Joseph asked them if they had any other brothers, and they told him there was one more, Benjamin, the youngest.  Then Joseph told them to go home and come back again bringing Benjamin with them, and that he would keep Simeon, one of their number, until they did this.

So back they went with their sacks full of corn which Joseph had allowed them to buy, and told their father what the governor had said and done.  At first Jacob refused to let them take Benjamin away from him, but when the corn they had brought home was all gone he consented.

Once more the brothers stood before the governor of Egypt and this time Benjamin was with them.  After questioning them once more, letting them start on their home-ward journey, and then bringing them back again, Joseph told them who he was and how he had been prospered.  He gave them food and money and clothes and sent them back to Hebron.  He also told them to bring back their father Jacob and gave them wagons in which to bring his goods.

[Illustration:  Joseph told them who he was.]

Pharaoh, the King, also sent an invitation to Jacob, and in time he and his sons and their families went to Egypt and were given the fertile land of Goshen for their home.  They were put in charge of all the King’s flocks and herds and became very prosperous.

But before agreeing to this change of home Jacob asked God if he should go to Egypt.  God told him to go, and on the way his long-lost son Joseph met him and took him to Pharaoh, who received him very kindly.

Jacob and his sons lived peaceably in Egypt for seventeen years, and then Jacob died at the age of a hundred and forty-seven years.  But before he died he blessed Joseph’s two sons and made him promise to bury him in the family sepulchre, the cave of Machpelah.

As the end approached, Jacob blessed all his twelve sons and foretold what their lives would be, bestowing a peculiar blessing upon his third son, Judah, from whose descendants should be born the Saviour of his people.

Jacob’s body was embalmed and carried to the land of Canaan, attended by his twelve sons, and a great company of Pharaoh’s household, and buried in the cave of Machpelah as he had directed.

***End of the project gutenberg EBOOK the Farmer boy; the Story of Jacob***

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