Why is my heart so cold! And yet no sorrow flow, That they their Saviour's love ne'er feel, When wandering in my sin, And gave me peace within : Bade me on Jesus' blood rely, Why is my heart so cold! When Jesus once drew near Jerusalem of old, He shed the sorrowing tear, That Israel would not gathered be, Let not my heart be cold; But while I may rejoice This Saviour to behold, Oh! let my heart and voice Ascend to Israel's God above, That they may see, believe, and love. *Matt. xxiii. 36, 37. ERRATA. In page 33 of the February number, lines 5 and 6, for head read heart. Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London. THE JEWISH ADVOCATE. APRIL, 1846. BIBLE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. WHEN Pharaoh hears of all these things, he also will have Jacob come down to Goshen. And so the brothers return to fetch him. At first Jacob's "heart fainted, for he believed them not," but at length he believes: he sets forth, he and all his, to see his son Joseph before he dies. And as he came down to Egypt, Joseph went up in his chariot to meet him, and "fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while." He brought him to Pharaoh; and Pharaoh honoured Jacob, and settled him and his tribe in that part of Lower Egypt called Goshen,* a land rich in *In the year 2159, Egypt was invaded by a tribe of Cushite shepherds from Arabia, who, for 260 years, ruled them with the greatest cruelty and oppression. At length the princes of Upper Egypt rebelled, and succeeded in throwing off the yoke of these shepherd kings. They withdrew to Palestine, where they became the Philistines. Goshen, or the land of Rameses, was the first district of which they possessed themselves in Egypt, and the last which they abandoned; and, as this event is supposed to have taken place only about twenty-seven years before Joseph was made ruler over the land of Egypt, we may easily understand why the family of Israel, because they were "shepherds," should be an abomination to the streams and pastures, where Jacob's flocks and herds throve greatly, and he and his soon became a great people. Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years. When the time drew near that he must die, one told Joseph, "Behold thy father is sick :" and Joseph took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and went down to Jacob in Goshen. "And one told Israel, Behold thy son Joseph cometh unto thee. And Jacob strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed." His eyes were dim, so that he could not distinguish between Manasseh and Ephraim; but Joseph brought them near to him, and "he kissed them, and embraced them," and blessed them solemnly. He adopted them into the rank and privileges of his own sons, making each of them the head of a tribe, and calling down the blessing of Abraham upon the lads. All this he prayed, laying a hand upon the head of each; but Joseph was troubled to see that he laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim the younger, and blessed him first, and his left on that of Manasseh the elder. Joseph thought Jacob did this unwittingly; because of the dimness of his eyes; and he strove to change Jacob's hands, and get the right hand laid on Manasseh. But Jacob would not. "I knew it, my son," he said, "I knew it; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he." Jacob had received the blessing of the first-born unawares to his father; and he now wittingly transferred it to the younger of his grandsons. Egyptians. So they awarded to them the land of Goshen as a dwelling-place, because they might not live together. And so with his sons. The twelve Patriarchs gather round their father's bed to hear his last words, and to receive his blessing. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, are passed over with reproof; and the blessing of the first-born is transferred to Judah. He it is whom his brethren shall praise, to him shall his father's children bow down, kings shall come of him, and a greater than kings shall be born of his tribe. It is declared, that "the sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." This prophecy was looked upon by all the ancient Jews as applying to the Messiah. From the time of David till the captivity, the kingly power rested in the tribe of Judah. Afterwards there were governors of that tribe, till Judea became a province of the Roman empire, just at the time of our Saviour's birth. It has now no earthly king, no visible prince, and its present condition is a proof that the "Shiloh,"-He who was to be sent, the Messiah, is already come. Although broken and dispersed, the glory of the tribe of Judah has yet to be revealed, for its king yet reigns in the person of that Divine child born in the city of David, "which is Christ the Lord;" "unto whom shall the gathering of the people be!" To all his sons Jacob spoke some fitting word, telling of their future lot. And to Joseph were promised blessings of heaven above, and of the deep that lieth under. Blessings above all his progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills, were to crown the head of him that was separate from his brethren. And so, having "made an end of commanding his sons," and charged them to bury him with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah, "Israel gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." 66 Jacob's body was embalmed after the Egyptian manner, and a mourning of seventy days made among the Egyptian people, as over some great Prince of the land. And then Joseph, with all his brethren, with his chariots, and Pharaoh's servants, a very great company," went up with the body to Canaan, and laid it in the cave of Machpelah, "with a very great and sore lamentation," that lasted seven days. And after that Joseph returned with his brethren to Egypt. They were afraid that now their father was dead, Joseph would visit upon them their old injury to himself; but, on the contrary, he "spake kindly to them," and nourished them in the land of Goshen as before. Joseph proved himself a most active minister to Pharaoh. For when the people had spent all their money in buying corn during the famine, he took of them their cattle in exchange; and when their cattle were all gone, he took their land in exchange. So that, at the end of the seven years of famine, the Egyptian people had neither land to till, nor cattle to till it with; all was Pharaoh's. Then Joseph gave them corn to sow the land; they should have four parts of the produce, but the fifth part should be due to Pharaoh, in token that they owed all to him. Only the priests were free from this tribute; for their land had never been sold to Pharaoh. Joseph did not live so long as his ancestors had lived; nor so long as his brothers. But he lived to see his son Ephraim's children of the |
