You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.”
Joseph has just told his brothers who he is. These are the men who sold him. Now he sends them home with an errand, and its subject is not their crime but his glory.
The Message Is Glory
The message rests on one fact about Joseph. Where the ESV reads "all my honor in Egypt," older translations read "all my glory," and the writers quoted here work from that word.
Hamilton SmithThe great theme of the message was Joseph and his glory. Tell my father, Joseph can say, that "God has made me lord of all Egypt" (v. 9). And he adds, "You shall tell my father of all my glory, and of all that you have seen" (v. 13). This is still the message that alone will meet the world's famine. Peter preached it clearly to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. He said, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." And again before the Gentiles he can say that Christ "is Lord of all" (Acts 2:36; Acts 10:36). It is still our privilege to declare the glories of the One who is Lord of all. There are His personal glories as the eternal Son, His moral glories as the One who is altogether lovely, and His official glories as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Forgiven Men, Sent Out
The same men who wronged Joseph are the ones he sends. One writer applies that to Christians in a starving world.
C KnappJoseph not only freely and fully forgives his brothers; he commissions them as well… And we, if reconciled to God, have been commissioned. We have a mission towards this famine-stricken world. We are to make Christ known to men. We are to testify to His exaltation and glory. The burden of the message of the sons of Israel was the same: the lordship of Joseph over all the land… Joseph sent the sons of Jacob back to the country they had come from, to persuade others to "go to Joseph." And this is our chief business in this world, to speak of the fame of Christ, and to persuade starving sinners to come to Him.
More Than Jacob Had Ever Imagined
Jacob had seen none of this glory himself. One writer compares him to the queen who travelled to see King Solomon and found the reports had fallen short.
G C WillisJoseph said, "Tell my father of all my glory in Egypt." How happy our hearts are to hear all the glory of the Lord Jesus!… Jacob had never seen, nor understood, all that glory, just as we know some of the glory in heaven, but cannot understand all. The Queen of Sheba said to Solomon, "I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me." (1 Kings 10:7)
Glory Moves a Slow Heart
Why speak of glory, when the practical point was "come down"? One writer sees a reason: Jacob was old, and a slow man needs a motive.
F. B. HoleA very tender and touching note runs through the message that Joseph sent by his brothers to his father. After the long years of separation he was to be near to his beloved son, and nourished by him. Tenderness and urgency marked his message. He realized that in old age his father might be slow to move, so he gave this incentive: "You shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt."
Who Carries This Errand Now
Joseph trusted this report to weak men. One writer contrasts who carries the message now.
A J PollockHe committed such a task as that to his remorseful brothers — narrow-minded to the last, as their later history proved. None other than a Divine Person — the Holy Spirit — is commissioned to tell us of the glories of Jesus, our risen Lord. By the Spirit's power we can see the face of Jesus, can gaze upon the glory of the Lord. The people of Israel could not look at the reflected glory in the face of Moses, the great lawgiver. We are privileged and empowered to see the face of Him to whom the glory belongs. It is not a reflected glory, but the whole glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
Telling It Upward
Joseph's errand runs to a father. One writer hears worship in that.
Michael HardtThe restored soul is led into communion with the Lord and is enabled to worship, to tell the Father of all the glories of the Son, the true Joseph.
Summary
- Glory first. The errand is about Joseph's exaltation, not the brothers' experience. That message "alone will meet the world's famine."
- Glory commissions. Forgiveness does not stop at relief. Joseph sends the forgiven men back with a mission to a starving world.
- Glory urges. Joseph says "Hurry," and he gives the report of his glory as an incentive to a father slow to move.
- Glory empowers. The brothers carried the report in their own weakness. The Holy Spirit now tells us of the glories of the risen Lord, and we see the whole glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
- Glory returns. The report travels to a father — the restored soul tells the Father of all the glories of the Son.