JOSEPH'S EXALTATION.

According to chap. xxxix. 4 and 5, Potiphar placed Joseph over his house and over all his substance, and the Lord blessed him for the sake of Joseph, in all which he had in the house and in the field. Joseph had also, after his exaltation, a man who was over his house. A peculiar and characteristic Egyptian trait! "Among the objects of tillage and husbandry," says Rosellini, “which are portrayed in the Egyptian tombs, we often see a steward, who takes account and makes a registry of the harvest before it is deposited in the store-house." "In a tomb at Kum el Ahmar, the office of a steward with all its apparatus is represented; two scribes appear with all their preparations for writing, and there are three rows of volumes, the account and household books of the steward," &c.2 The same author remarks, in reference to a painting in a tomb at Beni Hassan : "In this scene, as also in many others which exhibit the internal economy of a house, a man carrying implements for writing,—the pen over his ear, the tablet or paper in his hand, and the writing-table under his arm,-either follows or goes before the servants."3 According to the inscription, this is the overseer of the slaves or the steward. Compare also the representation in Wilkinson, of an Egyptian steward in his employment, "overlooking the tillage of the lands." 4

preserved in the Aramaic, and designates a higher degree of servitude than the ordinary verb of submission (727). The instances of secondary meanings obliterating primary significations, are sufficiently common in every language; and Bohlen's error, in which he is strangely followed by Hengstenberg, arises from mistaking the secondary and prevalent signification of the word for its original and primary. T. * II. p. 403, 4.

2 II. 1. p. 329.

1 Gen. xliii. 16, 19. xliv. 1. II. p. 136. The favour which the Hebrew captive found with his master is not to be taken as a fair example of the conduct of the Egyptian slave-owners: "the Lord was with Joseph ;" and to this, rather than to the clemency of Potiphar, the mildness of his servitude must be attributed. Most of the Egyptian slaves were captives taken in war. They were dragged to the market bound and fettered; and, with a disgraceful refinement of cruelty, they were bound in the most painful posture. Women and children shared the fate of their husbands and fathers. Melancholy processions of the unhappy beings frequently occur on the monuments; and the artists have, sometimes, depicted the joyous and thoughtless ignorance of infancy, contrasted with the anguish of an unhappy mother, too

JOSEPH'S TEMPTATION AND THE MORALS OF THE EGYPTIANS.

2

With impudent shamelessness Potiphar's wife seeks to seduce Joseph. How great the corruption of manners with reference to the marriage relation was among the Egyptians, appears from Herodotus, whose account Larcher has compared with the one under consideration. The wife of one of the oldest kings was untrue to him. It was a long time before a woman could be found who was faithful to her husband. And when one was, at last, found, the king took her without hesitation for himself. From such a state of morals, the Biblical narrative can easily be conceived to be natural. The evidence of the monuments is also not very favourabl to the Egyptian women. Thus, they are represented as addicted to excess in drinking wine, as even becoming so much intoxicated as to be unable to stand or walk alone, or "to carry their liquor discreetly.'

Potiphar's wife avails herself of the opportunity when her husband and the rest of the men of the house were gone out, and Joseph had come in to perform some duty. It has lately been affirmed, that an error against Egyptian customs is here detected. V. Bohlen says: "Since eunuchs are supposed to exist, Joseph

well acquainted with the miseries of her future lot. Here it may be remarked, that this representation explains a passage in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which has given needless perplexity to many commentators; it forms part of his description of the woes inflicted on the vanquished by the Babylonian conquerors of Jerusalem: "The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up." (Lam. i. 14.) The "binding on of the yoke"-the "wreathing of the penal bonds around the neck," are frequently represented on the monuments; and it requires no great stretch of imagination to conceive, that if the march be of long duration the "strength" of the captives must "fall, and render them unable to rise up." The treatment of Joseph himself, on the false accusation of Potiphar's wife, (the Zuleikha of Eastern tradition,) is a sufficient proof of the inhumanity exhibited to slaves. "His feet they set in the stocks, the iron entered into his soul;" and if any faith is to be placed in Rabbinical legends, he was frequently brought out to be tortured for the amusement of the infamous Zuleikha.

1 Chap. xxxix.

Compare Wilkinson, Vol. II. p. 167.

22. 111.

4

Comp. v. 11.

T.

could not so much as come into the presence of the women, still less into the harem ;" and Tuch remarks: "The narrator abandons the representation of a distinguished Egyptian, in whose house the women live separately, and descends to a common domestic establishment," &c. The error, however, lies here, not on the side of the author, but on that of his critics. They are guilty of inadvertently transferring that which universally prevails in the East to Egypt, which the author avoids, and thereby exhibits his knowledge of the condition of the Egyptians. According to the monuments, the women in Egypt lived under far less restraint than in the East, or even in Greece.1

The delineations of Egyptian social intercourse are especially appropriate here. Taylor,2 collecting in few words the results as they are, without reference to our passage, says: "In some entertainments, we find the ladies and gentlemen of a party in different rooms; but in others, we find them in the same apartment, mingling together with all the social freedom of modern Europeans. The children were allowed the same liberty as the women; instead of being shut up in the harem, as is now usual in the East, they were introduced into company, and were permitted to sit by the mother or on the father's knee." 3

See the proof in Wilk. Vol. II. p. 389. Some of the Egyptian artists have represented ladies sitting unveiled at banquets, and indulging in large libations of wine, and in some instances they exhibit the consequences of such excesses.

9 P. 171.

T.

Several captious objections have been made to the history of Joseph's imprisonment; it is said that prisons were not likely to be used in the age of the early Pharaohs, and that, if used, it is improbable that the prisoners would be allowed any opportunities of communication. It is, indeed, very doubtful, whether simple incarceration was ever employed as a punishment under the Pharaohs; criminals and captives were always employed in public works, and it is remarkable that the Samaritan text, instead of Beth Hasahar, "the house of confinement," reads D' Beth Hasachar, "the house of employment" or " emolument;" and when Pharaoh sent for Joseph, a different word is used for the place of his confinement, viz. 12 Bor, an excavated dungeon." The superintendence over the other captives granted to Joseph, still further proves, that he was confined in a kind of workhouse.

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T.

THE DREAM OF THE CHIEF BAKER OF PHARAOH.

According to chap. xl. 16, the chief baker,' in his dream, carries the wicker baskets with various choice baker's commodities on his head. Similar woven baskets, flat (which the circumstance that the three are placed one upon another here implies) and open, for carrying grapes and other fruits, are found represented on the monuments.2 The art of baking was carried to a high degree of perfection among the Egyptians. Rosellini says, after describing the kitchen scenes upon the tomb of Remeses IV. at Biban el Moluk: "From all these representations, it is clear, that the Egyptians were accustomed to prepare many kinds of pastry for the table, as we see the very same kinds spread out upon the altars and tables which are represented in the tombs. They made even bread in many and various forms. These articles are found in the tombs kneaded from barley or wheat, in the form of a star, a triangle, a disk, and other such like things."3 But the custom of carrying on the head is most peculiar and characteristic of Egypt, and it is so much the more to be remarked, as it is mentioned incidentally, and the author does not characterize it as a custom peculiar to the Egyptians. Herodotus mentions the habit of bearing burdens on the head by the men, as one by which the Egyptians are distinguished from all other people: "Men bear burdens on their heads, and women on their shoulders." Examples of this custom are frequently found upon the monuments.5 To be sure, the monuments also show, what is evident without argument, that the custom was not universal."

4

PHARAOH'S DREAM AND THE MAGICIANS OF EGYPT.

In the account of Pharaoh's dream, chap. xli. 1, seq. we are first struck with the use of the word (Achú,) Nile-grass,7

As most of the Egyptian meats were baked, this officer must have been also the head-cook of the palace.

" Wilk. II. 151-2.

T.

3 Vol. II. 2. p. 464. Compare the representation of these different kinds of pastry, &c. in Wilkinson, Vol. II. p. 385.

1 2. 35.

6

Compare drawings in Wilkinson, Vol. II. p. 151-2 and Vol. III. p. 385, where a man is carrying bread or cakes to the oven upon a long board. Costaz in the Descr. t. 6, p. 138. Wilk. as above. Rosellini, II. p. 453. Our translators have inaccurately rendered it" meadow;" the aqua

66

-an Egyptian word for an Egyptian thing. In the next plac e, the seven poor and the seven fat kine attract our attention. The symbol of the cow is very peculiar and exclusively Egyptian. Upon the signification of this symbol we have two important passages, one from Plutarch': They consider the cow as the image of Isis and the earth," i. e. the symbol of them.2 The other is found in Clemens 3: "The cow is the symbol of the earth itself and its cultivation, and of food." Now, therefore, since the cow is the symbol of fruitfulness, it appears entirely natural, that the difference of the year in respect to fruitfulness was represented by the different condition of the kine-that unfruitful years were denoted by lean kine. It is scarcely conceivable that a foreign inventor should have confined himself so closely to the peculiar Egyptian symbols. The circumstance that the kine come up out of the Nile, the fat and also the lean, has reference to the fact that Egypt owes all its fertility to this stream, and that famine succeeds as soon as it fails.

According to chap. xli. 8, Pharaoh calls "all the magicians of Egypt and all the wise men thereof," that they may interpret his dream, by which he is troubled. These same magicians appear also in Ex. vii. 11: "Then Pharaoh called the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in like manner by their enchantments;" and they are also represented in Ex. viii. 3, 14, 15—(7, 18, 19,) ix. 11, as the wise men of the nation, the possessors of secret arts.

Now we find in Egyptian antiquity, an order of persons, to whom this is entirely appropriate, which is here ascribed to the magicians. The priests had a double office, the practical worship of the gods, and the pursuit of that which in Egypt was accounted

tic plants of the Nile, particularly those of the litus-kind, were so valuable in Egypt that they were reaped in as regular a harvest as the flax and corn. It is to be regretted that the slight inaccuracy of the authorized version obscures the force of this proof of the sacred writer's familiarity with the minute peculiarities of Egypt: the most captious objector-even Bohlen himself-must confess, that the history of Joseph could only have been written by a person well acquainted with the land and the natural productions of the Valley of the Nile. T.

In Bähr upon Herod. 2. 41.

· Βοῦν γάρ Ισιδος εἰκόνα καὶ λῆν νομίζουσι, upon which Bähr: Manet vacca Isidis signum procreatricisque naturae symbolum.

Strom. B. V. p. 671, Potter.