]\Iost natural and impressive is the scene also which ensues, in which Josei)h, after informing his brethren who he was, and inciuiring, first of all, " Is my father alive?" expresses feelings free from the slightest taint of revenge, and even shows how, luider divine Provi- dence, the conduct of his brothers had issued in good — "God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the earth, and to save j'our lives by a great deliverance." Five years had j'et to ensue in which " there woidd be neither earing nor harvest," and therefore the brethren were directed to return home and bring Jacob down to Egypt with all speed. " And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. jMoreover, he kissed all his brethren and wept npon them; and after that his brethren talked with him" (xlv, 14, 15).
The news of these striking events was carried to Pha- raoh, who, being pleased at Joseph's conduct, gave direc- tions that Jacob and his family should come forthwith into Egypt : " I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land ; regard not your stuff, for the good of all the land is j'ours." The brethren departed, being well provided for : " And to his father Joseph sent ten asses laden with the good things of Eg\q)t, and ten she-asses laden with com, and bread, and meat for his father by the way." The intelligence which they bore to their father was of such a nature that " Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not." When, however, he had recovered from the thus natu- rally told effects of his surprise, the venerable patriirch said, '• Enough ; Joseph, my son, is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die" (xlv, 26, 28). Accordingly Ja- cob and his family, to the number of threescore and ten souls, go down to Egypt, and by the express efforts of Joseph, are allowed to settle in the district of Goshen, where Joseph met his father: "And he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while." There Joseph " nourished his father and his brethren, and all his fa- ther's household, with bread, according to their fami- lies" (xlvii, 12). B.C. 1874.
5. Joseph had now to pass through the mournful scenes which attend on the death and burial of a father (Gen. 1, 1-21). B.C. 185G. Having had Jacob embahn-
JOSEPH
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JOSEPH
ed, and seen the rites of mourning fully observed, the faithful and affectionate son — leave being obtained of the monarch — proceeded into the land of Canaan, in or- der, agreeably to a promise which the patriarch had ex- acted (Gen. xlvii, 29-31), to lay the old man's bones with those of his fathers, in " the field of Epliron the Hit- tite." Having performed with long and bitter mourn- ing Jacob's funeral rites, Joseph returned into Egypt. The last recorded act of his life forms a most becoming close. After the death of their father, his brethren, un- able, like all guilty people, to forget their criminality, and characteristically finding it difficult to think that Joseph had really forgiven them, grew afraid, now they were in his power, that he would take an opportunity of inflicting some punishment on them. They according- ly go into his presence, and in imploring terms and an abject manner entreat his forgiveness. "Fear not" — this is his noble reply — " I will nourish you and your little ones."
6. By his Egyptian wife Asenath, daughter of the high-priest of Heliopolis, Joseph had two sons, Manas- seh and Ephraim (Gen. xli, 50 sq.), whom Jacob adopt- ed (xlviii, 5), and who accordingly took their place among the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Joseph lived a hundred and ten years, kind and gen- tle in his affections to the last; for we are told, "The children' of jMachir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees" (1, 23). Having obtained a promise from his brethren that when the time came, as he assured them it would come, that God should visit them, and " bring them unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob," they would carry up his bones out of Egypt, Joseph at length "died, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin" (1, 26). B.C. 1802. This promise was religiously fulfilled. His descendants, after carrying the corpse about with them
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' JorCLih's Tomb.
in their wanderings, at length put it in its final resting- lilace in Shechem, in a parcel of ground that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, which became the inheri- tance of the children of Joseph (Josli. xxiv, 32). A tomb which probably represents the same spot is still shown to travellers in the vicinity of Jacob's Well (Hackett's Illustrations, p. 197). It is a flat-roofed rectangular building surmounted by a dome, under which is pointed out the real tomb, in shape like a covered wagon (Wil- son, Bible Lands, ii, GO).
The history of Joseph's posterity is given in the arti- cles devoted to the tribes of Ephraiji and Manasseh. Sometimes these tribes are spoken of under the name of Joseph (Josh, xiv, 4 ; xvii, 14, 17 ; xviii, 5 ; Judg. i, 23, 35, etc.), which is even given to the whole Israelitish na- tion (Psa. Ixxx, 1 ; Ixxxi, 5 ; Amos v, 15 ; vi, G). Ephra- im is, however, the common name of his descendants, for the division of JIanasseh gave almost the whole po- litical weight to the brother-tribe (Psa. Ixxviii, 67; Ezek. xxxvii, 16, 19; Zech. x, 6). That gr^-at people seems to have inherited all Joseph's ability t-ith uone of his goodness, and the very knowledge of his power in Egypt, instead of stimulating his offspring to follow in his steps, appears only to have constantly drawn them into a hankering after that forbidden land which began when Jeroboam introduced the calves, and ended only when a treasonable alliance laid Samaria in ruins and sent the ten tribes into captivity.