The news that Joseph’s brethren had come to Egypt pleased Pharaoh, so grateful was the King for the preservation of his kingdom.  He could not do enough for such a benefactor.  “Say to thy brethren, lade your beasts and go, and take your father and your households, and come unto me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.”  And the King commanded them to take his wagons to transport their families and goods.  Joseph also gave to each one of them changes of raiment, and to Benjamin three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of raiment, and ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt for their father, and ten she-asses laden with corn.  As they departed, he archly said unto them, “See that ye fall not out by the way!”

And when they arrived at Canaan, and told their father all that had happened and all that they had seen, he fainted.  The news was too good to be true; he would not believe them.  But when he saw the wagons his spirit revived, and he said, “It is enough.  Joseph my son is yet alive.  I will go and see him before I die.”  The old man is again young in spirit.  He is for going immediately; he could leap,—­yea, fly.

To Egypt, then, Israel with his sons and his cattle and all his wealth hastened.  His sons are astonished at the providence of God, so clearly and impressively demonstrated on their behalf.  The reconciliation of the family is complete.  All envy is buried in the unbounded prosperity of Joseph.  He is now too great for envy.  He is to be venerated as the instrument of God in saving his father’s house and the land of Egypt.  They all now bow down to him, father and sons alike, and the only strife now is who shall render him the most honor.  He is the pride and glory of his family, as he is of the land of Egypt, and of the household of Pharaoh.

In the hospitality of the King, and his absence of jealousy of the nomadic people whom he settled in the most fertile of his provinces, we see additional confirmation of the fact that he was one of the Shepherd Kings.  The Pharaoh of Joseph’s time seems to have affiliated with the Israelites as natural friends,—­to assist him in case of war.  All the souls that came into Egypt with Jacob were seventy in number, although some historians think there was a much larger number.  Rawlinson estimates it at two thousand, and Dean Payne Smith at three thousand.

Jacob was one hundred and thirty years of age when he came to dwell in the land of Goshen, and he lived seventeen years in Egypt.  When he died, Joseph was about fifty years old, and was still in power.

It was the dying wish of the old patriarch to be buried with his fathers, and he made Joseph promise to carry his bones to the land of Canaan and bury them in the sepulchre which Abraham had bought,—­even the cave of Machpelah.