ven years of abundance, of which the crops should be
swallowed up by seven years of famine. Joseph was thereupon raised by
Pharaoh to the rank of prime minister. He stored up the surplus of the
abundant harvests, and as soon as the famine broke out, distributed
the corn to the hunger-stricken people in exchange for their silver and
gold, and for their flocks and fields. Hence it was,that the whole
of the Nile valley, with the exception of the lands belonging to the
priests, gradually passed into the possession of the royal treasury.
Meanwhile his brethren, who also suffered from the famine, came down
into Egypt to buy corn. Joseph revealed himself to them, pardoned the
wrong they had done him, and presented them to the Pharaoh. "And Pharaoh
said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts,
and go, get you unto the land of Canaan: and take your father and your
household, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of
Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land." Jacob thereupon raised his
camp and came to Beersheba, where he offered sacrifices to the God
of his father Isaac; and Jahveh commanded him to go down into Egypt,
saying, "I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with
thee into Egypt: and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph
shall put his hand upon thine eyes." The whole family were installed by
Pharaoh in the province of Goshen, as far as possible from the centres
of the native population, "for every shepherd is an abomination unto the
Egyptians."

In the midst of these stern yet touching narratives in which the Hebrews
of the times of the Kings delighted to trace the history of their remote
ancestors, one important fact arrests our attention: the Beni-Israel
quitted Southern Syria and settled on the banks of the Nile. They
had remained for a considerable time in what was known later as the
mountains of Judah. Hebron had served as their rallying-point; the broad
but scantily watered wadys separating the cultivated lands from the
desert, were to them a patrimony, which they shared with the inhabitants
of the neighbouring towns. Every year, in the spring, they led their
flocks to browse on the thin herbage growing in the bottoms of the
valleys, removing them to another district only when the supply of
fodder was exhausted. The women span, wove, fashioned garments, baked
bread, cooked the viands, and devoted themselves to the care of the
younger chil