it was conferred on him, it presents but little difficulty. It was probably tseph-nath, “ he who receiveth Neith," i. e., the inventrix of the art of weaving, and the goddess of wisdom. With the other name we have still less difficulty. It actually occurs in a tomb at Sacchara, as the name of one of the princes of Usercheres, about 150 years before Joseph's time, pah noech. Its import also corresponds exactly with the occasion on which it was given. It means, "he who flees from (avoids) pollution," especially "adultery." So that the first name conferred by Pharaoh upon Joseph, commemorated the divine wisdom to which he owed his exaltation; and the second, his innocence of the crime for which he had so long suffered imprisonment. It is not easy to conceive of a more perfectly satisfactory identification than this, when we consider that in these times all names, especially new ones, were directly significant allusions to the circumstances to commemorate which they were conferred. So Abraham, Gen. xvii. 5; Israel, Gen. xxxii. 28 &c. The names of Joseph's wife and father-in-law were long ago identified by Champollion. Asenath is 4 asnth "she who sees Neith," and Potipherah is petephre "one devoted to the sun." Both the names are compounded with those of the tutelary idols of On, or Heliopolis. The formal mention of the circumstance that Potipherah was priest of On, reduces to certainty the strong indication embodied in the names of these tutelaries. The scene of the narrative before us was the city of Re-Athom, called On, by the Canaanites. To make this demonstration appear to the general reader, it is needful to explain that whenever the proper name of an Egyptian was a compound of that of an idol, it was the tutelary of the city of which the individual was an inhabitant. There is absolutely no exception to this rule, in the remote times now before us. One other circumstance corroborates the same fact, which scarcely needs such confirmation. His nuptial ceremonies were a part of the honors conferred upon Joseph by Pharaoh on the first interview. This is the clear import of the narrative, and it is moreover strictly in accordance with the customs of the east, both then and at the present day. Such being the case, it must have been in the native city of Asenath that the interview took place any other supposition for a citizen of these remote times is extravagant. Thus strong is the proof that the scene we are contemplating took place in On, or Heliopolis. "And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plen teous years, the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering, for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, bare unto him. "And the seven years of plenteousness that was in the land of Egypt were ended. And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph: what he saith unto you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was sore in all lands." Gen. xli. 46– 50, 53-57. : It would appear upon the face of the narrative, that Joseph had been thirteen years in Egypt at the time of his exaltation. (see xxxvii. 2). By this long course of trial and adversity his whole character would be ripened for the high office to which God had destined him, and for the great work he had to do. He would also have perfectly acquired the language and the customs of the house of his bondage. The plenty and the famine appeared exactly as he had been inspired to foretel them. We have already remarked upon the extraordinary disturbance which the natural phenomena of Egypt must have sustained at this time. The nature of them we have now to consider. It may be safely stated that in Egypt and the adjacent countries one natural cause, and one only, could possibly have given rise to either of the visitations in question; and that cause was rain. The abundance of it made the plenty; the want of it made the famine. This is perfectly, unanswerably certain. There is a point in the history before us which has not been noticed. The plenty was confined to Egypt. The famine was in all lands. We have now to describe another of these strange things whereby Egypt in the present day still vindicates her claim to the title of "the land of wonders." When Dr. Lepsius visited the upper portions of the valley of the Nile in 1843, he found engraven upon a cliff rising perpendicularly from the water's edge, at Samneh, which is far in Upper Nubia, an inscription dated in the 23rd year of Amun-Timæus, purporting to register the height of the overflow that year. Other registers are also written on the same rock in the reigns of his two immediate successors. With trifling variations they all give about the same height for the overflow, which averages 30 feet above the highest point ever reached by the water in the present day. Sir Gardner Wilkinson went over the same ground three years afterwards, and pursued the investigation still further. He found above the point in question vast plateaux of Nile mud on both banks, but many miles away from the present course of the river, and as barren as the sand that drifted over them, except when they are cultivated by hand irrigation. He traced the same visible proofs of the far greater elevation of the waters in former times downwards to the bar of red sandstone rock that crosses the Nile at Djebel Silsili, in Upper Egypt, where they ceased altogether.* Many important conclusions may be arrived at from these premises. The tradition of the Egyptian priesthood preserved by many of the Greek authors, that the Nile had its source in the ocean, and flowed into the ocean again,† doubtless originated in the circumstance that when the first settlers * Trans. Roy. Soc. Let. Vol. iv. p. 93, seq. + Herodotus, lib. 2. c. 21, 23, 28, &c. &c. |