Why did God allow Joseph to suffer?

Here we must be brief, as we have to do, not with Jacob, but with his sons; so that a mere sketch is all that we would now attempt. As man's and his brethren's part was evil toward the righteous Joseph, God wrought in His admirable providence, and caused what they did to injure only the more to accomplish His purpose of good, as well as to set him in honour who deserved it, but had to pass from one humiliation to a worse.

But then God was in all this, as well as man; and it is His prerogative to bring good out of evil. Joseph's brethren might sell him to the Ishmaelites, and the Ishmaelites might sell him to Potiphar, and Potiphar might cast him into prison; but Jehovah was above all, and He was accomplishing His own mighty ends. "The wrath of man shall praise him." The time had not arrived in which the heirs were ready for the inheritance, and the inheritance for the heirs. The brick-kilns of Egypt were to furnish a rigid school for the seed of Abraham, while, as yet, "the iniquity of the Amorites" was rising to a head, amid the "hills and valleys" of the promised land.

But we may not doubt on the one hand, that God had His gracious purpose of exercising Joseph's spirit and strengthening his heart for the distress and manifold troubles which were to be his portion before those remarkable prefigurations were to be fulfilled. On the other hand, it is no less plain that his fleshly-minded brothers, as they hated his piety and dreaded his moral judgment of their evil ways, were stung to mad malice in hearing of his dreams, which they were quick to interpret rightly enough. And we may hope that in the end God turned to their soul's profit what Joseph was given to tell them in the days of his youth. Thus, if they could not easily forget dreams so simple and striking that nearly touched all the family, the sufferer still less could not but remember in the midst of many a grief and shame the visions of strange dignity that awaited him in his and their life-time.

Verse 17 tells us that Joseph was sent ON PURPOSE into Egypt. A lurid light here shines upon the cruel rigour of his dungeon. His feet were hurt with fetters, the iron entered into his soul. Thus was he prepared for the mighty role he was to fulfil. God sent the famine: God sent Joseph. Verses 20-22 describe his exaltation and power. Still the story moves on.

God had tried His dear child, and would try him longer. Yet this was an honour to Joseph, who was given not only to believe but to suffer for His sake. But the chain of providential links was being which would raise the suffering Israelite from the dungeon to the highest position in Egypt next to the throne. The dream of the chief cup-bearer was an important link in that chain.

Note how far the trial of Joseph, limited by divine ordering from anything that should hinder it - intended to frustrate God's purpose - and apparently clean against it - and his righteous suffering in Egypt only just bring about the whole thing they seemed to frustrate; it was in the Egypt his brothers sold him to, and in the prison Potiphar put him in that led him to the butler and baker, which set him governor over all the land of Egypt. We cannot put God out of His way. It is better to trust him. How little they thought they were bringing about God's purpose they thought to set aside, still less that they were arranging a touching figure of the blessed Lord, the restoration of Israel after their repentance, and that He that they rejected should be the head of the heathen.

Then further, bitter as Joseph’s experience was, it was designed to test his character, form and strengthen it, to fit him for the task that lay before him. Just as steel is tempered by being subjected to fierce heat again and again, so he was being prepared in the furnace of affliction for the wonderful position that awaited him.

Joseph had that path to travel in order to reach that which God had revealed to him in his dreams. For him, it meant deep trials, "Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him." His faithfulness and devotedness were manifest in the trying circumstances, and with him, patience had its perfect work. God wrought behind the scenes to fulfil His purpose, so that the moment of his exaltation came, and he was called to be the preserver of life for Egypt and the countries around.

Here we see Joseph filling up the measure of his sorrow, while his brethren are filling up the measure of their sins. He in exile preserves his purity and separation to God, like a Nazarite purer than snow and whiter than milk, while they at home are defiling the covenant. God is with him, and man against him. He takes his place in the cloud of witnesses, suffering for righteousness' sake. For conscience toward God he endures grief, suffering wrongfully. But the Lord is still with him. God shows that His covenant was with him, and that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed; for Potiphar first, and then the keeper of the prison, were made to prove this in their own persons. The archers are sorely grieving him, and shooting at him; but his bow abides in strength, and the arms of his hands are made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. He may be persecuted of men, but God will not forsake him, but give him favour in the sight of strangers in spite of all the dishonour and humiliation to which the wickedness of his kindred and others may reduce him. And all this "affliction of Joseph" is made the discipline of God, Who loved him; for as we read, "the word of God tried him" (Ps. 105:19). This tribulation under the divine hand was made to work patience, and by it the crown was brightening for him.

But Joseph must learn that further suffering must take place in view of his being eventually promoted to a higher honor than he would have before imagined. If God is to exalt anyone, it must be through suffering. Those who humble themselves to bear the suffering will be exalted, while those who seek to exalt themselves will find themselves abased.