On his death-bed Joseph took an oath of his brethren, and he bade them
on their death-bed likewise take an oath of their sons, to carry his
bones to Palestine, when God should visit them and bring them up out of
the land of Egypt. He said: "I that am a ruler could take my father's
body up to the Holy Land while it was still intact. Of you I do but
make the request that ye carry my bones from hence, and you may inter
them in any spot in Palestine, for I know that the burial-place of the
fathers was appointed to be the tomb only of the three Patriarchs and
their three wives."
Joseph took the oath, to carry his remains along with them when they
left Egypt, from his brethren, and not from his sons, to bury him at
once in Palestine, for he feared the Egyptians would not give the
latter permission to transport his bones even if they recalled what
Joseph had been allowed to do with his father's body. They would object
that Joseph had been the viceroy, and a wish preferred by one of so
high an estate could not be denied.[433] Furthermore, he adjured his
brethren not to leave Egypt until a redeemer should appear and announce
his message with the words, "Pakod— I have surely visited you"—a
tradition which Joseph had received from his father, who bad it from
Isaac, and Isaac in turn had beard it from Abraham.[434] And he told
them that God would redeem Israel through Moses as through the Messiah,
in this world as in the world to come, and the Egyptian redemption
would begin in Tishri, when Israel would be freed from slave labor, and
would be completed in the following Nisan, when they would leave
Egypt.[435]
Joseph also admonished his brethren to walk in the ways of the Lord, so
that they might become worthy of His grace and help. Especially he
impressed upon his brethren and his sons the virtue of chastity and a
steadfast moral life. He told them all that had happened to him, the
hatred of his brethren, the persecutions of the wife of Potiphar, the
slander, envy, and malice of the Egyptians, to show how that those who
fear the Lord are not forsaken by Him in darkness, or bondage, or
tribulation, or distress. "I was sold into slavery," he said, "but the
Lord delivered me; I was thrown into prison, but His strong hand helped
me. I was tortured by hunger, but the Lord Himself gave me sustenance.
I was alone, and God comforted me. And as for you, if ye will walk in
the ways of chastity and purity in patience and humility of heart, the
Lord will dwell among you, for He loveth a chaste life, and if you, my
children, will observe the commandments of the Lord, He will raise you
up here, in this world, and bless you there, in the world to come. If
men seek to do evil unto you, pray for them, and you will be delivered
from all evil by the Lord. On account of my forbearing patience I
received the daughter of my master to wife, and her dowry was a hundred
talents of gold, and God gave me also beauty like the beauty of a
flower, more than all the children of Jacob, and He preserved me unto
mine old age in vigor and beauty, for in all things did I resemble
Jacob."
Joseph continued and told them the visions he had had, in which the
future of Israel was revealed to him, and then he closed with the
words: "I know that the Egyptians will oppress you after my death, but
God will execute vengeance for your sakes, and He will lead you to the
land of promise of your fathers. But ye shall surely carry my bones
with you from hence, for if my remains are taken to Canaan, the Lord
will be with you in the light, and Behar will be with the Egyptians in
the darkness. Also take with you the bones of your mother Zilpah, and
bury them near the sepulchre of Bilhah and Rachel."
These words ended, he stretched out his feet, and slept his last
eternal sleep, and the whole of Israel mourned him, and the whole of
Egypt was in great grief, for he had been a compassionate friend to the
Egyptians, too, and he had done good unto them, and given them wise
counsel and assistance in all their undertakings.[436]
Joseph's wish, that his bones should rest in the Holy Land, was
fulfilled when the Israelites went forth from Egypt, and no less a
personage than Moses applied himself to its execution. Such was
Joseph's reward for the devotion he had displayed in the interment of
his father's body, for he had done all things needful himself, leaving
naught to others. Therefore so great a man as Moses busied himself with
the realization of Joseph's wish.[437]
For three days and three nights preceding the exodus Moses hunted up
and down through the land of Egypt for Joseph's coffin, because he knew
that Israel could not leave Egypt without heeding the oath given to
Joseph. But his trouble was in vain; the coffin was nowhere to be
found. Serah, the daughter of Asher, met Moses, tired and exhausted,
and in answer to her question about the cause of his weariness, he told
her of his fruitless search. Serah took him to the Nile river, and told
him that the leaden coffin made for Joseph by the Egyptians had been
sunk there after having been scaled up on all sides. The Egyptians had
done this at the instigation and with the help of the magicians, who,
knowing that Israel could not leave the country without the coffin, had
used their arts to put it in a place whence it could not be
removed.[438]
Moses now took Joseph's cup, and he cut four flat pieces from it, and
engraved a lion on one of them, an eagle on the second, a bull on the
third, and a human figure on the fourth. He threw the first, with the
lion, into the river, saying at the same time, "Joseph, Joseph, the
hour for the redemption of Israel hath arrived, the Shekinah lingers
here only for thy sake, the clouds of glory await thy coming. If thou
wilt show thyself, well and good; if not, then we are clear from our
oath." But the coffin did not appear.
Then Moses threw the second plate into the water, that with the figure
of the eagle, repeating the same words, but again the coffin did not
rise from the bed of the Nile, and there it remained, too, when he
threw in the third plate bearing the figure of the bull, and called
upon Joseph a third time to come forth. But the fourth plate with the
human figure and the fourth invocation to Joseph brought the coffin to
the surface of the water. Moses seized it, and in joy he bore it
off.[439] While Israel had been busy gathering gold and silver from the
Egyptians, Moses had been thinking of nothing but Joseph's coffin, and
his happiness was great that he had been permitted to fulfil the wish
of Joseph.[440]
During the forty years of wandering through the desert, the coffin was
in the midst of Israel, as a reward for Joseph's promise to his
brethren, "I will nourish you and take care of you." God had said, "As
thou livest, for forty years they will take care of thy bones."[441]
All this time in the desert Israel carried two shrines with them, the
one the coffin containing the bones of the dead man Joseph, the other
the Ark containing the covenant of the Living God. The wayfarers who
saw the two receptacles wondered, and they would ask, "How doth the ark
of the dead come next to the ark of the Ever-living?" The answer was,
"The dead man enshrined in the one fulfilled the commandments enshrined
in the other. In the latter it is written, I am the Lord thy God, and
he said, Am I in the place of God? Here it is written, Thou shalt have
no other gods before My face, and he said, I fear God. Here it is
written, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, and
therefore he did not swear by God, but said, By the life of Pharaoh.
Here it is written, Remember the Sabbath day, and he said to the
overseer of his palace on Friday, Slay and make ready, meaning for the
Sabbath. Here it is written, Honor thy father and thy mother, and he
said, when his father desired to send him to his brethren, Here am I,
although he knew it was perilous for him to go. Here it is written,
Thou shalt not kill, and he refrained from murdering Potiphar when
Potiphar's wife urged him to do it. Here it is written, Thou shalt not
commit adultery, and he scorned the adulterous proposals of Potiphar's
wife. Here it is written, Thou shalt not steal, and he stole nothing
from Pharaoh, but gathered up all the money and brought it unto
Pharaoh's house. Here it is written, Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor, and he told his father nothing of what his
brethren had done to him, though what he might have told was the truth.
Here it is written, Thou shalt not covet, and he did not covet
Potiphar's wife."[442]
On their arrival in the Holy Land, the Israelites buried the bones of
Joseph in Shechem, for God spake to the tribes, saying, "From Shechem
did ye steal him, and unto Shechem, shall ye return him."[443]
God, who is so solicitous about the dead bodies of the pious, is even
more solicitous about their souls, which stand before Him like angels,
and do their service ministering unto Him.[444]
II
THE SONS OF JACOB