The boredom of prison life had not dulled the quickness of Joseph's mind.He explained the dream with the greatest ease.This was his verdict.
“There will be seven years of plentiful harvests.These were represented by the seven fat cows and the seven ears of corn,growing on one stalk.They will be followed by seven years of starvation and hunger and the seven lean years will exhaust the grain that was grown during the seven good years.Let Your Majesty therefore appoint a wise man to administer the food supply of the country,for great will be the need when the time of famine comes.”
Pharaoh was greatly impressed.The young man seemed to have spoken with good sense.It was a time for quick action.
Then and there Pharaoh appointed the young foreigner to be his minister of agriculture.
As time went by,the powers of this office were greatly increased.At the end of seven years,the son of Jacob was the dictator of Egypt and ruled supreme in the land.He proved a faithful servant to his royal master.He built enormous granaries and filled them with extra corn against the coming of the evil days.
When at last,famine stalked through the land,Joseph was fully prepared.
The Egyptian peasants,who had lived from hand to mouth since the beginning of time,had never saved anything.To get food for themselves and their families,they were now obliged to give Pharaoh first their houses and then their cattle and finally they were forced to surrender their land.
At the end of the seven years,they had lost everything,and the King had got all the land from the coast of the Mediterranean to the Mountains of the Moon.
In this way,the old race of Egyptian freemen came to an end.It was the beginning of a slavery which lasted for almost forty centuries and which eventually caused more misery than a dozen famines.On the other hand,it kept the people alive,and it made Egypt the commercial centre of the civilised world.For the famine was international and Egypt was the only country that was prepared.
Babylonia and Assyria and the land of Canaan,they all suffered equally from drought and the grasshoppers and other insect pests.Everywhere the people were dying by the thousands.Whole regions were depopulated and children were sold into slavery to keep the parents alive.
Old Jacob,too,with his sons and all their families,soon felt the pangs of hunger.Until at last,in their despair,they decided to send some one to Egypt for a small supply of grain.Benjamin,the brother of Joseph,remained at home.The other ten sons took their donkeys and their empty sacks and went westward in search of help.
They crossed the desert of Sinai and at last they reached the banks of the Nile.There the Egyptian officials stopped them and took them before the viceroy.
Joseph immediately recognised the bedraggled wanderers as his brothers.But he did not betray his secret.He pretended he did not know the Jewish language.He told his interpreter to ask the newcomers who they were.
“Peaceful shepherds from the land of Canaan,in search of food for their old father,”was the answer.
“They were quite sure they were not spies sent out to learn about the defences of Egypt,so that a foreign invader might force his way into the country?”
They swore that they were quite innocent.They were just what they said.They belonged to a family of peaceful shepherds,twelve brothers who lived with their old father in the land of Canaan.
“Where were the other two?”
“One,alas!was dead.The other had remained at home to look after the father.”
Joseph pretended that he was not convinced.They had better all go back whence they came and bring that other brother to prove their words.For the Governor of Egypt had his doubts about the truth of their story.In some way or other,it did not sound quite right.
