Joseph's name to an Egyptian name. Our version gives it, Zaphnath-Paaneah. The Septuagint gives it, Psonthom-phanech, and Josephus, Psothom-phanech. Egyptian scholars recognize in it the Egyptian word, Psotomfeneh, meaning the " salvation," or the "saviour of the age." It is also said that Pharaoh married Joseph to Asenath. The meaning of this name has been doubted; but the most frequent interpretation is," one belonging to Isis." She was the daughter, we are told, of Potipherah, priest of On. The word priest, in the margin of our version, is translated prince; but the priests of Egypt being set over cities, were frequently the princes of the day, and were used as councillors by the king. Dr. Hawks also alludes to the fact that during the seven years of plenty Joseph collected the fruits of the earth, and laid them up, and quotes the following fact: “At Beni Hassan, in the tomb of Amenembe, there is a painting of a great storehouse, before the door of which lies a large heap of grain, already winnowed. The measurer fills a bushel, in order to pour it out into the sacks of those who carry the grain to the granary. The bearers go to the door of the storehouse, and lay down their sacks before an officer, who stands ready to receive the corn. is the owner of the storehouse. Near by stands the bushel with which it is measured, and the registrar who takes the account. At the side of the windows there are characters which indicate the quantity of the mass which is deposited in the magazine;" and some inscriptions are found actually giving the name of Joseph in the Egyptian language, in reference to distributing the corn out to the people.

This

It is most interesting to see how all recent discoveries confirm the facts of the Bible, and how things doubted by sceptics are brought out with a clearness and a fulness, in the providence of God, that show to demonstration, that, when there are found difficulties in the Bible, it is not that the Bible is wrong, but that we must wait till God gives us more light.

CHAPTER XLII.

FAMINE IN CANAAN-CORN IN EGYPT JACOB'S SONS SENT TO EGYPT THEIR RECEPTION BY JOSEPH HIS INCOGNITO HIS STIPULATION TO HAVE BENJAMIN AS A PLEDGE-CONSCIENCE EFFECT ON JACOBHIS SORROW.

SUPPOSE the chapter I have read were a mere human composition, I am sure there would be pronounced respecting it a universal judgment, that it is one of the most graphic, exquisite, and touching pictures that were ever embodied in any language or descriptive of any circumstances. Were it regarded as an uninspired record, I am sure it would be admitted that the great master of human nature, one who knew it so deeply and had studied it so profoundly, the gifted Shakspeare, never sketched a scene so true to nature, in so simple language, with so exquisite but expressive touches as are recorded in this beautiful and interesting episode.

We read that there was a famine in the land; that Joseph, raised to power through his great skill, his good conduct, his apparent sympathy with God, and God's apparent protection to him, by Pharaoh, king of Egypt, pursued so cautious a policy that his plans were followed by the most successful results. He saw, through prophetic inspiration, approaching famine, and he proposed, therefore, what would enable them to subsist in the years of famine. Other nations did not know of the approaching famine; they misused the plenty of the seven full years, and therefore they pined and suffered under the famine of the seven poor years; and those that were able

had, therefore, to leave their own country, and to seek food of another. It is always a bad state when one nation is dependent on another for its bread. It would be the greatest calamity if our own country were to cease to grow what is sufficient for its own maintenance; because, when we are dependent on another land, when war comes with its blockades and restrictions,

and war actually was waged between the nomad tribes around the valley of the Nile - the people of Canaan and the Egyptians, then the scene that is recorded here will only be enacted over again.

However, they had no help; Jacob must starve in Canaan, or he must beg, borrow or buy from Egypt. It was under the pressure of the increasing famine, that he said to his sons, in language perfectly natural, "Why do ye look one upon another?" Why should we lie down and starve? We must bow our proud spirits or die; we must submit to beg, borrow or buy, as we can; and, therefore, "get you down into Egypt, and buy for us from thence; that we may live and not die."

The whole of the ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. "But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren." You can constantly see this feature running through Jacob's character. Benjamin and Joseph were the sons of the beloved Rachel, and to these two Jacob felt special fatherly affection. Joseph being, as he believed, torn in pieces by the wild beasts, he was naturally afraid lest Benjamin going with the very ten, who, he suspected, had at the least not taken sufficient care of Joseph, even if they had not made away with him altogether, might perish also. Therefore, he sent not Benjamin with them, "lest peradventure mischief befall him."

By and by we find they are arrived in Egypt, and anxious to buy corn among the Egyptians; "for the famine was in the land of Canaan." Joseph, unknown to the ten, was the

governor over the land; "and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the earth." Recollect, at this point, what was his dream when a mere boy, namely, that the sheaves of his brethren bowed to his sheaf; and that they said, What does this dreamer mean? Shall he predict that we, his elder brethren, though of a different mother, shall indeed bow down to him, and give him honor, as if he were something great? If they had been told that the very plan that they pursued to avert this greatness of Joseph was the very plan which, in the providence of God, would be employed to bring it about, they would have declaimed against the possibility of such an occurrence with undisguised and unanimous contempt. And yet the very thing they labored to avert was what they brought about. The honor that Joseph predicted would be his own was the honor he had now actually given him; and these ten brethren, bowing down to him here, show that. Joseph's dream was not the fancy of a sick man, but the inspiration of God himself.

You ask, Is

'Joseph," it is said, "saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren; but they knew not him." this probable? It is true, because it is here asserted; but it is probable, when you consider the time that had elapsed. The ten brethren were still in their shepherd's dress; for they were shepherds. Joseph was no longer the boy of seventeen years of age, with the many-pieced coat, as he was when they last saw him (for the translation, "many colors," is not correct), that his father gave him; but was now elevated to great rank, and clothed in splendid apparel, being the prime minister of the most powerful prince, and in the most cultivated country, in the world - Egypt. He was now about

forty years of age; and we well know that the features of a person undergo their greatest alteration from seventeen to forty; and although they knew him well, and remembered him well, when he was seventeen, they could not recollect him when he was forty, or trace Rachel's son in Pharaoh's prime minister. But they were not so altered as he was; they were in the same clothing they used to wear, and we know that what one wears in this world has a great effect on what one appears; and, besides this, they were ten of them together, and if he had failed in recollecting that very evasive and fugitive thing—the human likeness — in one, he would have easily recollected it in another; and thus he was satisfied and able to discern that these were his very ten brethren, though they could not recognize him.

Then it is said, "Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come; "- that is, he spoke to them in his official capacity as the prime governor of the realm, not wishing to unveil himself, or make himself known yet. Some say that there seems here something like disingenuousness. I think not. There was reason for what he did, because, if he had said, "I am Joseph," then what would his brethren have done? They would have been so shocked and so ashamed of their past treatment of him, that, instead of taking corn to their father, they would have fled rather than face him, and carry back the tidings of their criminality, and lies, and deception; and therefore Joseph kept them gradually approaching him, until the time came when he could disclose himself in such a manner as would be best for Jacob, best for Benjamin, and best for them all; and so that, whilst sorrow should be excited in the ten brethren by the recollection of their sin, gratitude and joy should be caused in the old patriarch's heart by the fact that Joseph no longer "was not," but was again found.