EXPOSITION. Ver. 46.-A.nd Joseph was thirty years account of the number of bushels which old when he stood before Phare.oh king of another man, acting under him, measures. Egypt-literally, a son of thirty years in The inscription is as follows: 'The writer hi,s standing before Pharaoh. If, therefore, or registrar of bushels-Thutnofre," (Heng- he had been three years in prison (eh. xl. 4 ; stenberg, 'Egypt and the Books of Moses,' xli. 1), he must have served for ten yenrs in p. 36). the house of Potiphar. And Joseph went Vers. 60, 51.-And unto Joseph were born out from the presence of Pharaoh (in the two sons before the years of famine came, performance of his official duties), and went (literally, b~fore the comina of the years ot' throughout all the land of Egypt-super- famine), which Asenath the daughter of intending the district overseers. Poti-pherah priest of On bo.re unto him. Vers. 47, 48.-And in the seven plenteous And Joseph oalled· the name of the first- years the earth brought forth by handfllls born Manasseh(" Forgetting," from nashal,, (i. e. alnm<luntly). And he (Joseph, through to forget) : For God (Elohim ; Joseph not at his subordinntes) gathered up all the food the moment thinking of his son's birth in (i. e. all the portions levied) of the seven its relations to tho theocratic kingdom, but years, whioh were in the land of Egypt, simply in its connection with tho over- and le.id up the food in the cities :-men ruling providence or Go,! which had been so bringing corn into gmnaries appear upon signally illustrated in his elovation, from a the monuments at Boni-hassan (Wilkinson, position of obscurity in Canann to such con- '.Ancient E,;yptians,' vol. i. p. 371, ed. spicuous honour in tho ·land of the Pha- 11378) - the food of the field, which was raohs), said he, ho.th mo.de me forget o.11 my round about every city (literally, the food toil, and all my father's house. Not ubso- of the field o.f the city, which wa..i in its lutely (Calvin, who censures Joseph on this environs), laid he up in the same (literally, account, vi:c tarn.en in tot um potest e.1:cnsari in the midst of it). oblivio paternre domus), as events subse- Ver. 49.-And Joseph gathered (or heaped quently proved, but relativoly, the pressure uf) oorn as the sand of the sel\,-an image of his former nffiiction being relieved by his o great abund1mce (cf. eh. xxxii. 12)-very present happiness, and the loss of his father's muoh, until he left numbering (i. e. writ- house in some <legreo compensated l>y the ing, or keeping a record of the number of l>uil<ling of a house for himself. bushels); for it was without number. " In Ver. 52. -Aud the name of the second a tomb nt Eilothya o. man is represented called he Ephraim:-" Donblo Frnitfnlnc~s" whoso business it ovickntly was to take (Keil), "Double Land" (Gcseniu,), "limit" 470 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [cB. XLI. 46-57.
(Fiirst)-For God (Elohim) hath caused me (cf. Prov. ii. 26) ;-and the fami.D.e waxed to be fruitful in the land of my affliotion. 1ore (literally, became strong) in the land of This language shows that Joseph had not Egypt. A remarkable inscription from the quit~ forgotten "all his toil." tomb a.t Eileythia. of Bava, which Brugsch Vers. 53, 54.-And the seven years of (' Histoire d'Egypte,' second ed., p. 174,seqq.) plenteousness, that was in the land of assigns to the latter pa.rt of the seventeenth Egypt, were ended. And the seven years dynasty, mentions a dearth of several years of dearth began to come,-the most com- in Egypt (" A famine having broken ont plete parallel to J oseph's famine was that durmg many years, I ga.ve corn to the tow:n which occurred in A. D. 1064-1071, in the during each famine "), which that distin• rei~ of Fatimee Khalcefeh, El-Mustansir-b- guished Egyptologer identifies with the fa. illah, when the people ate corpsos and mine of Joseph under Apophis, the shepherd animals that died of themselves; when a ld.ng (vide 'Encyclopedia. Britannica,' ninth dog was sold for five, a cat for three, and a edition, art. Egypt); but this, according to bnshel of wheat for twenty dcenars (i,ide Bunsen(' Egypt's Place,' iii. 334), is rather Smith's 'Bib. Diet.,' art. Famine)-accord- to be detected in n dearth of several years i.ng as 1oseph had said (thus confirming which occurred in the time of Osirtasen I., Joseph's character as a prophet): and the and which is mentioned in an inscription at dearth was in all lands ;-i. e. in all the Beni-hassan, recording the fact that during adjoining conntries, and notably in Palestine its prevalence food was supplied by A.menee, (vide eh. xlii. 1, 2)-but in all the land of the governor of a district of Upper Egypt Egypt there was bread. (Smith's• Diet.,' art. Joseph). The character \"er. 55.-.And when (literally, and) all of Chnumhotep (a near relative and favourite the land of Egypt was famished (literally, of Osirta.sen I., and his immediate successor), and), the people cried to Pharaoh for bread : and the recorded events of his government, -cf. the famine in Samaria (2 Kings vi. 26) as described in the Beni-hassan monuments, -and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, also remind one of Joseph :-"he (i. e. Chnum- Go unto Joseph; what he saith to yon, do. hotep) injured no little child ; he oppressed Vers. 56, 5i .-And the famine was over no widow ; he detained for his own purpose all the face of the earth (vide supra, ver. no fisherman ; took from his work no shep• 64) : And J oeeph opened all the storehouses, herd ; no overseer's men were taken. There -literally, all wherein was, i e. all the was no beggar in his days ; no one starved in magazines that had grain in them. The his time. When years of famine occurred granaries of Egypt are represented on the he ploughed all the lands of the district, monuments. "In the tomb of A.menemha producing abundant food ; no one starved in at Beni-ha.ssan there is the painting of a great 1t ; he treated the widow as a woman with storehouse, before whose door lies a great a husband to protect her" (vide 'Speaker's heap of grain already winnowed. Near by Commentary,' vol. i. p. 450). And all coun- stands the bushel with which it is measured, tries (i. e. people from all the adjoining and the registrar who takes the account" lands) came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy (Hengstenberg's • Egypt and the Books of corn ; because the famine was so sore in all Moses,' p. 36)-and sold unto the Egyptian■ lands.