Product Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1890. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... JOSEPH. HE narrative of Joseph's life is the connect ing link in the sacred volume between the story of a single life and the history of a people. In his day the covenant life spread itself into wider circles. In Abraham it was summed up in one man; when Isaac was born it flowed on into him. In Jacob it enlarged itself into the family; in the days of Joseph it swelled out into the dimensions of a tribe. Yet though he was mainly instrumental in this development, he was not the head of the tribe, nor was it through his line that the blessing to convey which to all nations Israel was constituted a separate people, came to the family of man. And so it is the history of the man, and not that of the tribal head, which rivets us in the life of Joseph. He comes before us overshadowed by the great love of his father Jacob. He was the son of Jacob's old age: he was the child of the beloved Rachel. When his history begins Benjamin was too young (but one year old), to bear the great weight of that passionate affection. Still to the old man's feelings Joseph was the son of " Rachel my wife." This love for Rachel threw a golden light over the old patriarch's last years. Deep, enduring, absorbing, unselfish love, especially for those parted from us by the dark veil which separates us from the unseen world, exalts humanity. And this is always showing itself in Jacob. The bitter lamentation, for Deborah, and the planting over her grave the terebinth of tears, because she had been Rachel's nurse, and was the last living link left of those maiden days of youth and beauty, is a lively mark of the old man's enduring love: so is the description of her as "My wife, who bare me two sons" (Gen. xliv. 27), as if she alone and her offspring rose up to the true dignity of the family life. ...