Joseph and His Brothers
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one longing thrilled his heart. As he beheld the travelers approaching,
the love whose yearnings had for so many long years been repressed,
would no longer be controlled. He sprang from his chariot and hastened
forward to bid his father welcome. “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.”
Joseph took five of his brothers to present to Pharaoh and receive
from him the grant of land for their future home. Gratitude to his prime
minister would have led the monarch to honor them with appointments
to offices of state; but Joseph, true to the worship of Jehovah, sought to
save his brothers from the temptations to which they would be exposed
at a heathen court; therefore he counseled them, when questioned
by the king, to tell him frankly their occupation. The sons of Jacob
followed this counsel, being careful also to state that they had come
to sojourn in the land, not to become permanent dwellers there, thus
reserving the right to depart if they chose. The king assigned them a
home, as offered, in “the best of the land,” the country of Goshen.
Not long after their arrival Joseph brought his father also to be
presented to the king. The patriarch was a stranger in royal courts; but
amid the sublime scenes of nature he had communed with a mightier
Monarch; and now, in conscious superiority, he raised his hands and
blessed Pharaoh.
In his first greeting to Joseph, Jacob had spoken as if, with this
joyful ending to his long anxiety and sorrow, he was ready to die. But
seventeen years were yet to be granted him in the peaceful retirement of
Goshen. These years were in happy contrast to those that had preceded
them. He saw in his sons evidence of true repentance; he saw his
family surrounded by all the conditions needful for the development
of a great nation; and his faith grasped the sure promise of their future
establishment in Canaan. He himself was surrounded with every token
of love and favor that the prime minister of Egypt could bestow; and
happy in the society of his long-lost son, he passed down gently and
peacefully to the grave.
[234]
As he felt death approaching, he sent for Joseph. Still holding
fast the promise of God respecting the possession of Canaan, he said,
“Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: but I will lie with my fathers, and
thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place.”