Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/87

84 the letter; and so the Word in the letter compared in Scripture both to the rainbow and the cloud. When the soldiers at the Lord's crucifixion rent the Lord's garments in pieces they represented what the Jewish church has done with the Word of the Lord, for they divided and dissipated its divine truths, and so destroyed it in and among themselves.

It is not, however, said of Joseph's brethren when they stript him of his coat, that they rent or divided it; but they did what expressed a still greater malignity, and which had a still worse meaning. "They killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood." The killing the kid was a figurative killing of Joseph himself. Their first design was to imbrue their hands in their brother's blood, and to take his blood-stained garments to their father; and the blood of the kid was but a substitute for that of his son. Blood-stained garments are mentioned in the Word; in one striking instance in reference to the Lord Jesus Himself. In the nineteenth chapter of Revelation, where the second coming of the Lord is predicted and figuratively described. He is