So Jacob, being filled with good hopes, rose up in the morning with joy, and hastened on his way; and when his son heard that he was near, for scouts and watchers who were placed along the road gave him notice of everything, he went with speed to meet his father when he was at no great distance from the borders of the land; and they met one another near the city, which is called the city of heroes, and they fell into one another’s arms placing their heads on each other’s necks, and soaking their garments with tears, and satisfying themselves abundantly with long enduring embraces, and unwillingly at last loosing one another, they proceeded to the palace.

And when the king beheld them he was amazed at the dignity of Jacob’s appearance, and he received and saluted him not as the father of his lieutenant but as his own, with all possible respect and honour; and after showing him not only all the ordinary but also many extraordinary marks of respect, he gave him a most excellent district of land of the greatest fertility; and hearing that his sons were skilful breeders of cattle, having great substance in flocks and herds, he appointed them overseers of all his own flocks and herds, and committed to their charge his goats, and his oxen, and his sheep, and all his innumerable animals of every kind.

And the young man, Joseph, displayed such excessive good faith and honesty in all his dealings, that though the time and the circumstances of the time gave him innumerable opportunities of making money, so that he might, in a short period, have become the richest man of that age or kingdom, he still so truly honoured genuine riches before illegitimate wealth, and the treasure which sees rather than that which is blind, that he stored up all the silver and gold which he collected as the price of the corn in the king’s treasury, not appropriating a single drachm of it to his own use, but being satisfied with nothing beyond the gifts which the king bestowed on him voluntarily, in acknowledgment of his services.

And in this manner he governed Egypt, and other countries also with it, and other nations, while oppressed with the famine, in a manner too admirable for any description to do it justice, distributing food to all in a proper manner, and looking, not only at the present advantage, but also at what would be of future benefit:

therefore, when the seventh year of the scarcity arrived, he sent for the farmers (for there was now a prospect of fertility and abundance), and gave them barley and wheat for seed, taking care that no one should appropriate what he gave for other purposes, but should sow what he received in the fields, to which end he selected men of honesty and virtues as overseers and superintendents, who were to take care that the sowing was properly performed.