The Chosen People | Page 5

to far more than his former
prosperity.
Jacob's name was changed to Israel, which meant a prince before God;
and his whole family were taken into the covenant, though the three
elder sons, for their crimes, forfeited the foremost places, which passed
to Judah and Joseph; and Levi was afterwards chosen as the tribe set
apart for the priesthood, the number twelve being made up by
reckoning Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, as heads of
tribes, like their uncles. Long ago, Abraham had been told that his seed
should sojourn in Egypt; and when the envious sons of Israel sold their
innocent brother Joseph, their sin was bringing about God's high
purpose. Joseph was inspired to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, which
foretold the famine; and when by-and-by his brothers came to buy the
corn that he had laid up, he made himself known, forgave them with all
his heart, and sent them to fetch his father to see him once more. Then
the whole family of Israel, seventy in number, besides their wives,

came and settled in the land of Goshen, about the year 1707, and were
there known by the name of Hebrews, after Heber, the great-grand-son
of Shem. There in Goshen, Jacob ended the days of his pilgrimage,
desiring his sons to carry his corpse back to the Cave of Machpelah,
there to be buried, and await their return when the time of promise
should come. He gave his blessing to all his sons, and was inspired to
mark out Joseph among them as the one whose children should have
the choicest temporal inheritance; but of the fourth son, he said, "The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his
feet, until Shiloh come." Shiloh meant Him that should be sent, and
Judah was thus marked out to be the princely tribe, which was to have
the rule until the Seed should come.

LESSON III.
EGYPT.
"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt."--Hosea, xi. 1.
The country where the Israelites had taken up their abode, was the
valley watered by the great river Nile. There is nothing but desert,
wherever this river does not spread itself, for it never rains, and there
would be dreadful drought, if every year, when the snow melts upon
the mountains far south, where is the source of the stream, it did not
become so much swelled as to spread far beyond its banks, and
overflow all the flat space round it. Then as soon as the water subsides,
the hot sun upon the mud that it has left brings up most beautiful grass,
and fine crops of corn with seven or nine ears to one stalk; grand fruits
of all kinds, melons, pumpkins, and cucumbers, flax for weaving linen,
and everything that a people can desire. Indeed, the water of the river is
so delicious, that it is said that those who have once tasted it are always
longing to drink it again.
The sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, who first found out this fertile
country, were a very clever race, and made the most of the riches of the

place. They made dykes and ditches to guide the floodings into their
fields and meadows; they cultivated the soil till it was one beautiful
garden; they wove their flax into fine linen; and they made bricks of
their soft clay, and hewed stone from the hills higher up the river, so
that their buildings have been the wonder of all ages since. They had
kings to rule them, and priests to guide their worship; but these priests
had very wrong and corrupt notions themselves, and let the poor
ignorant people believe even greater folly than they did themselves.
They thought that the great God lived among them in the shape of a
bull with one spot on his back like an eagle, and one on his tongue like
a beetle; and this creature they called Apis, and tended with the utmost
care. When he died they all went into mourning, and lamented till a calf
like him was found, and was brought home with the greatest honour;
and for his sake all cattle were sacred, and no one allowed to kill them.
Besides the good Power, they thought there was an evil one as strong as
the good, and they worshipped him likewise, to beg him to do them no
harm; so the dangerous crocodiles of the Nile were sacred, and it was
forbidden to put them to death. They had a dog-god and a cat-goddess,
and they honoured the beetle because they saw it rolling a ball of earth
in which to lay its eggs, and fancied it an emblem of eternity; and thus
all these creatures