Мысли при чтении Книги Бытия (Продолжение)

Gen., chapter 19. About the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by heavenly fire. Amazing picture! Two Angels, who were with the Lord visiting Abraham under the oak tree and went to Sodom and Gomorrah after the words of the Lord: I will go down and see if they do exactly what the cry against them is that ascends to Me [chapter 18, v. 21], come there in the evening. Lot was sitting at the gates of Sodom at that time. Seeing the Angels, he stood up to meet them, and, bowing to them with his face to the ground, said to them: Lord, go into the house of your servant, rest and wash your feet, and in the morning you will go on your way. They told him: no, we will rest on the city street. Lot forced them to go into his house, and they went in; Having done what was necessary for the strangers, he baked unleavened bread for them, and they ate. Before going to bed, the people of Sodom surrounded Lot's house - all the people, young and old. They called Lot and said to him: Where are the men who came to you at night? Bring them out to us so that we can be with them. Lot went out to them in the vestibule, and closed the doors behind him and said to them: no, brothers, please do not harm these men. But I have two unmarried daughters. I will bring them out to you, and you can do with them what you please, but do not offend these men; That’s why they came to me so that they would be safe here. And they said to him: get out of here. You came to live with us, and not even hold court? Here we will give it to you: you will get more from us than they do. And they attacked Lot with force and were already approaching the doors to break them. Meanwhile, the Angels grabbed Lot with their hands and dragged him into their room and locked the doors, and struck the Sodomites who were at the door of the house with blindness - everyone, young and old; and they relaxed, looking for doors. The angels said to Lot: Do you have sons-in-law, sons or daughters here? if there are any of them or those close to you in the city, take them out of it, we will destroy it, since the cry of the iniquities of Sodom has become too strong, and the Lord sent us to destroy it. Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who had taken his daughters, “Get up and get out of here, because the Lord is destroying the city.” The brothers-in-law thought he was joking. When it was morning, the Angels began to force Lot, saying: Go, take your wife and two daughters and go out, so that you too do not perish with the iniquities of the city. Confusion and indecision came over them: The angels took him, his wife and his two daughters by the hand, because the Lord had spared them. When they took them out, they said to them: when saving, save (save your soul with all diligence), do not look back and do not stop at all throughout this entire period: save yourself in grief, so that you do not perish along with others. And Lot said to them: Lord, I ask: since Your servant has found mercy in You and Your righteousness, which You show in me, leaving life for my soul, is very great, then let me run away to this nearby small town so that I can be saved there: I cannot be saved in grief; there the plague of Sodom may reach me, and I will die. After all, this town is small, but it is saved: in it I will live because of You. The angel says to him: I am amazed at your words, lest I destroy the cities of which you spoke. So, try to save yourself there: I will not do anything (cause disaster) until you enter there. For this reason the name was given to that city: Zoar 27. The sun rose: Lot was already in Zoar... And so the Lord rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah a bogey 28 and fire from the Lord from heaven. Everything disappeared: the cities with the surrounding places, all the inhabitants of the cities and all the plants. Lotov's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Abraham, getting up in the morning, goes to the place where he stood yesterday with the Lord and from where the Angels went to Sodom. He looks at Sodom and Gomorrah and their surroundings and sees: a terrible flame rises from the ground, like smoke from a furnace. When God destroyed the cities of this country, He remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of transformation. Lot left Zoar and settled in the mountain, himself and his two daughters; he was afraid to live in Zoar. Both daughters conceive children from their father, whom they make drunk; hence, from the eldest is born Moab (from my father), and from him are the Moabites, and from the younger is Ammon (the son of my family), and from him are the Ammonites. Chapter 20, Article 17. And Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his servants, and they began to give birth; For the Lord has shut up every womb in the house of Abimelech for Sarah, Abraham's wife. It is remarkable: 1) how God loved and protected Abraham and his wife, whom King Abimelech wanted to take as his concubine; 2) the legend that in the house of Abimelech, wives and slaves began to give birth after Abraham prayed to God for Abimelech (which means that before they could not give birth, because God had previously confined women to wives in Abimelech’s house). Here we can see the all-wise and all-powerful Creator of the human race, who, if He wants, will stop childbearing and will imprison all women, depriving them of the opportunity to form babies and give birth to them. If people are born now, it is because God blesses the parents and makes the births of mothers fruitful; 3) the thought of the insignificance of mortals before the Creator, who can do with them, like a potter with his vessels, what he wants, is worthy of note. He was pleased to imprison the reproductive parts of women in the house of Abimelech, and the reproductive sex became ill and ceased to produce people. Chapter 21. Sarah, beyond her aspirations, according to the verb of the Almighty, has a son born in her old age. Abraham makes a great feast after milking 29 his son. Sarah tells Abraham to drive his servant Hagar and her son Ishmael out of his house. God commands us to listen to Sarah. Hagar was sent away with her son: Abraham gave Hagar bread and a skin of water, placed her son on her shoulders, and Hagar left. She wanders in the desert near the oath well; all the water came out of the fur; She laid Ishmael her son under a fir tree, and she herself moved away from him and sat at a distance, so as not to see the death of her son; the child is crying. God heard the baby's cry. An angel from heaven comforts Hagar, saying: What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, God has heard the cry of your brainchild: get up, take it - I will make a great nation out of it. Hagar suddenly sees a well of living water: she went, filled a bottle with water and gave the child something to drink. And God was with her son: he grew up and settled in the desert and became a archer. O God Almighty! I marvel—and it is sweet for me to marvel—at the deeds of Your omnipotence and Your goodness towards the mortal race. From Ishmael, the son of a slave, cast down in the desert under a spruce tree, weak, crying, almost dying, what good could we expect if we looked at him with our human eyes! He will die in a dry and barren desert, we would think. But You not only preserve his life, but, as the Almighty and All-Good, You promise to produce from him, from this weak, almost dying child, a numerous people; You see these people at the very time when you are still promising them. Glory to Your omnipotence and goodness, Father of the human race! It is pleasant for me, a clay vessel, earth and ashes, to think and reason about my Creator and Lord, Who is infinitely higher than me in all respects. Chapter 22, 16–18 v. I swear by me, says the Lord, that since you did this deed (to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God), and did not withhold your son, your only son, [for Me], then I will bless you with blessing and multiply I will multiply your seed like the stars of heaven and like the sand on the seashore; and your seed shall take possession of the cities of their enemies; and through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. What favor God has shown Abraham! But how strong was the temptation that preceded it! The greater the Lord's good deed, the greater a person is exposed to temptation... Parents of the Mother of God. Chapter 23 Abraham buries Sarah. Chapter 24 Abraham commands his oldest servant to take a wife for Isaac, his son, from his tribe, but not from the land of Canaan. And if, says the servant, she does not want to move from there to the land of Canaan, should she leave your son there? No, says Abraham. The Lord, God of heaven and God of earth, who took me from my father’s house and from the land in which I was born, spoke to me with an oath: I will give this land to you and to your seed. He will send His angel to you, and you will take a wife for my son Isaac from there. The slave swears to do according to the will of his master and, as a sign of fidelity, places his hand under Abraham's shoulder 30. With camels and rich gifts, he goes to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. Here he stopped with his camels outside the city at a water well in the evening, when the women and maidens came out to draw water, and said within himself: Lord God of my master Abraham, order my affairs today and show mercy to my master Abraham. Here I am standing at the water well, and the daughters of the city residents are now coming out to draw water. Let it be a sign that the girl to whom I say, “Tilt down your waterpot so that I can drink,” and who says to me, “Drink, I will give your camels their fill, too,” is the one you have betrothed to Your servant Isaac. Let me know by this that You have shown mercy to my master Abraham. Before he had finished this in his mind, Rebekah the daughter of Bethuel (who was the son of Melcha, the wife of Nahor (and Nahor was Abraham's brother)) was already walking with a water-carrier on her shoulders. The girl was very beautiful: she was a maiden in the proper sense; the man didn't know her. Going down to the well, she filled her waterpot and rose again. Abraham's servant went to meet her and said: Give me water to drink from your waterpot. “Drink up, sir,” she said and hastily took off the waterpot (under her arms), gave it a drink and said: “I will pour some for your camels too: let them all drink.” And with haste she poured the waterpot into the swill, and again went to the well for water and poured water for all the camels. The man put this together in his mind and remained silent to make sure whether God had arranged his affairs or not. When the camels stopped drinking, he took gold earrings weighing a drachma and two bracelets (wrist) on her hands (they weighed ten gold coins) and asked her: whose daughter are you? Tell me, does your father have a place for us? She said: I am the daughter of Bethuel. The slave said to her: We have a lot of chaff 31 and hay. Having been blessed, he worshiped the Lord, saying: Blessed is the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken my master in His righteousness and truth; and the Lord hath made me well in the house of my master's brother. And the girl went to her mother’s house and told her everything. She had a brother Laban, and he went to the man who stopped at the well. When he saw his sister’s earrings and bracelets on her hands and heard the words of Rebekah his sister, who added, above all else, “Thus this man spoke to me,” he came to Abraham’s servant, who stood by the camels, and said to him: Go, come in, blessed of the Lord, why are you standing outside the city? I have prepared a room for you and your companions and a place for the camels. And the man entered the house; And Laban unsaddled the camels, gave them chaff and hay, and water to wash the feet of him and his companions, and offered them food. And the stranger said: I will not eat until I say my cherished words. Laban said: Speak. The stranger continued: I am Abraham's servant. The Lord blessed my master generously, and he became great: He gave him many sheep and calves, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. Sarah my master's wife gave birth to my master's only son when he was already old, and she gave him all that she had. Then he retells the will and testament of Abraham about the marriage of his son and how he found a bride for his master’s son. Then he says: if you want to do mercy and truth to my master, then that’s [okay], but if you don’t want to, then tell me to go to the right or to the left. Laban and Bethuel said: This matter is from the Lord: we cannot say no to you. Here is Rebekah before you: take her and go; let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord pleases. Hearing these words, Abraham's servant bowed to the Lord to the ground. Having brought out the gold and silver vessels and clothes, he gave them to Rebekah; He also gave gifts to her brother and her mother. And Abraham's matchmaker and his companions ate and drank, and then fell asleep. The next day, having obtained the bride’s consent, her mother and brothers let her go with Abraham’s servant and gave her her property. Having blessed her, the brothers said to her: You are our sister: may thousands of thousands of people come from you, and may your seed inherit the cities of adversaries. Rebekah and her slaves mounted camels and set off with the matchmaker. Isaac at that time was crossing the desert near the well of the oath; he lived in the south of the earth. In the evening he went out into the field (mock 32) and, looking into the distance, saw camels approaching him. Rebekah also looked and saw Isaac - and immediately jumped off the camel. She said to the slave: who is this man who is walking across the field towards us? And he said: This is my lord. Taking her summer dress, Rebekah got dressed. The slave told Isaac everything that happened. Isaac went into his mother's house and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; he loved her and was comforted by Sarah his mother. Oh, dear, dear patriarchy! What simplicity of morals and at the same time what purity of them! What childlike devotion in all cases of life to God as a good, loving Father! What closeness to Him, trust, living faith in Him, making Him present at all times and in all places! Oh, if only these patriarchal, golden ages would return to us with their simplicity, with their childish manners! Ch.25, 21[-23] art. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for [Rebekah] his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord heard him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. Her sons began to beat in her womb, and she said: if this happens, then why do I need this? And she went to ask the Lord. The Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb, and two different nations will come out of your womb; one people will become stronger than the other, and the greater will serve the lesser. What a delightful story! The people of the patriarchal world are presented as real children of God, who lived constantly in the presence of their Father God and felt His presence. In difficult situations in life, they turn with a request for help not to man and not to earthly means, but to God, who, as the Almighty Father, could fulfill every request they had. Rebekah is barren. Isaac remembers the promise to his father that through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed [chapter 26, v. 4] and that it is in Isaac that his seed will be called, and asks the Lord to resolve the barrenness of his wife - and God listened to him. (And now God listens to everyone who asks in faith.) Rebekah hears the babies playing in her womb, gets scared and also goes to ask the Lord: what does this mean to her? The Lord meekly and lovingly explains to her what this means. In the words of the Lord you see the Creator of people and time, Who soars above everything temporal and spatial, Who calls the non-existent as if existing, in whose hands future generations of people are like a future tree with all its branches and leaves - in one tree seed, like an ear of grain with grains - in one grain. Truly, the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament is worthy of the pen of the divinely inspired man - Moses, and God Himself, who deigned to give the Scripture to people through His faithful servant in His house! Ch.26, [vv.2–5]. There is a famine on the earth; Isaac from the land of Canaan goes to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar. The Lord appears to him, forbids him to go to Egypt and orders him to settle in the land that He will show him. Don't go to Egypt; live in the land that I will tell you about, wander through this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for I will give all these lands to you and your descendants, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to Abraham your father; I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands; Through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because Abraham [your father] obeyed My voice and kept what I commanded to observe: My commandments, My statutes and My laws. After the death of Isaac's father, God's faithful servant Abraham, the ever-living God enters into a covenant with his son Isaac, promises to give him the whole land of the Philistines as an inheritance, to multiply his seed like the stars of heaven, and explains why He does him such mercy: because, He says, Abraham [your father] obeyed My voice. In the words of the Lord you see the Lord of the world, the Creator of people, the Lawgiver and their Judge. 24 Art. The Lord appears to Isaac at the well of the oath (after Abimelech, who was jealous of his wealth and power in his land, drove him out of his borders) and says to him: I am the God of Abraham your father; Fear not, for I am with you; and I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of [thy father] Abraham my servant. Abimelech with his bridegroom 33 and the commander comes to Isaac. He asks them why they came to him, when they hated him and drove him away from them. They answer that out of fear we sent away from ourselves, so that you, having become stronger in our land, would not do us harm; We saw that the Lord was with you, we did not disdain you, they say, on the contrary, we did you good and sent you away in peace. Isaac gives them a feast. And they ate and drank. In the morning, getting up, they swore to each other that none of them would harm each other. Isaac sent them away and they set off. Chapter 27, 31[-32] art. He (Esau) prepared food and brought it to his father, and said to his father: Arise, my father, and eat your son’s game, so that your soul may bless me. And Isaac his father said to him: Who are you? He said: I am your son, your firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled with very great trembling, and said: Who is this that fetched [me] the game and brought it to me, and I ate of it all, before you came, and I blessed him? he will be blessed. It was impossible not to be horrified by the elder Isaac, who blessed Jacob instead of Esau: he knew well what consequence would come from this blessing for both (of them). May God give you, he said to Jacob, blessing him, from the dew of heaven and from the fatness of the earth, and plenty of bread and wine; Let the nations serve you, and let the nations worship you; be lord over your brothers, and let your mother’s sons worship you; those who curse you are cursed; those who bless you are blessed! [vv.28-29]. Instead of Esau, Isaac subdued the nations and princes, Esau's brother and his father's sons, to Jacob. He brought down heavenly and earthly blessings on him. Esau, on the contrary, lost all this, and, moreover, by deception. How could the elder not be horrified in this case, when his beloved son, the eldest, lost his primacy and his father’s inseparable blessing? How powerful is the word of the patriarch! He said: Let this be done for my son, and it certainly was what he asked for. And he blessed him, he says, and will be blessed. How God listened to His faithful servants and did everything according to their prayer! Chapter 28. Jacob goes to Mesopotamia to Laban, his maternal uncle, to choose a wife. So he left the oath well and went to Haran. Since the sun soon set, he chose a place for himself and fell asleep on it, placing a stone at his head. He sees a dream: one end of a ladder is established in the sky, and the other stands on the earth: Angels of God descended and ascended along it. The Lord Himself stood on it firmly and motionless and said to him: I am the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac, do not be afraid: the land on which you sleep I will give to you and to your descendants. And your descendants will be like the sand of the earth and will spread to all four countries of the world, and through you all the families of the earth will be blessed and through your descendants. And here I am with you, keeping you on every path, wherever you go. I will return you to this land and will not leave you until I have done for you everything I told you about. Jacob arose from his sleep and said: The Lord is in this place, but I did not know. And fear attacked him, and he said: this place is scary, and what am I saying - this place, this empty space? Vem: this is the house of God and here is the gate of heaven! Thus does the Lord protect every faithful servant of His! In the words of the Lord one can see the Author of life and the Supreme Ruler of all the nations of the earth. Chapters 29 and 30. Jacob worked for Laban for seven years in order to get his youngest daughter Rachel as his wife, and at the end of the period he received instead of Rachel Leah, his eldest daughter, who was sick with eyes and not as good as Rachel. In the morning, Jacob recognizes the lie in the lie and lays claim to Laban. He makes an agreement with Laban to work for another seven years in order to get Rachel too. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah at first, and now that he married her, his heart became attached to her incomparably more than to Leah. The Lord God, seeing that Jacob did not love Leah, deigned to reward her with fertility, and fertility was then considered a great gift from heaven, and he closed Rachel’s womb. Leah gives birth to Jacob successively Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. Rachel is jealous of her sister and says to Jacob: Give me children; if not, I will die. Jacob, angry with her, said to her: Can I be God, who deprived you of the fruit of your womb? Rachel says to him: Here is my servant Bilhah for you: go in to her; let her give birth on my knees, and I may at least have a child by her. And she gave him Bilhah her servant to wife; and Jacob came in to her, Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son, Dan, and then soon another, Naphtali. Rachel was happy about this too: she really wanted to have her own children. Leah, having learned that she had ceased to give birth, also took Zilpah, her servant, and gave her to Jacob in marriage. Jacob also went in to her. Zilpah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Leah said, “I did well,” and called him Gad. Zilpah conceived and gave birth to another, and Leah said, Blessed am I, for women will please me, and she called him Asher. Reuben the son of Lin, going out into the field on the day of the wheat harvest, found mandrake apples and brought them to his mother. Rachel saw them and really wanted to eat them. She said to her sister: Give me the mandrakes that your son brought to you. And she told her: it’s not enough for you - you took my husband away from me, and you want to take the mandrakes. Rachel answered: I don’t need everything at once: let our husband sleep with you this night for the mandrakes that you will give me. Here Jacob comes from the field in the evening; Leah meets him and says to him: you will come in to me today, because I hired you for my son’s mandrakes. And he slept that night with her. God blessed Leah, and she, having conceived, gave birth to Jacob’s fifth son, Issachar (royalty), and soon gave birth to a sixth son, Zebulun; then daughter Dinu. Finally, the Lord looked upon Rachel and opened her womb. And so Rachel conceived and bore Jacob a son, saying, “God has taken away my reproach.” It was Joseph. After this, Jacob began to ask Laban to go home. Laban did not want this because he saw that because of Jacob God had blessed him with wealth. Jacob agreed to stay with him for a while longer - on the condition that all the sheep that would be born dusty and the goats that would be mottled and whitish would be his property, and all the others with other colors would be Laban’s. Jacob took three sticks and sharpened them so that he made them variegated, removing the bark in certain places; then he placed them in drinking troughs so that the sheep, when they came to them to drink, would conceive according to the rods - according to their color. And so it was. Jacob had many children, but Laban had few. God blessed Jacob, and he became rich, and he had a lot of livestock. Chapter 32. Jacob sees troops of God's Angels. Wonderful thing! The Lord of hosts guards His faithful servant on earth, as a man guards the apple of his eye: He sends for Jacob alone (what is man, what do You know about him [Ps. 143:3]) regiments of God’s Angels to protect him from his beastly brother Esau. I conclude from this that if during the earthly life of the Lord Jesus the Angels had not been forbidden by God to protect the God-Man, legions of Angels would have surrounded Him everywhere and would not have allowed the daring hands of Jesus’ enemies to touch Him: or... I cannot now pray to My Father... [Matt. 26:53]. For our sake, you who are poor, Lord, glory to You! How fast are the holy Angels: from unattainable heights they appear on the earth like the flash of lightning, and even faster: lightning is material, and they are pure spirits, therefore, incomparably more mobile than earthly material light. That is why the coming of the Son of Man to earth will be like lightning - suddenly, quickly. [Art.]24, 25, 26 et seq. Jacob fights with God and becomes stronger in this fight until God Himself overcomes him. After the struggle, God tells him: since you did not give in to Me in the fight with your own strength, you will not give in to people, and you will also be strong with them. But before this Jacob was afraid of Esau, his brother, who came against him with four hundred men! Wonderful is Your providence, O Lord, for Your chosen ones, for Your beloved people: to what extent You descend, O Almighty and Indescribable, to their limited nature! To give Jacob sensual, visual proof that he will not be overcome by people who want to fight with him, You allow him to have the experience of fighting with You, the omnipotent God! What closeness of God to man, what, one might say, brotherhood between them! What love the Creator has for creation: not only did He show Jacob the Angels of God who had taken up arms for him, strong in strength, He Himself appeared to him and entered into a friendly fight with him. I believe, Lord, and confess that You embrace all Your worlds equally with Your love and do not abandon anyone, because everything is Yours. I believe that You are Hypostatic Love, and although it was infinitely dear to You to redeem people from eternal destruction, yet out of Your love, completely incomprehensible and ineffable for anyone, You deigned to redeem them with Your suffering and death. I see that You are now the same loving Lord of all, Who, with fatherly love and in the simplicity characteristic of patriarchal times, appeared to His faithful servant Jacob. According to Your love and Your mercy, save me, O my Creator and God, despising all my sins! Chapter 35, 11th Art. God said to him (Jacob): I am your God: grow and multiply: nations and congregations of tongues will be from you, and kings will come from your loins. Could false pagan deities ever say anything like this? What a fullness of truth, power and life in the words of the living, almighty God! I, he says, am your God: grow and multiply, that is, according to those laws and the order that I have established; Nations and gatherings of nations will come from you, and kings will be born from you. O my Creator and Lord! I revere Your omnipotence: there was a time, or rather, there was an eternity, when there was nothing but You. But You wanted others to enjoy existence, and You first created rational creatures like You - Angels, then irrational nature, and finally - man. By Your only all-good will, countless swarms of blessed, ever-rejoicing Heavenly Powers arose; these bright worlds sparkled and swirled in the vast expanses of the sky; according to Your will, our earth began to make its circles with all its inhabitants; and, what seems most amazing of all, by themselves, although by Your will, earthly creatures began to constantly, continuously arise from insignificance: people and animals. You created the angelic world long ago and do not multiply it anymore: at once the heavenly army appeared to praise You, but You do not cease to multiply people; You once started a procreation machine, and according to Your will, according to Your almighty word, it invariably and constantly operates to this day under Your protective Providence. People are born, grow, die; others take their place. How wonderful, how divine! The earth is full of life, teeming with millions of people. So on earth. And what is in that vast ocean, where You set millions of worlds into motion? Chapter 36, 7 art. For their (Jacob and Esau's) wealth was so great that they could not live together, and the land of their wandering could not contain them because of the multitude of their flocks. The two brothers were so rich that their estates could not fit on the land on which they lived. Now it’s not the same at all: now a piece of land is expensive, and it’s no longer possible to get rich like that. Chapter 37 tells the story of Joseph. There are many features in it that involuntarily transport you to the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father - our Lord Jesus Christ. The similarity in the persons who sold Joseph and the Lord is especially remarkable. Both are Judas, and both sold for money. Chapter 39 The Lord blesses a house or city for the sake of one pious person. Thus, because of Joseph, the Lord blessed the house of Pentephry, his master: and there was a blessing, it is said, on everything that he had in the house and in [his] field. So for Jacob's sake He blessed Laban's house. Art.9. How can I do this great evil and sin before God? Do you, man, imagine the presence of the Divine as vividly as Joseph? Are you afraid, so as not to offend Him, to do unkind deeds? Do you cleanse your thoughts and hearts from impurities, which, either by our will or against our will, almost constantly invade our soul? When you are advised to do some evil, do you say, like Joseph: how can I do this great evil and sin before God? Joseph, due to the slander of his wife Pentefriev, is thrown into prison, but God Himself followed Joseph there and poured new mercy on him. Just as Pentephry had previously placed him in charge of his entire house, so now the chief of the guards gave the prison into the hands of Joseph. So you, man, please the Lord and do not fear any enemies: if God is for us, who can be against us? [Rom. 8:31]. 40 ch. Joseph interprets the dreams of the elder cupbearers and the elder bakers of Pharaoh's court, who were thrown into prison for some guilt. The elder butlers were elevated to their former dignity, and the elder bakers were hanged on a tree, as Joseph had predicted. Chapter 41 Joseph interprets dreams to Pharaoh about abundance and famine; the king made Joseph almost equal to himself, except for the throne: he placed him over the entire land of Egypt and, taking the ring from his hand, put it on Joseph’s hand, and dressed him in scarlet clothing and hung a golden hryvnia around his neck, put him on his second chariot (and the pharaohs had magnificent chariots) and ordered the herald to walk before him. Such is the mercy of the Lord to those who fear Him. The seven years of plenty are coming: a great deal of grain is gathered every year, so that finally they cannot count the quantity. The seven years of famine also came: famine began everywhere; everyone turned to Pharaoh asking for bread. Pharaoh sent everyone to Joseph. Lord, Creator of heaven and earth! How wonderful You are in Your ways! Was it not because of Your servant Joseph alone, was it not for the sake of showing in him to the whole world how virtue is rewarded, that You made seven years of plenty and seven years of famine throughout the whole earth? Is it not in order, through this formidable phenomenon of nature, which has its withered breasts, to fulfill the dream of Your servant Joseph, who foreshadowed the worship of his father and his brothers? For You, Lord of the earth, it costs nothing to do this for the sake of one faithful servant of Yours. When You want to reward virtue, You will reward it in a Divine way. Chapter 42 Joseph's brothers come to Egypt for wheat, Joseph recognizes them, but they do not recognize him; Joseph pretends and takes them for spies, they lock themselves in; he puts them in prison for three days. Then, leaving one, he orders the rest to take the purchased wheat to Canaan and bring Benjamin. They arrive and tell the elderly Jacob everything as it happened. Chapter 43 The elder did not agree to let Benjamin go for a long time. Finally, he gave in to the persistent demand and obvious need. They came to Egypt with Benjamin and gifts. Joseph received them kindly and, seeing his half-brother, could not hold back his tears. A rich treat was offered: everyone drank and got drunk. Chapter 44 At the command of Joseph, they filled the bags of Joseph's brothers with wheat - as much as could be taken away, and they put silver in each bag, and in Benjamin's bag, in addition, Joseph's silver cup, with intent. The brothers are caught up and subjected to a new test. Joseph ordered Benjamin to stay with him and the others to go home. The prayers of the brothers finally touched Joseph, and he shed tears and revealed to them that he was Joseph. Zoar (Heb.) – lit., “small”; a small city in the southeast of the Dead Sea. It existed back in the time of the prophet Isaiah (15, 5) and is mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah (48, 34). Bug (Church Slavic) – flammable sulfur. Milking (Church Slavic) – from “milking”, that is, feeding with mother’s milk. Stegno (Church Slavic) – thigh; “Put your hand under my thigh” means: “Swear to me.” Chaff (Church Slavic) – chaff, straw. Mock (Church Glav.) - reflect, think alone with oneself. Bridesmaid - groomsman (best man). You might be interested in: