This was not the effect of the new dream on Joseph's brothers: it only increased their hatred and envy of him. One day they drove the flocks to Shechem. And Jacob said to Joseph, Thy brethren are in Shechem, and I will send thee unto them. Joseph answered, "I am ready." "Go," continued Jacob, "see if your brethren are well, and if our sheep are well. Then come back and tell me."

Sometimes people part easily: when parting, they seem not to part, saying goodbye, they almost never say goodbye. And such a farewell is often a farewell forever; it is often followed by a long, sorrowful separation. The elder did not know, letting Joseph go, that he would not see his beloved son for a long, long time! Could he have thought that by sending Joseph to his brothers, he was sending him to murderers? He knew their hatred for the young man; but could it have occurred to him that this hatred would grow into a plan, into a conspiracy, into a determination to commit fratricide? The elder's gentleness was experienced kindness - not the childish kindness that Joseph was filled with, walking straight to the knife like a lamb. The wise Jacob, with all his spiritual success, with all the experience accumulated over many years of suffering, could not imagine that his violent sons were capable of the terrible crime of fratricide. It is characteristic of the holy not to think evil of one's neighbors; it tends to consider the most open, open villains less evil than they really are. And we see many holy people who have not been deceived by obvious sin, who have been deceived by much love and their trust in their neighbors. Old man! for a long time you will part with your beloved son Joseph! Thou hast the gift of prophecy and clairvoyance; but for this time God, Who incomprehensibly arranges the fate of man, has closed the future from you with an impenetrable veil. Thou hast sent Joseph away for a few days, and thou shalt see him after many years of sorrow. And he will see the land of Canaan, the place where your tabernacle is spread, when the days of your burial come, and only for the short days of this burial! His bones will be brought here; thither his numerous descendants shall return with them, and with an armed hand shall take possession of the inheritance of his forefather, now the youth Joseph.

Joseph went from his father's house from Hebron, and came to Shechem. His brothers were no longer there. He did not know where to find them and began to look for them and ask questions. Suddenly, a stranger met him and asked him who he was looking for. Joseph answered him: "I am looking for my brethren; tell me, do you not know where they are with their flocks?" The stranger answered: "They have departed from here; I heard them say among themselves, 'Let us go to Dothaim.'" According to this man, whom fate seemed to have deliberately brought to meet Joseph in order to direct him to his predestination, the young man again began to look for his brothers - the victim of his priests - and found them in Dothaim. From a distance they recognized him and began to conspire to kill him. In the assembly of the brothers, terrible words were heard about the brother: "Here comes a dreamer. Let us kill him and say: he was eaten by a predatory beast. Let's see what will happen to his dreams then!" But Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob, took him away from them. "Let us not kill him," he said to them, "with our own hands! Lower him into one of the ditches here; Do not lay your hands on him!" and Reuben, who had softened, thought to return his beloved son to the elder-father. They stripped Joseph of his motley clothes and threw him into a deep, dry well, alive in a terrible grave. In the pit of Joseph, in the jaws of death.. Holy youth, your spiritual experience begins with a difficult experience! Wondrous firmness of your soul, which has endured such fierce sorrow! Firmness in adversity is given by an immaculate, irreproachable conscience. Teach us to acquire both your purity and firmness - powerful supports for the heart in the vicissitudes of life.

Joseph in the ditch. What do the brothers do? they sat down to eat Ripened hatred.. When some passion matures in the soul, the soul no longer feels its mortal illness. It is more terrible to be with the heart in this depth of malice than with the body, with the angelic soul in a deep pit. The sons of Jacob committed an evil deed, as if they had fulfilled their duty: so much was their hatred for their brother. And gray eat bread [31], says the Scriptures.

When this meal was served, of course, nothing good was present at it. It was carried out violently. How else could the murderers have dined? Loud laughter broke the terrible silence: it was the laughter of a soul that has thrown off the garment of modesty, enjoys the assimilated, satiated malice. From time to time, infernal words jumped out - as if from a dark abyss - from hearts that had decided to fratricide. The faces of the diners were gloomy and bestial. Their sight and hearing wandered sullenly, wildly everywhere. Prudence no longer ruled here. What prudence! When the passions take possession of a person, then the mind, deprived of dominion, serves as an obsequious and inventive servant of the passions to satisfy their cunning, capricious, criminal demands.

The sons of Jacob are feasting over the grave with the living dead, and now their darting eyes suddenly see travelers. They were Ishmaelites, merchants. They appeared from Gilead, on the road to Egypt. Their camels were abundantly loaded with styrax [fragrant resin. - Ed.], balm and frankincense: these goods they brought to Egypt for sale. At a frantic meal, a voice was heard: "What does it profit us if we kill our brother and hide his blood? Let's sell it to these Ishmaelites! But let not our hands be upon him: for he is our brother and our flesh!" Judas offered to sell a righteous brother. Many centuries later, another Judas will appear, he will say about another Righteous One, about the God-Man Himself: "What do you want to give me, and I will deliver Him to you?" [32]

The gold coins began to ring, Joseph had already been pulled out of the well and hastily sold to the Arabians. Not a single controversial word about the price or the prisoner was uttered on either side. The Scriptures would not have been silent about the word worthy of memory, if it had been spoken. The Scriptures in this story also convey those words that are in any way worthy of remark. There were twenty of them. How similar this ringing is to the ringing of thirty pieces of silver.. Blessed young man, sold for twenty gold pieces! thou hast been deemed worthy to be the transformation of Him Who was sold for thirty pieces of silver!

Reuben was not at dinner. He was not a participant in the criminal intent and conspiracy, nor was he at the feast at which the successful villainy was celebrated. Secretly he came to the moat and called the buried. There is no answer. Again he is calling, there is no answer! In despair, he tears his clothes, runs to his brothers, says to them: "There is no young man in the ditch! Where will I go now?.." In response, the gold coins sounded. There were twenty of them: the nine brothers who were present at the sale proved that they had not forgotten the missing tenth. Meanwhile, the sons of Jacob were thinking of how to hide their deed with Joseph from the elder father. They slaughtered the kid, stained the motley clothes in its blood, and sent it to the father with a stern question: "We have found this; Know whether this is your son's garment or not?" "He recognized her; He said, "This is my son's garment: has the fierce beast eaten it? A fierce beast has stolen Joseph!" Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son for many days. Sons and daughters gathered to him; they consoled the elder. But he did not want to be comforted, he said: "I will go down with groaning to my son into hell." He repeated these words for a long time and wept for a long time.

The Ishmaelites brought Joseph to Egypt [33]; there they resold it to Pentephrius, to the nobles of Pharaoh - the kings of Egypt were called pharaohs - to the commander of the king's bodyguard. And the Lord was with Joseph, mysteriously watching over him, helping him. Soon the lord noticed the blessing of heaven over his servant and loved him very much. The consequence of this special love was that Pentephrius entrusted Joseph with the administration of all his household and all his possessions. The Lord, for Joseph's sake, blessed the inheritance of the Egyptian: the grace of God was poured out on all his possessions, on his house and on his fields. Pentephrius gave himself up to his disposition with all careless credulity, he did not even inspect anything himself, did not pay attention to anything. Joseph was very stately and handsome. His beauty attracted the eyes of his wife Pentephrius. Passion seized her: openly, directly she declared her passion to the young man. The young man did not agree to lawlessness. He admonished his wife, who was burning with insane and criminal lust; he said to her: "My lord has so entrusted himself to me, and has so rested in my cares, that he does not even know anything that is in his house. He has delivered all his goods indistinctly into my hands: in his house there is no one higher than me; everything is in my possession except you, his wife. How then shall I act according to thy words? How can I sin against God?" - The wicked wife does not hear the wise words of the son of Jacob: the passion that has taken possession of her says something else in her. She hears only the voice of passion: Joseph's words flew past her ears like empty sounds without meaning or significance. From time to time the wife repeats the proposal, always with the same open, fiery insolence. One day Joseph was studying in the house according to his office; it happened that there was no one from the household, except the mistress. She grabs him by the clothes, begs him, demands that her wish be immediately fulfilled. Joseph escapes from her arms and runs away; his outer garment remained in the hands of the Egyptian woman. Unsatisfied criminal love suddenly turns into frenzied hatred: the one who sought to enjoy the delights of beautiful flesh for a minute is now frantically thirsty to drink blood. A frenzied Egyptian woman cries, with a loud screech and scream, calls her family. They come running. "Behold," said the Egyptian woman, "this young Hebrew has been brought into our house to mock us.. He came to me, he said to me, I cried out with a loud voice, when I heard my cry, he fled from me, behold, his outer garment is in my hands!" Once again, the garment is a mute, heard false witness against Joseph. When the nobleman returned, his wife told him the event. She spoke piteously and quietly: "A young Jew came to me, whom you brought to us to dishonor us, and offered me iniquity. When I screamed loudly, he ran away, leaving his outer garment with me." Hearing a plausible legend, in which the simplicity and coldness of the story were skilfully concealed by a terrible spiritual storm and infernal slander, seeing in the hands of his wife the proof of the incident - Joseph's clothes - proof against which, apparently, there was no refutation, Pentephrius became very indignant. He recognized the questioning and the trial as superfluous, unnecessary, so the slave's crime was clear, vivid, and obvious in his eyes. He ordered Joseph to be thrown into the prison in which the state criminals were kept - into a stronghold: this is how the Scriptures call this prison.

The Lord, who had chosen Joseph from the days of his childhood, the Lord who had helped him in captivity and in the house of Pentephrius, did not leave him in prison. The heart of the prison governor was well disposed towards Joseph: he entrusted the young prisoner with the entire prison, all the prisoners imprisoned in it, and, like Pentephrius, he rested with all his trust in the care of Joseph. After some time, two of his nobles sinned before the Egyptian king: the elder cupbearer and the elder over the bread [34]. The angry Pharaoh imprisoned them in the same prison in which Joseph was kept. The captain of the prison entrusted them to Joseph. When they had been in prison for several days, each of them had a dream on the same night. In the morning, Joseph came to them and noticed that they were both confused. He asks the nobles of Pharaoh: "Why is there sorrow on your faces?" They answer: "Each of us has had a dream, but there is no one to interpret our dreams." Joseph said, "Does not God give the gift of explaining the dreams that are sent from Him? Tell me your dreams." From Joseph's words one can see his spiritual progress, the fruit of temptations. When he had dreams as a child, he felt only that there was a meaning in them, and he recounted them to his father and brothers, as if seeking an explanation, but not daring to add any interpretation. And here, as soon as he heard that the elders had dreamed, he already hoped to find the solution of his mysterious dreams in God, to Whom he had drawn near, to Whom he had assimilated through sorrows, faith, purity, and prayer. Dreams led him into the furnace of sorrows; dreams will lead him out of this furnace, into which Providence usually plunges people destined for great deeds. The elder cupbearer began to tell his dream: "I dreamed," he said, "that before me was a vineyard; in the garden I see three vines, juicy, sprouting and giving ripe fruit. Pharaoh's cup was in my hand. I took a bunch of grapes, squeezed the juice into a bowl and gave it to Pharaoh." Joseph answered, "This is the meaning of this dream: three vines for three days. Three more days will pass, and Pharaoh will remember you, and restore you to your former rank as cupbearer: you will give the cup to Pharaoh as before. Then, in thy well-being, remember me. Have mercy on me: tell Pharaoh about me and lead me out of these gloomy walls. I was stolen from the Jewish land and did nothing wrong here, and I was cast into this terrible prison." The elder above the barns, hearing the favorable interpretation, also related his dream to Joseph: "And I," he said, "have had a dream. I imagined that I was holding three baskets of bread on my head. In the upper basket were all kinds of biscuits used by the pharaoh. All of a sudden, birds swooped in, started pecking at cookies." Joseph answered: "This is the meaning of the dream: three baskets - three days. Three more days will pass, and Pharaoh will take your head off you. thy corpse shall be hanged on a tree; the birds of the air shall devour thy body." The third day came: it was Pharaoh's birthday. He gave a feast to his courtiers; In conversation with them, the king remembered the two imprisoned elders: he restored the former dignity to the elder cupbearer, and he again began to give the cup to Pharaoh, and ordered the elder over the granaries to be executed, according to Joseph's prediction. And the cupbearer elder forgot about Joseph. The righteous man also needed to languish in prison! He also needed solitude and the darkness of prison, so that his soul would sink deeper into prayer, with it it would draw even closer to God, and be illumined even more brightly by spiritual reason.

Two years have passed, and Pharaoh has a dream [35]. It seemed to him that he was standing by the river: seven cows, fat and beautiful, came out of the river, and began to walk along the coastal pasture. Behind them, seven other cows, skinny and unpleasant-looking, came out of the river, and also began to walk with the first along the bank of the river. Suddenly, the lean cows devoured the fat ones, and it was not noticeable that the fat ones rose in them: they retained their former appearance of exhaustion. Pharaoh woke up. Then he falls asleep again, sees another dream: he sees that seven ears of corn filled with ripe grains grew from one stalk, and after them grew another seven ears, thin, as if dried up by heat and wind. These thin ears of corn swallowed up the first seven full ears. Pharaoh woke up, his soul was troubled; when morning came, he ordered all the scholars and sages of Egypt to be summoned and told them his dream. But they could not interpret the dream, which made the king thoughtful and embarrassed. Then the elder cupbearer said to Pharaoh, "Now I remember my transgression! And when thou, O king, was angry with thy servants, with me, and with the elder over the granaries, and commanded us to be locked up in prison, which was in the house of the chief of the guards, each of us, on the same night, had a dream. There was a young Jew with us, a slave to the chief of the bodyguard; We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them. I was predicted to be restored to my dignity, and my comrade to be executed. And so it happened to both of us."

Pharaoh sent to prison for Joseph and ordered him to be brought to him. They led Joseph out of the stronghold: the hand of God brought him out. According to the custom of the country, they cut off his hair, changed his clothes: he appeared before the face of Pharaoh. The Egyptian king told him his dreams and complained about the wise men that they could not interpret these visions. "I have heard of you," Pharaoh said to Joseph, "that you explain dreams when they are told to you." Joseph answered, "Without God, Pharaoh cannot get a satisfactory answer." Unwittingly, Joseph reveals his spiritual state! He confesses a manifest, miraculous, essential Divine action, the action of the Holy Spirit, independent of man, visiting man according to the Higher Will and revealing mysteries to him. This invisible communion with God, this grace-filled action was felt in Joseph in his soul: to such a height of spiritual progress was raised his constancy in virtue, calamities, sufferings, or, more correctly, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which constantly overshadows the virtuous, and especially the innocent sufferers. "Both of your dreams," he said to Pharaoh, "have the same meaning; Your dreams are one dream. Seven fat cows portend seven years of fertility; seven full ears of grain portend the same. Seven lean cows and seven ears of withered corn mean seven years of hunger. God shows Pharaoh what He intended to do. Seven years will come: during them there will be abundant harvests in Egypt. The other seven years will come, and because of their poverty the abundance of the first seven years will be forgotten. Famine will afflict and destroy the earth. The very traces of the preceding abundance will be blotted out by the poverty that follows it, because the famine will be very strong. Pharaoh's dream was repeated twice: this is a confirmation of God's utterance and a sign that God will hasten the fulfillment of His decree. Tsar! look for a reasonable man among you, and entrust him with the land of Egypt. Let a fifth of the total harvest be gathered in seven fruitful years; The harvested wheat should come under the jurisdiction of the pharaoh and be stored in the cities. In this way, grain reserves will be built up for seven years of poor harvests, and the land will not perish of hunger." - Pharaoh and those around him liked Joseph's words. Pharaoh said to them, "Where then shall we find another man who has the Spirit of God in him like this?" Then, turning to Joseph, he said to him, "God reveals mysteries to you, and therefore there is no man who can compare with you in wisdom and understanding. Be thou the head of my house, let all my people obey thee. Will I be one throne higher than you? I set thee over all the land of Egypt."

Pharaoh took the ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, dressed him in scarlet clothes, put a golden grivna on him and commanded him to be put on his second chariot: in it the new dignitary was carried through the city; a herald walked in front of the chariot, announcing to the people the dignity and authority of Joseph. Then Joseph was thirty years old. Pharaoh married his confidant to Asenech, the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis, and renamed him, calling him Psomphomphanikh. What would this name mean? It means the Savior of the world [36]. Joseph foreshadowed the descent of the God-Man to earth to the fallen and lost human race, when he was sent by his father to his brothers, who were tending cattle far from their father's tabernacle. He foreshadowed Him when He was sold by His brothers to foreigners. He foreshadowed His burial by His imprisonment in prison; by his sudden exaltation and glory he foreshadowed the glory of his resurrection. The daughter of a priest of Heliopolis, who entered into marriage with Joseph, prefigured the Church of Christ, which was composed of pagans. The salvation of the people from death foreshadowed the salvation of mankind from eternal death. The Giver of material bread was a prefiguration of the One Who came down from heaven and the Giver of this heavenly bread [37]. From the midst of the mysterious Old Testament transformations, for the first time, a consoling name was heard: the Savior of the world! Wonderfully did God's Providence foreshadow the great work of God, the redemption of mankind, with Biblical foreshadows. At what a distance of time these shadows began to appear! How vividly they depicted the truth! what mystery they were covered with for their contemporaries! How clear they became is evident when God revealed to men the understanding of His inspired Scriptures.

Joseph began to fulfill the duties to which God Himself had called him and which, according to the dispensation of God, the ruler of Egypt had entrusted to him. He undertook a journey throughout Egypt and, surveying the country, made the necessary orders. The land yielded a bountiful harvest for seven years. During these seven years, Joseph accumulated grain reserves, which he kept in the cities under reliable supervision and guards in extensive storerooms. He gathered innumerable quantities of wheat: it lay in folded places, like mountains of sand. During the same fertile seven years, Asenetha gave birth to two sons. Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh. Calling it so, he included in the name of his eldest son a deep thought: God has arranged me so that I have forgotten my sufferings. The second he called Ephraim, connecting with this name another deep and pious thought: God has raised me up in the land of my humility. Such thoughts contain these names in their meaning in the Hebrew language [38].