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Gen_45:11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet [there are] five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
Ver. 11. And there will I nourish thee.] To requite parents is "good and acceptable before God." {1Ti_5:4} At Athens, {a} it was death not to be kind to parents and cherish them. The stork nourisheth her old sire and dam with admirable piety, saith Pliny; {b} and is therefore called by the Hebrews Chasidah, or Merciful: and by the Latins Pietatis-cultrix. The cuckoo, on the other side, is worthily hated, for that she cruelly devoureth her own dam, the hedge sparrow, saith Melancthon. {c} Mice are said to nourish their old ones that cannot shift for themselves, insigni pietate, {d} Cornelius, among the Romans, got the name of Scipio, by his kindness to his blind father, to whom he was the staff of his old age; as Macrobius relateth. {e} And Aristotle {f} tells a strange story, how that, when from the hill Etna there ran down a torrent of fire that consumed all the houses thereabouts, in the midst of those fearful flames, God’s special care of the godly shined most brightly. For the river of fire parted itself, and made a kind of lane for those who ventured to rescue their aged parents, and pluck them out of the jaws of death. Our Saviour much distasted and detested that damnable doctrine of the Pharisees, teaching children to starve their parents, under pretence of devotion. {Mat_15:4-6} And what would he have said to the Popish Pharisees, that say, that a monk may not leave his cloister to relieve his father, but rather let him die for hunger in the streets? Christ upon his cross, though as full of sorrow as heart could hold, commended his mother to be kept by the disciple whom he loved, with Iäïõ ç ìçôçñ óïõ . {Joh_19:27} Agreeable whereunto was that speech of the Samians, "I give thee this woman for a mother," {g} when to the richer of the citizens the mothers of those who died in the wars were given to be maintained by them.
{a} Athenis capitale fuit, parentibus èñåðôçñéá non persolvere - Melanct., Not. in Hesiod.
{b} Plin., lib. x. cap. 23.
{c} Propriam matrem crudeliter devorat, currucam silicet. - Melancth.
{d} Mures genitores suos alunt insigni pietate. - Sphinx Philos., p. 230.
{e} Macrob., Satur., lib. i. cap. 6.
{f} Eíèá ôï ôùí åõñåâùí ãåíïò åîï÷ùò åôéìçóå ôï äáéìïíïéí - Aristot., De Mundo., cap. 6.
{g} Sïé ðáõôçí äéäùìáé ôçí ìçôéñá .