1. Joseph

The scientific and cultural-historical interest of the person of Joseph. – The Arab trading caravans. – Joseph in the house of the Egyptian chief of police. – The position of women in Egypt and the laxity of morals. – Joseph’s imprisonment and his unintended acquaintance with the courtiers. – The significance of dreams in Egypt and the dreams of Pharaoh. – The elevation of Joseph and the years of famine. – The supposed spies. – Joseph’s brothers in the palace of the court dignitary. – Joseph’s spiritual crisis. – The arrival of Jacob in Egypt and his audience with Pharaoh. – The solemn funeral procession in honour of the father of the great Egyptian dignitary. – The last days of Joseph and his present-day grave.

History knows of no other person who, by his marvellous destiny, filled with extraordinary vicissitudes, would be more interesting and more engaging than the person of Joseph. The narrative concerning him is an incomparable epic of a meek, pure, and noble soul, which in itself constitutes the greatest happiness, exalting man above all the vicissitudes of life. By the simplicity of its conception, marvellously combined with the extraordinariness of the circumstances; by the depth of psychological analysis sustained throughout the whole history; by the consistency of its characters – this narrative, regarded even simply from a literary point of view, constitutes a pearl in the literary treasury of mankind. Being wholly faithful to the laws of psychology, it is equally faithful to the laws of historical criticism. All its details so precisely reflect the peculiarities of the cultural and historical life contemporary with it, as that life is now disclosed upon the stone monuments of bygone Egyptian and Eastern antiquity in general, that it undoubtedly constitutes a precious source for learned Egyptology. The celebrated novels of Ebers, which reproduce ancient Egyptian life, may in this respect be regarded only as a feeble imitation of the biblical history of Joseph. In its entirety the biblical narrative concerning him is itself so well known to everyone that we shall not retell it here, but shall only trace how it coincides in all its details with the data of the most recent scientific discoveries and investigations in the field of ancient Eastern and especially Egyptian life[1].

Filled with adventures, the life of Jacob was already drawing near to the limit of human existence. He was about a hundred years old when, having a numerous family and possessing considerable wealth consisting of herds of various cattle, he thought he might quietly go to rest with his forefathers. But Providence was preparing new trials for him, and that precisely through his most beloved son Joseph. In the biblical history Joseph first appears before us as a youth of seventeen[2]. He evidently does not yet know the rules of the shepherd’s craft, and goes to his brothers only to learn it from them. Simple-hearted and innocent, with childish naïveté, upon returning home, he would tell his father of the various evil deeds of his brothers, who were not distinguished by any particular height of morality. They naturally came to hate him for this, and their hatred flared up the more strongly the more they saw that their aged father did not conceal his especial love for Joseph as the “son of his old age,” and moreover the elder son of his beloved wife Rachel, now already mourned by him. The old man indeed openly showed his especial love for Joseph and made for him a special “coat of many colours,” long and perhaps of the finest Egyptian materials. In the East, where age-old customs are unchangingly preserved, beloved children are clothed in the same way even now. The garment is sewn from materials of various colours, which receive an elegant combination according to the prescriptions of fashion and taste. Such a garment might at the same time serve as a sign that Jacob intended to make Joseph the heir of his property, especially in view of the fact that the elder brothers had brought a terrible dishonour upon their father. In any case, all this together aroused in the elder brothers malice together with envy toward Joseph, and they resolved to be rid of him. When once they were with their flocks at a more considerable distance from their father’s encampment than had been usual before, then at the first appearance among them of the hated brother they resolved to kill him; but since the eldest brother Reuben rose up against such a decision, they merely stripped off his garment and cast him into a pit – just in case. The Eastern pastures abound to this day in such pits, or rather, holes. These are dried-up wells, and also simple pits that were artificially prepared in order to store up water in them in the rainy season against the time of drought. By their bottle-like shape, which deprived one of the possibility of getting out, these pits often served also as places of imprisonment, and the Hebrew word by which these pits are called serves also to denote a prison[3].

Extraordinary events often have in their germ a very simple occurrence, as was the case with Joseph. When the elder brothers, having cast him into the pit, were deliberating what to do with him further, an Arab caravan appeared in the distance, stretching out in the direction of Egypt, and it decided Joseph’s fate. The cruel brothers sold him to the Arab merchants. This whole narrative constitutes a marvellously faithful picture of local Eastern life, preserved in its general features down to the present day. As thousands of years ago, so now also the caravans of the “Ishmaelites” stretch out from Syria and Arabia in the direction of Egypt, carrying thither “storax, balm, and myrrh,” and as then, so down to the most recent times these caravans seize along the way everything that comes to hand and out of which they can make a more or less profitable transaction for themselves. The boy of the English traveller Baker was carried off by an Arab caravan under almost exactly the same circumstances as Joseph: when he was tending goats, the Arabs seized him, hid him in a sack of aromatic herbs, and sold him into slavery in Cairo. The trade in aromatic goods was very extensive between the Nile valley and the neighbouring lands, which abounded in them. In Egypt these goods were required in large quantities – for the embalming of mummies, for incense, and also for various purifications. At each temple in Egypt there was a special laboratory where the raw materials were processed for various uses, and in one such laboratory a list of 200 substances has been found, among which figure also the first two substances mentioned in the biblical account, namely storax and balm, of which the first was obtained from Palestine, Armenia, and Persia, and the second from the balsam tree in Gilead. Myrrh was obtained from the leaves of a particular rose growing in Syria and Arabia, and is often found in the tombs with the mummies. “One has only to travel to Egypt,” says a celebrated Egyptologist, “to see even now such caravans arriving from the East on the banks of the Nile. They are immortalized in representations on the monuments”[4]. The Ishmaelites bought Joseph for twenty pieces of silver; this is the very price which was later set by Moses for a slave from five to twenty years of age. Thus over whole centuries the price of slaves remained unchanged. As for the very existence of slavery in Egypt, it is proved by numerous representations of male and female slaves of every kind on the monuments and even by manuscripts of a particular sort, preserved down to our own time, in which the slaveowners offer a reward to whoever shall bring back to them the runaway slaves. One of these manuscripts presents such an announcement on the part of Prince Atefamen, son of Pharaoh Rameses II, the great overseer of the labours of the Hebrews before their departure from Egypt. That among the slaves there were undoubtedly Hebrews and other peoples of the Semitic race is clearly proved by the fact that under Rameses II slaves are often called by the Hebrew name ebed. Incidentally, slaves from Syria[5] were in especially great demand in the bazaars of Memphis and Thebes, and the highest prices were offered for them, just as was the case in ancient Rome. Since Joseph was precisely a Syrian, the acquisition of him was a windfall for the Ishmaelites, and they could fetch a particularly good price for him on the Egyptian market. How highly such slaves were valued may be judged even from the treaty concluded by Rameses II with the Hittites, according to which slaves who had fled into Syria were to be returned to Egypt[6], and besides this there has survived a letter of a certain scribe to his father, the prophet Ramessu at Hermopolis, in which he describes all his adventures during the search for a runaway slave[7]. The Syrians and negroes were employed chiefly for running before the chariots of their masters through the streets. With a gilded staff or whip in hand they cleared the way and directed the horses.

Joseph was bought by “Potiphar (Pentephres), an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard.” The name Potiphar is wholly Egyptian and means “dedicated to Ra, the sun-god,” the worship of whom was centred in Heliopolis, in the south of Lower Egypt, not far from Memphis, the favourite residence of the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, who was a great patron of the cult in honour of the god Ra. The court of this Pharaoh, like that of all other Pharaohs, was overflowing with dignitaries of every kind – privy councillors, royal kinsmen, masters of the horse, directors of the court music, astrologers and dream-interpreters, librarians, ministers of public buildings and tombs, stewards of the palace, palace and state treasurers, and also, not to enumerate more, fan-bearers, who appear to have been the highest dignitaries at court and usually occupied the place at the right hand of Pharaoh. On the left side, as the weaker and requiring protection, stood the higher military officers, who composed a special bodyguard, at whose disposal there stood close by a detachment of two thousand soldiers who received better pay than the ordinary common soldiers. But Potiphar can hardly have been the commander of this detachment, since the detachment changed every year, whereas he lived permanently in Memphis. Most probably he was the chief of the Egyptian state police, which composed one of the corps of the army and performed chiefly the public police service[8]. The police were numerous and well organized already in the most ancient times and had numerous duties. The law required that every inhabitant should present himself annually to the police chief of his district and give an account of by what means he lived, and any false statement was punished with death. Egypt was a land of bureaucracy, even more so than present-day Austria. The whole population of each “nome” or district was annually, at appointed terms, registered by the scribes in special lists, and into these lists slaves too were entered. On one of the monuments of the Nineteenth Dynasty there occurs a picture representing such a census[9]. The police, of course, had much work in this matter. They were obliged to detect and punish criminals, to pursue and catch runaway slaves, to guard the numerous prisoners of war, and to watch over the proper execution of the public works imposed upon the people by the laws, and also to oversee the public works of slaves. Such a manifold service required a large number of men, and therefore, alongside the scribes and officials whose duty it was to administer justice and discipline, there was formed, as early as the times of Abraham, a special gendarme corps, originally of foreigners, to which were joined other detachments of foreign soldiers, recruited in Sardinia and other lands, who composed part of the state and personal guard of Pharaoh. For these detachments a special commander was required, who, like the commanders of other branches of the administration, was attached to the court, with the resounding title of “the eyes of the king of Upper and the ears of the king of Lower Egypt.” In all probability it was this very office that Potiphar held, for with this office were joined those duties which are ascribed to him in the biblical narrative, namely the duties of overseeing the prisons and those imprisoned in them, of punishing criminals, and of carrying out all manner of judicial sentences[10].

By his quickness, honesty, and success in the execution of all his commissions, Joseph justified the general view of the Egyptians regarding the especial worth of Syrian slaves. He found “favour in the eyes” of Potiphar, in consequence of which the latter “set him over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.” Such a position, as overseer of the slaves and steward of the entire domestic household, may be constantly met with on the monuments and in the literature of ancient Egypt. Every large and wealthy house had such an overseer of the slaves and of the household, and Joseph occupied precisely such a position in the house of Potiphar. Wherever measuring of the quantity of grain is being carried out, or the weighing of metal, or in general any building or agricultural work is in progress, in the representations there is usually depicted an overseer or master of the household with a small staff in his hand or with a tablet for recording and a pen behind his ear. He would have assistants as well, but the chief overseer was usually placed incomparably above all his subordinates and bore the honorary title of “governor of the house.” Such an honourable position often developed in them an extreme ambition, and of one overseer it is related in a certain papyrus that, moved by ambition, he gave himself over to magic, which brought him to an evil end. On the walls of the tombs of all wealthy Egyptians one encounters representations of such “governors of the house,” fully corresponding to the position of Joseph in the house of Potiphar[11]. These tombs reproduce before us the entire household and the entire inner domestic life of the Egyptian dignitaries and rich men – and this life was so complex that the office of overseer or “governor of the house” was a very difficult one, bound up with great responsibility. The Egyptian courtiers were uncommonly rich, and some of them enumerate in detail in the inscriptions upon their tombs their wealth in its various forms. One, for example, declares that he had 835 oxen, 220 cows and calves, 760 asses, 2,235 sheep, and 974 goats, while another announces that he had 405 head of cattle of the first kind, 1,237 of the second, 1,360 of the third, 1,220 calves, and so forth, while the geese, ducks, and pigeons were reckoned by the thousands[12]. The country houses and gardens, according to the depiction of the tomb inscriptions, were distinguished by especial luxury and wealth, and these dwellings had so many storerooms of every kind that a special steward or overseer was absolutely necessary. The rooms were filled with vessels and dishes of every kind, golden and silver plates, dried fish, bread, vegetables[13], and the like. In such an enormous household the quickness and honesty that distinguished Joseph must have been highly valued, and indeed Potiphar found in him so faithful and reliable a servant that he could fully entrust to him the entire management of his house and “knew not aught he had, save the bread which he did eat”[14], and that only because the strict Egyptian laws of ceremonial purity did not permit a foreigner, especially one of a shepherd people, to touch the articles of the immediate consumption of the Egyptians.

Together with his high moral worth and household abilities, Joseph was moreover distinguished by stature and beauty[14], which did not fail to draw upon themselves the attention of Potiphar’s wife, enervated by luxury and idleness. His unwillingness to satisfy her lust called forth an understandable revenge and slander, owing to which Joseph was thrown into prison. On the basis of this history objections have often been made against the truthfulness of the narrative, namely that it allegedly does not correspond to the actual position of women among the ancient Egyptians. But the representations on the tombs and temples, now discovered, show the entire groundlessness of this objection. Women in Egypt were by no means in estrangement from men; on the contrary, in everyday life they constantly mingled with men, as may be seen from the representations copied by Wilkinson[15]. In one of them, guests of both sexes sit together in company, in their finest attire, with lotus flowers in their hands for smelling, while female slaves pass around cups to all. The table is overflowing with every kind of refreshment – fruits, pastries, game, and vessels of every kind for drinks; naked dancing-girls divert the guests with their dances to the sounds of the music of a women’s orchestra; one of them plays the flute, while all the rest beat time with their hands and apparently sing songs. On another representation a company of men and women is likewise depicted. Slaves put various neck ornaments upon those invited, while others hand round napkins to whoever requires them for wiping lips or hands. In general, women in Egypt enjoyed especial freedom and privileges; according to the words of Herodotus, they went to the market to do the shopping, while the men sat at home and span, and the duty of caring for aged parents lay upon the daughters, not upon the sons[16]. Diodorus even assures us that on the banks of the Nile the queen was held in greater honour than the king, and that wives ruled over their husbands, from whom, at the conclusion of marriages, a promise was exacted to obey their wives – and this strange institution is partly confirmed by the monuments[17]. The wife is often called “mistress of the house” or “great mistress of the house,” and the name of the mother usually stands alongside the name of the father, and sometimes even before it, while the sons are often called only by the name of their mothers[18]. At many ceremonial receptions of foreign ambassadors the queen stands in front. In almost all the tombs and funerary papyri the husband and wife sit side by side, as united not only in this life but also in the life beyond the grave; on many funerary pictures the husband and wife are depicted sitting upon a couch, with the husband embracing the wife or vice versa. The spouses on the monuments often, with especial expressiveness, declare their mutual tenderness, and the wives are mourned as “wholly devoted to their husbands,” as “loving their husband,” as “palms of love” overshadowing him. Reigning women are mentioned in the chronicles of the most ancient times and not infrequently attained great glory as rulers, being reckoned, like the Pharaohs, divine beings even during their lifetime. After death greater honours were rendered to women than to men, and the female mummies are usually more richly embalmed, adorned, and buried than the male mummies. Marriage on the banks of the Nile was sacred. Husband and wife ate and lived together, and not in separate rooms, as was the case among other Eastern peoples, and divorce was difficult. Infidelity was reckoned one of the mortal sins, and the soul had to render an account before the judges of the dead. – Thus it was wholly in accord with Egyptian customs that Joseph often met with his mistress in the house, and perhaps it was even one of his duties to accompany his mistress on her ceremonial appearances in society or in the temple, as a certain papyrus represents it, where a noble beauty is depicted going to the temple of Ptah: she is accompanied by fifty maidens and one slave – undoubtedly the chief of the rest of the slaves, like Joseph. True, in Egypt, as in other Eastern lands, concubines and entire harems were not unknown; the Pharaohs, like all Eastern despots, had “houses of women” under the supervision of eunuchs, and the noble dignitaries fully followed their example; but these concubines were by no means reckoned on a par with the lawful wife, who at feasts usually sits beside her husband, while the rest of the women divert him with their songs and dances. With that strictness of the marriage laws by which conjugal fidelity was secured, one cannot but find strange the custom that permitted wives in society to expose their right breast and in general to dress in very transparent materials.

Notwithstanding the high reverence for marriage, cases of the violation of the duty bound up with it were, however, a rather common occurrence in Egypt, and this fact has found an interesting illustration in the “Tale of Two Brothers” – a story which is several centuries older than the time of the Exodus and is perhaps contemporary with Joseph[19]. In it the history of the lustful wife of Potiphar is almost entirely repeated; only the victim is the younger brother of the husband, and he suffers for his innocence even more than Joseph, although in the end he too, like Joseph, attains high honours for his virtues, while the wife is slain and her body given over to be devoured by dogs. In consequence of this, Egyptian women in general were not renowned in antiquity for any particular virtues, and a strong prejudice prevailed everywhere against them[20]. And indeed, the very freedom which the women enjoyed, surrounded by the immoral influences of the Egyptian religious cult, and also the strange custom of dressing in transparent materials, were not very favourable to the development of a high morality. The representations on the tombs show that they were steeped in luxury and pleasures, that they spent whole days in amusements, surrounded by crowds of slaves who unquestioningly fulfilled all their whims and caprices. It is not surprising, therefore, that such an idle life led to various excesses, with representations of which the walls of various Egyptian temples are filled[21].

Believing the slander of his wife, Potiphar “was kindled with wrath and put Joseph into the prison, where the king’s prisoners were confined.” This prison was called by the Egyptians the White Castle, and the ancient historians, Thucydides[22] and Herodotus[23], mention its existence in Memphis, and the city itself was often called “the city of the White Castle”[24]. It was something in the nature of a fortress, in which there were barracks for the garrison, several temples, and many places of imprisonment, and it was under the command of a special military engineer, known by the name of chief commander of the walls and fortifications of Memphis. The fortress was so strong that a thousand years later Cambyses was compelled to take it by a regular siege. Potiphar, as minister of police, was without doubt also the commander of this fortress, or “house of the prison,” as it is called in the Hebrew original. Joseph, as we must suppose, was confined in such a section of the fortress as held state criminals requiring stricter supervision: ordinary criminals were placed in other parts of the building. Potiphar had not the power to take his life, since the ancient Egyptian laws protected the life of slaves from the violence of their masters[25], but he could have maimed him or given him a thousand strokes of the rod, had he so wished. But he did not avail himself of this right, by which he gave it to be understood that, while unable to disbelieve his wife’s account of the affront inflicted upon her, he nevertheless preserved within himself a disposition favourable to Joseph, and, in sending him to prison, he left the clarification of the truth to time. But even the suspicious eye of the keeper of the prison soon saw the innocence of this prisoner, and therefore Joseph soon occupied in the prison too the same position that he had occupied in the house of Potiphar, which had as its consequence his speedy release from prison.

The chief butler and the chief baker, who had transgressed against Pharaoh and were confined together with Joseph, were high dignitaries at the court, as the Egyptian monuments show[26]. Upon both of them lay the great and responsible duty of preserving the life of Pharaoh from poisonings. The position of the first in particular gave him constant access to Pharaoh, who drank only what he received from his hands; while the baker was obliged to take care not only of supplying the court with all manner of pastries and cakes, of which the Egyptians loved to make dainty fare, but also to see to it that nothing harmful was mixed into them with criminal intent.

Numerous inscriptions show that the Egyptians attached very great significance to dreams. In one it is related that the Prince of Bakhtan, in consequence of a dream that he had had, sent back to Egypt the god Khonsu, who had been sent to him by Pharaoh for the healing of his daughter[27]. Another relates how King Menephtah had a dream before a battle, in which the god Ptah appeared to him and forbade him to advance[28]. One inscription, discovered in the ruins of Napata, relates how Pharaoh Miamun, in the year of his accession to the throne of Egypt and Ethiopia, saw in a dream two serpents, one in his right hand and the other in his left. Upon awaking, he demanded that the wise men should at once interpret this dream for him, and they explained it thus: “thou possessest the south, and the north shall be subject to thee. The crowns of both lands shall shine upon thy head, and thou shalt rule the whole earth throughout its length and breadth”[29]. Dreams were sent by the god Thoth, and the obtaining of them was reckoned so important that special rules were composed by means of which one might attain to one or another dream. It is very natural, therefore, that both dignitaries, having fallen into the royal disfavour, were in strong agitation on account of their dreams and endeavoured to interpret them for themselves. Being unable, in consequence of their strict confinement, to see the priests, who alone interpreted dreams, they of course rejoiced greatly when Joseph undertook to interpret for them the dreams that so greatly occupied them.

The dream of the butler presents a purely Egyptian picture. He saw a vine with three branches; it budded, its blossom appeared, the grapes grew and ripened upon it, which he pressed into a cup and gave to Pharaoh. Drinks from the juice of the grape were prepared in Egypt in the most ancient times, even before the kings of the shepherd people, the Hyksos. The tombs in the pyramids, belonging to a far earlier time than that to which the life of Joseph belongs, show in their representations how the grapes were gathered from the laden vines into baskets[30] and how the juice was pressed from them into various vessels. In the tombs of Thebes there occurs a representation of a large garden with vineyards in the midst; boys frighten away the birds from the ripe clusters, while men, singing songs, tread with their bare feet the bunches of grapes heaped into an enormous vat. Above them is a roof with ropes hanging down, which the workers grasp as they leap up and down in the vat, and the juice flows out through two openings below into vessels prepared for it. There too stands the master, who counts the vessels, enters them in a book, and arranges them in rows in his cellar[31]. That this juice was used both in its simple and in its fermented state is shown by various representations of festivals, at which the women hold the double lotus flower, as a sign of intoxication, or are led away from the feast by female slaves in a state of great exhaustion[32]. The men, of course, were even less distinguished by moderation; one is dragged home from the feast by three slaves upon their heads; another is carried in a still more inconvenient manner, with his head resting against the chest of one slave and his feet thrown over the shoulders of another[33]. The workers were usually allotted portions of bread and wine, which to the priests were issued in double quantity. In the city of Bubastis, on the border of the land of Goshen, an annual festival took place which often attracted as many as seven hundred thousand people, and there each one drank during its course more wine than during the whole of the rest of the year[34]. Another such festival was celebrated in the temple of Hathor, the goddess of love, at Dendera, and bore the significant name of the festival of the drinkers, while the goddess herself was often called “the goddess of drunkenness” or even “the goddess of drunkards”[35]. “The people of Dendera are inebriated with wine,” says an inscription describing this festival[36]. Pharaoh Rameses III, in his record of gifts to the gods, mentions that at Thebes he brought to them as a gift numerous vineyards and a multitude of gardeners, from among the prisoners of war, to cultivate them, and besides this he brought as a gift to the various temples as many as 200,000 vessels of prepared wine. Where wine and its use had such sanction, there of course everyone was granted the freedom to make use of it. Drunkenness, however, was strongly condemned and despised. A drunkard was called “a temple without a god” or “a house without bread,” and men were carefully admonished to avoid this weakness. Nevertheless many drank to such a degree that they already “knew nothing and could not even speak”[37]. The kings, however, whose life was under the supervision of the chief priests, had their portion of wine, the measure of which was determined by their sacred guides[38]. But, of course, a despot was not easily kept within prescribed bounds, although it seems that the Pharaoh of the time described did not exceed them and used only the unfermented juice, just pressed from the grapes[39]. The scene depicted in the dream is almost literally repeated in the text of an inscription of the temple of Edfu discovered by Ebers; Pharaoh stands with a cup in his hand, and beneath him the words: “they press the clusters into water and the king drinks”[40].

The dream of the baker is no less faithful to Egyptian life, even in its details. “Baskets of white bread” frequently occur in the representations in the temples and tombs. Egypt was famed for the production of wheat, which was the chief product of the country. Enormous fields sown with wheat are depicted in the pictures of the Egyptian heaven. Even such a detail as the carrying of the bread-baskets on the head is wholly faithful to Egyptian life. The monuments show that ordinary burdens were for the most part carried on the shoulders, but the bakers constituted a notable exception and are usually depicted with the bread-baskets on their heads. A papyrus belonging to the time of the sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt names four bakers of Pharaoh, of whom one is called “chief,” and the importance of his office may be judged from the fact that he had at appointed times to deliver to the court storehouses not fewer than 114,064 bread-portions[41]. By a strange chance, a mention of bread occurs in connection with the fortress where Joseph was confined: one inscription speaks of “bread baked in the White Castle” at Memphis.

The sentence upon the baker, that he should be beheaded, that his body should be hanged upon a tree and given to the birds to devour, was the most cruel that could be pronounced over an Egyptian, and shows an especially great guilt, real or supposed, on the part of the unfortunate courtier. The destruction of the body was equivalent to the destruction of all hope of eternity, because the preservation of the body was reckoned an essentially necessary condition for the possibility of life beyond the grave. Beheading, preceded by strokes of the rod, was an ordinary punishment, but only especially important criminals were subjected to the deprivation of embalming. And when the body was given over to be devoured by dogs, as was done with the criminal wife in the “Tale of Two Brothers,” then this was the most terrible punishment among the Egyptians.

Joseph’s predictions were fulfilled upon both courtiers on “the day of Pharaoh’s birth.” This was a great festival on the banks of the Nile. Birthdays in general were in antiquity celebrated with great solemnity, but especially the birthdays of the kings. One inscription says that the birthday of Rameses II caused joy in heaven[42]. The priests gathered in the temples, pardon was granted to prisoners, and there took place a great feast worthy of a monarch whom his subjects worshipped as God. After the feast, surrounded by his courtiers and the dignitaries of the temples, he distributed his favours or punishments according to his own discretion, and at one of such moments Pharaoh “restored the chief butler to his former place, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand, but the chief baker he hanged (upon a tree), as Joseph had interpreted to them”[43].

The dreams seen thereafter by Pharaoh, after the lapse of two years, are of profound interest. The Nile is called in them simply “the river,” requiring in the Egyptian event no other name, just as the Euphrates throughout all its surrounding region is likewise called simply the river[44]. In the first dream “there came up out of the river seven cattle well-favoured in appearance and fat in flesh”; they had evidently been bathing or wading in the shallows of the river, plucking various water-growths, and now came up onto the bank to graze on the reeds and the riverside marsh plants, with which the Egyptian cattle feed to this day; but here they were devoured by seven other cattle, ill-favoured in appearance and lean in flesh, who came up after them likewise out of the river. The seven-eared stalks of the second dream are the well-known many-eared variety of wheat which grows even now in the Delta; while the “east wind” that withered the other seven ears is the well-known scorching east wind, the khamsin, which often even now with its fiery breath withers and lays waste the fields of the Nile valley. The sevenfold number of cattle presents an especial feature of local colour, which was disclosed only in recent times by investigations showing a striking proof of the accuracy of the whole fact in its illustration of Egyptian forms of thought and life. Isis is often represented surrounded by seven cattle, the mysterious number which is denoted by one and the same word in the Egyptian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit languages[45]. Osiris too is sometimes depicted in the company of seven cattle, his wives[46]. During the summer solstice a cow was led seven times around his temple. The monuments often also present a picture of cattle bathing in the Nile and coming up onto the bank to graze on the riverside grass. Furthermore, harvest and dearth in Egypt, both now and in antiquity, depended entirely upon the rise and overflow of the Nile. The cultivation of the land must always go hand in hand with the irrigation of the soil by the periodical overflow, which takes the place both of rain and of fertilizer. The annual overflow of the river was, long before Joseph, the direct source of Egyptian civilization, because the necessity of an extensive system of canals, of watching over the boundary marks of the separate plots, often obliterated by the floods, first compelled men to turn to astronomy, as the only guarantee of the correct measurement of time, and also to architecture and geometry, with the aid of which one might build dams and lead from the river a network of canals. In view of this it is as remarkable as it is natural that in the Egyptian religion, which consisted of several separate cults that had significance only in particular localities of the country, the cult of Isis and Osiris, closely bound up with the phenomena of the Nile, was acknowledged throughout all Egypt. At the beginning of the overflow it was called Osiris, “the fertilizer of the earth,” and was personified under the form of a bull, while at the time of the full overflow it received the name of his wife and sister Isis, “the fruitful mother,” or Hathor, the goddess of fertility, and both these goddesses were worshipped under the form of a cow or a cow’s head, as may constantly be seen on the monuments. In consequence of this, when cattle of one or another kind came up out of the Nile, in the imagination of the Egyptians this fact readily took on a definite meaning concerning the coming harvest. The second dream was only a supplement to the first, and must likewise have had a definite meaning for such a country as Egypt, which was the wheat-granary of the world and where the sultry khamsin with its fiery breath often withered the ears of corn over enormous expanses of fields.

In view of the importance which the Egyptians usually attached to dreams, it is understandable that the significant dreams seen by Pharaoh “troubled his spirit,” and he summoned “all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men,” requiring of them the interpretation of these dreams. With the king there constantly resided a council of priests of various ranks, who directed every act in his everyday life and interpreted to him the will of the gods, as it was manifested in omens, visions, or signs of the heaven. Each large temple had its college of priests, who were under the command of one chief. From among the higher priests the worthiest were chosen for the court, into the suite of Pharaoh, and the chief of them was the high priest of all Egypt. But when questions of great importance were to be resolved, such as in the present case were the dreams of Pharaoh, then the standing council of court priests was augmented by the chiefs of all the great temples of the country, and they were all together summoned to resolve the perplexities or doubts of the king. The priests were divided into various classes, of which the biblical text mentions only two – the magicians and the wise men. They did not claim for themselves the gift of immediate revelation, but for the resolution of given questions they withdrew into solitary places, where they endeavoured to find one or another interpretation in the sacred books and in mysterious rites, and we must suppose that this labour was heavy and slow. For this reason, when all the wisdom of the Egyptian magicians proved powerless to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh, while Joseph interpreted them without recourse to the books, by way of a higher immediate inspiration, he at once aroused such wonder and reverence for his enigmatic person.

The dreams of Pharaoh, by Joseph’s interpretation, foretold the coming of years of famine, after seven years of harvest. An insufficient overflow of the Nile was always accompanied by dearth, and when it was joined with a strong khamsin that destroyed the last shoots, then famine inevitably followed, which had occurred more than once even before the “dreams” of Pharaoh, as may be judged from various inscriptions. But one inscription, the author of which, in the opinion of Brugsch, must have been a contemporary of Joseph, depicts before us, perhaps, the very calamity to which the young Hebrew owed the marvellous change in his fortune. On the wall at the entrance to a certain tomb, the deceased, enumerating in his sepulchral inscription the virtues that distinguished him, among other things says the following: “I gathered a good harvest, because I was a friend of the harvest-god. I was attentive at the time of sowing, and now,when the famine came that lasted many years, I dispensed bread to the city to all the hungry”[47]. Such prolonged dearths, extending over several years, in consequence of a lack of water in the Nile, were very rare; one may say that history knows of only one example, related in the Bible, and therefore, if the author of the inscription cited was indeed a contemporary of Joseph, then in it we have an independent testimony to that very famine of which the biblical narrative speaks.

The fact that Joseph, in consequence of the declaration of the chief butler, who belatedly remembered him, was “hastily brought out of the prison” in order to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh, is no less faithful to Egyptian customs than the rest of the narrative. Notwithstanding the haste, however, he had first to “shave himself[48] and change his garment” before presenting himself to Pharaoh. By the laws of Egyptian ceremonial no one could present himself to the king without being “clean” in all respects, that is, everyone who was deemed worthy of so great an honour had to shave his entire body, wash himself carefully, and put on a garment of impeccable cleanliness. Joseph was about to come forward in the role of a priest-interpreter, and of all priests it was required that they be entirely without hair, except in cases of mourning, and in general all Egyptians who wished to be “clean” had to submit to the same process of purification[49]. In consequence of this both the priests and ordinary people usually wore wigs to cover their smoothly shaven skulls, and also artificial beards; an unshaven chin was a mark of a foreigner or of a person of low station and doubtful life. Therefore the large masses of hair on the heads of the Egyptians, as depicted on the monuments, are simply a work of art, as are also the long beards by which the Egyptian kings and priests are distinguished. Joseph had to submit to this priestly law before he could obtain an audience with Pharaoh.

Apart from the members of the priestly caste, it was difficult for anyone to venture to interpret dreams, especially the dreams of Pharaoh, because a slave who occupied himself with the secret knowledge appropriated exclusively to the priestly order was liable to death. Therefore it was for Joseph a very bold and dangerous matter to come forward in the role of a dream-interpreter. But his interpretation so coincided with the views of the Egyptians themselves, and the counsel proposed by him for the event of the coming of the years of dearth was so businesslike and reasonable, that all fears must at once have been dispelled. As often happens in lands with a despotic government, an insignificant slave was at once made a great dignitary of the country, its sovereign ruler. Pharaoh and his court, being struck by the inspired interpretation of the enigmatic dreams and appreciating in Joseph’s counsel the wisdom of a statesman, could find for the given situation no more suitable person than the young dream-interpreter himself.

“Thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou,” said Pharaoh to Joseph, and then there followed his formal elevation to the post appointed for him. The monuments confirm in every detail the ceremony of this elevation. The ring which Pharaoh took off from his own hand and put upon the hand of Joseph was a sign of his elevation to the rank of first minister of the country; the “vestures of fine linen,” which constituted the garment of the priests of the highest class in Egypt, signified his reception into the sacred caste, and the gold chain placed upon his neck was for all the official sign of his power. The second royal chariot was given over to his disposal, that he might ride through the streets of Memphis announcing his rank, and the heralds had to run before his chariot with the cries – abrek, abrek – “bow down!” It is remarkable that the present-day Arabs use the same cry – abrek, when they dismount from their asses or camels[50].

Together with the rank, Joseph received from Pharaoh a new Egyptian name, Zaphnath-paaneah (Zap-u-nt-p-aa-Auk). According to the explanation of Brugsch, this word literally means “nomarch of the Sethroite nome,” that is, of the district on the north-eastern border of Egypt. But in the mouths of the Egyptians of Joseph’s time it was equivalent to the name of “the governor of the abode of him who lives,” the region of the god Ankh, who was also called “the great,” “the living god.” In it, perhaps, there was preserved a reflection of the idea of the true God, unconsciously continuing to live on in Egypt, just as the same idea was preserved in the times of Abraham in individual persons in Canaan, as is seen from the example of Abimelech and Melchizedek. Brugsch says that this name of a divinity is the only one in Egypt that excludes the idea of idolatry. And there would be nothing strange if this name referred to Jehovah, since the eastern border of the Delta was from of old peopled by Semitic settlers or nomadic shepherds, and they could have brought with them the idea of the “living God.” That Joseph was set as chief precisely of that district which was under the especial patronage of the “living God” is very significant.

Joseph himself says that the position he occupied in the country made him an ab-en-pirao′, which with us has been incorrectly translated “a father to Pharaoh,” and that he became “lord of all his house.” The first title is purely Egyptian, and it often occurs in the ancient papyri as applied to the supreme dignitaries of the court. Some texts preserved in the British Museum, written by the sacred scribes and dignitaries of the Pharaohs, allude to these ab-en-pirao, and the high rank of them may be judged from the reverence with which they are mentioned. For the completion of the dignities of the new royal favourite there was lacking only a brilliant marriage for him, and it was arranged by Pharaoh himself. Asenath, daughter of Potipherah, priest of Heliopolis, became the wife of Joseph, and he was thus finally received into the highest class of the country.

The Pharaoh under whom Joseph was so swiftly elevated belonged, in the opinion of the majority of scholars, to a foreign people known by the name of the Hyksos or shepherd-kings, who for a long time ruled in Egypt until they were overthrown by a native Egyptian dynasty. The history of these Semitic conquerors of Egypt is very remarkable. Joseph was in all probability brought to Egypt about 1730 B.C., and tradition assigns the time of his glory to the reign of the shepherd-king Aphobis[51], who lived only a few years before the revolution that overthrew his dynasty. Like other Asiatics, he favoured his own religious cult. The Semitic settlers, who had long predominated in the eastern part of the Delta and had in all probability given the Hyksos the opportunity to seize the Egyptian throne, contributed, among other things, to the mingling of the customs and even the religion of the Egyptians with foreign ones. Syrian idols came into general use and were venerated by the Egyptian population, and especial popularity among them was enjoyed by Sutekh[52]. This god the Hyksos made the chief patron of the country they had conquered, and they built in his honour many temples – at Zoan, Tanis, and Avaris, adorned with sphinxes, and they rejected the veneration of all other gods[53]. This Sutekh was nothing other than the Syrian Baal, or rather Baal-zephon, or, as he is called in the Bible, “the god of the north wind”[54]. In the opinion of the authoritative Egyptologist Birch, Sutekh is “the one only and true God, distinct from all other divinities.” Such an identification would, of course, shed considerable light upon the fact that the Pharaoh who elevated Joseph often speaks in purely biblical language and reveals a consciousness of the idea of the true God, Jehovah – but science does not yet possess sufficient data to have full right to such a conclusion.

Twelve or thirteen years had passed since the time when Joseph was carried off from his native land and sold into slavery in Egypt, where he now, after the vicissitudes proper to Eastern despotic lands, had attained the highest position and power. He was still a young man of thirty years, and was a member of the court staff of priests, with the gold chain appropriate to his high rank upon his neck and the ring of Pharaoh upon his hand, and was the actual ruler of the greatest country of the world then known[55]. There were born to him two sons, who gave him the possibility of effacing the bitter recollections of the past: Manasseh, “who made him forget all his misfortunes,” and Ephraim, so named because “God had made him fruitful in the land of his affliction”[56]. With those measures which were adopted by Joseph for the prevention of the calamities of famine, however, it is difficult to agree fully. True, a tax of 20 per cent on all the produce of the land may not have been especially burdensome in such a rich country as Egypt; nevertheless one cannot but find it cruel, by the most modern conceptions, to compel the peasants to sell all their property and even their freedom, in consequence of which “all the land became Pharaoh’s, and all the people became slaves from one end of Egypt to the other”[57].

The famine spread far beyond the borders of Egypt, and from various lands caravans stretched out thither to purchase grain. The sons of the aged Jacob too were compelled to travel to Egypt, which at this time was already carrying on an extensive grain trade with Canaan and other neighbouring lands. It was, of course, difficult for them to recognize Joseph, now already grown to manhood and surrounded by all the Egyptian courtly splendour; but they themselves wore the former shepherd’s garment, which Joseph remembered so well, and therefore he at once recognized in them his brothers. But Benjamin was not among them. Had they not also killed or sold the other son of Rachel, his only brother by his mother? – a heavy thought flashed through his mind. In order to make them feel at least in some measure the weight of that state into which he himself had once been placed by them, and also to ascertain the truth concerning his younger brother, Joseph could find no better means to that end than to declare them spies. Egypt had constantly to fear a hostile attack from the north-east, for the prevention of which the eastern border of Egypt was defended by a great fortified wall, from Suez to the Mediterranean Sea, like that wall by which China was defended from the incursions of the Mongols. In order to clear themselves of such a grave suspicion, they had to leave a hostage until they should bring their younger brother with them. Joseph at this swore by the life of Pharaoh, and this is wholly in accord with Egyptian customs. Pharaoh was worshipped in Egypt, and an oath by his life was reckoned the strongest and most binding. Such an oath was retained in Egypt down to the twelfth century, was used under the caliphs, and the breaking of it entailed death[58]. The court language even under the Hyksos was Egyptian, so that an interpreter was required. As a hostage there was left the second brother, Simeon, and not the eldest, Reuben, and by this, perhaps, Joseph wished to recall to the latter his good feeling, which had once led him to endeavour to save his brother.

Bitter it was for the aged Jacob to listen to the account, conveyed to him by his sons, of the harsh treatment of them by the Egyptian ruler, who had kept one of them as a hostage for himself; but heavier still it was to part with Benjamin. Necessity, however, compelled him to resolve upon this also. He let Benjamin go, but at the same time wished to propitiate the Egyptian potentate with his gifts. This is wholly in accord with Eastern customs, which required the bringing of presents to powerful persons; but nothing could be simpler and more primitive than when Jacob, as such presents to the Egyptian court dignitary steeped in luxury, sent “the fruits of his land”: “a little balm and a little honey, storax and myrrh, pistachios and almonds”[59]. By “honey” is meant not the honey of bees, but what is called by the Arabs dibs, a thickened grape syrup, which even now is in great use in Egypt, whither it is brought annually from Hebron by a caravan of three hundred camels[60]. The grief of Jacob at the fear of losing the last son of his beloved Rachel, the fervent assurances of Reuben and Judah that they took upon themselves all responsibility for his safety, the matter of the silver which by some incomprehensible chance had turned up in their grain-sacks – all this constitutes a deeply touching scene in the history. But before these poor and intimidated Canaanites there was to open up a still more unexpected scene, when, upon their arrival in Egypt with Benjamin, they were suddenly summoned directly to the palace of the Egyptian potentate.

The houses of the noble Egyptians were surrounded by high walls adorned with painting, and access to them was through enormous gates with tall pillars, on which long banners waved. The gates led into a spacious paved courtyard, along the sides of which ran simple passages supported by slender painted columns. From the dwelling itself a rear door led into spacious gardens, with rows of fruit-trees and vines, shrubs and flower-beds and all manner of vegetation. Palms, sycamores, acacias, figs, pomegranates, and jasmines gave a luxuriant vegetation. In the midst was an enormous basin, the water from which, by means of a mechanism set in motion by oxen, was distributed throughout the whole garden under the supervision of the gardeners. The dwelling itself, usually of spacious dimensions, was for the most part of one storey, and sometimes of several storeys. Almost all the rooms of the lower storey had separate doors leading into a special verandah or gallery, supported by painted columns and running along the whole house on the side of the garden. Next to it were placed spacious storerooms for stores of every kind. The outer sides of the house were adorned with painting and rich ornaments of every kind[61]. The furnishing fully corresponded to the exterior. Divans, couches, and settees of every kind, often of precious wood, finished in ivory and gold, revealed elegance of taste by their varied forms, representing lions, sphinxes, horses, and other animals; tables of all sizes and designs, elegantly carved armchairs set in ivory, astonished by their luxury and richness. On the side tables stood goblets of elegant Syrian workmanship, beautiful vases with flowers, fragrance was diffused through all the rooms, and the foot trod softly upon rich carpets, or the lion- and leopard-skins with which the floors were covered[62]. The servants were numerous. Crowds of slaves were ready for every most capricious service of their master. A council of priests had charge of the religious rites in the house, together with the scribes and astronomers. A trusted slave had charge of the entire household, constantly appearing with a carved staff in his hands and directing the whole body of slaves, among whom were gardeners, tailors, barbers, porters, watchmen, hunters, bath-attendants, bakers, carpenters, and specialists of every kind. The female slaves occupied themselves with spinning, sewing, and knitting. Acrobats and dancing-girls, harpists and singers endeavoured to dispel the evening tedium of their masters, when they remained at home and did not drive out for a pleasure-trip in a rich yacht upon the Nile or in luxurious chariots through the streets of the city. The table of the Egyptian was abundant with meat and game of every kind, but he, like the Hebrew, could not endure pork. He loved pastries and biscuits of every kind, and his dinners concluded with fruits – grapes, figs, and dates by way of dessert; wine and beer were the favourite drinks. He dressed in clean white linen and on his feet wore sandals or even went barefoot – but he wore in abundance chains, bracelets, and clasps of every kind, testifying to his wealth, and a special sign of his dignity.

Such luxury of the Egyptian potentate must, understandably, have dazzled and cast into confusion and trembling the poor shepherds, accustomed to the simple life of tents, and there was no limit to their confusion when they were summoned to dinner with the courtier, whose position seemed to them unattainable even to their thought. They were brought into a richly adorned dining-hall, glittering with gold and flowers and decked out with royal magnificence. Slaves laid garlands of roses upon the shoulders of the guests and wreaths of flowering lotuses upon their heads, while others served wine and food from the sideboards. Choirs of musicians entered the dining-hall during the dinner and played upon harps, flutes, and tambourines, and dancing-girls diverted the company with dances and songs[63]. Perhaps Joseph did not fully permit such luxury, but the inexorable law of ceremony in such a country as Egypt of necessity made his house too resemble the houses of all other Egyptian dignitaries.

At the sight of Benjamin a brotherly feeling boiled up in Joseph, and he had to withdraw into the inner chambers in order to hide the tears that were starting forth. He rejoiced doubly also on behalf of his brothers, that they had not proved so cruel to Benjamin as they had once been to himself. With purely Eastern quickness, animals were slaughtered for the forthcoming dinner; water was brought, so that each guest might wash his feet, as was required by the rules of Egyptian courtesy[64]. The brothers, according to the Eastern custom, bowed to the great dignitary to the ground and presented to him the gifts they had brought. During the dinner Joseph sat at a separate table, as was required by the dignity of his rank and priesthood, which did not permit him to eat together with common people; beside it there was likewise set a separate table for the Egyptians, whom likewise the custom did not permit to sit together with “unclean” foreigners. Egypt was the China or Japan of the ancient world, and like them shunned as far as possible intercourse with other lands, regarding all other peoples, however civilized they might be, as unclean barbarians. The dishes were served to the guests from the table of the host, as the ceremonial required, and Joseph at this set apart for Benjamin the largest portion, as was generally done in the East with respect to persons enjoying the especial favour of the host. The dinner by its luxury and richness amazed the poor shepherds of Canaan, and, in order to rid themselves of the confusion that had taken hold of them, they, according to the words of the biblical account, “drank, and drank freely” with their enigmatic host[65].

Wishing to test once more the disposition of the brothers toward Benjamin, Joseph ordered his precious cup to be tied up in the latter’s sack, in order to have a pretext for a powerful scene of accusation and justification. And he fully attained his aim. There followed an uncommonly touching scene. The readiness declared by Judah to remain a slave instead of Benjamin, the actual culprit, in whose sack the cup had been found, and the touching pathos with which he began to depict the painful grief of Jacob’s soul at the loss of the last son of his beloved Rachel – these showed their disposition toward their brother and their aged father, and Joseph could no longer restrain himself. His feelings overcame his diplomatic tact, and he made himself known to his brothers, to their terror and to the astonishment of all the court of Pharaoh.

When Pharaoh learned of this history of his favourite courtier, he transferred his favourable disposition toward him to his whole family also, and expressed the wish that the whole of it should remove to Egypt. To the brothers chariots were given, presents were made to each of changes of raiment, and to Benjamin five changes and three hundred pieces of silver. To his father Joseph sent “ten asses laden with the best produce of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with grain, bread, and provisions for the way”[66].

The news brought to Jacob was so unexpected for him that the old man, weighed down by the vicissitudes of life, would not believe it; only when he had seen the chariots sent for him did “his spirit revive,” and with extraordinary energy he exclaimed: “It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die!” And so, quietly, the caravan of the sons of Israel stretched out in the direction of Egypt, accompanied by all the “house” of Jacob, which consisted of seventy souls, with the household servants and the flocks. The days of grief for Jacob had passed; he looked cheerfully into the future, and for joy he wept in anticipation of meeting the Joseph whom he had so long mourned with bitter tears. Having passed the heights of Beersheba, the caravan entered the north-eastern district of Egypt, Goshen. Hearing of the approach of the caravan, Joseph mounted his chariot and, surrounded by a brilliant retinue, rode out from Memphis to meet his aged father, and “seeing him, he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while,” and the old man, taking courage, exclaimed: “Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, for thou art yet alive!”[67].

The meeting of Jacob with the mighty Pharaoh is touching in its simplicity and heartfelt sincerity. The most natural thing for Pharaoh was to ask the old man about his years, and the most natural thing for the old man was briefly to survey his much-tried life. And so indeed it was at this meeting. With touching simplicity and dignity Jacob tells of his life. In comparison with the life of his forefathers, his own life had been short – only a hundred and thirty years, whereas Abraham had lived a hundred and seventy years, Isaac a hundred and eighty. But even this was far too much, given those vicissitudes and griefs which had fallen to his lot. His whole life had been a “pilgrimage,” as life in general is, and his all the more, as a dweller in tents, ever and again removing with his flocks from one place to another. Pharaoh was touched by this meeting and asked the blessing of the old man. A certain picture on the walls of the tomb at Beni-Hassan depicts the presentation of Semitic newcomers (the Aamu) to a high dignitary of Pharaoh, and vividly recalls the history of the appearance of the family of Jacob in Egypt[68].

The new arrivals were settled in the district of Goshen, distinguished by its rich pastures[69]. There they could live at a distance from the Egyptians, who shunned association with the shepherd tribes, though not the shepherd occupation in general, since they themselves, not excepting Pharaoh, had enormous herds of all kinds of cattle[70]. The monuments depict masses of cattle belonging to governmental and private owners. The hatred toward the foreign shepherd tribes was undoubtedly strengthened still more by the domination of the shepherd-kings, and even under one of the last of these, such as was the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, the local customs and prejudices retained their force to such a degree that it was impossible to permit the settlement of the shepherd family of Jacob in one of the more cultivated districts of the country. Pharaoh, however, was glad to find among the newcomers men who knew the shepherd’s craft, and chose from among them chief overseers for his herds. How great these herds were may be judged from the fact that Rameses III brought as a gift to the temples of the city of Thebes no fewer than 91,223 head of various cattle, and to the temples of Heliopolis as many as 45,540 head[71].

In Egypt Jacob lived yet another seventeen years and died, having taken an oath from Joseph that he would bury his body in the tomb of his forefathers, in his homeland. As a high-placed Egyptian, Joseph naturally honoured his father with a costly embalming. As first minister of the state and a high dignitary of the priestly caste, he had at his disposal the physicians for whom Egypt was famed and who constituted a special rank in the priestly order. The body was conveyed to special suburban premises set apart for embalming, and for forty days it remained in the hands of the specialists in this matter. After this the mourning continued yet another thirty days, so that the whole mourning lasted seventy days, two days fewer than the mourning for a king[72], and only then could the wish of the deceased to be conveyed to Canaan be fulfilled. The days of mourning in the house of Joseph were passed in abstinence from all pleasures and luxury, from bathing, wine, costly dishes, and rich garments; the hair on the head and beard was not shaved during this time, and a special mourning garment was worn[73]. If the funeral procession, at least at the departure from Memphis, was arranged after the model of the funeral processions of noble Egyptian deceased, then it can be reconstructed on the basis of the existing sepulchral representations. It was undoubtedly large and brilliant[74]. The courtiers and ministers rode in it in their chariots; the slaves of Joseph stretched out in a long line; the whole family of Jacob rode upon specially prepared waggons and asses, and the whole cortège was guarded and augmented by a detachment of Egyptian horsemen. Having reached Goren-ha-Atad by the Jordan, the funeral cortège halted, and Joseph mourned his father for the last time. The mourning continued seven days, as is done even now in certain localities to the east of the Jordan and Lebanon. From the biblical description one may suppose that the procession moved into Canaan not by the direct way through El-Arish and Beersheba, by which Jacob had come into Egypt, but by a long roundabout road to the south of the Dead Sea, through the land of Moab and Ammon – by that road by which the descendants of Jacob were later to go into Canaan under the leadership of Moses and Joshua[75]. The cave of Machpelah some days later received into itself the body of the great deceased, and there the mummy of Jacob in all probability lies even now in an entire state.

Of the subsequent life of Joseph little is communicated in the biblical narrative. It is said only that he behaved graciously toward his brothers, and that after the death of his father he lived a hundred and ten years and had the consolation of seeing grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whom he loved and cherished, as is natural to old men of advanced years, whose fading life is as it were kindled anew at the sight of the young life of their descendants. Faithful to the end to the promise handed down from his fathers, Joseph died, having taken from his brothers a solemn oath that they should carry his bones out of Egypt when God should again lead them forth into Canaan. The embalmed bodies of their friends and dignitaries the Egyptians usually placed in special wooden chests and carefully lowered into the tombs or kept in special rooms of their houses. The mummy of Joseph remained in such a state until the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and was then taken by his descendants into Canaan and at last buried in the parcel of ground at Shechem, once purchased by Jacob[76]. There his grave is pointed out even now, beneath the shadow of Mount Ebal[77]. Some investigators acknowledge this place to be precisely that parcel where Joseph was buried[78]. If this is so, then beneath the layering of earth there must be the sarcophagus and the very mummy of Joseph – in precisely that state in which it was laid there more than three thousand years ago.