followed by seven years of dearth? Why did you not save
the yield of one or two years against the day of your need?"

Weeping, they made reply: "The grain that we put
aside during the good years hath rotted."

Pharaoh: "Have ye nothing over of the flour of yesterday?"

The Egyptians: "The very bread in the basket rotted!"

Pharaoh: "Why?"

The Egyptians: "Because Joseph willed thus!"

Pharaoh: "O ye fools, if his word hath power over the
grain, making it to rot when he desireth it to rot, then also
must we die, if so be his wish concerning us. Go, therefore,
unto him, and do as he bids you."[196]


JOSEPH'S BRETHREN IN EGYPT

The famine, which inflicted hardships first upon the
wealthy among the Egyptians, gradually extended its ravages
as far as Phoenicia, Arabia, and Palestine.[197] Though
the sons of Jacob, being young men, frequented the streets
and the highways, yet they were ignorant of what their old
home-keeping father Jacob knew, that corn could be procured in
Egypt. Jacob even suspected that Joseph was in
Egypt. His prophetic spirit, which forsook him during the