The matured Israel has a reigning aspect. We have seen the process of Jacob's maturity and the manifestation of his maturity. His maturity was fully manifested in his excellent departure from this life. Now we must see the reigning aspect of this matured life. Therefore, in this message we come to the reigning aspect of the matured Israel, an aspect fully portrayed in the biography of Joseph.
Because Joseph represents an aspect of Jacob, we should not consider Joseph a person separate from Jacob. This is the reason the last fourteen chapters of Genesis combine the record of Joseph's life with the record of Jacob's. Genesis blends the biographies of Joseph and Jacob because they are actually the biography not of two persons, but of one. This blending of the record indicates that Joseph is an aspect of Jacob. If you read the record in Genesis from chapter thirty-seven through chapter fifty, you will see that Joseph is an aspect, a part, of Jacob. He was Jacob's expression. Wherever Joseph was, Jacob was there also. When Joseph was in power, it was actually Jacob who was reigning. Hence, their biographies are blended together as the biography of one person.
For years I tried to divide each of the books of the Bible into sections. But when I came to the last chapters of the book of Genesis, I could not tell whether it was a section pertaining to Jacob or to Joseph. Eventually I gave up trying to divide this part of Genesis into sections. Because at that time I did not see the matter of life, I did not appreciate the excellence of the composition of Genesis. But we need to recognize that these chapters are part of one biography with two aspects. The day I saw this light I was very happy. Spiritually speaking, Joseph is not separate from Jacob. Rather, he represents the reigning aspect of a matured saint.
Genesis 37:2 says, "These are the generations of Jacob." Then it goes on to tell us of the life of Joseph. This proves that Joseph's life was a part of Jacob's generation. Joseph's biography is an aspect of Jacob's history.