dwell in the land of Goshen, and supported them during the years of famine.

Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. And being now very infirm, he sent for Joseph and said to him, "Swear to me that thou wilt not bury me in Egypt. I will lie with my fathers. Therefore thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place." And Joseph swore that he would do so.

After this it was told Joseph, "Thy father is very sick." So he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And when Jacob heard that Joseph was come, he strengthened himself, and sat up on his bed. And Jacob said to Joseph, "God said to me at Bethel that He would make of me a multitude of people, and give me the land for a possession. Now, therefore, thy two sons that were born to thee in Egypt before I came down thither, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be as Reuben and Simeon. For they are thy sons, and thou art the son of Rachel, whom I saw die in the land of Canaan, on the way to Ephrath."

And

And Jacob saw Joseph's sons, and said, “Who are these?" Joseph said, “They are my two sons, whom God hath given me here." Then Jacob said, "Bring them to me, and I will bless them." Now Jacob's eyes were dim with age, so that he could not see. he said to Joseph, "I had not hoped to see thy face: and now God hath permitted me to see thy children." Then Joseph brought the two near to Jacob, setting Manasseh, that was the elder, by Jacob's right hand, and Ephraim, the younger, by his left. But Jacob reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim's head, and put his left hand on Manasseh. Then Joseph was displeased, and he would have removed his father's right hand from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's,

E

saying, "Not so, my father: for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head." But his father refused, saying, "I know it, my son, I know it he also shall become a people, he also shall be great: but his younger brother shall be greater than he." And he blessed them. To Joseph also he said, "Behold, I die but God will be with you, and bring you back to the land of your fathers."

After these things Jacob died, having first blessed his children. And Joseph fell upon his face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. And he commanded his servants the physicians to embalm him. And after the days of mourning, even seventy days, were ended, Joseph said to Pharaoh, "My father made me swear that I would bury him in the grave of his fathers in the land of Canaan. Now, I pray thee, let me go up and bury my father, and I will return." So Joseph went up to bury his father, and the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of Egypt went up with him; his brethren also went with him, and all his father's house. And they buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought as a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite.

And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, " Peradventure Joseph will hate us, and fully requite us all the evil that we did unto him." And they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, "Thy father commanded us before he died that we should give thee this message, Forgive, I pray thee, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did thee evil." And Joseph wept when they spake to him. His brethren also went and fell down before him, saying, "Behold, we are thy servants." And Joseph said, "Fear not ye meant evil against me, but God meant good, to bring it to pass, as it is this day, that I should

preserve alive much people.

Now therefore fear not,
So he spake

for I will nourish you and your children." kindly to them, and comforted them.

And Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He lived one hundred and ten years, and he saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, and the children of Machir the son of Manasseh he adopted for his own. And he said to his brethren, "I die; but God will surely remember and bring you to the land which He sware to your fathers." And he made them swear that when this should be they should carry his bones out of the land of Egypt.1 So Joseph died, and the physicians embalmed him, and they put his body in a coffin.

And when the children of Israel departed out of Egypt they carried with them the bones of Joseph, and buried them in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.

1 For the question of who was "Joseph's Pharaoh " see the first note in the "Story of Moses."

THE STORY OF MOSES

1. In Ggypt

NOT many years after the death of Joseph much trouble and affliction began to fall upon the children of Israel. They multiplied indeed and increased exceedingly, so that the land of Goshen, in which Joseph had set them at the first, was too narrow for them, and they were constrained to seek their livelihood elsewhere. Also there arose a king in Egypt that knew not Joseph, nor remembered all the benefits that he had done to the land.1 This man, knowing that there was danger to his kingdom from the nations round about, and

2

1 It seems tolerably well established that the migration of the Israelites into Egypt took place during the reign of the last of the Hyksôs or Shepherd Kings-a dynasty which ruled for many years in Lower Egypt. Apepi, the last of this dynasty, was defeated by Aahmes, king of Upper Egypt, and founder of the eighteenth dynasty. The Hyksôs were then driven out. It would appear, however, that Joseph did not share the fate of the monarch who had promoted him. The ruler who is described as the "king who knew not Joseph," is supposed to have been Seti I., who ascended the throne at the close of the eighteenth dynasty. As regards the numbers of the Israelites, it has been calculated that the total of the immigrants was about three thousand (including of course the slaves). These had increased at the time of the Exodus to about two millions-if the number can be trusted (numbers are always uncertain). This increase

is said to have taken a period of four hundred years. Here again the number is very uncertain.

2 There are reasons for believing that a confederacy of Egypt's neighbours on the north and east was threatening her at this time. Her power was certainly much smaller than it had been two or three centuries before.

1

seeing that there dwelt in the midst of it this nation of strangers, said to his people, "Behold, the children of Israel are more in number and mightier than we are. Let us, therefore, so deal with them that they may not multiply yet more, lest when our enemies make war against us they give themselves to them, and fight against us, and so escape from the land, and we lose their service." So he oppressed them with heavy tasks of labour, as the building of treasure cities, and the like. But the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied, so that the Egyptians were afraid of them. Then the king set them to labour at the making of bricks, and to do all manner of service in the fieldplanting, and reaping, and drawing water from the river. All their service that they were constrained to render was made hard and grievous. Yet for all this their numbers increased more and more. Then the king commanded that their male children should be killed at the birth, and when he found that this was not done, he commanded that the male children should be cast into the river, but the female children he suffered to live.

Now there was in those days a certain Amram, who was of the tribe of Levi, who had taken to wife his father's sister,2 Jochebed by name. This Amram had two children, the elder a damsel of some sixteen years. Miriam by name; and the younger a male child of three years or thereabouts, whose name was Aaron, And now there was born unto him yet another son. Him, because he was a goodly child, his mother hid in the house for six months. And when

she could no

1 Pithom and Rameses, both in Eastern Egypt, are mentioned as having been built by Hebrew labour.

2 These marriages, afterwards forbidden, were at that time lawful among the Israelites, as they seem to have been among the Egyptians. still allowed, by special dispensation, in the Roman Church.

They are