in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now, therefore, let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

with wine perfumed with pounded odours; then filling up the belly with pure myrrh and cassia, grossly powdered, and all other odours except frankincense, they sew it up again. Having so done, they salt it up close with nitre seventy days: for longer they may not salt it. After this number of days are over, they wash the corpse again, and then roll it up with fine linen, all besmeared with a sort of gum, commonly used by the Egyptians instead of glue.

Then is the body restored to its relations, who prepare a wooden coffin for it, in the shape and likeness of a man, and then put the embalmed body into it, and thus enclosed, place it in a repository in the house, setting it upright against the wall. After this manner, they with great expense, preserve their dead; whereas those, who to avoid too great a charge, desire a mediocrity, thus embalm them; they neither cut the belly, nor pluck out the entrails, but fill it with clysters of oil of cedar injected up the anus, and then salt it the aforesaid number of days. On the last of these they press out the cedar clyster by the same way they had injected it, which has such virtue and efficacy, that it brings out along with it the bowels wasted, and the nitre consumes the flesh, leaving only the skin and bones; having thus done, they restore the dead body to the relations, doing nothing more. The third way of embalming is for those of yet meaner circumstances: they with lotions wash the belly, then dry it up with salt for seventy days, and afterward deliver it to be carried away. Nevertheless, beautiful women and ladies of quality, were not delivered to be embalmed till three or four days after they had been dead; for which Herodotus assigns a sufficient reason, however degrading to human nature: τουτο δε ποίεουσι ούτω τούδε είνεκα, ίνα μη σφι οι ταριχεύται μισγώνται τησι γυναιξιν λαμφθέναι γαρ τινα φασι μισγομενον νεκρω προσφάτω γυναικός· κατείπαι δε τον ομοτέχνον. Ea de causa facientes, says he, ne cum fœminis isti Sulinarii concumbant. Deprehensum enim quendam aiunt coeuntem cum recenti cadavere muliebri, delatumque ab ejusdem artificii socio. [The original should not be put into a plainer language: the abomination to which it refers being too gross.] "But if any stranger or Egyptian was either killed by a crocodile, or drowned in the river, the city where he was cast up was to embalm and bury him honourably in the sacred monuments, whom no one, no, not a relation or friend, but the priests of the Nile only, might touch, because they buried one who was something more than a dead man.' HEROD. Euterpe, p. 120. edit. Gale.

Diodorus Siculus relates the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians more distinctly and clearly, and with some very remarkable additional circumstances. "When any one among the Egyptians dies," says he, "all his relations and friends, putting dirt upon their heads, go lamenting about the city, till such time as the body shall be buried in the mean time they abstain from baths and wine, and all kinds of delicate meats, neither do they, during that time, wear any costly apparel. The manner of their burial is threefold: one very costly, a second sort less chargeable, and a third very mean. In the first, they say, there is spent a talent of silver; in the second, twenty mina; but in the last, there is very little expense. Those who have the care of ordering the body, are such as have been taught that art by their ancestors. These, showing each kind of burial, ask them after what manner they will have the body prepared; when they have agreed upon the manner, they deliver the body to such as are usually appointed for this office. First, he who has the name of scribe, laying it upon the ground, marks about the flank on the left side, how much is to be cut away; then he who is called exis, paraschistes, the cutter or dissecter, with an Ethiopic stone, cuts away as much of the flesh as the law commands, and presently runs away as fast as he can: those who are present pursuing him, cast stones at him, and curse him, hereby turning all the execrations which they imagine due to his office, upon him. For whosoever offers violence, wounds, or does any kind of injury to a body of the same nature with himself, they think him worthy of hatred; but those who are called TXT, taricheute, the embalmers, they esteem worthy of honour and respect: for they are familiar with their priests, and go into the temples as holy men, without any prohibition. As soon as they come to embalm the dissected body, one of them thrusts his hand through the wound into the abdomen, and draws forth all the bowels, but the heart and kidneys, which another washes and cleanses with wine, made of palms and aromatic odours. Lastly, having washed the body, they anoint it with oil of cedar

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear. 7 And Joseph went up to bury his father: and other things for about thirty days, and afterward with myrrh, cinnamon, and other such like matters: which have not only a power to preserve it a long time, but also give it a sweet smell, after which they deliver it to the kindred in such a manner, that every member remains whole and entire, and no part of it changed, but the beauty and shape of the face seem just as they were before: and the person may be known, even the eyebrows and eyelids remaining as they were at first. By this means many of the Egyptians, keeping the dead bodies of their ancestors in magnificent houses, so perfectly see the true visage and countenance of those that died many ages before they themselves were born, that in viewing the proportions of every one of them, and the lineaments of their faces, they take as much delight as if they were still living among them. Moreover, the friends and nearest relations of the deceased, for the greater pomp of the solemnity, acquaint the judges and the rest of their friends with the time prefixed for the funeral or day of sepulture, declaring that such a one (calling the dead by his name) is such a day to pass the lake, at which time above forty judges appear, and sit together in a semicircle, in a place prepared on the hither side of the lake, where a ship provided beforehand by such as have the care of the business, is haled up to the shore, and steered by a pilot, whom the Egyptians, in their language, called Charon. Hence they say, Or pheus upon seeing this ceremony, while he was in Egypt, invented the fable of hell, partly imitating therein the people of Egypt, and partly adding somewhat of his own. The ship being thus brought to the lake-side before the coffin is put on board, every one is at liberty by the law to accuse the dead of what he thinks him guilty. If any one proves he was a bad man, the judges give sentence, that the body shall be deprived of sepulture; but in case the informer be convicted of false accusation, then he is severely punished. If no accuser appear, or the information prove false, then all the kindred of the deceased leave off mourning, and begin to set forth his praises, yet say nothing of his birth, (as the custom is among the Greeks) because the Egyptians all think themselves equally noble; but they recount how the deceased was educated from his youth, and brought up to man's estate, exalting his picty towards the gods, and justice towards men, his chastity and other virtues wherein he excelled and lastly pray and call upon the infernal deities (TOU XAT brous, the gods below) to receive him into the society of the just. The common people take this from the others, and consequently all is said in his praise by a loud shout, setting likewise forth his virtues in the highest strains of commendation, as one that is to live for ever with the infernal gods. Then those that have tombs of their own, inter the corpse in places appointed for that purpose, and they that have none, rear up the body in its coffin against some strong wall of their house. But such as are denied sepulture on account of some crime or debt, are laid up at home without coffins; yet when it shall afterward happen, that any of their posterity grows rich, he commonly pays off the deceased person's debts, and gets his crimes absolved, and so buries him honourably for the Egyptians are wont to boast of their parents and ancestors that were honourably buried. It is a custom likewise among them to pawn the dead bodies of their parents to their creditors, but then those that do not redeem them fall under the greatest disgrace imaginable, and are denied burial themselves at their deaths." Diod. Sic. Biblioth. lib. i. cap. 91-93. edit. Bipont. See also the Nekrokedia, or art of embalming, by Greenhill, 4to. p. 241. who endeavoured in vain to recommend and restore the art. But he could not give his countrymen Egyptian manners; for a dead carcass is to the British an object of horror; and scarcely any except a surgeon or an undertaker, cares to touch it.

Verse 3. Forty days] The body, it appears, required this number of days to complete the process of embalming: afterward it lay in natron thirty days more, making in the whole seventy days, according to the preceding accounts; during which the mourning was continued. So the Egyptians mourned for Jacob three score and ten days, i. e. the whole time in which the spices and nitre were applied to the dead body.

Verse 4. Speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh] But why did not Joseph apply himself? Because he was now in his mourning habits, and could not lay them off till his father was interred, and in such, none must appear in the presence of the eastern monarchs. See Esth. iv. 2.

Verse 7. The elders of his house] Persons who, by reason of their age, had acquired much experience; and

and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.

18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.

19 And Joseph said unto them, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

20 W

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

23 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children the third generation: the children also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees.

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Verse 19. Am I in the place of God?] These words may be understood either as a question, or an affirmative proposition. How should I take any farther notice of your transgression? I have passed it by; the matter lies now between God and you. Or, In the order of divine Providence, I am now in God's place he has furnished me with means, and made me a distributer of his bounty; I will therefore not only nourish you, but also your little ones, ver. 21. and therefore, he spake comfortably unto them, as in chap. xlv. 8. telling them, that he attributed the whole business to the particular providence of God, rather than to any ill will or malice in them; and that, in permitting him to be brought into Egypt, God had graciously saved their lives, the life of their father, the lives of the people of Canaan, and of the Egyptians: as therefore God had honoured him by making him vicegerent in the dispensations of his especial bounty toward so many people, it was impossible he should be displeased with the means by which this was brought about.

Verse 22. Joseph dwelt in Egypt] Continued in Egypt after his return from Canaan, till his death, he, and his father's house, all the descendants of Israel, till the Exodus or departure under the direction of Moses and Aaron, which was one hundred and forty-four years after. Verse 23. Were brought up upon Joseph's knees.] They were educated by him, or under his direction: his sons, and their children continuing to acknowledge him as patriarch, or head of the family, as long as he lived. Verse 24. Joseph said-I die] i. e. I am dying, and God will surely visit you, he will yet again give you, in the time when it shall be essentially necessary, the most signal proof of his unbounded love toward the seed of Jacob. And bring you out of this land] Though ye have here every thing that can render life comfortable, yet this is not the typical land, the land given by covenant, the land which represents the rest that remains for the people of God.

Verse 25. Ye shall carry up my bones] That I may finally rest with my ancestors in the land which God gave to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and which is a pledge as it is a type of the kingdom of heaven. Thus says the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, chap. xi. "By FAITH, Joseph when he died (TV, when dying) made mention of the departure (Edov, of the EXODUS) of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones." From this it is evident, that Joseph considered all these things as typical; and by this very commandment, expressed his faith in the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection of the dead. This oath, by which Joseph then bound his brethren, their posterity considered as binding on themselves; and Moses took care, when he departed from Egypt, to carry up Joseph's body with him, Exod. xiii. 19. which was afterward buried in Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 32.) the very portion which Jacob had purchased from the Amorites, and which he gave to his son Joseph, Gen. xlviii. 22. Acts vii. 16.

Verse 26. Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old] and 12 ben meah yeêser shanim; literally, the son of a hundred and ten years. Here the period of time he lived, is personified; all the years of which it was composed, being represented as a nurse or father, feeding, nourishing, and supporting him to the end. This figure, which is termed by rhetoricians prosopopcia, is very frequent in Scripture; and by this, virtues, vices, forms, attributes, and qualities, with every part of inanimate nature, are represented as endued with reason and speech, and performing all the actions of intelligent beings.

z Heb. to their hearts. Ch. 34. 3-a Job 42. 16.-b Nurab. 32. 39. Ch. 3. 2 d fleb. borne-e Ch. 15. 14. & 46. 4. & 49. 21. Exod. 3. 16, 17. Heb. 11. 2-4 Ch. 15, 14. & 26. 3. & 35, 12. & 46, 4g Exod. 13. 49. Josh. 24. 32. Acts 7. 16.--h Ver. 2

They embalmed him] See on ver. 2. The same precautions were taken to preserve his body as to preserve that of his father Jacob: and this was particularly neces sary in his case, because his body was to be carried to Canaan, an hundred and forty-four years after; which, as Eusebius observes, was the duration of the Israelites' bondage, after the death of Joseph.

And he was put in a coffin in Egypt.] On this subject I shall subjoin some useful remarks from Harmer's Observations, which several have borrowed without acknowledgment. I quote my own edition of this work, vol. iii. p. 69, &c. Lond. 1808.

"There were some methods of honouring the dead, which demand our attention: the being put in a coffin has been, in particular, considered as a mark of distinction. "With us, the poorest people have their coffins: if the relations cannot afford them, the parish is at the expense. In the east, on the contrary, they are not always made use of, even in our times. The ancient Jews probably buried their dead in the same manner: neither was the body of our Lord put in a coffin; nor that of Elisha, whose bones were touched by the corpse that was let down a little after, into his sepulchre, 2 Kings xiii. 21. That coffins were anciently made use of in Egypt al agree; and antique coffins of stone, and of sycamore wood, are still to be seen in that country, not to mention those said to be made of a sort of pasteboard, formed by folding and glueing cloth together, a great number of times, which were curiously plastered, and then painted with hieroglyphics.

"As it was an ancient Egyptian custom, and was not used in the neighbouring countries, on these accounts, the sacred historian was doubtless led to observe of Joseph, that he was not only embalmed, but was also put in a coffin, both being practices almost peculiar to the Egyptians.

"Bishop Patrick, on this passage takes notice of the Egyptian coffins of sycamore wood and pasteboard, but he does not mention the contrary usage of the neighbouring countries, which was requisite, in order fully to illustrate the place: but even this, perhaps, would not have conveyed the whole thought of the sacred author.

"Mr. Maillet conjectures, that all were not inclosed in coffins, which were laid in the Egyptian repositories of the dead; but that it was an honour appropriated to persons of distinction; for after having given an account of several niches which are found in those chambers of death, he adds: 'But it must not be imagined, that the bodies deposited in these gloomy apartments were all inclosed in chests, and placed in niches. The greater part were simply embalmed, and swathed; after which, they laid them one by the side of the other, without any ceremony. Some were even put into these tombs without any embalming at all; or with such a slight one, that there remains nothing of them in the linen in which they were wrapped, but the bones; and these half rotten. It is probable, that each considerable family had one of these burial-places to themselves: that the niches were designed for the bodies of the heads of the family; and that those of their domestics and slaves had no other care taken of them, than merely laying them in the ground after being slightly embalmed, and sometimes even without that: which was probably all that was done to heads of families of less distinction.' Lett. 7. p. 281. The same author gives an account of a mode of burial anciently practised in that country, which has been but recently discovered: it consisted in placing the bodies, after they were swathed up, on a layer of charcoal, and covering them with a mat, under a bed of sand seven or eight feet deep.

"Hence it seems evident that coffins were not universally used in Egypt, and were only used for persons of eminence and distinction. It is also reasonable to believe, that in times so remote as those of Joseph, they might have been much less common than afterward, and that consequently, Joseph's being put in a coffin in Egypt, might be mentioned with a design to express the great honours the Egyptians did him in death, as well as in life; being treated after the most sumptuous manner, embalmed, and put into a coffin.

It is no objection to this account, that the widow of Nain's son is represented as carried forth to be buried, in a ops, or bier; for the present inhabitants of the Levant, who are well known to lay their dead in the earth uninclosed, carry them frequently out to burial in a kind of coffin, which is not deposited in the grave, the body being taken out of it, and placed in the grave in a reclining posture. It is probable, therefore, that the coffins used at Nain, were of the same kind, being intended for no other purpose but to carry the body to the place of interment, the body itself being buried without them. See RUSSEL'S Hist. of Aleppo, vol. i. p. 306, &c.

It is very probable, that the chief difference was not in being with, or without a coffin; but in the expensiveness of the coffin itself; some of the Egyptian coffins being made of granite, and covered all over with hieroglyphics, the cutting of which must have been done at a prodigious expense, both of time and money, the stone being so hard, that we have no tools by which we can make any impression on it. Two of these are now in the British Museum, that appear to have belonged to some of the nobles of Egypt. They are dug out of the solid stone, and adorned with almost innumerable hieroglyphics. One of these, vulgarly called Alexander's tomb, is ten feet three inches and a quarter long; ten inches thick in the sides: breadth at top five feet three inches and a half: breadth at bottom four feet two inches and a half: and three feet ten in depth. In such an one I suppose the body of Joseph was deposited: and such an one could not have been made and transported to Canaan at an expense that any private individual could bear. It was with incredible labour and at an extraordinary expense, that the coffin in question was removed the distance of but a few miles from the ship that brought it from Egypt, to its present residence in the British Museum. Judge then, at what an expense such a coffin must have been digged, engraved, and transported over the desert from Egypt to Canaan, a distance of three hundred miles! We need not be surprised to hear of carriages, and horsemen, a very great company, when such a coffin was to be carried so far, with a suitable company to attend it.

Joseph's life was the shortest of all the patriarchs; for which Bishop Patrick gives a sound physical reason-he was the son of his father's old age. It appears from Archbishop Usher's Chronology, that Joseph governed Egypt under four kings: Mephramuthosis, Thmosis, Amenophis, and Orus. His government, we know, lasted eighty years: for when he stood before Pharaoh, he was thirty years of age, chap. xli. 46. and he died when he was one hundred and ten, from which subtract thirty, and there remain fourscore.

On the character and conduct of Joseph, many remarks have already been made in the preceding notes. On the subject of his piety there can be but one opinion. It was truly exemplary, and certainly was tried in cases, in which few instances occur of persevering fidelity. His high sense of the holiness of God, the strong claims of justice, and the rights of hospitality and gratitude, led him in the instance of the solicitations of his master's wife, to act a part which, though absolutely just and proper, can never be sufficiently praised. Heathen authors boast of some persons of such singular constancy; but the intelligent reader will recollect, that these relations stand in general in their fabulous histories, and are destitute of those characteristics which truth essentially_requires; such I mean as the story of Hippolytus and Phædra; Bellerophon and Antea or Sthenoboa; Peleus and Astydamea, and others of this complexion, which appear to be marred pictures, taken from this highly finished original, which the inspired writer has fairly drawn from life.

His fidelity to his master is not less evident; and God's approbation of his conduct is strongly marked; for he caused whatsoever he did to prosper, whether a slave in the house of his master, a prisoner in the dungeon, or a prime minister by the throne; which is a full proof that his ways pleased him, and this is more clearly seen in the providential deliverances by which he was favoured.

On the political conduct of Joseph, there are conflicting opinions. On the one hand it is asserted, that "he found the Egyptians a free people, and that he availed himself of

a most afflicting providence of God, to reduce them all into a state of slavery, destroyed their political consequence, and made their king despotic." In all these respects, his political measures have been strongly vindicated, not only as being directed by God, but as being obviously the best, every thing considered, for the safety, honour, and welfare of his sovereign and the kingdom. It is true, he bought the lands of the people for the king; but he farmed them to the original occupiers again, at the moderate and fixed crown rent of one fifth part of the produce. "Thus did he provide for the liberty and independence of the people, while he strengthened the authority of the king by making him sole proprietor of the lands. And to secure the people from farther exaction, Joseph made it a law over all the land of Egypt, that Pharaoh (i. e. the king) should have only the fifth part: which law subsisted to the time of Moses, chap. xlvii. 21-26. By this wise regulation," continues Dr. Hales, "the people had fourfifths of the produce of the lands for their own use, and were exempted from any farther taxes, the king being bound to support his civil and military establishment out of the crown rents." By the original constitution of Egypt established by Menes, and Thoth or Hermes, his prime minister, the lands were divided into three portions, between the king, the priests, and the military, each party being bound to support its respective establishment by the produce. See the quotation from Diodorus Siculus, in the note on chap. xlvii. 23. It is certain, therefore, that the constitution of Egypt was considerably altered by Joseph, and there can be no doubt, that much additional power was, by this alteration, vested in the hands of the king; but as we do not find that any improper use was made of this power, we may rest assured that it was so qualified and restricted by wholesome regulations, though they are not here particularized, as completely to prevent all abuse of the regal power, and all tyrannical usurpation of popular rights. That the people were nothing but slaves, to the king, the military, and the priests, before, appears from the account given by Diodorus; each of the three estates probably allowing them a certain portion of land for their own use, while cultivating the rest for the use and emolument of their masters. Matters however became more regular under the administration of Joseph; and it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that previous to this, Egypt was without a fixed regular constitution, and that it was not the least of the blessings that it owed to the wisdom and prudence of Joseph, that he reduced it to a regular form of government, giving the people such an interest in the safety of the state, as was well calculated to ensure their exertions to defend the nation, and render the constitution fixed and permanent.

It is well known that Justin, one of the Roman historians, has made particular, and indeed honourable mention of Joseph's administration in Egypt, in the account he gives of Jewish affairs, lib. xxxvi. chap. 2. How the relation may have stood in Trogus Pompeius, from whose voluminous work in forty-four books or volumes, Justin abridged his history, we cannot tell, as the work of Trogus is irrecoverably lost; but it is evident, that the account was taken in the main from the Mosaic history, and it is written with as much candour as can be expected from a prejudiced and unprincipled heathen.

Minimus ætate inter fratres Joseph fuit, &c. "Joseph was the youngest of his brethren: who being envious of his excellent endowments, stole him, and privately sold him to a company of foreign merchants, by whom he was carried into Egypt, where having diligently cultivated magic arts, he became, in a short time, a prime favourite with the king himself. For he was the most sagacious of men, in explaining prodigies; and he was the first who constructed the science of interpreting dreams. Nor was there any thing relative to laws, human or divine, with which he seemed unacquainted; for he predicted a failure of the crops many years before it took place; and the inhabitants of Egypt must have been famished, had not the king, through his counsel, made an edict to preserve the fruits for several years. And his experiments were so powerful, that the responses appear to have been given not by man, but by God." Tantaque experimenta, ejus fuerunt, ut non ab homine, sed a Deo, responsa dari viderentur. I believe Justin refers here, in the word experimenta, to his figment of magical incantations, eliciting oracular answers. Others have translated the words: "So excellent were his regulations, that they seemed rather to be oracular responses, not given by man, but by God."

I have already compared Joseph with his father Jacob, see chap. xlviii. 12. and shall make no apology for having given the latter a most decided superiority. Joseph was great; but his greatness came through the interposition of