Genesis 41

It is now certain that the narrative of the history of Joseph and the sojourn and exodus of the Israelites—that is to say, the portion from Genesis 39 to Exodus 15—so far as it relates to Egypt, is substantially not much later than M.C. 1300; in other words, was written while the memory of the events was fresh. The minute accuracy of the text is inconsistent with any later date. It is not merely that it shows knowledge of Egypt, but knowledge of Egypt under the Ramessides and yet earlier. The condition of the country, the chief cities of the frontier, the composition of the army, are true of the age of the Ramessides, and not true of the age of the Pharaohs, contemporary with Solomon and his successors. If the Hebrew documents are of the close of the period of the kings of Judah, how is it that they are true of the earlier condition, not of that which was contemporary with those kings? Why is the Egypt of the law markedly different from the Egypt of the prophets, each condition being described consistently with its Egyptian records, themselves contemporary with the events? Why is Egypt described in the Law as one kingdom, and no hint given of the break-up of the Empire into the small principalities mentioned by Isaiah (19:2)? Why do the proper names belong to the Ramesside and earlier age, without a single instance of those Semitic names which came into fashion with the Bubastic line in Solomon’s time? Why do Zoan-Rameses and Zoar take the places of Migdol and Tahpanhes? Why are the foreign mercenaries, such as the Lubrin, spoken of in the constitution of Egyptian armies in the time of the kingdom of Judah, wholly unmentioned? The relations of Egypt with foreign countries are not less characteristic. The kingdom of Ethiopia, which overshadowed Egypt from before Hezekiah’s time and throughout his reign, is unmentioned in the earlier documents. The earlier Asyrian Empire, which rose for a time on the fall of the Egyptian, nowhere appears.

These agreements have not failed to strike foreign Egyptologists who have no theological bias. These independent scholars, without actually formulating any view of the date of the greater part of the Pentateuch, appear uniformly to treat its text as an authority to be cited side by side with the Egyptian monuments. So Lepsius, in his researches on the date of the Exodus, and Brugsch, in his discussion of the route, and Chabas, in his paper on Rameses and Pithan. Of course it would be unfair to implicate any one of these scholars in the inferences expressed above; but, at the same time, it is impossible that they can, for instance, hold Kuenen’s theories of the date of the Pentateuch, so far as the part relating to Egypt is concerned. They have taken the two sets of documents—Hebrew and Egyptian—side by side, and in the working of elaborate problems found everything consistent with accuracy on both sides; and of course accuracy would not be maintained in a tradition handed down through several centuries. If the large portion of the Pentateuch relating to the Egyptian period of Hebrew history, including as it does Elohistic as well as Jehovistic sections, is of the remote antiquity here claimed for it, no one can doubt that the first four books of Moses are substantially of the same age. R. S. Poole.

1. And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he 2 stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well favoured and 3 fatfleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink 4 of the river. And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and 5 fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven 6 ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven ears, thin and 7 blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. And the thin ears swallowed up the seven 8 rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicans of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none 9 that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, 10 I do remember my faults this day: Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward 11 in the house of the captain of the guard, me and the chief baker; and we dreamed a dream in one night, and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream.

12. And there was with us there a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream 13 he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored 14 unto mine office, and him he hanged. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came 15 in unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that when thou hearest a dream 16 thou canst interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall 17 give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I 18 stood upon the brink of the river: and, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, 19 fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in the reed grass: and, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the 20 land of Egypt for badness: and the lean and ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat 21 kine: and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; 22 but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke. And I saw in my dream, 23 and, behold, seven ears came up upon one stalk, full and good: and, behold, seven ears, 24 withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: and the thin ears swallowed up the seven good ears: and I told it unto the magicians; but there was none that 25 could declare it to me. And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: what 26 God is about to do he hath declared unto Pharaoh. The seven good kine are seven years; 27 and the seven good ears are seven years; the dream is one. And the seven lean and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty ears blasted 28 with the east wind; they shall be seven years of famine. That is the thing which I spake 29 unto Pharaoh: what God is about to do he hath shewed unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come 30 seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: and there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the 31 famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of 32 that famine which followeth; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will 33 shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh lock out a man discreet and wise, and set 34 him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the 35 land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of 36 Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land 37 perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the 38 eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, 39 a man in whom the spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God 40 hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be 41 greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of 42 Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, 43 and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: 44 and he set him over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, 45 and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the 46 daughter of Poti-phera priest of On. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went 47 out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the 48 seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the 49 food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph laid up corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without num- 50 ber. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came, which Asenath 51 the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For, said he, God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s

52 house. And the name of the second called he Ephraim : For God hath made me fruitful in 53 the land of my affliction. And the seven years of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came 54 to an end. And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said ; and 55 there was famine in all lands ; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread ; and Pharaoh said 56 unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph ; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth ; and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians ; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn ; because the famine was sore in all the earth.

1-36. Joseph remained in prison two years longer, forgotten by the released cup-bearer, when Pharaoh was disturbed by dreams which none of the scribes or wise men of Egypt could interpret. Then the chief cup-bearer remem- bered his fault, and told Pharaoh of Joseph, who was brought out of prison, and set before the king. After bearing witness to the true God, as in the former case, by ascribing all the power of interpretation to him who had sent the dreams, he explained to Pharaoh their sig- nificance, which to an Egyptian was most strik- ing. The dream had been twofold, to mark its certain and speedy fulfilment. Seven years of an abundance extraordinary even for fruitful Egypt were to be followed by seven years of still more extraordinary dearth. In the first dream, the seven years of plenty were denoted by seven heifers, the sacred symbols of Isis, the goddess of production, which came up out of the river, the great fertilizer of Egypt, whose very soil is well called by Herodotus “the gift of the Nile.” These were beautiful and fat, as they fed on the luxuriant marsh-grass by the river’s bank ; but after them came up seven others, so ill looking and lean that Pharaoh had never seen the like for badness, which devoured the seven fat kine, and remained as lean as they were before. The second dream was still plainer. There sprang up a stalk of that branch- ing Egyptian wheat which now grows in our own fields from seed found in mummy-cases. That seen by Pharaoh had the unusual number of seven ears, full and good, denoting the seven years of plenty. Then there sprang up another stalk, also bearing seven ears, thin and blasted with the east wind, and so mildewed that they infected and consumed the seven good ears. Joseph went further, and counselled Pharaoh to give some discreet person authority over all the land, that he might store up the surplus corn of the seven years of plenty against the seven years of famine. P. S.

1-45. God cannot neglect his own, least of all in their sorrows. After two years more of Joseph’s patience, that God who caused him to be lifted out of the former pit to be sold now calls him out of the dungeon to honor. He now puts a dream into the head of Pharaoh : he puts the remembrance of Joseph’s skill into the head of the cup-bearer ; who to pleasure Pharaoh, not to requite Joseph, commends the prisoner for an interpreter ; he puts an interpretation in the mouth of Joseph : he puts into the heart of Pharaoh this choice of a miserable prisoner, to make him the ruler of Egypt. Behold : one hour hath changed his fetters into a chain of gold, his jail into a palace, Potiphar’s captive into his master’s lord, the noise of his chains into “Bow the knee.” He who refused the allurements of the wife of Potiphar had now given him to his wife the daughter of Potipherah. Humility goes before honor ; serving and suffer- ing are the best tutors to government. How well are God’s children paid for their patience ! How happy are the issues of the faithful ! Bp. H.

1. At the end of two full years. For two full years after the restoration of the cup- bearer to his office Joseph remained in the prison, occupying the position to which, for his trustworthiness and integrity, he had been raised. Although this delay was due to the un- grateful forgetfulness of the man to whom he had shown so much kindness, and for whose in- tercession with the monarch he had so touch- ingly made request ; yet the overruling provi- dence of God is clearly seen in the occasion and the time at which Joseph’s services were recalled to the remembrance of the butler, and brought by him to the notice of the king. W. M. T.

We have need of patience, not only bearing, but waiting patience. Joseph lay in prison until the time that his word came (Ps. 105 : 19). There is a time set for the deliverance of God’s people ; that time will come, though it seem to tarry ; and when it comes, it will appear to have been the best time, and therefore we ought to wait for it. H.—By those years of prison life, as well as by the privations which preceded, Joseph’s character was steadied into strength and ripened into maturity, so that when his op- portunity came he used it with effect. They did for him what his forty years in Midian did for Moses, and his eighteen months in Arabia did for Paul. They threw him in upon himself, and back upon God. They disciplined him into calm self-possession, because they gave him a strong hold upon Jehovah. W. M. T.—As things turned out, it was well for Joseph that his friend did forget him. For, supposing the chief butler had overcome his natural reluctance to increase his own indebtedness to Pharaoh by interceding for a friend, and supposing Pharaoh had been willing to listen to him, what would have been the result? Probably that Joseph might have received his liberty, and a free pass out of Egypt. In any probable case his career would have tended rather toward obscurity than toward the fulfilment of his dreams. Dods.

2-7. The particulars of the dreams are all singularly appropriate. The scene is by the Nile, on which depends all the plenty of Egypt. The kine and the corn respectively denote the animal and the vegetable products of the country. The cattle feeding in the reed-grass showed that the Nile was fertilizing the land and supporting the life of the beasts. The lean cattle and the scorched-up corn foreshadowed a time when the Nile, for some reason, ceased to irrigate the land. The swallowing up of the fat by the lean signified that the produce of the seven years of plenty would be all consumed in the seven years of scarcity. E. H. B.

The first dream is clothed in striking Egyptian emblematic figures. Egypt is the offspring of the Nile. The fertility of the land is yearly renewed by its overflowings. The cow is a very ancient emblem of the land, and of the earth generally, and was worshipped among the Egyptians as the goddess Isis. The Nile, Osiris, is honored under the form of a bull. Geri.

That the number of the cows should have been seven is a singular touch of true local coloring, recognized only within a few years, but affording a striking proof of the exactness of the whole incident in its illustration of Egyptian modes of thought and life. Isis is often seen associated with seven cows; a mystical number represented by the same word in Egyptian, Hebrew, and Sanscrit. So, also, Osiris is at times represented as attended by seven cows, his wives. At the summer solstice a cow was led seven times round his temple. That those in the dream should have been bathing in the Nile is, moreover, only a reproduction of paintings often seen on the monuments. Geikie.

8. Magicians.** There is a wide region, a borderland between the two worlds of spirit and of matter, in which are found a great many mysterious phenomena which cannot be explained by any known laws of nature, and through which men fancy they get nearer to the spiritual world. There are many singular appearances, coincidences, forebodings, premonitions, toward which men have always been attracted. When men have no word from God to depend upon, no knowledge at all of where either the race or individuals are going to, they will eagerly grasp at anything that even seems to shed a ray of light on their future. We make light of that whole category of phenomena, because we have a more sure word of prophecy by which, as with a light in a dark place, we can tell where our next step should be, and what the end shall be. But invariably in heathen countries, where no guiding spirit of God was believed in, there existed a class of persons who undertook to satisfy the craving of men to see into the future. Dods.

14. The fact of Joseph having shaved himself is in striking accord with the Egyptian custom, which was to let the beard and hair grow in mourning only—otherwise most scrupulously shaving: whereas the Hebrews cultivated the hair and beard and shaved in token of mourning. He changed his raiment, from the ordinary habit of the prison to that of ordinary life or even of festal rejoicing. The fact of his having it in his power to do so shows that he was not treated as an ordinary prisoner. Aif.—The extreme personal cleanliness of the ancient Egyptians is indicated, not only in this shaving of Joseph, but in his change of raiment. The attention which the priests, in particular, paid to this matter, is mentioned by divers ancient authors. But it was not confined to their order. “Every Egyptian prided himself,” says Wilkinson, “on the encouragement of habits which it was considered a disgrace to neglect.” Kit.

16. God shall give Pharaoh an answer.** When Joseph professes to declare from God himself what he was about to do, and when everything happened according to his predictions, it was undeniably evident that the God whom Joseph worshipped was the Ruler of the universe, and that Joseph received from him that wisdom in which he so far excelled all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Thus the true God left not himself without a witness in the most famous kingdom of the world, at a time when the grossest darkness enveloped most of the Gentile nations. Bush.

26,27. The fertility of a year depended upon the due proportion of the Nile inundation. Too much or too little of it would necessarily bring dearth and famine. Hence both the fat and the lean kine which were seen to ascend from the Nile were symbols either of years of fruitfulness or of death. K.—The explanation of the inundation is as follows: The White Nile, fed by the immense equatorial lakes, which are themselves supported by a rainfall lasting for more than nine months out of the twelve, and which constitute great natural reservoirs, sends down a constant, vast, and only slightly varying stream of water to the sea. Unlike it, however, the Blue and the Black tributaries are largely intermittent, and in the dry season would fail, without the White River, to reach the Mediterranean at all. On the other hand, without these two affluents the Nile would have no flood, and, even if it had, would leave little or no alluvial deposit. But the heavy summer rains in Abyssinia, which fall between May and September, wash down the rich lands of that country by the Blue Nile and the Atbara, and these, added to the ordinary current of the White Nile, increase its volume so as to cause the periodical overflow, and at the same time to charge its waters with red argillaceous mud to such an extent that when spread over a wide surface, and allowed sufficient slackness of current for the purpose, they precipitate over the land that rich alluvial dressing which enables it to produce a constant series of the most abundant harvests. Thus, roughly speaking, the White Nile supplies the unfailing volume of water, and the Abyssinian tributaries give the annual inundation. The river begins to rise at Cairo about the end of June, and goes on increasing until the end of September, then, after remaining at the same level for a few days, it commences to fall, and continues to do so until about the middle of the following May. If the rise be less than twenty-four feet there will be a scanty harvest, and if less than twenty there will be a famine; but if it exceed thirty, the villages will be flooded, and great damage will be the result. W. M. T.

30-36. When there was famine in Canaan in the days of Abraham, there was plenty in Egypt; and so established was its character in this respect, that it was frequently called the grxnary of the world. Yet Joseph here foretells that there should not only be a grievous famine in Egypt, but a famine so terrible that all the luxuriant plenty of the former fruitful years should be forgotten as if it never were; and it was to continue, not for one or two, but for seven years! The good counsel which Joseph adds to the interpretation of the dream makes the answer of God an answer of peace and not of evil. The purpose of God in Pharaoh’s dreams was to procure deliverance and honor to Joseph, and to preserve Egypt, and the family of Jacob, and the countries around from destruction. Joseph’s advice tended to secure this result. Bush.

37-39. Pharaoh and his court are at once struck with the appositness of the interpretation, and unhesitatingly adopt it as the true one. The Spirit of God was shown to be in him, both by the interpretation, and by the wisdom of words with which he had followed it up. Alf.—This is paralleled by an expression in the similar history of Daniel (ch. 5 : 11, 14). It is not necessary for us to know what idea Pharaoh attached to his own words in this expression. It was plain to him that Joseph could not have discovered the import of the dreams by his own sagacity. He was sensible that a divine person or a divine influence had enlightened his mind and given him this extraordinary knowledge. His proposal therefore to honor Joseph was a virtual honoring of the God whom he served. Bush.—It would seem that the Pharaoh of the time was a monotheist. Not only does he make no protest against the pronounced monotheism of Joseph (vs. 16, 25, 32), but he uses himself the most decidedly monotheistic language when he says to his nobles, “Can we find such a one as this is—a man in whom the Spirit of God is?” and again when he addresses Joseph as follows: “Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art.” No such distinct recognition of the unity of God is ascribed either to the Pharaoh of the Old Empire who received Abraham, or to those of the New Empire who came into contact with Moses. G. R.

41. We now know the exact period of Egyptian history at which the Exodus must have taken place; and if we count 430 years, “the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt” (Exod. 12 : 40), back from this, we shall be brought to the reign of the Hyksos king Apophis or Apepi, the very king, in fact, under whom, according to ancient authors, Joseph was raised to be the adom, or second ruler of the state. It was not until the Hyksos were driven out of the country, and Aahmes, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, was pursuing with bitter hatred both them and their friends, that “there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” Sayce.

41-45. Every trait in the description is purely Egyptian. Pharaoh gives him his signet, which “was of so much importance with the ancient Egyptian kings, that their names were always enclosed in an oval which represented an elongated signet.” He arrays him “in vestures of byssus,” the noble and also the priestly dress; he puts the chain, or “the collar of gold” “about his neck,” which was always the mode of investiture of high Egyptian officials; he makes him ride “in the second chariot which he had,” and he has it proclaimed before him: “Acreek,” that is, “fall down,” “bend the knee,” or “do obeisance.” To complete all, on his naturalization Joseph’s name is changed to Zaphnath-praanesh, which most probably means “the supporter of life,” or else “the food of the living,” although others have rendered it “the saviour of the world,” and the Rabbis, but without sufficient reason, “the revealer of secrets.” Finally, in order to give him a position among the highest nobles of the land, Pharaoh “gave him to wife Asnath,” daughter of Potiphera, priest or prince of On (Heliopolis). A. E.

On, the “Aven” of Ezek. 30:17, the “Bethshemesh” of Jer. 43:13, and “Heliopolis” of the Septuagint, was a place of great celebrity, and the principal seat of learning in Egypt before the accession of the Ptolemy, when the schools were transferred to Alexandria; the ruins are not far from Cairo, and are marked by an obelisk sixty-eight feet high, which is considered one of the oldest monuments of its kind in Egypt. Mounds and crude brick walls are all that remain of Bethshemesh; for its “images” have been broken, and “the houses of the gods of the Egyptians” have been burned with fire (Jer. 43:13). At On Moses is said to have studied, and to have become “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Wilson.

The people of Egypt were divided into castes, like those of India, as they exist to the present day, and as they formerly prevailed among many other oriental nations. At the head of these castes stood that of the priesthood. From this order the king was usually selected; if one of the warriors, the next class in rank, should attain to that eminence, he was always installed and enrolled in the superior order. The priestly caste, in rank and power, stood far above the rest of the people. In each name or district (if indeed these divisions were of so early a date) stood a temple and a sacerdotal college. In them one third of the whole land of the country was inalienably vested. The priests were not merely the ministers of religion, they were the hereditary conservators of knowledge. They were the public astronomers, by whom all the agricultural labors of the people were regulated; the public geometricians, whose service was indispensable, since the Nile annually obliterated the landmarks of the country; in their hieroglyphical characters the public events were recorded; they were the physicians; in short, to them belonged the whole patrimony of science, which was inseparably bound up with their religion. The political powers of this hereditary aristocracy were unbounded; they engrossed apparently both the legislative and judicial functions; they were the framers, the conservators, the interpreters of the laws. As interpreter of dreams, Joseph, no doubt, intruded into the province of this all powerful caste, and the king, not improbably with a view to disarm their jealousy, married his new vizier to the daughter of the Priest of the Sun, who dwelled in On, called afterward by the Greeks Heliopolis (the City of the Sun). Moreover, in the great political measure of Joseph, the resumption of all the lands into the hands of the crown, the sacred property of the priests was exempted from the operation of the law, and the whole class supported, during the famine, at the royal charge. The next caste in dignity was that of the warriors, called by Herodotus, Hermotybies or Kalasyries. The lower classes of the people constituted the rest of the orders; according to Herodotus five, to Diodorus three more. The latter reckons husbandmen, artisans, and shepherds; Herodotus, shepherds, swineherds, manufacturers and shopkeepers, interpreters, and mariners, that is, the boatmen of the Nile. The boundaries of these castes were unalterably fixed, the son held forever the same rank, and pursued the same occupation with his father. Mithuan.

The ministers of the court were in Egypt the priests, just as the state was a Theocracy, and the king was considered as the representative and incarnation of the Godhead. Hengs.—The reader will perhaps recall the striking analogy between the Egyptian system and the Hebrew Theocracy, particularly in the point that the ministers of religion were also ministers of civil law and prominent in its administration. The judges in the civil courts were taken chiefly from the tribe of Levi. H. C.

46,47. Joseph knew that his advancement was intended for the public good; to enable him to do some general service; and to preserve life. This is the design of Providence, whenever a person is advanced to any station of figure and fortune. And men should consider that the more they enjoy, they are accountable for so much more; and as they are capable of doing the more good, by neglecting these opportunities they expose themselves to the greater punishments. Bp. Conybeare.—He who enabled Joseph to repel temptation and to endure affliction, enabled him also to bear the glory that was conferred upon him with humility. He was, and he felt himself to be, exalted to power for the good and the safety of the people, and he entered at once upon the active discharge of the duties of his station. He went through all the land of Egypt, not to show his greatness, but to see with his own eyes what was to be done, to issue the proper orders, and to see their execution Bush.

Those who take God’s discipline kindly here and turn it to best account according to his thought and will, have their reward above. It is not needful that we know in their details what the heavenly responsibilities are, and what the dignities and the honors of those who have been faithful over a few things here; but we are safe in the belief that earthly discipline and culture are not lost attainments as to the after life. As one short day transferred Joseph from the prison-house of the kingdom to the lordship of that kingdom, so one day is long enough for the transfer of many a humble, suffering saint of God from dungeons of darkness and pain to palaces of royalty and bliss. In the story of Joseph these great truths of God’s administration with his people were breaking forth upon the minds of men by most interesting stages of progress. H. C.

47-49. During the seven plenteous years Joseph seems to have travelled as commissioner from city to city, establishing royal granaries in each, and storing therein the one fifth of the produce which he claimed in the king’s name, and in the public interest. So superabundant were the harvests that the impost does not seem to have been felt. Though only a fifth part of the whole, the quantity was “as the sand of the sea.” We know from the sculptures how carefully the Egyptian scribes registered each spring the produce of the fields. But during these years they “left numbering, for it was without number.” J. P. Norris.—The Pentateuch describes the labors of Joseph in building storehouses, and storing up corn against the famine. The paintings on the monuments give a vivid representation of the whole scene, showing how very common the storehouse was in Egypt. It appears from the paintings, that they kept an account of the amount of grain stored in the magazines, for at the side of the windows of one of them there are characters indicating the quantity deposited therein. This throws light on the statement, that Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, “until he left numbering.” E. C. W.—The corn was stored up in each of the cities from the lands of which it was collected; and it was thus secured for orderly distribution in the years of famine. When that season arrived, its consumption was guarded by the same wise policy that had preserved it from being wasted in the years of plenty. The demand was not only from Egypt, but from the neighboring countries, Canaan, and probably parts of Syria, Arabia, and Africa, to which the famine extended, and whose corn was soon exhausted. P. S.

50-52. Two things here stand out in the history of Joseph. The same gracious Hand of the Lord, which, during his humiliation, had kept him from sin, disbelief, and despair, now preserved him in his exaltation from pride, and from lapsing into heathenism, to which his close connection with the chief priest of Egypt might easily have led him. More than that, he considered himself “a stranger and a pilgrim” in Egypt. His heart was in his father’s home, with his father’s God, and on his father’s promises. Of both these facts there is abundant evidence. His Egyptian wife bore him two sons “before the years of famine came.” He gave to both of them Hebrew, not Egyptian names. By the first, Manasseh, or “he that maketh forget,” he wished to own the goodness of God, who had made him forget his past sorrow and toil. By the second, Ephraim, or “double fruitfulness,” he distinctly recognized that, although Egypt was the land in which God had caused him “to be fruitful,” it was still, and must ever be, not the land of his joy but that of his “affliction”! If it be asked why, in his prosperity, Joseph had not informed his father of his life and success, we answer, that in such a history safety lay in quiet waiting upon God. If Joseph had learned the great lesson of his life, it was this, that all in the past had been of God. Nor would he now interfere with further guidance on his part. The Lord would show the way, and lead to the end. But as for him, he believed, and therefore made no haste. Thus would God be glorified, and thus also would Joseph be kept in perfect peace, because he trusted in him. A. E.

But why does no message go from Joseph to his mourning father? For many reasons. He does not know the state of things at home. He may not wish to open up the dark and bloody treachery of his brothers to his aged parent. He bears in mind those early dreams of his childhood. All his subsequent experience has confirmed him in the belief that they will one day be fulfilled. He will leave it entirely to the all-wise providence of his God to bring about that strange issue. Joseph, therefore, is true to his life-long character. He leaves all in the hand of God, and awaits in silent hope the days when he will see his father and his brethren. M.—Joseph was kept tender and humble and domestic and patriotic because he had the faith to know and live with his father’s God. This conscious relation to God controlled his whole heart. Having become almost an Egyptian, yet he kept himself as a sacred thing, and behaved himself as a child of the Highest, through the most seducing temptations. Mercer.

For God hath made me to forget all my toil. It is a beautiful circumstance in the history of Joseph, that he has God ever before his eyes. When tempted to sin, his cry is, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” When the court officers in prison were troubled by their dreams, he said, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” When the king tells him that he had heard of his skill in the interpretation of dreams, he is anxious to turn the credit from himself to God—“It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” When the purport of the royal dreams becomes clear to him, he again sees God in them—“God hath showed Pharaoh what he is about to do.” “The thing is established by God; and God will shortly bring it to pass.” So, when he discloses himself to his brethren, he says, “God sent me before you, to save your lives by a great deliverance. So it was not you that sent me hither, but God.” Again, in the message sent to his father, “God hath made me lord of all Egypt.” Also, in the address to his brethren after the death of his father, “Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it for good.” At last, he dies in the conviction that “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land;” and so assured is he of this, that he takes an oath of them that they will carry his bones with them to the land of their future possession. It was this constant reference to God in all things, before all things, and for all things, that forms the real characteristic of Joseph’s history, and is the true secret to all his glory and success. Kit.

54-57. Famines in Egypt are caused by the failure of those periodic rains of the Abyssinian highlands which swell the waters of the Blue Nile, and cause the Lower Nile to overflow and fertilize the plains of the Egyptian Delta. The rise of the water commences at midsummer, and continues for three or four months. When the water subsides they sow their corn, and reap the crop in the following spring. So it is in our day, as it was in Joseph’s. And so rarely did a drought in the Levant extend to Abyssinia, that the Levantine peoples made sure of finding corn in Egypt when their own harvests failed. This explains the concourse of foreign traders of whom we here read: “All countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.” During the first year of the famine, the native Egyptians had the abundant stores of their previous harvest: “in all the land of Egypt there was bread.” But they seem to have made no private provision for more than one year in advance as usual—either disbelieving Joseph’s prediction, or tempted to part with their surplus by the high prices which it commanded. So “when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.” J. P. N.

Well may the Hebrew race be proud of these men like Joseph and Daniel, who stood in the presence of foreign monarchs in a spirit of perfect fidelity to God, commanding the respect of all, and clothed with the dignity and simplicity which that fidelity imparted. It matters not to Joseph that there may perhaps be none in that land who can appreciate his fidelity to God or understand his motive. There is something particularly noble and worthy of admiration in a man thus standing alone and maintaining the fullest allegiance to God, without ostentation, and with a quiet dignity and naturalness that shows he has a great fund of strength behind. Influence in the long run belongs to those who rid their minds of all private aims, and get close to the great centre in which all the race meets and is cared for. Men feel themselves safe with the unselfish, with persons in whom they meet principle, justice, truth, love, God. We are unattractive, useless, uninfluential, just because we are still childishly craving a private and selfish good. We know that a life which does not pour itself freely into the common stream of public good is lost in dry and sterile sands. We know that a life spent upon self is contemptible, barren, empty, yet how slowly do we come to the attitude of Joseph, who watched for the fulfilment of God’s purposes and found his happiness in forwarding what God designed for the people. Dods.

What a life-like romance is the story of Joseph! In what other narrative have the good and evil of the human soul been ever blended in such truthful consistency of thought and emotion? been ever painted in such perfect harmony with the universal human conscious-

ness? Take away the dreams, and what has more the air of veritable history, more of that minute detail and circumstantial coloring which the geography and chronology of Egypt could alone impart to it, than the story of the plenty and the famine! T. L.