Genesis 37:28 Then there passed by Midianites merchants; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit… The passage of an Arab caravan towards Egypt, and its purchase of Joseph, is equally true to early times, and to the unchanging Eastern life of to-day. Sir Samuel Baker's boy, Saat, had, in the same way as Joseph, been carried off while he was tending goats, by an Arab caravan; hidden in a gum sack, and finally taken to Cairo and sold as a slave. "All the world may perish, so far as we care," said an Arab to Niebuhr, "if only Egypt remains." And it was left to them even more in Joseph's day than now, from the dislike of Egyptians to leave their country even for purposes of gain. The trade in "spices" was exceptionally great between the valley of the Nile and neighbouring countries; from the quantity used for embalming mummies, for burning as incense, or as disinfectants; for which they were in great repute. Even the names of the first and second of the three spices named — gum tragacanth, from Lebanon and Palestine generally, Armenia and Persia; balsam from the balsam-tree of Gilead; and lauda-num the gum collected still from the leaves of the cistus-rose — from Syria and Arabia, have been found in the list of two hundred drugs named in the temple-laboratory of Edfu; for each temple had its laboratory and apothecary. Even the twenty pieces of silver given for Joseph are exactly the price fixed under Moses as that of a male slave between five and twenty years of age (Leviticus 27:5); so nearly had human beings kept the same value for centuries. (C. Geikie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt. |
    |