And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Ver. 24. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die.] A sad saying to them, poor souls. For now began their misery and slavery in Egypt. When Epaminondas died, his whole country died with him; the Thebans were never after known by their victories, but by their overthrows. When Augustus died, the sun seemed to the Romans to fall from heaven: such an alteration presently followed in that state. When Louis XII departed this world, saith Budaeus, a he that erewhile seemed to touch heaven with his finger, lay grovelling, as if he had been thunderstruck. All Israel's prosperity died with Josiah; and so did their liberty and worldly felicity with Joseph. His nephews, the Ephraimites, attempted, before the time, their own deliverance, not long after Joseph's death, even while their father Ephraim was yet alive, but with ill success, to his great grief and regret. 1Ch 7:22 Psa 78:9 Hasty work seldom ends well: how this of mine will do, I know not, made up, as it might be, in little more than four month's space, amidst manifold fears and distractions, at spare hours; and bearing date from mine enlargement, July the llth, Anno Dom. 1643, that happy day that saw me both a prisoner and a free man, by the good hand of my God upon me; to whom be glory and praise for ever. As for this my book, made b purposely to testify my thankfulness to God, mine Almighty Deliverer, and to those whom he was pleased to use as instruments of my much endeared liberty; such as it is, Eχετε, κρινατε; as he said of his rhetoric: and, if I shall cast in my verdict,
“ Cum relego, scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno,
Me quoque, qui [scripsi] iudice, digna lini. ” c
a Qui prius digito coelum attingere videbantur, nunc humi de
repente serpere sideratos esse diceres. - Bud.
b See mine Epist. Dedicat. set before my Com. on the Four
Evangel.
c Ovid., De Pont., eleg. i. 6.