Bibelkommentare

There Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and was buried below Bethel under an oak, which was henceforth called the “oak of weeping,” a mourning oak, from the grief of Jacob's house on account of her death. Deborah had either been sent by Rebekah to take care of her daughters-in-law and grandsons, or had gone of her own accord into Jacob's household after the death of her mistress. The mourning at her death, and the perpetuation of her memory, are proofs that she must have been a faithful and highly esteemed servant in Jacob's house.

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“ These are the princes of the Horites according to their princes, ” i.e., as their princes were individually named in the land of Seir. ל in enumerations indicates the relation of the individual to the whole, and of the whole to the individual.

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On their replying that they had dreamed, and there was no one to interpret the dream, Joseph reminded them first of all that “interpretations are God's,” come from God, are His gift; at the same time he bade them tell him their dreams, from a consciousness, no doubt, that he was endowed with this divine gift.

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“ Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold it was a dream.” The dream was so like reality, that in was only when he woke that he perceived it was a dream.

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Being troubled about this double dream, Pharaoh sent the next morning for all the scribes and wise men of Egypt, to have it interpreted. חרטתּים , from חרט a stylus (pencil), and the ίερογραμματεῖς , men of the priestly caste, who occupied themselves with the sacred arts and sciences of the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic writings, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, the foretelling of events, magic, and conjuring, and who were regarded as the possessors of secret arts (vid., Exodus 7:11) and the wise men of the nation. But not one of these could interpret it, although the clue to the interpretation was to be found in the religious symbols of Egypt. For the cow was the symbol of Isis, the goddess of the all-sustaining earth, and in the hieroglyphics it represented the earth, agriculture, and food; and the Nile, by its overflowing, was the source of the fertility of the land. But however simple the explanation of the fat and lean cows ascending out of the Nile appears to be, it is “the fate of the wisdom of this world, that where it suffices it is compelled to be silent. For it belongs to the government of God to close the lips of the eloquent, and take away the understanding of the aged (Job 12:20).” Baumgarten.

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As an installation in this post of honour, the king handed him his signet-ring, the seal which the grand vizier or prime minister wore, to give authority to the royal edicts (Esther 3:10), clothed him in a byssus dress ( שׁשׁ , fine muslin or white cotton fabric),

(Note: See my Bibl. Antiquities, §17, 5. The reference, no doubt, is to the ἐσθῆτα λινέην , worn by the Egyptian priests, which was not made of linen, but of the frutex quem aliqui gossipion vocant, plures xylon et ideo LINA inde facta xylina. Nec ulla sunt eis candore mollitiave praeferenda. - Vestes inde sacerdotibus Aegypti gratissimae . Plin. h.n. xix. 1.)

and put upon his neck the golden chain, which was usually worn in Egypt as a mark of distinction, as the Egyptian monuments show (Hgst. pp. 30, 31).

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He then had him driven in the second chariot, the chariot which followed immediately upon the king's state-carriage; that is to say, he directed a solemn procession to be made through the city, in which they (heralds) cried before him אברך (i.e., bow down), - an Egyptian word, which has been pointed by the Masorites according to the Hiphil or Aphel of בּרך . In Coptic it is abork, projicere, with the signs of the imperative and the second person. Thus he placed him over all Egypt. ונתון inf. absol. as a continuation of the finite verb (vid., Exodus 8:11; Leviticus 25:14, etc.).

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“ I am Pharaoh, ” he said to him, “ and without thee shall no man lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt; ” i.e., I am the actual king, and thou, the next to me, shalt rule over all my people.

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