How startling a force is there in this awful brevity, this compression and abridgment--the names and histories of millions brought within the compass of so brief a statement of a single fact concerning them--that they all died! Surely it seems as if the Lord intended by this bill of mortality for a whole race, which His own Spirit has framed, to stamp as with a character of utter mockery and insignificance the most momentous distinctions and interests of time; these all being engulfed and swallowed up in the general doom of death, which ushers in the one distinction of eternity.
I. Let us ponder the announcement as it respects the individual--Joseph died. His trials, with their many aggravations--his triumphs, with all their glories--were alike brief and evanescent; and his eventful career ended, as the obscurest and most commonplace lifetime must end--for Joseph died. Joseph is at home, the idol of a fond parent. Ah I dote not, thou venerable sire, on thy fair and dutiful child. Remember how soon it may be said of him, and how certainly it must be said of him, that Joseph died. Joseph is in trouble--betrayed, persecuted, distressed, a prisoner, a slave. But let him not be disquieted above measure. It is but a little while, and it shall be said of him that Joseph died. Joseph is exalted--he is high in wealth, in honour, and in power. But why should all his glory and his joy elate him? It will be nothing to him soon--when it comes to be said of him that Joseph died. Ah! there is but one of Josephs many distinctions, whether of character or of fortune, that does not shrivel beside this stern announcement. The simplicity of his trust in God, the steadfastness of his adherence to truth and holiness, the favour of Heaven, his charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned--these will stand the shock of collision with this record of his decease.
II. And all his brethren. They too all died, and the vicissitudes of their family history came to an end in the silent tomb. Joseph died, and all his brethren. Ah! how intimately should this reflection have knit them together in unity of interest, of affection, and of aim! The tie of a common origin is scarcely stronger or closer than the tie of a common doom. The friend, the beloved brother who has gone, has acquired, by his death, new value in your esteem--a new and sacred claim to your regard. Now for the first time you discover how dear he should have been, how dear he was, to your hearts--dearer far than you had ever thought. How fondly do you dwell on all his attractions and excellencies! Hew frivolous are all former causes of misunderstanding, all excuses for indifference, now seen to be I And whither are they gone? And what are their views now, and what their feelings, on the matters which formed the subject of their familiar inter-course here? Are they united in the region of blessedness above? Or is there a fearful separation, and are there some of their number on the other side of the great gulf?
III. And all that generation. The tide of mortality rolls on in a wider stream. It sweeps into the one vast ocean of eternity all the members of a family--all the families of a race. The distinctions alike of individuals and of households are lost. Every landmark is laid low. Some are gone in tender years of childhood, unconscious of lifes sins and sufferings--some in grey-headed age, weighed down by many troubles. Some have perished by the hand of violence--some by natural decay. And another generation now fills the stage--a generation that, in all its vast circle of families, can produce not one individual to link it with the buried race on whose ashes it is treading. On a smaller scale, you have experienced something of what we now describe. In the sad season of bereavement, how have you felt your pain embittered by the contrast between death reigning in your heart and home, and bustling life going on all around! In the prospect, too, of your own departure, does not this thought form an element of the dreariness of death, that when you are gone, and laid in the silent tomb, others will arise that knew not you?--your removal will scarce occasion even a momentary interruption in the onward course and incessant hurry of affairs, and your loss will be but as that of a drop of water from the tide that rolls on in its career as mighty and as majestical as ever. But here, it is a whole generation, with all its families, that is engulfed in one unmeasured tomb! And lo! the earth is still all astir with the same activities, all gay with the same pomps and pageantries, all engrossed with the same vanities and follies, and, alas! the same sins also, that have been beguiling and disappointing the successive races of its inhabitants since the world began! And there is another common lot--another general history--another universal characteristic: After death, the judgment. Joseph rises again, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And they all stand before the judgment-seat. There is union then. The small and the great are there; the servant and his master--all are brought together. But for what? What a solemn contrast have we here! Death unites after separation: the judgment unites in order to separation. Death, closing the drama of time, lets the ample curtain fall upon its whole scenery and all its actors. The judgment, opening the drama of eternity, discloses scenery and actors once more entire. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Death
I. Death removes the most useful men--Joseph.
1. He had instructed his brethren.
2. He had enriched his father.
3. He had saved his nation.
4. He had taught the world an eternal lesson.
II. Death relieves the largest families--All his brethren.
III. Death relieves the proudest nations.
1. Pitiable.
2. Irremediable.
3. Admonitory. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Deaths disciplinary power
God deprives the Church of her comfort and stay--
1. That she may gain the power of self-reliance.
2. That she may show her ability to be independent of all human instrumentalities.
3. That she may move into the exigencies of the future. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Death common to all
In one of Nathaniel Hawthornes note-books there is a remark as to qualifying men by some common quality or circumstance that should bring together people the most unlike in other respects, and make a brotherhood and sisterhood of them. First by their sorrows; for instance, whenever there are any, whether in fair mansion or hotel, who are mourning the loss of friends. Secondly, all who have the same maladies, whether they lie under damask canopies, or on straw pallets, or in the-wards of hospitals. Then proceed to generalize and classify all the world together, as none can claim other exemption from either sorrow, sin, or disease; and if they could, yet death, like a great parent, comes and sweeps them all through one darksome portal--all his children. (H. O. Mackey.)
Death admonitory
There is a bird peculiar to Ireland, called the cock of the wood, remarkable for the fine flesh and folly thereof. All the difficulty to kill them, is to find them out, otherwise a mean marksman may easily despatch them. They fly in woods in flocks, and if one of them be shot, the rest remove not but to the next bough, or tree at the farthest, and there stand staring at the shooter, till the whole covey be destroyed; yet as foolish as this bird is, it is wise enough to be the emblem of the wisest man in the point of mortality. Death sweeps away one, and one, and one, here one, and there another, and all the rest remain no whir moved, or minding of it, till at last a whole generation is consumed and brought to nothing. (J. Spencer.)
Deaths impartiality
Death levels the highest mountains with the lowest valleys. He mows down the fairest lilies as well as the foulest thistles. The robes of illustrious princes and the rags of homely peasants are both laid aside in the wardrobe of the grave. (Archbp. Seeker.)
Meditate on death
There was a motto on the walls of the Delphian Temple, ascribed to Chile, one of the seven wise men of Greece--Consider the end.
Death levels all distinctions
As trees growing in the wood are known--some by difference of their trunks, and some by the properties of their branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits; but this knowledge is had of them only whilst they stand, grow, and are not consumed; for if they be committed to the fire, and are turned into ashes, they cannot be known. It is impossible that, when the ashes of divers kinds of trees are mingled together, the tall pine should be discerned from the great oak, or the mighty poplar from a low shrub, or any one tree from another; even so men, whilst they live in the wood of this world, are known--some by the stock of their ancestors, some by the flourishing leaves of their words and eloquence, some in the flowers of beauty, and some in the shrub of honesty, many by their savage ignorance, and some by their kindness; but when death doth bring them into dust, and has mixed all together, then their ashes cannot be known--then there is no difference between the mighty princes of the world and the poor souls that are not accounted of. (Cawdray.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Exodus
FOUR SHAPING CENTURIES
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DEATH AND GROWTH
Exo 1:6 - - Exo 1:7.
These remarkable words occur in a short section which makes the link between the Books of Genesis and of Exodus. The writer recapitulates the list of the immigrants into Egypt, in the household of Jacob, and then, as it were, having got them there, he clears the stage to prepare for a new set of actors. These few words are all that he cares to tell us about a period somewhat longer than that which separates us from the great Protestant Reformation. He notes but two processes-silent dropping away and silent growth. ‘Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.’ Plant by plant the leaves drop, and the stem rots and its place is empty. Seed by seed the tender green spikelets pierce the mould, and the field waves luxuriant in the breeze and the sunshine. ‘The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly.’
I. Now, then, let us look at this twofold process which is always at work-silent dropping away and silent growth.
It seems to me that the writer, probably unconsciously, being profoundly impressed with certain features of that dropping away, reproduces them most strikingly in the very structure of his sentence: ‘Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.’ The uniformity of the fate, and the separate times at which it befell individuals, are strongly set forth in the clauses, which sound like the threefold falls of earth on a coffin. They all died, but not all at the same time. They went one by one, one by one, till, at the end, they were all gone. The two things that appeal to our imagination, and ought to appeal to our consciences and wills, in reference to the succession of the generations of men, are given very strikingly, I think, in the language of my text-namely, the stealthy assaults of death upon the individuals, and its final complete victory.
If any of you were ever out at sea, and looked over a somewhat stormy water, you will have noticed, I dare say, how strangely the white crests of the breakers disappear, as if some force, acting from beneath, had plucked them under, and over the spot where they gleamed for a moment runs the blue sea. So the waves break over the great ocean of time; I might say, like swimmers pulled under by sharks, man after man, man after man, gets twitched down, till at the end-’Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.’
There is another process going on side by side with this. In the vegetable world, spring and autumn are two different seasons: May rejoices in green leaves and opening buds, and nests with their young broods; but winter days are coming when the greenery drops and the nests are empty, and the birds flown. But the singular and impressive thing {which we should see if we were not so foolish and blind} which the writer of our text lays his finger upon is that at the same time the two opposite processes of death and renewal are going on, so that if you look at the facts from the one side it seems nothing but a charnel-house and a Golgotha that we live in, while, seen from the other side, it is a scene of rejoicing, budding young life, and growth.
You get these two processes in the closest juxtaposition in ordinary life. There is many a house where there is a coffin upstairs and a cradle downstairs. The churchyard is often the children’s playground. The web is being run down at the one end and woven at the other. Wherever we look-
‘Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.’
‘Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel . . .multiplied . . .exceedingly.’
But there is another thought here than that of the contemporaneousness of the two processes, and that is, as it is written on John Wesley’s monument in Westminster Abbey, ‘God buries the workmen and carries on the work.’ The great Vizier who seemed to be the only protection of Israel is lying in ‘a coffin in Egypt.’ And all these truculent brothers of his that had tormented him, they are gone, and the whole generation is swept away. What of that? They were the depositories of God’s purposes for a little while. Are God’s purposes dead because the instruments that in part wrought them are gone? By no means. If I might use a very vulgar proverb, ‘There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,’ especially if God casts the net. So when the one generation has passed away there is the other to take up the work. Thus the text is a fitting introduction to the continuance of the history of the further unfolding of God’s plan which occupies the Book of Exodus.
II. Such being the twofold process suggested by this text, let us next note the lessons which it enforces.
In the first place, let us be quite sure that we give it its due weight in our thoughts and lives. Let us be quite sure that we never give an undue weight to the one half of the whole truth. There are plenty of people who are far too much, constitutionally and {perhaps by reason of a mistaken notion of religion} religiously, inclined to the contemplation of the more melancholy side of these truths; and there are a great many people who are far too exclusively disposed to the contemplation of the other. But the bulk of us never trouble our heads about either the one or the other, but go on, forgetting altogether that swift, sudden, stealthy, skinny hand that, if I might go back to my former metaphor, is put out to lay hold of the swimmer and then pull him underneath the water, and which will clasp us by the ankles one day and drag us down. Do you ever think about it? If not, surely, surely you are leaving out of sight one of what ought to be the formative elements in our lives.
And then, on the other hand, when our hearts are faint, or when the pressure of human mortality-our own, that of our dear ones, or that of others-seems to weigh us down, or when it looks to us as if God’s work was failing for want of people to do it, let us remember the other side-’And the children of Israel . . .increased . . .and waxed exceeding mighty; . . .and the land was filled with them.’ So we shall keep the middle path, which is the path of safety, and so avoid the folly of extremes.
But then, more particularly, let me say that this double contemplation of the two processes under which we live ought to stimulate us to service. It ought to say to us, ‘Do you cast in your lot with that work which is going to be carried on through the ages. Do you see to it that your little task is in the same line of direction as the great purpose which God is working out-the increasing purpose which runs through the ages.’ An individual life is a mere little backwater, as it were, in the great ocean. But its minuteness does not matter, if only the great tidal wave which rolls away out there, in the depths and the distance amongst the fathomless abysses, tells also on the tiny pool far inland and yet connected with the sea by some narrow, long fiord.
If my little life is part of that great ocean, then the ebb and flow will alike act on it and make it wholesome. If my work is done in and for God, I shall never have to look back and say, as we certainly shall say one day, either here or yonder, unless our lives be thus part of the divine plan, ‘What a fool I was! Seventy years of toiling and moiling and effort and sweat, and it has all come to nothing; like a long algebraic sum that covers pages of intricate calculations, and the pluses and minuses just balance each other; and the net result is a great round nought.’ So let us remember the twofold process, and let it stir us to make sure that ‘in our embers’ shall be ‘something that doth live,’ and that not ‘Nature,’ but something better-God-’remembers what was so fugitive.’ It is not fugitive if it is a part of the mighty whole.
But further, let this double contemplation make us very content with doing insignificant and unfinished work.
Joseph might have said, when he lay dying: ‘Well! perhaps I made a mistake after all. I should not have brought this people down here, even if I have been led hither. I do not see that I have helped them one step towards the possession of the land.’ Do you remember the old proverb about certain people who should not see half-finished work? All our work in this world has to be only what the physiologists call functional. God has a great scheme running on through ages. Joseph gives it a helping hand for a time, and then somebody else takes up the running, and carries the purpose forward a little further. A great many hands are placed on the ropes that draw the car of the Ruler of the world. And one after another they get stiffened in death; but the car goes on. We should be contented to do our little bit of the work. Never mind whether it is complete and smooth and rounded or not. Never mind whether it can be isolated from the rest and held up, and people can say, ‘He did that entire thing unaided.’ That is not the way for most of us. A great many threads go to make the piece of cloth, and a great many throws of the shuttle to weave the web. A great many bits of glass make up the mosaic pattern; and there is no reason for the red bit to pride itself on its fiery glow, or the grey bit to boast of its silvery coolness. They are all parts of the pattern, and as long as they keep their right places they complete the artist’s design. Thus, if we think of how ‘one soweth and another reapeth,’ we may be content to receive half-done works from our fathers, and to hand on unfinished tasks to them that come after us. It is not a great trial of a man’s modesty, if he lives near Jesus Christ, to be content to do but a very small bit of the Master’s work.
And the last thing that I would say is, let this double process going on all round us lift our thoughts to Him who lives for ever. Moses dies; Joshua catches the torch from his hand. And the reason why he catches the torch from his hand is because God said, ‘As I was with Moses so I will be with thee.’ Therefore we have to turn away in our contemplations from the mortality that has swallowed up so much wisdom and strength, eloquence and power, which the Church or our own hearts seem so sorely to want: and, whilst we do, we have to look up to Jesus Christ and say, ‘He lives! He lives! No man is indispensable for public work or for private affection and solace so long at there is a living Christ for us to hold by.’
Dear brethren, we need that conviction for ourselves often. When life seems empty and hope dead, and nothing is able to fill the vacuity or still the pain, we have to look to the vision of the Lord sitting on the empty throne, high and lifted up, and yet very near the aching and void heart. Christ lives, and that is enough.
So the separated workers in all the generations, who did their little bit of service, like the many generations of builders who laboured through centuries upon the completion of some great cathedral, will be united at the last; ‘and he that soweth, and he that reapeth, shall rejoice together’ in the harvest which was produced by neither the sower nor the reaper, but by Him who blessed the toils of both.
‘Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation’; but Jesus lives, and therefore His people ‘grow and multiply,’ and His servants’ work is blessed; and at the end they shall be knit together in the common joy of the great harvest, and of the day when the headstone is brought forth with shoutings of ‘Grace! grace unto it.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 all his brothers
all his brothers
This includes 10 older brothers and 1 younger brother.
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were fruitful
The birth of children to the Israelites is spoken of as if they were plants that were producing fruit. AT: "had many children" or "gave birth to many children" (See: Metaphor)
the land was filled with them
This can be stated in active form. AT: "They filled the land" (See: Active or Passive)
with them
The word "them" refers to the Israelites.
translationWords
brother
generation
die
Israel
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:6-7 The long sojourn of Jacob’s family in Egypt…
1:6-7 The long sojourn of Jacob’s family in Egypt was part of a divine design. God had told Abraham that his descendants could not receive the land of Canaan for 400 years—until the sin of the Canaanites had come to its full fruition (Gen 15:13-16). Even in Egypt, God’s promises were at work, and the descendants of aged Abraham and barren Sarah multiplied . . . greatly as God had said (Gen 15:5), because God blessed them (Ps 105:24).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.