(1) to betoken the retributive judgment of God, and

(2) illustrate his grace. Joseph is lost, and still Divinely protected. Judah is a wanderer from his brethren; a sensual, self-willed, degenerate man; yet it is in the line of this same wanderer that the promised seed shall appear. The whole is a lesson on the evil of separation from the people of God. Luther asks why such things were placed in Scripture, and answers,

(1) That no one should be self-righteous, and

(2) that no one should despair, and

(3) to remind us that Gentiles by natural right are brothers, mother, sisters to our Lord; the word of salvation is a word for the whole world. - R.