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 commit fratricide. {p. 20} Gloomy, bestial were the faces of the diners. 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, balsam, and frankincense, which they carried 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! And 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 boxes rang out... Joseph had already been pulled out of the well and hastily sold to the Arabs. 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. Zlatnitsa are sounding... 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. Calling again... There is no answer! In despair, he tears his clothes, runs to his brothers, says to them: "There is no young man in the pit! Where will I go now?.." There were twenty of them: the nine brothers who were present at the sale proved that they had not forgotten the missing tenth. {p. 21} Meanwhile, the sons of Jacob were contriving a way to conceal from the elder-father their deed with Joseph. 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 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 to hell with groaning to my son." 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 chief 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 before God?" — The criminal wife does not hear the wise words of the son of Jacob: the passion that has taken possession of her says something else. 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 engaged in the house according to {p. 22} of 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. "Look," said the Egyptian woman to them, "this young Hebrew has been brought into our house to mock us.. He came to me... He told me... I screamed in a loud voice... when he heard my cry, he fled from me... behold his outer garment in my hands!" Once again, the clothes are mute, heard false witnesses 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 story, in which the simplicity and coldness of the story were skilfully concealed by a terrible storm of soul 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 was greatly 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 (p. 23} locked them up 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 hears that the elders have had a dream, he already hopes to find the solution of his mysterious dreams in God, to Whom he has drawn near, to Whom he has 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 thrown into this terrible prison." The elder above the granaries, hearing the favorable interpretation, also related his dream to Joseph: "And I," he said, "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. Suddenly, birds flew in and started pecking at cookies." Joseph answered: "Here 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 will eat up your body." The third day came: it was Pharaoh's birthday. He gave a feast to his courtiers; {p. 24} In conversation with them, the king remembered the two imprisoned elders: he restored the elder Cupbearer to his former rank, 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 passed, and Pharaoh had 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 cupbearer elder 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 rank, 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 king of Egypt told him his dreams and complained of 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: his constancy in virtue, calamities, sufferings, or more correctly, the grace of the Holy Spirit, constantly overshadowing the virtuous, and especially the innocent sufferers, raised him to such a height of spiritual progress. "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 from hunger." "Pharaoh and those around him liked Joseph's words. Pharaoh said to them, "Where can we find another man who, like this, has the Spirit of God in him?" 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, clothed him in scarlet clothes, put a golden grivna on him {p. 26} 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 Psomphomphanichus. 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 profound thought: {p. 27} God has so arranged me 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].

Seven years of fertility have passed, as everything that is subject to time passes; The years of famine came. According to Joseph's prediction, a famine began to rage throughout the land. The people of Egypt cried out to Pharaoh, asking for bread. Pharaoh answered his subjects: "Go to Joseph and do what he tells you." "Joseph opened the spare granaries and began to sell grain to the Egyptians from there. Famine raged over the face of the earth. The inhabitants of neighboring countries, hearing that corn was sold in Egypt, and, oppressed by hunger, began to come to Egypt to buy wheat. A wise, prudent ruler prepared spare bread in an amount capable not only of feeding his own people, but also of attracting money from other peoples to the Egyptian state.

Among the other lands oppressed by famine, the land of Canaan languished. The family of the holy patriarch also suffered a lack of food. A rumor that bread was being sold in Egypt reached the elder [39]. He said to his sons, "I have heard that there is wheat in Egypt: why do you not pay attention to it? Go there, buy some bread to sustain our life; otherwise, so that we do not have to die of hunger." In obedience to their father's will, Joseph's ten brothers went to Egypt to buy bread. Jacob and his brothers did not let Benjamin go; he said: "So that nothing bad happens to him on the way."

When the sons of Jacob arrived in Egypt, they came with the rest of the buyers to the place where the corn was sold. Joseph himself was engaged in the sale of grain. When the brothers came before him, he immediately recognized them; but they did not suspect in the least that they were standing before their brother, who had been sold as a slave for twenty pieces of gold. And how could they recognize him? When they parted from him, he was barely seventeen years old; now he was approaching the age of forty. Changed over the years, it was no less changed by the grandeur and splendor of its rank, the first in the kingdom of Egypt, which outstripped almost all other states in education, power, and internal structure. Standing before Joseph, the brothers bowed low to him, with their foreheads to the ground. Joseph remembered his dreams... Wise, virtuous Joseph! He postponed until another time to declare himself to the brothers. How much power this great soul had over himself! Did not his heart be consumed with a desire to immediately give the most joyful news about himself to his aged holy father, who for more than twenty years knew nothing about him and, considering him irretrievably lost, grieved inconsolably? He does not heed the inclination of a merciful, magnanimous heart, and chooses a way of acting that is necessary for the benefit of both himself and his brethren. Joseph knew the coarse, unbridled manners of these people; they were half-savage shepherds, who had grown up on nomadic camps, who had spent their whole lives with herds, in the freedom of exuberant freedom, in the open air, in deserts. They did not know any power over themselves, they did not know any reins: they disobeyed their father; inflicted frequent insults on him; every wish, no matter how criminal, was carried out; their hands were often stained with the blood of innocents. This is how the Scripture portrays the sons of Jacob. They needed a lesson. For their own well-being, it was necessary to acquaint them with obedience, with good manners. Cruel souls, accustomed to trampling on conscience and the fear of God, could not otherwise be shaken, brought to their senses and self-knowledge, as by the torture of human fear. Foreseeing a prolonged famine, Joseph also foresaw the need to resettle the family of Jacob from Palestine to Egypt. Is it not for this reason that he called his brothers, when they first came to Egypt, spies?.. If his brothers had brought with them into the new fatherland their unbridledness, their turbulence, they would soon have incurred the indignation of the Egyptians; soon the well-being of the family of Jacob, the well-being of Joseph himself, would have fallen; this family and he would have been subjected to the greatest calamities. What was acquired through long-term suffering was supposed to protect and preserve by wise behavior.

Joseph treated his brothers seriously, severely, like a strict sovereign. "Where are you from?" he asked them. They answered: "From the land of Canaan: they have come to buy bread." He replied: "You spies: you have come to look out for our country!" Your servants have come to buy bread. We are all brothers, sons of the same elder. We have come with a peaceful disposition: your servants are not spies." He said: "No, no: you have come to look out for the land!" They answered: "We are twelve brothers. Your servants are from the land of Canaan. The youngest of us remained with my father, and one... is gone." Joseph remarked: "There is a lie in your words! I told you the truth that you were spies. By Pharaoh's immunity, you will not leave here unless your younger brother comes to me. You have to justify yourself with this. Send one from among you: let him bring a brother. But you will remain here in custody until it is clear whether your words are just or not. If they turn out to be unfair... By the inviolability of Pharaoh, you are spies!" and with these words he gave them into custody.