JOSEPH'S PRESENTS.

43

leave Canaan, and make Egypt their abode, providing at the same time waggons for their accommodation. Το these favours Joseph added presents on his own account: 'He gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner: ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way.' And they came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not. And when he saw the waggons, 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.'-GEN. xlv.

6

THE

HE piety of the now aged patriarch Jacob, and the favourable consideration of him by that God in

whom he and his fathers had trusted, are instructively recorded in the forty-sixth chapter of Genesis. The old man now took his journey with confidence and joy to the land of Egypt, invited thither by the powerful viceroy of that country, his own favourite son Joseph. 'And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And the Lord said, I am God, the God of thy father fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation.' Thus encouraged, Jacob proceeded. 'And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to direct his face unto 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,

JACOB INTRODUCED TO PHARAOH.

45

and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.'-Gen. xlvi.

R

FTER Joseph had presented some of his brethren

to Pharaoh, and explained to the king their occupation, which resulted as he had predicted, in their full reception as residents, his aged parent was introduced. And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh : and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not

attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

And Jacob blessed

Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.'-GEN. xlvii.

T

HIS eminent patriarch, having lived seventeen years

in the land of Egypt in peace and plenty with his

sons and his sons' sons, drew near to the end of

his long pilgrimage on the earth, which was, altogether, a period of one hundred and forty-seven years. Having, therefore, obtained a promise from Joseph, that he would bury him in his family tomb in Canaan, he first blessed Joseph's two sons, crossing his arms at the time, that his right hand might rest on Ephraim's head, Joseph's younger son, who thereby obtained the full benediction instead of Manasseh. Jacob then called his own sons around him,

THE MOURNING AT ATAD.

47

and delivered the paternal prophetic address on which hung so remarkably the future destinies of their race. 'And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land. of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen : and it was a very great company. And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan; and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians.'GEN. 1.