he was thrown into prison, where he most probably would have been forgotten, had he not, through God's grace, been enabled to interpret the dreams of two officers of the household, who were his fellow-prisoners. Joseph's skill in interpreting the dreams of one of these officers, who was soon after liberated, was remembered by him, and Joseph was recommended by him to the king, who had dreamed a dream that gave him much uneasiness, and which all the sages of Egypt were unable to interpret. Joseph explained the dream to the king in this way: (Gen. xli;) he said, that seven years of abundance would be followed by seven of famine; and so Pharaoh, in order to recompense Joseph, made him steward over his household, and 114. over all the land of Egypt, and he was next in consideration after the king. The event happened as Joseph had predicted, and the famine was also felt in the country inhabited by his family, so that they were obliged to come into Egypt to buy corn. (Gen. xlii.) Joseph took this opportunity of making his brothers sensible of the great crime they had committed in sacrificing him to their jealousy. He was unknown to them, as from his more

advanced age, the change of dress, and the pomp that surrounded him, they had no suspicion that he was the brother against whose life they had conspired, whilst he knew his brethren at once. Joseph, though he had compassion on them, and was in his mind not only determined to forgive them, but to furnish them with what they wanted, wished to combine these kind acts with apparent severity towards them, so as to excite them to repentance. He (Gen. xlii.) therefore accused them of being spies, and made them promise to bring back their brother Benjamin into Egypt, leaving Simeon bound as an hostage. Having done this, they were returning to their father Jacob, when Benjamin was accused of secreting Joseph's drinking cup, which had been introduced into his sack by order of Joseph, in order to try his brethren; who seeing the strait that Benjamin was brought into, and, moreover, that their father had said that, his grey hairs would be brought with sorrow to his grave, if mischief befel his youngest son, were so grieved, that Judah offered to die for Benjamin. Joseph was then so persuaded of their penitence, that he fell on their neck and

kissed them, (Gen. xlv.) he sent for his father Jacob into Egypt, and gave him the land of Goshen to dwell in.

The whole of the history of Joseph is related with so much simplicity and pathos, and is moreover so full of the proofs of the merciful dispensations of Providence, teaching us the great Christian duty of rendering good for evil, that it may be said to be one of the most interesting, as well as instructive, portions of the Old Testament.

the Israelites

(Exodus i.) The Israelites who came to Increase of Egypt with Jacob and his family, were in all in Egypt. seventy souls. They increased considerably, so that in 215 years they became a great nation. Pharaoh, one of the kings of Egypt of that name, wishing to reduce their numbers, imposed very hard and laborious tasks on them, and at last he had recourse to the 115. cruel measure of ordering all the male children B. C. 1571. of that nation to be drowned in the river Nile. Moses born. Moses was saved from destruction by the mercy of God, who reserved him to be his 116. lawgiver and the deliverer of his people. He was of the tribe of Levi, and was concealed for three months by his mother. But at last she was obliged to put the child into a cradle

made of bulrushes, and to leave him on the bank of the river, from which dangerous state he was saved by Pharaoh's daughter, who took care of the child, and called his name Moses, which means, saved from the

water.

(Exod. iii.) Moses, when he grew up, having gone into the country of the Midianites, (who were descended from Midian, a son of Abraham, by his second wife Keturah, and who had a knowledge of the true God) married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro. Whilst watching the flocks of his father-inlaw, he heard a voice speaking to him from a burning bush, which said to him, that the cries of the children of Israel had ascended to God, and that he had made choice of him to deliver them. God, therefore, having through many miracles (Exod. iv. v.) persuaded Moses that "He was with Him," joined Aaron his brother to him, and desired Moses to go to the king, and to command him in the name of God to let the Israelites depart from Egypt. Upon the refusal of Pharaoh, God empowered Moses to bring upon the country the plagues of Egypt. 117. But the king's heart was hardened, (Exod.

vii.) so that he would not let the people go. By which we are to understand, not that God did really work upon the heart of Pharaoh, but that the king, (as is the case with all wicked men,) though knowing right from wrong, chose, through the perverseness of his heart, to adopt the wrong course, and to disobey the commands of God. The last of 118. the plagues which caused the death of all the first born, even of the cattle of the Egyptians, at last forced from Pharaoh the consent that the people of Israel might depart. From the severity of this last visitation we may infer, how greatly the Egyptians had provoked the Almighty by their repeated rejections of his frequent warnings. In order that the destroying angel, who was to execute the vengeance (Exod. xii.) of the Lord over Egypt, might spare the Israelites, they were commanded to distinguish their places of abode by sprinkling their door-posts with the blood 119. of a lamb, which each family was ordered to kill and eat with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. And as a memorial of the haste with which they were to quit the country of their oppressors, they were to eat this meal standing and with their walking staves in their