The days of anxious waiting seemed long to Jacob as he watched for the home-coming of his sons from Egypt. At last a messenger came hurrying to his tent with the joyful tidings, “They have come, all of them, and have brought treasures from Egypt—wagon-loads of good things.”
“What can this mean!” Jacob wondered as he went out to see for himself.
Sure enough, there were wagons loaded with provisions, and a herd of asses well loaded besides. But Jacob did not care so much about those things, for his joy Was greatest when he saw Benjamin and Simeon among the stalwart men who came to give him an affection-ate greeting. They told him at once of the good fortune that overtook them in Egypt. “We found Joseph!” they exclaimed excitedly, “and he is alive and well. More than that, he is the ruler of all Egypt, and he has sent us to bring you and our wives and sons and daughters to live in Egypt.”
At first Jacob could not believe their words, for it seemed impossible that the son whom he had mourned as dead for more than twenty years should be alive in a strange land. But when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent and the twenty asses loaded with provisions as a special present to him, he said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive, and I will go and see him before I die.”
The third journey to Egypt was a happy one. Jacob and his sons’ wives and their little children rode in the wagons Joseph had sent, while the grown men drove the herds of cattle and sheep and goats and asses. One night they made camp at Beersheba, where Abraham and Isaac had lived long before this time. Here Jacob offered sacrifices to God as his father and grandfather had done. And God spoke to him once more in a night vision. “Do not be afraid to go to Egypt,” God told him, “for I will go with you and will increase your family until they become a great nation. Then I will bring them again into the land which I promised to your grandfather Abraham and to your father Isaac. And you shall indeed see Joseph, and he will place his hand upon your eyes.”
After this time Jacob was called Israel, the name which God gave him when he wrestled all night with the angel. And his children were called Israelites. But sometimes they were called Hebrews, a word which means, “From beyond the river,” and it referred back to the long-ago time when their forefather Abraham had obeyed God’s voice and had crossed the River Euphrates to journey to Canaan. When the Israelites came into Egypt they numbered sixty-seven people, and when Joseph and his two sons were counted among them they numbered seventy.
At the border-land of Egypt the Israelites camped again, and waited until Judah should go to Joseph to tell of their coming. Joseph sent a guide to lead them into the land of Goshen, and then he prepared his royal chariot and rode into Goshen to meet his father and his relatives.
What a happy meeting when father and son were clasped in each others’ arms again! Both wept for joy and spoke many tender words to each other. Then Joseph brought five of his brothers and his aged father to see Pharaoh, the king.
Pharaoh was glad to see them. When he learned that they were shepherds, he told them they might live in the land of Goshen. Goshen lay between Egypt and the desert, and was in ordinary times a very fertile country because its soil was well watered by the broad River Nile. Joseph provided food for his relatives and for their herds during the remaining years of the famine.
After a while the Egyptian people spent all their money for food. Then they came to Joseph for more corn, and he said, “I will give you corn if you will sell your cattle to Pharaoh.” This they did. Then when their cattle were sold and their money was spent their food-supply again grew low. “What must we do now?” they asked Joseph, and he told them to sell their fields and their pastures to the king. And so after a while Pharaoh owned all the land in Egypt except the land which belonged to the priests. By and by the people became hungry again, and they had nothing left to sell except themselves. So they came to Joseph and said, “We would rather sell ourselves to become servants of Pharaoh than die of hunger.” And they became servants of the king.
When the Severn years of awful famine had passed by, Joseph sent the Egyptian farmers back to the fields with seed to plant again. He told them to plant their crops and care for them just as they had done before. Then when the harvest-time should come they should bring one fifth of the yield of their fields to Pharaoh, and four fifths they could keep for food and for seed for the coming year. “All the land belongs to Pharaoh,” he said, “and hereafter one fifth of all that grows on the land shall be kept for his portion.” And these words of Joseph’s became a law throughout all Egypt.
After the famine ended, Joseph’s people continued to live in Goshen. Israel was one hundred and thirty years old when he left Canaan, and he lived seventeen years in Goshen. Before he died he called his sons and requested them to take his body to Canaan and bury it in the cave of Machpelah, where Abraham and Isaac were buried. Then he gave each of his sons a parting blessing.
Joseph brought his two children, Manasseh and Ephraim, to see their aged grandfather and to receive his blessing also. And Israel said, “Surely God has been good to me, for I thought I should never see your face again and now I am permitted to see both you and your children.” He then placed his trembling, wrinkled hands upon the boys’ heads to bless them. Joseph saw he had placed his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, the younger, and his left hand upon the head of Manasseh. “Not so, my father,” he said gently, trying to lift his father’s hands and change them so that the right hand should rest upon Manasseh’s head. But Israel would not allow the change. “I know what I am doing,” he answered, “although I am feeble and my eyes are dim; your younger son shall become greater than the elder, and to him the greater blessing belongs.” Israel also gave each of the boys a portion among the inheritance of his own children.
After Israel died, Joseph commanded the Egyptian physicians to embalm his father’s body for burial. This required forty days’ time. In all, the people spent seventy days mourning the death of this aged man. Then Joseph asked permission of Pharaoh to go with his brothers to place Israel’s body in the burial-cave in Canaan.
When they returned again to Goshen, the brothers thought, “Perhaps Joseph has been kind to us only for our father’s sake, and now he may treat us cruelly because we sinned against him so long ago.” So they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, “Your father before he died asked that you forgive the wrong-doing of your brothers, and now we beg that you do forgive us, for we are servants of the God of your father.”
Joseph wept when he heard this message. He knew his brothers feared that he might harm them, now that their father had died. So he called them to him and said, God that I should attempt to punish you because of your sin? No; I will care for you and for your children as long as I live.” His kind words comforted their hearts, and they believed that he had indeed freely forgiven them.
As the years passed by, Joseph’s relatives increased in number until they became a strong nation. And Joseph cared for them as long as he lived. When he reached the age of one hundred and ten years he knew his time had come to die. He called the old men of Israel to his bedside and said, “I am going to die. But God will watch over you, and by and by he will lead you back to the land of your fathers. Do not bury me here in Egypt, but place my body in a coffin and take it back with you when you return to Canaan.” And the men of Israel wept as they promised to show this kindness to the one who had been so good to them. Afterwards whenever they looked at Joseph’s coffin they remembered his words, and they knew they should not always live in Egypt.