A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END. CHAP. II.-Difficulties obviated, and Objections answered. any particulars in Joseph's life, though he lived fiftyfour years after his father's death. It informs us, that he lived to see himself the happy parent of a numerous offspring in his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, even to the third generation; and all this while we may pre- THE most material objection we have placed last; and sume, that he continued in high favour with his prince, because it relates to a passage in Scripture, which is and in weighty employments under him. But when he known to have its difficulties, it may not be improper, grew old, and found his death approaching, he sent for in order to give it a clear solution, first to cite the pashis brethren, and with the like prophetic spirit, that his sage itself, and then to explain the terms contained in it: father Jacob had done, told them, that God, according The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawto his promise, would not fail to bring their posterity giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto out of Egypt into the land of Canaan; and therefore he him shall the gathering of the people be.' made them swear to him, as he had done to his father, that when it should please God thus to visit them, they would not forget to a carry his body along with them: and to this purpose, as soon as he was dead, which was in the hundred and tenth year of his age, they had his body embalmed, and kept in a coffin, until the time their deliverance should come. the promised land. The Jewish rabbins have taken a great latitude in ascribing several particulars to this great man, which have not the least foundation in Scripture. They make him the inventor of all the arts and sciences, for which the Egyptians afterwards became so famous; and attribute to him the composition of several books, such as Joseph's Prayer, Joseph's Mirror, &r, which do not so much redound to his credit. Mahomet, in bis Coran, (Surat. 12.) relates his history at length, but blends it with many fabulous circumstances, which have been much improved by the eastern people; for they made him in a manner greater than the Jewish doctors do. They tell us equally that he taught the Egyptians the most sublime sciences, and particularly geometry, which was highly necessary in their division of the land. They suppose, that all the wells, and baths, and granaries, which go under his name, nay, that all the ancient pyramids and obelisks, though they do not, were of his erection; and they believe, that he had all along upon his shoulder a point of light, like a star, which was an indelible mark of the gift of prophecy; with many more fictions of the like nature.-Calmet's Dictionary, under the word Joseph. a There are several reasons which might induce Joseph not to have his dead body immediately carried into Canaan, and buried, as his father was. 1st, Because his brethren, after his decease, might not have interest enough at court to provide themselves with such things as were necessary to set off the pomp and solemnity of a funeral befitting so great a personage. 2dly, Because he might foresee, that the Egyptians, in all probability, as long as their veneration for his memory was warm, would hardly have suffered his remains to have been carried into another country. 3dly, Because the continuance of his remains among them, might be a means to preserve the remembrance of the services he had done them, and thereby an inducement to them to treat the relations he had left behind him with more kindness. 4thly, And chiefly, because the presence of his body with the Israelites might be a pledge to assure them, and a means to strengthen and confirm their faith and hope in God's promises to their progenitors, that he would infallibly put their posterity in possession of the land of Canaan: and accordingly, when Moses delivered them out of Egypt, he carried Joseph's body along with him, (Exod. xfii. 19.) and committed it to the care of the tribe of Ephraim, who buried it near Shechem, (Josh. xxiv. 32.) in the field which Jacob, a little before his death, gave to Joseph, as his peculiar property. -Pererius' and Patrick's Commentary; Poole's Annotations, and Calmet's Dictionary under the word. The Jewish rabbins have a story, that the Egyptian magirians came and told Pharaoh, that if he had a mind to keep the Hebrews in his dominions, he must hide Joseph's body in some certain place where they should never find it, because it would be impossible for them to go out of Egypt without it; that thereupon his body was put into a chest of 6000 lb. weight, which was sunk in the mud of one of the branches of the river Nile; and that Moses was forced to work a miracle to get it out, and carry it away. Calmet, ibid. c Gen. 1. 26. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years 1. Now the word shevet, which we render sceptre, has both a literal and a figurative signification. In its literal, it denotes a rod, a wand, a sceptre, a shepherd's crook, &c., and in its figurative, it either implies the correction and punishment, whereof the rod, or the authority and power, whereof the sceptre is the ensign. It cannot be doubted, I think, but that the word is to be taken in a figurative sense here; and yet it cannot be supposed to signify punishment, because the tribe of Judah was so far from being in a state of affliction, that it always flourished exceedingly, and even in the time of its captivity, enjoyed its own form of government. The word must therefore, in this place, be put for that power and dominion whereof the sceptre, in ancient times, was thought a fitter representation than either the crown or diadem. 2. The word mechokek, which we translate lawgiver, is not synonymous with the former, but has two distinct significations. It sometimes signifies, not a person who has power to make laws himself, but only to teach and instruct others in those laws that are already made: and in this sense it differs very little from the scribes, and doctors, and teachers of the law, whereof there is so much mention made in our Saviour's days. At other times, it denotes a person invested with power and authority even to make laws, but then this authority of his is inferior to that of a king; so that properly he may be called an inferior magistrate or governor set over a people by the license of some monarch, and, by his commission appointed to rule and in this sense the word should rather be taken here, because there were such governors and deputies set over the Jews, after their return from the Babylonish captivity. 1 Gen. xlix. 10. old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.' When Joseph died he was not only embalmed, but put into a coffin.' This was an honour appropriated to persons of distinction, coffins not being universally used in Egypt. Maillet, speaking of the Egyptian repositories of the dead, having given an account of several niches that are found there, says, "it must not be imagined, that the bodies deposited in these gloomy apartments were all enclosed in chests, and placed in niches; the greatest part were simply embalmed, and swathed after that manner that every one hath some notion of; after which they laid them one by the side of another, without any ceremony: some were even put into these tombs without any embalming at all, or such a slight one, that there remains nothing of them in the linen in which they were wrapped but the bones, and those half rotten,' (Letter vii. p. 281.) Antique coffins of stone, and sycamore wood, are still to be seen in Egypt. It is said that some were formerly made of a kind of pasteboard, formed by folding and gluing cloth together, a great number of times; these were curiously plastered and painted with hieroglyphics.-Thevenot, part 1. p. 137. A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END. 3. The phrase which we render between his feet,' according to the modesty of the Scripture expression, means nothing else, but of his seed or posterity; and so the intendment of this part of the prediction must be, that the tribe of Judah shall have lawgivers of their own to the very last times.' 4. From whatever radix it is that the word Shiloh is derived, both Jews and Christians are agreed in this, that by the person to whom this title is applied, the patriarch intended the great Saviour of the world, who is called the Messias, or Christ. 5. By Judah here, there is not an absolute necessity to understand the people of that tribe only, but all those likewise who were afterwards called Jews. And, 6. Whether we refer the gathering of the people to the tribe of Judah, as they did in the times of the captivity, or to Shiloh, when he should come, as to the main of the prophecy, there is not a great deal of difference; since the main of the prophecy is, That the Messias shall come, before the Jewish government would totally cease.' And therefore the question is, whether there was any form of government subsisting among the Jews, and particularly in the tribe of Judah, at the time when Christ was born? The form of government which Jacob, upon his deathbed instituted, was that of dividing his family into tribes, and making his own, and the two sons of Joseph, heads over their respective houses. This government was properly aristocratical; but in times of some extraordinary exigence, all authority was devolved in the hands of a judge, who, when the end for which he was appointed was effected, in the same manner as the Roman dictator did, resigned up his power, and became no more than ' one of the princes of the tribes of his fathers.' The abuse of this judicial power, however, in the hands of Samuel's sons, made the people desirous of a regal government; and in that form it continued, from the time it came into David's hands, who was of the tribe of Judah, for the space of 470 years. The division of the kingdom made a great alteration in the fortunes of the people; for the Assyrian captivity was the ruin of the ten tribes. They lost their government, and from that time never recovered it; but it was not so with the kingdom of Judah, in the Babylonish captivity. For if we consider that the Jews were carried to Babylon, not to be slaves, but were transplanted as a colony, to people that large city; that they were commanded therefore, by the prophet, to build houses,' and 'plant gardens,' and to seek the peace of the city' in which they were captives; and that, upon the expiration of their seventy years' captivity, many of them were so well settled in ease and plenty, that they refused to return to their own country again. If we consider farther, that the Jews lived at Babylon as a distinct people, and were governed, in their own affairs, by their own elders; that they appointed feasts and fasts, and ordered all other matters relating to their civil and ecclesiastical state among themselves; and that, upon their return from Babylon, they were thought a people considerable enough to be complained of to Artaxerxes; we cannot but con 2 6 1 A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END. wealth shall quite lose all form, and never recover it again." The bequest which Jacob makes to his son Joseph, runs into this form :- Moreover, I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite, with my sword, and with my bow.' But when did we ever read of Jacob's being a military man? His sons indeed invaded Shechem, and took, not from the Amorites, but the Hivites, the adjacent country, as we may suppose; but so far is he from approving of what they did, that to his very dying hour, we find him severely remonstrating against it, and must therefore be supposed too conscientious, either to retain himself, or to consign to his beloved son, a portion of land acquired by such wicked and sanguinary means. makes Cyrus speak) at the point of death became prophetic. Though, therefore, the last words which we find our patriarch uttering to his sons, may be rather accounted prophecies than benedictions; yet since the text assures us, that he blessed every one with a separate blessing,' we may fairly infer, that though he found reason to rebuke the three eldest very sharply; yet if his rebukes, and the punishment pronounced against them, had the good effect to bring them to a due sense of their transgressions, it was a blessing to them, though not a temporal one; though, even in this last sense, it cannot be said but that he blessed them likewise, since he assigned each of them a lot in the inheritance of the promised land, which it was in his power to have deprived them of. The tract of ground, therefore, which he mentions, However this be, 9 it is certain that all impartial crimust certainly be that which he purchased of Hamor, tics have observed, that the style of these blessings or the father of Shechem; which he gave Joseph for a prophecies, call them which we will, is much more lofty burying-place, and where Joseph, in consequence of that than what we meet with in the other parts of this book; donation, was afterwards buried, and not in the field of and therefore some have imagined, that Jacob did not Machpelah, the common repository of most of his ances- deliver these very words, but that Moses put the sense of tors. And to resolve the difficulty of his saying, that what he said into such poetical expressions. But to me he took it from the Amorite by force of arms, when it is it seems more reasonable to think, that the spirit of promanifest that he bought it of Hamor the Hivite, for an phecy, now coming upon the good old patriarch, raised hundred pieces of silver, we may observe, that the per- his diction, as well as sentiments; even as Moses himsons who are called Hivites in one place, may, without self is found to have delivered 10 his benedictions in a any impropriety, be called Amorites in another, foras- strain more sublime than what occurs in his other writings. much as the Amorites, being the chief of all the seven It is true, indeed, that in the predictions of the nations in Canaan, might give denomination to all the rest, patriarch, as well as in the benedictions of Moses, severin like manner as all the people of the United Provinces al comparisons do occur, which are taken from brute are, from the pre-eminence of that one, commonly called animals. Thus Judah is compared to a lion, Issachar Hollanders: and then, if we can but suppose, that after to an ass, Dan to a serpent, Benjamin to a wolf, and Jacob's departure from Shechem, for fear of the neigh-Naphtali to an hind let loose. But this is so far from bouring nations, some straggling Amorites came, and seized on the lands which he had purchased, and that he was forced to have recourse to arms to expel the invaders and maintain his right, all the difficulty or seeming repugnance of the passage vanishes. perceives the lofty Homer comparing his heroes cellency of the Mosaic history, the yached of writing, which forming the of the persons d. Cornelius is us likewise, into the cup, If in order, and osed.-Saurin's Essay 20. A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END. in vogue, when the most ancient books that we know | are therefore very right in rendering the word, a prince any thing of were composed. or minister of Pharaoh: for if we compare the several parts of his history, we shall find, 5 that Potiphar had the chief command of the forces that guarded the person and palace-royal; that as such he presided in all courts and causes that had a more immediate relation to these; that he had power under the king, of judging and deciding all cases within those walls, of imprisoning and releasing, of life and death, and of hastening or suspending the execution of capital punishments. Moses' method of writing, as we have had occasion more than once to take notice, is very succinct; and therefore when he tells us, that upon Joseph's coming into Egypt, and being sold to Potiphar, captain of the guard, he commenced steward of his household, we must not suppose, that there did not a sufficient space of time intervene to qualify him for that office. What therefore some of the Jewish doctors tell us, seems not improbable, namely, that his master, as soon as he bought him, sent him to school, and had him instructed, not in the language only, but in all the learning of the Egyptians. However this be, it is certain that there is no small affinity between the Hebrew and Egyptian tongue; so that a person of good natural parts, and of an age the fittest that could be for learning any thing, might, with a little diligence and application, make himself master of it in a very short time. Joseph, indeed, as we may observe, talked to his brethren by an interpreter; and that he might do, though the difference between the two tongues was not very great. A Frenchman, we see, is not understood at first by an Italian or Spaniard, though all the three languages are derived from the same original; but when once he is let into the knowledge of this, and comes to perceive their different formations and constructions, what was foreign to him before, soon becomes familiar. And in like manner, Joseph, with a small matter of instruction, and some observation of his own, might be let into the secret of the Egyptian language, the nature of their accounts, and the customs of the country, and so become every way qualified to give the content, we find he did, in the place to which he was advanced. *The notion that we have of an eunuch, is a person who has lost his virility; and therefore to assign him a wife, as we find Potiphar had a very naughty one, may seem a manifest incongruity; but for this there is an easy solution to be given. The word Saris indeed denotes equally an eunuch,' and any court minister;' and the reason of this ambiguity is,―That, as eastern kings, for their greater security, were wont to have slaves, who were castrated, to attend the chambers of their wives and concubines, and upon the proof of their fidelity, did frequently advance them to the other court employments, such as being privy-counsellers, high-chamberlains, captains of their guards, &c., it hence came to pass, that the title of eunuch was conferred on any who were promoted to those posts of honour and trust, even though they were not emasculated. And indeed, when we read, in the books of Kings and Chronicles, so frequent mention made of eunuchs about the person of David, and other Jewish princes, we must be far from supposing, that these were all eunuchs in reality, since it was unlawful, ' according to their historian, in that nation, to castrate even a domestic animal; and according to the institution of their law, an express prohibition it was, that he who had his privy members cut off, should not enter into the congregation of the Lord.' Both the Arabic version, and the Targum of Onkelos, 'Le Clerc's Commentary in Gen. xlii. 23. And if Potiphar was a person invested with all this authority, it may seem a little strange, why he did not immediately put Joseph to death; since, had his wife's accusation been true, his crime deserved no less a punishment. But whether it was that Joseph had found means to vindicate himself, by the mediation of the keeper of the prison, who was Potiphar's deputy, though there is no account of it in Scripture; or God, in behalf of the righteous, might interpose to mollify the heart of this great man, and restrain his hand from doing violence; the issue of the matter shows, that he was in a short time convinced of his innocence, or otherwise it cannot be believed that he would have suffered him to be made so easy, and to be invested with so much power in the prison; though at the same time, he might not think proper to release him, for fear that so public an acquitment might bring disreputation both to his wife and himself. Joseph could not but foresee, that to live in the palaces of kings, and to accept of high posts and honours, would be very hazardous to his virtue. But when he perceived the hand of providence so visible in raising him, by ways and means so very extraordinary, to eminence, and an office wherein he would have it in his power to be beneficial to so very many, he could not refuse the offers which the king made him, without being rebellious who had secured him hitherto, he might in this case comto the will and destination of God. To him therefore mit the custody of his innocence, and accept of the usual ensigns of honour, without incurring the censure of vanity or ostentation. And though, in after ages, all marriages with infidels were certainly prohibited, yet there seems to be at this time a certain dispensation current, forasmuch as Judah to be sure, if not more of Joseph's brethren, had done the same besides that, in Joseph's case, there was something peculiar. For as he was in a strange country, he had not an opportunity of making his addresses to any of the daughters of the seed of Abraham; as the match was of the king's making, he was not at liberty to decline it, without forfeiting his pretensions to the royal favour, and consequently to the means of doing so much good; and as it is not improbable that he might be advised to it by a particular revelation, so it is highly reasonable to believe that he converted his wife, at least to the worship of the true God, before he espoused her even though there should be nothing in that opinion of the rabbins, that he made a proselyte likewise of her father, the priest of On, who could not but be desirous to purchase at any rate so advantageous Bibliotheca Biblica on Gen. vol. 2. Occasional Annota- tions, 39. A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. xxxvii. TO THE END. 6 an alliance, and took this occasion to establish the rite | dreams, had gained a great reputation for knowledge, of circumcision, if not in all Egypt, at least among per- and perhaps among the populace, might pass for a sons of the sacred order, who, according to the account diviner, he took an occasion from hence, in order to of those who wrote the history of that country, in very carry on his design, to assume a character that did not early days certainly were not without it. belong to him. There is no reason, however, to infer from the words, that the art of divining by the cup, as it came afterwards to be practised, was then in use in Egypt; because the words before us, according to the sense of the best interpreters, do not relate to this cup as the instrument, but as the subject of divination; not as the thing with which, but as the thing concerning which this magical inquiry was to be made. And so the sense of the steward's words will be, "How could you think, but that my lord, who is so great a man at divination, would use the best of his skill to find out the persons who had robbed him of the cup, which he so much prizes ?" And this tallies exactly with the subsequent words of Joseph, Wot ye not that such a man as 1,'" I, who have raised myself to this eminence, by my interpretation of dreams, and may therefore well be accounted an adept in all other sciences, should not be long at a loss to know who the persons were that had taken away my cup?" seems to be the natural sense of the words; the only one, indeed, that they will fairly bear and though they do not imply that Joseph was actually a magician, yet they seem to justify the notions of those men who think, that he carried his dissimulation to his brethren so far, as to make them believe that he really had some knowledge that way. Some may imagine, that the better to personate an Egyptian lord, and thereby conceal himself from his brethren, or rather to comply with the language of the court, in this particular, Joseph swore by the life of Pharaoh,' in the same manner as the Romans, in adulation to their emperor, were wont to swear by his genius. It must be acknowledged indeed, that, as every oath is a solemn appeal to God, to swear by any creature whatever must needs be an impious and idolatrous act; and therefore the proper solution of this matter is, not that oaths of this kind were allowable before the institution | of Christianity, but that Joseph, in making use of these words, did not swear at all. 1 For since every oath implies in it either an invocation of some witness, or a postulation of some revenge, as our great Sanderson terms it, to say that Joseph appealed to the life of Pharaoh as a witness is ridiculous; and without a very forced construction indeed, the words can never be supposed to include in them a curse, and therefore their most easy signification must be, what we call indicative: 'By the life of Pharaoh,' that is, as sure and certain as Pharaoh liveth, ye are spies;' just as we say, 'By the sun that shines, I speak truth,' that is, as sure as the sun shines; neither of which can with any propriety be called oaths, but only vehement asseverations. 4 The words which Joseph's steward, sent to apprehend his brethren, makes use of, are, 2 Is not this the cup in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth?' and the words wherein Joseph accosts them, when they are brought before him, are, 3 What deed is this that ye have done? Wot ye not, that such a man as I can cer|tainly divine ?' And from hence some have imagined, that Joseph was a person addicted to magical arts, and by virtue of this single cup, could discover strange and wonderful things. But in answer to this, others have observed, that the word nashah, which we render to divine, was formerly of an indefinite sense, and meant in general to discover, or make a trial of; and accordingly they have devised a double acceptation of the steward's words, as if he should say,-By this cup (viz left in a careless and negligent manner) my master was minded to make an experiment, whether you were thieves, or honest men; or say,-By this cup, wherein he drinketh, my a master discovers and finds out the temper and dispositions of men, when they are in liquor. But both of these senses seem a little too much forced, and are far from agreeing with the other words of Joseph. It must be acknowledged, therefore, that as magical arts of divers kinds were in use among the Egyptians, many years before Joseph's time of coming thither; and that as Joseph, by his wonderful skill of interpreting : 1 Sanderson's Prælec. 5. sect. 7. Gen. xliv. 5. Gen. xliv. 15. See Saurin's Dissertation 38. 5 Poole's Annotations, and Patrick's Commentary. a What may seem to give some small sanction to this sense, is that known passage in Horace :-" Kings are said to have supplied liberal potations to him whom they wished to scrutinize, if Le was worthy of their friendship." This The royal psalmist, in his description of the sufferings of Joseph, 8 tells us, that he was not only sold to be a 'bond-servant,' but that his feet were hurt in the stocks, and iron entered into his soul,' which signifies at least that he endured very hard usage, before the time came that his cause was known,' and his innocence discovered; and of all this his brethren, when they sold him into slavery, were properly the occasions. So that, could we conceive, that any angry resentments could harbour in a breast so fully satisfied of a divine providence in all this dispensation, we might have imagined that Joseph took this opportunity to retaliate the injuries which were formerly done to him; but this he did not. He desired indeed to be informed in the circumstances of their family, without asking any direct question; and therefore he mentions his suspicion of their being spies, merely to fish out of them, as we call it, whether his aged 6 Heidegger's Hist. Patriar, vol. 2. Essay 20. 'Saurin's Dissertations. 8 Ps. cv. 17, 18. b Julius Serenus tells us, that the method of divining by the cup, among the Assyrians, Chaldees, and Egyptians, was to fill it first with water, then to throw into it thin plates of gold and silver, together with some precious stones, whereon who came to consult the oracle, used certain forms of incantawere engraven certain characters; and after that, the persons tion, and so calling upon the devil, were wont to receive their answers several ways: sometimes by articulate sounds; sometimes by the characters which were in the cup rising upon the surface of the water, and by their arrangement forming the answer; and many times by the visible appearing of the persons themselves, about whom the oracle was consulted. Cornelius Agrippa, (De Occult. Philos. b. 1. c. 57,) tells us likewise, that the manner of some was, to pour melted wax into the cup, wherein was water, which wax would range itself in order, and so form answers, according to the questions proposed.-Saurin's Dissertation 38; and Heidegger's Hist. Patriar. Essay 20. |