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What is wisdom?  Follow the canonical progression of wisdom books.

Proverbs: There are two women.  Choose Lady Wisdom and reject Lady Folly.

Ecclesiastes: All is hebel.  Death looms.  Therefore, eat, drink, rejoice in the wife of your youth.  Joy in your wife is the way to Lady Wisdom.

Song of Songs: A man rejoices in his bride, eating and drinking a feast of love.

So:

Wisdom is about sex:  Proverbs says, Choose the right woman; Ecclesiastes says, Cling to her in defiance of decay; the Song says, Love brings you back to the garden.

Or: Fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.  Joy in defiance of death is wisdom coming to maturity.  Fulfilled wisdom is knowing that love is as strong as death.

Or: Proverbs is priestly wisdom, distinguishing wisdom and folly.  Ecclesiastes is kingly wisdom, rendering judgments in the midst of darkness.  The Song is prophetic wisdom, the hope of future harmony.

Or: Proverbs is past; Ecclesiastes is present; the Song is future.

Or: Proverbs is the Father; Ecclesiastes the Son; the Song is the Song of the Spirit.

Terry Eagleton gives a neat summary of Alain Badiou’s account of faith, an account that seems to me to be quite close to the biblical view of faith in several respects:

“. . . the kind of truth involved in acts of faith is neither independent of propositional truth nor reducible to it.  Faith for him consists in a tenacious loyalty to what he calls an ‘event’ – an utterly original happening which is out of joint with the smooth flow of history, and which is unnameable and ungraspable within the context in which it occurs.  Truth is what cuts against the grain of the world, breaking with an older dispensation and founding a radically new reality. . . . For Badiou, one becomes an authentic human subject, as opposed to a mere anonymous member of the biological species, through one’s passionate allegiance to such a revelation. . . . Truths and subjects are born at a stroke.  What provokes a subject into existence for Badiou is an exceptional, utterly particular truth, which calls forth an act of commitment in which the subject is born.”

Badiou doesn’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but if He did, Badiou would recognize that as the kind of truth-event to which one might commit his whole soul.

A couple of disconnected notes on Matthew 27.

First, the death of Jesus responds to the mockery of passers-by and Jewish leaders.  The passers-by mock Jesus for His claim to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple (v. 40), but at the death of Jesus the temple is essentially immobilized when the veil is torn (v. 51).  Both passers-by and leaders mock Jesus for claiming to be Son of God (vv. 40, 43), but at His death the centurion and his men confess Jesus as Son of God (v. 54).  Not only does Jesus’ death rebut both forms of mockery, but the rebuttal is given in the same order as the mockery – temple, then Son of God.  Of course, Jesus proves to have power over the temple, and proves to be Son of God, precisely by rejecting the temptation of the mockers: He demonstrates His sonship by not coming down from the cross (vv. 40, 42).

Second, at Jesus’ death, the cosmos is shaken.  Three zone are hit by the impact of His death: the temple (v. 51a), the earth with its rocks (v. 51b), and tombs (v. 52-53).  That’s a variation on the three-story universe of Genesis 1.  The temple is the earthly “heaven,” the earth is, well, the earth, and people are buried in tombs “under” the earth.  Jesus’ death shakes the whole universe; light turns to darkness, the firmament-veil is torn, earth becomes mobile, Sheol coughs up the dead.  Creation is being dismantled to prepare for a renewal of creation.

Commentators often resort to some embarrassing expedients in trying to explain the bodily imagery of the Song of Songs.  The assumption is that the images are mainly visual.  Breasts are like fawns grazing among the lilies?  Well, the fawns must be bent over, their backs rounded and their little tails sticking erect like nipples.

Exum wisely demurs.  The point is not to describe either lover visually but “to convey to the reader the emotions the speaker experiences upon beholding the loved one.”  The metaphors, she goes on to suggest, are also part of a process of distancing and construction, a process that gives non-exchangeable meaning to each body part.  The different descriptions also reveal sexual ideals: The man, described in third-person by the woman, is statue-like, hard, made of stone and metal; the woman is soft, organic, full of fragrance and fruit.  In any case, it’s the associations of the imagery, not primarily or only their visual appearance, that’s important.

In her commentary on the Song of Songs (Old Testament Library), Cheryl Exum notes the finely rendered sexual differences between the way the man and woman of the Song, evident in the different ways they express their desires for one another.  The woman tells stories: “They are the only parts of the Song that display narrative development or what one might call a plot.”  But the man doesn’t tell stories; rather, he “look[s] at her and tell[s] what he sees and how it affects him.”  In short, the man majors on sight, the woman on speech; the man gazes and records, but “the woman constructs the man primarily through the voice.”  Strikingly, she quotes him more than once; he never quotes her.

Exum characterizes the difference as between lovesickness and awe.  The woman describes herself as lovesick when her lover is present, and then again when he is absent: “The woman tells others, the women of Jerusalem, what love does to her.”  Both parts of that sentence are important: The woman confides in others in a way the man never does, and she is referring not to the affect that her lover has so much as the effect that love has.  The man however tells the woman directly “what she does to him.”  He describes her effect not as lovesickness but as conquest: “Turn your eyes away,” he pleads, “for they overwhelm me.”  Exum comments: “As a man, he is used to feeling in control.  But love makes him feel as though he is losing control.  He is powerless to resist; his autonomy is challenged.”  In short, “He is awestruck; she is lovesick.”

And then we allegorize?

Further thoughts on the structures of Matthew 27, focusing on verses 45-66.

Verses 45-54 can be seen either as a panel structure or as two chiasms. In the panel structure, each panel begins with Jesus crying out in a loud voice:

A. Jesus’ “cry of dereliction,” v 46

B. Reaction of hearers, v 47-49

A’. Jesus cries “again with a loud voice” and dies, v 50

B’. Reaction of earth and soldiers, vv 51-54

Alternatively, this section can be seen as two small chiasms:

A. Jesus cries out, v 46

B. He calls for Elijah, v 47

C. Someone gets a sponge soaked in wine, v 48

B’. Let’s see if Elijah comes, v 49

A’. Jesus cries out again, v 50

The second chiasm, somewhat less obvious, goes from verse 51 to 54:

A. Veil of temple torn, v 51a

B. Earthquake, rocks split, v 51b

C. Tombs open, many bodies raised, v 52

D. Saints enter Jerusalem after resurrection, v 53a

C’. Appear to “many,” v 53b

B’. Soldiers see earthquake and other happenings, v 54a

A’. Confession, v 54b

Verses 55-61 are organized with a fairly obvious chiasm:

A. Women watching from a distance, vv 55-56

B. Joseph of Arimathea asks for body of Jesus, vv 57-58a

C. Pilate gives body to Joseph, v 58b

B’. Joseph prepares body and places it in tomb, vv 59-60

A’. Women sit opposite the grave, v 61

The final verses of chapter 27 might also be seen as a simple chiasm:

A. Priests and Pharisees gather to Pilate, v 62

B. Request for a guard, v 63a

C. Last deception worse than the first, v 63b

B’. Pilate grants guard, v 65

A’. Priests and Pharisees go away to secure grave, v 66

Song of Songs 3:11 speaks of the crowning of Solomon on the day of his wedding.  Most commentators refer to the Orthodox practice of crowning grooms and brides as new Adams and Eves.  I’ve got no problem with that, but I suspect there’s something else.

First, as Ernst Wendland says in an article (forthcoming in Lovely, Lively Lyrics: Selected Studies in Biblical Hebrew Verse [Dallas: SIL Academic], generously supplied by the author) there are many verbal links between the appearance of Solomon’s palanquin (3:6-11) and the description of the bride in 4:1-7.  That the palanquin and the bride are the same is also suggested by the parallel of 3:6 and 8:5.  Wendland notes that these two questions are in structurally similar locations in the poem – each at the climax of its respective half of the Song.  8:5 is explicitly a question about the bride, perhaps so too 3:6.

Second, beyond the verbal links that Wendland notices, there are structural indications that the two sections form sub-portions of a larger unit.  At least there seems to be an inclusio around the two sections:

A. Myrrh and frankincense, 3:6

B. Mighty men with swords, 3:7-8

B’. Necklace like shields of mighty men, 4:4

A’. Myrrh and frankincense, 4:6

(There is also an inclusio at 4:1, 7 with “beautiful, my darling.”)

If we take this inclusio as a frame for a single unit, then the move from 3:11 to 4:1 doesn’t seem abrupt.  There were, of course, no chapter divisions in the original text, and so the text would move from “gaze on Solomon with the crown” to “how beautiful you are, my darling.”  There is clearly a change of speaker, but the scene has not, perhaps, shifted as thoroughly as is often thought.  What are the daughters of Zion supposed to look at?  Solomon with his crown, and then Solomon goes on to describe his “crown,” his beautiful bride.

In short, Solomon’s bride is his crown – just as we’d expect from the king who wrote Proverbs 12:4: “a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.”

The beloved is a dove.  Why a dove?

We can answer by taking a detour through temple theology.  The temple is made according to the pattern of the mountain, reflecting the beauty of Yahweh’s original glory.  The temple is glory come to earth.,

And the glory of Yahweh is like a bird fluttering over Israel (Deuteronomy 32:11), like a bird hovering over the formless emptiness of the original creation (Genesis 1:2).

That glory is the Spirit, who comes to Jesus like a dove.

So: The beloved is the temple, made in the image of the Spirit-dove.

Hence: “My dove.”

Jenson again.  He notes that liturgy provides a test of theological truth, in the sense that “no teaching can be true whose consequences would pervert the practice or darken the understanding of irreversibly instituted liturgy.”

He illustrates: “the Reformers insisted there must be something wrong with established teaching about the mass because it sanctioned the proliferation of private and votive masses, a situation not coherent with the canonically instituted rite; Catholics charged that Reformation teaching about works must be wrong because it would lead to ‘abolishing the mass’ altogether.  Both accusations proved right.  Catholic theology has adopted the Reformers’ critique of the mass-theologies that justified much late-medieval practice.  And the Eucharist did quickly lose its rightful place in Protestant churches.”

In a footnote, he explains the last comment:

“Does ‘faith alone without works’ mean ‘without sacraments and the other actions that constitute the church’s life’?  Catholic polemicists supposed that it did, with abundant justification in the actual practice of and conclusions drawn by many supporters of the Reformation.”

For Luther and Calvin and Bucer, “faith along without works” certainly did not exclude sacraments since sacraments were not our works but God’s.  But Jenson is right.  For some Protestants, still today, the Catholic critique holds: “Faith without works” is translated as “baptism does nothing” and “the Supper is hardly worth doing, certainly not frequently.”

In the first volume of his Systematic Theology, Jenson argues that the Spirit is the guarantor of the church’s continuity over time: “it is God the Spirit who sustains the gospel’s and so the church’s self-identity through time,” but this means that “that identity cannot be mere historical continuity with the church’s very beginning.”

Why not? The Spirit, Jenson says in a characteristic phrase, “is precisely God as the power of the future, God as his own and our transforming outcome.”  Thus, “if it is the Spirit who sustains the gospel’s and the church’s self-identity through time, then that identity is primarily anticipation of an end and just so perpetuation of a beginning, anticipation of the ‘eternal gospel’ and just so reiteration of a historic message.”

Much to like about that, but especially the fact that, in Jenson’s theology, this works out both as continuity with and respect for tradition and its formulations but also openness to the breaking-out of the boundless Spirit.

Jesus’ death is earth-shattering, literally and figuratively.

In the OT, earthquakes are associated with the revelation of Yahweh’s glory (cf. Psalm 77:18) and His coming as the divine warrior to rescue His people.

But in Matthew, the earth quakes at Jesus’ death.  It quakes when Jesus cries out and the spirit leaves Him.

That can only mean: Here Yahweh’s glory is revealed once and for all; here in the darkness of Golgotha, and in this beaten bloody corpse, Yahweh has come to fight His greatest enemy and win His greatest victory.

INTRODUCTION

Orthodoxy claims that Jesus of Nazareth is God the Son in human flesh, but the test case of orthodox Christology has always been the crucifixion of Jesus.  Especially here, we confront the mystery of the incarnation, for God the Son died on the cross just as surely as He was born, lived, hungered, suffered and sorrowed.

THE TEXT

“Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice. . . .” (Matthew 27:45-54).

DARKNESS VISIBLE

Darkness is the original condition of the creation (Genesis 1:2), and darkness falls over all the land in anticipation of a new creation (Matthew 27:45).  Darkness is associated with the end of the world, when the sun, moon, and stars go out (e.g. Joel 2:31), and a world is ending with the crucifixion of Jesus. Darkness was also the final plague in Egypt prior to the Passover (Exodus 10:21-29), which took place at night.  Israel has become an Egypt (Matthew 2:15), and Jesus dies in the darkness as the final Passover Lamb to deliver His people from slavery.

GOD-FORSAKEN GOD

At the creation, the voice of God rang out of the darkness with “Let there be light.”  At Golgotha, the voice of the incarnate Son cries out in anguish (Matthew 27:46; cf. Psalm 22:1).  Jesus is overcoming the darkness, but He does that be entering into the darkness.  There is no rupture in the Trinity here; God doesn’t cease to be Triune for the few hours that Jesus dies on the cross.  To speak of the “death of the Son of God” is not to say that the Son of God ceased to exist.  Even normal human beings don’t cease to exist at death.  At the same time, the Son of God enters fully into the God-forsaken condition of humanity, so that He can restore communion between God and man.  God the Son entered so fully that He endured a human death, to triumph over death.

RUINED TEMPLE

Jesus goes to the cross as the temple who will be torn down and restored in three days.  His cry of dereliction is the cry of the temple being forsaken by its Lord (cf. Ezekiel 8-11).  As Jesus gives Himself in the final sacrifice, the architectural temple in Jerusalem is ruined.  Temples are barriers between God and man, but with the death of Jesus, the barrier is removed (Matthew 27:51).

EARTHQUAKES AND RESURRECTIONS

After Jesus “yields up the spirit,” the land is shaken by an earthquake, and the tombs of the saints are opened (Matthew 27:51-53), divine signs that vindicate Jesus and explain His death.  Earthquakes accompany Yahweh’s approach, usually as a warrior (Judges 5:4; 2 Samuel 22:8; Psalm 68:8), and the opening of the graves shows that Jesus’ death triumphs over death (cf. Ezekiel 37).  Jesus uses the cry of David from Psalm 22, but His death, like that Psalm, ends in triumph and confession (Psalm 22:25-31).  The centurion and his soldiers who confess Jesus as Son of God (Matthew 27:54) are the firstfruits of the Psalm’s promise that “all the families of the nations shall worship before Him” (Psalm 22:27).

In a 1976 CBQ article, Donald Senior points to correspondences between Matthew’s account of the death of Jesus and the dry bones scene of Ezekiel 37:

“There are several apparent contacts between the description in Ezekiel and the text of Matthew: (1) reference to an earthquake (seísmos), Mt 27:51; Ezek 37:7; (2) opening of graves (mnëmata), Mt 27:52; Ezek 37:12; (3) reference to “resurrection” (in Ezek anaxö hymas), Mt 27:52; Ezek 37:12; (4) entrance of risen saints into Holy City/Israel, Mt 27:53; Ezek 37:12. Besides the concurrence of these elements, a striking parallel in meaning can be drawn between the two passages. EzekiePs vision was an affirmation of eventual vindication (salvation) for the exiled Israel through the power of God. Later usage applied the text to future messianic hopes. In Mt 27:51b-53 the resurrection of the saints also serves as a vindication of hope and as an affirmation of God’s saving power in the midst of death.”

He adds that Matthew has constructed his narrative of Jesus’ death by following the humiliation-to-exaltation pattern of Psalm 22: “Matthew’s redaction of the scene might be understood as an exploitation of this structure. The additions in 27:40b and 43 sharpen the emphasis on Jesus’ trust in his Father and his claim to sonship—a central motif of the opening section of the Psalm (22:1-22). His alterations in 27:50 move in the same direction and draw attention to the Psalm as the final prayer of Jesus. The expansion of 27:51b-53 by means of the Ezekiel tradition and the chorus of faith on the part of the soldiers echo the triumphant conclusion of Ps 22 and even reflect the primitive apocalyptic that seems to emerge in the concluding portion of the Psalm (22:28-32).”

The Jews mock Jesus as if He were an impotent, ruined temple.  They should have known better.

When Solomon built the temple, he prayed that Yahweh would hear prayers directed toward that place.  Even when Israel went into exile, Solomon hoped, Yahweh would still hear the prayers of the people directed toward the temple (1 Kings 8).

Israel finally did go into exile, and left behind the dusty ruins of Solomon’s temple, and for seventy years they prayed toward the temple, toward the ruins of the temple, hoping that Yahweh would hear and restore them.  The temple did not save itself, but it did save them: For seventy years, they turned to the temple ruins, prayed for restoration, and were restored.

The crowds, Jewish leaders, and robbers all join in a Satanic temptation” “If you are the Son of God.”  Jesus is Adam at the tree,a tree that has become a means of execution rather than a source of fruit.  The temptation of the Christ is the same as the temptation of the first Adam: Yea, has God said?  Did God say that He’d rescue you?  Where is He?  And if Your Father promised a rescue and doesn’t come, then can God be trusted? He’s sent you to an excruciating death; He’s sent you into a place where you are surrounded by a mob of mockers.  What kind of Father is that?  How can you trust a Father who would lead you here?  Can you trust a Father who would lead you here and then leave you on your own?

Jesus stays on the cross because He knows that this cross is proof of His sonship, proof of His kingship.  And we should too.  When we suffer, we are tempted to doubt our Father’s word and our Father’s goodness.  When the Father puts us on a cross, we want to climb down as quick as we can.  But that’s a temptation to be resisted.  The cross, with all its pain, shame, humiliation, and mockery, is where we belong, because that’s where Jesus is, that’s where our King hangs, and that’s the way of kingship.

Matthew 27:32: Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross.

The first few times Matthew uses the word “cross” in his gospel, he is referring to the cross that of the disciple rather than the cross of Jesus.  “He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me,” Jesus tells His disciples as He sends them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (10:38).  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up His cross and follow Me,” He reiterates after Peter confesses Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God (16:24).

Here, the third time Matthew uses the word cross, it is Jesus’ cross, but it is being carried by someone else, by one Simon of Cyrene, unknown outside of this passage.  Simon is a model of discipleship, bearing the cross along with Jesus, bearing the cross to the place of the skull.  He is an unwilling model.  Roman soldiers requisition Simon to carry Jesus’ cross.  At least he’s there, following Jesus to Golgotha, which is more than we can say for Jesus’ actual disciples, the ones who willingly left their nets and followed Jesus and then willingly fled.

More than we can say, especially, for Simon’s namesake, Simon Peter. The last time we see Peter in this gospel, he denies Jesus before going out to weep.  Peter wasn’t able or willing to bear the light and easy cross of interrogation by a servant girl.  He’s not tortured; nobody pulls out his fingernails or hooks him up to electrodes; nobody threatens him with scourging or death.  A few innocent questions from a servant girl overwhelm him, and he buckles.

Jesus had warned Peter.  Nearly every time Peter is called “Simon” within Matthew’s gospel, it is in connection with the call to share in Jesus’ ministry and suffering.  Peter is Simon when he is called from his nets to become a fisher of men, Simon when he is sent out as a sheep among wolves, Simon when he confesses Jesus as Christ and Jesus instructs him to take up his cross.  But Simon doesn’t come through, not in the court of the high priest.  It will be another Simon, not Simon Peter, who bears the cross and follows Jesus.

Of course, we know from other gospels, that Simon Peter finally conforms to the model of Jesus, the model of Simon of Cyrene.  He finally lives up to his name, finally heeds Jesus’ words and becomes not only a disciple but a leader of disciples.

All this about names and crosses, as you’ve already anticipated, has a great deal to do with baptism.  By his baptism, your son is receiving a name.  He already bears the name that you’ve given him, and that name is a calling and a future for him.  He is Mark, the name of Peter’s companion and the author of the second gospel.  He is Francis, the name of a great medieval saint, a man who quite literally left everything to take up the cross of Jesus.  He bears those names, those names that will be pronounced over him here, and he must live up to those names.

Today he receives another name, the name of Christian.  He will be baptized in the name of the Triune God, and from this day on he will be called to bear that name before the world, and not to bear that name lightly.  But that Triune name comes to a focus in Jesus.  He bears the name of Jesus, and that means that he, like Simon Peter, is called to share in the ministry and in the passion of Jesus.

Your job as parents is simple: Teach and train him so that he lives up to the name He bears, the name of the crucified Messiah, the Jesus who suffered on the cross and calls us to bear the cross with Him.

John Paul Heil (The Death and Resurrection of Jesus: A Narrative-Critical Reading of Matthew 26-28) offers a close and illuminating reading of Jesus’ trial before Pilate.  Pilate’s first question is about Jesus’ kingship, a question that Jesus answers with somewhat puzzling evasiveness.  Heil suggests that Jesus answer implies that it is up to Pilate to determine what kind of King He will be: “You have said it.”  Pilate is the king-maker, who “unwittingly play[s] his role in establishing how Jesus is truly ‘the King of the Jews’ precisely by mocking his kingship.”

Jesus remains silent after that, and Pilate concludes that He is innocently charged by envious Jewish leaders.  So Pilate attempts to go over the heads of the chief priests and scribes by offering to release either Jesus or Barabbas.  No doubt Pilate knows that Jesus is popular with the crowds.  Could he have missed a report about Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem only a few days before?  Unlikely.  Here’s a way to avoid making a decision but also make the right decision of getting Jesus off: Let the people decide.

That forces the hand of the Jewish leaders.  They also know that Jesus is popular, and now they have to work the crowd, not just Pilate, to convince them to choose Barabbas.  Rather astonishingly, they succeed, and the people demand Barabbas.  Perhaps, though, though they succeed too well.  When Judas brought back the blood money, the Jewish leaders told Judas to “see to it.”  When Pilate tries to slip responsibility, he tells the Jews to “see to it.”  Were the Jewish leaders prepared for the response? “His blood on us and our children,” say “all the people” (27:25).  The Jewish leaders have been working hard to avoid responsibility, but once they’ve convinced the people the people accept full responsibility.   Heil puts this in terms of the blood money: The people are willing to pay the price for Jesus’ death.

He also notes, though, that precisely this acceptance of responsibility gives some hope.  The Jewish leaders are determined to kill Jesus, yet accept no responsibility for it.  But “The Jewish people’s acceptance of the full responsibility for the price/value of Jesus’ blood ironically places them and all their future generations within the embrace of the forgiveness of sins that the atoning blood of Jesus offers to all.”

On the cross, Jesus is surrounded by “strong bulls of Bashan” with mouths that open like the jaws of lions (Psalm 22:12-13, 21).  Why lions and bulls?

Jesus on the cross is one like the Son of Man, triumphing over the beasts.

Jesus on the cross is the temple, flanked by cherubim.

Jesus first uses lestes, “brigand,” when He’s in the temple in Matthew 21:31.  When the high priest’s guard comes to arrest Him, He asks why they are armed as if to arrest a lestes (26:55).

On the cross, the brigands are back, and Jesus is in the midst of them.  AS the living temple, He is crucified between two of the brigands who populate the temple.  It is a macabre ark of the covenant, Yahweh enthroned between two false cherubim-guardians, who do not stand guard at the temple gates but instead pollute it.

Jesus says the temple is a robbers’ den; He is crucified among robbers.  He condemns the temple; He is the temple.  All that to say: Jesus goes to the cross to suffer the temple’s fate.  Zeal for His Father’s house so consumes Him that He gives Himself in its place.

Matthew gives a great deal attention to Jesus’ garments in his account of Jesus’ death.  Clothing is stripped three times – first his normal clothes are stripped by the soldiers, then the scarlet robe is stripped, and then his normal clothes are stripped yet again, as the soldiers throw lots to inherit the clothing.

Jesus’ garments are not just garments.  By touching the hem of His garment, the woman with the hemorrhage of blood was healed (9:20-21), and she wasn’t the only one (14:36).  On the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus’ robe shines like the sun (17:2).  Jesus’  clothing is not only a sign of His office, but a tool of His ministry.  It represents the healing glory that envelops Him, the Spirit by which the Father clothed Him at His baptism.

Jesus is a new Joseph.  His Father gives Him wondrous garments, but in His Passion His “brothers” strip those garments from Him and turn Him over to “Egypt.”  He is also Israel stripped for exile, Israel stripped to the nakedness of slavery.  But He goes to exile in Egypt for the sake of His brothers, to rise to glory and to feed His hungry people, and all the nations.

It’s often said that there is not explicit “Joseph typology” in the NT.  But Matthew’s attention to Jesus’ robes suggests otherwise.