על יוסף מ״דOn Joseph 44
א׳
1[267] With such words he encouraged his brothers, and by his actions he confirmed his promises, leaving nothing undone which could shew his care for their interests.
ב׳
2But, after the famine, when the inhabitants were now rejoicing in the prosperity and fertility of the land, he was honoured by them all, who thus requited the benefits which they had received from him in the times of adversity.
ג׳
3[268] And rumour, floating into the neighbouring states, filled them with his renown. He died in a goodly old age, having lived 110 years, unsurpassed in comeliness, wisdom and power of language.
ד׳
4[269] His personal beauty is attested by the furious passion which a woman conceived for him; his good sense by the equable temper he shewed amid the numberless inequalities of his life, a temper which created order in disorder and concord where all was naturally discordant; his power of language by his interpretations of the dreams and the fluency of his addresses and the persuasiveness which accompanied them, which secured him the obedience, not forced but voluntary, of every one of his subjects.
ה׳
5[270] Of these years he spent seventeen up to adolescence in his father’s house, thirteen in painful misfortunes, the victim of conspiracy, sold into slavery, falsely accused, chained in a prison, and the other eighty as a ruler and in complete prosperity, a most admirable supervisor and arbiter in times both of famine and plenty, and most capable of presiding over the requirements of both.