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and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet

the more.

"And his brethren envied him, but his father observed the saying.

"And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren depasture in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said unto him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

And a certain man found him, and behold he was wandering in the fields; and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren; tell me, I pray thee, where they depasture? And the man said, They are departed hence, for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands, and said, Let us not kill.

him.

And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into the pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.

"And it came to pass when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of colours that was on him. And they took him and cast him into a pit and the pit was empty there was no water in it. And they sate down to eat bread and they lifted up their eyes, and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit to slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph from the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

"And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, a prince (saris) of Pharaoh, and sar hattabachim. Gen. xxxvii. 1-5, 11-28, 36.

So familiar are the words of this narrative become through frequent use, that we often overlook the truthful touches with which it abounds, and

which show out into bold relief and reality, the lives and the thoughts, and the habits of those primitive rangers of the Sinaitic desert. This however, is not the object with which we quote it on the present occasion. Joseph is gone down into Egypt, and we hasten to follow him thither.

The merchants or traders to whom Joseph was sold were Ishmaelites by descent, and Midianites by nation. Midian was the portion of the Sinaitic desert which lay immediately adjacent to the eastern frontier of Egypt. At the time now under consideration (that of the so-called shepherd-kingdom) Midian was apparently common ground to Egypt and Canaan. In the days of Moses, when the shepherds had been expelled, the limits of Egypt were better defined, and we shall find that then Midian was out of her jurisdiction. No monument has been found in this part of the desert whence it could be inferred that Egypt ever pretended to it: though somewhat to the southward, the minerals of the Wady Meghara had in the days of Joseph been the object of contention between the Pharaohs and Canaan for some centuries. The records of their strife remain written on the rocks at this day. But Midian was a country presenting no attractions whatever to the Egyptian. colonists. Its sterile plains and dreary precipitous valleys afforded no home to those who had dwelt in cities on the banks of the fruitful Nile. The scanty

innutritive herbage called forth by the thin rills of brackish water that here and there showed themselves, scarcely sufficed to keep alive the lean herds with which the hardy sons of Ishmael depastured it in their periodical wanderings over this dreary waste. By profession they were merchants. They carried to Canaan the corn, the wine, the oil, the linen of Egypt. They returned to Egypt with the spicery, the balm, the myrrh, the precious woods, the minerals of Canaan. Spicery only is mentioned in the inspired narrative before us. The clan to which Joseph was sold traded in this article alone. The demand for it in Egypt was enormous. The careful examination of the mummies of different epochs establishes the fact that at these remote periods it was used in the embalmment both of men and sacred animals, to an extent which was not practicable in after times, through the failure of the supply.

The twenty pieces or rings of silver, which these merchants paid the hardened profligates, as the price of their brother, was, at this age of the world, by no means the small amount that it sounds in modern ears. Silver always takes the precedence of gold, when both are enumerated in the earlier portions of the inspired narrative. The same is the case in the hieroglyphic texts; silver is always mentioned before gold, as the more precious metal, both

on account of its comparative rarity, and because of its more extensive use in the adornment and utensils of the temples on account of its colour. Whiteness and purity were inseparably connected in the Egyptian mythology.

That these desert merchants brought into Egypt Canaanite slaves amongst other commodities, is a fact which is abundantly confirmed and amply illustrated by cotemporary remains of the times of Joseph and of those that immediately preceded him. As early as the epoch of the Pyramids, three centuries before Joseph, Canaanite men and women perform as posturers, tumblers, and jugglers, before the princes of Egypt as they sate and banquetted.* About 150 years afterwards, hundreds of Canaanite slaves are depicted wrestling and fighting as gladiators before Chetei, a prince of the court of Osortasen I., of the 12th dynasty. The tomb of this prince is at Benihassan. In the same locality is a still more remarkable proof of the traffic in slaves with Canaan, and of a period approaching still nearer to that of Joseph. It is the picture of the ceremonies that took place on the delivery of thirty-seven makers (or pounders) of stibium (or powdered antimony for the eye), which were purchased by Noh-hotp II., one of the excavators of the tomb, of a chief or petty king of the Jebusites. The chief, his clan, and his * e. g. the tomb of Imai, one of the princes of Suphis.

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