Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

31 8 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
"children, His prophets, and friends, and chosen
"ones? But when they transgressed the command-
"ment, and refused [to obey] it, and regarded not
"His graciousness and mercy, and committed sin,
"did He not visit them with the severe punishment
"with which Pharaoh' and his men judged them,
"until in one month He destroyed of them more
"than seven millions of those who were twenty
"years old and upwards. And He sent upon them
"the punishments of His judgments, and He made
"them to be solitary, and they became a shame
"and a disgrace.
God's deal- "And was it not God Who preserved Jacob alive
Jacob.
""'
"after his eyes had become blind.'' For his heart
"was sorrowful by reason" of the absence of Joseph
"his son,^ and he tasted death, and that humble
"man grieved for a longr time because of the severo
o
"ing- of the limb for which he had asked and which
"had dwelt closely about him,* but He did not give
"him back to him until he had put away his sorrow
"of heart. Now his eyes had become cloudy and
"dim through weeping. And God Almighty sent
"unto him, saying, 'My strength and My might
"can remove sorrow from thy heart, and weeping
"from thine eyes.' O Jacob, thou humble man, thou
"didst ask for a small act of sfrace, and He eave
"it not to thee; did not God make thee to know
"this, O Jacob.''
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