Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/99

96 the vile and the good, first enter after death, and where the good are separated from the evil by the judgment; and such a judgment was effected by the Lord at the end of the Jewish church. The good, who had been detained there as prisoners of hope, waiting for the Lord's redemption, are meant by the saints which slept, and arose at the time of our Lord's resurrection, and went into the holy city, that is, into heaven. We find, therefore, one of the works which the Messiah was to perform at His coming, as announced by the prophets, was bringing the prisoners out of the prison house. (Isaiah xlii. 7.) Joseph's good works in the prison may be considered as bearing some analogy to those of our Lord just mentioned. The good and evil spirits who were bound in prison in the spiritual world, were represented by the butler and the baker; and Joseph, in his interpretation of their dreams, preached hope and deliverance to the good servant of Pharaoh, but pronounced the awful doom of death to the evil one; and the result was that one was saved and the other was lost.