Joseph Visits His Dying Father
Genesis 47:27-31; Genesis 48:1-7
How inexorable is the must of death! For many years Jacob had exceeded the ordinary span of human life, and now, like the last apple on the tree, he must be gathered. For seventeen years he had been familiar with Egypt's splendid temples, obelisks and pyramids; he had been surrounded with all the comforts that filial love could devise; but nothing could make him forget that distant cave in the land of Canaan. In his judgment Egypt's most splendid pyramid was not to be compared with that humble sepulcher where the mortal remains of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, and of the faithful Leah awaited his. On Joseph's second visit he was weaker, and with an effort nerved himself for the interview. The angel-ladder and Rachel's death stood prominently out before the dying eyes. When he returned from this pathetic reverie he turned to the two boys who stood awestruck beside him and adopted them, for their beloved father's sake.