Study Desk

When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, We will not hide from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not aught left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies and our lands:

Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion [assigned them] by Pharaoh, and ate their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands.

And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions in it and grew, and multiplied exceedingly.

And now, thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to thee in the land of Egypt, before I came to thee into Egypt, [are] mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

And Joseph said to his father, They [are] my sons, whom God hath given me in this [place]. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, to me, and I will bless them.

O my soul, come not thou into their secret; to their assembly, my honor, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall.

The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

(There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah,)

And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen.

And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which [is] beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This [is] a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which [is] beyond Jordan.

And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will perhaps hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did to him.

And they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, Thy father commanded before he died, saying,

So shall ye say to Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did to thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

And his brethren also went and fell down before his face: and they said, Behold, we [are] thy servants.

So Joseph died, [being] a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Come, let us deal wisely with them: lest they multiply, and it shall come to pass, that when there falleth out any war, they will join with our enemies, and fight against us, and depart from the land.

Therefore they set over them task-masters, to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom, and Raamses.

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.