Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/311

Rh Joseph the Dreamer

293

(According to when he comes down to Egypt with his brothers. 2 and XLI, 46 twenty-two years must have elapsed between the sale of Joseph as a slave and Benjamin's coming to Egypt; for if Joseph was thirty years old at the beginning of the seven years of plenty, he must have been thirty-eight or thirty-nine when Benjamin

XXXVII,

In all likelihood, however, these verses, too, are stood before him. This would imply that, since not a part of the original narrative.) Benjamin is still a lad when he comes to Egypt, he was not yet born

when Joseph was still

It

alive

at this

sold as a slave, and therefore that his time,

just

would seem, therefore,

as

that

mother was

the language of the verse indicates.

there were two traditions

Israel in regard. to the birth of Benjamin.

The one

in

ancient

told that he

was

born on the homeward journey to Canaan, and that his mother died And the other told that at the birth and was buried on the way. he was born some time after they had returned and settled in Canaan, and even after Joseph had been sold as a slave. According to this second tradition he was indeed a "son of Jacob's old age" (XLIV. 20).

Vv. 12 and

17.

It

may

be well to

The Well

at

show on the map

Dothan

the location \n