and ten she-asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father on the way. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan to Jacob their father. And they told him, Joseph is still alive, and indeed he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart remained cold, for he did not believe them. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them; and when he saw the carriages which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, It is enough, Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.'

It will be observed that Joseph throughout sustained his assumed character of an Egyptian noble, and remained true to it to the minutest detail-in the meal eaten apart from his brothers and from his inferiors, in the constant presence of the interpreter, his pretence of miraculous insight, his prophecy from the sacred goblet, and his repeated oaths by the life of Pharaoh; he, in fact, succeeded completely in perplexing and amazing his brothers by what appeared to them supernatural knowledge and wisdom.

24. SETTLEMENT OF JACOB'S FAMILY IN EGYPT.

[GENES. XLVI.-XLVII. 12.]

Once more was Jacob to journey forth from the old familiar Hebron, his Canaanite home, but this time it was not to escape from an offended brother, but to meet a beloved and affectionate son in power. His heart may indeed have been troubled as he left the spot where the Lord had bid him stay. But he was cheered and comforted by the assurance of God's continued protection; he offered up sacrifices at Beer-sheba, his first resting-place and the future boundary of the promised land. In the visions of the night the Lord appeared to him and said,

'I am the Omnipotent, the God of thy father; fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again, and Joseph shall put his hands upon thy eyes.' So he departed from Beer-sheba, encouraged and strengthened, and journeyed on the usual south-western road towards Egypt, a caravan of sixty-seven souls, so that, including Joseph and his two sons, the Hebrew settlement in Egypt consisted of seventy souls, in addition to the wives of Jacob's sons and the servants. When they entered the territory of the land which was to be their new home, Jacob 'sent Judah before him to Joseph, to direct him to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up, to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and he appeared before him, and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a long time. And Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet alive.'

Who would not rejoice with Jacob, the man of sorrows and trials, brought at last to a haven of rest, in an unknown country it is true, but still as the beloved father and chief of a numerous family, the ancestor of a Godfearing race!

Joseph wished his brothers to have ample pasturage in the land of Goshen, one of the most fertile parts of Egypt. With his usual wisdom, he saw that his family must not mix with the idolatrous Egyptians, in order that their faith and worship might remain as pure as they had been in Canaan. To attain this end, he effected a complete separation between his brothers and the people of Egypt. Jacob's sons were, like all Bedouins, herdsmen; but the agricultural and highly civilized Egyptians held nomadic shepherds in unreasonable scorn; thus by urging before Pharaoh his brothers' pastoral pursuits, Joseph hoped to secure for them the undisturbed, if not the exclusive,

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possession of a most fertile district. He therefore presented five of his brothers to the king. And Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers. They said moreover to Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan: now, therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.' Then Pharaoh, true to his open-handed generosity, said to Joseph: Thy father and thy brothers are come to thee: the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brothers dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell; and if thou knowest any men of ability among them, make them overseers over my cattle.' Then Joseph brought his father to the king, who, moved by the sight of that aged chieftain, who had come to spend his last days in a strange land, asked with surprise and interest, 'How many are the years of thy life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the years of my life been, and have not attained to the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh. And Joseph made his father and his brothers dwell, and gave them a possession, in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph supported his father, and his brothers, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families.'

25. JOSEPH ACQUIRES FOR THE KING THE WHOLE SOIL OF EGYPT.

[GENES. XLVII. 15–26.]

We would fain end the story of Joseph without alluding to his last acts, which, painful in themselves, stand in harsh contrast to the bonds of kindness that seem hitherto to have united the ruler and the ruled. But we must always remember that the Bible does not demand of us a blind hero-worship: the persons introduced are rather set before us as pictures of human nature, in many cases noble, pure, and faithful, but still not free from weakness, nor guarded against error and sin. Not even the most revered characters are without shadows, from which often spring sorrow and trials followed by bitter penitence, and at last by atonement. If the instruments of God's will were supernaturally perfect beings, our interest and sympathy for them would be less direct and less profound, and the Bible would in some measure cease to be the Book best fitted to guide the erring wanderer struggling towards virtue and truth.

The famine in the land of Egypt was fearful in the extreme; it was probably even more distressing than the people had anticipated. Now the Egyptians had bought corn from Joseph until all their money was spent; but the visitation of the seven unfortunate years was far from concluded. The people came to the granaries clamouring for bread. Their agony was terrible; but Joseph, acting merely in what he considered Pharaoh's interest, would give no corn to the people except in exchange for their cattle. Their magnificent horses and fleet asses, their herds and flocks, thus became royal property. But at the end of a year, they had exhausted this resource also; and with the grim prospect of starvation staring in their face, they came again to Joseph with their lamentations. This time

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their cry was more piteous still; they said: 'We will not hide it from my lord; but our money is spent; our herds of cattle also have passed into the hands of my lord; there is nothing left before my lord, except our bodies and our lands: wherefore shall we die before thy eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be subjected to Pharaoh; and give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land do not lie waste. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's.'

It is sad indeed to dwell upon this scene of slavery and spoliation-the act of the pious, God-fearing Joseph, of the generous and high-minded king. Not only did the whole land pass into Pharaoh's possession, but the people, in order to be weaned from the soil which they and their ancestors had so long occupied and cherished, were heartlessly transplanted from one boundary of Egypt to the other. The priests alone, forming a free caste, remained in possession of their land. Seed was then given by Joseph to the husbandmen under the exacting condition. that the fifth part of the harvests was to be delivered up to Pharaoh. And under the influence of dire want, the people had become so degraded that they exclaimed rejoicingly, Thou hast saved our lives, let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be servants to Pharaoh.'

Jacob spent seventeen years in Egypt peacefully and happily; then, having attained the age of a hundred and forty-seven years, he felt that his end was approaching. He sent for his son Joseph, and made him promise by a solemn oath, not to bury him in Egypt, but to take his body to Canaan, and to inter it by the side of his ancestors in the cave of Machpelah. Joseph gave the pledge without hesitation.