Joseph in Egypt

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 20, 1880

JOSEPH IN EGYPT.—Mr. Brugsch, a German, who has spent many years in Egypt, and is familiar with the language of the hieroglyphics, finds therein many proofs of the accuracy of the Bible account of Joseph's life in Egypt. Pharaoh has proclaimed before him "bow the knee," a word still retained in the hieroglyphic dictionary, and adopted by the Egyptians to express their feeling of reverence at the sight of an important person or object.

He bestowed on Joseph the high dignity of a Zophnatpaneakh, "governor of the Sethroitic name." The offices which Joseph attributed to himself, before his family, were of Egyptian origin, and well known at that time. The name of his wife is pure Egyptian, and almost entirely confined to the old and middle empire. The father of his wife is a pure Egyptian.

Mr. Brugsch finds also the record of a famine in the inscriptions, which, as famines were almost unknown in Egypt, he thinks must be identical with the one recorded in Genesis. A hieroglyphic record reads, "I collected the harvest, a friend of the harvest-god. I was watchful at the time of sowing. And now when a famine arose, lasting many years, I issued out corn to the city to each hungry person,"