A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvi. TO THE END. father, and his younger brother were yet alive. For upon their return, we may perceive, especially considering that it is the first minister of a mighty state that speaks to a company of poor indigent shepherds, a wonderful tenderness in his expressions: Is your father well; the old man of whom you spake, is he still alive?' besides the instructions which he plainly gave his steward to bid them be of good cheer.' When he understood that his father and brother were both alive, and as yet had not matters prepared for the removal of his father and family, the eagerness of his affections may perhaps be thought to have carried him a little too far, in demanding his brother to be brought to him; but we are not to doubt but that Joseph, by the Divine Spirit wherewith he was endowed, did certainly foresee what would happen,2 and that his father's grieving a little time for Benjamin, would be so far from endangering his health, that it would only increase his joy, when he saw him again, and dispose him the better for the reception of the welcome news of his own advancement in Egypt; which, had it come all upon him at once, and on a sudden, might have been enough to have bereaved him of his senses, if not of his life itself, by a surfeit of joy. Upon their second dismission, after a very kind entertainment, it may be thought perhaps a piece of cruelty in Joseph, to have his cup conveyed, of all others, into Benjamin's sack, and thereupon to threaten to make him a bond-slave for a pretended felony: but herein was Joseph's great policy and nicety of judgment. He himself had been severely treated by the rest when he was young, and therefore was minded to make an experiment, in what manner they would now behave towards his brother; whether they would forsake him in his distress, and give him up to be a bond-slave, as they had sold him for one; or whether they would stand by him in all events, make intercession for his release, or adventure to share his fate.

never imitate. So that, upon a review of his whole conduct, Joseph is far from deserving blame, that all this seeming rigour and imperiousness of his did eventually produce a great deal of good; and was in reality no more than the heightening the distress, or thickening the plot, as we call it in a play, to make the discovery, or future felicity he intended his family, more conspicuous and agreeable.

It must be acknowledged, indeed, that Moses has done justice to the history of Joseph, and employed most of the tender passions of human nature to give it a better grace; but we must not therefore infer, either that he hath transcended truth or committed an error, in recording the quality of the persons employed to embalm his father. What has led some into a great mistake concerning the origin of physic, and that it was of no vogue in the world until the days of Hippocrates, was the great superiority of skill and genius which he demonstrated both in his practice and writings. The truth is, the divine old man, as one expresses it, did so totally eclipse all who went before him, that as posterity esteemed his works the canon, so did it look upon him as the great father of medicine. But if we will credit the testimony of Galen, who, though a late writer, was a very competent judge, we shall find, that he was far from being the first of his profession, even among the Greeks.

This, perhaps, may be thought, was carrying the matter a little too far: but, without this conduct, Joseph could not have known whether his brethren rightly deserved the favour and protection which he might then design, and afterwards granted them. Without this conduct we had not had perhaps the most lively images that are to be met with in Scripture, of injured innocence, of meekness and forbearance, and the triumphs of a good conscience in him; and of the fears and terrors, the convictions and self-condemnations of long concealed guilt in them. Without this conduct, we had not had this lovely portraiture of paternal tenderness, as well as brotherly affection; we had never had those solemn, sad, and melting words of Jacob, If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved,' enough to pierce a tender parent's heart; or those words, Joseph is yet alive, I will see him before I die,' enough to raise it into joy and exultation again. In a word, without this conduct, we had never had that courteous, that moving, that pleasingly mournful speech, wherein Moses makes Judah address Joseph, in behalf of his poor brother Benjamin, which exceeds all the compositions of human invention, and a flows indeed from such natural passions, as art can

Gen. xliii. 7.

3 Gen. xliii. 14.

2 Universal History, b. 1. c. 7.
'Gen. xlv. 28.

a The observation of a learned author upon the dialogue between Jacob and his sons, as well as the speech of Judah, is well

Homer, indeed, in his poem of the Trojan war, seems to have cut out more work for surgeons than physicians; and therefore we find the chief of the faculty only employed in healing wounds, extracting arrows, preparing anodynes, and other such like external operations; but if we look into his other work, which is of a more pacific strain, we shall soon discern the use of internal applications, when we find Helen brought in as giving Telemachus a preparation of opium, which, as the poet informs us, she had from Polydamna, the wife of Thon, an Egyptian physician of great note. And well might the physicians of Egypt be held in great esteem," when (as Herodotus relates the matter) every distinct distemper had its proper physician, who confined himself to the study and cure of that only; so that one sort having the cure of the eyes, another of the head, another of the teeth, another of the belly, and another of occult diseases, we need not wonder, that all places were crowded with men of this profession, or that the physicians of Joseph's household should be represented as a large number." True it is indeed, that these physicians, and the very

5 Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol. 2. b. 4. sect. 3. Meth. Medic. b. 1.

worth our notice and serious consideration. "Since such passages are related by men, who affect no art, and who lived long after the parties who first uttered them, we cannot conceive how they had been suggested by his Spirit, who gives mouth and all particulars could be so naturally and fully recorded, unless speech to man; who, being alike present to all successions, is able to communicate the secret thoughts of forefathers to their children, and put the very words of the deceased, never registered before, into the mouths or pens of their successors, for many generations after, and that as exactly and distinctly as if they had been caught, in characters of steel or brass, as they issued out of their mouths: for it is plain every circumstance is here related, with such natural specifications, as he terms it, as if Moses had heard them talk; and therefore could not have been thus represented to us, unless they had been written by his divine direction, who knows all things, as well forepast, as present, or to come."—Dr Jacksen

on the Creed, b. 1. c. 4.

A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END.

best of them, were employed in embalming the dead; but then there was a wise designation in this,' namely, not only to improve them in the knowledge of anatomy, but to enable them likewise to discover the causes of such disorders as were a baffle to their art. And therefore it was the custom of the kings of Egypt, as Plinying it, was an imposition far from being burdensome to informs us, to cause dead bodies to be dissected, on the subject, or vastly disproportionate to the benefit they purpose to find out the origin and nature of all diseases. had received, a Thus it appears from the concurring testimony of other historians, that the practice of physic was a common thing in Egypt, as early as the days of Joseph; that the multitude of its professors makes it no strange thing his having a number of them in his family; and that the nature of the thing, as well as the order of the state, obliged the very best of them to become dissectors and embalmers.

come to a conclusion, he gave the people back their liberties and estates, reserving to the king no more than a double tenth out of the produce of their lands, as a tribute of their vassalage; which, considering the richness of the soil, and the little pains required in cultivat

There is but one thing more that I find objected to Joseph, in this public station, and that is, his favour and indulgence to the priests, and priests that were idolaters, in sparing their lands, and laying no tax upon them.

The Jewish doctors have a tradition, that when Joseph was in prison, and his master had bad designs against him, it was by the interest of the priests that he was set free, and that, consequently, in gratitude, he could not do less than indulge them with some particular marks of his favour, when he came into such a compass of power. But there is no occasion for any such fiction as this. The priests of Egypt were taken out of the chief families of the nation; they were persons of the first quality;

a

'Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics, vol. 3. Miscel. 3. 'Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. 7.

This may serve for a vindication of what the sacred historian has related of our patriarch in his private life, and we come now to consider him in his public capacity. As soon as he had foretold the king the long famine that was to befall Egypt, he gave him advice to have the fifth part of the product of the country laid up in store against the ensuing want. The tenth part, according to the constitution of the nation, belonged to the king already, and to advise him to purchase as much more, for seven succeeding years, was to consider him as the public father of his people, for whose support and wel-in fare he was concerned to provide. When himself was appointed to the office of gathering in the corn, he took | care, no doubt, to have his granaries in fortified places, and as the scarceness increased, to have them secured by a guard of the king's forces, to prevent insurrections and depredations. When he came to open his storehouses, he sold to the poor and to the rich; and was it not highly reasonable, that he who bought the corn, should likewise sell it? or that the money, which by the king's commission and order, had been laid out for such a stock of provisions against the approaching necessities of his subjects, should return to the king's coffers again, to answer his occasions? When their money was gone, they brought him their cattle; but this they did of their own accord, without any compulsion or circumvention; and might he not as legally exchange corn for cattle, as he did it for money before? His corn he kept up perhaps at a high rate; but had he sold it cheap, or given it gratis, the people, very likely, would have been profuse and wanton in the consumption of it; whereas his great care and concern was, to make it hold out the whole time of the famine. He obliged the inhabitants of one city and district to remove, or make room for those of another; but this he might do, not so much to show their subjection to Pharaoh, as to secure the public peace, by disabling them in this way from entering into any sedi-bution of water would be guided by prudence; each district would tious measures and combinations.

It cannot be imagined, indeed, but that, in a time of such general want and calamity, men's minds would be ripe for rapine, violence, and mutiny; and yet we meet with no one commotion, during the whole period of his critical ministry; which bespeaks the skill of the mariner, when he is found able to steer steady in the midst of so tumultuous a sea. In fine, after he had a long while executed his high trust, and the years of famine were

'Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, b. 4. sect. 3.

Joseph as viceroy of Egypt; but fortunately that conduct stands This is rather a feeble attempt to vindicate the conduct of need of no other vindication, than to be fairly stated. If credit be due to Diodorus Siculus, all the land of Egypt was, prior to this period, divided, in equal shares, among the king, the priestthe beginning, adscriptitii gleba; and they were not likely to hood, and army. The people therefore must have been, from suffer by being transferred with the soil, which they cultivated, from the vassalage in which they had hitherto been held by a fierce soldiery to the common sovereign and father of his people. But let us suppose, that Diodorus was mistaken, and that not the army but the people at large, shared the soil in equal portions with the king and the priests. Even on this supposition they were gainers by the new regulation of Joseph; for they henceforth enjoyed four-fifths of two-thirds of the produce of the whole kingdom, instead of one-third as formerly. Indeed whatever was the state of the Egyptians before this famine, it was happy for them that the minister, whom they acknowledged to have saved their lives, was not on that occasion influenced by modern notions of civil and political liberty.-" By the policy of Joseph, the whole of the land of Egypt, not occupied by the priests, became the property of the sovereign, and the people with their children his slaves; an event, which, however unpropitious it might be in any other country, was necessary there, where every harvest depended on the Nile, and where the equal distribution of its waters could alone produce a general cultivation. possible to induce individuals to sacrifice their own possessions, When the lands of Egypt were private property, would it be that they might be turned into canals for the public benefit? or, when the canals were constructed, would it be possible to prevent the inhabitants of the upper provinces from drawing off more water than was requisite for their own use, and thereby injuring the cultivators lower down? But when the whole belonged to one man, the necessary canals would be constructed; the distri

receive its necessary proportion; and the collateral branches would then, as they are now, be opened only when the height of Valentia's Travels, vol. 3, p. 348.)-Our author's supposition, the river justified such a measure for the public benefit." (Lord that the people who had sold their lands to preserve their lives, were transplanted into cities far from their former places of abode, that they might, in time, lose the remembrance of their ancient

possessions, is a groundless dream. Granaries were formed, and cities and villages built in every district of the kingdom; and when cultivation ceased, the people were transplanted, for the easiness of distribution, from the country into such of those cities as were nearest to them; and when the famine ceased, they were sent back, with seed to sow their former fields.

A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END. were consulted upon all affairs of consequence; and, upon a vacancy, generally some one of them succeeded to the crown. It was not likely, therefore, that persons of their high rank and station wanted Joseph's assistance to strengthen their interest, for the obtaining of any immunities; nor is it apparent that they had it. On the contrary, it seems evident from the text, that whatever peculiar favours they were vouchsafed, proceeded all, not from Joseph's good-will, but from the king's immediate direction and appointment; for the land of the priests bought he not,' says Moses, (ci chok le cohanim meeth Pharaoh) because Pharaoh had made a decree expressly against it, or, in analogy to our translation, 'because there was an appointment for the priests, even from Pharaoh ; and the portion, which he gave them, they did eat, and therefore sold not their lands.'

That the memory of Joseph, and of the wonderful benefits he did, during the time of his administration, was preserved among the Egyptians, under the worship of Apis, Serapis, and Osiris; that the Egyptian manner of interpreting dreams was taken from what occurs in his history; and that the Charistia, mentioned by 2 Valerius and Ovid, namely, festival entertainments, either for confirming friendship, or renewing it when broken, were transcripts of the feast which Joseph made for his brethren, is the general opinion of such learned men as have made the deepest inquiry into these matters.

That the patriarch Jacob went down with his whole family into Egypt, where he found his son Joseph in great power and prosperity, is reported by several pagan writers, who are cited by Eusebius; that the Egyptians, according to what Moses tells of them, had an unaccount

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such a person as Moses has represented him, the testimony of Justin, with which we conclude the patriarch's story, is enough to convince us. "Joseph, the youngest of his brethren," says he, " had a superiority of genius, which made them fear him, and sell him to foreign merchants, who carried him into Egypt, where he practised the magic art with such success as rendered him very dear to the king. He had a great sagacity in the explanation of prodigies and dreams; nor was there any thing so abstruse, either in divine or human knowledge, that he did not readily attain. He foretold a great dearth, several years before it happened, and prevented a famine's falling upon Egypt, by advising the king to publish a decree, requiring the people to make provision for divers years. His knowledge, in short, was so great, that the Egyptians listened to the prophecies coming from his mouth, as if they had proceeded, not from man, but from God himself.”

Why Pharaoh, when he thought fit to lessen the pro-able antipathy to shepherds, especially foreigners, is perty of his common subjects, did not, at the same time, related by Herodotus; that the priests in that country attempt to reduce the exorbitant riches of the priests, we enjoyed several high privileges, and were exempted from may in some measure account for, if we consider, that paying all taxes and public imposts, is every where according to the constitution of the kingdom, the Egyp-apparent from Diodorus; and that Joseph was just tian priests were obliged to provide all sacrifices, and to bear all the charges of the national religion, which, in those days, was not a little expensive; so very expensive, that we find, in those countries where the soil was not fruitful, and consequently the people poor, men did not well know how to bear the burden of religion; and therefore Lycurgus, when he reformed the Lacedemonian state, instituted sacrifices, the meanest and cheapest that he could think of. But Egypt, we know, was a rich and fertile country, and therefore, in all probability, the king and people being desirous that religion should appear with a suitable splendour, made settlements upon the priests from a the very first institution of government among them, answerable to the charges of their function. Add to this, that the priests of Egypt were the whole body of the nobility of the land; that they were the king's counsellors and assistants in all the affairs which concerned the public; were joint agents with him in some things, and in others, his directors and instructors. Add again, that they were the professors and cultivators of astronomy, geometry, and other useful sciences; that they were the keepers of the public registers, memoirs, and chronicles of the kingdom; and, in a word, that, under the king, they were the supreme magistrates, and THAT Job was a real person, and not a fictitious charfilled all prime offices of honour and trust: and consider-acter, and his story matter of fact, and not a parabolical ing them under these views, we may possibly allow, that representation, is manifest from all those places in Pharaoh might think that they had not too much to support Scripture where mention is made of him; and, therethe station they were to act in, and for that reason, ordered that no tax should be raised upon them.

1

Thus we have endeavoured to clear the sacred history from all imputations of improbability or absurdity, as well as Joseph's conduct, both private and public, from all unjust censure, during this period of time; and may now produce the testimony of several heathen writers, in confirmation of many particulars related herein.

1 Diodorus Siculus, b. 1.

a It is the opinion of some, that Mizraim, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy, might, in memory of some Noachical tradition, set apart, at the very first, a maintenance for the priesthood, however degenerate and corrupt. Be this as it will, it is certain, that, in process of time, their allotment increased to such a degree, that they became possessors of one-third part of the whole land, according to Diodorus, b. 1.

CHAP. III. Of the Person and Book of Job.

Diodorus Siculus, b. 2. c. 1.

3 De Fast. b. 2. Prep. Evan. b. 9. Ib. b. 2. c. 47. Ib. b. 1. lb. b. 36. c. 2.

Nay, upon the supposition that the whole book were a dramatic composition, this would not invalidate the proofs which we have from Scripture, of the real existence of this holy patriarch, or the truth of his exemplary story. On the contrary, it much confirms them; seeing it was the general practice of dramatic writers, of the serious kind, to choose any illustrious character, and well known story, in order to give the piece its due dignity and efficacy; and yet, what is very surprising, the writers on both sides, as well those who hold the book of Joh to be dramatical, as those who hold it to be historical, have fallen into this paralogism, that, if dramatical, then the person and history of Job is fictitious: which nothing but their inattention to the nature of a dramatic work, and to the practice of dramatic writers, could have occasioned.-Warburton's Divine Legation, vol. 3. b. 6.

1

A. M. 2276. A. C, 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END.

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fore when, in the Old Testament, we find Job put in | them originally from the instruction of his parents, as company with Noah and Daniel, and equally dis- they successively derived them from the first father of tinguished for his righteousness, as in the New he is the faithful,' who had them immediately from God. But, commended for his patience, we cannot well suppose what is an undoubted matter of fact, by his wife Ketuthat the Spirit of God, in both these places, intended to rah, Abraham had a son, whose name was Shuah; and delude us with a phantom, instead of presenting us with therefore when we read of “ Bildad the Shuhite, we may a real man. well suppose, that he was a descendant from that family; who living in the neighbourhood perhaps, might think himself obliged by the ties of consanguinity, to go and visit his kinsman, in such sad circumstances of distress. In what part of the world the land of Uz lay, various opinions have been started, according to the several families from whence Job is made to descend; but, upon supposition that he sprung from one of Keturah's sons, his habitation is most properly placed in that part of Arabia Deserta which has to the north, Mesopotamia and the river Euphrates; to the west, Syria, Palestine, and Idumea; and to the south, the mountains of the Happy Arabia. And this description receives some farther confirmation from the mention which the history makes of the Chaldeans and Sabæans plundering his estate, who were certainly inhabitants in these parts.

Whether we allow that the book of Job is of divine revelation or not, we cannot but perceive, that it has in it all the lineaments of a real history; since the name, the quality, the country of the man, the number of his children, the bulk of his substance, and the pedigree of his friends, together with the names and situations of several regions, can give us the idea of nothing else; though it must not be dissembled, that in the introduction more especially, there is an allegorical turn given to some matters, which, as they relate to spiritual beings, would not otherwise so easily affect the imagination of the vulgar.

Job, according to the fairest probability, was in a direct line, a descended from Abraham, by his wife Keturah: for by Keturah, the patriarch had several sons, whom he, being resolved to reserve the chief patrimony entire for Isaac, portioned out, as we call it, and sent them into the east to seek their fortunes, so that most of them settled in Arabia; and for this reason perhaps it is, that the author of his history records of Job, that before his calamities came upon him, he was the greatest of all the men of the east.'

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2

The character which God himself gives of Abraham is this, I know him that, he will command his children, and his household after him, and that they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment;' which may well afford another argument for Job's being descended from the house of Abraham, since we find dispersed everywhere in his speeches, such noble sentiments of creation and providence, of the nature of angels and the fall of man, of punishments for sin and justification by grace, of a redemption, resurrection, and final judgment,-notions which he could never have struck out from the light of nature, but must have had

'Spanheim's History of Job, c. 5. Job, 1. 3. 'Gen. xviii. 19. 4 Spanheim's History of Job, c. 10. a At the end of the Greek, the Arabic, and Vulgate versions of Job, we have this account of his genealogy, which is said to have been taken from the ancient Syriac:-" Job dwelt in Ausitis, upon the confines of Idumea and Arabia. His name at first was Jobab. He married an Arabian woman, by whom he had a son called Ennon. For his part, he was the son of Zerah, of the posterity of Esau, and a native of Bozrah; so that he was the fifth from Abraham. He reigned in Edom, and the kings before him reigned in this order:-Balak, the son of Beor, in the city of Dinhabah; and after him, Job, otherwise called Jobab. Job was succeeded by Husham, prince of Teman; after him reigned Hadad, the son of Bedad, who defeated the Midianites in the field of Moab. Job's friends, who came to visit him, were Eliphaz, of the posterity of Esau, king of Teman; Bildad, king of the Shuhites; and Zophar, king of the Naamathites." According to this account, Job must be contemporary with Moses, and the three friends who came to see him must be kings. But the learned Spanheim, who has examined this matter to the bottom, finds reason to think, that Job was a distinct person from Jobab; was sprung from Abraham by his wife Keturah; and lived several years before the time of Moses. Calmet's Dictionary, on the word Job; and Spanheim's Life of

him.

In what age of the world this great exemplar of suffering lived, the difference of opinions is not small, even though there be some criterions to direct our judgment in this matter. That Job lived in the world much earlier than has been imagined, is, in some measure, evident from his mentioning with abhorrence, that ancient kind of idolatry, the adoration of the sun and moon, and yet passing by in silence the Egyptian bondage, which, upon one occasion or other, could have hardly escaped the notice either of him or his friends, had it not been subsequent to their times. That he lived in the days of the patriarchs therefore is very probable, from the long duration of his life, which, continuing an hundred and forty years after his restoration, could hardly be less in all than two hundred; a longer period than either Abraham or Isaac reached. That he lived before the law, may be gathered from his making not so much as one allusion to it through the whole course of his life, and from his offering, even with God's order and acceptance, such sacrifices in his own country as were not allowable after the promulgation of the law, to be offered in any other place, but that which the Lord had chosen in one of the tribes of Israel;' and that he lived after Jacob may be inferred from the character given him by God, namely, that for uprightness and the fear of God, there was none like unto him upon the earth,' which large commendation could not be allowed to any whilst Jacob, God's favourite servant, was alive; nor can we suppose it proper to be given to any, even while Joseph lived, who, in moral virtues and other excellencies, made as bright a figure as any in his time.

5 Gen. xxv. 2.

6 Job ii. 11. 7 Spanheim, c. 3. 8 Deut. xii. 13, 14. The Rev. Dr Hales, from a variety of historical and astronomical deductions, calculates the time of Job's trial as happening B. C. 2337, or 818 years after the deluge, 184 years before the birth of Abraham, 474 years before the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt, and 689 years before their departure from that country. Taking this view of the era of Job-and it is the best supported of any yet advanced-the deduction in the text from the words, and there was none like unto him upon the earth,'

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,' | clude, that they made all along a figure far from comaccording to the modesty of the Scripture expression, porting with the condition of mere slaves, subjected means nothing else, but of his seed or posterity; and so entirely to a foreign yoke, without any law or governthe intendment of this part of the prediction must be, ment of their own, that the tribe of Judah shall have lawgivers of their own to the very last times.'