homage, but “to dispose, arrange one's self” ( ordine disposuit). “ Only in the throne will I be greater than thou.”
Verse 42
As an installation in this post of honour, the king handed him his signet-ring, the seal which the grand vizier or prime minister wore, to give authority to the royal edicts (Est 3:10), clothed him in a byssus dress (שׁשׁ, fine muslin or white cotton fabric),[1] and put upon his neck the golden chain, which was usually worn in Egypt as a mark of distinction, as the Egyptian monuments show (Hgst. pp. 30, 31).
Verse 43
He then had him driven in the second chariot, the chariot which followed immediately upon the king's state-carriage; that is to say, he directed a solemn procession to be made through the city, in which they (heralds) cried before him אברך (i.e., bow down), - an Egyptian word, which has been pointed by the Masorites according to the Hiphil or Aphel of בּרך. In Coptic it is abork, projicere, with the signs of the imperative and the second person. Thus he placed him over all Egypt. ונתון inf. absol. as a continuation of the finite verb (vid., Exo 8:11; Lev 25:14, etc.).
Verse 44
“ I am Pharaoh,” he said to him, “ and without thee shall no man lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt;” i.e., I am the actual king, and thou, the next to me, shalt rule over all my people.
Verse 45
But in order that Joseph might be perfectly naturalized, the king gave him an Egyptian name, Zaphnath-Paaneah, and married him to Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, the priest at On. The name Zaphnath-Paaneah (a form adapted to the Hebrew, for Ψονθομφανήχ lxx; according to a Greek scholium, σωτὴρ κόσμον, “ salvator mundi” ( Jerome), answers to the Coptic P-sote-m-ph-eneh, - P the article, sote salvation, m the sign of the genitive, ph the article, and eneh the world (lit., aetas, seculum); or perhaps more correctly, according to Rosellini and more recent Egyptologists, to the Coptic P-sont-em-ph-anh, i.e., sustentator vitae, support or sustainer of life, with reference to the call entrusted to him by God.[2] Asenath, Ἀσενέθ (lxx), possibly
- ↑ Note: See my Bibl. Antiquities, §17, 5. The reference, no doubt, is to the ἐσθῆτα λινέην, worn by the Egyptian priests, which was not made of linen, but of the frutex quem aliqui gossipion vocant, plures xylon et ideo LINA inde facta xylina. Nec ulla sunt eis candore mollitiave praeferenda. - Vestes inde sacerdotibus Aegypti gratissimae. Plin. h.n. xix. 1.
- ↑ Note: Luther in his version, “privy councillor,” follows the rabbinical explanation, which was already to be found in Josephus ( Ant. ii. 6, 1): κρυπτῶν εὑρετής, from צפנת = צפנות occulta, and פענח revelator.
